In front of me appeared the house where I assumed the girl they had called Hege lived, at any rate there were lots of cars in the drive, music was coming from an open veranda door, and behind the large 1970s-style windows I glimpsed a group of people sitting around a table. It was tempting to go over and knock on the door, they could hardly expect anything of me, after all I didn’t know anyone, a certain shyness would only be natural, so it would be OK just to sit there drinking without uttering a word until the alcohol kicked in and loosened everything in me, including my heart, which was now so small and constricted.
While I was thinking this I didn’t stop walking, I didn’t even slow down because if they saw me standing there wavering and then I set off for home again they would think they knew something about me.
Maybe I was longing for something to make my heart swell, but this wasn’t vital, and I was supposed to be doing my writing, I thought as I walked on, and then I was past the house and it was too late.
When I came to a halt by my front door I looked at my watch.
It had taken me fifteen minutes to walk around the whole village.
So it was within these fifteen minutes I was to live my whole life this coming year.
A shudder went through me. I walked into the hall and took off my coat. Even though I knew nothing was going to happen I locked the door and kept it locked all night.
Next day I didn’t go out, I sat writing and staring at the people who appeared and disappeared again on their way downhill. I paced to and fro in the flat pondering more and more what I was going to do when classes started on Tuesday, formulating one introductory sentence after another in my head while also trying to decide what strategy to adopt for dealing with the pupils. The first priority was to establish what their level was. Perhaps test them in all the subjects right from the beginning? And then plan everything after that? Tests? No, that was a bit harsh, a bit too authoritarian, a bit too schoolmarmy.
Some exercises, then, that they could do at home?
No. There was so much time to fill in every lesson that it would be best to give them the exercises at school. I could work on them tomorrow.
I went into the bedroom and lay down on the bed, finished the two books I had bought, and once that was done started on the articles in the literary magazine I had picked up in Oslo, although I didn’t understand much. I was familiar with most of the words, but what they described seemed to be constantly beyond my reach, as though they were writing about an unknown world which the language of the old world was not equipped to approach. But one thing did emerge from these pages with greater force than anything else, and that was the description of a book, Ulysses, which in its singularity sounded absolutely fantastic. Before me I saw an enormous tower, glinting with moisture as it were, surrounded by mist and a pallid light from the overcast sun. It was regarded as the major work of modernism, by which I imagined low-slung racing cars, pilots with leather helmets and jackets, Zeppelins floating above skyscrapers in glittering but dark metropolises, computers, electronic music. Names such as Hermann Broch, Robert Musil, Arnold Schönberg. Elements of earlier, long-gone cultures were assimilated into this world, in my mind’s eye, such as Broch’s Virgil and Joyce’s Ulysses.
At the shop the day before I had forgotten today was Sunday, so I was eating bread with liver paste and mayonnaise when there was another ring at the door. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and hurried into the hall.
There were two girls standing outside. I recognised one of them at once. She was the girl sitting across the aisle from me on the bus coming here.
She smiled.
‘Hi!’ she said. ‘Do you recognise me?’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘You’re the girl on the bus.’
She laughed.
‘And you’re the new teacher at Håfjord! I thought you were when I saw you, but I wasn’t sure. Then someone at the party last night told me you were.’
She stuck out a hand.
‘My name’s Irene,’ she said.
‘Karl Ove,’ I said with a smile.
‘This is Hilde,’ she said, nodding in the direction of the other girl, whose hand I then shook. ‘We’re cousins,’ Irene said. ‘I dropped in on her today. But actually that was just an excuse to come and say hello to you.’ She chuckled. ‘No, it wasn’t. I was just joking.’
‘Would you like to come in?’ I said.
They looked at each other.
‘Love to,’ Irene said.
She was wearing jeans, a blue denim jacket and, beneath it, a white lace blouse. She was chubby, her breasts under the blouse were full and her hips broad. Her hair was blonde, shoulder-length, her skin pale with some freckles around her nose. Eyes large, blue and teasing. Standing next to her in the hall, smelling the fragrance of her perfume, which was also full, as she passed me her jacket — there were no hooks in the hall — with a slightly searching look, I got another stiffy.
‘I can take yours too while I’m at it,’ I said to Hilde, who had nowhere near the same presence as her cousin, and who passed me her jacket with a shy, bashful smile. I hung them over the back of the desk chair and slid a hand into my trouser pocket so that the bulge was not visible. The two girls went somewhat hesitantly into the sitting room.
‘My things haven’t arrived yet,’ I said. ‘They’ll be here soon.’
‘Yes, it is a bit drab in here,’ Irene said, smiling.
They sat down on the sofa, both with their knees tightly together. I sat on the chair opposite them, with my legs crossed to hide the bulge, which had not become any smaller. She was sitting only a metre away from me.
‘How old are you?’ she asked.
‘Eighteen,’ I said. ‘And you?’
‘Sixteen,’ Irene said.
‘Seventeen,’ Hilde said.
‘So you’ve just finished gymnas?’ Irene said.
I nodded.
‘I’m in the second class,’ Irene said. ‘At the gymnas in Finnsnes. It’s a boarding school. So I’ve got a room there. You can come and visit me if you like. No doubt you’ll soon be coming to Finnsnes quite a bit.’
‘Yes, I’d like that,’ I said.
Our eyes met.
She smiled. I smiled back.
‘But I’m really from Hellevika. That’s the next village. Across the mountain. It’s just a few kilometres away. Have you got a driving licence?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Shame,’ she said.
There were a few moments of silence. I got up, went for an ashtray and my pouch of tobacco and rolled a cigarette.
‘Can I have one?’ she said. ‘Mine are in my jacket.’
I threw the pouch over to her.
‘I had to laugh when we were on the bus yesterday,’ she said as she was making her roll-up. ‘You looked as if you were trying to climb out of the window.’
They grinned. She licked the gum, folded the paper over with her forefingers against her thumbs, put it in her mouth and lit up.
‘It was so very beautiful,’ I said. ‘I had no idea what it would be like up here. Håfjord was just a name to me. In fact, it wasn’t even that.’
‘Why did you apply to come here then?’
I shrugged.
‘I was given a list of names by the employment office, and so I chose this one.’
Someone crossed the floor above.
We all looked up at the ceiling.
‘Have you met Torill yet?’ Irene said.
‘Yes, briefly,’ I said. ‘Do you know her?’
‘Of course we do. Everyone knows everyone here. Well, in Hellevika and Håfjord.’
‘And on Fugleøya,’ Hilde said.
Silence.
‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ I asked them, half getting up from the chair.