‘You’ll have to learn sign language! It’s a hundred decibels in here!’
Inside the soundproof room we remove the earplugs, and even though it’s supposed to be quiet in here, all sounds seem sharper than before. My first thought is to put the plugs back in.
‘In six months you’ll have ear canals like a cow’s arse,’ Trond says. ‘This being your debut, Samuel will be first on the stacker and then me. But don’t wander off. If the paper tears, and you’re not here, you’ll have Long John on your back.’
Long John: that would be Goliath. Goliath suits him better, but I guess I’ll keep that to myself. I am not ready to play David.
14
BANG!
I jump up from my post at the stacker, and I am up on the gallery within seconds. The paper has torn for the fifth time today and it’s not yet ten o’clock. The whole time it’s a hassle, I charge up the stairs like a madman to get there before the whole shebang catches fire. Something is not right. Each time the machine stops, the paper starts to burn.
The heat from the gas burners hits me as I run along the gallery and fling the small doors open. On my forearms, the few hairs I have left curl like tiny worms. I have been fast, but not fast enough. The flames lick out at the end of the top heater, and I rip the fire extinguisher off its stand and blast away, and films I have seen roll through my head, disaster films with flames out of control devouring everything, and here I stand with my three-litre extinguisher! If the machine oil catches fire, I’m done for.
The flames don’t go out, they spread, and soon the paper web is ablaze. I am so tired I am burning, my chest is hot and my back is freezing, and I run along the gallery and around the machine and grab the second extinguisher and stand there alone between ceiling and floor in the large concourse shooting from the hip like some crazed Western hero.
‘SAMUEL!’ I yell. Jesus, I’m new here, why don’t they help? Then I see it: it’s the gas in the burners, they’re not switched off. It’s supposed to cut off automatically when the machine stops, but there is a blue hiss in there. No wonder it’s on fire.
‘SAMUEL! FOR FUCK’S SAKE, SWITCH THE GAS OFF!’
Samuel is sitting inside the soundproof room. I can see him when I bend down: he is smoking and reading an old Playboy, or looking at the pictures, that is, because he can’t read English. My voice must have cut through. He gets up from his chair, puts the magazine down and grinds out the cigarette with a steel-toed shoe. I have thought about it many times: why does he wear those protective shoes? The heaviest thing he has ever dropped on them is a pack of cigarettes. He goes over to the console and switches the gas off, steps back to his chair and lights another cigarette, opens Playboy, and he doesn’t even send me a glance. I stand up, there is the taste of ash in my mouth. I lick my lips, but it won’t go away.
In fact, we have the same job. Assistant rotary press operator, it says in the files. But as I am thirty years younger than him and new to the job, Samuel has awarded himself an age increment, which means that every time something happens, he stays in his chair, while I rush around like a maniac.
Of course, there are Trond and Jan, but Jan is off sick, and Trond is on the toilet and has been there for a long time. Trond is the ballet dancer of the workplace, he finds his way everywhere, he can turn his hand to everything, he is full of humour as dry as the air we work in and has a knack of being on the toilet each time the paper tears.
I slide down the banister from the gallery and cut the paper just before the fire reaches the one-ton heavy roll, and then I race back up again. With the gas switched off it’s easy to control the flames. I pull out the rest of the paper, sweep up a hundred metres of red-hot web and stuff the whole lot into the container for inflammable litter.
I brush the soot off my overalls. My forearms feel as dry as old cardboard, I am so tired, I am sweating and freezing, and I sit down on the lowest step of the stairs and roll a cigarette. To thread a new web alone is impossible.
Maggi walks past in a light blue coat with a notepad in her hand. She is forty-five years old, newly divorced and always cheerful.
‘Goodness me, are you here on your own?’ she says.
I do not answer, and she asks:
‘Anything you need from the shop?’ and stands with her pencil at the ready. Her job is to run errands, fill the coffee machine and make everybody happy.
‘Petterøe 3 and rolling paper. Rizla.’ She writes it down as she is leaving and waves over her shoulder and is gone. With numb fingers, I roll the shreds of tobacco I have left. The cigarette looks more like a trumpet, but I light up, and my hands are shaking, and then the foreman enters the room. His coat is spotless white, and he stops in front of me, looking at his watch as though it were some kind of new invention.
‘Tell me something, Sletten, haven’t you been here long enough to know the break starts at eleven and not at ten?’
I get to my feet, drop the cigarette and stub it out with my shoe.
‘And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there are some very serviceable ashtrays placed here and there on this floor.’ He turns on his heel and brushes invisible dust off his coat. There is a bald patch at the back of his head, and his hand automatically shoots up to cover it, and then he is off through the doors at the far end of the hall. The doors slam shut, and the sound slams through my head, and there’s a humming in there, for this is my father leaving, the way I saw him the last time he was home five years ago. It was Sunday morning, and we hadn’t seen him for two weeks, and suddenly the door opens, and in he comes wearing the same clothes he wore when he left.
‘Hello,’ I say. I feel timid, but he doesn’t answer anyway, just walks right past me to the stairs, his eyes fixed straight ahead, and then there is the smell of him, the smell of his jacket, his body, the smell of bonfire and forest and long-forgotten sunny Sundays, only so strong and unfamiliar in here. He hasn’t shaved since he was last at home, maybe hasn’t washed, either, and there are grey streaks in his beard I didn’t know were there. I turn, and my mother is standing in the living room doorway, she doesn’t speak, just gazes up the stairs, and I gaze up the stairs. We can hear him in the bedroom, he is taking his rucksack from the cupboard, pulls out the drawer of the bedside table, and we know what he’s got there, the police never found it, and there is a clunk as he drops it into the rucksack. My mother mumbles something I can’t make out, and upstairs he stuffs more things into the rucksack, and then he comes back down. I hold my breath, I do not breathe, my mother does not breathe, and he is outside, slamming the door behind him, and it slams through my head, and he didn’t even look at me.
I run into the living room and across to the window and watch him walk down the gravel path to the gate. By the road, he stops and turns, puts his hand in the rucksack, pulls out the pistol and takes a shot at the house. There is the sound of thunder and lightning, and the bullet smashes through the kitchen window and hits the cupboard above the sink and bores a hole in the wall behind it, which is nothing but plasterboard, and maybe it goes right through to the living room. We stop at the kitchen threshold and dare not go any further. We can see the hole in the pane and we turn and look at the cupboard. There were three jars of strawberry jam on the middle shelf inside, and soon it is dripping red into the sink. Dripping and dripping, and then it starts to flow, but neither of us can make the effort to go in and open the cupboard door to see what’s behind.
‘My God, what shall I do?’ my mother whispers. I close my eyes and see my father’s hand raising the gun, there is a flash of light, for it is sunny outside, and I run back to the living room, the hall smelling of bonfire and forest and long-forgotten sunny Sundays, but when I look out the window, there is no one by the gate.