Dancing in the Dark

~ ~ ~

Jan Vidar jumped off the bus at Solsletta, guitar case in hand, I continued as the sole passenger to Boen, where I also jumped off and plodded home with my rucksack on my back and the bag of apples in my hand.

Mum had been waiting for me with dinner.

‘Hi,’ she said as I went in through the door. ‘I’ve just got home as well.’

‘Look,’ I said, holding out the bag. ‘Apples from grandma.’

‘Did you pop in?’

‘Yes, they send their love.’

‘Thanks,’ she said.

I lifted the lid off the pot. Tomato sauce and chunks of fish, probably pollock.

‘I had dinner there,’ I said.

‘That’s fine,’ she said. ‘But I’m starving.’

She put the cat down on the floor, straightened up and took a plate.

‘And how did you get on at Nye Sørlandet, Karl Ove?’ I said.

‘Oh!’ she said. ‘I’d completely forgotten.’

I smiled. ‘I got the job! He just skim-read the reviews and I was home and dry.’

‘You worked hard on them,’ she said, placed some bits of pollock on the plate, lifted the lid of the second pan and spooned out a potato. It wobbled around as she lowered the spoon and rolled off when she turned it.

‘And they’re going to make a little article about it,’ I said. ‘It’ll run tomorrow.’

‘Run’ was a genuine journalistic expression.

‘Very nice, Karl Ove,’ she said.

‘Yes, but there’s a snag.’

She put the plate on the table, took cutlery from the drawer and sat down. I took a seat opposite her.

‘A snag?’ she said, tucking in.

‘He said I had to get hold of a typewriter. Writing by hand is taboo. They don’t accept it. So I’ll have to buy one.’

‘A new typewriter costs quite a bit of money.’

‘Come on. We must be able to afford one. It’s an investment. I’ll earn some money doing this. Surely you can understand that?’

She nodded as she chewed.

‘Perhaps there’s one there you can borrow?’ she said.

I snorted.

‘First day at work? And then you walk in and ask to borrow a typewriter?’

‘Well, perhaps that wasn’t such a good idea,’ she said.

The cat rubbed against my leg. I bent down and scratched his chest. He closed his eyes and began to purr. I picked him up, he stretched out on my lap with his paws on my knees.

‘How much will one cost, do you reckon?’ mum said.

‘No idea.’

‘When I get my salary next month it should be OK. But for now, I’m afraid I’m flat broke.’

‘But that’s too late, don’t you understand?’

She nodded.

‘I know what you’re going to say,’ I said. ‘If there’s no money, there’s no money.’

‘That’s how it is, sadly,’ she said. ‘But you can ask your father as well, you know.’

I said nothing. It was true, I could. He had enough money. But would he give some to me?

If he wouldn’t, there would be an embarrassing situation. He would feel I was demanding something from him, and if he said no, or felt forced to say no, it would be me who had put him in this predicament. And by then it would be too late, he couldn’t suddenly say yes after saying no.

‘I’ll ask him,’ I said, caressing the cat behind the ear. He writhed in pleasure with his eyes closed.

‘There’s a letter for you, by the way,’ mum said. ‘I left it on the dresser in the hall.’

‘A letter?’

I put the cat down on the floor, I didn’t like to have to do that when he had been having such a good time, but the little twinge in my conscience was gone the very next second because I didn’t get letters that often.

My name on the envelope, written in a girl’s hand.

The postmark was almost unreadable.

But it was airmail, and the stamps were Danish.

‘I’m going to my room,’ I said. ‘Are you OK eating alone?’

‘Yes, of course!’ mum said from the kitchen.

In my bedroom I sat down on the chair by the desk, tore open the envelope, took out the letter and started reading.

Nyk M 20/8 85

Hi Karl Ove,

Hope you’re fine. I don’t know if you are because you haven’t written, although you promised you would. Why not? I wish you could see me running to our post box when I get up. Well, if you don’t want to write I won’t be annoyed, I love you too much for that, but I have to admit I will be upset if I never hear from you again. Are you coming to Denmark? And if so, when? It has been boring here since you left. During the day I’m with my friends. In the evening I go to the disco. But this will soon be over as I’m moving to Israel on 14 September. I’m really looking forward to that. I would just love to see you before I go.

Perhaps you think I’m stupid to make so much of the short time we had together? That’s probably because you’re the only boy I’ve ever fallen in love with. So, don’t disappoint me, write to me now.

A girl who loves you,

Lisbeth

I pushed the letter aside. My chest was riven with despair. I could have slept with her. She had been willing! She wrote that she was in love with me, that she loved me, of course she would have said yes.

She knew where we were heading and what I was thinking, of that I was sure.

Bloody Jøgge!

Those fucking dickheads!

A sudden inspiration made me pick up the envelope and look inside.

There was a photo.

I took it out. It was Lisbeth. She wasn’t smiling, she was looking into the camera with her head tilted. She was wearing a yellow sweatshirt with NIKE emblazoned across it in big red letters. Her fringe hung over her forehead on one side, covering one eye. A stray lock of hair hung down behind one ear on the other.

Her neck was bare. She had a nice long neck.

Her lips were also beautiful, full, almost disproportionately full compared with her narrow face.

Oh, she looked seriously displeased.

But I could remember what it was like to hold her. How she had laughed when she put her hand up my shirt, against my chest and I straightened up and took a deep breath.

‘You’re pumping yourself up!’ she said. ‘Relax. I like you as you are. You’re fantastic.’

And she was Danish.

I put the picture and the letter back in the envelope, tucked it into the diary that I kept in the drawer and got to my feet.

Mum was washing the dishes when I went to the kitchen.

‘Karl Ove,’ she said. ‘I’ve just had a thought. Dad had a typewriter once. It’s probably still around. I can’t imagine he would have taken it with him. Have a look up in the barn, in the cardboard boxes.’

‘He had a typewriter?’

‘Yes, he did. He used it to write letters for a few years.’

She rinsed a glass in cold water and placed it upside down on the grooves in the drainer.

‘During the first few years we were together he wrote poems as well.’

‘Dad?’

‘Yes, he was very taken by poetry. Obstfelder was his favourite. He liked Vilhelm Krag as well, I remember. The Romantics.’

‘Dad?’ I repeated.

Mum smiled.

‘They weren’t very good though.’

‘I can believe that,’ I said, and went into the hall, put on my shoes and walked up to the back of the barn, which actually was the front because this was where the great barn door was, and inside was where the hay was stacked. The floor beneath, which dad had used, consisted of small rooms which had been converted into a flat in the 1970s. But here nothing had been done.

I went in and thought, as I had done so many times before, it was strange that we owned such a large room. And that we didn’t use it for anything.

Well, except for storage, that is.

All the old farming implements hung on the wall: cartwheels, harnesses, rusty scythes, mucking-out forks and hoes. In some places dad had written the nicknames he had used for me, in chalk, he did that when we moved in and when he was so happy about everything.

They were still there.

Kaklove

Loffe

Love

Klove

Kykkeliklove

Boxes were stacked against the wall facing me. I had never looked inside them. That would have been inconceivable when dad lived here, he often sat in the flat beneath the old floorboards and would definitely have come up to check if anyone had been walking around. And then I would have had to have an extremely good reason for being here, let alone rummaging through our old possessions.

I found clothes I remembered mum and dad wearing when I was smaller: flared trousers they must have bought the winter they had been in London together because you couldn’t get such big bell-bottoms in Norway, even in the 1970s, mum’s white coat, dad’s large orange jacket with the brown lining he had worn to go fishing, shawls and skirts and scarves, sunglasses, belts, boots and shoes. Then there was a box of pictures we used to have on the walls. A couple of boxes containing old kitchen utensils.

But no typewriter!

I opened a couple more boxes, flicked through them. Came to one containing what looked like magazines in plastic bags.

Comics I had forgotten I had?

I opened the top one.

They were porn mags.

I opened the next.

Also porn mags.

A whole removal chest full of pornographic magazines?

Whose were they?

I laid some of them on the floor and began to leaf through. Most were from the 60s and 70s. The centrefolds had bikini marks; all the breasts and bottoms were white. Many of the women were posing outdoors. Standing behind trees, lying in fields, all the colours of the 70s, big breasts, some sagging, with big nipples.

I sat there with an erection, turning the pages. A couple of the magazines were from the 80s and there was nothing strange about them. The ones from the 60s had no shots of girls with their legs open.

