Their clothes were chosen with great care too. Simon favoured the style the kids went for, T-shirts with prints and leather thong jewellery around his neck and wrists. Viljar went for a more classic look, grey trousers and a grey cardigan with a black T-shirt underneath.
In the breakfast room Anders Kristiansen was sitting over a substantial plate of bacon and eggs. He shook his head when he saw Simon and Viljar coming in, their eyes gleaming. They often kept going round the clock at the youth conferences. Now, they wolfed down a big breakfast to calm their nerves before the coup.
But the whole scheme came to nothing anyway. When Viljar made his proposal from the floor, the rules said that only one person was allowed to argue the candidate’s case. So, the others did not get to deliver their carefully crafted words of praise.
Viljar couldn’t do it alone. It was a shambles. They were a gang, they were meant to do it together. He couldn’t pull it off on his own.
‘Shit,’ said Viljar afterwards.
‘You’ll get her next time Anders!’ said Simon.
‘Course I will,’ smiled Anders. ‘Next year she won’t stand a chance!’
He would go at it for all he was worth. While Simon and Viljar were involved in all sorts of things, Anders stuck to just the one: politics. He wasn’t sporty, he didn’t mess about with his hair or waste time on clothes, nor was he into computer games. The closest he got to a hobby was keeping up with The West Wing or sitting in the hut he’d built in the garden, watching Sex and the City with a girl friend. He would shout ‘Mum, come and watch!’ when Desperate Housewives started. ‘I’d rather have some desperate men,’ his mother called back before she came in with a plate of waffles and cloudberry jam.
Childhood was the subject currently uppermost in Anders’s mind. He was working with the county governor on ‘The Giant Leap’, a project to establish how Troms County was complying with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and how children and young people could be more involved in the decision-making process. He was collaborating with the children’s ombudsman in plans for the Youth Parliament, and brooding at the same time about the stance he should take on Norway’s military involvement in Afghanistan. He was the one of them who – as Viljar put it – ‘talked to the grown-ups’.
* * *
‘That was amazing,’ said Simon.
The three comrades were all at their computers, Skyping each other. Viljar in Svalbard, Anders in Bardu and Simon in Salangen.
‘Magic,’ added Viljar.
‘Did you hear the way he repeated the words, took up the thread again to finish off? He, like, moved on from the whole subject and then brought it out again towards the end,’ said Anders.
‘Timing,’ said Simon.
‘Pauses,’ said Viljar.
‘Empathy,’ said Anders.
The three comrades had all read various editions of Famous Speeches. They had now experienced a man of their own time with the same level of rhetorical skill.
‘He’s recreating the magic of Martin Luther King,’ said Viljar.
It was Barack Obama they were taking about. They had been listening to one of his first speeches in the election campaign of 2008, and they were hooked.
Autumn came and northern Norway’s season of darkness arrived. In the US, tension was running high.
‘Mum, can you ask if I can have a day off school on Wednesday?’
Anders was keen to watch the news broadcasts all through election night, but then he would not be fit for school the next day.
‘It’s actually not fair,’ argued the fifteen-year-old. ‘Other people get time off to go to training sessions and matches and camps. Why do they get authorised absence to do sport stuff, which is their hobby, but my hobby, politics, doesn’t count? Why’s it any different for me?’
Anders’s mother suggested he write a letter to the headteacher, putting his case forward. Anders wrote about the momentous Obama–McCain election and how important the outcome was for the whole world, including Bardu. He got his day off. And the nickname Little Obama from his paternal grandfather in Lavangen.
On the first Tuesday evening of November 2008, election day on the other side of the Atlantic, the three comrades were on their sofas in their living rooms, Skyping as they waited for the polling stations to close and the votes to be counted, state by state.
‘America,’ Anders said dreamily. ‘If Obama wins, shall we take a trip over there when we leave school? I could work at the local old people’s home and save up.’
‘Count me in!’ shouted Simon from Salangen. ‘Let’s hire a car and drive coast to coast!’
‘We can buy a car on the east coast, take Route 66 and sell it at a profit when we get to the west coast!’ suggested Viljar. ‘A Mustang, whaddya reckon? Or a Pontiac Firebird, or an old Corvette?’
Long before the sparse daylight began to show itself on the horizon, the three comrades in their darkened living rooms were jubilant. It felt like such a huge event. A black president, a Democrat, someone with experience of ordinary life, not some rich, privileged type. To the three teenagers miles north of the Arctic Circle on the other side of the Atlantic, at such a distance from the Chicago crowds, Obama somehow felt like one of them.
One day they’d get there, to America, come what may.
Daybreak found Viljar and Simon asleep in front of their television sets. This time it was Anders who stayed awake round the clock.
Change was possible!
* * *
One April morning the year after the US election, when the snow still lay deep on the ground round Sjøvegan School, Simon was eating his standard breakfast at his desk. Four slices of bread from a plastic bag and a bottle of strawberry jam to squeeze onto them. He was always too tired to eat at home, and stumbled the short walk down to the school like a sleepwalker. His body only started to wake up towards the end of the first lesson. Then he was always ravenous and would devour his bread and jam in the short break before the next lesson. On this particular morning, as he was polishing off the last slice his mobile rang. He wiped his mouth and put the phone to his ear.
