‘V-V-Viet what?’ Ola burst out. His flushed face stood out like the Northern Lights. Stig had to educate him.
‘Vietnam,’ he explained. ‘A small country on the other side of the planet. Where the Americans are bombin’ innocent people. They’re usin’ somethin’ called napalm. Do you boys know what napalm is?’
The record player started up. He held the stylus a millimetre above the grooves. We didn’t know what napalm was.
‘It’s a liquid that sticks to your skin and burns. You haven’t got a hope in hell. It burns under water! Listen to me: Napalm burns under water.’
He snapped his mouth shut. There was a hiss in the loudspeaker, the hard acoustic guitar followed straight after, chords I will never forget and the voice that lacerated your head like a razor blade. We didn’t understand everything, but we understood the gist. It was eerie, and a chill went down my spine. And I’ll stand over your grave till I’m sure that you’re dead. We understood that. And we felt like going out onto the streets and beating up some adult bastards. It was a solemn occasion because now we could never be the same again. Now we knew better.
Stig put the record back in the sleeve and stood up. He towered above us and we would have done whatever he had asked us to do. We longed for him to give us an order, a vitally important, highly dangerous mission and we would go through fire and water for him.
But he just said, from the corner of his mouth:
‘Air the room well before Mum and Dad come back, boys.’
I cycled home and tried to sing the new song, but I couldn’t get hold of the melody. Every time I started it slipped out of my grasp, as though I had already forgotten it. But it’s not true that you forget so easily. You store everything inside yourself and then one day, wherever you are, whatever the time, it appears just like that, just like I could smell wet lilac now, lilac after the rain, even though we were well into autumn. I pedalled down Drammensveien trying to remember the words, the tune and the voice. But as I turned into Svoldergate I was given other things to think about. I pulled up sharp because, coming out of a door, was Uncle Hubert. He stopped, stood still, stared at his feet, then walked back in, backwards, came out, went back and continued like this, and I began to count because there might have been a system to what he was doing, it might have been a secret code. Uncle Hubert went in and out of the front stairway twenty-one times, then he ran off round the corner at full pelt. I stabled the horse, gave it a bag of hay and padded up the stairs. Standing there with the key at the ready I could hear Dad’s voice from inside the sitting room. It was loud and hysterical and penetrated the walls like a saw. I stood with my head against the door.
‘It’s not right. It’s simply unacceptable. It’s a scandal. Twenty-one years old!’
I couldn’t hear my mother’s voice. She was probably sitting on the sofa with her hands in her lap looking disconsolate.
Dad’s voice continued:
‘She could have been our daughter. It’s… it’s disgusting! Twenty-one years old!’
Then the house went quiet. I breathed in, opened the door as gently as I could and sneaked into my room. And that night I felt I was flying, or falling, falling backwards, with no one to catch me, into a black hole in the sky.
The bombshell fell the day after, on Monday, leftovers day. All of a sudden Dad put down his knife and fork and carefully wiped his mouth.
‘My God, Ahlsen, the branch manager, was furious today. At the weekend he had a very important contact over from Sweden, and on Sunday the client’s car was vandalised.’
‘Vandalised?’ Mum said.
‘Yes. Some good-for-nothing had broken off the badge at the front and scratched the paintwork. And it was an extremely exclusive car.
A Volvo 1800S. The kind the Saint drove, he told me, expecting me to be impressed to bits.’
‘Oh, yes,’ I confined myself to saying.
‘You don’t know anyone who does that sort of thing, do you?’ he said, turning to me suddenly and looking me in the eye.
‘Me? How? How should I know?’
‘No. Of course you don’t know anything about it.’ Dad looked at Mum. ‘They reported it to the police of course. They’ve had several reports of this kind of late. It’s a disgrace!’
After the meal I was given shore leave and I cycled like crazy over to Gunnar’s. I told him what had happened and we went on to Ola’s, dragged him out and panted off to Seb’s – he lived just round the corner. His mother opened the door and burst into laughter on seeing us.
‘Have you come from the moon?’ she laughed.
‘It’s about May 17,’ I said. ‘We might have to be flag-bearers.’
Ola gave me a stupified look, but Gunnar poked him in the back to concentrate his mind. There was a little gasp, but then he was quiet.
‘Sebastian’s in his room. He’s doing homework.’
We bustled in with Seb’s mother’s laughter ringing in our ears and almost scared the life out of him as we burst through his door.
‘W-w-we’ve been caught,’ Ola squealed. ‘They’ve f-f-found out!’
‘Don’t talk so loud, for Christ’s sake!’ Gunnar hissed.
‘What’ve they found out?’ Seb asked.
I told him about the whole business. Gunnar stood by the door making sure that no one was listening.
‘But they don’t know it was us, do they,’ Seb said at last.
‘Not yet. But we have to get rid of the stolen goods!’
Seb pulled out the box. We crowded round. On the top there were a few comics, then the glint of metal, polished like my mother and father’s silverware. It was pure Count of Monte Cristo stuff.
I took the decision.
‘We’ll have to dump it in the sea.’
‘Where th-th-then?’ Ola had the Volvo badge in his hand.
‘Filipstad,’ Gunnar suggested.
‘Bygdøy,’ I said. ‘Not so many people.’
The others nodded gravely. We admired our hunting trophies in solemn silence, stuffed them into all the pockets we had and stomped out with rictus smiles, like four overweight scrap dealers.
Seb’s mother reappeared from nowhere, without a word, and my body seemed to go numb, she had big knockers that wobbled long after she had come to a halt, and her skirt was tight across her hips and it had a slit and stuff.
‘Have you done your homework?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ Seb answered, his hands stuffed firmly down his pockets.
‘Hope you get to carry the flags then.’
He looked at her bemused. Ola was about to open his mouth, but I cut in.
‘Three people from every Class 7 are allowed to carry the flags,’ I said quickly. ‘And Ola plays the drums, so he can’t.’
And then we were out. We ran down the stairs and raced off towards Bygdøy. We parked our bikes behind the restaurant and went down to the water. We were alone apart from a dog barking in the distance. I could see over to Nesodden, the quayside, Hornstranda beach and the red beach hut. I shivered. Perhaps spring wasn’t here after all. It was like being in a warm room when someone opens the door and cold air streams in. It came from the fjord, which was dark and resembled corrugated iron.
‘Sh-sh-shall we chuck all of ’em?’ Ola asked warily.
‘All of them,’ Gunnar said with force.
Ola kicked a clump of seaweed.
‘D-d-do you think they’ll’ve t-t-taken fingerprints?’
‘Fingerprints!’ Seb laughed. ‘Where from?’
‘From the Volvo!’
‘They haven’t got any proof,’ I said. ‘Not once we’ve got rid of these.’
We ran up the beach to the craggy cliffs. There we stopped and scanned the horizon. No one around, the dog had gone, not a boat in sight, just a muddy barge that had been towed into Bundefjord.
‘Let’s throw stones first,’ Gunnar said. ‘And then we can chuck a few badges in between.’
A hail of objects fell over the water, Fiats, Mercs, Opels, Peu
geots, Morrises, a Vauxhall, Renaults, a Hillman and even a Moskwitch.
‘D’you think anyone will find th-them?’ Ola mumbled at length.
‘The current will carry ’em away,’ Gunnar said. ‘A long way out. Perhaps all the way to Africa.’
‘And then one day my dad’ll be sittin’ and fishin’ on his day off and catch a Volvo badge on his hook,’ Seb chuckled.
We cheered and laughed and sprinted to the other side of the cliffs, but stopped in our tracks and stared at something lying on the stones by the edge of the water.
It was a pile of clothes.
‘Is someone s-s-swimmin’ now?’ Ringo stammered. ‘Must be bloody c-c-cold!’
We scanned the fjord, but couldn’t see anything. The cold wind hit us at full force now that we were no longer sheltered.
‘Must be an ice bather, at least,’ George whispered.
There was no one in the water, though, or on land. So we walked over to the clothes, slowly, holding our breath, I had never walked so slowly before. Perhaps someone had seen us after all. As we approached we saw there was a suit lying there, a white shirt, a tie and underwear, and a pair of polished black shoes placed neatly alongside. And on top of the suit there was a note held down by a stone. We stopped again. Our hearts were going like cardboard strips between wheel spokes. I went on, picked up the note, with great caution, as if it were an injured butterfly. I read aloud, my voice left me with a terrible taste: ‘I have taken my own life. I have no family. The little I have left behind should go to the Salvation Army. No grieving. I have peace now.’
I put back the note and ran to the others, clung to Gunnar.
‘Shi-it! He’s walked into the sea!’
We turned, legged it up to the restaurant and banged on the door, but it was closed. No one opened up. We jumped on our bikes and cycled furiously to the car park and stopped by the telephone box. We squeezed in and found the police number on the first page of the directory. I picked up the receiver, Gunnar inserted the coin and Seb dialled the number. I was put through at once and went weak at the knees.
‘A man has drowned himself,’ my mouth said.
‘Who am I talking to, please?’ I heard.
‘Kim. Kim Karlsen.’
‘Where are you ringing from?’
‘From a telephone box. In Huk.’
‘Repeat what has happened.’
‘A man has drowned himself. His clothes are lying on the beach and he’s left a written note.’
‘Stay where you are and don’t touch anything. We’re on our way.’
We cycled back and ran over to the cliff again. The clothes were still there, neatly folded, just like at night when you go to bed. We sat down at a secure distance, kept a lookout across the fjord, but it gave nothing away. I shuddered at the thought of water quickly closing in and hair floating like seaweed as waves broke onto the shore.
‘Hope they don’t find the b-b-badges,’ Ola whispered.
‘I’m not gonna swim here any more, anyway,’ Gunnar said with a shiver. Soon afterwards the cops arrived. They came in two cars and there was also an ambulance. The constables jogged towards us. Two examined the clothes and two talked to us.
‘Was it you who called us?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘When did you spot the clothes?’
‘Half an hour ago. At least.’
‘How long had you been here before?’
‘Quarter of an hour or something like that.’
‘And you didn’t hear anything or see anything?’
‘No.’
‘What were you doing here?’
The others began to fidget. Ola’s left thigh twitched. I looked up at the policeman.
‘We were looking for shells,’ I said.
Then something else happened. A big police boat arrived on the shoreline. On the deck there were two divers. The uniformed officers strolled down to the water’s edge. We followed them, stopped a good way behind.
It didn’t take them long to find him. He was close to the shore. They emerged from the water with a blue naked body, as though the colour of the water had rubbed off. It was all stiff and the mouth was large and open. He can’t have been so old, younger than my father. They laid him on a stretcher – had to force him into position – covered him with a blanket and pushed him into the ambulance.
It was the first time I had seen a dead person.
Gunnar threw up as we were cycling home. None of us said a word, we just kept ourselves to ourselves. That night I lay wide awake in bed, thinking about death, I was a long way behind my eyes staring into a huge dark void, and I realised, without actually understanding it, that I was already beginning to die, it was a repugnant thought and I cried.
It was spring and we were waiting. We were waiting for Frogner Lido to open. They had already started cleaning the pools. This year I would dive from the ten-metre board, that was a cert, I had the jump in me now. But I had competitors. I cut out a picture of the Russian, Alexei Leonov, hanging in space, a murky, ghost-like photo I didn’t quite believe at first. It looked a bit like the first photographs Dad took before he learned how to focus. He floated like that for ten minutes, in the endless blue abyss, tied to his space vehicle by a thin thread, an umbilical cord. And not long after it was the Americans’ turn. This time the picture was sharper, more credible, because you could see the earth in the background. Edward White hung outside his capsule for twenty-one minutes. Afterwards he said he hadn’t felt at all giddy, it had almost been like swimming. And then I visualised the enormous ocean, I was standing at the bottom of a colossal sea, and far above me, at night, swam goldfish ten times bigger than us, large, golden ships sailing slowly by. Once they had been part of the sun. Perhaps that was also how the suicide victim in Bygdøy had seen it, before his eyes were extinguished. And we waited for the Hand Grenade Man, but the town was quiet, just cycle bells, birds and bands practising.
And, of course, we were waiting for May 17. The day arrived with torrential rain. We met by the fountain in Gyldenløvesgate at three in the morning. It was pouring down and the wind was coming from the west, but that was not important, so long as we could light our matches. Between us we had thirty-five firecrackers, twenty bangers and sixteen jumping jacks. We let off two firecrackers to get into the mood as it were. They sounded a bit feeble, but were loud enough to wake people close by. Then we moved to Urra Park. There was almost no one about, we heard just a few scattered bangs and some cars full of prommers honking their horns in the rain, celebrating the end of secondary school.
‘We’ll have to find somewhere dry,’ George said.
‘An entrance to a block of flats,’ I suggested.
We sneaked through the nearest doorway. The acoustics were good, a stone floor and stone walls. Ringo lit the match and put it to the fuse, it hissed, then I threw the whole thing towards the stairs and the postboxes. It exploded before we got out, a terrible bang, parting the hair at the back of our heads.
‘That’ll have w-w-woken them up,’ panted Ringo as we sprinted down Briskebyveien, past Galleri Albin Upp. We didn’t stop until we were in Urra Park. The clock on the church tower showed half past three. It was still raining. We threw a few bangers at the wall but they were already too soggy. We suspended the bombardment, listened, there was a lorry-load of prommers down in Holtegata. We ran to the railings and caught sight of the red lorry bumping its way up towards Hegdehaugsveien. At the back were a group of soaking wet students shouting at the top of their voices. Then it was just the rain we could hear, continuous, cold rain, falling like stair-rods from the sky, the wind had dropped.
‘Let’s save the rest for later,’ Seb said. ‘When the weather’s better.’
We lit a cigarette instead, and my empty stomach reacted like a spin drier, I was whirled around, and the others were the same, we banged into each other and spun off in all directions before regaining balance on our way down to Briskeby.
‘Perhaps the Hand Grenade Man’ll s
trike today,’ Seb exclaimed.
‘Shit,’ whispered Gunnar. ‘In the procession. A hand grenade in the middle of the procession. I’m not bloody doin’ the procession this year.’
‘Just think about me bangin’ the d-d-drum then!’ Ola said. ‘You c-c-can’t just c-c-clear off like that!’
‘Of course we’ll be in the procession, too,’ I said.
And then the tension was back, as though your spine was an electric pylon. My whole being hummed. And in one dreadful flash I saw bleeding bodies, smashed faces, dead children clutching their little flags. At that moment I heard the song in my head, the one Gunnar’s brother had played us. ‘Masters Of War’.
Then it was back home for breakfast and a change of clothes. It was no use, I looked forward to the time in the future when I could wear the clothes I liked, but it seemed an eternity away, and Mum and Dad’s voices were at my ear. At last I stood there wearing, from the bottom up, shiny black shoes, grey trousers with a crease, white shirt and blue tie, blazer with silver buttons, a huge ribbon across my chest, a flag in hand and sailor’s cap atop. No, not a cap, but hair plastered down with water like a dishcloth on my skull, yuk, my mother was jigging round me clapping her hands and my father was giving me that man-to-man look. I made for the door before the firecrackers set themselves off.
It was no longer raining as we marched out of the playground towards Stortorget, but the sky was ominously dark. The girls were wearing white dresses and red ribbons in their hair, they were shivering in the cold, and of course we weren’t flag-bearers, the creeps could do that, but Ringo was playing drums, we could hear that, he was wearing a blue uniform, knitted cap and almost as many medals as Oscar Mathisen. Lue was strutting alongside, sporting a black suit, see-through raincoat and a student’s cap plus tassel fastened to his shoulder with a large safety pin. Behind us walked Nina and Guri and all the plaits from 7C, they were scrutinised, and it would have been better if they had gone in front of us, it was not good to have them at our backs, wily creatures that they were. And then the whole band began to play, more off-key than the previous year, and shouts rang out and flags were waved.