“Shit,” he whispered, holding his chest. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
“I wish you wouldn’t swear,” I said.
He sent me a brief, withering glare.
“Did you hurt yourself?” I said.
He groaned again.
“Did it knock the breath out of you?”
He nodded and sat up and started breathing normally again. He had tears in his eyes.
“We’ve missed the bus now anyway,” I said.
“It knocked the breath out of me,” he said. “I’m not crying.”
He held his side as he struggled to his feet with a grimace.
“Can you walk?” I asked.
“Yep,” he said.
From the entrance of the Arena Shopping Center we saw our bus depart, turn onto the road, and disappear around the street corner. The next bus would be in half an hour.
We sat down inside the bus station, on a bench beside a photo machine, and ate our candy. There weren’t many people around. Two youths buying hamburgers and fries while their car idled outside, a drunk sitting on the floor with his head down, asleep, and a friend of the girl working in the kiosk.
Geir put one of the red-and-white candies in his mouth.
“What color does it taste like?” I said.
He looked at me with raised eyebrows.
“Red and white, of course!” he said. “It was a red-and-white candy.”
“It doesn’t necessarily follow,” I said. “Suppose I ate it and it tasted green.”
“What are you talking about now?” he said.
“Suppose it tasted of jam, for example,” I said.
“Jam?”
“Don’t you understand anything?” I said. “We can’t know if a piece of candy tastes the same as the color!”
But he didn’t understand. I wasn’t absolutely sure I even understood myself. But Dag Lothar and I had once put a piece of candy shaped like a black bolt in our mouths, exchanged glances, and said, both at the same time, it tastes green! And later that autumn we’d had visitors, Grandma, Grandad, Gunnar, Dad’s uncle Alf, and his wife Sølvi had been staying at our house, we ate shrimp, crab, and a lobster, which Dad had caught in the net only a few days before, and while we were eating Sølvi looked at Dad and said:
“Imagine you catching this lobster yourself. It tasted delicious.”
“It really was delicious,” Grandma said.
“Nothing tastes as good as lobster,” Dad said. “But we can’t know if it tastes the same for all of us.”
Sølvi stared at him.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I know how it tastes to me,” Dad said. “But I have no idea how it tastes to you.”
“It tastes of lobster, of course!” Sølvi said.
Everyone laughed.
I didn’t understand what they were laughing about. What they said was right. But I laughed, too.
“But how can you know that lobster tastes the same to me as it does to you?” Dad asked. “For all you know, it could taste like jam to me.”
Sølvi was about to say something, but held back, looking down at the lobster, then up at Dad. She shook her head.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “The lobster’s there. And it tastes of lobster. Not jam!”
The others laughed again. I knew Dad was right, but I didn’t know exactly why. For a long time I sat musing. It was as if I was constantly on the point of understanding, but then as I was beginning to comprehend, it slipped from my grasp. The thought was too big for me.
But it had been even bigger for Geir, I remembered, and looked up as the door opened. It was Stig. His face lit up when he saw us and came over.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” Geir said.
“Hi,” I said.
“Missed the bus?” he said, sitting down beside us. Geir nodded.
“Want one?” he said, holding out the bag to him. Stig smiled and chose a baby’s dummy. So I had to offer him one afterward, too. Why on earth had Geir done that? We didn’t exactly have a lot of candy.
Stig was in the class above ours and did gymnastics training in Arendal three times a week. He competed at the national level, but there wasn’t a touch of arrogance about him, as there was with Snorre, who swam for the national squad and wanted nothing to do with us. Stig was nice, one of the nicest boys I knew, in fact. When the bus came he sat in the seat in front of Geir and me. By the end of Langbrygga the conversation had petered out, he turned round and sat like that for the rest of the journey. Geir and I were quiet, too, and the thought of the missing sock returned with renewed vigor.
Oh no, oh no.
What was going to happen?
What was going to happen?
Oh no oh no oh no.
No, no, no!
Perhaps he had noticed that we were late. Perhaps he would be standing there waiting. On the other hand, he might not be, he might be busy with something else, in which case I was safe; if I could get from the hall to the boiler room unnoticed everything would be fine because I had my other socks there and I could change into them.
The bus drove onto Tromøya Bridge and was buffeted by the wind. The windows vibrated. Geir, who always wanted to be the first to pull the bell cord, reached up and rang, even though we were the only passengers to get off here. The bus stop was right at the bottom of the hill, and I always felt guilty when I alighted here because the bus would have to set off again and wouldn’t be able to pick up speed until it had passed the brow of the hill a few hundred meters further on. Sometimes this feeling was so strong in me that I didn’t get off until the next stop, up by B-Max, especially when I was on my own. Even now, with thoughts of the sock burning in my consciousness, I felt a little pang as Geir pulled the cord and the bus braked with a sigh of irritation to drop us off.
We stood by the drifts of snow and waited until the bus had pulled out again. Stig raised his hand to say goodbye. Then we crossed the road and walked up the path to the estate.
Usually I would kick my boots against the doorstep a couple of times to shake the snow off and then brush my trousers with the broom leaning against the wall for that very purpose, but this time I skipped the kicks, fearing he might hear, just brushed my trousers and cautiously opened the door, sidled in, and closed it behind me.
But that was enough. From inside, I heard his study door open, and then the door to the porch.
He stood in front of me.
“You’re late,” he said.
“Yes, I’m sorry,” I said. “But Geir fell and hurt himself on the road, so we missed the bus.”
I started undoing the boot with a sock in it.
He didn’t show any sign of wanting to leave.
I pulled the boot off and placed it by the wall.
Looked up at him.
“What is it?” he said.
“Nothing,” I said.
My heart was pounding in my ears. Getting up and walking with one boot on across the floor was obviously not an option. Standing still and waiting for him to leave was not an option, either, because he wasn’t going anywhere.
Slowly I began to untie my laces. While doing so I had a brainwave. I unwound my scarf, placed it beside my boot, and, after undoing the laces, I pulled it off, took the scarf, and casually tried to cover my naked foot.
Then, with the scarf half-covering my foot, I stood up.
“Where’s your sock?” Dad said.
I looked down at my foot. Glanced at him.
“I couldn’t find it,” I said, my eyes downcast again.
“Have you lost it?” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
The next instant he was up close to me, grabbing my arms in an iron grip and pinning me to the wall.