My Struggle: Book 3 (45 page)

“What do you want?” she said.

Those carrying Tor
ran
over with him. Once in front of Fru Hensel, they straightened him up as though he were a statue to be examined, left him like that for five seconds or so, then laid him down, and charged back to the changing room.

Fru Hensel said nothing, other than
No, no, boys, this really is not a good idea
and she did nothing. There were no screams, no howls, no bulging eyes, and no gaping mouth, as perhaps we had hoped. Nevertheless, it had been a success. We had shown her Tor’s massive hard-on.

In the changing room afterward we discussed what would happen now. Few believed there would be any consequences, for the simple reason that it would be embarrassing for her to take the matter any further. We were wrong. It turned into a big affair, the headmaster came to the class, the four boys who had carried Tor were given detentions, and the rest of us a lecture we would never forget. The only person to come out of this with his honor intact was Tor, who now emerged as a victim – the headmaster, the class teacher, and Fru Hensel regarded the incident as a case of bullying – and a winner, for now everyone knew, also the girls, this sensational detail of his physique without his having to lift a finger.

That night I posed naked in front of the mirror for a long time.

It was easier said than done. The only full-length mirror we had was in the hall by the stairs. I couldn’t exactly stand there naked, even if there was no one in the house because someone could come at any moment and even if I reacted quickly they would still see my butt beating a swift retreat up the stairs.

No, it had to be the bathroom mirror.

But it was designed solely for faces. If you got up close and had your legs as far back as possible you could catch a glimpse of your body but from such a bizarre angle that it told you nothing.

So I waited until Mom had finished washing up after dinner and taken a seat in the living room with the newspaper and a cup of coffee. Then I went into the kitchen and fetched a chair. If she asked what I was doing with it, I could say I was going to put the cassette recorder on it while I was in the bath. If she asked why it couldn’t be on the floor as usual, I could say I had heard water and electricity were dangerous if they came into contact, and water often slopped on the floor when I had a bath.

But she didn’t ask.

I locked the door, undressed, placed the chair by the wall, and clambered up.

First I looked at the front of my body.

My dick wasn’t like Tor’s, not at all. More like a little cork. Or a kind of spring because it quivered when you flicked it lightly.

I put it in my hand. How big was it?

Then I turned and looked at it from the side. In fact, it seemed a bit bigger then.

Anyway, it looked like all the dicks in our class, apart from Tor’s, didn’t it?

I fared worse with my arms. They were so thin. And my chest was thin. I had a sudden image of it from a Norway Cup photo and the way it tapered the closer it came to my head. And that was definitely not how it was meant to be. I was supposed to do push-ups in training, but I always cheated because in reality, and only I knew this, I couldn’t do a
single
one.

I climbed down from the chair, ran the water into the bath, and while it splashed out from the tiny mouth under the miniature iron girder construction that the two eyes, one red and one blue, rested on, I hurried into my bedroom, grabbed the cassette recorder, inserted
Outlandos d’Amour,
which for me was bath music, put it on the chair, pressed play, and carefully stepped into the bathtub. The hot water stung my skin so much it was impossible to sit. But I managed. I sat, got up, sat, got up, sat, got up until my skin was used to the temperature and I could lie there letting the heat wash over me while the music poured from the little recorder and I sang at the top of my voice, dreaming about becoming famous and what all the girls I knew would say then.
I feel lo lo lo,
I sang.
I feel lo lo lo, I feel lo lo lo. I feel lo lo lo, I feel lo lo lo, I feel lo lo lo. Lo, I feel lo. I feel lo. I feel so lonely. I feel so lonely. I feel so lonely lonely lonely lo. I feel so lonely lonely lonely lo. I feel so lonely lonely lonely lo. Lonely lone. Ah I feel SO LONELY! So lonely. So lonely. So lonely. So lonely. So lonely. I feel so lonely. I feel so lonely. I feel so lonely.

I caught every little nuance in Sting’s voice, even the whimper at the end. Now and then I banged my fists on the edge of the bath in my enthusiasm. When the song had finished I dried my hands on a towel, turned the cassette over, and wound forward to “Masoka Tanga,” another favorite of mine.

Oh, “Masoka Tanga”!

Afterward I stood in front of the wardrobe in my bedroom looking for clothes to wear. There were still some hours of the evening left.

It had to be the light-blue shirt with the white buttons and the dark-blue Levi’s.

“When are we going to buy clothes for the 17th of May?” I said to Mom, stopping in front of her in the living room.

“It’s only the end of March now,” she said. “We’ve got plenty of time.”

“Perhaps it would be cheaper now?” I said.

