First I tidy up around my post, chuck the rags soaked with white spirit in the red bin and throw all the other junk in the waste container. Then I take out a book from my bag and go behind the machine and sit down on a stack of pallets and open it. Right in front of me, the large double door is open to the next hall. The presses have been going all day, and it’s hot. Behind me, Samuel is standing at the belt taking the folded sheets out of the stacker, and then he works them on the vibration plate and lays them on the pallet. He is singing aloud to himself with his earplugs pushed well in. I try to catch what it is he’s singing, but he must have made up the song himself, because it’s like nothing ever known to the human race. I read and smoke and take an occasional look into the next concourse. Everything is running and humming. Jonny is standing by the console on Number Three with his finger on the button pushing up the speed. He is way behind schedule and will have trouble with management if he doesn’t deliver. Suddenly the paper flies, there is a bang and it catches fire. Jonny leaps screaming into the air, and his team run up the stairs to the gallery to put the fire out, and I put my book down, it is ten minutes past nine, and Jonny lets loose an ear-splitting howl that cuts through the drone of machinery, it’s like an animal’s scream, and he grabs a pallet, he is a discus thrower now, Jonny so small, the pallet so big, but it takes off, it takes off like a flock of sparrows through the hall and crashes against the foreman’s window, it’s like the sun lighting up a shower of glass, and then everything grows quiet, even though the other presses are still working. Now he’s a goner. I close the book and start to run.
I get there at the same time as the foreman: he is out of his office looking petrified, and I come from the opposite direction. I get there first, push in between the foreman and the press and block his path and start picking up sooty paper and fragments of glass.
‘Where’s Jonny?’ he says. I straighten up and feign a bewildered look. ‘Jonny? Who’s that? Does he work here?’ I mutter under my breath, not knowing if he can hear me or not. With Jonny gone into thin air and the whole crew on the gallery, I just couldn’t stand by and do nothing. The foreman casts around, but there is no one to talk to, so he turns to me, small bits of glass crunching under his shoes.
‘What the hell are you doing in here?’ he says. ‘Why aren’t you on Number Five where you belong?’
‘There was a paper break here, so I thought I could give a hand.’
‘Give a hand? You should be doing your own damn work!’ He is losing it, everyone is looking away, and I realise he is not going to say anything about the window even though he is up to his knees in broken glass and I am the only person around. But I’m not going to back down now, and that makes me feel calm.
‘I am doing my own work,’ I say.
‘What do you mean? Are you being insolent?’
‘I am not being insolent.’ I am just saying I do my work. No one can say any different.
‘I’ll tell you one thing, Sletten. I’ve been keeping an eye on you. You’re a troublemaker, are you not?’
‘You can call me whatever the hell you like, but you can’t say I don’t do my work.’
I crossed the line there. But this day started too well. I must have been an idiot to think it was going to last.
I drop what’s in my hands and walk towards the hall, where I can see Samuel’s back. He still stands singing and has not heard a thing. I start to count. When I get to five, the foreman shouts:
‘SLETTEN!’ I stop and turn round.
‘YOU’RE FIRED! YOU CAN GO HOME, NOW!’
‘Kiss my arse,’ I say.
That was quick. I go in past Samuel, and my legs are trembling. There is air instead of bones inside them. It’s a strange feeling. I can ask old Abrahamsen to help me get a job at the harbour. I am strong, I can lift sacks. I don’t know. What is certain is that my mother will be beside herself. I walk past the soundproof room where Goliath is sitting by the console filling in today’s log. He looks up as I pass. I don’t look back, just go to fetch my book and then on to my place at the rolls star and put the book in my bag. The old roll will soon be empty. I could just go away and let it run out, but everything has been so perfect today, and no one can say I don’t do my job, even if I don’t have it any more. I go over and swivel the star round, start up a new roll and when it’s up to the right speed, I let the splice go. It sticks. Davidsen, the foreman, can go hang himself. It’s a little early to make a join if you want to save paper, but it’s better than having the press run empty, and I don’t want to wait. I want to leave now.
