Someone had come, there was talking in the sitting room. Seb’s face went black and he clenched his fists.
Then the door burst open and a fat face peeped in with a goldentoothed grin.
‘Hello, Sebastian. Just wanted to ask you to turn the music down a bit.’
Seb raised his head and sent him a hate-filled look:
‘Learn to knock first,’ he said.
The grin vanished.
‘What did you say?’
‘You heard. Knock first!’
The door closed again. Seb thumped his fists on his thighs.
‘The prick can go to hell,’ he snarled. ‘Comin’ here and playin’ boss.’
‘Is he often here?’ I asked cautiously.
‘When Dad’s away.’ He hesitated, gritted his teeth. ‘They’re goin’ to get divorced,’ he said at last. ‘Mum and Dad. They’re goin’ to separate.’
It sounded incredible. I thought of my mother and father at home. Divorce. The word didn’t exist.
‘I’m not goin’ to live here if that arsehole moves in and that’s definite,’ Seb said.
We lit the curved pipes and Seb took out a record I hadn’t seen before. There was a big picture of a pretty tired-looking negro, reminded me of a country pancake, with a terrible scar between his eyes.
‘Little Walter,’ Seb whispered. ‘Dad sent it to me from the States. Confessing The Blues. Plays the harmonica like a guru. He can play with his nose!’
Seb put on the disc and set the volume to max. There were some nasty scratching sounds first. Then came some thunderous drumming, a bass pounded in and a harmonica turned the room upside down and sandblasted our brains. ‘It Ain’t Right’. And, shit, how it rocked and grooved. Seb took out his harp and added a few howls, I launched myself into it with a few throaty moans and we were no longer blowing a long march, we were blowing a long, dirty blues.
Couldn’t even puff on the pipe afterwards.
‘The guy’s name is actually Walter Jacobs,’ Seb enthused. ‘Died a year ago.’
An idea was beginning to form in my mind. It was a good idea. I would sing Cecilie back. And Seb would play.
I sat up.
‘You know,’ I said. ‘You know Cecilie’s runnin’ around with folk singers, don’t you. Perhaps we could perform at Dolphin, do a raspin’ blues, and blow the Young Norwegians off the stage.’
Seb gave me a long, hard look, curled a faint smile and sucked a wail from between his hands.
‘Alright. This is what blues is all about. Women. Women and cash.’
We practised intensively for a week and one day we went for it. Walter and Jacobsen. I knew the words off by heart and my throat was like a rusty saw after all the screaming. I had checked that Cecilie would be at Dolphin that night, I was on tenterhooks. But before we even got going Seb was suffering from serious nerves. His teeth were chattering, and he couldn’t play harmonica if his teeth were chattering, he said. He had a fifty-krone note on him, and next to the underground we hailed a psychedelic junkie who had ready-made joints going cheap. Seb said he didn’t think he could stay outside in the cold smoking – the feeling in his fingers and lips would go. So we dropped by Kaffistova in Rosenkrantzgate, ordered a glass of milk and a bowl of stew to share and sat there. Seb lit up, inhaled, his eyes closed, I took a toke, swallowed, passed back the joint. We sat in Kaffistova until it was no longer Kaffistova but an evil-smelling den in Chicago or New Orleans. Seb told me about all his dreams. We stayed there until the music from the speakers in the ceiling no longer played Ole Ellefsæter but a stomping blues number that blew our diaphragms apart, until the ashen old men with rustling newspapers were sweaty black men knocking back beer and whisky after a day in the slaughter house or in the cotton fields. Then we, Walter and Jacobsen, left for Dolphin.
I spotted Cecilie straightaway. She was sitting in a corner, her face shiny and yellow in the light of the table candles. A bearded wonder was all over her like a rash. A girl with long, greasy hair and sandals was singing a folk song. All around her there was silence, and complete darkness. The place smelt of carrot juice and steaming bodies.
