The girl in the passenger seat survived. She wept and said they hadn’t touched a drop. I don’t believe that for one moment. Egil had just turned fifteen the autumn before and didn’t have a licence yet. After we moved to Oslo he went back as often as he could when he was old enough to go alone. I didn’t. I only go there when I have to.
My sister moved out just after the accident. She is four years older than me, and of course she too had to go back. Now she lives with her boyfriend in Kløfta. He sells second-hand cars and makes money. I am sure he beats her, but I have never seen anything, and Kari does not say a word. If ever I catch him I’ll beat him up. That won’t cost me much. I have been training for years. With my newspaper money I bought a bench and weights.
I tell my mother.
‘I’ll give him a thrashing,’ I say. And she listens to me and then she quotes Lars Ekborg, the Swede who has a talk show on the radio where he goes on and on about all kinds of shit happening in the world and always rounds off by saying: ‘You’ve got to be tough, you really do!’
‘Is that how you want it?’ she laughs. Sure, it’s easy to make fun, but I know what I know.
I remember Egil and me playing on the living-room floor in our old house. There was a massive cupboard we used to crawl under. My grandfather, who worked at the sawmill in the next village, had made it himself out of some dark wood and there were glass doors. It was a fine cupboard, his greatest achievement, but it must have drained his creativity, for he never made a piece of furniture again.
Then my father came in. It was late, and we should have been in bed by then. He leaned against the door frame and looked at us with a stupid smile on his face.
‘Are there any good children here?’ he slurred. He seemed drunk. I had seen him drunk many times before. I knew the signs.
‘Oh yes,’ Egil said, crawling out from under the cupboard where he had been hiding. He was such an idiot, he would have said yes to anything. I sat on the floor and watched my father leaning heavily against the door frame. I did not trust him.
He straightened up and staggered towards us across the carpet.
‘See this,’ he said, and shoved his hand into his breast pocket and pulled out some banknotes. ‘Here’s a little something for two good boys.’ He stumbled forward with a big grin and pushed a blue five-kroner note at each of us.
‘Oh, thank you, thank you,’ Egil cried, and started running round and jumping up and down on the floor. ‘Oh, thank you very, very much, Dad, you’re so kind!’ he shouted. I felt the crisp crackle of the note in my hand. Five kroner was a lot of money to me. Just a little more, with what I had already saved up, and it would be enough to buy the shiny bow I had looked at so many times in the sports shop by the station.
I watched my father standing in the middle of the floor with his hands on his hips and his head at an angle. He didn’t look so drunk now, he was watching us closely and there was a glint in his eye I did not like. Suddenly he burst into laughter, and then his face froze, he came back across the floor and snatched the notes from our hands and said:
‘That’s enough fun for tonight!’ He turned on his heel without a stagger, stuffed the notes back in his breast pocket and marched to the kitchen as straight as a flagpole. ‘Now, get to bed, it’s late,’ he said.
At first my brother stood with his mouth wide open, then he began to howl like the baby he was. ‘Waaaah!’ he wailed. ‘Waaah!’ Tears gushed from his eyes, and I went over to him and punched him in the shoulder.
‘You idiot,’ I said, punching him hard a second time. ‘You goddamn birdbrain, shut up!’ I hissed, and then I walked past him on my way upstairs to bed.
‘I never did anything to you!’ he yelled after me.
It was my last year as Wata, Davy Crockett’s friend of the Creek tribe. As soon as I was on my own, I was Wata. I was twelve years old, and I went up the squeaking stairs to the first floor of what I thought of as our log cabin, and I hated it now, it felt so cramped I could not breathe.
Inside our room, I stood by the window gazing out at the dark edge of the forest, longing to be there. There were paths running through it I knew better than the house I lived in. That night there was a moon, big and yellow, and I lingered and kept watch as Wata would have done, and then I got into bed without cleaning my teeth and hoped that Egil would not be up before I had gone to sleep. I pinched my eyes shut and thought of the shiny bow I would never have.
‘Shit!’ I said aloud in the darkness. ‘You goddamn paleface!’ But that did not help much, and I knew that Wata’s days were numbered. He could not be my companion any longer. I saw him glide through the night, fleet-footed and silent through the trees on his way back into the books, his brown body and his three white feathers gleaming in the moonlight.
