Beatles (57 page)

It was overwhelming. There were thousands, tens of thousands of people, had never seen so many in one place before. We were standing in Youngstorget, it was the beginning of June and the height of the afternoon, and Gunnar and Ola were on leave.

‘Now let’s have some fun with the middle classes!’ Gunnar yelled through the din of stamping feet, clapping hands, slogans, crackling microphones, rattling money boxes, music and wind.

I just smiled in return. People were pouring in from all sides, we were squeezed together tighter and tighter, it was like being on an enormous dance floor where everyone was dancing with everyone.

‘Where’s Seb?’ Ola shrieked into my ear.

I shrugged. I had no idea where Seb was.

‘Hasn’t he come home yet?’

Gunnar looked frightened.

I shook my head, for it was impossible to speak in this chaos. Big placards and banners and Norwegian flags were raised over the massed turnout. ALL ROADS DO NOT LEAD TO BRUSSELS. EEC MEANS INCREASED LIVING COSTS! NO TO EEC – YES TO DECENTRALISATION. And then those at the front began to move towards Karl Johan and the City Hall square, and it took at least four hours from the time the first ones set off until the last. You might have been forgiven for thinking some were walking in circles, but they weren’t, it was the nation that had taken to the streets in Oslo that June in 1971.

The town was green and red, and smelt of lilac and exhaust fumes, sun and clenched fists.

In the City Hall square it was even more cramped. A speaker’s platform had been rigged up on the back of a lorry and Norwegian flags fluttered against the sky. We were standing roughly in
the middle of the crowd and being pushed from behind. Ola was becoming paler and paler. He seemed to be sagging suspiciously close to paving height.

I dragged him up.

‘You unwell?’

He rolled an eye, sweat streaming down his forehead.

‘Claustrophobia,’ he whispered. ‘Gettin’ claustrophobic.’

He started gulping and we steered him out of the crowd, found refuge by the National Theatre.

‘How d’you manage in the submarine if you can’t even stand it here?’ I grinned.

Ola’s spirits were reviving.

‘I didn’t manage,’ he groaned. ‘Almost ruined an entire NATO manoeuvre. Became a cook at Madla naval base instead.’

That made us laugh for a good long time and we headed for Saras Telt, ordered a round and sussed each other out. It was a long time since we had seen each other, we looked for changes, wondered if we were the same as before.

‘So you haven’t heard a peep from Seb?’ Gunnar asked.

‘Zilch. Zero.’

I hadn’t heard from Nina, either, nor from Jørgen. My mother would have had to re-address any post that came, but the postbox had been empty every single bloody morning, a black well, no sign of life, not even so much as a garish postcard.

‘Funny,’ Gunnar mumbled, looking concerned, he drank, rolled a Petterøes cigarette. ‘Have you spoken to his mum?’

‘Nope.’

‘What’ve you actually done this year?’ Ola asked. He was back on top form.

I took my time.

‘Not a lot. Slept.’

‘Haven’t you taken the prelim?’

‘Didn’t apply.’

Another round was carried to the table. We clinked and drank.

‘Strange that Seb hasn’t dropped a line,’ Gunnar repeated.

‘You haven’t exactly had writer’s itch, either,’ I burst out. ‘Didn’t you have any leave or what?’

They were embarrassed and I regretted speaking out of turn. Ola had spent all his leaves with Kirsten, Gunnar had been working with a team in Bodø.

I laughed it off.

‘It was dismal here without you,’ I said, knocking back the glass.

Gunnar looked straight at me, his eyes didn’t deviate by one millimetre.

‘That was bad of us, Kim. Very bad. We accept the criticism for that. But now we’re here, anyway. Though Seb isn’t.’

He didn’t manage to say another word as Stig crashed down at our table holding a pile of anarchist newspapers in his arms.

‘Greetings, kinfolk. This is where you sit poisonin’ yourselves of your own free will, is it?’

He snapped his fingers at the beer glasses.

‘And you, too, brother. Thought ML’ers were united in their fight against alcohol.’

‘Drunkenness,’ Gunnar said. ‘We are against drunkenness. But workers are damn well allowed to have a bloody beer of a warm summer’s evenin’, aren’t they?’

Stig shaded his eyes and peered around.

‘Workers? Where did you say they were?’

‘Been in the procession?’ I asked, to lift the lid off the pressure cooker.

‘Sure thing, boys.’ He slapped Gunnar on the back. ‘Shame you couldn’t have joined us, brother.’

Gunnar slowly turned towards him.

‘I bloody did.’

‘Did you? Thought the action committee considered mass demos bourgeois crap. Thought the action committee had its own slogans.’

Before Gunnar had a chance to come with a riposte he stood up and stretched out his arms as though he were the pope and was going to bless us.

‘Pop by Hjelmsgate one day, lads. We have a book café and biodynamic food. See you!’

He shuffled over to another table. Gunnar didn’t say anything for the next three quarters of an hour. Then he said, ‘Damn it! We have to find out what’s happened to Seb!’

I slunk home later that night. The postbox was empty again. I took the lift to the fourth and rang Vigdis’s bell. A girl I didn’t recognise opened the door and I could see that there was a new name on the door, too. Vigdis had moved a long time ago, several months before. She gave me a strange look. So I didn’t manage to give her what I owed her after all. I clambered up the last floor and let myself in. It didn’t look good. I would have to tidy up. It was time I did. I opened the window. I emptied the stinking waste paper basket, stuffed clothes into the wardrobe, tidied away books, stacked the records, blew fluff off the stylus, poured away rancid milk, chucked out the rock-hard, green crusts, washed and cleaned. Seb would have a nice welcome if he came back, and if he didn’t, we would have to go and look for him, by Christ we would.

The following day we visited his mother, and she confirmed our worst fears. Seb had never reached Bordeaux. His father had waited and waited until in the end he had had to leave without Seb. Something had happened to Seb on the way. He had sent one card, just after New Year from Amsterdam, saying he was going to Paris and was fine. His mother looked unhappy and frightened.

‘And how are you?’ she ventured with a smile, appraising each one of us.

‘Fine, getting by.’ We shuffled our feet and made for the hall.

‘Tell me if you hear anything!’ she begged, wringing her hands.

It was raining outside so we held a pow-wow at Krølle. The situation was critical. We would have to go to Paris and search for Seb.

‘We can hitch down there,’ I said. ‘Take a couple of days. Cinch.’

‘I’m flat broke,’ Ola said.

‘There was a bloke in the military who used to have a summer job in Majorstuen Transport Office,’ Gunnar said. ‘They need loads of people all summer.’

‘And when we get to Paris, I can touch up my uncle for cash!’

We batted to and fro what could have happened to Seb, there were quite a number of things, we huddled round the table, whispering, freezing, it was urgent now, there wasn’t a day to lose.

On Monday morning we turned up in Aslakveien in Røa with a herd of others smelling of booze and rolling red mix with trembling
yellow fingers. A man with a peaked cap, Cap’n, noted down our names and then someone shouted and the hired workers trudged off after the drivers. Gunnar got a job, Ola got a job, and at last my name was called out, too. I was sent to the warehouse for six straps and took them back to the Bedford where five big lumps with hairy arms were waiting. I had minor palpitations. I had been assigned to the piano van. They must have confused me with Gunnar. They measured me up with cold smiles and exchanged glances. My thighs were thinner than the driver’s upper arms. I could just about carry the straps.

‘Chuck them in the van,’ one man growled, ‘and sit on them.’

I did as I was told. The others grinned. Then we set off. It bumped and jolted, I was suddenly reminded of the black Mariah and cold sweat began to form. I peered out of the filthy van window, behind me came the Bedford lorry. We drove towards Majorstuen and stopped outside Mayong in Slemdalsveien. The others piled out to eat breakfast. They had forgotten me. They left me to sit in the cramped, stinking van. I pushed and pulled at the door, but it would not open. I was an incarcerated dog, and I hated them. Then one of the men came out and opened the door. I scrambled out and gorged myself on oxygen. He patted my back and gave a rough guffaw.

‘Sorry, pal. We forgot the luggage.’

The heavily muscled gang was sitting behind the window chuckling over their burgers. I wished Seb was home. I took a seat at their table with just enough money for a coffee.

Feverishly I rolled a cigarette.

‘You know that in fact you’ve got to wear a hairnet on this job, don’t you?’ said one beefcake tensing his tattoos. ‘So that you don’t get your hair caught in the straps. Worse than getting your dick caught on a hook, that is!’

The laughter rippled around the table, and I laughed with them, had at last stopped fiddling with the roll-up.

