I also liked the feeling of being enclosed inside myself when I put on my swimming cap and goggles, not least during competitions, when I had a whole lane of my own waiting for me beneath the starting blocks, but often the thoughts waiting there, in swimming’s astronaut-like loneliness, became chaotic and sometimes also panicked. There could be water in the goggles, it slopped against my eyes, making them sting and preventing me from seeing, which of course upset the purity of my thoughts. I could swallow water and I could make a mess of the turn, which left me so breathless that I swallowed more water. And I could see that the swimmers in the adjacent lanes were already way ahead, which I was told by the voice inside me intent on winning, and I started a discussion with it. But even though this inner dialogue, which carried on calmly while I was swimming and fighting for all I was worth, and was therefore lent an almost panic-stricken aura, a bit like a military HQ deep in an underground bunker with officers speaking in controlled tones while the battles raged overhead, had the effect of me increasing the tempo, and for a few seconds I really gave it my all, it didn’t help in the slightest, Geir was ahead of me and would remain so, and I couldn’t understand that, I was obviously better than him, I knew so much more than him, also about the will to win. Nevertheless, he was the one to touch the pool wall then, and I touched it … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … then.
When the coach blew his whistle and the session was over for another week, it was not without some relief that I put my hands on the edge of the pool and heaved myself up, to run with Geir across the tiled floor into the shower, where the pace seemed to be slower, at least our pace was released as we took off our caps and trunks and entered the showers, to feel with closed eyes the heat spreading through our bodies, no longer needing to say or do anything, not even having to bother to laugh as one of the men on his way into the pool, which was now open for all comers, began to sing. There was something dreamlike about the atmosphere inside, the white bodies that appeared in the doorway and stood under the showers with slow, introspective movements, the sound of water beating against the tiles and mingling with the muffled noise from outside, the steam saturating the air, the hollow resonance of voices whenever anyone spoke.
Normally we stood around long after those we had trained with had gone. Geir with his face to the wall, me with my face to the room, to hide my backside. I snatched occasional glances at him when he wasn’t paying attention. He had thinner arms than me, yet he was stronger. I was a little taller than him, yet he was faster. That wasn’t why he swam faster than me, though. It was because he wanted it more. It was different with his drawings, they were just something he could do, it was in him, it had always been there. Apart from people, he could reproduce everything in precise detail. Houses, cars, boats, trees, tanks, planes, rockets. It was a mystery how he could do it. He never copied, as I did, his mother never let him use either a ruler or an eraser. Now and then his Norwegian could throw up oddities, such as fantisere and firkanti instead of fantasere and firkantet, and en appelsin instead of et appelsin, and even though I corrected him every time, he continued to say them as though these terms were a feature of him that was as permanent as the color of his eyes or the set of his teeth.
Then he noticed my glance and his eyes met mine. With a smile on his lips he stretched up and pressed the palm of his hand against the shower head, stopping the jet, and the water appeared to bulge beneath it. He laughed and turned to me. I held my hands out. My fingertips were red and swollen from the water.
“They look like raisins,” I said.
He examined his.
“Mine, too,” he said. “Imagine if your whole body had gone like that when we were swimming!”
“My ball bag always goes all wrinkly,” I said.
We bent forward and peered down. I ran a finger slowly over the hard yet sensitive folds of skin and a tingle went through me.
“Stroking it feels nice,” I said.
Geir looked around. Then he turned off the shower, went to the row of hooks, and began to dry himself. I grabbed a bar of soap and squeezed hard. It skidded along the floor of the room, hit the wall in the corner, and finished up over one of the grids. I turned off the shower and was about to follow Geir when I suddenly couldn’t bear the thought of the soap lying there in the middle of the floor. I picked it up and threw it in the bin by the wall. I pressed my face against the dry frotté material of the towel.
“Imagine what it will be like when we’ve got pubes,” Geir said, walking with his legs wide apart.
I laughed.
“Imagine what it will be like if they’re really long!” I said.
“Right down to your knees!”
“Then we’d have to comb them!”
“Or make a ponytail!”
“Or go to the hairdresser’s! I’d just like a trim round my dick, please!”
“Oh, yes. And how would you like it, sir?”
“Crew cut, please!”
At that moment the door opened and we stopped laughing. A fat, elderly man with sad eyes came in and the vacuum the laughter had left in us was soon filled with giggles as he first nodded to us and then turned away in embarrassment to remove his trunks. As we grabbed our swimming things and were leaving the shower room, Geir said loudly:
“I bet he’s got a whopper!”
“Or a teeny-weeny one!” I said, just as loudly, and then we slammed the door behind us and ran into the changing room. We sat laughing, wondering whether he had heard us or not, until the normally quiet atmosphere also impacted on us and we sluggishly began to pack our gear and get dressed. The only sounds you could hear inside were feet on linoleum, rustling noises as legs were slipped into trousers, arms into jackets, the metallic clink as lockers were opened or closed, someone sighing to himself, perhaps drained by the heat in the sauna.
I took my bag from the locker and put my swimming things inside. First, the goggles, which I held in my hand and examined for a second, because they were new and filled me with such pleasure that they were mine. Next, trunks, cap, and towel and, last of all, the soap case. With its gently rounded lines, greenish color, and faint aroma of perfume, the case belonged to another world from the rest of my swimming equipment, intimately connected with Mom and the items in her wardrobe: earrings, rings, flasks, buckles, brooches, scarves, and veils. She herself was unaware there was such a world, she had to be, otherwise she would never have bought me a woman’s bathing cap that time. Because a woman’s cap belongs to that world. And if there was one thing everyone knew it was that one world should never be associated with the other.
Beside me Geir was almost ready. I stood up, pulled on my underpants, took my long johns, and put one leg in, followed by the other. Then I pulled them up tight to my waist before turning and starting to search through my clothes for my socks. I found only one and searched through the pile again.
It wasn’t there.
I looked in the locker.
Nothing, empty.
Oh no!
No, no, no.
I frantically went through my clothes again, shook item after item in the air, hoping desperately to see it drop out onto the floor in front of me.