Had he had these magazines at home during all that time? Down in his office?

And, not least, had he actually bought them?

I put them in a pile and stood musing. I ought to hide them. First of all this wasn’t anything mum should see. Second I would like to go through them again.

Or would I?

He had read them. He had pored over them.

I couldn’t do that. It was too disgusting.

I decided to put them all back as they had been. Mum would never go through these boxes anyway.

I couldn’t make this add up. All the years when I had been small, indeed, oh God, from the time before I was born until last year, he had been buying porn mags and keeping them at home.

Shit.

I opened the other boxes, and in the penultimate one I found the typewriter. It was an old manual model, I should have known, and if I had seen it before the magazines I would have been disappointed, I might even have rejected it and insisted on mum or dad buying me another one, but now, after finding his magazines, it didn’t matter.

I carried it back and showed it to mum, who was resting on the sofa.

‘That’s good enough, isn’t it?’ she said, her eyes half-closed.

‘Yes, it’ll have to do,’ I said. ‘Are you going to sleep?’

‘I’ll just have forty winks. Can you wake me in half an hour if I’m not up?’

‘OK,’ I said and went up to my room, where I read Lisbeth’s letter once again.

She had written unequivocally that she loved me.

No one had ever done that before.

Was that how it was with Hanne? When I said I loved her? Because I didn’t love Lisbeth. I liked her writing that she loved me, but it meant no more than that. It was nice, and I was happy that she had written it, but it existed outside me, she existed outside me. Not like Hanne.

Was that how Hanne felt about me?

That was what she said.

Was she playing with me?

Why didn’t she want me? Want to be with me?

Oh, how I wanted her!

That was all I wanted. She was all I wanted!

Really.

But if she didn’t want me I wasn’t going to get any further. So it didn’t matter.

I decided to give her a taste of her own medicine. It wouldn’t matter anyway.

I stood up, went downstairs to the telephone, lifted the receiver and dialled all the numbers except the last. Gazed out of the window. Two blackbirds were in the bush across the drive, pecking at the small red berries growing on it. Mefisto watched from a crouch position, his tail wagging to and fro.

I dialled the last number.

‘Yes, hello,’ Hanne’s father said.

I hated it when he answered because his daughter was going out with someone else, not me, and he knew what I was trying to do. Sometimes we chatted for more than an hour on the phone. So he probably didn’t like me phoning.

‘Hello, Karl Ove here,’ I said. ‘Is Hanne in?’

‘Just a moment, Karl Ove, and I’ll have a look.’

I heard his footsteps going down the stairs and watched Mefisto creep closer to the two birds, which continued to jerk their heads and peck at the red berries undeterred. Then came the sound of light steps and I knew it was Hanne, and my heart beat faster.

‘Hi!’ she said. ‘Funny you should ring. I was just thinking about you!’

‘What were you thinking?’ I said.

‘About you, that was all.’

‘What are you doing this evening?’

‘I’m studying. French. It’s a level up from last year. Quite difficult. How’s it going with your French?’

‘Same as last year. I knew nothing then, and I know nothing now. Do you remember the test I got a Good in?’

‘Yes, I do. You were proud of that.’

‘Was I? Well, usually I got Poor. So, of course I was pleased. But what I did was incredibly simple. The text was long, right, with lots of French words in it. So I just used them in my answer, adapted them a bit and added a few of my own. And, hey presto, a Good.’

‘You’re so smart!’

‘Yes, aren’t I.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Well, nothing special actually. I’ve received a letter I’ve read a few times.’

‘Oh? Who from?’

‘A girl I met in Denmark.’

‘Oh? You didn’t tell me about her!’

‘No. So much happened I thought. . well, it wouldn’t be of any interest to you.’

‘It certainly is!’

‘Right.’

‘What does she say?’

‘She says she loves me.’

‘But you were only there a week!’

‘A lot happened in that week, as I said. We slept together.’

‘Did you?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ I said.

Silence.

‘Why are you telling me this, Karl Ove?’

I didn’t reply at first. Then I said, ‘I told you this wouldn’t interest you. Then you said it would. So I thought I may as well tell you.’

‘Mm,’ she said.

‘And then. . Well, when it was happening I thought a lot about us. That perhaps it wasn’t. . well, you know. Perhaps I don’t feel all the things I have said I do. For you, I mean. The letters this summer. . I think somehow I was in love with love. Do you know what I mean? When I met Lisbeth. .’ I said, and paused to let the name achieve maximum impact ‘. . it was somehow real. Flesh and blood. Not just thoughts. Then I got her letter and I realised I was in love with her. And it’s fantastic! There wasn’t anything between you and me anyway. And there’s nothing now. So, yes, just thought I had to say that.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s good you told me. It’s good to know.’

‘But we’re still friends.’

‘Of course we are,’ she said. ‘You can fall in love with whoever you like. We’re not in a relationship.’

‘No.’

‘But I am a bit sad nevertheless. It was so wonderful in the cabin. With you.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It was.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, you’d better get back to your French.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Bye. Thanks for ringing.’

‘Bye.’

I rang off.

Now it was ruined. That was what I wanted. And now it had happened.

In the first break the next day I jogged up to the petrol station over the E18 to buy the latest Nye Sørlandet. Grabbed a copy from the stand and thumbed through the pages at the back.

My cheeks burned when I spotted a photo of myself.

There was a big spread, almost a page, and the photo took up two-thirds of the space. I was sitting and looking straight at the reader with three records fanned out in front of me.

I skimmed through the text. It said I was a young man who was passionate about music and that I was critical about society’s marginalisation of rock. Personally, I liked British indie bands best, but I promised to be open to all genres, even the Top Twenty.

I hadn’t said that, not in so many words, well, I probably hadn’t said it at all, now that I thought about it, but I had meant it and Steinar Vindsland had understood.

The photo was brilliant.

I paid, folded the newspaper and walked back down to the school with it in my hand. In the classroom, which was filling up, I placed it on my desk, leaned back in my chair, tipping it against the wall as I usually did, and watched the others.

I doubted any of them read Nye Sørlandet, except on rare occasions, hardly anyone did. The only newspaper that was any good was Fædrelandsvennen. So having it there spread out on my desk might therefore cause a few eyebrows to be raised. Why have you brought Nye Sørlandet with you to school?

They would imagine I had brought it from home! To show off!

I rocked forward again and folded the newspaper. No, I hadn’t brought it from home to show off. I had bought it at the petrol station and where else would you go with it? That was why I had it with me.

But what the hell. Shouldn’t I just say?

Straight out?

As long as it didn’t seem as if I was bragging?

But it wasn’t bragging, it was true, I was a record reviewer now, and today there was an interview with me in the newspaper I had bought at the petrol station opposite the school.

There was no point hiding it either.

‘Hi, Lars,’ I said. He was the least dangerous boy in the class. He turned to me. I held up the newspaper.

‘I’m the record reviewer,’ I said. ‘Do you want to see?’

He got up and came over; I opened it at the right page.

‘Not bloody bad,’ he said, straightening up. ‘Hey! Karl Ove’s in the paper!’ he shouted across the room.

It was more than I could have hoped for, the very next moment he was standing with a crowd around him, all staring at the photo of me and reading the article.

In the evening I browsed through my old music magazines and studied the record reviews and articles. There were three kinds of writer, I concluded. There were the witty, smart, often malicious writers like Kjetil Rolness, Torgrim Eggen, Finn Bjelke and Herman Willis. There were the serious, ponderous types like Øivind Hånes, Jan Arne Handorff, Arvid Skancke-Knutsen and Ivar Orvedal. And then there were the knowledgeable, clear-headed writers who went straight to the point, like Tore Olsen, Tom Skjeklesæther, Geir Rakvaag, Gerd Johansen and Willy B.

It was as though I knew them all. I really liked Jan Arne Handorff. I understood virtually nothing of what he wrote but sensed his passion, somewhere deep in the wilderness of all those foreign-sounding words, while every second reader’s letter accused him of being incomprehensible, although he didn’t seem to care, he steered a straight line, further and further into the impenetrable night. I also had huge respect for those who could puncture opponents with a killer comment. I adopted it, to deal with my opponents. Its sole importance was that it worked. And many reviewers were vicious. When a band changed direction and became more commercial, such as Simple Minds was doing for example, taking the easy route, they didn’t think twice about confronting the band and asking for an explanation. Why? You were so good, you had everything, so why sell out? Playing at stadiums? What are you doing? What is in your heads? And if the band wouldn’t respond, often they didn’t, Norway was not exactly the most important country for groups on the up, they still peppered them with caustic remarks.