When the join has gone through the web and been taken out at the folder, I grab my bag and walk along the press. Goliath looks up again, he sees the bag, he looks surprised and comes to the door.
‘That join was a little early, wasn’t it?’
‘I didn’t want to wait. I’m leaving.’
‘Leaving? Hell, you’ve only just got here. You’ve been away for more than a week.’
‘I’ve been fired.’
‘What are you talking about? No one gets fired from my team without me being told about it.’
‘Maybe so, but just the same, I was fired five minutes ago, by Davidsen.’
‘Goddamnit. HARALD!’ Harald comes running in with blue ink dripping from his spatula. He has been stirring one of the tubs, and now it’s running down his trousers. ‘YES?’ he shouts over the drone of the machine.
‘Stop the press. Nice and easy. And don’t move a fucking finger until I’m back.’ He heads for the door. Then he stops and turns to me.
‘And you stay right here.’
‘Don’t make any trouble for my sake. I don’t give a shit about Davidsen.’
‘Sometimes you’re such a fathead, Audun, it’s painful to watch. If you gave a little less of a shit, maybe you would get on better. But I can’t lose a good roll man because of some useless foreman. So you stay right here. Do you understand what I’m telling you?’
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Fine.’ Goliath pulls up his shoulders and rushes out the door, and the roar of the press subsides, the valves let out steam, and the web of paper goes white, and then it stops and it’s quiet. Samuel looks up from his post by the stacker, he is still singing, and now I can hear what song it is, it’s ‘Johansen’s Jumper’. Trond looks up from the book he is reading. He borrowed it off me, and I borrowed it off Arvid. He’ll get it back, one day.
‘What’s that noise?’ Trond says.
‘It’s Samuel singing.’
‘Oh, shit.’
I stay at my post by the rolls star. This is just crap. I want to get out of here. You do it yourself, or you leave. That’s the way it is, and I want to go.
‘What’s going on?’ Trond says. ‘Why have we stopped?’ I shrug and stay there. I am the only person sitting. The others are standing, scratching their heads, and then Goliath and the foreman come in through the door. They are yelling at each other. Goliath is waving his arms around as he walks towards the press. I grab my bag and stand up.
‘Sit back down,’ Goliath says. ‘This is a fag break.’ He fetches his chair from inside the soundproof room and places it right in the middle of the floor with his back to the foreman. The others do the same, and they sit down, take out their tobacco and roll cigarettes. Davidsen is the only person standing now, and his face is beetroot-red.
‘Hey, Odd!’ he shouts. ‘Start the press now!’
Goliath lights his cigarette, inhales and blows out.
‘Jesus, that was really wonderful,’ he says. ‘Today it’s been one thing after another, I haven’t even had the time to smoke a cigarette. We’re spoiling management, that’s what we’re doing.’
‘Odd! You heard what I said! I’m in charge here!’
No one can see him except for me. He is sweating, his white coat is too tight on him. He runs a hand through his thinning hair, and Goliath gets up and goes over to the press, pulls the spatula knife from his work pants and cuts the paper just above the star. Swish it goes! A
nd then the two ends hang in the air. He puts the spatula knife in its pocket and sits down with his back to the foreman. Davidsen is close to crying. He looks at his watch. Very soon it will be too late to fire up. There won’t be time enough to wash the press down and start afresh before the shift is over. His shoulders crumple.
‘Audun, you’ll do the splice. That’s your job.’
‘I don’t work here,’ I say.
‘Don’t try to be funny. Do as I tell you.’ I look at Goliath. He nods. I get up from my chair and go over to the star and put it in neutral, pull the paper until I have enough to work with. Then I take out the sticky tape and make a strong join.
‘OK, let’s go,’ Goliath says, and stubs out his cigarette. ‘Get those blankets wet.’
Afterwards he comes up to me. ‘Do you know what, Audun,’ he says, ‘you’re a troublemaker.’
‘At least I do my job,’ I say, and then he smiles his wry smile. Maybe his mouth just is like that.
