Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle Book 4 (40 page)

I slept on the bus back, had a headache when I awoke, drank a few beers in the bar, had dinner, downed a few more because tonight everyone was going out, there was a disco near the hotel, we were there until one in the morning. I danced and drank and had a good word for everyone I saw. On the way back Bjørn and I climbed up onto a roof. It wasn’t any old roof, it was a Swiss roof, turret after turret soared upwards, we shinned up, climbed and sweated and finally stood aloft, roughly thirty metres above the car park, where a small crowd had gathered. Our legs trembled as we shouted into the night, then we crouched down and began the descent. When there were only a few metres left two men with torches ran over. The beams wandered back and forth in the blackness.
Polizei
, they said and came to a halt beneath us. One was holding his ID card and shining the torch on it. That must be Chief Inspector Derrick, I giggled. We jumped down. Our football coach came over to us, he could speak some German, and explained the situation to the two police officers, who, despite their sceptical glares, let us go. On our way down the hill to the hotel one of the players from the senior team came up alongside us. He said he thought we were so courageous, we were so tough, going out and drinking every night and climbing up that roof, he really looked up to us, he said, and wished he could do things like that, he didn’t dare, he wasn’t as tough as we were, and for that, he said, I admire you.

That was the word he used. Admire.

I would never have believed it, I said to Bjørn after he had disappeared into the group behind us. No, said Bjørn. That wasn’t bad, I said. He admired us. Bjørn looked at me. Shit, I said, the police coming and shining their torches on their badges.
Polizei! Polizei!
We laughed. Then it struck me that he knew we had been out drinking at night. Did that mean everyone knew? What did it matter anyway? The worst that could happen was that we would be barred from playing, but this was the fifth division we were talking about and the end-of-school festivities were in sight, so it wasn’t a big deal.

When we returned everyone had gathered in our room. Some of the senior team had brought girlfriends with them on the trip, a couple were here, and I saw Bjørn talking to one of them, Amanda, who went out with Jøran. She was around twenty-five. Was Bjørn really trying it on with her? Here?

Yes, he was. As people began to withdraw he did too and I was left alone on my bed, I fell asleep fully clothed, only to be awoken an hour later by Bjørn shaking me.

‘Amanda’s coming,’ he said. ‘Could you go somewhere else? For half an hour?’

Befuddled by sleep, I got up.

‘OK,’ I said, went to the window and opened it.

‘You’re not going to go out there, are you? This is the fourth floor or have you forgotten?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’ll be fine.’

Beneath the window, all the way, ran a brick ledge almost the width of my feet. Two metres above it there was another. I stood on the lower one, gripped the upper one tightly and then shuffled along centimetre by centimetre. Bjørn watched me with his head out of the window.

‘Don’t do this,’ he said. ‘Come back.’

‘Now you’re with Amanda and I’m here. I’ll be back in half an hour.’

He eyed me for a moment. Then he closed the window. I looked down. There was a large fountain outside the entrance, around it an open square, on the margins a few parked cars. A high brick wall separated the hotel grounds from the road beyond. There was no one around, but that wasn’t so strange, it had to be three in the morning at least.

I slowly shuffled towards the window of the room adjoining ours. The curtains were drawn, there was nothing to see. I edged back, stopped by the window, leaned forward and peered in. They were lying on Bjørn’s bed and smooching, their legs intertwined, Bjørn’s hands were sliding up and down her thigh under her dress. I straightened up, took a few steps to the side, squinted down again. Still deserted. How long had I been there now? Ten minutes? I let go of the ledge with one hand, patted my jacket for cigarettes and my lighter, succeeded in knocking one out, sticking it in my mouth and lighting it without swaying once. When the cigarette was finished and lay like a small glowing eye on the tarmac far below I shuffled sideways and banged on the window. Bjørn jumped to his feet. Amanda sat up. Bjørn came over to the window, Amanda ran out of the door, Bjørn turned, ready to give chase, or so it seemed, but then he reconsidered and opened the window for me.

‘Five more minutes,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t you have given me five more minutes?’

‘How was I supposed to know?’ I said. ‘From where I was standing it didn’t look like you were making much progress.’

‘Were you watching?’

‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘I was just kidding. But now I want to sleep. You should too, if you ask me. You’ve got a tough day with Jøran ahead of you.’

Bjørn snorted. ‘He’s too conceited to believe she would want anyone else.’

‘He’s all right, I think,’ I said.

‘Yes, I do too,’ Bjørn said. ‘But Amanda’s more than all right.’

He laughed. I lay down on the bed and fell asleep in an instant, without having found the answer to the enigmatic and somewhat vexing question: why would Amanda want Bjørn? What had he done to deserve that?

On the last evening in Lucerne the bus stood with its engine idling outside the hotel after dinner. Everyone was going out on the town. The destination was a secret. It turned out, however, to be our casino. While the other juniors wandered around slack-jawed, Bjørn and I sat nonchalantly at a table in the striptease venue drinking white wine.

‘I got her number today,’ Bjørn said. ‘She said I should phone her when we were home.’

‘Why on earth would she do that?’ I said. ‘Has she finished with Jøran?’

Bjørn shook his head. ‘No. They’re together. But aren’t you happy for me?’

‘Yes, she’s nice.’

‘Nice? She’s great. Absolutely great. And she’s twenty-four!’

We finished our wine and went for a look round. I lost sight of Bjørn fairly soon and cruised around on my own. By the door to the big hall, on a sudden impulse, I looked in. What’s going on in here? I asked a small bald man with glasses. It’s a conference, he answered. Who for? I said. Biologists, he said. OK, I said. Interesting! He withdrew, I went in, people were gathered around the small tables, but far fewer than earlier in the week. On one of them lay a little green and white card. I went over and inspected it. It was a name tag. I pinned it to my lapel and walked towards the big door. It opened onto a conference hall, rows of seats in a wide gradually ascending semicircle around a speaker’s podium. A man was talking below. Stills were being shown on a screen behind him. The room was slightly over half full. I walked down past a few rows, entered one, people stood up just as in the cinema, and I sat down, crossed my legs and concentrated on the speaker. Now, I said to myself in a low voice. What do you reckon? How very interesting! After twenty minutes, during which I spent as much time looking at the other people in the audience as the speaker, whose grating microphone voice filled the whole auditorium and hung like a constant annoying thought in the background, I got up and went back to the disco. Most of the junior players were inside watching the striptease, it appeared. I went in too and when Jøgge spotted me he came rushing over.

‘Can I borrow some money?’

‘How much do you need? I’ve got some but not much.’

‘A thousand? Have you got that much?’

‘What are you going to do with a thousand kroner?’

‘Actually I need two thousand. That’s what champagne costs.’

‘Two thousand for champagne? Are you out of your mind?’

‘If you buy an expensive drink for one of the women you’re allowed to talk to them. And if you buy champagne you can go off with them.’

‘And that’s what you want to do?’

‘Too right. If only I had the money! Have you got it or not?’

He looked around.

‘Come on. Please. I need two thousand kroner. I’ve never slept with a woman. I’m eighteen years old and I’ve never had sex. You have. But I haven’t. And it costs two thousand kroner. Come on. Please, please.’

He went down on his knees in front of me. Held up his hands in supplication.

And, even worse, he was serious.

‘I want to sleep with a woman. That’s all I want. And I can do it here. I don’t give a shit if they’re prostitutes. They’re unbelievably beautiful, all of them. Come on. Show some mercy. Harald! Ekse! Bjørn! Karl Ove!’

‘I haven’t got that much,’ I said. ‘I may have enough for a little chat . . .’

‘This is serious!’ Jøgge said, back on his feet. ‘This is my chance. There aren’t any places like this in Kristiansand.’

‘Sorry, Jøgge. Would have liked to help you,’ said Bjørn.

‘Same here,’ said Harald.

‘For Christ’s sake, come on,’ Jøgge said.

‘You’ll have to try the old-fashioned method,’ Bjørn said. ‘Chat someone up. The place is full of girls.’

‘Easy for you to say,’ Jøgge said.

‘Come on. Let’s go in and see the action,’ Bjørn said, dragging Jøgge with him.

I had never experienced such an alcoholic high as the one I had that night. It was like a cool green river flowing through my veins. Everything was in my power. As we stood at the bar I noticed a girl on the dance floor, she might have been a year or two older than me, with blonde hair and a beautiful, yes, an unbelievably beautiful face. When her gaze met mine for a second time I didn’t hesitate, I trotted down the two steps to the dance floor. At that moment the music she had been dancing to changed and, along with three other girls, she walked over to a wall. I followed her. I stopped and said I had seen her dancing and she looked fantastic. You looked amazing, I said. She smiled and said thank you and looked at me with her head tilted. I asked her if she was American. Yes, she was. Did she live in the town here? No, she lived in Maine. They all came from Maine. Where was I from? A small barbaric country up north, I said. We are in fact the first generation to eat with a knife and fork. I turned and nodded to the other members of the team, who were watching me from the bar. I’m with them, I said. We’re football players on a training camp here. Do you want to dance?

