They might have thought it was an own goal and that was why no one owned up to the shot. Even though I didn’t dare say I had scored, it was my very first goal, and the thought of that burned inside me for the rest of the session, and in the car on the way home. The first thing I said when we ran to the car, where Mom was waiting, was that I had scored.
“I scored a goal!” I said.
“Oh, great!” Mom said.
When we returned home and I was sitting at the kitchen table to eat supper, I said it again.
“I scored today!”
“Was it a match?” Yngve said.
“No,” I said. “We haven’t had any matches yet. It was training.”
“Then it means nothing,” he said.
A couple of tears detached themselves and rolled down my cheeks. Dad looked at me with that stern, annoyed expression of his.
“For Christ’s sake, you can’t cry about THAT!” he said. “There must be SOMETHING you can take without blubbering!”
By then the tears were in full flow.
Crying so easily was a big problem. I cried every time anyone told me off or corrected me, or when I thought they would. Usually it was Dad. He only had to raise his voice to make me cry, even though I knew he hated me doing it. I couldn’t help myself. If he raised his voice, and he often did, I began to cry. I seldom cried because of Mom. Through the whole of my childhood it had only happened twice. Both times during the spring when I started soccer training. The first was the most disturbing. I had been down in the forest with a gang of kids, we were standing in a sort of circle, Yngve was there, Edmund from his class was there, as well as Dag Lothar, Steinar, Leif Tore, and Rolf. Tongues were going nineteen to the dozen. Gulls were screaming from Ubekilen, the sky was still light, although darkness was creeping across the hill and beneath the trees above the forest floor. The conversation turned to school and teachers, skipping classes, detentions, and having to report to school early. Then it moved to a boy in Yngve’s class who was extremely intelligent. I had just been listening, happy to be with the older boys, but there was a sudden lull in the conversation that I was able to fill.
“I’m the best in my class,” I said. “At least at reading and writing and natural and social sciences. And local history.”
Yngve stared at me.
“Don’t brag, Karl Ove,” he said.
“I’m not bragging. It’s true!” I said. “There is no doubt about it! I learned to read when I was five, before anyone else in the class. Now I can read fluently. Edmund, for example, is four years older than me, and he can’t read at all! You said that yourself! That means I’m smarter than him.”
“Stop that bragging right now,” Yngve said.
“But it’s true,” I said. “Isn’t it, Edmund? It’s true that you can’t read, isn’t it? That you have a special teacher? Your sister’s in my class. She can’t read, either. Or only a little. That’s not a lie, is it?”
Now something strange happened: Edmund had tears in his eyes. He wrenched himself away and set off up the slope.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Yngve hissed at me.
“But it’s true,” I said. “I’m the best in my class and he’s the worst.”
“Go home,” Yngve said. “Now. We don’t want you here with us.”
“It’s not up to you,” I said.
“Shut your mouth and go home!” he snapped, putting his hands on my shoulders and shoving me.
“OK, OK,” I said and set off up the hill. Crossed the road, slipped through the door, and took off my outdoor clothes. It was true what I had said, so why had he shoved me?
Tears were in my eyes as I lay on my bed and opened a book. It was unfair, what I had said was true, it was so unfair, so unfair.
Mom came home from work, brewed up some tea, and prepared a bite to eat. Yngve was still out, so we ate alone. She asked if I had been crying, I said yes, she asked why, I said Yngve had pushed me, she said she would take the matter up with him. I showed her a letter I had written to Grandad, she said he would really like it, gave me an envelope, I put the letter in, she wrote down the name and address and promised to post it the following day. When it was done I went for a rest. I heard Yngve come home while I was reading, the footsteps up the staircase and into the kitchen where Mom was. Now she would tell him he shouldn’t push me and tell me to shut up, I thought, lying there, and I imagined Yngve’s bowed head. Then came the sound of their voices and footsteps on the landing, and the door was opened.
I could see at once that Mom was angry and sat up.
“Is it true what Yngve has told me?” she said. “That you made a fool of Edmund because he can’t read?”
I nodded.
“Sort of,” I said.
