Who cares about politics when there are flames licking at your insides?
Who cares about politics if you are burning with desire for life? With desire for the living?
Not me at any rate.
After the three talks there was to be be a short interval and then a workshop and group discussions, we were informed. When the interval came I asked Hanne if we should go, sure, she said, and so we were out in the cold, dark night again. Inside, she had hung her jacket on the back of her chair, and the sweater that was revealed, thick and woolen, bulged in a way that had made me gulp a few times, she was so close to me, there was so little that separated us.
I said what I thought about politics on the way back. She said I had an opinion about everything, how did I have the time to learn about it all? As for herself, she hardly knew what she thought about anything, she said. I said I hardly knew anything either. But you’re an anarchist, aren’t you! she said. Where did you get that idea from? I barely know what an anarchist is. But you’re a Christian, I said. How did that come about? Your parents aren’t Christians. And your sister isn’t either. Just you. And you don’t have any doubts. Yes, she said, you’re right there. But you seem to do a lot of brooding. You should live more. I’m doing my best, I said.
We stopped outside the flat.
“Where do you catch the bus?” I asked.
“Up there,” she said, nodding up the road.
“Shall I go with you?” I offered.
She shook her head.
“I’ll go on my own. I’ve got my Walkman with me.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Thanks for this evening,” she said.
“Nothing much to thank me for,” I answered.
She smiled, stretched up on her toes and kissed me on the mouth. I pulled her to me, tightly, she returned the embrace, then tore herself away. We briefly looked into each other’s eyes, and she went.
That night I couldn’t sit still, I walked around the flat, to and fro in my room, up and down the stairs, in and out of the downstairs rooms. I felt as if I were bigger than the world, as if I had everything inside me, and that now there was nothing left to strive for. Humanity was small, history was small, the Earth was small, yes, even the universe, which they said was endless, was small. I was bigger than everything. It was a fantastic feeling, but it left me restless because the most important thing in it was the longing, for what was going to be, not for what I did or had done.
How to burn up all that was inside me now?
I forced myself to go to bed, forced myself to lie without moving, not to move a muscle, however long it took before sleep came. Strangely enough, it came after only a few minutes, it snuck up on me like a hunter stalking an unsuspecting prey, and I would not have felt the shot, had it not been for a sudden twitch in one foot, which alerted me to my thoughts, which were in another world, something about standing on the deck of a boat while an enormous whale dived into the depths close by, which I saw despite the impossible position. It was the beginning of a dream, I realized, the arm of the dream, which dragged my ego in, where it transformed into its surroundings, for that was what happened when I twitched, I was a dream, the dream was me.
I closed my eyes again.
Don’t move, don’t move, don’t move. .
The next day was Saturday and a morning training session with the senior team.
Many people could not understand why I was playing with them. I was no good, after all. There were at least six, perhaps even seven or eight players in the junior team who were better than me. Nevertheless, only I and one other player, Bjørn, had been promoted to the senior team that winter.
I understood why.
The senior team had a new coach, he wanted to see all the juniors, so we each had a week at their training sessions. That meant three opportunities to showcase your abilities. All that autumn I had run a lot and was in such good shape that I had been selected to represent the school in the 1500 meters even though I had never done any track or field events before. So when it was my turn to train with the seniors and I presented myself on the snow-covered shale field near Kjøyta, I knew I had to run. It was my only chance. I ran and ran. In every sprint up the field I came first. I gave everything I had every time. When we started to play it was the same, I ran and ran, ran for everything, all the time, I ran like someone possessed, and after three sessions of that I knew it had gone well, and when the announcement came that I was promoted I was not surprised. But the others in the junior team were. Whenever I failed to control the ball, whenever I made a bad pass, they let me know, what the hell are you doing with the seniors? Why did they pick you?
I knew why, it was because I ran.
You just had to run.
After practice, when the others laughed at my studded belt in the changing room as usual, I got Tom to drive me up to Sannes. He dropped me off at the mailboxes, did a U-turn, and went back down while I walked up to the house. The sun was low in the sky, it was clear and blue, the snow sparkled all around me.
I hadn’t given prior notice that I was coming, I didn’t even know if Dad was at home.
I tentatively pressed the door. It was open.
Music streamed out of the living room. He was playing it loud, the whole house was full of it. It was Arja Saijonmaa singing the Swedish version of “Gracias a la vida.”
“Hello?” I said.
The music was so loud he probably couldn’t hear me, I thought, and took off my shoes and coat.
I didn’t want to burst in on him, so I shouted “Hello!” again in the corridor outside the living room. No answer.
I went into the living room.
He was sitting on the sofa with his eyes closed, his head moving back and forth in time with the music. His cheeks were wet with tears.
I noiselessly retraced my steps, into the hall, where I snatched my coat and shoes and hurried out before there was a break in the music.
I ran all the way to the bus stop with my bag on my back. Fortunately a bus arrived just a few minutes later. During the four or five minutes it took to go to Solsletta I debated with myself whether to jump off and see Jan Vidar or go all the way to town. But the answer was in fact self-evident, I didn’t want to be alone, I wanted to be with someone, talk to someone, think about something else, and at Jan Vidar’s, with all the kindness his parents always showed me, I would be able to do that.
He wasn’t at home, he had gone to Kjevik with his father, but they would be back soon, his mother said, wouldn’t I like to sit in the living room and wait?
Yes, I would. And that is where I was sitting, with the newspaper spread out in front of me and a cup of coffee and a sandwich on the table, when Jan Vidar and his father arrived an hour later.
As evening approached I went back to the house, he wasn’t there, and I didn’t want to be either. Not only was it dirty and messy, which somehow the sunlight must have masked since it hadn’t struck me earlier in the day, but the waterpipes were frozen, I discovered. And must have been frozen for quite a while; at all events, there was already a system with buckets and snow in place. There were some buckets in the toilet with snow that had melted to slush which he must have used to flush the toilet. And there was a bucket of slush by the stove which I presumed he melted in saucepans and used for cooking.
No, I did not want to be there. To lie in bed in the empty room in the empty house in the forest, surrounded by clutter and without any water?
He would have to sort that out by himself.
Where was he, anyway?
I shrugged, even though I was all alone, put on my coat and walked to the bus, through a landscape that lay as if hypnotized beneath the moonlight.
After the kiss outside my flat, Hanne withdrew somewhat, she would not necessarily respond to my notes at once now, nor would we automatically sit together chatting during the breaks. However, there was no logic, no system; one day, out of the blue, she agreed to one of my suggestions, yes, she could go with me to the cinema that night, we were to meet at ten to seven in the foyer.