‘Please don’t say anythin’ to Cecilie,’ I said.
We suddenly realised that our final exams were approaching. But I was unable to concentrate that spring, couldn’t do it, thinking about Nina, thinking that no one knew where Nina was, thinking about Cecilie the editor, Cecilie in the study circle, my brain was too small to contain such thoughts, I didn’t have the space, if she had married Kåre the Creep or played mixed doubles with Peder in the Norwegian championships I would not have been able to say a word. Now my brain did not have the capacity. Cecilie and Nina. Sometimes I dreamt that Nina was running across a desert. It was a silent dream and I could see from her face that she was close to dying of thirst. On such nights I occasionally had to get up and drink water. And Jørgen seemed to slip away from me, didn’t see much of him. And the mess with Gunnar. My eyes smarted at the very thought of it. I had been humiliated and ground into dust. I walked and yearned for The Great Revolutionary Feat, which would restore me, raise me from the dead, cleanse me. The Great Sacrifice. I dreamt about great things, not trifles like playing in goal for Norway, one up against Sweden, the Swedes getting a penalty and me flying through the air like a banana to the top corner and tapping the ball down with my forefinger. Not at all. I dreamt that I washed ashore in Vietnam, became a soldier for the FNL and led the final and decisive battle against the Americans. That was how I dreamt. Or that I kidnapped Nixon and made him admit that he was an imperialist, fascist pig, whereupon he signed the capitulation papers unconditionally. That was how I dreamt. But the opportunities never came, even though I did my best at the national service medical, but that did not seem to be taken into account, for in the end Gunnar didn’t want to be a conscientious objector.
The evening before the medical, I sat in Seb’s room, it was just us two with Jim Morrison whispering in the background. On the table there were 160 Teddys, on the floor three bottles of home-made white wine and Seb had a big, fat spliff in his pocket.
‘But for Christ’s sake,’ I shouted. ‘Wasn’t Gunnar supposed to be a conscientious objector?!’
Seb shook his head.
‘New line. Boys have to enter the forest. Work from inside.’
I lit a Teddy. My fingers were dark yellow already, my hideous forefinger was brownish and smelt acrid.
‘Beginning to get a sore throat,’ I groaned.
Seb poured some wine. It was turbid and tasted of sand.
‘No good pretending your hands shake,’ he said. ‘They weren’t born yesterday even if they are generals.’
I looked at my hand. It did shake a bit. That was not enough. We had been practising this every evening for ten days. My head was swimming. Seb looked as though he had hepatitis and migraine and double pneumonia.
‘Be easier to put on female underwear,’ he slurred. ‘You’d be rejected on the spot.’
‘Not bloody likely. Not bloody likely. Rather say I was a bed-wetter.’
Seb forced down the wine with a gulp and a bulge of his eyes.
‘Won’t work,’ he wheezed. ‘They’ll take you on just to see if it’s true. Follow you to the train, too. To see if you pee your pants.’
We sat in silence for a while. Seb played ‘The Unknown Soldier’. I thought about Gunnar who was going to join up after all. I drank wine and felt nauseous and empty.
‘Gunnar’s changed,’ I said.
‘You think so? I don’t. He’s how he’s always been.’
He put on ‘Morrison Hotel’. I peed in the sink. Seb assembled the bong.
‘Met Guri last week,’ he said.
‘How’d it go?’
‘So so. Just stood gapin’ at each other and had nothing to say. Crazy, isn’t it.’
‘Still with her slalom pal, is she?’
‘Damned if I know. Didn’t ask. Doesn’t interest me, either. But it’s crazy that you can’t talk to people, isn’t it.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And when people talk, they talk such superficial crap. The weather and the price of milk and TV. My mum, for example. Since that piss artist broke into the nest, she’s gone all plastic and TV. They sit there with drinks and peanuts gettin’ plastered, Jesus.’
‘Heard anythin’ from your dad?’
‘Have you seen Easy Rider? Cool film. Once I’ve finished my apprenticeship I’ll get myself one of those low-slung motorbikes and head south. Have you seen it?’