“Don’t you understand that Edmund was upset? Don’t you understand that you mustn’t talk about other people in that way?”
She stepped forward until her face was in front of mine. Her eyes were narrow; her voice was loud and sharp. Yngve stood behind her, watching me.
“Karl Ove, don’t you?” she said.
“He cried,” Yngve said. “And it was you who made him cry. Do you understand?”
And suddenly I did understand. What Mom said cast an implacable light over what had happened.
Edmund
was the one she felt sorry for, even though he was four years older. He was upset and I was the one who had upset him.
I started crying as I had never done before.
Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh,
I sobbed.
Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh.
Mom leaned over and stroked my cheek.
“Sorry, Mom,” I wept. “I’ll never do it again. Never, ever. I promise you with all my heart.”
The loud sobs and my shouted rather than spoken apologies pacified my mother but not Yngve; several days were to pass before the events receded into the past for him. And that despite Edmund not being central to his life, not one of his best friends, just someone who was in his class. I both understood and I didn’t.
The second time Mom made me cry was when we went out one evening, she wanted to buy something from the Fina station and preferred to walk there, and I, who loved having her to myself, joined her. I took a flashlight along, the path was dark, but before we got there I shone the flashlight through the darkened living-room window of a house we passed.
“Don’t do that!” Mom hissed. “There are people living there! You can’t invade their privacy like that!”
I shone the flashlight on the ground at once, and fought back tears for a few seconds, until I had to admit defeat and they streamed out amid great gasps and sobs.
“Was that so upsetting?” Mom said, looking at me. “I had to tell you. Surely you understand. What you did wasn’t very polite.”
I started crying not because I had been told off but because
she
had told me off.
But at least she didn’t get angry because I was crying.
Outside the house I hardly ever cried. Unless, of course, I hurt myself, everyone did, no one could restrain the tears then. The fact that no one was exactly beating a path to our door says more about other things, over which I had no control. I quarreled a lot with the others, especially Leif Tore, we disagreed on a wide range of matters, including who gave the orders, and even though we were similar in that neither of us would yield it was still him everyone wanted to play with and not me. As long as there were lots of us, such as when we built dens down in the spruce forest or played soccer on the field, it wasn’t noticeable, it was only when there were three or four of us that it became apparent. Nor was it a problem when I was with older boys, such as Dag Lothar, I just sort of adapted, followed his example without a protest, didn’t say a word, and it felt natural, after all he was a year older. Once I pointed out to Geir that Dag Lothar told me what to do, and I told Geir what to do and Geir told Vemund what to do. He went sullen and said I didn’t tell him what to do. Yes, I do, I said. I say what we’re going to do. But you don’t
tell
me what to do, Geir said. What difference does it make? I said. I said Dag Lothar told me what to do. And that you tell Vemund what to do. So what difference does it make if I tell you what to do? Well, it evidently did make a difference. Geir’s face went all stiff in the way it did, his body had that mutinous look and soon he was gone. Others got annoyed about even less. Like the time when Geir Håkon, Kent Arne, Leif Tore, and I were standing by the road one early afternoon after school, alone on the estate, and a huge truck drove past with a load of boulders from some blasting work they were doing further up.
“Did you see that?” I said. “It was a Mercedes!”
I wasn’t interested in cars, boats, or motorbikes, I knew nothing about them, but as all the others did, I had to make an effort now and then, just to show that I too was clued in.
“No, it wasn’t,” Geir Håkon said. “Mercedes doesn’t make trucks.”
“Didn’t you see the star then?” I said.
“Are you blind or what? That was not a Mercedes star,” he said.
“Yes, it was,” I said.
Geir Håkon snorted. For a moment his puffy cheeks were even fatter than usual.
“Anyway, Mercedes does make trucks. I’ve read about it in a book I have.”
“I’d like to see that book,” Geir Håkon said. “You’re lying through your teeth. You know nothing about trucks.”
“And I suppose you do, just because your Dad works on construction machines?” I said.
“Yes, as a matter of fact I do,” he said.