We squeezed onto two unoccupied chairs by the door. The song the girl was singing had a lot of verses. Seb’s nerves were beginning to fray again, he had forgotten that he was a black man, the colour was running off him like shoe cream. I was ice cold and raring to go. The girl finished, received generous applause, blushed, walked to a table and sat down. Then the boss folk singer guy stood up and announced that there would be a break before Hege Tunaal sang, but if anyone wanted to get something off their chests, they could come up on stage.
We had something on our chests.
I led Seb to the stage where the girl had stood.
I saw Cecilie watching us. Her mouth fell open with surprise and she looked a bit gormless.
I killed myself laughing inside.
The chatting subsided in the room and soon it was absolutely quiet. A few scattered claps rose into the air like birds from the snow.
Seb pulled out his harmonica, covered it with his hands and took several deep breaths. I started stomping the beat with my snow boot.
Seb wailed from between his trembling fingers and I began to howl:
I once had a girl. She had some skis.
I once had a girl. She had some skis.
I fell on my nose. She skied with ease.
The slalom prince was waiting at the lift
The slalom prince was waiting at the lift
Greasing his hair and holding his gift.
I once had a girl. She gave me the push
I once had a girl. She gave me the push
I liked her a lot. All I heard was whoosh.
Afterwards it was quiet for a long time. Then the crustaceans began to clap. But by then we had already started the next number. Seb was one big harmonica and I was a boot and a howl.
I’m a fetid sausage on your platter
I’m a fetid sausage on your platter
But she don’t care ’cos I don’t matter
I live in a tent, she lives in a villa
I live in a tent, she lives in a villa
She’s got diamonds but I’m a gorilla
No one understands a thing but I know it all
No one understands a thing but I know it all
She thought I was cream and found I was gall.
I looked at Cecilie. She stared at the candle melting over the cloth and solidifying in a red clump. I didn’t hear anyone clapping, but I saw palms hitting each other. Seb was already on his way out. I ran after him, someone tried to stop us, but we had done our bit. We fell down the steep steps and into the ice cold, ferocious, biting winter which froze us into submission.
Then I saw it. There were gravestones piled up right outside
‘It’s a cemetery, isn’t it!’ I smiled and burst into laughter.
Seb hadn’t caught his breath yet.
‘Stonemason’s, you moron,’ he panted.
And then I vomited, stew and milk, vomited over one of the monuments which had not yet had a name engraved, one waiting for a body and a grave.
That was the first and last performance by Walter and Jacobsen.
The next day Cecilie spoke to me. In the lunch break she came over to the shed where I stood swotting French, pale and sickly, freezing like a dog in my reefer jacket.
‘How did the English test go?’ she initiated.
Had almost forgotten what her voice sounded like.
‘C,’ I stuttered. ‘Forgot my crib.’
She looked me up and down, gave a cautious smile, her hand hovered.
‘Are you ill?’ she asked.
I didn’t answer. Wasn’t sure where this was leading. Best to stay on my guard.
‘Seb was great on the harmonica,’ she continued.
She held my eyes and giggled.
‘But your singing was vile!’
The nausea shot up from my stomach and hit my palate like a harpoon.
‘Was it?’ I said without blinking, swallowing all the crap.
She nodded. My ears were frozen stiff. She was wearing a hat. A brat was caught throwing snowballs by Skinke.
‘Grim,’ Cecilie said, suddenly snuggling up to me without a word. We stood like that until the bell rang.
I went straight home after the last lesson. Now I was going to ask Jensenius to teach me a few decent techniques, he would be given the chance to make a silver-tongued nightingale out of my howling ape. I think I had a temperature. Cecilie’s imprint was still on my body. I ran down Gabelsgate. I was freezing and had a temperature. But in Svoldergate there was a rumpus and a blue flashing light outside the front door. People were standing on tiptoe, peering and whispering. I walked over, dread in my heart. Then I heard it, not a howl, not a scream, but a long ululation, the way whales call in the middle of the Atlantic as they send up a skyward column of air and water. It was coming from the stairs. Then it went quiet save for the sound of footsteps slowly descending.
