A dumping ground.
A garbage dump in the forest!
Some seagulls were flying over the far end. Screaming, they circled above the garbage as if it were the sea. The stench, sweet though still pungent, stung our nostrils. Then the shots rang out again. Not loud, the reports were crisp, like a kind of crackle. Slowly we made our way down to the edge of the dump, and there, a stone’s throw away, we saw two men, one standing by a wrecked car, the other lying on his stomach next to him. Both had guns pointing across the dump. They fired at intervals of a couple of seconds. The man on the ground stood up, and then they went into the dump, carrying their guns. We walked over to where they had been. Between the piles of waste, which rose and fell like hills and dales, ran a path that they followed. They were dressed like proper hunters with boots and gloves. They were grown-ups but not old. Around them I saw cars, fridges, freezers, TVs, wardrobes, and dressers. I saw sofas, chairs, tables, and lamps. I saw skis and bikes, fishing rods, chandeliers, car tires, cardboard boxes, wooden chests, Styrofoam containers, and heap upon heap of fat, bulging plastic bags. What lay before us was a whole landscape of abandoned goods. Most of it consisted of bags of food leftovers and packaging, things that all households carried to the trash can every day, but in the part where they were standing, and which the two men were crossing, perhaps a fifth of the total area, larger items had been deposited.
“They’re shooting rats,” Geir said. “Look!”
They had stopped walking. One held up a rat by the tail. The whole of one side was shot to pieces, or so it seemed. He swung it around a few times and let go, launching it through the air. It landed on some bags and slid down between them. They laughed. The second man kicked away another rat, putting the tip of his boot underneath the corpse and flicking it.
They returned. Their eyes squinting in the bright sun, they said hello to us. They could have been brothers.
“Are you out for a walk, fellas?” one asked. He had curly red hair beneath a blue peaked cap, a broad face, thick lips with a vigorous moustache above, also red.
We nodded.
“A walk to the garbage dump! Takes all kinds, eh,” the second man said. Apart from his hair color, which was blond, almost white, and his top lip, which was hairless, he was the spitting image of the first man. “Are you going to eat your packed lunches out there? On top of the piles of garbage?”
They laughed. We laughed a little, too.
“Do you want to watch us shoot some rats?” the first man said.
“Yes, love to,” Geir said.
“Then you’ll have to stand behind us. It’s important. OK? And stand very still so that you don’t distract us.”
We nodded.
This time both of them lay down. For a long time they didn’t move. I tried to see what they could see. But only when the shots rang out did I see the rat, which seemed to be hurled backward along the ground, as if caught by a sudden, violent gust of wind.
They got up.
“Do you want to come and see?” one said.
“There’s not a lot to see!” the second man said. “A dead rat!”
“I want to see it,” Geir said.
“Me, too,” I said.
But the rat wasn’t dead. It was writhing on the ground. The rear part was almost completely blown away. One of the men jabbed the stock of his gun into its head, there was a soft crunch, and it lay still. He studied the gunstock with a concerned expression.
“Oh, why did I do that?” he said.
“You probably wanted to look like a tough guy,” the second man said. “Come on. Let’s go. You can wipe it when we get to the car.”
They went “ashore” again, with us tagging behind.
“Do your parents know you’re here?” one said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “I suppose they said you mustn’t touch anything here? It’s full of bacteria and other shit, you know.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Great! See you, fellas.”
Some minutes later a car started down on the road, and we were alone. For a while we ran around looking at things, emptying bags, pushing over cupboards to see if there was anything behind them while shouting out what we had found. A bag of recent magazines, in good condition, was my biggest find. There was a stack of
Tempo
and
Buster,
a
Tex Willer
paperback, and then some of those small, rectangular cowboy magazines from the 1960s. Geir found a slim flashlight, a small deer embroidered on linen, and two stroller wheels. When we were looking, we sat down in the heather with our finds and ate our packed lunches.
Geir scrunched up the wax paper and threw it as far as he could. Thinking, probably, that it would end up in the middle of the garbage, more or less, but it was met by a gust of wind just as he released it, and it was so light that it didn’t even reach the edge and landed in the heather.
“Let’s go for a shit, eh?” he said.
“OK,” I said. “Where?”
“Dunno,” he said with a shrug.