“Oooh,” I said sarcastically. “You think you know all about slalom skis, too, just because your Dad has bought you a pair. But you can’t slalom. You’re useless at skiing. So what are you doing with all that gear? If you can’t use it. Everyone says you’re spoiled. And you are. You get everything you point a finger at.”
“I do not,” he said. “You’re just jealous.”
“Why would I be jealous of you?” I said.
“Give it a rest, Karl Ove,” Kent Arne said.
Geir Håkon had not only averted his face now but his whole body.
“Why should
I
give it a rest, and not Geir Håkon?” I said.
“Because Geir Håkon’s right,” Kent Arne said. “It wasn’t a Mercedes. And he’s not the only person who has slalom skis. I’ve got some, too.”
“That’s just because your Dad’s dead,” I said. “That’s why your mother buys you all sorts of things.”
“That’s not why,” Kent Arne said. “It’s because she wants me to have them. And we can afford it.”
“But your mother works in a shop,” I said. “You don’t exactly earn a lot of money there.”
“Is being a
teacher
any better?” Leif Tore said, who wanted to put in his two cents now. “Don’t you think we’ve seen the wall at your place? It’s full of cracks and falling down because your father didn’t know it needed reinforcement. He only used cement! How stupid can you get?”
“And then he reckons he’s something special because he’s on the council,” Kent Arne said. “Salutes us with one finger and stuff when he drives past. So you can just shut up.”
“Why should I shut up?”
“Well, in fact, you don’t have to. You can stand here and rattle on as you usually do. We definitely don’t want to play with you.”
And then they ran off.
The disagreements never lasted long, a few hours later I was playing with them again, if I wanted, but there was something awry, I was finding myself in situations with my back against the wall more and more often, the others were moving away more and more often when I approached, even Geir, in fact, on occasion I realized they were actually hiding from me. On the estate when anyone said something about someone it was immediately repeated by others, and then it suddenly became something everyone said. About me it was said that I always knew best and I was always boasting. But I did know best, I knew much more than the others, so why should I pretend anything else? If I knew something, it was because that was how it
was.
And as far as boasting was concerned,
everyone
boasted, all the time. Dag Lothar, for example, whom everyone liked, didn’t he start every other sentence with “I don’t mean to brag but …” and go on to tell us about something good he had done or something good someone had said about him?
Yes, he did. So this wasn’t about what I did but about the person I was. Why otherwise would Rolf call me “Mr. Pro” when we played soccer in the road? I hadn’t done anything special, had I? You think you’re so good at soccer, don’t you, he said, eh, Mr. Pro? But all I had done was to say what was what, and why shouldn’t I if I went to a soccer camp and actually
knew
? We shouldn’t run around in a pack, we had to spread out and then pass the ball or dribble, not mill around the way we did.
But I also had the last word that spring. For when the lessons at school were reorganized to make preparations for the end-of-the-year celebrations and Frøken handed out booklets of the play that we were to perform for all the parents on the biggest day of the year, namely the last, who was allocated the principal role but me?
Not Leif Tore, not Geir Håkon, not Trond, and not Geir.
But me.
Me, me, me.
None of them would be capable of learning so many lines by heart, it was something only Eivind and I, and perhaps Sverre, of the boys, could do, and the fact that Frøken chose me in the end was by no means fortuitous.
I was so happy when she told me that I didn’t know what to do with myself.
Every day of the last week we rehearsed, every day I was the center of attention in the class, Anne Lisbet’s, too, and when the final day arrived, in radiant sunshine, all the parents came as well. Dressed in their finest outfits, they sat on chairs by the wall, took photos, were hushed when we enthusiastically said our lines, and burst into applause at the end.
Then we played recorders, sang, were presented with our grade books, Frøken wished us a good summer, and we ran out into the playground and down to the waiting cars.
Grade book in hand, I stood impatiently with Geir in front of Mom’s Beetle. She strolled along with Martha, they were chatting and laughing and didn’t see Geir and me until they were a few meters away.
Mom was wearing beige trousers and a rust-red sweater with the sleeves turned up over her forearms. Her hair hung a long way down her back. On her feet she wore a pair of light-brown sandals. She had just turned thirty-two, while Martha, who was wearing a brown dress, was two years older.