Now Tommy has his newspapers under control, his sister gives him a hug, the yellow stripes of his jacket shining, and they disappear round a corner. I take twenty papers from the barrow, fold them under my arm and start working my way along the first houses in Grevlingveien. This is what I like. To be left in peace, feel the morning air on my face, feel every step, how my arms and legs move, and the morning so still, and I don’t have to think about anything. My round goes like clockwork, the shining door handles line up and I feed them with newspapers. I have never missed a single one, never given anyone a paper they shouldn’t have, and I know every door sign so well that at first I don’t even remember what they say, just what they look like, the shape of the letters, the colours and where on the door they are. I can think of a house, picture it, choose that door and then read the sign any time, anywhere, asleep in bed, at school, on holiday, it’s in my bones, and that’s fine with me.
I cross Veitvetsvingen down by the red telephone kiosk. I have a quick look under the grate on the floor to see if any change has fallen through, a habit I guess I’ll never quit, and as always I find two or three kroner. But I blush and hope there is no one watching me from behind their curtains.
There are only terraced houses along the road, and a few years ago I thought maybe it was posher to live here rather than in the tenement blocks, until I realised that the blocks were just two terraced houses on top of each other, and inside they were identical. At the bottom of the hill, on the left, there is a terrace of eight flats. Arvid lives in the one next to last. It’s the only house with balconies, and in the old days Arvid was nervous it would make him upper class, because nobody we knew lived in a house with a balcony. But I didn’t reckon three and a half square metres of balcony was enough to make him upper class, especially since his father worked night shifts at the Jordan brush factory. Arvid was happy to hear that. Under no circumstances did he want to be upper class, and as far as that goes, we both stand firm.
I walk up the flagstone path and round the back of Arvid’s house. There are four subscribers here. His father is not among them, but as I pass I stop at the kitchen window and peer in. It’s dark inside, so he is not home from the night shift yet. I turn at the end of the house and on to the road again, and look up at Arvid’s window on the first floor, pick up a pebble and throw it against the pane. I hear it hit the glass and Arvid is there at once. I don’t know anyone who’s such a light sleeper, and he is often tired at school. He sticks out his dark head, I roll up a newspaper tight and skim it at an angle like a boomerang, and it makes a perfect arc, and Arvid snatches it out of the air before it hits the window frame. We have done this before.
‘Latest news from Vietnam,’ I say.
‘I guess they’re bombing Hanoi again.’ He yawns and runs his hand through his hair which is curly and very thick.
‘You bet,’ I say. Arvid is in the National Liberation Front group at school. He can go on for hours about it. I am a passive member, I have too many other things on my mind.
‘I’ll read it later,’ he says, ‘I have stuff to do. I’ve got to go.’
‘What sort of stuff?’
‘You’ll see it when you see it.’
‘See you at scho
ol,’ I say and he salutes me with a clenched fist behind the window. I walk towards the barrow and then turn on my heel, but he is gone and I grab the handle and trudge round the bend back towards Grevlingveien.
Morning is coming, but there is not much light yet, it’s October, after all, and the early risers are coming down the road towards the Metro. I say hello and one of them looks at my hair and another one at my trousers and is annoyed because I am late, but I splay my hands and say it’s not my fault, and then a few papers tumble to the ground. The man looks up, rolls his eyes, and I mutter a silent curse.
Old Abrahamsen comes out on to the step and angrily slams the door behind him. Every day he does this and has done so for as long as I can remember. He works at the harbour and is carrying his rucksack. He used to live in Vika, not far from where he worked, straight out of the door, past Oslo West station and there he was, but they demolished Vika and now he has to travel into town every morning, and even though it’s fifteen years since he had to move, he is still fuming. The Metro is too newfangled, so he walks up Trondhjemsveien and takes the number 30 bus as he has been doing for almost two decades.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘Just in time for the paper – read it on the bus,’ and he smiles and says:
‘Well, you know, Aftenposten is really not my thing, but you have to keep up to date.’
I know, he is a socialist, but he is so stingy he has literally weighed the Aftenposten and the left-wing Arbeiderbladet and found that with Aftenposten he gets more kilos for his money. He puts the paper under his arm and all of a sudden is a much happier man and is off down the road, the rucksack bumping on his back.