I had written only three record reviews, the ones Steinar Vindsland had read. In them I had tried to be impartial while also being hard, and I had dismissed one record with a couple of sarcastic comments at the end. That was the new Stones’ single, I had never liked them, they were terrible, apart from the Some Girls LP, which wasn’t bad. Now they were over forty and as pathetic as it was possible to be.

I had it in me. I just had to let it out.

Outside it was dark, autumn was wrapping its hand around the world, and I loved it. The darkness, the rain, the sudden cracks in the past that opened when the smell of damp grass and soil rose up at me from a ditch somewhere or when car headlights illuminated a house, all somehow caught and enhanced by the music in the Walkman I always carried with me. I listened to This Mortal Coil and thought about when we used to play in the dark in Tybakken, a feeling of happiness grew in me, but not a happiness of the bright weightless carefree kind, this happiness was rooted in something else, and when it met the melancholic beauty of the music and the world that was dying around me, it was like sorrow, beautiful sorrow, romantic sorrow, beauty and pain in one impossible mix, and from there sprang a wild longing to live more. To leave this, to find life where it was really lived, in the streets of cities, beneath skyscrapers, at glittering parties with beautiful people in unfamiliar apartments. To find the one great love and all the restlessness that involved, and then the acceptance, the relief, the ecstasy.

Discard her, find a new one, discard her. Rise and be ruthless, a seducer of women, a man they all wanted but none could have. I put the music magazines in a heap on the bottom of my bookshelves and went downstairs. Mum was sitting and talking on the telephone in the clothes room, the door was open, she smiled at me. I stood still for a few seconds to hear who she was talking to.

One of her sisters.

In the kitchen I took a slice of bread, ate it leaning against the worktop and drank a glass of milk. Went back upstairs and started a letter to Hanne. I wrote that I thought it was best if we never saw each other again.

It felt good to write that, for some reason I wanted to avenge myself on her, to hurt her, to make her think of me as someone she had lost.

I put the letter into an envelope and dropped it into my school bag, where it lay until I bought some stamps after school the following day.

I posted it before catching the bus, convinced this was the right course of action.

In the evening, lying on the sofa and reading a book I had borrowed from the school library — Bjørneboe’s Ere the Cock Crows — it suddenly struck me what I had done.

I loved her, why would I say I never wanted to meet her again?

Regret exploded inside me.

I had to get it back.

I rested the book on the sofa arm and sat up. Should I write another letter and say I didn’t mean what I had written in the previous one? That I wanted to see her despite what I had written.

It would look absolutely idiotic.

I had to ring her.

Before I had time to change my mind, I went into the room where the telephone was and dialled her number.

She answered.

‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to apologise for the last time I called. I didn’t mean to behave as I did.’

‘You’ve got nothing to apologise for.’

‘Yes, I have. But there’s something else. To cut a long story short, I sent you a letter today.’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes. But I didn’t mean what I wrote. I don’t know why I wrote it. Anyway, it’s rubbish. So now I’m wondering if you could do me a favour. Don’t read it. Just throw it away.’

She laughed.

‘Now you’ve really whetted my appetite! Not read it? Do you really imagine I could do that? What did you write?’

‘I can’t say. That’s the whole point!’

She laughed again.

‘You’re strange,’ she said. ‘But why did you write whatever it was you wrote if you didn’t mean it?’

‘I don’t know. I was in a funny mood. But, Hanne, please promise me you won’t read it. Throw it away and pretend it doesn’t exist. Actually it doesn’t really exist anyway, because I don’t mean any of what I wrote.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she said. ‘But it is addressed to me. It’s me who decides what to do with it, right?’

‘Yes, of course. I’m just asking you to be extra nice to me.’

‘Is there anything that’s not nice in the letter? Yes, there must be of course.’

‘Now you know at any rate,’ I said. ‘But if you’d like me to go down on my knees and beg, I will. I’m doing it now. I’m on my knees now. Please throw the letter away!’

She laughed.

‘Up on your feet, boy!’ she said.

‘What are you wearing?’ I said.

Seconds passed before she answered.

‘A T-shirt and jogging pants. I didn’t know you would ring. What are you wearing?’

‘Me? A black shirt, black trousers and black socks.’

‘I don’t know why I asked,’ she said and laughed. ‘I’m going to give you such a brightly coloured bobble hat for Christmas that you’ll be embarrassed to walk down the street wearing it, but you’ll have to because I gave it to you. When you see me anyway.’

‘That’s pure evil,’ I said.

‘Yes, you don’t have a monopoly on it,’ she said.

‘What do you mean by that? Surely I’m not evil just because I don’t believe in God?’

‘I’m just teasing you. No, you’re not evil at all. But now they’re calling me. I think they’ve cooked something they want me to taste.’

‘So you’ll throw the letter away?’

She laughed.

‘Bye!’

‘Hanne!’

But by then she had rung off.

The meeting with Steinar Vindsland was brief and was basically him showing me how to write the reviews, there were special forms they used at the newspaper, some boxes at the top had to be filled out in a special way and I was given a stack of them. Then he said I should choose three new releases a week from a record shop with whom they had an arrangement. I could keep the records, that was my fee, OK? Of course, I said. You deliver the reviews to me, he said, and I’ll fix the rest.

He winked and shook my hand. Then he turned and started to read some papers on the desk, and I went into the street, still with the tension from the meeting in my body. It was only half past three and I went to see if dad was at home. I stopped outside the door and rang, nothing happened, I stepped to the side and looked through the window, the house looked empty and I was about to head for the bus stop when his car, a light green Ascona, appeared.

He pulled in by the kerb.

Even before he got out of the car I could see he was the way he used to be. Rigid, severe, controlled. He undid his seat belt, grabbed a bag beside him and placed a foot on the tarmac. He didn’t look at me as he crossed the road.

‘Waiting for me, were you,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thought I’d pop by.’

‘You should ring in advance, you know,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I was in the vicinity, so I. .’ I shrugged.

‘There’s nothing happening here,’ he said. ‘So you may as well catch the bus home.’

‘OK,’ I said.

‘Ring next time, OK?’

‘All right,’ I said.

He turned his back on me and inserted the key in the lock. I started to trudge towards the bus. It was right what he had said: I may as well go. I hadn’t visited him for my sake but for his, and if it wasn’t convenient I wasn’t bothered. Quite the contrary.

He rang at half past ten in the evening. He sounded drunk.

‘Hi, Dad here,’ he said. ‘You haven’t gone to bed?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I like sitting up late.’

‘You dropped by at an inconvenient moment, I’m afraid. But it’s very nice of you to come and visit us. It isn’t that. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Don’t give me yes, of course. It’s important we understand each other.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know it’s important.’

‘I’m sitting here making a few calls to hear how people are, you know. And I’m relaxing with a. .’

Then he used an Østland expression, pjall, an alcoholic drink, which he had recently started to say. Another was slakk, off colour. He had it from Unni. I’m feeling a bit slakk, he had said once, and I had looked at him because it was as though it wasn’t him who had used the word but someone else.

‘We’re having people round for dinner tomorrow evening, a few colleagues, well, you met them up in Sannes, and it would be nice if you had time.’

‘Yes, I’ll come,’ I said. ‘What time?’

‘Six, half past, we thought.’

‘Fine,’ I said.

‘Yes, but we don’t have to ring off already. Or do you want to?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘I believe you do. You don’t want to talk to your old dad.’

‘I do.’

There was a brief pause. He took a swig.

‘I heard you visited grandma and grandad,’ he then said.

‘Yes.’

‘Did they say anything about Unni and me?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘At any rate nothing special.’

‘Now you have to be more precise than that. They said something, but it was nothing special?’

‘They said you’d been there the day before, and then they said they’d met Unni and she was nice.’

‘Oh, so that was what they said, was it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you thought about where you want to spend Christmas? Here with us or with your mother?’

‘No, haven’t given it any thought. It’s not for a while yet.’

‘Yes, that’s true. But we have to make plans, you know. We were wondering whether to go south to the sun or celebrate it here. If you come we’ll stay here. But we have to know soon.’

‘I’ll give it some thought,’ I said. ‘Might have a word with Yngve.’