17
FOR THREE DAYS it has been snowing, and then it turns bone cold. Everything is different, it feels warmer down the stairs to the rotary press, and when evening comes, the doors open, casting yellow shadows, and my footprints shine in the dark on my way home from the late shift. My body is tired in a different way, time passes, that’s why, I know, and my mother doesn’t play opera as much and watches more TV. There are times I miss Kirsten Flagstad and Jussi Björling, but Jussi is taboo now. My hands have cracked up, so the ink doesn’t really wash off. Touching my shoulders and thighs is like rubbing stone, and then I think about what those hands might do to Rita’s skin or even Fru Karlsen’s, and I find some sticky mess in my mother’s cabinet and smear myself with it. And yet there is a change I have been waiting for that doesn’t happen.
I lie in bed under the duvet with only my nose out over the top and see the starry frost on the old windows. We were supposed to have changed them for a new kind, the ones you operate with a handle and tilt, but my mother didn’t want to spend the money, and now she has fallen out with the neighbours who think it looks ugly and unsymmetrical. Before I’ve even considered getting out of bed, the telephone rings. I lie back waiting for my mother to answer it. She doesn’t. The flat is completely silent apart from the shrill ringing tone that comes up the stairs and into my room. If only I had remembered to close my door last night, then perhaps I would not have heard it, but now it’s too late.
I don’t want to, and then I have to. I thump my fist on the pillow, thrust the duvet aside, jump out and run downstairs in my underpants only, knowing the phone is bound to stop the second I pick it up. It always does. But it keeps ringing, and I grab the receiver and shout into it: ‘Yes, hello, what is it?’
‘Jesus, you got a hangover?’ It’s Arvid. I am frozen, I cover one foot with the other and try to make myself as small as I can, but I am one seventy-eight tall and practically naked.
‘Shit, don’t you know the working class have a right to weekends off? By the way, this is a rare honour.’
‘And the same to you. Anyway, you’re not supposed to rest, you’re supposed to work the time you’re on this earth. You must seize the day and the hour, you have to go skiing with me in the woods. The snow is great, and I need some air. Imagine a Kvikklunsj chocolate bar and cocoa in Lilloseter or Sinober.’
At least he’s trying. And I think: come on, Arvid, and say:
‘Sinober’s too far. And I haven’t had my skis on for two years. I don’t even know where they are. Isn’t it damned cold?’
‘Don’t forget Ingstad out on the tundra. In the mornings he had to thaw the dogs over the fire. That was cold. Minus fifteen is more like a sauna. Find your skis, you’ve got them in the cellar, I know you have. See you out by the military camp in an hour. Green Swix is good for waxing. Goodbye.’
He hangs up, and there is only silence. I stand listening. Where is my mother? I go upstairs and knock on her bedroom door, and when she doesn’t answer, I open it. The room is empty, the bed’s been made. I look at my watch. It’s just nine o’clock, and it’s a Sunday, and then the telephone rings again. I’m still half naked, every room is cold, and I curse and have to go back downstairs.
It’s Kari.
‘Is Mamma there?’ She says Mamma.
‘No, in fact she’s not, I don’t know where she is. I’ve just got up. The telephone keeps ringing, I’m standing here stark naked, and I’m freezing my arse off.’
‘Audun?’
‘Yes.’
‘I want to come home, Audun. I don’t want to spend Christmas here. I want to come home.’ She whispers the last words. ‘I think I have to hang up,’ she says quickly, and then it’s the dialling tone. I stand with the receiver in my hand, listening, and all I hear is the beep.
‘Kari?’ I say before I even start thinking, and then I slam the receiver down and go upstairs to my room and search for clothes. I find a thick jumper and a pair of old skiing pants at the back of the wardrobe and red knee socks. Then I go down to the kitchen and put the kettle on for coffee. Where did I last see the ski wax? I go to the worktop and pull out drawer number two under the cutlery and there they are: small tins of red, blue and green Swix. In the country it was always the firewood box we rummaged through, when something went missing, and here, when the odd item disappears, it ends up below the cutlery in drawer number two. The skis are on the fire escape outside the kitchen window, I suddenly remember. They have been there for two years. I pick up the green Swix, hold it in my hand, weigh it, and then I see the photograph of Kari with her newborn baby on the wall above the kitchen table. I put the tin back, close the drawer and go out into the hall and dial Arvid’s number. He picks up.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘Is your father there?’
