When confirmation was approaching for the year group above his, Anders asked:
‘What does “atheist” mean?’
‘Someone who doesn’t believe in God,’ came Vigdis’s brisk reply. She didn’t need to look that one up.
‘Well then, I’m an atheist and a pacifist,’ the thirteen-year-old told her.
Vigdis tutted in dismay. Faith in God was a serious matter in the village.
But Anders stood his ground. When his classmates were preparing for confirmation the following year, Anders took a unilateral decision not to be part of it. His maternal grandfather, a strict Lutheran Pietist from Narvik, said straight out that he was not happy with Anders’s choice. According to the Pietists, harsh punishment in Hell awaited those who turned their faces away from God.
‘It must be pretty damned empty in Heaven then,’ Anders’s mother observed drily when she heard what the old man had said. There were all too many things for which you could get sent to Hell in Narvik, and Gerd Kristiansen had heard her fair share of such talk when she was a child. She supported her son and refused to believe anyone from Narvik was guarding the gates to the Heavenly Kingdom. Anders said that if he had had faith in any higher power he would have believed as much in Allah and Buddha as in God the Father.
Life on earth was what concerned him. The here and now. ‘They’ve got to listen to us,’ Anders had been saying since he was a child. ‘We’re part of society too! Why are there only grown-ups on the local council?’
Anders Kristiansen was of course chosen to lead the Bardu student council. Just as Simon Sæbø on the other side of the municipal boundary and Viljar Hanssen of Svalbard were.
The county youth parliament was made for them.
Now they sat there, the three comrades, representing their council districts and putting forward their views over a few beers, trying to reach a consensus on their strategy for the meeting. Before the night was over, they always reached agreement about the most important issues they would be voting on. Then Viljar and Anders had to make sure they woke Simon the next morning, so he didn’t miss the ballot. Simon was a very sound sleeper.
That evening they were talking about more than just buses; they were talking about power.
The county youth council in Troms was led by a girl from the Progress Party Youth. She was pretty, quick-witted and popular. But the three comrades were planning to outmanoeuvre her and stage a coup. Just before the ballot they were going to propose a motion from the floor that Anders Kristiansen should become leader. With all his excellent qualities, victory lay glittering ahead of them.
It was all Viljar’s idea. He was an ardent anti-racist and saw the Progress Party as a bunch of brownshirts, not representative of general opinion in the youth council.
This was the plan: Just before the vote, Viljar would stand up and propose his comrade. Nobody would be expecting another candidate. Then they would all go up in turn and speak warmly of Anders. Viljar, the one of the three who really had a way with words, would talk about Anders as a political phenomenon from the sparsely populated district of Bardu, where he had shown more initiative than anybody else, not only as an AUF leader but also as chair of the student council.
He tried out the wording on his friends.
‘It’s not just that the local people mean a lot to Anders, but that Anders means an awful lot to the local people,’ he said with passion, and went on: ‘Anders’s list of achievements is as long as our coastline.’
The three comrades had also roped in Johan Haugland, deputy leader of Salangen AUF, for their coup. He was going to talk about the main distinctions between the Progress Party and the Labour Party, and thus between the two candidates.
‘And lastly we want you to inspire the girls, Simon,’ directed Viljar. ‘Say whatever you like, as long as you melt their hearts. You’ve got to make them feel that with Anders as leader, the council will really come to life. Say something like: Anders is not only my best friend, he can also be your best friend,’ suggested Viljar. ‘Or ask them: Do you want to be led by some bloody racist?’
‘That’s over the top,’ said Anders.
‘How about: We want a leader who likes dark people as much as pale ones,’ Viljar persisted.
‘Pack it in,’ muttered Anders.
Simon was swinging on his chair in the corner of the room. ‘No, it’ll be fine,’ he said. He had started making notes. ‘Anyway, don’t worry, Anders, I’ll judge the mood when I get up there. I’ll think of something, and it’ll be good!’ Simon wasn’t the sort to go in for meticulous planning, preferring to think on his feet.
The little round table in the hotel room was covered in a clutter of empty beer bottles, snus tins, documents and scribbled notes.
Anders started to yawn. He generally did when anything dragged on into the small hours. So he went off to bed while Simon and Viljar took a quick look in the mirror.
Then they hit the town. Laughing, they slipped into the Blårock Café even though they were several years below the age limit. Over a beer they talked about girls, sports, girls, clothes, girls, life and girls. Simon had a girlfriend, but had his eye on a few girls for Viljar. ‘Check her out, check her out,’ he said and then vanished, reappearing with a girl and saying, ‘Have you met Viljar?’ Then he moved off, further into the club, and was gone again.
The night before the coup, they stayed on there until closing time and ended up at an after-party. They got back to the hotel just as the breakfast room opened. Stuff happens.They locked themselves into the room they were sharing, showered in turn and started doing their hair. It was the hair that took the time. They stood side by side in front of the bathroom mirror with towels round their hips and the requisite amount of Renati hair wax in their hands. The wax had to be rubbed in from the back, moving up and over. The hair at the sides had to be styled in to their cheeks, while the hair at the back was shaped in a wave round the head, finishing above one eye. It took a heck of a lot of effort to make the whole thing look casual.
Their clothes were chosen with great care too. Simon favoured the style the kids went for, T-shirts with prints and leather thong jewellery around his neck and wrists. Viljar went for a more classic look, grey trousers and a grey cardigan with a black T-shirt underneath.
In the breakfast room Anders Kristiansen was sitting over a substantial plate of bacon and eggs. He shook his head when he saw Simon and Viljar coming in, their eyes gleaming. They often kept going round the clock at the youth conferences. Now, they wolfed down a big breakfast to calm their nerves before the coup.
But the whole scheme came to nothing anyway. When Viljar made his proposal from the floor, the rules said that only one person was allowed to argue the candidate’s case. So, the others did not get to deliver their carefully crafted words of praise.
Viljar couldn’t do it alone. It was a shambles. They were a gang, they were meant to do it together. He couldn’t pull it off on his own.
‘Shit,’ said Viljar afterwards.
‘You’ll get her next time Anders!’ said Simon.
‘Course I will,’ smiled Anders. ‘Next year she won’t stand a chance!’
He would go at it for all he was worth. While Simon and Viljar were involved in all sorts of things, Anders stuck to just the one: politics. He wasn’t sporty, he didn’t mess about with his hair or waste time on clothes, nor was he into computer games. The closest he got to a hobby was keeping up with The West Wing or sitting in the hut he’d built in the garden, watching Sex and the City with a girl friend. He would shout ‘Mum, come and watch!’ when Desperate Housewives started. ‘I’d rather have some desperate men,’ his mother called back before she came in with a plate of waffles and cloudberry jam.