Beatles (32 page)

The lions of the dance floor collapsed by the table shaking their manes. Some people passed by the fence outside yelling and singing. A bottle was smashed. Gunnar turned off the music and we sat stock still until they had gone. Sidsel went white around the gills.

‘Quite mad really,’ Seb said. ‘Quite mad really that we’re more afraid of the Frogner shits than the war in Vietnam.’

The girls looked at him.

Seb leaned across the table.

‘Do you know that the Americans have the whole of their fleet just off the coast of North Vietnam! With hundreds of nuclear bombs on board!’

The girls shook their heads, they didn’t know.

The room fell silent.

Then Ola said, ‘Après nous the b-b-bacteria.’

It was quiet for a while longer. Then Gunnar turned up the volume. ‘And I Love Her’. And one couple took to the floor like fused shadows.

‘What are you going to do after the
gymnas
?’ I asked, feeling so decrepit moss was growing on me.

Eva and Randi were bored.

‘Air hostess,’ Randi sighed, eyeing Jørgen.

‘Finish
gymnas
first,’ Eva said.

‘Going to be an actor,’ Jørgen said with gravitas.

‘Eh?’ Ola burst out.

‘Going to apply for drama school,’ he elucidated.

‘I’m going to sea!’ Seb shouted, but then Guri went into action and he had to promise once again that he would never, never, go to sea.

Seb swore by all that was holy.

‘I once played the part of Frans the frog at
folkeskole
,’ I said. ‘Jumped around wearing a green jersey and green flippers. Ola was Tom Thumb.’

Ola sent me a dirty look from above the roll neck.

‘I’ve played the roles of Jesus and Tordenskiold,’ Jørgen informed us.

No more was said about that. Eva and Randi pushed for another round of Herman’s Hermits, Sidsel fetched more Cokes and we nipped down to the cellar. The demijohn was bubbling, wouldn’t be long before we were bubbling, too. Seb drank. Gunnar drank. Ola drank. Then we heard voices behind us. They issued from the dark, without warning. Sidsel and Guri. Ola waved the tube.

‘So this is where you play ping pong,’ Sidsel said coldly.

Nothing you could say to that.

‘Well, that’s dreadful,’ Guri said.

Caught in the act. Words were useless. Seb and Gunnar responded with direct action, stifled their protests, and their glowing shadows merged into the dark where the ensuing silence spoke its own
unambiguous
language.

I looked at Ola.

‘Nothing left for us to do here then,’ I said.

We staggered upstairs. Eva and Randi were in the living room listening to Herman decrying the lack of milk. Jørgen had gone. Ola slumped into a chair looking worse for wear. I had to pee and crawled up to the next floor. There were lots of doors to choose from, but in the end I found the bathroom. The door was ajar. I peeped in, stopped in my tracks. Jørgen was in there. Standing in front of the mirror with lipstick and eyeliner. He had drawn two black teardrops under his eyes, just like the girls at the
gymnas
. Out of my depth, I held my breath and stepped backwards. Worst thing
I had ever seen. I tiptoed down the corridor, found another room with the door open, had to be Sidsel’s bedroom, looked a lot like Nina’s room, maybe all girls’ rooms were alike. Smelt like it, too. Clean. Sheets that had been hung outside to air. Oranges. And at the same time something heavy, something physical, armpits, scalp. Oh God, I was terrified. Had to make my way downstairs and fast. Too late. The bathroom door opened and Jørgen was approaching. I stood with my back to him without turning.

‘All girls’ rooms are the same,’ he said.

‘Just what I was thinkin’,’ I said.

‘Kim’s a girl’s name, too,’ he said beneath his breath.

I turned round slowly, unable to believe my own ears, and stared at him. He had wiped away the eyeliner.

‘Who kissed you on the cheek?’ I grinned.

‘No one,’ was all he said.

‘You’ve got lipstick all over your face,’ I said.

He rubbed it away with the back of his hand. Weird bloke.

‘I’m bored,’ he said. ‘Do you get bored often? I’m almost always bored. That’s why I’m going to be an actor. So that I can be anyone I feel like. And then I’ll be spared the boredom.’