‘Someone’s had to drop out of congress. Can you step in?’
‘What?’
‘Well you’re a deputy, and Jan’s cow’s fallen sick so he can’t make it. We’ve got to have a full delegation from Troms.’
‘Do you mean the Labour Party National Congress?’
‘Yes. Bit slow on the uptake, aren’t you?’
‘I’ll have to ask Dad.’
‘Make sure you don’t miss the plane. It leaves Bardufoss at eleven-thirty!’
Simon quickly gathered up his books, pencils and jam bottle from the desk and told the teacher.
‘I’m going to be a delegate to the Labour Party National Congress and I’ll have to ask for time off.’
Then he rang his father. ‘What should I say?’
Gunnar checked with his boss if he could take time off from work to drive his son to the airport. Of course the boy should go! You couldn’t even call it skipping school. Gunnar had never been anywhere near the National Congress himself, and now his son was to be a delegate, at just sixteen and a half. Clumps of trees flashed by as Gunnar sped along the road to Bardufoss.
‘What a stroke of luck, Dad,’ exclaimed Simon when the flight to Oslo was announced. ‘A sick cow!’
On arrival in Oslo he went straight to Youngstorget. The event was being held at the Congress Centre – The House of the People – the big building that occupied one whole side of the square, all the way along to Møllergata.
‘Simon Sæbø,’ he said at the table where they were registering delegates.
He was issued with a name badge and an accreditation card to wear round his neck – Delegate, Troms. Labour Party National Congress 2009 – and a sheaf of papers, a programme, proposals of new resolutions, a songbook.
He went up the wide staircase to the main hall, slipping past all the old hands who were standing there chatting. Before boarding th
e plane he had sent a text about the sick cow to Viljar and Little Obama.
‘Go get ’em,’ Viljar replied.
‘Show them who Simon Sæbø is,’ texted Anders.
The congress was the party’s top decision-making body. This was where policy would be carved out for the next parliamentary term.
The red–green coalition had been in charge since 2005. The financial crisis came the autumn before Simon’s congress debut. In Norway, unemployment was rising for the first time in years. ‘The Labour Party has lost its vision’ was a view increasingly heard. ‘It’s become a party of administration no longer able to inspire people,’ the newspaper commentators complained. They wanted some new blood.
Simon, Anders and Viljar were the new blood. And here was Simon, sitting star-struck in the row of seats for the Troms delegates, looking about him. There were people he had only ever seen on TV. There was Gro Harlem Brundtland, laughing loudly. She was celebrating her seventieth birthday and was to be honoured with speeches and good wishes from both Hillary Clinton and the UN Secretary-General. There were the powerful Martin Kolberg, the ubiquitous Trond Giske and good-humoured Hadia Tajik.
If there was anything Simon wanted to know, he simply asked Brage Sollund. The nineteen-year-old who had come over when Simon started the AUF branch in Salangen was also a first-timer at the congress, but he had more experience in the party. They looked so smart sitting there in nice shirts and dark jackets. They had both styled their fringes over to one side, Brage’s several shades lighter than Simon’s.
The congress was declared open. Simon put on his reading glasses. All the paperwork was in the folder in front of him. It was a bit late to start looking at it now. He would have to get to grips with things as they went along.
* * *
There was a lot at stake, with a general election coming up in the autumn. Prime Minister and Labour Party leader Jens Stoltenberg had to make people believe that the government’s social project was going to carry on. The opinion polls were showing that voters were far from convinced.
There was a round of applause for Jens Stoltenberg as he went to the lectern. All round the country fellow party members were following the speech on the internet.
‘The first thing to say is: this crisis is global! We have been brutally reminded how small the world is,’ began the man who was an economist by profession.
‘Reagan said in his First Inaugural Address: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Margaret Thatcher went as far to say, “There is no such thing as society.” This led to three decades hailing the unregulated market. And the cultivation of greed.’
The Prime Minister looked straight at his audience.
‘What went wrong? Well, comrades, when the American investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed, it was not just a bank going broke, it was a political ideology going bankrupt. The failure of market liberalism. It ended decades of naive, uncritical faith in the market looking after itself. It does not!’
The previous autumn, as Simon was setting up the Salangen AUF, Stoltenberg’s government implemented measures based on a Keynesian stabilisation model. The banks were given the money they needed, export industry got increased guarantees and money was earmarked for investment at home. There were tax concessions for business and industry, and maintenance work in the municipalities was brought forward to keep employment levels from slumping.
It was to prove effective. Admittedly, Norway had been better prepared than most countries thanks to its considerable income from oil and gas, and unemployment rose to no more than a little above 3 per cent. Lending rates went down, as did inflation. Robust state regulation of banks, insurance companies and financial institutions meant the Prime Minister had more means at his disposal than his counterparts around Europe. As Stoltenberg repeatedly reminded everyone throughout the crisis, ‘The market is a good servant, but a bad master.’
