‘Think the bridegroom arrived?’ he grinned.
‘Haven’t heard a thing.’
We each rolled our Petterøes.
‘How are the studies goin’?’ I asked.
‘Badly. Don’t get any time for lectures. But a girl in the flat lets me borrow her notes. How about you?’
‘Mmm,’ I nodded, ‘goin’ alright.’
‘Feel like droppin’ by one day?’ I wondered.
‘I’ll see. I’ll see. Got loads of things to do.’
A week later he was on the phone.
‘Be at Universitetsplassen at three!’ he shouted.
‘Is somethin’ comin’ off?’
‘Now get a grip on yourself! The government’s tryin’ to cripple the university. Catastrophic budget. Can only just afford invigilators.’
But when I arrived at Universitetsplassen a few minutes before three, the square was deserted. I checked my watch and discovered that the second hand was not moving. I sprinted down Karl Johan with the cold November rain in my face. The clock over the garish Freia chocolate advertisement said half past four. There wasn’t anyone in front of the government building, either. I was freezing. Thought about the time I had deceived Gunnar over the leaflets. I stamped the ground, could hardly light a cigarette. I followed the road around the corner to Stortorget. That was where I spotted him, too late for me to snake out unnoticed. He was staring straight at me. I ambled up to the table where he was sitting with some other people I didn’t know.
‘Any room?’
Gunnar looked up at me. The others resumed their heated discussion.
There was room on the bench. I squeezed in.
‘You didn’t make it after all, I see,’ Gunnar said in a flat tone.
I wondered whether to spin a long tale about a sick mother or about feeling indisposed in Munchsgate, but decided against it, couldn’t be bothered. I tapped my watch.
‘Stopped,’ I said.
Gunnar broke into the discussion, I was brought a beer. When I had finished it, the others stood up and trooped off. Gunnar was left sitting on the bench. We sat facing each other, didn’t say anything for a while.
Then Gunnar said, ‘We’ve started on a mission, haven’t we. We have to pull up the whole villainy by the roots. We don’t give a shit about reforms and Storting. We hate capitalism. We despise this so-called social democracy which has hoodwinked workers. We abhor the ruling party’s claptrap and can see through it. Two thirds of the world’s population suffer from starvation and oppression. Hence, we do not believe promises, we do not believe words. We prioritise action.’
He paused to take a swig, but without his eyes deviating for a second.
‘And where the hell do you stand, Kim? You have to choose which side you’re on. Whatever you do, you’re makin’ a choice! The way you’re goin’ now you’re just an errand boy for Bratteli and Nixon.’
I don’t quite remember what my answer was, but I think Gunnar was satisfied with it. At any rate, he ordered another round and leaned over the stained tablecloth.
‘We’re from the lower middle class, okay, but they also suffer under the yoke of capitalism. We have to learn from the workers, put ourselves at their service.’
‘My grandfather was a tramp,’ I said.
‘And then he became a white collar worker. Yes, that’s the ideal in the social democracy. Bein’ a worker is not good enough. You’re a retard if you’re a worker.’
We drank. Gunnar continued talking.
‘Our parents’ve had to suffer under capitalism, haven’t they. My father was crushed by monopoly capitalism and had to sell rotten potatoes at Bonus. And your father became a victim of the bank, so the right-wingers could blacken the name of revolutionaries even more!’
Didn’t understand.
‘How was that again?’
‘It’s obvious, man. Didn’t you see what the bourgeois newspapers wrote afterwards?! Young drug addict robs bank. More severe punishments. More cops. More surveillance. They consider us criminals, Kim! Are you tellin’ me the bank didn’t have secret lists of Young Socialists!’
‘You don’t believe that the bank robbery… that the robbery was a set-up?’
‘Course it was! If it’d been a junkie, he would’ve been nabbed in no time. The town was hermetically sealed. But no one was arrested! And so the bourgeois press could have a field day bangin’ on about dreadful young people and buildin’ more and bigger prisons. Bloody hell, Kim, it stinks.’
Didn’t know quite what to say or where to look. I set to work on a roll-up.
‘Seen anythin’ of Seb?’ I asked.
‘Nothin’. Didn’t like that priest stuff of his, by the way.’