We walked around in the forest for a while looking for an appropriate spot. Shitting in the garbage dump was, for some reason, inappropriate, there was something dirty about it, it seemed to me, and that was strange, because it was all waste, the whole lot of it. But garbage, that was shiny plastic bags and cardboard boxes, discarded electrical appliances and piles of newspapers. Anything soft and sticky was wrapped. So we had to go into the forest to do it.
“Look at that tree!” Geir said.
There was a tall pine tree on its side perhaps ten meters away. We clambered up on the trunk, pulled down our trousers, and stuck out our cheeks, each holding onto a branch. Geir swung his butt just as the shit came out so that it was flung to the side.
“Did you see that?” he laughed.
“Ha ha ha!” I laughed, trying a different ploy, dropping it like a bomb from a plane over a town. It was a wonderful feeling as it came further and further out, the moment when it was suspended in midair until it finally let go and plunged to the ground.
Sometimes I would hold it in for days so that I could have a really big one and also because it felt good in itself. When I really did have to shit, so much that I could barely stand upright but had to bend forward, I had such a fantastic feeling in my body if I didn’t let nature take its course, if I squeezed the muscles in my butt together as hard as I could and, as it were,
forced
the shit back to where it came from. But this was a dangerous game, because if you did it too many times the turd ultimately grew so big it was impossible to shit it out. Oh Christ, how it hurt when such an enormous turd had to come out! It was truly unbearable, I was convulsed with pain, it was as if my body were exploding with pain, AAAAAAGGGHHH!! I screamed, OOOOOHHH, and then, just as it was at its very worst, suddenly it was out.
Oh, how good that was!
What a wonderful feeling it was!
The pain was over.
The shit was in the pan.
Everything was peace and light throughout my body. Indeed, almost so peaceful that I didn’t feel like getting up and wiping my bum. I just wanted to sit there.
But was it worth it?
I could spend the whole day dreading one of those big shits. I didn’t want to go to the toilet because it hurt so much, but if I didn’t it would only hurt more and more.
So in the end there was no option but to go. Knowing full well that this would hurt like hell!
Once I was so terrified I tried to find another way to get the shit out. I half stood, and then I stuck my finger up my butt, as far as it would go. There! There was the shit. As hard as a rock! When I had located it I wriggled my finger to and fro in an attempt to widen the passage. At the same time I pressed a little, and in that way, bit by bit, I managed to maneuver the shit to the side. Oh, it still hurt to work the last bit free, but not
so
much.
What a method that was!
I didn’t mind so much that my finger was all brown; it was easy enough to wash it off. The smell was another matter, however, because although I scrubbed and scoured, a faint odor of shit hung around my finger all day and all night, even the next morning I could still smell it when I woke.
All these pros and cons had to be weighed up against one another.
When Geir and I had finished, we each wiped ourselves with a fern leaf, and then we went to see the result. Mine had a greenish glimmer to it and was so soft it had already spread across the ground. Geir’s was light brown with a black patch at one end, harder and more lump shaped.
“Isn’t it strange that mine smells good whereas yours stinks?” I said.
“It’s yours that stinks!” Geir said.
“It does not,” I said.
“Pooh, manohman!” he said, pinching his nose with his fingers as he poked around in my shit with a long stick.
Some flies buzzed above it. They too had a greenish glimmer.
“Right,” I said. “Shall we go? We can see what has happened to them next Saturday, maybe?”
“I’ll be away then,” he said.
“Where are you going?”
“To Risør,” he said. “We’re going to look at a boat, I think.”
We ran up to fetch our things, and then we walked home, Geir with a stroller wheel in each hand, me with a plastic bag full of comics. I made him promise he wouldn’t say anything at home about where we had been because I had a suspicion they would ban us from going if they knew. I had prepared an explanation for the comics, I had borrowed them from someone called Jørn, who lived on the other estate, in case Dad found them and kicked up a fuss.
Once inside the porch, I stood still for a moment. I heard nothing unusual and bent down to untie my shoelaces.
Somewhere inside the house a door opened. I took off one shoe and put it next to the wall. The second door opened, and Dad was standing in front of me.
I put my other shoe in its place and stood up.
“Where have you been?” Dad asked.
“In the forest.”
I suddenly remembered my explanation, and added, looking at the floor, “And then on top of the hill.”
“What have you got in the bag?”
“Some comics.”
“Where did you get them?”
“I borrowed them from someone called Jørn. He lives up there.”
“Let me see,” Dad said.
I passed him the bag, he eyed the contents, and took out a
Tex Willer
paperback.
