Beatles (23 page)

Ola was sitting outside waiting, with the coffee made. He was grinning.

‘S-s-sleepy heads! It’s p-p-past eight,’ he said, pointing to the sun with a triumphant expression.

We had breakfast and started fishing. The night had chilled the ground, our clothes were damp. But the sun set over the forest and transfixed us with warm spears. Skillingen lake shone like a huge coin in the midst of all the green. And the floats gave no sign of any movement. Gunnar tried a spinner but when he cast it for the third time it stayed at the bottom and the line broke.

‘Let’s move on,’ Seb said. ‘To Daltjuven.’

We packed up, found the forest trail and trudged off in single file. The sun blazed high in the sky and warmed our bones. After a stiff march we spotted the lake between the trees, left the trail and bounded across the heather. Daltjuven. Not that big, but then the fish would be closer. We were lucky and found a good campsite straight away, flat terrain and grassy.

We whacked up the tent, slotted the poles together and tightened the guylines. The worms were keeping well, just hanging their heads a little, or tails. When we got to Katnose, we would change the soil. We ambled over to a rock standing upright in the water. Then we crossed our fingers and cast our lines.

The floats sank right to the bottom.

‘Fish!’ we hollered in unison.

We reeled in, each with a perch. And it wasn’t a bag of bones like the one Seb caught in Skillingen. They were at least five hundred grams, chubby and with dorsal fins like cockscombs. Gunnar went for his camera and a knife. Quite a bit of blood was spilt before the battle was over. We each took a photo so everyone was included. Then we put on more bait and cast and from thereon it was all
non-stop
. The water was bubbling with fish. Perch, trout and powan. We could have set up shop. The vultures were beginning to circle above. The sun angled into the forest and the colours became intense and distinct.

Then the floats lay still in the pitch black water.

‘Think we’ve got enough, anyway,’ Seb said, counting the catch. There were eleven perch, four trout and three powan.

The mosquitoes were beginning to make their presence felt.

Seb and I gutted the fish while Gunnar and Ola took care of the fire. Hunger rumbled in our stomachs. We started with the trout. It wriggled in the pan and the delicious smell wafted all the way to Solli plass. After three trout, a powan each and six perch we could have sprouted fins. We staggered down to the water’s edge, shoved our heads in and lay down on the grass.

The mosquitoes were circling around us.

‘I’ll get the pipe,’ Seb said, plodding over to the tent.

The sky changed colour, became more black than blue. A
chalk-white
gull disappeared over the forest. Seb returned with the pipe and filled it with Karva Blad. Just a question of keeping the smoke over the uvula. We puffed and blew out billows of smoke. Our eyes smarted.

‘It’s Midsummer’s Day today, boys!’ Seb grinned, pulling out a fluted bottle. ‘Pinched it off my mother!’

‘G-g-gin!’ Ola mumbled.

Seb unscrewed the top and drank. He coughed violently and passed the bottle on. I pretended to drink. My lips were burning. Gunnar took the bottle from me. He took a huge swig and leaned back with a smile. Ola started to hiccup and had to wash his face in the water. The bottle came round again. I took a deep breath, swallowed a mouthful and it landed in my stomach like a red hot brick.

‘This is the life,’ Seb said in a hoarse voice. ‘Just like Red Indians.’

‘Especially in winter,’ I said.

He didn’t hear.

‘People live an artificial life in towns,’ Seb continued. ‘Dad has told me about South American Indians.’

A golden glow transfused Seb’s face. He lit the pipe and passed it round. We blew away the closest mosquitoes.

‘Wonder how Fred is,’ I said.

‘Fred should’ve come with us,’ Gunnar said quietly.

A warm wind set the forest in motion, it breathed and the trees sang. The lake made its own sounds, too. I strolled to the edge of the forest to have a piss. The darkness was closer now, it was a black wall within the forest, blocking the view. A mosquito landed on my dick but before I could shake it off, I heard something.

‘Psst,’ came a voice from behind a tree.

I looked around, but couldn’t see anything.

‘Psst,’ it said once more.

Then a gnome with a huge beard and eyes that burned through the night crawled out. I was not afraid. He seemed to belong to the landscape, he was part of the tree he had been standing behind. His hair was moss, his arms branches and his voice a coarse rustle.

‘I followed the smell,’ he said. ‘You boys have had fish fortune.’

Fish fortune. That sounded funny.