‘It was just a joke!’
‘Not so sure about that. The boy’s got the predisposition.’
We were interrupted by a girl coming over to Gunnar. She was wearing a red raincoat and carrying a shoulder bag full to overflowing. She bent down and gave Gunnar a quick kiss.
‘Merete,’ he said when he could, ‘lives in the flat in Sogn.’
‘Kim,’ I said, raising my glass.
Gunnar began to pack up his things.
‘He’s teeterin’ on the edge,’ he said, and he must have meant me. ‘But he’s a bit slow. Needs a good kick up the arse.’
Merete came a step closer, I was afraid she was going to have a punt. Instead she clenched her fist.
‘Never too late,’ she smiled. ‘You’re always welcome!’
Then they left. To go to the Action Committee meeting. I sat over the foul-smelling ashtray, and while I tried to get my watch working I caught myself longing for something to happen, anything, something wild and big.
The second hand started to move round.
My Sweet Lord
Autumn ’71
One evening in mid-November Seb made an appearance. He looked dazed, but was off drugs and steady. He put down his bag and breathed out heavily. Seb was back in Munchsgate.
I boiled up a few litres of tea and we talked at cross purposes for a while, couldn’t find the right tone straight off. Seb’s face was thin and serious, and I went to find us a nice cold beer, but realised that things might get out of hand. Seb was standing by the window sweating.
‘I’m gonna try to find another room,’ I said. ‘There might be a place in Sogn.’
He turned round quickly.
‘No point doin’ that, is there? You can live here. With me.’
‘D’you mean that?’
‘Of course I mean it. Shit, you mustn’t move, Kim.’
We stood there smiling, Seb with the black window behind him, the town and the hard frost. I took a step towards him and hugged him.
‘This’ll be great, won’t it,’ I mumbled.
I saw that the tattoos on his arm had almost gone.
Seb tidied the mattress and I unrolled the sleeping bag alongside the other wall. He was asleep before I had turned off the light. I lay awake until dawn. Then Seb woke up, dressed and stole out quietly. He didn’t return until the evening and didn’t say where he had been. And I didn’t ask.
One thing was certain. There was not a lot left of the old Sebastian. I wanted to talk about Paris, about his drugs, about Jim Morrison, about Nina, but Seb seemed to have drawn a line under it, didn’t mention it at all. He just lay on the mattress, deep inside himself, brooding, or else he was out. I didn’t have the remotest idea of what he was up to. The atmosphere was beginning to be ominously heavy in Munchsgate. I was scared he was back on drugs, and after mature reflection I carried out a blitz on his things one day when he was out God knows where. I didn’t find any drugs. I found a pile of papers written by Moses David. So that was how the land lay. I went out and bought a bottle of red wine and sat down to wait for Seb while reading David’s letters. The countdown to doomsday had already begun. The earth would be powder by New Year. He returned at ten o’clock. By then the bottle was empty and I didn’t feel like hiding the fact that I had found his Jesus certificates.
<
br /> ‘Where d’you get this crap, eh?’
‘From a guy,’ Seb said, sitting on the mattress.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve gone all religious!’
He sat still for a long time, flicked his hair behind his ears, rested his chin on his hands. He didn’t answer.
‘You of all people, after wiping the floor with the priest in the confirmation class! Eh!’
I tried desperately to remind him of his heyday, but Seb didn’t react. I was really frightened. Then he began to talk.
‘I’ve learnt,’ Seb said in a low voice. ‘I’ve tried booze and dope and smack, but I didn’t find what I was lookin’ for. Now I’ve found the path. I’ve found the path, Kim.’
‘Where in hell are you goin’?’
‘We have to have somethin’ to hold onto,’ he went on. ‘Everyone has to have a fixed point, a light, a meanin’.’
‘That’s word for word what it says in these papers!’ I shouted.
‘Otherwise we’re empty shells and life is a wasted second. Gunnar has his path, Kim. Ola has a family and is a father-to-be. But you, Kim, you’re still moochin’ around not knowin’ what you want to do with your life.’