I am seriously late now and pick up the pace and stop greeting people. The road narrows, the last houses are at the edge of Dumpa, where Condom Creek flows through, and on the other side, the ground rises in a steep arch up to the women’s prison at the top. Heavy and sombre, it faces Groruddalen valley and the ribbon of morning light that’s stealing in over Furuset, and only a solitary lamp burns in the prison courtyard. It seems cold, the light, and I go cold myself, for the mere thought of so many women locked in behind those thick walls is painful, and I wonder what they recall when they wake up in the morning, what they speak about over dinner, what they think about when they go to bed at night. I picture people in chains, and know it’s not like that, but what do they see when they look out the windows?
Fru Karlsen is standing on the steps as I come round the corner to the very last house. She is smiling and I know she has been waiting for me. She often does. She is holding an envelope in her hand, and when I pass her the newspaper she puts the envelope in my jacket pocket and says: ‘I was away for your birthday, you know, but better late than never. Many happy returns.’
I didn’t know she had been away, but she has found out when my birthday is and made a point of remembering it and now she is giving me a present. It feels awkward. Only my mother gives me birthday presents and that’s the way it’s always been. And then this lady. She smells nice. She can’t be a day over forty, she’s good-looking, too. I feel my pulse racing, and the words I was going to say fall back into my mouth and are gone. But she smiles and has a good look at my checked trousers and my hair and smiles even more and then she strokes my cheek before she closes the door. My cheek burns and I am not able to say thank you, or anything else for that matter, just stand there looking at the door where it says Karlsen. I know she has a husband, but I have never seen him. He is probably an idiot. The heat from my face spreads down my neck to my chest.
I open the envelope and there is a hundred-kroner note inside. Hell, a hundred kroner, that’s too much. My legs start to itch, I have to get out of here. I dare not turn round. She might be standing behind the curtains watching, maybe expecting some sign from me.
Grevlingveien is a dead end street, but a footpath at the end leads up to Trondhjemsveien, alongside the Metro track. I leave the barrow and walk up far enough to be out of Fru Karlsen’s sight and lean against the wire mesh fence by the path, take the tobacco from my jacket, roll a cigarette and light it. Behind the fence the hill rises sharply, and there is a white house on the top where the prison governor lives, and the fields beneath have always had that smell of burnt withered grass in the spring. Now they smell of damp and mould. I shudder and take a deep drag and after a while I feel better. But a hundred kroner, that’s not good.
I finish my cigarette and kill it with my shoe on the gravel, shoot a glance up towards Trondhjemsveien before I have to go back down, and there he is. There are maybe thirty metres between us, and I have not seen him for five years. But I know him at once. The black hair, the snappy black suit he seems to have slept in, the nondescript grey shirt without a tie. His suntanned neck and grey stubble; the unnaturally blue eyes I can’t make out just now, but I know they’re looking at me without even blinking. I cannot move, and he is standing stock still. I try to think, but nothing comes to mind, and he takes two steps down the footpath, and then I shout:
‘STOP!’ He stops, grabs the straps of his rucksack and waits. He is so dark, and as slim as a blade and not like anything else. Behind him, I can see the high-rises in Rødtvet and behind them just the forest and more forest and I know that’s where he has come from. Had I been standing close to him now, I would have caught the smell of bonfire and pine trees and tobacco, and something more that could only be him. But I’m not standing close, and he scratches his chin, shakes his head, and I realise he hasn’t recognised me until now. That’s no surprise. I am much taller than when I was thirteen, I wear different clothes and my hair is different. He raises his hand as if to salute me, like an Indian would, and walks on a few paces, and I’m almost certain he’s smiling.
‘NOT ONE MORE STEP!’ I shout. ‘WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE? GO AWAY!’ I raise my clenched fists, and my body tells me I am stronger than him. He stops, resting his hands on his hips and tips his head to the side in a pose I know so well, and it always unsettled me, which is what it’s supposed to do. I stand with my fists in the air, and maybe he too feels unsettled. At any rate he turns and heads back for the main road, and I stay there until I am certain he has gone, and only then do I hurry down, back to the houses. I’m just a few steps along the footpath when I hear his laughter, and it makes my blood run cold. I cannot restrain myself and break into a run.