‘The market cannot rule, it has to be ruled. The market is not self-regulating. It has to be regulated,’ declared Stoltenberg.
‘Four more years!’ yelled some people in the audience.
‘Four more years!’ yelled Simon. It was a history lesson, a sociology lesson and an introduction to rhetoric all in one.
In the break, Simon went over to the table where bottles of Farris mineral water were on offer. ‘Free Farris!’ he had pointed out to Brage earlier. Two men were coming towards him.
‘Here’s the youngest delegate at conference,’ one said to the other.
Simon straightened up.
‘Hello, I’m Jens. Good to meet you,’ said the Prime Minister.
‘Simon Sæbø, from Salangen.’
‘So you’re from Troms…’ began Stoltenberg.
Simon had no time for small talk. With the Prime Minister in front of him, he had to strike while the iron was hot. He spoke with passion about the fish-farming industry in the Salang fjord where the net pens were crowded with salmon.
‘But the framework agreement for fish farmers…’ he continued, elaborating on the problems facing the industry. In the AUF they called him the Fisheries Minister.
Simon won a pat on the shoulder and a ‘Keep it up!’
Somebody took a photo. The Prime Minister and the Fisheries Minister, something to send to Anders and Viljar!
* * *
At the congress dinner, Simon was impressed by grown-up life – the posh food, the red wine, the witty speeches and the ladies in evening dresses. Afterwards, everybody went out into town. The bars and cafés round Youngstorget filled up with delegates from the nineteen counties of Norway. Simon went with the Troms delegation to one of them, Justisen.
Brage got in, the people behind Brage got in. Simon was stopped.
‘ID! It’s over-twenties only here!’
The sixteen-year-old looked up at an intimidating chest and brandished the card he had round his neck.
‘See this? Delegate from Troms county to the Labour Party Congress. You think Troms county would let under-age kids run the show?’
The doorman waved him into the glorious darkness. The lads found themselves sharing a table over some beers with the leading lady of the Justice Committee in Parliament.
‘This is what I want to do!’ he texted to his comrades.
Politics was fun. Life was brilliant.
Writings
He called it the fart room.
The ceiling was painted white, the walls were papered in a geometric design. Embossed triangles, squares and circles ran from floor to ceiling. The wallpaper had hung there for a long time and started to yellow. It was a narrow box of a room with an opening at each end. A single bed ran along under the window.
The brick-built apartment block stood at a junction in a former industrial area in Skøyen. Anders’s room looked out at the back. From the window he could jump down onto the grassy area between the blocks if he wanted, because his mother had bought a ground-floor flat. In the middle of the grass, in the middle of his field of vision if he turned his head away from the screen, stood the big birch tree. If he stood up, he could just about see the end of his mother’s balcony. There was an artificial thuja in a red pot, and two window boxes hanging from the rail. In these his mother had planted plastic roses in bark chips the colour of soil. When she bought them, the roses were white and pale pink, but age and the elements had faded them. The petals had turned grey.
This was the view from the window of his room.
It was an internet hermit’s room. The black leather swivel chair was soft, deep and accommodating. Just the right height for the screen. There was some IKEA shelving where he kept paper and ink cartridges. On the floor beside the printer were two safes.
The only objects telling another story were three bold pictures on the wall. They were faces, painted with the sharply delineated shadow technique of the graffiti artist. The faces were grey, the backgrounds dramatic orange or bright turquoise. They were the work of Coderock, a Norwegian artist with roots in graf
fiti. Once, he had been so proud of owning them, boasting that they had been painted specially for him.
If he left the room he could go left, turn the handle of the front door, go down a short set of steps and be out in Hoffsveien, where the pavement was separated from the road by a narrow verge with trees. On the other side of the road were a Coop, a flower shop and a café. His mother went to the café every day to meet up with her neighbours, drink coffee and smoke.
But generally when Anders left his room he turned right, into his mother’s flat.
Whenever he wanted to eat something; to get a glass of water; to go out onto the balcony for a smoke, or needed the loo: always to the right.
He also turned right to take a shower. For that he had to go through another room, his mother’s bedroom. At the foot end of her double bed a door opened into a tiny bathroom with a shower. Beside the shower cabinet, its frosted glass decorated with lilies, was a washbasin, and above that a mirror with a built-in fluorescent light. There was a generous overhead light that did not cast any shadows. It gave anyone standing at the mirror a good view of their face.
Hanging on the wall was a white shelf unit divided into two sections, one for him and one for her. Standing in front of the mirror like that, there was just room to turn round without bumping against the washing machine in the corner. Everything that was not strictly necessary, like dirty-washing baskets and piles of towels, had to be kept in their rooms. After a shower, the steam had to be aired out through his mother’s bedroom.
Back in his room, he would don some of the clothes that were folded up or on hangers in the fitted wardrobe that was painted a shade of pale blue, the sort that was popular just after the war.