“I’ll have that,” he said, and went back to his study.
I went into the hall and was halfway up the stairs when he called me.
Had he sussed me? Perhaps it smelled of garbage?
I turned and went back down, so weak at the knees that they could hardly carry me.
He stood in the doorway.
“You haven’t had this week’s pocket money,” he said. “Yngve had his a while ago. Here you are.”
He put a five-krone coin in my hand.
“Oh, thank you!” I said.
“But B-Max is closed,” he said. “You’ll have to go to the Fina station if you want to buy candy.”
It was a long way to the Fina station. First of all, there was the long hill, then there was a long, flat stretch, then there was the long path through the forest, down to the gravel lane that came out by the main road, where the gas station was, which was both fantastic and bad. The hill and the flat stretch were no problem, there were lots of houses and cars and people on both sides. The path was more problematic because after only a few meters you disappeared into the trees where there were neither humans nor anything made by human hand to be seen. Just leaves, bushes, trunks, flowers, the odd bog, the odd pile of felled trees, the odd meadow. I used to sing when I walked there.
Gikk jeg en tur på stien,
I sang. Children’s songs:
Fløy en liten blåfugl, Bjørnen sover,
and
Jeg gikk meg over over sjø og land.
When I sang it was as if I wasn’t alone, even though I was. It was as if the singing was another boy. If I didn’t sing, I talked to myself. Wonder whether anyone lives on the other side, I said. Or wonder whether the forest continues into eternity. No, it can’t, we live on an island. So the sea is around us. Perhaps the ferry to Denmark is there now? I’d like a bag of Nox licorice, please, and a bag of Fox lemon candies. Fox and Nox, Nox and Fox. Fox and Nox, Nox and Fox.
On the right-hand side, a vast concourse opened beneath the crowns of the trees. They were deciduous, they were tall, and the tops formed such a dense canopy that the vegetation on the ground was sparse.
Straight afterward I came to the gravel lane, followed it past the old white house and the old red barn, heard the whoosh of the cars on the main road below, and when I reached that, fifty meters away stood the gas station in all its glory.
The four gas pumps holding their hands to their temples in their usual salute. The big white plastic sign with FINA in blue letters shone wanly at the top of the high pillar. A semi was parked there, with the driver hanging an arm out of the open window and talking to someone on the ground beneath him. Outside the kiosk there were three mopeds. A car stopped at one of the pumps, a man with a thick wallet in his back pocket got out, grabbed the nozzle, and stuck it in the tank. I stopped next to him. The pump began to burr; the numbers on what I thought of as the face sped around. It seemed to be blinking at an incredible speed. The man was looking another way while this was going on, and to me it seemed to be a gesture of nonchalance, not following what was happening. This was someone who knew what he was about.
I went to the kiosk and opened the door. My heart was beating fast, you never knew what was awaiting you in here. Would someone talk to you? Crack a joke and make all the others laugh?
“Ah, here’s Knausgård junior,” they might say. “What’s your father up to today? Is he at home grading papers?”
The customers who hung out went to the school where Dad taught. They wore denim, or even leather, jackets, often with brand labels sewn on. Pontiac, for example, or Ferrari or Mustang. Some of them wore scarves. All of them had their hair down over their eyes. And then they tossed their heads back when they wanted to see something. Outside they spat all the time and drank Coke. Some of them put peanuts into the bottle so they could drink and eat at the same time. Almost all of them smoked, even though it was forbidden. The youngest had bicycles, the oldest mopeds, now and then they were joined by even older boys who had cars.
This was where the bad side came in. Mopeds, long hair, smoking, malingering, playing the machines, everything that happened at the gas station was bad.
The laughter, which always met me when they realized that I was Knausgård junior, gave me nightmares. I had no answer, I had to lower my head and make a beeline for the counter and buy whatever I was there to buy.
“Knausgård junior is afraid!” they might shout, if they were in that mood, for they left me alone as often as they shouted at me. You never knew.
This time they left me in peace. Three of them stood around a one-arm bandit, four sat around a table drinking Coke, and then there were three girls wearing makeup and giggling at the table at the back.
I spent all my money on Fox and Nox, it wasn’t a small amount, the assistant put them in a transparent plastic bag for me, and I hurried out.
Up the gravel lane, where the air was chilly as the sun had stopped shining there, onto the path. It wasn’t so bad, I told myself, looking between all the tree trunks in the vast concourse beneath the branches to see if anything was moving. What should I do? I wondered. Eat the Fox and Nox alternately, or eat all the Fox candies first and then all the Nox?