3
I CROSS TRONDHJEMSVEIEN, walk past the church at Grorud and down the hills. I took the Metro today, I didn’t want to walk the whole way, I couldn’t do it. I sat all the way up looking straight ahead of me. My neck is aching, and still it’s a long walk. Something growing in my chest makes me short of breath, forcing me to swallow again and again, but it doesn’t help. I gaze into the cemetery where Egil is buried. It’s hard to walk past without stopping, but when I do, I don’t know what to think about him being dead. Like I always do, I stand there with my mind going blank and a wave of heat rushing up from my legs. I walk down the hill and it’s as if someone is staring at me from behind.
I have changed my checked flares for regular Wranglers. I didn’t have to, but still, it’s a relief.
I come down the hill on to the brow and the narrow valley opens up and branches off onto Østre Aker vei, and just ahead of me is the yellow school building right by Grorud railway station and Grorud ironware factory barely visible behind the hillock to the left. On the other side of the railway line, there are the star-shaped houses where many of my classmates live: May Brit, Bente and Bente and Henrik. Their fathers are train drivers, or something else to do with the railway, and they all know each other. The school is at the bottom of the valley, and, to the left, beneath the cliff, the teachers live in their terraced houses, and a few writers too: Tor Obrestad, Einar Økland and Paal-Helge Haugen. Like birds on a wire, they sit in their windows looking up to the sky with the sun on their faces, holding on to the secret, and I envy them so furiously it makes my legs tremble. I have Haugen’s Anne in my rucksack. It’s like nothing else. So far, Gorky has been my h
ero, My Childhood the book above books, but Anne is lying there, in the book, seeing herself and the world through a haze of fever, and I can’t get her out of my head, it makes me think about when I was thirteen, in bed with yellow fever in a house I hated more than anything else.
There is a cold wind blowing through Groruddalen, a constant blast of air all the way from the sea right up to Gjelleråsen Ridge, sweeping along Trondhjemsveien, chilling Østre Aker vei, and even the toughest boy wears a cap in winter to keep his ears from freezing to glass. It’s still only October, but I am shivering where I stand looking almost right down into the schoolyard. The flag is flying though I can’t imagine why. A gust of wind comes and unfurls it and I laugh out loud because the flag is red and blue with a large yellow star in the centre, it’s a rebel flag, it gives me a jolt just to see it there, and from where I am standing it’s clear that the halyard has been cut. If they want the flag taken down, they’ll have to climb the pole first. I hurry down the last hill.
Down in the schoolyard, I see Arvid standing alone in the corner between the gymnasium and the slope Fru Haugen usually comes tripping down, her red hair on fire by the trees on the way to her music lessons. Arvid’s leaning against the wall, smoking and looking at the flagpole and the NLF colours flying. It is beautiful and unsettling at the same time; he smiles, a little cautiously, it seems, stubs out the cigarette and comes up to me. We are both late for different reasons, almost everyone has gone in for the first lesson and there are no teachers around. Together we walk to the hall with our bags over our shoulders.
‘OK then,’ I say, ‘that’s what you had to do?’
‘Yes,’ he says, ‘and now I guess there will be trouble.’
‘Did you expect anything else?’
‘Hell, no.’
And trouble there is. We have history with Wollebæk. After half an hour Arvid and Bente have tangled him in a long debate about imperialism and India’s development after Gandhi and then there is a knock at the door and in comes the headmaster. He reads out two names. They get to their feet and go with him. The two are Arvid and Henrik. When the bell rings they still haven’t returned, but outside, on the steps, we see them standing by the flagpole arguing with the headmaster. He wants them to climb up the pole to bring down the flag. They refuse. Students come streaming out and stand around them in a circle. The yard is packed, the headmaster waving with his hands, he’s warning them. Arvid and Henrik turn their back on him. Many Young Conservatives shout Boo! And the Young Socialists shout Victory To The NLF! but everyone else is just waiting to see what will happen. The headmaster turns to the crowd and starts to speak about 1814 and the founding fathers at Eidsvoll and the WAR and those who fought in it and what they would think if they saw foreign colours flying from a Norwegian flagpole. He waves his finger like a demagogue and stabs his points home, but his voice is unimpressive, it cracks on the high note, and those standing close to him, they grin and cover their mouths with their hands, and some at the back of the crowd jeer loudly, and Arvid turns and shouts: