When she came in through the door, looking for me, I had a taste of what it would be like to be in a relationship with her. Then all the days would be like this one.
“Hi,” she said. “Have you been waiting long?”
I shook my head. I knew the situation was finely poised and I would have to tone down anything that might suggest to her that what we were doing was the sort of activity only couples indulged in. At all costs she must not regret being here with me. Must not look around uneasily to check if anyone we knew was nearby. No arm around her shoulders, no hand in hers.
The film was French and being shown in the smallest auditorium. It was my idea. Betty Blue it was called, Yngve had seen it and was wildly enthusiastic, now it was running in town and obviously I had to see it, it wasn’t often we had quality films here, normally everything was American.
We sat down, took off our jackets, leaned back. There was something a little strained about her, wasn’t there? As if she didn’t really want to be here.
My palms were sweaty. All the strength in my body seemed to dissolve, to disperse and vanish inside me, I no longer had any energy.
The film began.
A man and a woman were screwing.
Oh no. No, no, no.
I didn’t dare to look at Hanne, but guessed she felt the same, didn’t dare to look at me, I gripped the arms of the chairs tight, longing for the scene to end.
But it didn’t. The couple was screwing on the screen without let-up.
Jesus Christ.
Shit, shit, shit.
I was thinking about that for the rest of the film, and the fact that Hanne was presumably also thinking about it. When the film was over I just wanted to go home.
It was also the natural thing to do. Hanne’s bus went from the bus station; I had to go in the opposite direction.
“Did you like it?” I asked, stopping outside the cinema.
“Ye-es,” Hanne said. “It was good.”
“Yes, it was,” I said. “French, anyway!”
We had both taken French as our optional subject.
“Did you understand any of what they were saying, without reading the subtitles, I mean?” I asked.
“A tiny bit,” she said.
Silence.
“Well, I should be getting home, I think. Thank you for coming this evening!” I said.
“See you tomorrow,” she replied. “Bye.”
I turned around to look at her, to see if she had turned around, but she hadn’t.
I loved her. There was nothing between us, she didn’t want to be my girlfriend, but I loved her. I didn’t think of anything else. Even when I was playing soccer, the only place where I was completely spared from invasive thoughts, where it was all about being physically present, even there she appeared. Hanne should have been here to see me, I thought, that would have surprised her. Whenever something good happened, whenever one of my comments hit the mark and made people laugh, I thought, Hanne should have seen that. She should have seen Mefisto, our cat. Our house, the atmosphere there. Mom, she should have sat down for a chat with her. The river by the house, she should have seen that. And my records! She should have heard them, every single one. But our relationship was not going in this direction, she wasn’t the one who wanted to enter my world, I was the one who wanted to enter hers. Sometimes I thought it would never happen, sometimes I thought one blast of wind and everything would change. I saw her all the time, not in a scrutinizing or probing way, that wasn’t how it was, no, it was a glimpse here, a glimpse there, that was enough. Hope lay in the next time I would see her.
In the midst of this spiritual storm spring arrived.
Few things are harder to visualize than that a cold, snow-bound landscape, so marrow chillingly quiet and lifeless, will, within mere months, be green and lush and warm, quivering with all manner of life, from birds warbling and flying through the trees to swarms of insects hanging in scattered clusters in the air. Nothing in the winter landscape presages the scent of sun-warmed heather and moss, trees bursting with sap and thawed lakes ready for spring and summer, nothing presages the feeling of freedom that can come over you when the only white that can be seen is the clouds gliding across the blue sky above the blue water of the rivers gently flowing down to the sea, the perfect, smooth, cool surface, broken now and then by rocks, rapids, and bathing bodies. It is not there, it does not exist, everything is white and still, and if the silence is broken it is by a cold wind or a lone crow caw-cawing. But it is coming. . it is coming. . One evening in March the snow turns to rain, and the piles of snow collapse. One morning in April there are buds on the trees, and there is a trace of green in the yellow grass. Daffodils appear, white and blue anemones too. Then the warm air stands like a pillar among the trees on the slopes. On sunny inclines buds have burst, here and there cherry trees are in blossom. If you are sixteen years old all of this makes an impression, all of this leaves its mark, for this is the first spring you know is spring, with all your senses you know this is spring, and it is the last, for all coming springs pale in comparison with your first. If, moreover, you are in love, well, then. . then it is merely a question of holding on. Holding onto all the happiness, all the beauty, all the future that resides in everything. I walked home from school, I noticed a snowdrift that had melted over the tarmac, it was as if it had been stabbed in the heart. I saw boxes of fruit under an awning outside a shop, not far away a crow hops off, I turned my head to the sky, it was so beautiful. I walked through the residential area, a rain shower burst, tears filled my eyes. At the same time I was doing all the things I had always done, going to school, playing soccer, hanging out with Jan Vidar, reading books, listening to records, meeting Dad now and then, a couple of times by chance, such as when I met him in the supermarket and he seemed embarrassed to be seen there, or else it was the artificiality of the situation he reacted to, the fact that we were both pushing shopping carts and completely unaware of each other’s presence, afterward we each went our separate ways, or the day I was on my way to the house and he came driving down with a colleague in the passenger seat, who I saw was completely gray though still young, but as a rule we had planned it, either he popped by the flat and we ate at my grandparents’, or up at the house where, for whatever reason, he avoided me as much as possible. He had relinquished his grip on me, so it seemed, though not entirely, he could still bite my head off, such as on the day I had both ears pierced, when we ran into each other in the hall, he said I looked like an idiot, that he couldn’t understand why I wanted to look like an idiot and that he was ashamed to be my father.
Early one afternoon in March I heard a car parking outside my flat. I went down and peered out the window, it was Dad, he had a bag in his hand. He seemed cheery. I hurried up to my room, didn’t want to be a busybody with my face glued to the glass. I heard him clattering around in the kitchen downstairs, put on a Doors cassette, which Jan Vidar had lent me, I had wanted to listen to it after reading Beatles by Lars Saabye Christensen. Fetched the pile of newspaper cuttings about the Treholt spy case, which I had collected as I was sure it would come up in the exams, and was reading them when I heard his footsteps on the stairs.
I glanced up at the door as he entered. He was holding what looked like a shopping list in his hand.
“Could you nip down to the shop for me?” he said.