To the right of me the bushes rustled.
I stopped and stared at them. Slowly retreated a couple of paces, for safety’s sake.
More rustling.
What could it be?
“Hello,” I said. “Is anyone there?”
Silence.
I bent down and picked up a stone. Hurled it into the bushes and then ran off as fast as my legs would carry me. When I stopped and saw no one was following me, I laughed.
“That taught you!” I said and walked on.
As for spirits of the dead, it was best not to think about them. Keep your mind on other things at all times. Because as soon as you started thinking about the dead, about them being around you, behind that spruce tree over there, for instance, all of a sudden it was impossible to think about anything else, and you just got more and more frightened. In the end, all you could do was run, with your heart hammering away and a sort of scream echoing throughout your body.
So even though everything had been fine this time, it was still with a sense of relief that I saw the path and the estate on the flat land open in front of me.
The air, which had been clear and bright when I set out, had turned a little gray as it hovered above the land between the houses along the road.
I ran a few steps.
Two girls were standing outside one of the houses. They watched me as I came across the grass. Then they started running toward me.
What did they want?
I watched them approaching but continued to walk.
They stopped in front of me.
One was the sister of Tom, one of the biggest boys on the estate, who had his own car, red and shiny. I had never seen the other girl before. They were at least ten years old.
“Where have you been?” one said.
“Fina,” I said.
“What were you doing there?” the other said.
“Nothing,” I said, moving off.
They stepped to the side so that I couldn’t get past.
“Get out of the way,” I said. “I’m going home.”
“What have you got in the bag?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh yes, you have. Fox and Nox. We can see.”
“And? I’ve bought them for my brother. He’s eleven.”
“Give them to us.”
“No-oo,” I said.
One of them, Tom’s sister, made a grab for the bag. I swung it to the side. The other girl pushed with both arms and sent me flying.
“Give us the bag,” she said.
“No,” I said, wrapping my arms round it while struggling to get to my feet.
She pushed me again. I fell headlong and started crying.
“They’re mine!” I shouted. “You can’t have them!”
“Thought they were supposed to be your brother’s,” one of them said, grabbing the bag and yanking it out of my hands. Then they ran across the grass as fast as they could to the road, laughing all the while.
“They’re mine!” I yelled after them. “They’re mine!”
I cried all the way home.
They had stolen my candy. How was that possible? How could they just come up to me and
take
them? They were mine! I had been given the money by Dad and walked all the way to the Fina station and back! And they just came and took them! Pushed me over! How could they do that?
Approaching my house, I wiped my face on my sweater sleeves, blinked a few times, and shook my head a bit so that no one would see I had been crying.
Once when I was five, Trond’s little sister, Wenche, threw a rock at me, right into my stomach. I burst into tears and ran over to our garden fence, where Dad was working. I was sure he would help me, but he wouldn’t, on the contrary, he said not only was Wenche a girl, she was also a year younger than me, it was nothing to snivel about. He said I embarrassed him and I should fight back, surely I understood that. But I didn’t. Everyone knew it was wrong to throw stones, didn’t they? And that fighting back was bad, a last resort?
Not Dad, though, no. He stood there with his stern gaze, and his folded arms, looking across the road to where all the children were playing, nodded his head, and said I should carry on playing and stop bothering him.
And since it was girls who had stolen my candy, there was no hope of any help from Dad.
I stood still in the hallway, listened, removed my shoes, put them by the wall, walked carefully upstairs, and into Yngve’s room while the thought of all the lost Foxes and Noxes hit me with renewed force, and again the tears began to roll down my cheeks.
Yngve was lying on his stomach on the bed reading a copy of
Buster
with his legs in the air. He had emptied a bag of candy.
“What are you crying about?” he said.
I told him what had happened.
“Couldn’t you just have run off?” he said.
“No, they were in my way.”
“They pushed you. Couldn’t you have pushed them?”
“No, they were much bigger and stronger than me,” I sobbed.
“Surely you don’t have to blub like that because of it,” Yngve said. “Would it help if I gave you some of mine?”
“Ye-e-s,” I hiccuped.
“Not a lot, though. But some. This one and this one and this one and this one, for example. And maybe this one. There you go. Is that better now?”
“Yes,” I said. “Can I sit here as well?”
“You can sit here until you’ve eaten these. Then you’ve got to go.”