‘You can come on your own, you know.’

‘Yes, I could. Can we wait and see? I haven’t given it any thought at all.’

‘By all means,’ he said. ‘You need time to think. But you’d probably prefer to be with mum, wouldn’t you?’

‘Not necessarily,’ I said.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Well, see you tomorrow then.’

He rang off and I went into the kitchen and boiled some water.

‘Do you want some tea?’ I shouted to mum, who was sitting in the living room, her legs tucked up underneath her, the cat on her lap and knitting while listening to classical music on the radio.

It was almost pitch black outside.

‘Yes, please!’ she replied.

When I went in five minutes later, with a cup in each hand, she put her knitting on the arm of the sofa and the cat down beside her. Mefisto placed his paws in front of him, extended his claws and stretched. Mum swung her legs down onto the floor and rubbed her hands a couple of times, which she often did after she had been sitting still for any length of time.

‘I think dad might be on the booze,’ I said, sitting on the wicker chair under the window. It creaked under my weight. I blew on the tea, took a sip and glanced at mum. Mefisto stood in front of me and a moment later jumped onto my lap.

‘Was that who you were talking to just now?’ mum said.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Was he drunk?’

‘Mm, a bit. And he was pretty drunk when I was there for dinner the last time.’

‘How do you feel about that?’ she said.

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Feels a bit strange maybe. When I went to the party they had here that was the first time I’d seen him drunk. Now it’s happened twice in a very short space of time.’

‘That’s perhaps not so strange,’ mum said. ‘There have been such big changes in his life.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s true. But he’s becoming very hard work. He keeps asking me if he did things wrong when we were growing up, then he goes all sentimental and talks about the time he massaged my leg when I was very small.’

Mum laughed.

It was such a rare occurrence. I looked at her and smiled.

‘Is that what he says?’ she said. ‘He might have massaged you once. But he did feel a lot of tenderness for you. He did.’

‘But not later?’

‘Yes, of course. Of course he did, Karl Ove.’

She looked at me. I lifted Mefisto and stood up.

‘Anything you want to listen to?’ I said, kneeling in front of the small record collection I had stacked against the wall. Mefisto walked slowly, the way he did when he was offended, into the kitchen.

‘No, play whatever you want,’ mum said.

I switched off the radio and put on Sade, which was the only I record I possessed that there was the remotest chance she would like.

‘Did you like it?’ I said after the music had filled the room for a few minutes.

‘Yes, it was very nice,’ she said, putting her cup down on the table beside the sofa and resuming her knitting.

After school next day I went to Platebørsen, spoke to the assistant, said I had an arrangement with Steinar Vindsland at Nye Sørlandet to pick up three records, he nodded, I spent half an hour choosing the ones I would write about, the trick was to choose someone I already knew, preferably someone who had been reviewed elsewhere, so that I had a pattern to follow.

I also bought one with my own money, which mum had given me that morning. To still my hunger I went to Geheb and bought a cardamom and custard bun, strolled up Markens gate munching, bun in one hand, records in the other, dropped the paper bag onto the street and was brushing my hands when a slightly plump but well-dressed elderly man shouted after me.

‘Hey, you!’ he yelled. ‘We don’t litter in this town! Pick it up!’

I turned, my heart pounding, and eyed him as coldly as I could. I was frightened, but I defied my fears and took a few steps towards him.

‘Pick it up yourself if it’s so important to you,’ I said.

Then, my legs trembling with fear and my chest quivering with emotion, I turned my back on him and continued up the street.

I half-expected him to come running after me, grab me and shake me, even punch me in the stomach, but nothing happened.

Nevertheless, I walked quickly for several blocks before daring to turn round.

No one there.

How had I dared!

To answer back like that!

Now I had given him something to think about. What the hell was he doing, ordering me about? Who gave him the right?

Wasn’t I a free person? No one was going to tell me what to do and what not to do. No one!

This bubbled inside me as I walked past the Hotel Caledonien. It was around four o’clock, I had two hours to kill, and I headed for the library, through the side streets so that there was no chance of bumping into him again. Once there, I sat down in the reading room, studied my records for a while before going to find a book from the shelves behind me. There was the first volume of Bjørneboe’s trilogy about the history of bestiality which Hilde from our class had talked about with such enthusiasm. All I had read by Bjørneboe, apart from the few pages of Ere the Cock Crows that I had managed yesterday, was The Sharks, which I had read when I was twelve as if it were Jack London. But now, perusing the first few pages of this trilogy, I realised that I hadn’t understood a thing. This was deep, and it was painful. The opening, with the föhn wind, was fantastic.

Did evil come from outside?

Like a wind dragging people along with it?

Or did it come from inside?

I gazed at the square outside the church, where there were already yellow and orange leaves on the ground. In the street behind, people were walking under umbrellas.

Could I become evil? Find myself borne along by a wind of inhumanity and torture someone?

Or was I evil?

Torture wasn’t so relevant really, not now, I thought, and continued to read. But this was a book you had barely glanced at before you raised your eyes again. The torture was extreme, the annihilation of the Jews extreme. But it was carried out by normal people! Why did they do it? Didn’t they know it was wrong? Yes, of course they did. Is this what they wanted, in their heart of hearts? While they were walking around in their elegant little facade towns, making sure that everyone was doing what they should and believing that they were so bloody good, was evil what they really wanted if they got the chance? Without realising it themselves? Was it just something they carried within them, an evil without form, as it were, which emerged when the opportunity arose?

Oh, how stupid it was that they went around believing in a god and a heaven. It was so conceited! So unbelievably conceited! Why would God have selected them, people who were so preoccupied with ensuring everyone did the right thing all the time? Those petty-minded fools, why would God bother about them of all people?

I almost laughed out loud in the library, but managed at the last moment to stifle it to a giggle.

Looking around me, I saw that no one had noticed. Then, to disguise the fact that I had been looking around, I gazed out through the window again, with my head slightly tilted, so that it resembled an active decision, as if I was searching for something.

Wasn’t that Renate?

Yes, it was.

She was going into Peppes Pizza. And that was probably Mona with her, wasn’t it?

For one wild moment I considered going in after them. Bump into them as if by chance, ask if I could join them, sit down, turn on the charm, all casual, catch the bus home with them, it was Friday, they were popular, they were bound to be going to a party, we could have a few beers, I could accompany Renate home, she might hold my hand and ask if I wanted to come in, I would say yes and once inside I would pull off her T-shirt and trousers and spreadeagle her on the bed and fuck her senseless.

Ha ha.

Fuck her senseless, oh yes, Karl Ove.

I went weak at the knees even thinking about it. Yes, I could probably undress her, on a very, very good day I might be able to do that, but that was all I could do. That was where it stopped, then I went weak at the knees.

Renate was two years younger. And had a body that made everyone drool. Where I lived she was the body.

Once, on the bus, they had teased me. Not her, she had only been listening, but Mona. And she was three years younger!

‘You’re so good-looking, Karl Ove,’ she had said. ‘But you never say anything. Why don’t you say anything? What is it with your cheeks? They’re so red! Are you coming with us? We’re going to Renate’s. That would be something, wouldn’t it? Or are you a homo? Is that why you’re so quiet?’

She was a cheeky little bugger with a great big mouth and even greater belief in herself.

I had been in love with her sister all through the eighth class and had absolutely no chance. I was so much older than them and couldn’t find an answer, she would tie me in knots. Renate was also there, and at least she wasn’t three years younger, only two, she was in the ninth class, and she. . yes, but no, she was listening to all this and saw me rigidly staring out of the window, red-cheeked, as though I imagined it was possible to get out of this situation by pretending I could neither see nor hear them.

So hopeless. Couldn’t I just fuck them? Well, not Mona, but Renate?

No. That was exactly what I couldn’t do.

I lowered my gaze and continued reading. Not many seconds passed before any words other than those Bjørneboe had written were gone from my mind. Thank goodness.

Six other guests came to dinner at dad and Unni’s. They had set the big living-room table, there was a white cloth, there were candlesticks, serviettes and silver knives, forks and spoons. Have a glass of red wine with the food, dad said, and I did. I said very little, sat watching for the most part, saw their spirits rising as they chatted and laughed. After I had finished one glass I reached out for the bottle and lifted it. Dad saw me and shook his head once. I put the bottle back down. One of them said he had a six-month-old baby at home and now they were discussing whether to have her christened or not. Neither he nor his wife was a believer, but tradition was important for both of them. Was that enough? he asked.