‘We’ve got to carry a piano, have we?’ I asked before the laughter had subsided.

It quickly died and everyone looked at me. They shook their ample heads.

‘Nope. Not a piano.’

I was relieved and my confidence grew.

‘Concert grand,’ said the driver.

It had to be taken to the large music room in Chateau Neuf, the student house and concrete block that had blighted Tørtberg. The legs had been unscrewed, so it was on its side, wrapped in a tarpaulin and lashed to an iron frame with six holes for the straps. The whole thing weighed half a ton. There were six of us. Or five and a quarter.

I couldn’t manage the knot in the strap and had to have help. They rolled their eyes and I felt a bit like the time when my father used to stand behind me to knot my tie. Then we adjusted the strap lengths, put the hooks in the holes and at a signal from the foreman we stood up. It was like having your spine pushed down one leg. Blood and head parted company and I staggered giddily through the door and to the stairs with the entire world on the hook. We stopped and put it down. The strap burned my neck and shoulders, the knot cut into my kidneys.

‘You go at the front,’ said the foreman, pointing to me. ‘Adjust your strap so that it matches Kalle’s.’

Kalle was the one with the tattoos and the biceps. I took off the strap, loosened the knot and looked Kalle up and down. He just stood staring at me.

‘What the hell are you doin’?’ he yelled.

‘Makin’ an adjustment,’ I said meekly.

‘But for friggin’, freakin’ Pete’s sake you don’t need to take off the strap to adjust the length.’

‘You don’t?’

‘Are we the same height?’

‘I reckon you’re taller than me,’ I said.

‘Right, brains. So your bloody strap should be shorter than mine if we want the piano to be level, shouldn’t it!’

A blush descended over my head like a tight, hot helmet. I slipped the strap on, then we bobbed up and down until all the hooks were at the same height. I was having trouble with the knot again, but didn’t dare ask for help. At length I managed to tie it and it felt fairly secure.

Then we took the strain, lifted at the same time and began to
climb up the stairs. It was heavier than carrying your own body. Your heart seemed to be pushed down into your stomach, your brain sucked into your mouth. But then something happened in the middle of the staircase leading to the first landing, it began to feel lighter, as if I had become used to the weight, as though it didn’t seem to affect me any more. It was a miracle. I felt light, uncannily light, I felt like whistling, telling a joke, it was like floating. However, Kalle’s face was getting redder and redder, sweat was pouring off his brow, his eyes were narrow and turbid and his mouth was twisted into a demented grimace.

‘Down!’ he bellowed and we lowered the grand piano onto the landing. He leaned across the tarpaulin gasping for breath, wheezing like a bagpipe. I felt nothing and smiled at the others.

Then Kalle stood up, unhooked himself, came round to me in a furious temper and measured my strap. It was at least ten centimetres longer than his.

‘Tryin’ to be funny, are we?’ he rasped. ‘Givin’ me the whole weight?’

‘I didn’t mean to,’ I stuttered.

He examined the knot, looked at me.

‘For Pete’s sake, you can’t use a granny knot to lift a grand piano!’

The others groaned and cried out, smacking their foreheads.

‘The whole thing could tip, you plonker!’

So he had to knot my tie again and we carried the piano over the last stretch, up to the music room, I carried until I cried, I felt like a dwarf when we eventually sat down, I had blisters on my back and water on my knees, I was bruised, bent and ashamed of myself.

Afterwards Kalle came over to me, gave me a proper cigarette and patted me on the shoulder. Then they drove me back to base and I was given the job of stacking cardboard boxes in the warehouse.

At half past three Gunnar and Ola were back, too. We handed in our timesheets at the cash desk, were paid, caught the tram to town and it was hard to cross Majorstuen with our pockets weighed down. We found a table at Gamle Major.

‘Buggered if I’m gonna keep doin’ this shite job,’ I said. ‘I was on the piano run and made a complete tit of myself.’

‘You’ll fare better tomorrow, you see. Ola and I had cushy jobs.’

‘Almost broke my back carryin’ that bloody piano. Should’ve had bloody knee pads. Buggered if I’m gonna queue tomorrow!’

‘So you don’t want to stick with it because the piano was heavy or because the blokes took the piss?’ Gunnar asked.

‘Another job like that and I definitely won’t be goin’ to Paris.’

The atmosphere was fraught. Gunnar was het up too, he leaned across the table and shoved the bottles to the side.