They brought him down strapped firmly to a stretcher. He lay with his eyes wide open, they met mine, pulled at me like a magnet. There must have been five people carrying him.
Then they pushed Jensenius into the ambulance and started the engine.
I ran upstairs. Mum was standing by the window.
‘What’s happened?’ I shouted. ‘What’ve they done to Jensenius?’
‘He couldn’t live on his own any longer, Kim. They’ve taken him to a home. He’ll be fine now, Kim.’
Jensenius had gone.
Cecilie was back.
The evening before, Dad was relaxing in the sitting room as though nothing was about to happen. He was doing the crossword with a gentle, thoughtful expression on his countenance. Mum was knitting. On the front of Nå there was a shot of John Lennon and Yoko Ono stark naked, taken from the rear.
Dad must have noticed I was observing him, he raised his eyes. The knitting needles stopped.
‘Another word for change?’ he wondered.
‘Revolution,’ I said.
‘Revolution,’ he repeated, counting on his fingers, bent over the squares. Mum went on knitting as though nothing was about to happen.
The day after, Bonus was opened in Bygdøy Allé, Nixon was elected President and Dad came home from the bank in a police car. Three men accompanied him, two in uniform, the last one in a long, grey cloak with gimlet eyes and pendulous cheeks.
Dad looked at Mum and me, and said in a voice I didn’t recognise and one he didn’t seem to trust:
‘Robbery. The bank was robbed today.’
The detective tried to cheer Dad up.
‘We apprehended the Homansbyen Post Office robbers within twenty-four hours. Oslo is hermetically sealed. They won’t get away, you can be sure of that.’
‘There was only one man, I think,’ Dad said in the same voice.
‘Inside the bank, yes. He must have had accomplices outside.’
The detective sat down opposite Dad with his head close to Dad’s face as he flicked through a loose-leaf notepad.
‘Try to remember. Any details, even though you may consider them immaterial. Everything is relevant.’
Dad rested his chin on his hands and spoke through his fingers.
‘I’ve told you everything. He came into my office. Threatened to shoot unless I gave him the money.’
‘You didn’t see the weapon?’
‘No.’ Dad removed his hands from his face. ‘I had no choice!’ he shouted. ‘I had no choice!’
Brief silence. Dad’s shouting resounded in my ears. Mum was crying.
‘300,000,’ the detective mumbled. ‘Unusually large sum of money.’
‘It’s pay day today,’ Dad said wearily. ‘Friday. It’s quite normal for us to have that sort of amount.’
‘You didn’t see the weapon,’ the detective continued. ‘But you felt threatened?’
Dad had obviously been through the same questions several times before.
‘Yes. He meant it. Meant what he said. To shoot.’ Dad raised his voice. ‘It’s my duty to think of my staff. My employees come first.’
The detective nodded. His cheeks shook.
‘You did the right thing, herr Karlsen. Quite right.’
‘He seemed,’ Dad started, staring at the floor, ‘to be full of remorse.’
‘Yes?’
‘He seemed,’ Dad looked away, ‘he seemed a little mad.’
‘Mad?’
‘Yes. I mean abnormal. Of course it isn’t a normal… situation, but he seemed… mad.’
The detective became animated, flipped over a new sheet in his notepad.
‘Could he have been on drugs?’
Dad just shook his head.
‘I don’t know. Possible.’
The telephone rang. Mum went to take it, but the officer was quicker, as though he lived there.
He listened and put down the receiver.
‘It’s ready, boss. The rogues’ gallery.’
The detective rose to his feet. Dad stayed where he was.
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to come with us to Victoria again. To see if you can identify any faces.’
‘I’ve told you I didn’t see his face! It was covered with a scarf. And his hat was pulled down over his forehead.’
‘We always know more than we think we know,’ said the detective.
Dad looked up at him, frightened. His hands fell towards the floor like two weights.
‘What?’