My heart beat faster.

‘I got confirmed for money,’ I said. ‘And the day I turned sixteen I left the state church.’

Everyone looked at me, most with a soft smile on their lips.

‘Have you left the church?’ dad said. ‘Secretly? Who gave you permission?’

‘Everyone has permission when they’re sixteen,’ I said. ‘And, as you know, I am sixteen.’

‘It may be legal,’ dad said, ‘but that’s not the same as right.’

‘But you left the church too!’ Unni said, laughing. ‘So you can’t say your son shouldn’t do the same.’

He didn’t like that.

He hid it behind a smile, but I knew him. He didn’t like it. I could feel his chill. She didn’t notice. She went on chatting and laughing.

Slowly he warmed up, he drank and his stiffness evaporated, what had been important was important no longer, nor that I was allowed to drink only one glass of wine, I speculated, and I was right, I took the bottle, he didn’t notice, I poured and a completely full glass stood before me.

Dad let go, his aura was great, indeed immense in the room. He was the person you noticed, he was the person eyes sought. But not in a warm way. There was no warmth in their eyes. He was too much, he was too loud, he interrupted in the wrong places, laughed at nothing, uttered inanities, didn’t listen. Took offence, went absent for a while, returned as if nothing had happened. Gave Unni a lingering kiss in front of everyone. The others retreated with their eyes and expressions, they didn’t want to know what he had to say, it was over the top for their taste, he was inappropriate, I could see that, and I found myself thinking the bloody idiots knew nothing, understood nothing, they were petty and they didn’t know it, and that was the worst of it, their bloated opinions of themselves while all they were was petty.

A pattern began to emerge that autumn. Dad drank every weekend, it made no difference whether I visited in the morning or the afternoon or the evening, on Saturday or Sunday, although at the beginning of the week he didn’t drink, or at least he drank much less, apart from perhaps the odd blip one evening a week, when he phoned everyone he knew, including me, and wittered on about something or other. I tried to see him at least once, preferably twice a week, and when he wasn’t drinking he was stern and formal, exactly as he always had been, asked me a couple of questions about school and perhaps Yngve, and then we sat watching TV, not a word was spoken until I got up and said I had to go. He didn’t want me there, I could feel that, but I continued to ring him and ask if I could come at such and such a time, and he said, I’m home then, yes. When he was drunk everything was a mess, he would talk about what a great time he was having with Unni and he didn’t spare me the details about his life with mum, how it had been compared with the life he had with Unni. Then he would cry, or else Unni would make a thoughtless remark and he would leave the room in a furious temper or extremely upset, she only had to mention a man’s name and he could be on his feet and gone, and the same applied to her, if he mentioned a woman’s name she would stand up and leave.

At least once during the course of these evenings he would talk about my childhood, which then merged into his, grandad had beaten him, he said, and even though he might not have been a good father to me he had always done the best he could, this he said with tears in his eyes, there were always tears in his eyes then, when he said he had done the best he could. Often he would mention how he had massaged my leg and how poor they had been in those days, they’d had almost no money, he mentioned that a lot.

I told mum about some of this. With her I lived a completely different life, my real life; with her I discussed every thought that went through my head, apart from anything to do with girls, and the terrible feeling of being on the outside at school, and what dad was doing. I told her everything else and she listened, occasionally with a genuinely surprised expression on her face, as though she hadn’t thought about what I was saying. Although she had, of course, it was just that her empathy was so immense that she forgot herself and her own thoughts. Sometimes it was as if we were like minds. Or equals at least. Then something changed and the distance between us became apparent. Such as the weeks when I was reading Bjørneboe and for several evenings in succession I went on about the meaninglessness of all things until she burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, and with tears in her eyes, exactly the same as her father, said that wasn’t what life was like, look around you! How offended I was for the rest of the week. But she was right, and what was strange was the fact that we had switched positions. Usually I was the one who said life was about enjoyment and that I would never fall into the traps known as duty and the nine-to-four working day, and she said life was a slog, that was the way it was. I subscribed to Bjørneboe’s pessimism and the wall of meaninglessness you saw as soon as you started thinking along these lines, I acknowledged the world’s misery; however, this did not apply to my own life and the plans I had, which were positive and robust. There was a connection though, for the alternative life, life outside bourgeois values, brought with it some insight into the meaninglessness, was this not the basis for all the thinking about enjoying yourself, not working, not giving a damn and not conforming to duty? The diary I kept in my gymnas years was full of this kind of reasoning. Was there a god? I wrote at the top of one page, no, there probably wasn’t, I concluded three lines later. I wasn’t an anarchist in the punk ‘fuck ’em all’ way, I was more structured, there should never be anyone above anyone else, no national state but more of a loose federation of individuals at a local level, in my opinion. No multinational companies, no capitalism and definitely no religion. I stood for freedom, free people performing free acts. Who would take care of the sick? mum would counter. We-ell, that could be done locally, couldn’t it? Who would pay for it then and in what currency? she would respond. Surely you would need some national institutions? Or would you like to abolish the whole financial system? Why not? What’s wrong with natural housekeeping? I would say. But why on earth would we do that? How could all your records be produced in that kind of system? Then I was on shaky ground, two of my worlds were colliding, one that contained everything that was good and cool and one that contained principles. Or, expressed in a different way, what I wanted and what I believed in. I was no bloody eco-vegetarian, for Christ’s sake! That wasn’t what this was about. However, it was where I ended up if I followed the logic of my basic principles.

A couple of times she received visits from friends in Arendal, a couple of times from old student friends in Oslo and a couple of times friends she had made in Kristiansand. For them I was the grown-up son, I joined them and chatted away to surprise and impress them, he’s so grown-up they said to mum after I had gone and it was ridiculously easy to make them believe I was.

I spent most of my time outside school writing the three weekly record reviews, but since I wasn’t paid in kroner and øre I also worked several evenings at the floor factory. During these months I was especially careful to drop in on grandma and grandad because they knew what dad was doing and it was up to me to show that I was my old self while also, in a way, representing dad, if life was going well for me this helped to offset the impression that dad’s life gave.

At school I made a few new acquaintances. Bassen hung out with someone called Espen Olsen from the second class, an arrogant kid from Hånes with self-confidence that bordered on the insufferable and knew everyone it was worth knowing. I was aware of his existence, he was one of those you noticed, the way he mounted the speaker’s platform without a second thought when it was election time and spoke to a packed canteen, the self-assurance he had as chairman of Idun, the gymnas association. I stood next to him one break. ‘See you review records for Nye Sørlandet,’ he said. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I saw you once in the first class and I had to laugh,’ he said. ‘You were wearing a Paul Young badge next to one of Echo and the Bunnymen! How is that possible? Paul fuckin’ Young?’ ‘He’s underrated,’ I said. He scoffed, loudly. ‘R.E.M. are good though,’ he said. ‘Have you heard Green on Red?’ ‘Of course.’ Had he heard Wall of Voodoo? Are you joking? Stan Ridgway is the king!

A few weeks later, out of the blue, he invited me to a pre-loading session at his house. Why had he invited me? I wondered. I had nothing to offer; there was nothing he could conceivably need. But I said yes anyway. He would get in the beer, don’t worry about it, he said, you can pay for it when you’re there, and I caught the bus early one Saturday evening, jumped off at the ‘Rebel Yell’ stop and plodded up the hill to Hånes, where he lived, not so far from the shopping centre where we’d had the catastrophic gig the year before.

It turned out he lived in a terraced house. A man who must have been his father opened the door.

‘Is Espen in?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said, stepping aside. ‘Come in. He’s upstairs.’

A woman who must have been his mother was a bit further back in the hall, bending over, putting on her shoes.

‘I don’t think we’ve met, have we?’ the father said.

‘No,’ I said, shaking his hand. ‘Karl Ove.’

‘So you’re Karl Ove,’ he said.

The mother smiled and shook my hand as well.

‘We’re going out, as you can see,’ she said. ‘Have a nice evening!’

They left and I went up the stairs with some hesitation, this wasn’t a house I knew.

‘Espen?’ I called loudly.

‘In here!’ his voice answered, and I opened the door to where I had heard it.

