Johan Harstad Read online

  “Just listen to it,” I said, singing in exaggerated tones, “Oh, Alexander, why did you fail us? Or how about this: A lost brother is a wound that never heals. I mean, seriously!”

  “They’re singing about the oil platform,” said Jørn.

  “What?”

  “The Alexander, of course. The Alexander Kielland disaster, right? It failed them. When he sings Alexander, why did you fail us, he’s talking about the leg. It was the leg that broke and toppled the platform.”

  “I thought he was singing about his brother or something.”

  “No, that’s just an image. A kind of metaphor-thing. The rig was like a kind of brother to Stavanger, right? A fucking hot comparison if you think about it. If you ever sing in a band or write lyrics or stuff, you’ve got to talk in images.”

  “What makes you think I’m planning on that?”

  “What, singing in a band?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nothing, I’m just telling you how it is, that if you ever sing in a band you have to be able to do stuff like that.”

  “I haven’t thought about singing in a band.”

  “No, but if.”

  That was how I started singing. Alexander. I sang that song over and over, ad infinitum, all the while imagining myself rescuing unfortunate oil workers from the sea. But I didn’t write songs, and I didn’t sing in public. I sang my way through the Mods’ records when I was alone, which I nearly always was, knew the lyrics by heart, the way Morten Abel sang them, wore the vinyl out, until one day Mother got the idea I should learn to sing properly, or perhaps she’d simply had enough of the same songs. Neither she nor Father demanded I use my singing for anything, they were just pleased I had something to do. I’d been ill, I seemed to be improving, and Mother sat me down one day, she had an old friend who had a friend who was a singing teacher, and that was how the decision was made that I’d have weekly classes with her, apparently she was very good, had taught lots of youngsters, and her husband had contacts in the recording industry, he got hold of master recordings of the instrumentals of Duran Duran, and later a-ha, and then I sang to them, again and again, while Fru Haug held forth on singing from the stomach, taught me to sing like them, to reach the high notes, the ones that sat on the top shelf, as she described it. I didn’t have anything against this, had enough spare time, so I visited Fru Haug every week for four years, until the Mods were long passé, until Duran Duran had more or less vanished and a-ha were falling apart at the seams. But I never sang for other people. In fact I even stopped singing at home, sang just once a week, behind the thick walls and closed doors of an apartment in Storhaug, and the only concerts I gave were for Herr and Fru Haug, and they would smile and clap and then the coffee and biscuits were brought in and Herr Haug would dive into his briefcase some days and surface with something for me, an autograph from a band he was involved with, signed drumsticks, albums or sweatbands. I’d thank him, go off with them, and when I got home I’d throw them in a box, far in the back of my closet, and forget them. Without a word to Jørn about what I was doing.

  After my lesson that day I biked down to Pedersgata, freewheeled through town and pedaled hard up the hill to Kampen, Seehusensgate. There were no cars in the garage, nobody else was at home, a note on the kitchen table said my dinner was in the fridge, it was microwavable, Mother was going swimming straight from work, and Father always worked late anyway, had done so for as long as I could remember, a conscientious man, my parents were careful, conscientious people.