She nodded.

She wanted to dance!

We glided onto the floor. I put my arms around her. The feeling of her body against mine provoked an electric storm in my head. Round and round we went, sometimes I pressed her close to me, sometimes I held her away from me and looked into her eyes. What’s your name? I whispered. Melody, she whispered. Melody? I repeated. No, Melanie! she said with a smile.

When the song was over I thanked her and joined the others, who were still hanging round the bar.

‘How did you manage that?’ Bjørn said.

‘I just asked. Had no idea it was so easy. It’s crazy.’

‘Go back to her. You can’t stay here!’

‘OK. I’ll just have a little drink. Just my bloody luck this is our last night.’

The bus was supposed to be outside waiting at three. It was half past two. I had no time to lose. Nevertheless I hesitated, although I could still feel her, a kind of phantom joy, her breasts, oh her breasts, the feeling of them against my body, the light pressure, the arousal, I had all that inside me, and if I went down there now it would disappear in a new situation, which might not go that well. I knocked back two glasses of wine in quick succession and walked over again. Her eyes lit up when I appeared. She wanted to dance. We danced. Afterwards we stood in the corner chatting, the others were beginning to make tracks towards the exit, I said I had to go, she wanted to go with me, I took her hand, we stopped outside, a stone’s throw from the bus, which was waiting with the engine running. Where do you live? I asked. She said the name of a hotel. No, not here, but in Maine, I said. I’ll write to you. May I? Yes, she said. Then she told me her address. I had nothing to write with. Did
she
? No. Hurry up, came shouts from the bus, we’re going now. I’ll memorise your address, I said. Say it again. She said it, I repeated it twice. You’ll get a letter, I said. She nodded and looked at me. I leaned forward and kissed her. Put my arm around her and pressed her into me. Now I have to go, I said. All the best to you in your barbaric country, she said with a smile. I paused by the bus door and waved to her, then clambered on board.

Everyone clapped. I bowed to the right, then the left and sat down next to Bjørn. Drunk, happy and confused, I waved to her as the bus drove past.

‘What a bugger it didn’t happen on the first evening,’ I said.

‘Did you get her address?’

‘Yes, I’ve memorised it. She lives in . . .’

I had forgotten. I couldn’t drag it up for the life of me.

‘Didn’t you write it down?’ Bjørn said.

‘No. I relied on my memory.’

He laughed. ‘You prat,’ he said.

We carried on drinking in my room. Bjørn accidentally broke a lamp, he was turning round with a bottle in his hand and hit the glass dome, which shattered. Someone else, I don’t recall who, smashed the other one out of pure devilry. Then I took down the big picture hanging on the wall, which had irritated me all week, and threw it out of the window. It exploded into smithereens on the tarmac five floors down. Lights came on in the room beneath us. Shit, what was the point of that? Bjørn said, no problem, I said, we can just take one of the pictures in the corridor and hang it here, they’ll never notice. What about the picture downstairs? I’ll get it, I said, and did as I promised. Took the lift down, went past the unmanned reception into the square, where I collected all the fragments I could find and put them in the pool around the fountain, close to the nearest wall, so that you could only see them if you were standing over them. On my way back along the corridor I grabbed one of the pictures hanging on the wall. The incident must have sobered people up, for the room was empty when I returned, apart from Bjørn, who was lying on his back with his mouth open and his eyes closed. I got into bed and switched off the light.

The next day was all about packing, having breakfast and getting ready for departure. The hotel manager came out as we were stowing the baggage in the bus, he wanted to know who had been in Room 504, that was Bjørn and I, we went over, and he, the little man, was so angry that he was jumping up and down in front of us. People like you shouldn’t be allowed to stay in a hotel! he yelled. You have to pay for this! It was all very unpleasant. We apologised, said we hadn’t meant anything by it and we would pay. I think we even bowed to him. The others stood around grinning. The team coach, Jan, came over, said he would handle this, the hotel would be properly compensated for any damage we had caused, he was extremely sorry, they were young, anything could happen, we bowed again and got on board, people like you shouldn’t be allowed to stay in a hotel! he yelled again. Jan took out his wallet and passed him a wad of notes, the bus started up, he jumped on, we drove slowly onto the road while the hotel manager glowered at us with hatred in his eyes.