‘We have to go now,’ the detective said impatiently, and Dad followed him like a sleepwalker.
There was a report on the TV news. One of the cashiers was interviewed. He had noticed the robber as soon as he entered the bank, he had a distinctive tic, the cashier exulted: ‘He kept tossing his head. Obviously nervous. That’s the sort of thing we bank employees notice,’ he said. ‘Anyway, it wasn’t so cold outside that it was necessary to wrap your scarf all the way round your face.’ A blaze of camera flashes greeted the cashier. Subsequently Dad came on the screen. He was looking away. The detective was walking beside him. It was better the time Dad and I were on the news together, in Bislett. It seemed an eternity ago.
Dad didn’t come home until midnight. He didn’t speak to us. He went straight into his bedroom and to bed. The day after he didn’t get up and didn’t want to read the papers. Mum rang the doctor. He came with his stethoscope and bottles of pills, spent a long time with Dad and talked to Mum in a low voice afterwards. One of the bank directors came too, consoled Mum and said that Dad had taken the only possible course of action: he had kept his composure. Hubert rang. But Dad didn’t get up. Dad stayed in bed.
Carry that Weight
’69
In the January draw Hubert won first prize and travelled to Paris. Dad still hadn’t got out of bed. The robbers still hadn’t been caught and the newspapers were no longer writing about it. Hubert rang the same day and said he had won and was on his way to France, Mum told Dad. An hour later he was standing in the sitting room in his pyjamas, thin, grey, with black stubble like a shadow across his ravaged face. His eyes were sick and watery, they stared at us and he said nothing. It was the first time I had seen him since the historic day when Bonus was opened and Nixon was elected President. I hardly recognised him and he didn’t seem to know who he was, either. I was frightened out of my wits. He just looked at Mum and me with those sick eyes of his, as though we were strangers in some deserted boarding house. Then he slumped into his chair, took the magazine lying on the little table beside him with the photograph of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, which had not moved since the day before the robbery. He flicked through to find the crosswords and continued where he had left off, holding the bank biro as if clinging to an anchor.
But Dad was not completely lost to us. He could dress himself, the suit hung off him, so thin had he become. He shaved, but could not remove the shadow that had fallen across him. He went back to work, to the bank, one cold morning and came
home with flowers from the staff. Mum put the bouquet in water and it stayed there for three weeks. Dad solved more crosswords, the doctor dropped by one day and they had a friendly chat. Dad was on the way up, slowly, out of the nightmare he had had since the previous year. But he could not shave off the shadow. It had taken root and he never managed to fill out his suit again.
He began to be himself, but there was one strange thing. He didn’t seem to be bothered about anything any more. He didn’t mention my hair, he said nothing about me coming home late and he didn’t ask how school was going. He didn’t even talk about Hubert, who had gone to Paris for good.
However, if things were moving slowly for Dad, they were going much faster for Gunnar’s father. Bonus glittered like a funfair in Bygdøy Allé with eight tills, self-service and offers on products all year round. Grocer Holt was about to throw in the towel. His customers disappeared one by one, only the oldest were left, the ones who bought least and had the most time. It was the same with Ola’s father, only those with the least hair went for a haircut.
One evening we were at Gunnar’s listening to his father pacing up and down in the room below, Stig came in and took a seat. He was studying philosophy at Blindern and spoke way over our heads.
‘Dad’s a Norwegian citizen, right, but he’s lower middle class and he doesn’t exploit anyone, does he,’ Stig said, looking us in the eye.
We listened.
‘You have to make a distinction between the lower middle class and monopoly capitalism, right. Bonus is killin’ off the lower middle class. Bonus is monopoly capitalism. It’s not just Dad who suffers as a result. Small shops keel over all the way down the line. Soon there is only the supermarket left. And what happens then? The prices soar sky high! Do you think that’s chance, eh? Bonus. Irma. Domus. They entice you with low prices. Crush the small shops. And then they go for the kill with the customers. Simple as that.’