I nodded.

‘Perhaps there’s a bit left?’

‘Yes, sure. Perch.’

He pointed to the water and poked his moss-head closer.

‘The others, have they, have they had clearance?’

‘Clearance? They’re my friends,’ I said in bewilderment.

‘Can you vouch for them?’

‘Of course!’

He followed me to the remaining embers of the fire.

‘Hey!’ I called. ‘We’ve got a visitor!’

They tottered towards us. The gnome hid behind me. His eyes went from one to the next.

‘He needs some food,’ I said.

We fanned the flames into life, brought the rest of the fish and
soon the pan was sizzling. The gnome said nothing, just sat with watchful eyes and drool in his beard. He smelt of earth.

Then he could restrain himself no longer. He grabbed the perch with his fingers and stuffed it straight into his mouth. I had never seen anything like it. He just jammed the fish into the right hand corner of his mouth, his mouth rotated like a wheel, and then the bones and skin were expelled on the left hand side and landed on the ground. He was an eating machine, no less. Afterwards he let out a gigantic belch and gave a greasy smile.

‘Daltjuven is a fine place,’ he whispered. ‘But no one has fish fortune here more than once. So tomorrow you’ll have to move on.’

We glanced at each other. The fire was casting an eerie gleam across our faces. Then the gnome spotted the bottle.

He pointed with a crooked black finger.

Seb gave it to him. He took a formidable gulp and his eyes glowed even more intensely.

‘D-d-do you live here?’ Ola asked cautiously.

‘The sky is my roof and the earth my floor. And the walls are in the east and west, north and south. Welcome to my world.’

He took another swig and returned the bottle.

‘I’ve lived here since the war, boys. I was in merchant shipping. I walk around in my living room and cannot find peace.’

‘In the winter, too?’

‘In the winter, too. That’s when soldiers rest. The snow is warm.’

The fire died down. The mosquitoes came back with renewed vigour. We shadow-boxed in the air. The gnome sat motionless and allowed them to drink his blood.

Then he rose to his feet and his face became invisible in the dark.

‘Say hello to Iris, if you meet her,’ he said.

‘Who’s she?’

‘Iris is our angel,’ he said. ‘She’s as beautiful as the sun. If you meet her someone will die.’

Then he left. He walked into the darkness and was gone.

We sat for a long time without speaking. The fire went out. The moon shone in the sky with a dull glow.

Seb unscrewed the top and gave the bottle a good wipe.

‘Nutter,’ said Gunnar. ‘Bloody nutter!’

The bottle did the rounds. I took a swig and spat it out.

The mosquitoes were everywhere. My head buzzed on the inside. Seb lit the pipe, but that didn’t help much. They continued to come back to seek out our faces, hands, legs. We gave up. We had to seek refuge in the tent. The bottle went round. I pretended to drink. Soon it was empty.

Ola fell asleep. His head keeled over and the rest of his body followed. His eyes were bloodshot and strange noises were issuing from his mouth. Froth formed at the corners of his mouth. There was only one thing to do. We dragged him outside and then crept back in.

‘Can’t risk gettin’ the tent full of spew, can we,’ Gunnar slurred.

Straight after there was a hell of a racket outside the tent door. The sides shook, then the zip shot up, Ola stuck a green mug inside and evacuated the contents of his stomach.

We all screamed at once. Ola looked up at us with contorted eyes, understanding nothing.

‘Th-th-thought I was outside,’ he stammered.

‘You
were
outside,’ I said. ‘
Now
you’re inside.’

‘Have I chucked up in the t-t-tent?’

We got him out and down to the lake. Gunnar and Seb were convulsed with laughter, on their knees howling. Ola wasn’t sure where he was. And the tent stank of toilet, no point sleeping there tonight. We rolled our sleeping bags out around the fire. Gunnar was snoring before he hit the ground. Seb was chortling in the dark.

The mosquitoes kept me awake. I stuffed my head in the net bag and found a shopping list of dreams.

I was woken by Gunnar’s scream. He was yelling. He sat erect in his sleeping bag clutching his face. It didn’t look good. The bumps made it look like a slalom piste.

I went over to him. He was out of his mind.

‘What’s happened?’ he cried. ‘What has happened?!’

‘Mosquitoes,’ I said. ‘You forgot to put the net on last night.’

