Sitting there, I saw Jørn come cycling toward me. He was holding a canister of gasoline on the luggage rack with one hand and steering with the other. When he spotted me he braked gently and stopped.
“Karl Ove!” he shouted.
I climbed down as fast as I could. It took roughly the same time to clamber down as it took him to get off his bike and come to the tree because by the time I was on the ground he was only a few meters from me. Our eyes met, then I hared off, up toward the forest.
“I only wanted to say I was sorry!” he said. “About yesterday! I heard you crying.”
I didn’t turn.
“I didn’t mean it!” he said. “Come back down, so that we can shake hands on it!”
Ha ha, I thought, and stumbled on up between thickets and bushes until I was at the top and could watch him amble back to his bike, get on, and continue on his wobbly way down to the boats. Then I went back down. But the hard, bitter cherries had lost their fascination, so I gave up on the tree, and instead wandered off in the hope that someone would appear on the road after a while. Sometimes people came out if they saw you from a window, so I went for a walk up the hill, staring into the gardens on both sides as I went. Not a soul anywhere. People were in their boats or they had driven to swimming holes on the far side of the island or they were at work. Tove Karlsen’s husband was lying on a sunbed in the middle of their yellowing lawn with a radio beside him. Fru Jacobsen, the mother of Geir, Trond, and Wenche, was sitting under a parasol on the veranda smoking. On her head she was wearing a white bucket hat. She had covered the rest of her body in light, white clothes. Their two-year-old brother was sitting on the floor beside her; I glimpsed him between the bars of his playpen. Behind me, someone called my name. I turned. It was Geir; he sprinted up with his palms facing inward.
He stopped in front of me.
“Where’s Vemund?” I said.
“On vacation,” Geir said. “They left today. Are you coming in the boat?”
“All right,” I said. “Where do you want to go?”
Geir shrugged.
“Gjerstadsholmen. Or one of the small islands beside it?”
“OK.”
Geir only had a row boat, so the radius of his activities was much more limited than that of the other boat owners. Nevertheless, it took us out to the islets and on occasion we had rowed several kilometers along the coast of the island. He wasn’t allowed to row in Tromøya Sound.
We scrambled on board, I pushed off, he positioned the oars in the rowlocks, applied force with his feet, and rowed so hard, with his oars so deep, that a grimace distorted his entire face.
“Ugh,” he groaned at every pull. “Ugh. Ugh.”
We glided along the light-blue surface of the sea, which was sporadically ruffled by gusting shoreward winds. The waves further out in the sound had white tips.
Geir turned and located the little island, adjusted his course with one oar, and then resumed his grunts while I hung my hand in the water and rested my eyes on the little there was of a wake.
As we approached, I stood up, leaped ashore, and pulled the boat into a tiny inlet. I didn’t know how to tie any knots, so it was Geir who tethered the rope to one of the metal rods that appeared to be fixed to every single little crag in the archipelago.
“Feel like a swim?” he said.
“Fine by me,” I said.
On the side facing Tromøya Sound, a rock rose from the sea into a two-meter-high pinnacle from which we jumped and dived. It was cold in the wind but warm in the water, so we swam for almost an hour before getting out and lying on the cliff to dry.
When we had dressed, Geir took a lighter from his pocket and showed it to me.
“Where did you get hold of that?” I said.
“It was in the cabin,” he said.
“Want to set fire to something?”
“Yes, well, that was the idea.”
Grass grew in all the cracks on the rock face, and in the middle of the islet there was a grass plain.
Geir crouched down, cupped his hand around the lighter, and set fire to a little tuft. It caught at once with a clear, transparent flame.
“Can I try?” I said.
Geir stood up, swept his stiff bangs to one side, and passed me the lighter.
“Hey!” I said. “Watch out! It’s spreading!”
Geir laughed and stamped on the fire. It was as good as out when flames suddenly flared up further away, where he had already put it out.
“Did you see that?” he said. “It started all on its own!”
He stamped it out, and I walked over to the plain and lit the grass there. At that moment a strong wind gusted in. The fire was raised like a little carpet.
“Give me a hand,” I said. “There’s so much to put out.”
We jumped and stamped for all we were worth, and the fire was suffocated.
“Give me the lighter,” Geir said.
I passed it to him.
“Let’s light the grass in lots of places at once,” he said.
“OK,” I said.
He lit it where he was, passed me the lighter, I ran to the other side and lit it there, ran over to him, to where he had moved, and he lit it there.
“Can you hear it crackling!” he said.
It was indeed. The fire crackled and spat as it slowly ate its way across. Where I had lit the grass the fire resembled a snake.
Another rush of wind blew in off the sea.
“Ooooh yikes!” Geir said as the flames rose and took a substantial chomp out of the middle.
He started stamping like a wild man. But suddenly it didn’t help.
“Give me a hand,” he said.
I heard a growing panic in his voice.
I started stamping as well. Another blast of wind, and now some of the flames were up to our knees.
“Oh, no!” I shouted. “It’s burning like hell over there, too!”
“Take your sweater off! We’ll put it out with those. I saw them do it in a film once!”
We took off our sweaters and began to beat the ground with them. The wind continued to whip up the flames, which spread even further with every gust.
Now the grass was well alight.
We stamped and beat at the flames like crazy men, but it was no use.
“It’s no good,” Geir shouted. “We won’t be able to put this out.”
“No,” I said. “It’s just getting worse and worse!”
“What shall we do?”
“I don’t know. Can we use the bailer, do you think?” I said.
“The bailer? Are you completely stupid or what?”
“No, I am not stupid,” I said. “It was just a suggestion.”
Oh, no. The fire was burning out of control. I could feel the heat from several meters away.
“Let’s get out of here,” Geir said. “Come on!”
And so, as the flames danced and crackled across the grass, with ever greater ferocity, we shoved out the boat. Geir got behind the oars and began to row, even harder than before.
“God Almighty,” he kept saying. “What a fire! What a fire!”
“Yes,” I said. “Who would have thought it?”
“Not me anyhow.”
“Me neither. Hope no one sees it.”
“Makes no difference,” Geir said. “The important thing is that no one saw us.”