He was lying in the bath, his arms down by his sides, with a broad grin on his face. The second I saw him there, naked, I mustered the utmost concentration to look him in the eyes. I couldn’t — not for anything in the world — look down at his dick, which was floating on the surface of the water, even though that was my first impulse. Do not look at his dick. Do not look at his dick. And I steeled my gaze, looked him straight in the eye, thinking as I stood there, I had never looked anyone in the eye for such a long time before.

‘Found your way here then?’ he said with a smile. Lying totally at ease in the bath, as though he owned the whole world.

‘Yes, it was easy enough,’ I said.

‘You seem ill at ease,’ he said, laughing. ‘Is there something wrong?’

‘No,’ I said.

He laughed again.

‘You’re looking at me strangely.’

‘No, I’m not,’ I said, staring him in the eye.

‘Have you never seen a cock before? Is that what it is?’

‘When are the others coming?’ I persisted.

‘At eight, of course. That’s what I told you. But you would come so bloody early.’

‘You told me seven.’

‘Eight.’

‘Seven.’

‘Listen, you pig head. Chuck me the towel, will you?’

I grabbed the towel and threw it to him. Before he had a chance to stand up I turned and went out. My forehead was covered in sweat.

‘Is it all right if I wait downstairs until you’re ready?’ I said.

‘Be my guest,’ he said from inside. ‘Don’t sit down anywhere though!’

I knew he was teasing, but I still didn’t sit down anywhere, just strolled around carefully examining everything.

He had said seven, hadn’t he?

There were pictures of him on one wall, as a baby and a teenager, with another boy who must have been his brother.

When he came down, wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt, no socks on his feet, he went straight to the stereo and put on a record. Sent me an arch glance as the first chords resounded in the room.

‘Do you know who that is?’ he said.

‘Naturally,’ I said.

‘Who is it then?’ he said.

‘Violent Femmes.’

He nodded and straightened up.

‘Isn’t it bloody brilliant?’ he said.

‘It is.’

‘Beer?’

‘Yep, sounds good.’

I didn’t know any of the others who came, although I had heard about them at Katedralskolen. Trond, tall, thin, fair-haired with a triangular face, an impressively large mouth and equally impressive verbal skills, he knew how to express himself and was never, as far as I could ascertain, tongue-tied. Gisle was his polar opposite, small, black-haired with dark clever eyes, he didn’t say much but what he did say was direct rather than eloquent. Then there were the twins, Tore and Erling, whom it took me several months to tell apart. They were obsessed by music and were always happy, always keen, talking over each other and looking at people around them with warmth in their eyes. They had seen me on the train to Drammen the winter before, they said, on the way to the U2 concert. They said nothing about me going on my own, standing on my own watching U2 or that it was quite strange. Bassen already knew everyone and belonged to the same group, but something had happened between Espen and him, they barely tolerated each other, although I never found out the cause of their disagreement.

Tonight Bassen wasn’t there, and as I didn’t know the others and had barely spoken to Espen I sat silent for a long time.

Espen was full of jibes, trying to rouse me into action, I understood that, but the sole result was that I became aware of my silence, which lay like a low pressure system over my thoughts.

I drank though, and the more I drank the more it eased my discomfort. When at last I was drunk I was there, in the room with them, babbling away, singing along to the songs at the top of my voice, groaning aloud, oh that one’s great! Oh shit, what a terrific song! That is one fantastic band!

This was where I wanted to be, this was how I wanted to be, getting drunk and singing, staggering out to a bus stop, staggering into a discotheque or a bar, drinking, chatting, laughing.

The next day I woke up at twelve. I couldn’t remember a thing about what had happened after we caught the bus from Espen’s, apart from a few fragments which fortunately were long and specific enough for me to be able to place them, if not in time then at least in space.

But how had I got home?

Tell me I hadn’t taken a taxi! It cost 250 kroner, in which case I would have spent all the money I possessed.

No, no, I hadn’t, I had been on the night bus because I had been looking at the light on the little slalom slope beneath the school in Ve.

The alcohol was still in my body, and, feeling equal amounts of distaste and delight, which I recognised from previous occasions when I had been drunk, I went down to the kitchen. Breakfast was still on the table and mum was preparing her lessons at the desk in the living room.

‘Did you have a nice time yesterday?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ I said, put some water on for tea, found some rissoles in the fridge, which I fried, fetched the previous day’s paper and sat at the table eating, reading and gazing out on the almost completely yellow and orange countryside for two hours. Waking up still drunk wasn’t quite as good as getting drunk, but it wasn’t far off, I reflected, because that feeling of catching up with yourself, of your body slowly regaining its energy, dynamic energy at that, could have its exultant moments.

The sky above the yellow deciduous trees and the green conifers was dense and grey. The greyness, and the fact that all visibility stopped there, just a few metres above, increased the intensity of the colours; the yellow, the green and the black were hurled into space, as it were, yet blocked by the grey sky, and that must have been why the colours shone with such abandon. They had the power to lift off and disappear into eternity but couldn’t, and so the energy was burned up where they were.

The telephone rang.

It was Espen.

I was happy, he had never called me before.

‘Did you get home OK?’ he said.

‘Yes, but don’t ask me how.’

He laughed. ‘I won’t. Christ, we were drunk.’

‘Yes, that’s for sure. How did you get home?’

‘Taxi. I haven’t got the bloody money for taxis, but it was still worth it.’

‘Right.’

‘What are you doing up there in farming country?’

‘Nothing. Have to write a record review afterwards, so I’m staying at home.’

‘Oh? Which band?’

‘Tuxedomoon.’

‘Them, oh yes. That’s just European avant-garde crap, isn’t it?’

‘It’s pretty good actually. Very atmospheric.’

‘Atmospheric?’ he sneered. ‘You can give them a panning then. See you on Monday.’

At around four, as darkness was drawing in, I sat down at the living-room desk and worked on the review until eight, when I got up and sat beside mum on the sofa and watched TV for a couple of hours. I shouldn’t have done, as one of the characters in the British series we were following was a homosexual, and when this was mentioned or referred to I blushed. Not because I was homosexual and unable to tell her, but because she might have thought I was. And that was ironic because if I blushed whenever the word ‘homosexual’ was mentioned she would definitely have thought I was, and the idea of that made me blush even more.

In my absolutely worst hours I used to imagine that I really was homosexual.

Sometimes, just before I fell asleep, I would begin to wonder whether I was a boy or a girl. I didn’t know! My consciousness struggled furiously to clear this matter up, but the walls of my mind were slippery, I didn’t know, I could equally well have been a girl as a boy, until finally it found firm ground and, eyes wide open, fear deep in my chest, I knew for certain I was not a girl but a boy.

And if that could happen, if such doubts could appear, who knew what else might be there? What else could be hidden inside me?

So strong was this fear that I seemed to be watching over myself when I dreamed, it was as though there were something in me that was present in the dream to see what I was dreaming about, to see whether it was a boy or a girl I was lusting after while I slept. But it was never a boy, it was always girls I dreamed about when I was asleep and when I was awake.

I wasn’t homosexual, I was fairly sure about that. The doubt was minuscule, a tiny fly buzzing in the vast landscapes of my consciousness, but its existence was enough. Great therefore was the torment when homosexuality was mentioned at school. If I had reddened then, it would indeed have been a catastrophe so terrible that I didn’t even dare consider it. The trick was to do something, anything at all really, even if only to rub an eye or scratch your head. Anything that could distract attention from reddened cheeks or explain them.

In football, ‘homo’ was one of the most common terms, are you a homo or what, or you bloody homo, but this did not present a threat and because everyone used it constantly, no one would have ever dreamed that someone actually was one.

And of course I wasn’t one either.

When the programme was over mum made some tea and brought two cups into the living room, where we sat chatting about this and that. Mostly about family matters. She had phoned her sisters — Kjellaug and Ingunn — in the course of the day and now she was telling me what they had said about their jobs, the jobs of their husbands and everything their children were doing. She had also phoned Kjartan, her brother. We spent most of the time talking about him, he’d had four poems accepted by a literary journal, they would be published in the spring, and he was still thinking of moving to Bergen and studying philosophy. But grandma was poorly, grandad could not possibly manage on his own and Kjellaug lived too far away to help much more than at the weekends, she had her own family and farm to take care of, as well as a job.

‘But he’s studying philosophy at home anyway now,’ mum said. ‘Perhaps that’s not such a bad idea. Kjartan’s not twenty any more. I’m not sure university life is as easy as he imagines.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘But you’ve just studied for a year, haven’t you? And you’re not twenty any more either.’

‘I suppose so.’ She laughed. ‘But I’ve got family. I’ve got you. My identity isn’t dependent on student life, if you know what I mean. Kjartan has such immense expectations.’

‘Have you read his poems?’

‘Yes, he sent them to me.’

‘Did you understand anything?’

‘Think so, a bit.’

‘He showed me one this summer. I understood nothing. Someone was walking on the edge of heaven. What does that mean?’

She looked at me and smiled. ‘Well, what could it mean?’

‘Haven’t got the foggiest,’ I said. ‘Something philosophical?’

‘Yes, but the philosophy he reads is about life. And everyone knows something about that.’

‘Why can’t he just write it as it is, straight?’

‘Some do,’ she said. ‘But there are things you can’t say straight.’

‘Such as?’

She sighed and stroked the cat on the head, which he immediately raised, his eyes closed in ecstasy.

‘When I was a student I studied a Danish philosopher called Løgstrup. He’s very taken by the philosopher who means so much to Kjartan: Heidegger.’

‘Yes, I remember the name,’ I said with a laugh.

‘He uses a concept Heidegger writes about,’ mum continued. ‘Fürsorge. Care. It’s at the heart of nursing science of course. Nursing is about caring for people. But what actually is care? And how do we provide care? It’s about being human with another human. But what is it to be human?’

‘I suppose that will depend on who you ask,’ I said.

‘Yes, exactly,’ she said with a nod. ‘But is there a feature which is common to us all? It’s a philosophical question. And it’s important for the job I do too.’

‘I understand that,’ I said. ‘But I don’t understand why he walked on the edge of heaven for that.’

‘Are you meant to understand?’

‘Why should I read it if I don’t understand?’

‘Perhaps you should ask Kjartan the next time you meet him.’

‘About what it means?’

‘Yes, why not?’

‘No, I can’t talk to Kjartan. He’s always so angry. Or maybe not angry but grumpy. Or peculiar.’

‘Yes, he is, but he’s not dangerous, if that’s what you were thinking.’

‘No, no,’ I said.

There was a silence.

I racked my brain for something else to say because it was late and I knew the silence would make mum wonder about going to bed, and I didn’t want that, I wanted to continue talking. On the other hand, I had a review to write, and the longer I sat here doing nothing, the later into the night I would have to work.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘It’s late again now.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Are you going to stay up and work?’

I nodded.

‘Don’t stay up too long.’

‘It’ll take the time it takes,’ I said.

‘I suppose it will,’ she said, getting up. ‘Goodnight then.’

‘Goodnight.’

As she walked through the living room the cat stood next to the sofa and stretched. Stared up at me.

‘Oh no, Mefisto,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I’ve got to work, you know.’

With the record I was reviewing playing on the turntable I sat writing draft after draft, scrunched up the rejects and threw them into the growing heap on the floor. It was a little after two before I was happy, scrolled the paper out of the typewriter, pushed back my chair and read through what I had written for the final time.

Tuxedomoon

Holy Wars (Cramboy)

reviewed by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Tuxedomoon hail from San Francisco, but are now based in Brussels. The band is scheduled to play in Norway this winter; they will be playing Den Norske Opera in Oslo on 1 December.

Blaine Reininger, Tuxedomoon’s front man, has left the band to pursue a very promising solo career and Holy Wars is their first LP without Reininger. It never scales the dizzy heights of Desires, but is not a bad LP for all that.

The members of Tuxedomoon are classically trained and have grown up with rock music. The result is impossible to classify, but avant-garde rock, futurism and modernism are handy cues.

The band explores uncharted territory and discovers new musical paths. Holy Wars is a beautiful, atmospheric album, although at times I do find it rather inaccessible. It embraces diffuse moods of the past mixed with the future, synthesiser instruments mixed with acoustic. One of the songs on the LP is a medieval poem translated from the French. In my opinion, this track, ‘St John’, is the strongest offering with an infectious organ intro and an equally infectious melody. Along with ‘In a Manner of Speaking’ it displays the band’s lighter side. Other tracks I would pick out for special mention are ‘Bonjour Tristesse’ and the instrumental ‘The Waltz’.

Before I went to bed I wrote a note for mum to say I had worked till late and she shouldn’t wake me. Usually she got up an hour before me, had breakfast, drank coffee and smoked a cigarette while listening to the radio. Then she woke me and on the days when our timetables coincided gave me a lift to school. Her school was only a kilometre further down the road. We wouldn’t say much during the half-hour the journey took, and it often struck me how different the lull in conversation was from the one I endured with dad, when the silence burned like a fever inside me. With mum the silence was painless.

This morning I woke up half an hour late for the bus, saw that I’d had a nocturnal emission, took off my sticky underpants and walked naked to the wardrobes room, where to my horror I discovered that there were no clean underpants.

Why hadn’t she washed them? She’d had the whole bloody weekend to do it!

As I entered the bathroom I saw the laundry rack in the middle of the floor covered in clothes, but they were wet. I realised she had washed them the previous evening but had forgotten to hang them up, so she had done it at top speed in the morning.

Oh, how absent-minded she was!

This meant I had a choice between finding a pair of dirty underpants in the laundry basket or wearing wet ones off the rack.

I hummed and hawed. It was quite cold out and it would be no fun walking the kilometre down to the bus wearing wet underpants.

On the other hand, you never knew how close you might be to people in the course of the day. Not that I imagined I smelled, but if I suspected I did it would make me behave in an even stiffer and more unnatural manner than usual.

What if Merethe, in my class, who could be very flirty, what if she decided today of all days to clap her light blue eyes on me and perhaps come so close that she could stroke me fleetingly on the shoulder or even the chest with one of her exquisite hands?

No, it would have to be the wet ones then.

I showered, had breakfast, saw that I wouldn’t make the next bus without rushing, so I decided I might as well catch the one after.

Outside, the sky was blue, the sun hung low and in the shadow beneath the trees along the river bank the frozen mist drifted across the tranquil water.

When the bus pulled up at the stop by the school the third lesson was drawing to a close, and since there was no point going now I took the bus to town and went to Nye Sørlandet with the three reviews. Steinar was in his office.

‘Are you skiving off school?’ he said.

I nodded.

‘Tut tut,’ he said and smiled. ‘Have you got something for me?’

I produced the sheets of paper from my bag.

‘Just leave them there,’ he said, pointing to the table.

‘Aren’t you going to look at them?’

He usually skimmed through them before I left.

‘No. I trust you. You’ve done a good job so far. Why should it be any different today? See you!’

‘See you,’ I said and left. My insides were glowing at what he had said, and to celebrate I went to buy a couple of records, sat down in Geheb and ate a cardamom and custard bun and drank a Coke while carefully scrutinising the covers. Once I had finished, it was so late it would have been senseless to go to school so I wandered around the streets for a while, then caught an early bus home. I stopped by the post box down at the crossing; apart from the newspaper there were three letters in it. Two for mum, window envelopes: bills. And an airmail letter for me!

I recognised the writing on the envelope and saw from the postmark that it was from Israel. Waited until I was sitting at the desk in my room to open it. Opened it, took out the letter, stood up, put on a record and sat down again. Began to read.

Tel Aviv, 9/10/1985

Hi Karl Ove,

I arrived in Tel Aviv a month ago. It’s great but also hard. I’ve never done so much cleaning in the whole of my life as in the last four weeks. It’s thirty degrees here and I’m lying on the terrace writing this letter. I’ve been to the Mediterranean twice and some Israeli boys have taught me how to play frisbee and surf. But it’s impossible to trust the boys here if you’ve got blonde hair. They assume you’re on holiday and so, aha, they think, she’ll be easy. But I can’t forget you. And I don’t understand myself. But I think it’s because you were/are the boy I’ve loved most in all my life. So, Karl Ove, no matter how many girls have come into your life don’t forget me, and come to Denmark next year. And if you are nice and write back quickly this time you are très bien.

I’m your fan,

Lisbeth

I got up, went over to the window, opened it, placed my forearms on the frame and leaned out. The air was cold and crisp, the heat of the sun shining on me barely evident.

She meant it. She was serious.

I stood up, went outside with the letter, sat down on the bench under the window and read it through once again. Put it down beside me and lit a cigarette.

I could go to Denmark in the summer. And I didn’t need to return.

I didn’t need to return.

The thought had never occurred to me before, and it changed everything.

With the cold sharp light in my face, beneath the dark blue autumnal sky, in the midst of the forest above the river, it was as though the future was opening itself to me. Not as what I was expected to do, what everyone did, military service in Northern Norway first, then university in Bergen or Oslo, stay there for six years, go home in the holidays, find a job, get married and have children who became your parents’ grandchildren.

But instead go out and disappear from sight. Vanish. Not even ‘in a few years’ but now. Say to mum in the summer: Listen, I’m off and I won’t ever be coming back. She wouldn’t be able to stop me. She couldn’t. I was a free spirit and she knew it. I was my own man. The future, like a door, was open.

The beech trees in Denmark. The low brick houses. Lisbeth.

No one would know who I was, I was just someone who appeared on the scene and who would soon leave again. I didn’t need to return! No one ever needed to know any more about me, I could go, vanish.

I really could.

A car came round the bend below the house and I recognised the sound of mum’s Golf. I stubbed out my cigarette, buried it under some grass and got to my feet as the car drew up on the gravel in front of the house.

She jumped out, opened the boot and removed two bags of shopping.

‘Have you come into some money?’ I said.

‘Yes, it’s payday,’ she said.

‘What did you buy for dinner?’

‘Fish cakes.’

‘Great! I’m starving.’

Dad’s enquiry about Christmas had been a smokescreen, actually he hadn’t wanted us there, and he had booked a trip to Madeira for himself and Unni without waiting to hear what Yngve and I wanted to do.

We would go with mum to stay with her parents in Sørbøvåg. It was the first Christmas without dad, and I was looking forward to it: everything had been free and easy the few times all three of us had been together after the divorce.

The day school finished I ambled down to grandma and grandad’s to wish them Happy Christmas; mum and I would fly to Bergen the following day, meet Yngve there and catch the boat to Sørbøvåg together.

Grandma unlocked the front door as always.

‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ she said with a smile.

‘Yes, I was nearby and thought I would come and wish you Happy Christmas,’ I said, following her up the stairs without hugging her first. Grandad was sitting in his chair, and his eyes lit up for a brief instant when he saw me. At least that was what I imagined.

‘The meal’s not ready yet,’ grandma said. ‘But I can heat some rolls for you, if you’re hungry.’

‘Yes, that would be nice,’ I said and sat down, took my cigarettes from my shirt pocket and lit up.

‘You haven’t started inhaling, have you?’ she said.

‘No,’ I said.

‘That’s good. It’s dangerous, you know.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

She put the little metal rack on the hotplate and switched on the stove, placed two rolls on top and took out some butter, a mild white cheese and brown goat’s cheese.

‘Dad left for Madeira this morning,’ I said.

‘Yes, we heard,’ grandma said.

‘I’m sure they’ll have a nice time,’ I said. ‘You’ve been there, haven’t you?’

‘No, we haven’t,’ grandma said. ‘No, we’ve never been to Madeira.’

‘Perhaps he’s thinking of Las Palmas,’ grandad said. ‘We’ve been there.’

‘Yes, we’ve been to Las Palmas,’ grandma said.

‘I can remember that,’ I said. ‘We each got a T-shirt from there. Light blue with dark blue letters. Las Palmas it said, and there were some coconut palms, I think.’

‘Can you remember that?’ grandma said.

‘Yes,’ I replied.

Because I did. Some events stood out from that time and were etched in my consciousness. Others were more vague. I thought I remembered grandma once saying there had been a man downstairs in the hall, a stranger, perhaps someone who had broken in. Later I mentioned it to her and grandma stared at me in surprise, shaking her head. No, there had never been a man in the hall. So where had I got that idea from? Other stories I seemed to remember were similarly dismissed as soon as I mentioned them. A forefather or a forefather’s uncle, I thought I had been told, emigrated to America and remarried there, although he hadn’t been legally divorced from his wife back home and was in other words a bigamist. I mentioned this during a meal we were having that autumn, sitting in the dining room one Sunday, grandma, grandad, dad, Unni and I. But no one had ever heard this story before, and grandma looked almost angry as she shook her head. There was also something about a stabbing, I seemed to remember. But if the story hadn’t happened and it was just something I believed had happened, how could it have formed in my mind? Had someone told me it in my dreams? Had it been in one of the countless novels I had read when I went to ungdomskole, which in some mysterious way I had superimposed on vague characters in the family and thus drawn myself into the heart of the narrative?

I didn’t know.

But it was no fun because in this way I gained a reputation for being unreliable, I was someone who lied and made things up; in other words, I was like dad. This was ironic because if there was one resolution I had made it was never to lie, precisely on account of him. Well, yes, I might resort to white lies if there was some matter I didn’t want others, mum more often than not, but dad as well, to know. But whatever I hid, I hid for their sake, not for mine. So that at least was not immoral.

‘It’s good to have a few days’ holiday now,’ I said.

‘I’ll say,’ grandma said.

‘Is Gunnar coming here with the others on Christmas Eve?’ I said.

‘No, they’re staying at home. But I imagine we’ll pop over.’

‘All right,’ I said.

‘There we are. They’re done,’ grandma said, and placed two rolls on a plate she put on the table in front of me. Then she sat down.

She had forgotten to bring a knife and the cheese slicer.

I got up to fetch them.

‘What’s the matter?’ she said. ‘Have I forgotten something?’

‘Knife and cheese slicer,’ I said.

‘You stay put. I’ll get them!’

She went to the drawer and placed them next to me.

‘There we are,’ she said again. ‘Now you’ve got everything you need.’

She smiled. I smiled back.

The crust on the rolls was so crispy that I had crumbs all around my mouth. I ate quickly, not only because this was a habit, but also because they weren’t eating, they were sitting quietly while I munched away, so that every slightest movement I made, even if it was only to brush the crumbs off the table, was somehow emphasised.

‘Mum’s looking forward to the holidays too,’ I said as I spread margarine over the second roll.

‘Yes, I can imagine,’ grandma said.

‘She hasn’t been to Sørbøvåg since the summer, and her parents are getting on now. Especially her mum. She’s quite ill, as you know.’

‘Yes,’ said grandma, nodding. ‘Yes, she is.’

‘She can’t even walk any more,’ I said.

‘Can’t she?’ grandma said. ‘Is it that bad?’

‘She’s got a rollator though,’ I said, swallowed and wiped a few crumbs off my lips. ‘So she can get about at home. But she doesn’t go out any more.’

I had never thought about that. She didn’t go out any more, she was always indoors in those small rooms.

‘She’s got Parkinson’s, hasn’t she?’ grandad said.

I nodded.

‘But mum’s enjoying her job,’ I said. ‘There’s not so much new stuff any more.’

Grandma suddenly got up, lifted the curtain and looked out.

‘Thought I heard someone,’ she said.

‘You were just imagining it,’ grandad said. ‘We’re not expecting anyone.’

She sat down again. Ran her hand through her hair, looked at me.

‘Oh yes,’ she said and got to her feet again. ‘We mustn’t forget the Christmas presents!’

She was gone for a moment, and I looked at grandad, who had his eyes on the folded football paper on the table beside him.

‘Here you are,’ grandma said from the hall and came in with two envelopes in her hand. ‘Well, it’s not much, but it’ll help a bit. One for you and one for Yngve. Do you think you can carry them both all the way up to Sørbøvåg?’

She was smiling.

‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘Thank you very much!’

‘Our pleasure,’ grandma said.

I got up.

‘Have a good Christmas,’ I said.

‘And a good Christmas to you too,’ grandad said.

Grandma walked downstairs with me, gazed into the air while I put on my black jacket and wound the black scarf around my neck.

‘Is it OK if I spend some of my present on the bus fare home?’ I said, looking at her.

‘No, it isn’t,’ she said. ‘The whole idea is for you to buy something nice. Haven’t you got any money?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘I’ll have a look to see if I’ve got some coins somewhere,’ she said, taking her purse from the pocket of the coat hanging in the wardrobe, and passed me two ten-krone coins.

‘Happy Christmas,’ I said.

‘Happy Christmas,’ she said, smiled at me and closed the door.

As soon as I was out of sight of the house I opened the envelope bearing my name. There was a hundred-krone note inside. Perfect. I could nip along and buy two records before going home.

In the shop it struck me that actually I could buy four. Yngve had been given a hundred as well, hadn’t he? Yes, he had.

I could give him the hundred from my own money. It wasn’t as if the note was marked.