“We’ll have to see,” she said. “We haven’t got much money now, either, you know, as Dad is studying.”

“But we’ve got a little?” I said.

She smiled.

“Of course you’ll have new clothes for the 17th.”

“And shoes.”

“And shoes.”

The 17th of May was still the high point of spring for us, as Christmas was of the winter. At school we sang “Vi Ere En Nasjon Vi Med,” “Norge I Rødt,” “Hvitt og Blått,” and “Ja, Vi Elsker,” we learned about Henrik Wergeland and what happened at Eidsvoll in 1814. At home, ribbons and flags were taken out and all the flutes and horns we could find. On the day itself flags were hoisted on all the masts, and from very early morning families came out of their houses wearing traditional costume, dresses or suits, covered with capes or coats, as it was cold or raining, children with flags in their hands, now and then an instrument case, for quite a few of my neighbors played in marching bands and wore uniforms instead of their finery, which they changed into later. The uniform of the Tromøya school band consisted of a mustard-yellow jacket and black trousers with a white stripe down the sides and a black Foreign-Legion-style kepi on top. Their chests were festooned with medals acquired at the innumerable gatherings they had attended. Then car after car left front drives, onto the road and into Arendal, where you had to park well outside the center because people were trickling in from every direction and the streets were packed with crowds lining the long road along which the procession would pass. And the procession, that was us. We assembled in Tyholmen, beneath the standard of Sandnes School, which we were proud to walk behind in an almost endlessly long line consisting not only of all Arendal’s schools but all the schools in the district. Then we walked in two lines up and down the streets, in a sea of people, which you had to keep a constant eye on, because your parents, whom you had to wave to and who had to take a photo of you, could be anywhere.

That day, the 17th of May 1980, was different from all the other Constitution Days I had experienced. It was raining when we got up, and I was upset about that because I had to wear a waterproof anorak and trousers over my new clothes. I had been given light-blue Levi’s, a pair of white Tretorn tennis shoes, and a grayish-white, waist-length jacket. I was especially pleased with the jeans. Outside the houses up the hill there were sporadic protracted laments from the instruments the kids were carrying. Car doors slammed, shouts carried across garden paths, the atmosphere was feverish but expectant. As we approached the assembly area in Tyholmen, with the skies opening in unfailingly regular bursts of drizzle, it became clear that we would be walking side by side with a class from Roligheden School. I played soccer with some of them, but I had never seen many of the faces.

A girl turned.

She had wavy blonde hair, large blue eyes, and she smiled at me.

I didn’t smile back, but I held her gaze and then she turned forward.

The procession began to move. Somewhere far ahead a band was playing. One of our teachers began to sing and we joined in. After marching for perhaps twenty minutes many began to find their patience waning, especially the boys, we started laughing and fooling around, and when some boys used the flag to lift girls’ skirts, and the idea caught on, I made my way toward the blonde girl, along with Dag Magne, fortunately, so that I was part of something and not just on my own. I put the flag under the pleat of her skirt and lifted, she spun on her heel, held it down with one hand, and shouted,
Don’t you dare, don’t you dare.
But the eyes that looked at me were smiling.

I did it to some other girls as well, until it would no longer be suspicious if I approached her again.

“Don’t do that!” she said this time, and ran ahead, away from me. “Don’t be so childish!”

Was she really angry?

Seconds passed. Then she turned and smiled. Briefly, but it was enough, she wasn’t angry, she didn’t think I was childish.

But wasn’t that an Østland accent?

Was she not from here? Was she only visiting?

Then I would never see her again.

No, no, no. Relax. Visitors wouldn’t be allowed in the school procession!

I suddenly noticed the flag I was holding and raised it. Last 17th of May Dad was annoyed I had let the flag droop as I passed them.

Dag Magne beamed his broadest smile. A camera flashed. His parents were in the front row. They were unlike their normal selves, their Sunday best looked strange on them.

I observed the girl again.

She wasn’t very tall and she was wearing a pink jacket, a light-blue skirt, and thin, white stockings. Her nose was small, her mouth large, and she had a little cleft in her chin.

I felt pains in my stomach.

When she spun round to stop her skirt being lifted I had seen that she had big breasts, her jacket had been open and the white sweater beneath insubstantial.

Oh, dear God, please let me go out with her.

“Hi, Karl Ove!” Mom shouted from somewhere. I scanned the rows of people. There they were, on the other side of the street from Hotel Phønix. Mom waved and lifted her camera to her eye, Dad sent me a nod.

On our way back to the center she turned and looked at me again. Straight afterward the procession broke up and she was lost in the crowd.

I didn’t even know her name.