“OK.”
After I had eaten the candy and washed my face in cold water it felt as if I was starting afresh. Mom was in the kitchen, I could hear, she was cooking, the fan was blowing. All the time I had been upstairs I hadn’t heard anything from Dad, so he must have been in his study.
I went into the kitchen and sat down on a chair.
“Did you buy some candy today?” Mom asked. She was standing by the stove and turning what was probably minced meat in the frying pan. It was sizzling and spitting. There was a pan on the other plate hissing away inaudibly, drowned by the noise of the fan.
“Yup,” I said.
“Did you go all the way down to the Fina station?” She always said, “the Fina station,” never just “Fina,” as we did.
“Yes,” I said. “What are we having?”
“Casserole with rice, I thought.”
“And pineapples?” She smiled.
“No, not pineapples. That’s a Mexican dish.”
“Oh, yes.”
There was a pause. Mom tore open a bag and poured the contents over the meat, then she measured some water in a jug and poured that on top. As soon as that was done, the water was bubbling in the pan and she poured in the rice. She sat down at the other side of the table, pressed her hands against her back, and stretched.
“What do you actually do in Kokkeplassen?” I said.
“Surely you know, don’t you? You’ve been there many times.”
“You take care of the people living there.”
“Yes, you could put it like that.”
“But why are they there, actually? Why don’t they live at home?”
She considered that question at length. Indeed, she thought for so long that my mind was on other things by the time she answered.
“Many of the people who live there suffer from anxiety. Do you know what that is?”
I shook my head.
“It’s when you’re afraid of something and you don’t know what it is.”
“Are they afraid all the time?”
She nodded.
“Yes, they are. And then I talk to them. Do a variety of activities with them to make them less afraid.”
“But …,” I said. “Aren’t they afraid of one thing in particular? Or are they just afraid?”
“Yes, that’s exactly how it is. They’re just afraid. But then it passes and then they move back home.”
There was another pause.
“Why did you ask about that? Is it something you’ve been wondering about?”
“Nope. It was Frøken. We had to tell her what our parents did. I said you worked at Kokkeplassen, and she asked what you did there. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure. But do you know what Geir said? He said his mother taught the people who were where she worked to tie their shoelaces!”
“That’s a good way of putting it. The ones she works with aren’t afraid. But they have difficulty doing the little chores we take for granted. Like cooking and washing. And getting dressed. So Martha goes there and helps them.”
She got up and stirred the pot.
“They’re loonies, aren’t they?” I said.
“Mentally handicapped is the expression,” she said, looking at me. “Loony is a very ugly word.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
A door opened on the floor below.
“I’m going to see Yngve,” I said, getting up.
“You do that,” Mom said.
I walked as fast as I could without running. If I set off as soon as I heard the first door I would reach Yngve’s room before Dad had come up the stairs and seen me. If I set off when I heard the second door he would see me.
Now I could hear the first footstep on the stairs as I closed the door behind me.
Yngve was still on his bed reading. He had a soccer magazine now.
“Food ready soon?” he said.
“I think so,” I said. “Can I borrow a comic?”
“Help yourself,” he said. “But be gentle with it.”
Dad walked past outside. I bent down over the pile of comic books on the shelf. He kept his comics in collections, so
The Phantom
was in a file, for example, while mine lay all strewn about. He was also a member of the
Phantom
Club.
“Can I take the whole file?” I said.
“Out of the question,” he said.
“The annual then?”
“You can have that,” he said. “But bring it back when you’ve finished!”
On Saturdays we had cold rice pudding in the morning and a hot meal in the evening, usually a casserole, always in the dining room, and not in the kitchen where we normally ate. There was a napkin by each place. Mom and Dad drank beer or wine with the food; we were given a soft drink. After eating we watched TV. More often than not there was some Broadway-style show from a studio in Oslo, with women dressed in net stockings, jackets, and hats and carrying canes, while men in dinner jackets, white scarves, and hats and carrying canes came down a white staircase singing some song or other. Frequently it was “New York, New York.” Sølvi Wang, whom Mom liked, usually was featured. Leif Juster, Arve Opsahl, and Dag Frøland were other regular contributors to Saturday night TV. Wenche Myhre used to perform a sketch playing a young girl in a nursery, or there was the
Eurovision Song Contest,
which, aside from the FA Cup Final, the European Cup Final, and Wimbledon, was the pinnacle of the year’s TV.