  Mother worked in child welfare. Looked after youngsters. She had some childhood friends she went swimming with twice weekly, in Hetland’s Baths. Synchronized swimming. She’d been doing it for as long as I remembered, I’d go with her sometimes when I was younger, sit at the edge of the pool and watch, the legs of my pants folded up, feet in the water. I remember how great I thought it looked when they made circles in the pool, like flowers in the water, their identical swimming caps. I thought mother looked great, when she got it right, and I liked the way they relied on everyone doing their part. A sense of things hanging together. Mother and her friends didn’t make a big deal out of it, there were no great goals, just enjoyed swimming together. Although occasionally, as I grew older, they participated in local competitions, mainly with women’s teams from companies or the like, and then Father and I would go and watch her, we’d sit on the benches and watch Mother as she followed the rules, remembered the combinations and made pretty shapes in the water. Father was no sportsman himself, in his opinion he’d jogged enough during his military service, he preferred to watch than to take part. He worked for an insurance company in town, looked after money and was terrified of the word “compensation,” it was as though it was contagious, an illness that could strike arbitrarily, that no chemical could eliminate, Agent Orange. Apart from that, he’d had thinning hair since his youth, enjoyed reading Out in Nature and subscribed to scientific journals, could never get enough, kept himself informed of the latest technology and explained the workings of the world to Mother, told her about the treasures of the Incas in South America and drift ice in the Arctic. For her part, as far back as the seventies, Mother had forbidden Father to buy clothes himself. He’d tried a few times before then, a valiant attempt, and each time, according to Mother, he’d bought such boring and neutral clothes that he melted into his surroundings, it was almost impossible to know if he was home or not. That was how things were, fine parents to grow up with, they were polite to one another, there were never big rows in our house, not even when there should have been.

  I microwaved my food, sat in front of the TV, ate my dinner, obedient boy, ate it up, put my plate away and felt restless, unable to sit still for long, couldn’t concentrate. Tried to follow some of the shows, Film Magazine on NRK, Charlie’s Angels and The Tales of Wells Fargo on Sky, whatever was playing, but I couldn’t, and outside the rain was falling again, a driving rain. Eventually I got up, went out into the hall and called Jørn, but he wasn’t home. It seemed he’d gone out, despite the weather, he was out there somewhere, like she was, and for a second I was morbidly jealous, got it in my head that she was out there with him, that they were sitting somewhere, friends together, they were having fun, and they didn’t need anybody else. Had that thought for an instant, but pushed it away, went up to my room, didn’t do my homework, didn’t listen to any records, went to bed early that night, nine o’clock, since I had nothing to do, and nothing would happen that night. And I dreamed that the sea rose, that it came gushing through the window and swept me away with it.

  I turned spy that fall. Peeping Tom. I kept watch over Helle, was the first one out at break, last one in. That was the fall I almost froze to death, trench foot and frostbite. And for once, I wanted to be noticed. To be seen.

  But I said nothing.

  I never talked to her, not because I didn’t dare to, but more likely because I was frightened she wouldn’t talk to me, and then my whole enterprise, my whole hobby, would be spoiled.

  No.

  It was because I didn’t dare. It meant too much.

  Cowardly?

  Yes, of course. Like everybody else.

  Flat-on-my-face cowardly.

  And then I did something I would come to regret bitterly.

  For years.

  I stuck my head out.

  It was the committee for the theater society that came up with the idea.

  A bad idea.

  An amazingly bad idea. They decided to start a new annual event, a fancy dress ball for Christmas. On the last day of term before Christmas. It cost twenty-five kroner a ticket and I hadn’t really intended to go, but everybody else was, and no stone was left unturned when it came to distributing invitations, and one October day an invite was shoved under the stone I was sitting on.

  Was Jørn going? Was Roar going?

  Of course they were.

  “I’m not sure,” I said.

  “Oh, come on,” said Roar as if he thought I was just being
awkward. We stood under the shelter and I stared at the invitation, I didn’t want to go, but that was so stupid, she’d be there, and I’d practically given myself pneumonia standing outside waiting to be noticed by her, I was fed up with going about in my long johns every day to cope with the cold.

  But a fancy dress ball? No fucking way!

  Nofuckingwaynofuckingway.

  And so I let myself be persuaded, without further ado.

  The costume was easy to choose. I’d be an astronaut. Of course. With a gold colored sun visor and everything, so it wouldn’t be possible to see in, to see my face, only to look out. A bubbly white space suit with the NASA logo on it and white snow boots on my feet.