After the school procession in Arendal everyone drove back home to the estate, where clothes were changed, food was eaten, and perhaps also TV broadcasts of the children’s processions around the country were watched before everyone piled into their cars, rather more informally dressed, and headed for Hove, where the climax of the celebrations would take place. Here there were stalls selling hot dogs, ice cream, and pop, stalls where you could buy a lottery ticket and play tombola, organized games, and a huge crowd of children with ten-krone notes burning a hole in their pockets, running here to buy a hot dog, running there to jump in a sack race, with ketchup on their sleeves and ice cream smeared around their mouths and a bottle of Coke with a straw in their hands. We hadn’t quite outgrown that, but the speed with which we did everything had perhaps dropped, compared with the previous year. For my part, I searched for the girl in the procession all afternoon, if I caught sight of a pink jacket or a blue skirt my heart almost stopped beating, but it was never her, she wasn’t there. Even if I knew which class she was in and even if I played soccer with two boys who were in the same class as her, I couldn’t ask them, they would realize straightaway what was going through my mind and wouldn’t hesitate for a moment, they would spread it far and wide. However, sooner or later I would see her again, that much I did know, Tromøya was not that big.

Dad moved home two weeks later, proud to have finished his studies in a matter of months. He had sold his stamp collection, he had given up his political commitments, the garden was immaculate, he was so on top of his teaching it was boring. What he was doing was applying for new jobs. And if he got one, we would move. He hoped the coming year as a bog-standard
ungdomskole
teacher would be his last.

He bought himself a boat at the beginning of the summer, a Rana Fisk 17 with a twenty-five-horsepower outboard motor. Mom, Yngve, and I were standing on the pontoons when he came back from Arendal for the first time. He was standing behind the wheel as the boat skimmed across the water and although he didn’t smile or wave to us I could see he felt proud.

He eased back on the throttle and the prow of the boat sank, but not enough for him to be able to turn into our berth as he had planned, the boat overshot and bumped into the pontoon. He reversed, put the engine into gear, and glided in. Threw the mooring rope to Mom, who didn’t quite know what to do with it.

“Does it go well?” I said.

“Yes, it certainly does,” he said. “You saw, didn’t you?”

He jumped ashore with a red gasoline canister in his hand. Secured the tarpaulin, stood for a moment inspecting the boat, then we got into the car and drove up toward home, with Dad at the wheel even though it was Mom’s car.

When the school year began I had to join him casting nets in the afternoons and pulling them up at the crack of dawn. We gulped down a couple of pieces of bread, our faces drawn with tiredness, and then we went into the darkness. He started the car and drove down to the pontoons, which lay quiet and deserted, undid the green tarpaulin on the boat, put the red canister of gasoline in its place, loosened the mooring ropes, got the engine going, and carefully reversed out. I sat at the front, behind the windshield, shoulders hunched, arms close to my body, and hands in my pockets because it was cold, and even though the boat was faster than the old double-ender, the trip to the far side of the island still took over half an hour. Dad stood at the wheel concentrating on steering through the narrow passage between the shore and the island of Gjerstadholmen, where there was some sunken rock he had run onto earlier that summer. As we emerged into Tromøya Sound he sat down and we plowed across, with the waves thumping against the underside of the plastic propeller and spray hurtling through the air. He usually set the nets quite close to the shore and it was my job to sit in the bow and grab the floats to which they were attached. It was difficult, they were slippery, and if I didn’t succeed the first time Dad told me to get my act together, all I had to do was pick them up. My hands were already freezing, the water was obviously ice cold, and out here, in open sea, there was always a wind blowing early in the morning. Dad’s hair was in wild disarray, his eyes flashed with annoyance as he reversed and steered into the wind again, and if I didn’t grab the float this time, he would shout at me and I would start to cry, and then he would become even more angry and perhaps stomp forward to grab it himself, while telling me to take the wheel, steer into the fricking wind, he would say,
into the wind,
I told you, you idiot! Can’t you do anything! Steering’s not so easy, I said, and he replied, it’s not
steewing,
it’s
steering
! RRR. STEERING! I was crying and frozen and Dad leaned over the railing and pulled the float on board. Then, as we rocked on the waves, with the dawn light a stripe on the horizon, and he pulled up the net, the glow of fury in his eyes gradually abated and he would try to mitigate the effect of his outburst, but it was too late, the cold was as deep in my soul as it was in my hands, I hated him as you can only hate your father, and on the way back, with the fish still squirming in the white tub, not a word passed between us. While he gutted the fish in the utility room I packed my satchel and left for the day, which for my classmates had only just begun, but which for me had already lasted several hours.