‘Nope. Don’t do cinema any more. Worst thing I know. Had a surfeit of it when I was with Cecilie.’
Seb lit the water pipe, sucked and it made a gurgling sound, a bit like when you step into a bog wearing high boots. He passed it to me and for a while we were inside ourselves.
‘Understand Cecilie’s become a Marxist-Leninist,’ I said.
Seb grinned, ran a yellow finger through the sparse blond moustache hanging from the corners of his mouth.
‘They can hold a summer camp in Bygdøy this year then,’ he spluttered.
We sat gurgling while Morrison sang ‘I’m A Spy In The House Of Love’. We washed the smoke down with white wine. My stomach felt like a tumble dryer, a rusty tumble dryer in an abandoned laundrette in a damp, musty cellar. That was how I felt. It was the evening before our medical.
‘D’you think we’ll carry it off?’
‘Christ, yes,’ Seb said, getting up, staggering around and corkscrewing down.
‘Sure?’
‘Mustn’t start messin’ up now, you know. Don’t take a towel with you. Don’t take the draft papers. Give weird answers to all the questions. Ask to have a psychologist present at once. Easy as wink, Kim.’
‘D’you think they’ll believe us?’
Seb opened his eyes wide.
‘Believe? The point is they won’t want us.’
‘When you lie, it’s a good idea to stick to the truth,’ I declared.
Seb didn’t say another word for the next hour. We lit the pipe and drank the wine.
Then he said, ‘You’re damn right.’
I tottered home at about two. The town was chilly and grey. The streets stretched into the distance, they had a different tinge to them now that there were no people around, almost as if the sky were hugging the tarmac. I was alone in the streets and it went through my head that I could wake the whole town with a scream, at the top of my voice, and watch the lights coming on in window after window, hear the roller blinds shooting up, doors slamming, men yelling, taps running. I could have done that. I could have screamed this town into life. I did not. Instead I found Svoldergate and crept indoors. Mum and Dad had long gone to bed, but Mum was not asleep, I could hear her turning in her room, I could hear her eyes staring in the dark.
I didn’t go to bed. I opened the window and finished smoking the rest of the Teddys. I looked at my hands. They were yellowish-brown, filthy, they trembled. If I could have poked a pipe cleaner through one ear to the other, I would have discovered that my soul was black and stained. My greasy hair hung over my face. At four o’clock I threw up over the pavement. At five the light on the other side of town arose, a yellow breath of wind, or white, it ascended behind Ekeberg and leaned across the sky. I stood at my window watching and it struck me that I had never seen anything to match this. The day came like a shining, transparent fan gently blowing away the night. My aching head was overwhelmed. But that was how it must have been every morning.
I went up to the loft and fetched Dad’s gas mask. Then I left. There were three hours left before I was due to appear in Akershus.
I sat on the harbour promenade and put on the mask. It was difficult to breathe. I saw my reflection in the water. I looked like a deformed ant-eater. Sitting like that, I examined myself for traces of fear. But there were none. I thought about the time I had walked on Cecilie’s roof, danced with the skeleton, done battle with the badger. I had been fearless. It was at that point that I became scared. I spewed up my stomach contents, they were grey-coloured.
The traffic behind me was becoming heavier.
Cranes swung on th
e skyline.
I was a quarter of an hour late. A green-clad idiot pulled the mask off my face and pushed me into a room where a film was being shown, and beside the screen stood a crew cut with a pointer, talking about the training opportunities in the forces. The pictures showed some slick types sitting in an office or operating radar or tinkering with a jet plane. Then the lights came on and I spotted Seb. He resembled a sickly ghost. Behind him were Gunnar and Ola. They just shook their heads.
Then we were given a pile of papers with questions and crosses. It was mad. Car A goes from Drammen at four o’clock and car B leaves Oslo at five. Car A does fifty kilometres an hour. Car B sixty kilometres an hour. When will they meet? They crash in Sandvika, I wrote in the margin. And then there were shapes that were supposed to interlock, word association tests and other bright ideas. Inspection. What do you associate with it? Examination? Investigation? Torture? I went for 2, an away win. I went for away wins all the way down, it looked nice and tidy. Can you swim? No. Hobbies? Will people ever stop asking me that? No. I put the sheet to the side and lit a cigarette. A sweaty gorilla appeared above me and whipped the fag out of my mouth. There was quite a commotion, then they chased us out into the corridor. A general asked where my towel and call-up papers were. I showed him the gas mask. He ground his teeth. The sparks flew in my direction. Gunnar and Ola disappeared down the corridor. Seb’s shadow fell into one room. I was thrust through a different door, where there stood at least twenty lethargic bodies from before. I grabbed one that was dressed, he reeled backwards as my breath hit him.
‘I need the psychologist!’ I whispered. ‘I need the psychologist!’
He calmed me down and gave me a friendly pat. I went all weak inside – there were humans here, too. He measured me with his eyes and appeared truly concerned. Then I was led out again and told to wait. I smoked four roll-ups one after the other. The smoke stung my eyes. Tears poured forth. The soldier came back, he can’t have been more than a second lieutenant, maybe just a private, perhaps he was the caretaker, but he was kind.
‘Are you crying?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Come here,’ he said, gently taking my arm.
I was shown into a large office where a highly decorated bear of a man was sitting behind a desk. I slunk onto a chair and stared at the floor.
‘What’s up with you?’ he asked, and his voice was surprisingly soft, I had been expecting an electric drill, but this was children’s hour.
I was unable to answer.
The general leaned across the polished desk.
‘You smoke too much,’ he stated.
A long silence followed. I began to scratch my scalp. I scratched, clawed like an eagle. He just looked at me.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘This is just a formality.’
The door opened and my second lieutenant showed me into the doctor’s waiting room. Three of the candidates from before were standing in a corner. I sat in the middle of the floor.
A quarter of an hour later I was hauled in. The doctor scrutinised me with cold eyes.
‘Do you smoke hashish?’ he asked.
I didn’t answer.
He felt my pulse, squeezed my kidneys. Then he jotted something on a slip of paper and gave it to me.
‘Give this to the psychologist,’ he said and shouted another name into the Dictaphone.
The second lieutenant followed me through. I read the slip. Drug problems, it said. Clear neurotic features. Wow. I began to feel really nervous. Right there, in the stinking corridor, with the kind second lieutenant at my side, I registered that I was no longer pretending, now it was deadly earnest, I had crossed a threshold, from my room to theirs, I wanted to get out of the room, out of it as fast as possible.
‘Everything will be alright,’ the second lieutenant said.
The psychologist was quite young and eager. He read the note and stared at me. I looked past him. A bird crashed into the window. He took his time, walked around the room, tied his shoelaces, straightened a picture, stood behind me and at last sat down.
‘When were you born?’ he asked.
I began to talk, it made my throat hurt.
‘1951. Autumnal equinox. On the cusp between Virgo and Libra. Some horoscopes make me a Virgo. Others a Libra. I was born on the autumnal equinox, you see. It’s just dreadful.’
The silence hung in the room like an echo. Then the shrink started clicking his nails.
‘Tell me a bit more about yourself,’ he said.
And my voice was like an avalanche, a landslide, my body was talking for me. I told him about Cecilie’s roof, the skeleton, the badger, that I had been a bird before, that I could fly at night, I told him about the fear that opened inside me like a knife wound, I told him I bled when the police beat up the demonstrators in Paris, that I screamed every night, I told him I was guilty of a bank robbery.
The psychologist sat with a pen between his fingers. He wrote something on a sheet of paper. It made a rustling noise. Suddenly he stopped, blew on what he had written and scratched his armpit.
‘Is there anything you would like to ask me?’ he said.
‘Why do you click your nails?’ I asked.
His eyes burned holes into my forehead. I felt instant remorse. Then he continued to write, blew again, folded the paper and put it into an envelope, which he licked with a grey tongue.
Then he flashed me a smile.
‘Because sitting here is driving me mad,’ he said.
He accompanied me to the door and gave me the letter. I bowed and scraped.
‘Give this to the doctor you saw before,’ he said, pushing me out.
The second lieutenant was at hand and accompanied me back downstairs. I was worn out. I noticed there were knobs on the hand rail, just like at school. So that the generals would not be able to slide down. I thought about saying that to the second lieutenant, but refrained, think that was a wise move.
The floor below was teeming with people. I looked for Seb, Ola and Gunnar, they weren’t there. But right at the back was Jørgen. A green-clad bastard came and led him away.
Then I was with the doctor again. It was never-ending. He stood with his back to me and read the psychologist’s letter. He swivelled round, folded the letter round his forefinger like a banknote.
‘Have you got bad guts?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said.
He nodded several times and glared at me. I held my hands over my stomach. Then he picked up the military service booklet and wrote – I could read it upside down: UF. UFCD. I asked what they meant. Unfit, it meant. Unfit for civil defence even. Unfit was my middle name thereafter. And still I wasn’t finished. I was given the military service booklet and my valet accompanied me back to see the general. I gave him the booklet, he slowly flicked through it, stood up, his eyes were sad, sad, and he came around the table.
‘Oh dear,’ he said. He said that. Oh dear.
Now fear washed through me like a tidal wave and slapped against the red cliffs of my heart. I almost fell to the floor. He held me up with a steely hand.
‘The nerves business is the worst,’ he said with sorrow in his voice. ‘We don’t really know what nerves are.’
He half-carried me to the door and opened it.
‘Good luck,’ I heard as I left. ‘Good luck, Kim Karlsen!’
I stood in the corridor. It smelt of chlorine. The second lieutenant came over to me with the gas mask, put it in my hand.
‘You can go now,’ he said and left.
It smelt of chlorine. So I toddled off. And in the sunshine, in mid-relief, a wild thought struck me: the letter. The letter the psychologist had written. What was in it? What was in it that made them drop me on the spot? I had only told them the truth. What was in the letter?
I walked home through the rotten town. Mum was all over me before I had taken out the key. The questions were stacked up in a queue. She ran a hand across my filthy hair and looked frightened.
&nb
sp; ‘Where have you been?’ she stammered.
‘Medical.’
‘Last night! This morning!’
Her hand was shaking.
‘At Seb’s,’ I said. ‘Left before you got up this morning.’
She followed me. Pym was singing in the sitting room.
‘When will you be called up?’ she asked.
‘They didn’t want me.’
I showed her my finger.
‘Do you think you can shoot with such a twisted finger?’
I dashed into my room and slept like a log.
I was woken up by Seb. All of a sudden he was standing there with the broadest grin of the year. My mother was keeping watch behind him. I closed the door and Seb was beside himself with excitement.
‘How did it go?’ he panted. ‘How did it go?’
‘Fine in the end,’ I said. ‘But it took a bloody long time.’
He threw himself down on the sofabed and punched the mattress.
‘Gunnar was declared fit for combat duties. And Ola’s joinin’ the navy!’
We grinned for a long time. Seb stretched out and flipped half a bottle of wine from out of his sleeve. Could do a stint at the circus with that one. We each took a swig.
‘How did you wangle it?’ I asked.
He laughed and tapped my forehead with a dark yellow finger.
‘Just followed your advice,’ he said. ‘About lyin’ and stickin’ to the truth. I said I was in fine fettle and was lookin’ forward like mad to joining the army. They didn’t bloody believe me. Was kicked out after five minutes. They didn’t bloody believe me!’
The Great Revolutionary Feat was slow in coming. I was a superfluous spoke in the Wheel of History. There was no use for me. It was as if Gunnar had forgotten the leaflets in my drawer, for the Wheel was rolling on regardless. It rolled through Norway in the spring of 1970 leaving ruts everywhere. The workers were on strike. The trams were silent. The workers at Norgas were on strike. The cops were beating up the pickets. The workers continued to strike. Gunnar was rattling a money box. I put two tenners in. That’s more like it, Gunnar said. On April 22, on the centenary of Lenin’s birth, the struggle was crowned with victory. The Wheel of History rolled towards the finishing line and I was no more than a rusty, superfluous spoke.