  I spent almost a month figuring it out, a space suit wasn’t the easiest costume to make, but there were solutions, and bit by bit the pieces fell into place. I made drawings and Mother did most of the work, the white sail from the old surfboard Father had bought one summer and nobody used became the suit itself, it was stiff enough and made of white nylon, it made a superb whistling noise as I moved. The sail fabric was tacked loosely to the corresponding wetsuit, and then stuffed with cotton wool and sponge, I made the helmet out of father’s old scooter helmet, it was spherical enough, I painted it white, put a thin layer of yellow film over the visor, it looked pretty smart when I opened and closed it. Mother sewed a collar made of the sail fabric to the inside rim of the helmet, so it could be tucked down into the rest of the suit and looked as though all the joins were airtight. With Father’s help we stuck huge magnets under my snowboots with Karlsson’s superglue, they made a great metallic clanking noise as I crossed the floor, because if it’s gotta be done, it’s gotta be done.

  Turned out Jørn’s big brother had white ice hockey gloves too, and since he lived at Dale Psychiatric Unit, way out of town, Jørn reckoned nobody would notice if I borrowed them. Besides, his brother hadn’t ever played ice hockey.

  “What, never?” I asked, as we sat up in my room. I’d just tried the finished suit on for the first time, it fit well, fit as it should, and it was Thursday, the evening before the ball.

  “Never,” answered Jørn. “I don’t think he’s even ever touched a puck.”

  “So why does he have ice hockey gloves?”

  “We’ll never know.”

  I thought about Jørn’s brother, who’d lived at the home for years and who might never return to planet Earth, imagined some kind of David Bowie figure. Ziggy Stardust. Major Tom. Lost in Space. Without his ice hockey gloves.

  That evening, when Jørn had gone, I sewed the name label Mother had embroidered in big blue letters carefully onto the breast of the suit, it said Buzz Aldrin. Had to, of course. And it looked fantastic.

  Friday came. The weather had turned fair. One of those really beautiful December days. I hadn’t talked to her that day either, I don’t know why, never seemed to find the occasion, I was probably terrified. I thought about where this would all lead. How I’d cause a disturbance in her life, disorder in my world. How things would go off track, the water would be too deep. I thought of ways to avoid her. To stop thinking about her, concentrated on the stuff I knew, how planets followed paths, how planes took off and landed all the time, the world over, without hitch. I hunted for good reasons to get out of it, and found none.

  Friday.

  TV in the interim hours.

  Pernille and Mister Nelson.

  Sky Trax.

  The Pat Sharp Show.

  Wham’s goodbye concert on NRK.

  Like the sand in the hourglass, these are the days of our lives.

  I called Jørn, yes, he was ready, another half hour, and he’d leave, Roar was already on his way to school, Roar was always early, that was just how it was, and I liked it. Roar came from a family whom time always seemed to work against, there was always so much to do, maybe that was why he always tried to beat everyone to it, to sneak ahead unseen.

  Friday.

  One should beware of Fridays.

  They promise so much.

  Like movie trailers.

  Only rarely do they live up to expectations.

  Most Fridays are lousy sequels.

  Back to the Future Part III.

  I left home early, took the bus over, had my costume in a big bag, didn’t want to go marching through town in that costume, and there wouldn’t be a problem changing at school the moment I got there, I could just go down into the locker rooms.

  It was snowing heavily, had to plough my way through the snowdrift, looking down at the ground so as not to get my eyes covered in snow. It crunched under my snow boots and I was on my way to a party I’d never normally have gone to. But then, these weren’t normal times; nothing was normal in the autumn of ’86.

  As I walked into the playground, I saw the ground was already covered in footprints, which meant lots of people had arrived already, and I decided to change my plans of walking through the gym to get to the locker rooms, I’d go around the back instead and hope the door wasn’t locked.