‘My father?’
‘Yes, your father. Can I have a word with your father?’
‘Christ. OK. Don’t go away.’ He puts down the phone, and I hear him walk into the living room and call up the stairs, and then all goes quiet, and after a couple of minutes a door is shut, and Arvid’s father says:
‘Hello?’
‘Hello, it’s Audun. I know this is a little over the top, but I have to ask. Would it be possible to borrow your car for two or three hours today? It’s my sister in Kløfta. I think there’s a crisis, and I need to go. The bus takes too long. I’ll be careful. Word of honour.’
‘Well, actually I was going to use it myself today, but I suppose it can wait. It’s important, you say?’
‘I think it is. It would be cool of you. I have no one else to ask.’
‘Then you’d best be going right away.’
‘I’m already there. Thank you very much.’
I guess a reefer jacket and red knee stockings is not the latest fashion, but there is no time to change, and I lock the door as I leave. Wherever my mother is, she has her own key. And then I remember the kettle on the stove and have to go back in. I hurry through the hall, and in the kitchen I pull the kettle off the hotplate and close the lid with a bang. I start to sweat under my jacket by the stove and remember that this was the day I had planned to stay in bed and just take things one after the other. I slice off a chunk of brown bread before I leave and chew on it as I lock up and hurry along the Sing-Sing gallery.
I come out of the tower at ground level and run in the snow between the houses and across Veitvetveien. There are two cars stranded by the kerb with their iced-up windows and starter motors sounding like bad attacks of bronchitis as the drivers inside twist the keys. The frosty mist from my mouth fans out in the air, and coming down Veitvetsvingen, I see Arvid standing on the road by the car with the key dangling from his mitten.
‘If there’s a crisis, I’ll go with you,’ he says.
‘Sorry about the skiing trip.’ I rub my ears, there is an ice-cold wind, as there always is, and I haven’t worn a cap for years.
‘No problem. At least I’ll get some fresh air, I’ll just roll down the window.’
‘Oh no, you don’t.’
/> We pull the grey tarpaulin off the car. It is unwieldy and stiff, and when we fold it there is a cracking noise, and with a struggle we force it into the boot. The windows are ice-free, and the car starts first time. There is no nonsense with Frank Jansen’s car.
‘You can tell your father I’ll pay for the petrol.’
‘He’d expect nothing less,’ Arvid says.
We drive round the bend and along Grevlingveien towards the shopping centre and then up to Trondhjemsveien. I switch on the heating and the fan starts humming, and then there is a smell of something burning, and only very slowly does the car thaw out. We keep our mittens on. The road is nearly empty, only the occasional lorry steams past, and then we are lost in a spray of snow, and I have to cut the speed to keep the car on the road, and then suddenly the road gets all slippery, and I really have to concentrate.
Driving with your mittens on is difficult. My hands slip on the steering wheel and I clench them so hard my whole body goes tense, and my neck feels so stiff I can hardly turn my head. We drive without speaking. Everything out there is white, but the roads have been cleared, and the trees that glide past bristle with rime and crystallised snow. I give up on the mittens, pull them off, and the wheel is cold and damp against my palms, and we can see the white smoke curling upwards from the chimneys on every rooftop. We drive past Grorud, with the church, and the school down in the valley, and Lake Stemmerud up in the woods, where we used to swim in the summer. I almost drowned there once, but then it was thirty degrees plus. I was diving and hit my head on the bottom and didn’t have the strength to swim ashore, so instead I crawled along the bottom until my lungs were screaming. It was just my luck I didn’t crawl the wrong way. It was so embarrassing I didn’t tell anyone.
Arvid says nothing until Gjelleråsen Ridge:
‘Is it a serious crisis, you think?’
‘James Dean is no good. I’ve told them all along, but no one will listen. I don’t get what a great bird like Kari’s doing with him. Maybe we have to do a little kidnapping. Are you up for it?’ I try to laugh, but it’s not funny.