Beatles

I am sitting in a summer house and it is autumn. My right hand is irritating me, stitches everywhere, and my index finger in particular. It is crooked, bent like a claw. I cannot stop looking at it. It is clinging to a ballpoint pen, which writes in red ink. It is an uncommonly hideous finger. It’s a shame I am not left-handed, I once wished I were left-handed and played the bass guitar. But I can write backwards with my left hand, just like Leonardo da Vinci. Nevertheless, I am writing with my right hand and tolerate the disfigured hand and revolting finger. There is a smell of apples in here. A strong aroma of apples rises from the old table where I am sitting in the middle of the dark room. It is the evening of the first day and I have taken the shutters off only one of the windows. The windowsill is covered with dead insects, flies, mosquitoes, wasps with thin, desiccated legs. And the scent of the fruit is making me light-headed, my shiny head releases something inside me, shadows dance along the walls in the moonlight which shines in through the sole window converting the room into an old-fashioned diorama. Now I turn around, like Ola’s father, the barber of Solli, who on birthdays always put the film the wrong way round in the projector – we watched three Chaplin films from the end – and go backwards in time. And although I don’t think about it, the reel behind my eyes stops at a particular frame, I hold it for a few seconds, freeze it, then let it roll, for I am all-powerful. I give it voices, sound, smell and light. I can clearly hear the shingle crunching beneath our shoes as we traipse across Vestkanttorget, I can feel the giddiness after a mega drag and I can still feel Ringo’s elbow digging gently into my ribs, and we stop in a line, all four of us, and John points to a shiny, black Mercedes parked outside Naranja pet shop.

George was the first to speak. He said, ‘It’s yours, Paul.’

Everyone knew that I was the specialist as far as Mercs were concerned. Didn’t even need tools for them. Just a question of twisting the round badge to the left three times, letting go and pulling, because the clip had already snapped. We raced up the steps and felt a hot tingle under our sweaters. We took stock.

‘Too many people around,’ John whispered.

The others agreed. There were two men standing under the apple trees in the corner and an old lady was crossing the street close by.

‘No point takin’ r-r-risks,’ Ringo mumbled.

‘We’ve already got an Opel and two Fords,’ George said.

‘But it’s a 220S!’ I protested.

‘We’ll nick it some other evenin’,’ John said.

However, there was no guarantee it would be there the following day. And then I felt the rush that I have felt so often since, and I was no longer listening to the others. I sauntered across the street, alone, bent over the bonnet, my heart still beating in a relaxed, unconcerned way. A couple was coming downhill from Berle, the two men standing under the apple trees glanced over, the parrots in the shop window squawked mute shrieks. I twisted the Mercedes antlers round three times, let go, pulled, and stuffed the badge up my sweater. John, George and Ringo were already a long way ahead, they were supposed to be walking as naturally as possible, but from behind they looked like three lamp posts fitted with red bulbs. John turned and waved furiously, I smiled and waved back, and then they broke into a run towards Uranienborg Park. I was still at the scene of the crime, looked around, but no one had reacted. I began to follow the others, slowly, as if to drag the whole thing out, to get a real sensation of how it felt, to give the car owner a chance to catch me. That wonderful warm tingle spread through my body. And no one was following me. I pulled out the booty, brandished it in triumph and ran after the others.

They were waiting by The Man on the Steps corner shop, each with a packet of juice.

‘You’re c-c-crazy,’ Ringo said.

‘One day we’ll get bloody caught,’ John muttered.

He looked up at me, didn’t smile, seemed a little resigned, almost
unhappy from where he was sitting with a packet of freezing cold juice and a cigarette bobbing up and down.

It was almost nine. Night had fallen without our noticing. The Man on the Steps switched off the shop lights and we ambled down what locals called Farmers’ Hill. I gave the Mercedes badge to George, he was the custodian, he kept them under magazines in a box beneath his bed.

‘We’ve got six of ’em now,’ he said.

‘But no 220Ss!’

‘Can’t see any d-d-difference,’ Ringo said.

‘
Seein’
isn’t the point, it’s
knowin’
that counts,’ I said.

‘How many Fiats have we got then?’ John wondered.

‘Nine,’ said George. ‘Nine Farts.’

