He was standing on the steps in his underwear, his head tilted and his hands down by his sides.
‘Come here, Egil,’ he smiled. Egil grinned with relief and went over to the steps. My father tousled his hair, and Egil leaned against his hip.
‘Where’ve you been so early, Egil?’
‘We’ve been playing cards at Frank’s house.’
‘You don’t say. And you dropped the cards in the swimming pool, did you, and you had to wade in after them?’
Egil laughed. ‘Frank hasn’t got a swimming pool, you know that.’
‘Wow, you don’t say? Where the hell have you been fishing then?’ my father said and hurled Egil against the wall. I felt the thump through my whole body and Egil was winded, he turned white and then he began to sob.
‘Now watch carefully, Egil,’ my father said. ‘Audun, come here.’ I looked at him. I put down the rods and took the box of bait and the extra hooks from my pocket and put them down too before I walked towards the steps. It was a distance of ten metres, and I took my time. I motioned to Egil to keep his mouth shut, and the minute I turned round, my father’s hand came out of nowhere and hit my face. I was knocked backwards and my cheek went numb, I couldn’t feel a thing and then it went hot and then there was a pain.
‘Are you watching carefully, Egil?’
‘Yes,’ Egil said.
I rose to my knees, I thought, I’m getting out of here, and then he lashed out again and hit me on the side of the head and my ears were ringing and I could barely hear Egil shouting:
‘We were fishing in the reservoir! That’s what we were doing, but it was Audun’s idea. It was. Cross my heart.’
I was ten years old at the time, Egil was eight and when school started after the Easter holidays I was still in bed, and every move I made was painful. Now the sexton was turning the crank and the coffin sank into the earth. Kari threw a bunch of roses and the priest threw soil. I turned and walked up to the church and out through the gate and stood outside on the road smoking and trying to think, but everything I touched was oily and just slipped out of reach.
Sleet gave way to rain. I held the cigarette in the hollow of my hand, and my confirmation coat had grown too small, it made me feel fat, it annoyed me, and then they were finished over in the cemetery. The small flock came slowly up to the gate and there they stopped, and the priest shook their hands one by one and said a few words. I couldn’t hear him, but the look on his face was mild and sympathetic, and eventually he came up to me and said:
‘So, you didn’t want to pay your brother your final respects?’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said. We were the same height and looked each other straight in the eye.
‘I know that when this life is over and the next begins, then there shall be peace,’ he said, and he was clearly pleased with his words. I looked into his face. If ever I wanted to punch someone, that would be now.
‘Kiss my arse,’ I said.
10
IT’S FRIDAY. ARVID calls and wants me to go with him to the club. He sounds worked up. I am tired, I sleep badly, and when I can’t sleep, I read. I have started Hemingway and Arthur Omre, but it’s too much. After the newspaper round and school, my brain is spinning. Still I say yes.
The club is in the shopping centre on the second level, and the entrance is right behind the spiral staircase leading up to the third. The staircase is a free-standing tower with a footbridge from the top to the market square, and Olav Selvaag, the entrepreneur, liked the tower so much that when Veitvet was finished he used it as a logo, and all his vehicles have it painted on the door.
An electric sign says Linderud Youth Club, even though Linderud is the next station. It’s childish, I know, but it has always annoyed me, and when I come up the slope by the post office and the music school, Arvid is standing by the staircase waiting. Several young people walk past him on the way in, but Arvid’s leaning against the railing, smoking in his yellow cord trousers and black jacket. Under the jacket he has a Fair Isle sweater and a large loose scarf round his neck. His hair is long now, if that’s the way to say it, because his curls grow out in all directions, and he is wearing a beret, which his grandfather gave him for Christmas last year. It’s not often he has the nerve to wear it.
He looks cool. The girls in his class dig him, but he is so shy he doesn’t get it, and that’s why it all comes to nothing. I may be wrong, though. Perhaps he doesn’t tell me everything, I don’t tell him everything, but what I do know is that everyone who passes through the door into the club is at least two years younger than we are, and I don’t understand what we’re doing here. It’s a year since we last came, and I said a sleepy yes on the phone because it seemed important to him.