He screamed even louder. His face was bright red and about twice as big as usual. His nose extended in all directions and his eyes lay far back in their sockets, two terrified narrow slits.

I had to hold him. He was flailing his arms like a windmill, almost tearing his sleeping bag to shreds. I dragged him out and got him
down to the water’s edge. Otherwise it was a wonderful morning, the air was clear, not a breath of wind, still a hint of the night’s coolness. Daltjuven was as shiny as a skating rink. Gunnar squatted down to look at his reflection in the water. He fainted. I had to haul him back onto land. I left him lying on the grass and went to wake the others. They were asleep under their nets with hangovers and bad breath.

‘Wash the tent, you pig,’ I told Ola, shaking him.

Seb rubbed his eyes and ran five rake-like fingers through his greasy hair.

‘Something happened or what?’ he coughed.

‘Mosquitoes have made a meal of Gunnar.’

At last they got up. Ola stuck two floats up his nose and made a start on the tent. Seb and I went down to fetch Gunnar. He tried to hide his face. His eyes peered balefully through his fingers.

Seb tried to comfort him.

‘Healthy to be stung by mozzies. Changes the old blood. Girls have menstruation. We’ve got mozzies.’

Gunnar wouldn’t listen.

I took his legs and Seb grabbed him under the arms.

‘Is this how you get when you’re drunk?’ Gunnar muttered.

‘You forgot your mosquito net, you knucklehead!’

He kicked me away.

‘Don’t you call me a knucklehead!’ he shouted with the voice of a madman. ‘Don’t call me a knucklehead!’

Ola emerged from the tent and announced that it was eight o’clock.

‘Did it h-h-hurt?’ he asked, bending over Gunnar.

Gunnar hit out all around him. It took all three of us to restrain him. We shoved him into the tent. He lay down without a struggle and stared up at us helplessly.

‘You hungry?’ I asked.

He shook his head.

‘Thirsty?’

‘Yes,’ came the gruff response.

Seb went for water and Ola lit the gas stove. I took out the First Aid kit.

‘Gunnar,’ I said. ‘Can you hear me? Don’t scratch. Even if it itches, you mustn’t scratch.’

He started to become feverish. We wondered whether to embalm his whole body in gauze, but gave him three aspirins instead. Seb counted the bites and noted down the number on a slip of paper. He counted eighteen on the nose, forty-three on the forehead and thirty-six on each cheek.

When the sun was at its peak Gunnar began to be delirious. His face was more swollen than ever and he was speaking in tongues. It sounded like Swedish or Nynorsk. He said something about a Young Farmer and a girl with long, blonde hair. We went out and let him rave in peace. Seb hadn’t been to the toilet since we had left. His belly felt heavy and he sat in the shade of the tent snoozing. Ola dived into his sleeping bag head first. I tried to do some fishing, but perhaps the gnome had been right. There was no life in the water.

Later that evening I discovered some strange tracks around the tent. One foot was a normal boot, the other an elk hoof. They led into the forest.

I said nothing to the others.

Next morning we woke up to some even worse noises. We jumped up out of our bags, Seb, Ola and I, and stared at the tent where Gunnar was asleep. That wasn’t where the din was coming from. We rubbed the sleep out of our eyes. Trumpets. We could hear trumpets. Ola was pointing, his mouth wide open. Over on the other side there was a swarm of scouts. The lake was full of canoes. A
brown-clad
dumpling with pink knees was blowing a trumpet.

We looked at each other. No more needed to be said. We woke Gunnar, his face had gone down a bit. He had scratched his forehead in a couple of places.

‘We have to move on,’ I said.

‘Don’t feel like it,’ he whinged.

‘Lot of scouts about,’ I said.

‘Let’s go,’ Gunnar said.

We rolled up the tent and were off. It was just a question of following the forest path all the way to Katnosa. Ola determined that
it was nine o’clock. Could see it from the flowers, he said. Wow, we were impressed. Ola was a wandering cuckoo clock.

And then we were there. We threw our rods in the air and ran the last bit. We could smell cows and coffee. On the doorstep stood a large woman, smiling. She was wearing a blue and white dress, just like the sky.

‘Have you come far?’ she asked.

We had indeed.

We went into the room and sat round a table.

‘Waffles,’ we ordered. ‘And eight Cokes, please.’

Seb disappeared into the toilet and Grandma took a closer look at Gunnar.

‘You’ve fallen out with some mosquitoes,’ she laughed.