‘Makin’ an adjustment,’ I said meekly.
‘But for friggin’, freakin’ Pete’s sake you don’t need to take off the strap to adjust the length.’
‘You don’t?’
‘Are we the same height?’
‘I reckon you’re taller than me,’ I said.
‘Right, brains. So your bloody strap should be shorter than mine if we want the piano to be level, shouldn’t it!’
A blush descended over my head like a tight, hot helmet. I slipped the strap on, then we bobbed up and down until all the hooks were at the same height. I was having trouble with the knot again, but didn’t dare ask for help. At length I managed to tie it and it felt fairly secure.
Then we took the strain, lifted at the same time and began to climb up the stairs. It was heavier than carrying your own body. Your heart seemed to be pushed down into your stomach, your brain sucked into your mouth. But then something happened in the middle of the staircase leading to the first landing, it began to feel lighter, as if I had become used to the weight, as though it didn’t seem to affect me any more. It was a miracle. I felt light, uncannily light, I felt like whistling, telling a joke, it was like floating. However, Kalle’s face was getting redder and redder, sweat was pouring off his brow, his eyes were narrow and turbid and his mouth was twisted into a demented grimace.
‘Down!’ he bellowed and we lowered the grand piano onto the landing. He leaned across the tarpaulin gasping for breath, wheezing like a bagpipe. I felt nothing and smiled at the others.
Then Kalle stood up, unhooked himself, came round to me in a furious temper and measured my strap. It was at least ten centimetres longer than his.
‘Tryin’ to be funny, are we?’ he rasped. ‘Givin’ me the whole weight?’
‘I didn’t mean to,’ I stuttered.
He examined the knot, looked at me.
‘For Pete’s sake, you can’t use a granny knot to lift a grand piano!’
The others groaned and cried out, smacking their foreheads.
‘The whole thing could tip, you plonker!’
So he had to knot my tie again and we carried the piano over the last stretch, up to the music room, I carried until I cried, I felt like a dwarf when we eventually sat down, I had blisters on my back and water on my knees, I was bruised, bent and ashamed of myself.
Afterwards Kalle came over to me, gave me a proper cigarette and patted me on the shoulder. Then they drove me back to base and I was given the job of stacking cardboard boxes in the warehouse.
At half past three Gunnar and Ola were back, too. We handed in our timesheets at the cash desk, were paid, caught the tram to town and it was hard to cross Majorstuen with our pockets weighed down. We found a table at Gamle Major.
‘Buggered if I’m gonna keep doin’ this shite job,’ I said. ‘I was on the piano run and made a complete tit of myself.’
‘You’ll fare better tomorrow, you see. Ola and I had cushy jobs.’
‘Almost broke my back carryin’ that bloody piano. Should’ve had bloody knee pads. Buggered if I’m gonna queue tomorrow!’
‘So you don’t want to stick with it because the piano was heavy or because the blokes took the piss?’ Gunnar asked.
‘Another job like that and I definitely won’t be goin’ to Paris.’
The atmosphere was fraught. Gunnar was het up too, he leaned across the table and shoved the bottles to the side.
‘The trouble with you, Kim, is that you’re a coward. You’ve always done crazy things, but when it comes to the crunch, you’re a coward and touchy with it. You can climb onto a roof and dance with skeletons, but you can’t take it when an older workman laughs at you because you can’t tie a knot!’
