“Be my guest,” he said.
“How much do you lift?” I said.
He told me.
“Can you put the weights on for me?” I said.
“Can’t you do that yourself?”
“I don’t know how to.”
“OK. Come with me.”
I went downstairs with him. He added the weights and put the bar in position. Looked at me.
“I have to do this on my own,” I said.
“Are you kidding?” he said.
“No. Go ahead, I’ll be up soon.”
“OK.”
When he had gone I lay down on the bench. I couldn’t budge the bar. I couldn’t lift it a centimeter. I removed half of the weights. But I still couldn’t lift it. A fraction, though, perhaps two or three centimeters.
I knew you had to lower the bar onto your chest and raise it with your arms fully stretched.
I removed two more.
But I still couldn’t do it.
In the end, I had removed all of the weights and lay there lifting the bar, and nothing but the bar, up and down a few times.
“How was it?” Lars said as I emerged. “How much did you manage?”
“Not as much as you,” I said. “I had to take off two of the weights.”
“Hey, that’s not bad!” Lars said.
“Isn’t it?” I said.
Through all these years, right from the time when I was with Anne Lisbet in the first class, I thought I had learned something each time. That it would get better and better with every new girl I was with. After Kajsa there would be no more setbacks. After her, yes, it would all be fine, now I knew what it was about and could avoid any more mistakes.
But that was not how it turned out.
I fell in love with Lene. She was in the parallel class. She was the best-looking girl in the school. No contest, she won hands down. She was more beautiful than anyone else, but also shy, and I had never experienced that before. There was a fragility about her it was hard not to be attracted by and dream about.
She had a sister who was in the ninth class called Tove and she was the complete antithesis, although also beautiful, but in a boisterous, provocative, mischievous way. Both were very popular with the boys.
Lene only indirectly, though, she was the kind you looked at and pined for in secret. At least I did. Her eyes were narrow, her cheekbones high, cheeks soft and pale, often with a slight flush, she was tall and slim, she held her head at an angle, and often interlaced her fingers as she walked. But she also had something of her sister in her, you could occasionally see it when she laughed, the glint that appeared in her turquoise eyes, and in the obstinacy and unshakable certainty that sometimes shone through, so difficult to reconcile with the otherwise predominant impression of dreamy fragility. Lene was a rose. I looked at her and started to tilt my head the same way she did. That’s how I made contact with her, that’s how we had something in common. I couldn’t hope for more really, because I had set her on too high a pedestal to dare make any kind of approach. The thought of asking her to dance, for example, was absurd. Talking to her was unthinkable. I contented myself with looking and dreaming.
Instead I went out with Hilde. She asked me, I said yes, she was in the same class as Lene, she had a broad, powerful body, almost masculine, was half a head taller than me, with delicate features and a lovely, friendly personality, and she ended it with me two days later because, as she put it, you’re not in the slightest bit in love with me. With you, there is only Lene. No, I said, you’re wrong, but of course she was right. Everyone knew, I thought of nothing else, and when we were in the playground during the break I always knew where she was and who she was with, and that attentiveness couldn’t go unnoticed.
One day Lars said he had heard someone say they had heard her say she wasn’t at all ill-disposed toward me. Despite the fact that I was a jessie. Despite the fact that I had cried in the woodworking class. Despite the fact that I was slow on the soccer field and could barely manage a bench lift.
I looked at her on the playground, she met my eyes and smiled and turned away with pink cheeks.
I decided that I should strike while the iron was hot. I decided that it was now or never. I decided that I had nothing to lose. If she said no, well, nothing had changed.
If she said yes, on the other hand …
One Friday, therefore, I sent Lars over to her with a question. They had been in the same class for six years, he knew her well. And he returned with a smile playing around his lips.
“She said yes,” he said.
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Now you’re going out with Lene.”
Then it started again.
Could I go over to her now?
I looked in her direction. She smiled at me.
What should I say when I was there?
“Off you go now,” Lars said. “Give her a kiss from me.”
He didn’t push me across the playground, but it wasn’t far from it.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” she said.
She looked down; one foot squirmed around on the tarmac.
God, how beautiful she was.
Ay yay yay yay.
“Thank you for saying yes,” my mouth said.
She laughed.
“My pleasure,” she said. “What class do you have now?”
“Class?”
“Yes.”
“Err … is it Norwegian?”
“Don’t ask me,” she said.
The bell rang.
“Will we see each other afterward?” I said. “After school, I mean?”
“All right,” she said. “I’ve got training in the sports hall. We can see each other afterward.”
The question was not how this would go, the question was how many days it would last before it stuttered and she brought it to an end. I knew that, but I tried anyway, I had to put up a fight, you could never be sure, and she was present inside me for every single waking minute, partly as a kind of unconstrained, excited feeling, a constant sensation, partly as a more nebulous perception of her essence and character. Yes, I would have to fight, even though I didn’t really have anything to fight with. I didn’t even know what the fight was about. To keep her, yes, but how? By being myself? Don’t make me laugh. No, I would have to draw on others, I realized that, and during these days I sought out the company of others with her so that all the conversation didn’t rest on my shoulders. Up to the sports hall with Lene, over to Kjenna’s with Lene, over to the Skilsø ferry with Lene. We had all been given a Bible at school, the preparations for our confirmation would start next autumn, and it struck me that I could ask her what she had done with her Bible and then I could say I had ditched mine, and I would have a theme going, so that I could ask people I met what they had done with their Bible. Lene listened, Lene followed me, Lene started to get bored. She was a rose, we kissed at a crossroads, and we walked hand in hand on the playground, but I was only a little boy and even though I had perfectly even, white teeth after my braces had been taken off, that wasn’t enough, Lene was bored with me, and one evening when she came to soccer practice with me I saw her leave the spectators’ stand and disappear, she was gone for the whole of the last hour, I went in and changed with the others, suspecting that something was wrong, stopped in the entrance hall where the reception desk and the Coke machine were and looked outside: there was Lene Rasmussen, there was Vidar Eiker, they were chatting and laughing, and I could see from the way she was laughing it was over. Vidar Eiker had left school the year before, he was one of the group who hung around at the Fina station, and he had a moped, which he was leaning on at this minute.