I walk up to him and say:
‘Hell, Arvid, all they do in there is play table tennis and dance, and they dance like shit to music we hate. And I don’t even like table tennis.’
‘We’re not staying. We’ll be off after a while.’
‘So why go at all? It’s not even certain they’ll let us in. We’re over eighteen.’
‘Just for a little while.’
I should have stayed home. I should have lain down for an hour to sleep off the anxious feeling that’s in my stomach, but then they do let us in. The club leader is standing in the doorway looking sceptical, he is closer to us in age than most of the kids who hang out at the club. He stops us and asks how old we are. It’s embarrassing.
‘Eighteen.’
‘When?’
‘Just turned.’
‘OK, but we don’t want any trouble. You haven’t been to Geir’s bar first, have you?’
‘Are you crazy?’
‘And no fooling with the girls.’
We go in, and I stop in the middle of the hall. ‘Shit, Arvid, I’m not up for this.’
‘Just for a little while.’
The place is packed to the rafters. All the rooms are crowded with people, and I don’t know what to do with myself, so I stand in a doorway watching some snot-nosed kids playing table tennis. Arvid has gone off after checking out the room. The discotheque is right at the back, the music banging into the hall every time someone opens a door, and many turn to look at him as he hurries further in. He has shoved his beret into his jacket pocket, but still he looks cool.
Most people in the room I have seen before, but I don’t really know them, and many look up at me in surprise, and one calls out:
‘Hey, Audun, I thought you’d retired?’ His name is Willy, and he is one of those who hang around the Metro station. He is sixteen and was a friend of Egil’s. I always thought he was a slimy bastard. Whenever he came to our door to ask for Egil, I left him standing outside on the Sing-Sing gallery, even when it was pelting down.
I shrug and look past him and see Tommy’s sister sitting in a corner talking with two other girls. She looks back at me, and I blush, and Willy puts down his table tennis racket and carves his way through. He comes straight over to me and smiles. I can’t for the life of me think why: maybe because I am the oldest person in the room, and he wants to impress. He has shoulder-length blond hair, a little longer than mine, and he takes hold of my arm and says:
‘Shit, Audun, that was a bloody shame about your brother. Egil was a dead cool guy.’
I remove his hand. ‘Beat it,’ I say.
He doesn’t like that. He gets confused and looks round to see who has heard what I said, but the table tennis balls click to and fro, and sometimes they bounce on to the floor, and the players shout and laugh and are having a good time.
‘Come on, Audun, surely I have a right to say something. Shit, Egil was my best friend.’
‘Did you hear what I said? Scram!’ I push him away, he staggers backwards, and now it’s hard for him to pretend nothing is happening. The room goes quiet, and those inside it turn and look to the doorway where I am standing. It’s fine by me. I have no business with them. Willy crouches down and gets sly, he smiles, he w
ants to fight, one word from me, and he will fight. That’s fine, too, I don’t give a shit, and then Arvid comes down the hall, his face in a frenzy.
‘They’re not here,’ he says.
‘Who isn’t?’
‘Unless you’re one of them?’ he says and walks straight up to Willy and slams him against the wall.
‘Hey, give me a break,’ Willy says, ‘I had nothing to do with it!’
I am completely at sea. Arvid suddenly goes wild, his thin body tense like a wire, he can’t keep his feet down, and he grabs Willy around the neck and pins him to the wall.
‘One of who, Arvid?’
‘One of those who beat up my dad. Just two hours ago. He was on his way home from his shift, right, and when he came out of the Metro, this gang went for him. I guess he didn’t think their jokes were funny. How the hell would I know! And now he’s at home in bed, and he looks a mess.’ He starts shaking Willy like a rag doll, and I don’t understand why Willy is just standing there looking scared instead of fighting back. He must be stronger than skinny Arvid and much more used to a scrap, but he shouts:
‘I wasn’t with them. It was Dole and the others.’
‘Dole and the others? For fuck’s sake, Dole is your great pal, isn’t he? You knucklehead!’ Arvid yells, and now he is pounding Willy, and it looks so awkward, and no one is playing table tennis any more, they’re all on their feet roaring and cheering, and I grab Arvid’s shoulder and haul him off, and in the corridor I can hear the club leaders come running. We have to get out, pronto. I hold his shoulder in a rock-hard grip and hiss in his ear:
‘Calm down for Christ’s sake. We’re leaving.’ The man at the door rounds the corner and blocks the exit. I move in close, wrap my arms round his back, and before anyone can see what I am doing, I lift him and carry him into the next room. There he stands yelling in the middle of the floor.
‘You just wait! I’ll get you for this!’
‘Kiss my arse,’ I say and pull Arvid by the jacket and run down the hall and out through the door. It’s dark outside and suddenly cold, and we carry on up the spiral staircase, round and round, and into the square. There we stop, and I say: ‘What the hell has got into you? Why can’t you tell me what’s going on before you drag me out? And here I was, convinced it was a girl you were after, the way you’d dressed up!’
‘You have to show them who you are, don’t you get it?’ He snatches the beret from his pocket and smacks it on his head. He hasn’t calmed down at all, my friend is standing there shouting into my face.
‘He’s sixty years old, for Christ’s sake, and he doesn’t even admit it to himself. He was a boxer, right, he still believes he’s young, and now he’s been beaten up by a gang of snot-nosed kids. He doesn’t even dare to go to casualty although he needs stitches all over his face. He crawled up the stairs, goddamnit. Do you understand what shape he’s in?’
‘Hell, of course I do, just calm down a bit,’ I say, but I don’t understand what shape Arvid’s father is in, I only know that I am getting angry too. His father’s been beaten up, it’s a disgrace, but why does he have to shout at me? ‘No need to get hysterical. Calm down,’ I say again.
‘Why should I calm down? Tell me why I should calm down!’ He is close to tears, and suddenly he pokes me in the chest. ‘Tell me why I should calm down!’ he shouts.
‘Take that stupid beret off,’ I say. ‘It looks so goddamn pretentious!’ He stands in front of me, his mouth wide open, and I really feel like punching him. But of course I can’t, and I don’t know where to put my hands, but I will hit him unless I can think of something very quickly. I don’t want to beat it and leave him here alone, and so I do the only thing I can think of and put my arms around him, pull him close to me and hold him tight. Very tight. He goes as stiff as a fence post and gasps for air, and only then do I realise that Arvid loves his father. It has never occurred to me. They seem to argue most of the time, they slam doors and shout at each other up and down the stairs. I am still angry, and I squeeze him, and then Arvid starts crying. For fuck’s sake, he says to my shoulder, and he loves his father so much, and now that he’s been beaten up, Arvid wants to take on the whole of Veitvet on his own, beret and all. It makes me furious, and I squeeze him harder, and there’s a heat surging up from my legs into my stomach, and it’s not a nice feeling at all, so I keep it down there, and we stand in the middle of this market square hugging each other, and if anyone sees us now, they’re bound to think we are a couple of homos.
I don’t know if I dare let him go. If I do, I will feel naked and cold and lost in this world.
Somewhere a clock is ticking. I see the sign for the Skoglund grocery store, I have seen it a thousand times before, but never like this in the midst of a silence. Outside the silence a car comes to a halt and sets off again, and then I hear quick footsteps, someone is moving up behind me and says:
‘Hey, I followed you,’ and little by little I release him. I don’t know how long we have been standing like this, but my arms ache, and I realise that I have been squeezing him as hard as I can. In my chest there is a pain, and Arvid straightens up and takes a deep breath, there is a whistle in his throat, and I see what caused the pain: it’s the NLF badge on his lapel. I lean towards him and whisper:
‘Forget what I said about your beret, it’s just fine.’ But he looks at me as though he has never seen me before, I could have been Christopher Columbus and he my first Indian, his face is flushed and his eyes are shiny. I turn, and it’s Tommy’s sister standing there.
‘What’s your name?’ I say.
‘What?’
‘What’s your name, for Christ’s sake?’ I’m almost yelling, but she answers calmly:
‘Rita. Didn’t you know?’
‘No.’
‘Right. Well, anyway, I heard what you said at the club. It’s true that it was Dole and a few others. Willy just stood watching. Dole’s in there,’ she says and points. We are standing outside Geir’s bar. I look through the window. Dole is sitting at the nearest table with a beer in front of him, it has a golden gleam from the lamp above, and I can see the bubbles from here, and he has a crew cut, like an American marine. He was the first to have long hair at school, and now he has no hair at all. His head is large and round, and he is laughing and telling something funny to someone I cannot see. I turn to Arvid.
‘Right, shall we go in then?’ I say a bit roughly, but he just looks at me and has no idea what I am talking about.
‘What’s up with him?’ Rita asks. ‘Did you have a fight?’
‘He’s upset about his dad. Don’t come with me now.’
I walk towards the bar door. As I’m about to go in, it’s pushed open from the inside, and one of the local drunks comes staggering out. I stand back, and Dole looks up and sees me through the window. He knows who I am, but not what I want. I push the drunk aside and clear the way, and inside I head straight for the table where Dole is sitting. He is pretty hammered, he grins and says:
‘Hello, Audun, old boy,’ but I don’t answer, I just go up to him, lean down and grab his leg and pull. He hits the floor with a bang, the chair tips forward and hits him on the back of the head, the glass is knocked over and all the beer splashes down on his crew cut. He lashes out with the other leg but I skip to the side, and with his ankle in a firm grip, I drag him to the door.
‘Fuck you, Audun! Have you flipped or what!’ he yells, and I say nothing, for there is nothing to say, I just drag him along the floor. He flails out on all sides, crashes into chairs and tables, holds on to someone’s foot and shouts:
‘For fuck’s sake, help me!’ But no one lifts a finger. I bang open the door with my back, and outside in the square I let go of his leg. He gets to his feet with a groan. Once he has straightened up, I punch him hard in the stomach. I know what I’m doing. I have seen it before. He jack-knifes, and all the beer spurts from his mouth, and it floods out on to the ground between us, and I step away. I stand at the ready. But he coughs and spl
utters and stares at the tarmac.
‘You know what, Audun?’ he mumbles. ‘You’re a dead man.’ And then he opens the bar door and walks in bent double.
I turn back to the square. Rita is there alone, watching me with a look in her eyes I could have done without.
‘Where’s Arvid?’ I say.
‘He took off. The wrong way, I think.’
Right. I don’t know why I did what I did, but I don’t think it was for his sake.
‘Right,’ I say, running my fingers through my hair. I look at her. ‘How’s Tommy doing?’
‘Fine. He’s much better now. He really is.’
‘Good,’ I say, and start towards the stairs.
‘Audun?’ she says behind me. I turn round. She is wearing a brown leather jacket that must have been passed down from her father, that’s how it looks, and she seems older now than I’d thought before.
‘Nothing. It’s nothing.’
‘OK, that’s fine then.’
I walk down the spiral staircase and down the slope by the post office and the music school and along the terraced houses in Grevlingveien. It’s so quiet. I am breathing calmly. I just feel a little warm in the pit of my stomach. I cross Veitvetveien without looking left or right. A car brakes suddenly, but my eyes are fixed ahead, and I walk the footpath between the houses until I come out on Beverveien and down to the block where I live.
My mother’s in the living room. She is watching TV. On the table there is half a bottle of Upper Ten whisky, and she has her fingers round a glass while she watches Fred Astaire dancing solo across the screen. I have never seen her drunk, but I know she drinks. There are empty bottles stacked behind her winter boots at the back of the cupboard in the hall.