I couldn’t believe my ears. Then I felt my blood boiling beneath my skin, I could see it, could see my blood. I tried to speak as calmly as I was able, my voice caressed my tongue like sandpaper.
‘You’re not waitin’ for Jesus,’ I said. ‘You’re not searchin’ for Jesus. It’s Jim Morrison you’re waitin’ for. You’re still high, Seb. You haven’t bloody come down yet. Your eyes are as opaque as sauerkraut, Seb. You don’t know what you’re sayin’.’
‘I may be blind,’ Seb said, with the same accursed composure. ‘That’s why I’ve put my fate in His hands. He’ll see me through.’
At that, I crept down into my sleeping bag, and when I awoke Seb was gone again. Beside the mattress was the old, black Bible.
I made breakfast and there was not a great deal to do. Another day lay before me, but I didn’t have any clean paper or anything to write with. I tried to read, but was too unsettled and leafed aimlessly through Schjelderup’s psychology book. I ploughed through a section about Kretchmer’s constitutional types and had to smile, couldn’t help myself, tried to categorise us, it was pretty crazy. Ola was the pyknic type, that was definite, and Gunnar was the athletic type, Seb was a clear case of the leptosome build, and me, I was dysplastic, one of those with some kind of unpleasant physical abnormality. My crooked finger followed the lines in the book making me feel nauseous, so I put it away. There was nothing left to smile about. The day was grey and leaden, a restless heap of hours. I remembered another day, a Tuesday too, sluggish and slow like this one, but it had turned round, a metamorphosis into heart-throbbing pleasure, this Tuesday could never provide the same, it was and would remain a Tuesday, abject, stillborn.
I went for a walk. That was not a great deal better. Oslo was bleak. The trees in Karl Johan stood like scarecrows in a tarmac garden. People walked with heads bowed, struggling against the wind and the high cost of living. Freaks shivered in their Afghan coats. Afghanistan! By the National Theatre the Salvation Army sang from the bottom of their hearts. A Jesus tripper stood perfectly still and erect with a large placard: The World Will End In Thirty-Nine Days. I went for a coffee at Frokostkjelleren and what Gunnar and Seb had said to me gnawed at my innards. I had to sit there screwing up my courage, telling myself that I was not lost yet, it was just a question of taking the first step, in one direction or another, and I could be where Seb and Gunnar were, just a question of saying one word, the word. But something in my body, in my hands, in my legs, in my chest, fought against it. It was not so simple. But I was wrong. I had to begin somewhere. Here. Now. I stubbed out my cigarette and went straight home to Munchsgate to get my life into shape. That was where I hit the wall. Seb was sitting on the divan beside a sunken-cheeked individual with a headband and a cap. He turned slowly to me and said, ‘God bless you, Kim.’
I didn’t recognise him at once, the hairy Jesus freak. Then he stepped forward, came towards me like a photograph and came into focus. It was Goose.
‘Christian?’ I whispered.
‘You can call me Goose, that’s alright.’
Goose stayed until the evening telling us about his stay in a collective owned by the Children of God near Gothenburg. But now he had been sent to Oslo to gather souls there. Then I spotted his sleeping bag. I looked at Seb.
‘It’s alright if Goose stays here, isn’t it?’ he said.
What could I say?
And Goose stayed. During the day they went out with their placards. In the evening they sat by candlelight leafing through the Bible. I had to buy food, for they were both dead broke. But the morning Goose tried to make further inroads into my moribund study loan things boiled over for Kim Karlsen.
‘Think I’m goin’ to give you cash for your mafia, do you?’
‘You don’t need any money,’ he said.
‘Reckon the ticket prices will be pretty high on doomsday,’ I said. ‘Thirty-two days to go now, isn’t it?’
That didn’t cut any ice. Nothing cut any ice with Goose. He was composure in person. He just turned his shiny eyes on me and advertised for eternity.
I tried another approach.
‘You don’t need any money. No, you scrounge off others. You come and go here like a holy parasite and send me the bill.’
Not a spark.
‘I share my beliefs with you,’ he smiled.
I understood the point. We were one too many.
I just had to get away. But I couldn’t face going back to Svolder, it was so long since I had been there, I didn’t have the courage to answer all their questions. The night I found myself locked in the Palace Theatre I had made the decision to visit Cecilie in Iceland.