Did Gunnar say that? Don’t remember, and it doesn’t matter. In any case, I turned up the following day, of course I did, and was sent to empty an elegant detached house in Persbråten, and was given beer and overtime. It was Gunnar’s suggestion that we should just spend the money we needed to live on so that we didn’t drink our travel money up at Gamle Major. No sooner said than done. We were drivers’ mates and criss-crossed the whole of Østlandet, getting to know every café and grocer’s in Oslo and surrounding areas, just like we had once known every grass pitch and football field, and later every park. Ola met the man who had given him a lift from Slemmestad on that fateful day and the reunion was heartfelt, he became a permanent fixture on that lorry. Gunnar took my place on the piano lorry and I shifted and carried, packed dank underwear and dirty crockery, manhandled freezers crammed with food that melted and stank in the heat, I piled up books, rolled carpets, opened cupboards and pulled out drawers. I saw behind the façade of half of Norway and I didn’t really like what I saw. I saw dust and crap and a multitude of useless things. We went to people who were splitting up, they scrapped over every bloody plate and teaspoon, I saw hatred, I saw love, a photograph under a pillow someone had forgotten, a slip of paper between books, and after stripping an apartment I knew everything about those who had lived there, there were no secrets left. We moved stuff from the apprentices’ college in Bogstadsveien, carried foul mattresses covered with wank stains down from the third floor and drove them all to the dump in Skui. I remember standing there, it was a hot day, the sun was baking, I stood there wearing sandals on the decomposing landfill site, unloading crap while giant flies as big as helicopters buzzed around my head, gleaming white seagulls circled and screamed and glistening rats ran in all directions. That day I had to go to Gamle Major no matter what.
But then one day I got the top job, the crème de la crème, we had to move The Doll’s House at the National Theatre, the company was going on tour. We whizzed down, a driver and two driver’s mates, parked by Pernille, wandered into the spooky house behind the stage, in the wings with wires and ropes and all sorts of things hanging down. The caretaker showed us what had to be taken. It was just a question of getting started, and we did, and it occurred to me then and forever afterwards, that films, theatre, books and poems were just a fraud. It’s only music that doesn’t deceive, it doesn’t pretend to be anything else except what it is. Music. All the others are empty shells, lies. We attached straps to a piano, heaved and it came up easily, weighing no more than a few kilos. The caretaker grinned and opened the lid. There was nothing inside. The guts had been removed. When Helmer played on the stage it was a recorded tape. We carried it out on our little fingers and customers at Pernille stood up from their tables and stared at us wide-eyed. We exited the rear door of the National Theatre and received a standing ovation, three removal men carrying pianos, tiled stoves and trunks on outstretched arms. I wished my mother had seen that.
And so the days passed, they sped by happily, I hit the pillow, fell asleep at night with tired muscles, slept well, buttered sandwiches and was picked up in Pilestredet every morning at seven. The days floated past, and one night I was strolling home in filthy work clothes with calloused hands when I bumped into Cecilie in Grensen. I didn’t recognise her immediately, her hair was short and her back erect, had to dig back through my memory, then I knew, of course, it was Cecilie.
‘Hiya,’ we said.
She gave me a look of acknowledgement. I produced a mini-cigarette from my pocket and lit up.
‘Are you working?’ she asked.
‘Yep. Removals. What are you up to?’
She told me that she had specialised in sciences and was going to study medicine in Iceland from that autumn.
‘Iceland?’
‘In Reykjavik. Couldn’t get in here.’
‘Long way away,’ I said, to say something. ‘And damned cold, isn’t it?’
She laughed.
‘You can come and visit me,’ she said.
And then Cecilie wrote her address in a notebook and tore out the page.
And we each went our separate ways.
The money in our kitty was growing. But one day Cap’n asked Gunnar if he had a driver’s licence. He did, and he didn’t need a HGV licence to
drive the Bedford. And so Ola and I were assigned to him as driver’s mates and we had to move a NATO general from Kolsås to Blommenholm. We cheered, all three of us sat cheering and shouting as the lorry banged its way to NATO headquarters. The coot lived in a terraced house, it was a pushover of a job and the crew-cut pig served us duty-free Tuborg on the steps at twelve, spoke with a freaky accent and was over-friendly. Gunnar walked around on the lookout for secret papers and weapons, but the only thing we found was a sizeable stack of porn magazines and an arsenal of sealed whisky. He waved us off with a cheerful smile as we left for Blommenholm and was desperately fair.
‘Bloody imperialist bastard,’ Gunnar snarled as we drove to Sandvika. ‘Must’ve been in Vietnam!’
‘The old fella was great,’ Ola said.
‘Druggin’ us with beer in the mornin’! Fancy bloody workin’ for such a pig!’
Gunnar stepped on the gas and turned off to Blommenholm. We were approaching a tunnel under the railway. Gunnar slowed down.
‘Will we get under it?’ he asked, coming to a complete halt.
It didn’t look very high. We jumped out, had a look at the vehicle and clambered back up.
‘Think it’ll be alright,’ I said.
‘Don’t think it will,’ Gunnar said.
‘Not sure,’ said Ola.
‘Are there any other routes we can take?’ Gunnar asked.
‘It’ll be fine,’ I said.
‘D’you think it’ll be alright, Ola?’
‘Ye-eah.’
‘You’ll slip through like butter,’ I said.
Gunnar revved up and we raced down the underpass. Then we heard the terrible sound of the roof scraping, we were thrown forwards and the general’s furniture gave an infernal groan behind us. We had come to a standstill.
Gunnar was pale.
‘No good,’ he said.
We wriggled out and examined the mishap. The Bedford was stuck. It wouldn’t budge. We were jammed under the bridge with the NATO load.
We scratched our heads.
‘What about if we take the stuff out?’ Ola suggested.
‘Then the van’ll be even higher, you twit!’ Gunnar bawled.
‘It was just an idea,’ I mediated. ‘Anyway, NATO is a rotten alliance.’
We stood for a while staring at the snarl-up. Quite a queue was building behind us.
There was only one thing to do. We found a grocer’s a hundred metres away and rang base. Half an hour later they arrived with sandpaper and a specialist driver. We had to crawl into the back to put weight on the wheels. It didn’t make a nice sound as the Bedford was coaxed out. And Cap’n was none too pleased. But that didn’t matter much. It was the end of July, we had earned enough cash and NATO’s aggressive imperialism had been set back three hours. We had worked enough in this line of business.
We received our wages and raced to Gamle Major. We were loaded. During the first and last half litre Gunnar said, ‘Great action we pulled off today! The people’s war has started! And tomorrow we’re off!’
We toasted, finished our beer, went home and packed our sports bags.
I was not the only living creature in Place St Michel. People were scattered about as if Slottsparken had been dug up and moved to Paris. I felt at home sitting tired and happy on the edge of the fountain peering through the exhaust fumes, the pigeons and the sun, didn’t reckon I would see Gunnar and Ola for a few days at least. I had been lucky. We had been standing in Mosseveien at seven o’clock on Thursday morning. After three quarters of an hour an Opel occupied by a fat couple skidded to a halt, they were going to Copenhagen, but only had room for two. Gunnar and Ola took the lift.
‘See you in Place St Michel!’ I shouted, waving them off.
‘Last man there buys the wine!’ Ola yelled.
They disappeared over the horizon and I waited for several hours, but the cars were giving me a wide berth and my thumb was beginning to droop. Perhaps it was right what Gunnar had said, that I should have had a haircut, no one would go out of their way to pick up a long-haired tosser, he had grinned. Damned, damned if I was going to let any bloody motorist with plastered-down hair determine how I had mine. So I stood there in Mosseveien, time passed and cars zoomed past, Gunnar and Ola must have been in Gothenburg by then. Then it came, like a gold-bearing galleon down from the sky, the articulated lorry from Transport Office, I cheered and waved, the long vehicle braked and I ran after it. It was Robert, a decent type, but a go-getter to his fingertips. I jumped into the cab, for I was sure he didn’t have much time, he slammed it into gear and we were on our way.
‘Where you goin’?’ Robert mumbled as we passed the slip road to Drøbak, he wasn’t the talkative kind.
‘Paris,’ I said.
‘Lucky for you.’
‘Where are you goin’?’
‘Paris,’ said Robbo.
And when we arrived in Svinesund he turned to me and said a whole sentence, and more, ‘And now you’ve got a job to do, see, keep me awake. Got that? I want to break the record for the Paris run. Matisen holds it at thirty-four hours.’
And so I tried to keep Robbo awake for the rest of the trip. We drove through Sweden, on the ferry to Denmark Robbo drank fourteen coffees and two Aquavits. We ploughed through Denmark as darkness settled over the fields. We raced down through Germany. In a lay-by south of Hamburg we slept for two hours. Robbo had three alarm clocks with him, one after the other they went off in our ears, and then we swept onwards, on the autobahn, at night, in the cab high above the road, in the dark, with all the lights well below us. Every time I nodded off I got Robert’s elbow in my ribs and a mouthful of abuse. In Belgium the sun rose above the mud heaps, in France we stopped to fill the tank. I peeled my eyes for the Eiffel Tower, but the first thing I saw in Paris was vast clusters of corrugated iron shacks, shanties, boxes, rubbish, slums, people living there, then we were past them and the Eiffel Tower came into view in the blue haze, far away, like a weathered fountain. Sweat was pouring off me. I was in Paris. Robbo accelerated and grinned. He pulled into the first post office and sent a telegram to base. Exactly thirty hours. He didn’t need any help with unloading, so he drove me straight to Place St Michel. The tiny French cars veered away in fright as we thundered down the windy, narrow streets, and at five o’clock on Friday I was sitting on the kerb peering at passers-by and a crazy thought burst into my brain, that Seb would appear from nowhere. Seb and Henny and Hubert. Don’t know how long I was sitting like that, but it was certainly dark and I was homesick. The lights on the ground took over. I felt the big city pressing against my chest, my body was still in motion, the lights from the restaurants, the shops, the windows, the cars, raced towards me, passed me, disappeared behind me with runny red eyes, at breakneck speed. I was starving, but didn’t know where I could get some food. I could go to Henny’s address, but I had to wait for Gunnar and Ola. I sat there on the edge of the fountain with the winged lions spouting brown water. The Seine flowed somewhere close by, some people were playing the guitar, whistling, some were singing. The square was crowded, big bottles of wine were being passed around, a cop car trundled by, I was nervous, thinking about what had happened to Henny that time. It would soon be night. I was hungry, alone in Paris. Then a girl came over and sat beside me, staring at me with swollen brown eyes.
‘Are you new in town?’ she asked in American English.
‘Arrived a few hours ago.’
She produced a bottle of wine, a baguette and a powerful cheese from her shoulder bag, nibbled and drank, passed it to me, I followed suit. Then she lit a cigarette, which we shared. I told her I was Norwegian. It was the strongest cigarette I had ever tasted. She laughed and stroked my back. I knocked back the wine. The hours passed in seconds. I was in Paris and had forgotten my sleeping bag. Joy – that was what she called herself – rolled out hers and invited me to join her. I produced two blurred passport photographs and showed her, asked if she had seen anyone resembling them. She shook her head and we
nt to sleep. I lay awake, in the sleeping bag of an American girl on speed, in the middle of Paris, staring at photos of Seb and Nina. It was such a ridiculously long time since they had been taken and a thought, like a furious lobster, struck at my heart, if we found them they would not look anything like the photos, we wouldn’t recognise them, we wouldn’t recognise each other.
Joy slept and there was not much room. At some point the city was absolutely still, for a few seconds, then ten million people stirred. I wriggled out of the sleeping bag, froze, tugged on a sweater. There was some wine left in the bottle, I drank half. Water trickled into the gutters. Black men dressed in blue and Arabs swept the pavements. The cafés opened, tables and chairs were carried out, the sun crept up over a house and its rays caught the back of my head. I took off my sweater. The creatures in Place St Michel woke up. A girl sang ‘Blowing In The Wind’. Joy rolled up her bed.
‘See you,’ she said.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Mediterranean,’ she said and began to move in that direction.
At ten Gunnar and Ola arrived. Their astonishment at seeing me there was immense. Then we hugged and jigged in a circle.
‘How the hell did you get here?’ Gunnar shouted. ‘Catch a plane or what?’
‘Robbo from the Transport Office picked me up,’ I said. ‘How did you get on?’
They both groaned.
‘The old fart in the Opel was a complete idiot,’ Ola recounted. ‘We were goin’ to Copenhagen and ended up in Stockholm. I kept tellin’ him, you’re goin’ the wrong way, mister, but he was deaf in that ear. And so we were in Stockholm, and he almost took the ferry to Finland.’
‘And if that wasn’t enough,’ Gunnar picked up. ‘His fat wife thought Stockholm looked nicer than Copenhagen and so they stayed there and we had to hitch again. Didn’t get to Copenhagen until yesterday.’
‘And then we took the train,’ Ola said.
I mock-punched each of them in the stomach.
‘Come on, let’s find a table!’ I said. ‘You owe me some wine!’
Gunnar wiped off his sweat and reviewed our situation.