‘My brother brought back a porn mag from Copenhagen,’ John said. We lurched to a halt, looked at him.

‘From Denmark?’ Ringo whispered, forgetting to stammer.

‘He was playin’ handball in Copenhagen. Yuk.’

‘What’s… what’s it like?’

‘Classy,’ said John. ‘Have to be off now.’

‘Bring it with you tomorrow,’ George said.

‘You do that!’ Ringo shouted, waving a screwdriver in the air. ‘Don’t forget!’

I joined John. We were going the same way, down Løvenskioldsgate, George and Ringo trudged off to Solli plass. Neither of us said a word. Sand from the previous winter crunched under our shoes and there was congealed dog shit all over the pavement. They were sure signs of spring even though it was still cold and dark, only mid-April. I gazed down at my shoes and was happy that Mum had promised me a new pair in May, the ones I was wearing now looked more like heavy ski boots and were a lead weight. John’s shoes were not a lot better as he wore hand-me-downs from his brother, Stig, and he was two years older and one metre eighty-five, John’s shoes were always so big that first of all he had to take a step inside them before he could set off.

‘Think we may have enough car badges now,’ John said, without looking at me.

‘Perhaps we should just collect lots of different makes,’ I suggested.

‘We’ve got enough,’ he repeated.

‘We could sell the ones we’ve got a lot of.’

John stopped dead and grabbed my arm with force.

‘Look,’ he shouted, pointing to the pavement.

I froze. There was a piece of string in front of us. String. White string on the ground right in front of us.

‘Hand Grenade Man,’ John whispered.

I did not say anything, just stared.

‘Hand Grenade Man,’ John repeated, stepping back.

I stood where I was, a metre, perhaps even less, from the cord. It was tied round the bars of a drain in the gutter and disappeared into a hedge.

‘Not sure that’s the Hand Grenade Man,’ I said quietly.

‘What shall we do?’ John stuttered behind me. ‘Ring the cops?’

‘Doesn’t have to be the Hand Grenade Man himself, even if there is some string,’ I went on, to myself mostly.

‘Those two boys up in Grefsen rang the cops,’ John hissed. ‘We could be blown to smithereens!’

At that moment I seemed to melt. I dissolved into nothing. I took a pace forward, bent down, heard John screaming behind me and tugged with all my might.

There was a hell of a racket because six tin cans were tied to the end of the string. John was long gone, on the other side of the street, entrenched behind a lamp post. I presented my catch and he climbed out of his trench. At that moment we heard laughing and giggling from behind the hedge. John was white-faced and his teeth were chattering, and with one leap he was over the hedge and dragging two small brats into the light. He shoved them against an Opel, frisked them, pointed to me and the cord and said:

‘D’you know how many years inside you get for doin’ this sort of thing?’

The brats swung their heads from side to side.

‘Five!’ John shouted. ‘Five years! You’ll be sent to Jæren. You don’t even know where that is, right, but it’s a helluva long way away, and you’ll be breakin’ rocks! For five years. Have you got that?!’

The brats nodded.

Then John tied them together with the string and chased them down the street. They ran like lunatics, and everyone was at their
windows thinking it was a wedding. We heard the clatter of the tin cans from several blocks away.

‘Why don’t they take ’em off?’ John wondered, scratching his ear.

‘S’pose they think it’s fun,’ I said.

‘I s’pose so.’

We ploughed on. After a long pause John said, ‘You’re mad! You could’ve been blown apart!’

‘What are the pics in your brother’s mag like?’

‘Big twats. Twice as big as those in
Cocktail
.’

He fell silent. I didn’t have the pluck to ask him any more, so I just waited for John to tell me the rest.

‘And they aren’t even hairy.’ It burst out of him.

‘No hair?’

‘Not one pube. Shaven off.’

‘Is that possible?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘Ringo’s dad is a barber,’ I said.

‘You can see everythin’,’ John said.

‘Everythin’?’

‘Yup.’

We parted in Gimle. John went down to Thomas Heftyes gate, I went on to Skillebekk. I couldn’t get the shaven twats out of my mind. I tried to imagine them, but it was totally beyond me. The closest I got was the picture of the naked woman in the medical book, but I think the photo had been touched up, at any rate, the twat was just a smooth surface, there didn’t seem to be any hair on it, but there wasn’t a crack to be seen, either, and I presumed they couldn’t show that sort of woman in a family medical book.