  I jogged around the building, bag in hand, and came to the outer door leading into the locker rooms, tugged at the handle. Locked. Shit … Looked around. No other doors. I walked back and forth for a while, wondered if I ought to risk being seen in the gym without my costume, but decided I didn’t want that. Started to check the windows into the locker room. They wouldn’t budge. Tried teasing my keys in, sticks, anything to get leverage with, but they were firmly stuck. Moved along the row of windows, test, locked, test. Locked. And then at last I found one that wasn’t quite shut properly. Only one catch was on, and I managed to open the window an inch on one side, place a stone in the gap to hold it open, and with a branch broken from a tree I managed to lift the other catch, opened the window, and then wriggled my way through the small opening, so that I was suddenly standing in the middle of a darkened girls’ locker room.

  It was weird standing in here. I don’t know what I’d expected. That it should be very different. Different colors, different fittings, maybe. I’d never lain on my back in the boys’ locker room with a mirror underneath the partition, or stood on the taps in the shower, or twisted my head at unnatural angles to get a glimpse of naked girls bodies through the ventilation system in junior school. The line was always so long, and I always stood so far back in it, letting everybody go ahead of me.

  But there wasn’t much to see. Looked much like any other locker room. Neither did it smell particularly like girls. It smelled like green soap. Floor wax. Gymnasium.

  I put my bag down, began to take my clothes off, folded them neatly and lay them beside my costume, hauled on the extended wetsuit, checked everything was in place, put my helmet on, visor up, zipped it up, and then the door into the locker room opened, a hand fumbled for the light switch and there she was, standing in the room, a bag in her hand. Me in my space suit.

  Houston, we have a problem.

  Engine off.

  She leaped back when she saw me. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone was in here,” she said, and I raised an ice-hockey-gloved hand, not knowing what to say.

  “Hi,” I said.

  She turned in the doorway.

  “H … hi.”

  I took my helmet off, and she walked farther into the room.

  “I was … I was just changing,” I said.

  “Your name’s Mattias, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what are you?” She came even closer. “An astronaut?”

  I stood there in front of her, in the middle of the room, my helmet under my arm.

  “Buzz Aldrin,” I answered.

  “Who’s that?”

  “The second man on the moon. Apollo 11. 1969. The Eagle has landed.”

  “But why aren’t you Armstrong? Wasn’t he the first man?”

  “I didn’t have his suit,” I said.

  “Oh.” She looked at me skeptically, then smiled, something in her face opened up, the room lit up, I almost had to pull my visor down.

&
nbsp; “I’m Helle,” she said, stretching out a hand, I took it, gave it a little shake, and pretended I didn’t know, all too well, what she was called. It was a nice hand.

  “Nice name.”

  “So is that,” she said pointing at my chest. “Aldrin.”

  “What are you going to be?” I asked, pointing at her bag.

  She looked at my hand. “Aren’t those ice hockey gloves?”

  “It can be pretty cold out in space.”

  She laughed again, and it really hadn’t gone that badly, I thought to myself.

  “I’m going to be Joan of Arc,” she said, pulling a suit of armor out of her bag. “My mum suggested it, I couldn’t think of anything, but it’ll be fine I’m sure.”

  “Of course it will.”

  She began unbuttoning her blouse, it was getting hot in my suit. She looked up at me again.

  “Hmm … I think you’d better go, I’m going to change now.”

  “Yeah, sure. May God be with you!”

  “You what?”

  “Joan of Arc. She believed that she was acting on divine inspiration. She led the French army to a great victory, the turning point in the Hundred Years’ War. Then later they burned her at the stake. Must have gotten her beliefs all wrong.”

  “Oh.”

  I stood there scuffing my shoes into the floor.

  “Anyway … I … well, I’ll be off. Bye.”

  “Yeah. See you later.”

  So I went out of the locker room, up the stairs and into the big hall.

  My first real party. This is what I remember. The class parties in elementary school, the home-alone-parties during high school, the late nights out, down by the sea, the making out and the lager, and all those mouths, and smart-looking pants taken off behind the bushes, the drunken girls, I was sitting at home then, that was more my thing, so it was just as well nobody ever asked me. But this was no teenage birthday party. This was a ball. And it’s this I remember.