I had gone out for a whole evening, trying to make myself as small as possible in Munchsgate. At twelve I was coming down Karl Johan when I needed a pee. I nipped into the entrance of the Palace Theatre and took a leak there. In mid-sprinkle I heard some iron grating hit the ground. I packed away my tackle and ran out. Didn’t get very far. I was locked in and Karl Johan was deserted. I shouted, shook the bars, but no one could hear me and the grille was unmovable. I panicked, my spine a fuse hissing towards my brain. Then I forced myself to think clearly. And, as I did, snow began to fall outside, big white flakes fluttering down onto the street and turning it white. I thought coldly and clearly, then looked at the film posters. The next performance was the following day. Donald Duck Goes West. In other words, that was as long as I would be stuck for. Again I shook the grille and shouted. It didn’t help. I was locked in. I lit my last cigarette, I was beginning to get cold. The yellow piss was frozen into a map of Norway. Then I spotted a crack in the door to the cinema, I tentatively pushed the handle and the door slid open. I stood still, my pulse a wild bronco, then I entered the empty auditorium, sat down in the middle, put my feet on the seat in front and stared at the black screen. And slowly images began to move in front of me, all the images I had stored and from which I cannot escape. There was a smell of sweat, melted chocolate, perfume and clothes. I heard a full house breathing. I sat like that all night, in the blue room at the Palace Theatre, film after film rolled across the screen, and I decided to go and see Cecilie, she had invited me, I had her address.
Wild Life
Autumn/winter ’71
I had done it. I was going to Iceland. The aeroplane rose into the sky, the world outside the window tipped over and Nesodden fell away. Then time stopped, a bubble burst in my head, I was flying across Norway, through the crystal-clear, translucent winter air, a few metres from the sun. The North Sea came into view, I saw an oil platform, the Faeroe Isles were beneath me, then it clouded over and before I had finished my drink and begun to collect myself, I was jerked downwards towards Keflavik and landed with a bang on the runway as the squalls roared against the fuselage. I retched into a bag, a stewardess accompanied me out be
tween the glaciers with a smile and later the bus took longer to reach Reykjavik than the plane had taken to fly to Iceland.
I was dropped off by a closed petrol station and night had settled over the capital. The wind battered your face with the force of a knuckleduster and what seemed like sleet and shingle hit the back of your head. I looked around for people, but everyone in Iceland must have gone to bed. I took a swig of duty-free and began to walk in a random direction. I tried to keep to what appeared to be a pavement, but the wind was of a different mind and I was forced out onto soft ground. In the end I was standing in the middle of wasteland, up to my knees in mud, and the only things I had were a bottle, a toothbrush, a return ticket and Cecilie’s address.
I took a few swigs and struggled on. My boots squelched. Then I found myself walking on what to all appearances was a football pitch, on gravel. I could make out two goals. I dribbled my way through the wind and found a path. There, at last, I caught sight of some people, ran after them and showed them my piece of paper. They were two couples and they pointed in four different directions before deciding and sending me north, into the wind, with the hail coming from the side and a lurking fear at my heels.
It was well past midnight when I finally chanced on Cecilie’s street and house number. She lived on the first floor. The entrance was green and smelt of stale eggs. I rang the bell and she took a long time to appear. Then she opened up, wearing a dressing gown, sleep-befuddled and grumpy. And the moment she clapped her eyes on me and they slowly widened and her mouth became an empty hole in her face, I knew this had to be just about the most stupid thing I had ever done.
‘Kim,’ was all she said, softly, terrified.
‘I happened to be passin’,’ I ventured.
We stood there, on either side of the threshold, mute, confused, her a sleepy galleon figurehead, me a dripping marsh troll.
‘You’d better come in,’ she said at length. I tugged off my filthy boots and padded in on stockinged feet.
Cecilie was practical and efficient. She lent me dry clothes and hung mine up to dry in the bathroom. I poured myself a dram and sat in the sparsely furnished sitting room, a couple of posters on the wall, EEC, NATO, a narrow bookcase with thick volumes, crumbs on the table after supper, an Icelandic newspaper, a radio.