As I turned into Svoldergate the rain started, a light, warm drizzle that hardly wets you and you can’t see, and I thought it felt just like a lot of hairs touching my face, tiny little dark hairs, and there was a strange smell in the whole street, a bit like the school shower, and no one around anywhere. Down the last stretch I broke into a run because I was already three quarters of an hour late.

But I stopped by the postboxes in the entrance. I saw a brown envelope. Next to it the postman had left a note. There was no one in the block called Nordahl Rolfsen. Could anyone help him? I could. The
letter was for me. I shoved the envelope up my shirt, crept upstairs and sneaked into my room. There I carefully opened the letter and sat with my ears on stalks. No one about. What the ad said was true. Discreet and well-packed. From
Alt I Ett
. A dozen
Rubin-Extra,
pink. Eleven kroner. But I didn’t need to pay. No one knew who Nordahl Rolfsen was. Cunning. I didn’t dare open the smooth package, just held it in my hand, heard the light rain outside, the hairs brushing the window. Then I hid the whole lot in the third drawer, under
Pop-Extra
, Beatles magazines and a Conquest crime magazine.

It was Thursday, must have been because we had an essay for the day after, the last before the exam, and essays always had to be handed in on Fridays so that Lue, our form master, had some entertainment for the weekend. I still hadn’t written a word. In fact, the plan had been to start coughing that night, long, barking, despairing coughs that kept Mum and Dad awake till way past midnight. And the following morning all I had to do was heat up my forehead on the pillow so Mum would confirm a temperature of 39.5 and instantly prescribe a day off. But I didn’t want to be the last person to see Gunnar’s brother’s porn mag. I decided to write the essay after Mum and Dad had gone to bed. And all of a sudden my mother was in the doorway with my supper and a glass of milk.

‘You could say hello when you come home,’ she said. I took the plate and glass.

‘We’re in the sitting room. That’s not so far away, is it.’

‘I know,’ I said.

‘Where have you been?’

‘At school.’

‘So late?’

‘We were playing footie.’

She came a step closer and I knew this was going to drag on. And I knew exactly what she would say and how I would answer so as to be polite.

‘Do you
have
to stick all those horrible pictures on the wall?’

‘I think they’re fab,’ I said.

‘Are
they
fab?’ my mother almost screamed, pointing to a picture just under the ceiling.

‘That’s The Animals,’ I said.

Mum sent me a stern look.

‘You need a haircut,’ she said. ‘It’ll soon be over your ears.’

I thought about Dad, who was almost bald, and then I blushed because an eerie apparition, a monstrous head, a crazy hybrid, appeared in my mind and Mum came closer, asked me what was up.

‘What’s up?’ I parroted in a gruff voice.

‘Yes. You suddenly went all funny.’

Now the conversation was taking a completely unexpected and dangerous turn. I began to make a show of eating, but Mum stood her ground, leaning against the door frame.

‘Have you been out with a girl tonight?’ Mum asked.

The question was insane, way off the mark, idiotic, a bolt from the blue and, instead of laughing her out of court, I lost my temper.

‘I’ve been with Gunnar! And Sebastian and Ola!’

Mum patted me on the head.

‘I still think you need a haircut.’

Still? What did she mean? What trap was being laid now? I summoned my last ounce of strength and used the argument that always had some effect on my mother because once upon a time she had wanted to be an actress.

‘Rudolf Nureyev’s got long hair, too!’

Mum nodded slowly, a smile spread across her face and then, so help me, she put her hand on my head for the second time.

‘You can bring her home with you.’

I was sure that I had the reddest pale face in the western world, not including Jensenius, the opera singer on the floor above, who drank thirty bottles of Export pils a day and said it was the deposit on bottles and art that kept the world going.

As usual, Dad was sitting in the chair by the bookshelves with a copy of
Nå
and a picture of Wenche Myhre on the front page. He was concentrating hard on the crossword. Then he raised his narrow, pale face and looked at me.

‘Have you done your homework?’

‘Yes.’

‘How’s your preparation for the exams going?’

‘Fine. I think.’