He certainly had that one worked out.

‘I’m goin’ to be a singer,’ my mouth said. Instant red face, had no idea why I had said that.

I moved towards the stairs. He followed me.

‘Are you?’ he said quietly, studying me with shiny eyes hidden behind a soft hedge of arched brows. ‘How nice.’

The silence was broken by a scream. I was down the staircase in two bounds and racing into the living room. Total panic. Worse than the
Titanic
. Sidsel was hysterical, the others not much better. Iceberg on port side.

The Frogner gang.

They were standing by the gate yelling and throwing corks at the window. Five of them, the same as in Frogner Park. One of them had a big bandage round his head.

‘They’ll smash everything up!’ Sidsel sobbed.

Gunnar was ashen but composed.

‘We won’t let them in,’ he said.

‘Do you think they’ll
ask
to be let in! They’ll break in!’

A dustbin lid was kicked down the street, a board ripped off the fence. Jørgen arrived and realised what was afoot. His face contorted with fear.

‘Let’s ring the police!’ Guri said, beginning to cry.

A bottle smashed against the door.

Seb and Ola were ready to run, but there was nowhere to go.

Then I felt the great backwash, the shoreline of my soul was dragged out, my head became clear and sober, I heard the sea in a large conch shell.

I was not frightened. They couldn’t do any more to me.

‘I’ll fix ’em,’ I said, walking towards the hallway.

Gunnar leapt after me.

‘You crazy or what! They’ll kill you!’

I shook him off.

‘I’ll get rid of them!’ I called out.

They all tried to hold me back. The girls were crying. Gunnar was cursing. I broke free.

‘You’re mad!’ Gunnar yelled. ‘They’ll kill you!’

I went out.

A minute later I returned.

‘That’s that then,’ I said.

No one believed me.

‘They’ve slung their hooks,’ I said, taking a seat. ‘Danger over.’ The girls went back to the window and peered out. Gunnar stuck his face into mine.

‘What… what did you do?’

‘Just told ’em to sod off,’ I said.

After that the party took a new turn. Eva and Randi were not only eyeing up Jørgen, but also stealing glances at me. Seb found some gin in a cupboard, the lights were switched off, the music turned up and I remember dancing with Randi, the plump one, dancing all the time, standing there in the dark and our thighs were soft and hot, we were alone in the room. We lowered ourselves onto the floor and my hand found her breasts, and my hand found even more, but then all of a sudden she was no longer willing, sat up with a start, pushed out her lower lip and sighed up at the ceiling.

‘Aren’t you Nina’s boyfriend?’ she said.

Didn’t like her tone.

‘Nina? Nina who?’

She sneered and left. I sat in the dark. A door slammed. Someone had left. Then I heard sounds above. Someone was in the bedrooms. I assumed Seb and Guri weren’t frightened any more.

I found Ola in the cellar. He was asleep on the ping pong table.

‘Party’s over,’ I said. ‘Let’s go home.’

‘Where are Seb and Gunnar?’ he slurred.

I pointed to the ceiling. Ola understood.

We dawdled home. By the fountain we rested our legs. There was no one else about. We were the only living survivors in the whole town.

‘Fab party,’ Ola murmured.

I nodded.

‘But that Jørgen was a w-w-wet fart, wasn’t he.’

We lit a cigarette.

‘Is Nina c-c-comin’ this summer?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘This summer.’

‘K-K-Kirsten, too. From Trondheim.’

He dug a photo out of his back pocket and showed me. It was a booth photo, a girl laughing with big teeth, a centre parting and round cheeks.

‘K-K-Kirsten,’ Ola said.

That was when we heard it. We heard an organ. A ponderous psalm resounding through the night. There was light in a window in Schives gate, the only illuminated window in the whole town and that was where the sound was coming from.

‘That’s where Goose lives,’ Ola said in a low voice.

‘That’s Goose playin’ the Hammond organ,’ I said with a tremble.

The heavy, sluggish chords rolled out into the dark. Soon lights came on in other windows, people stuck out their heads, yelled and shushed, banged with sticks, threw two øre coins, banged lids and all the dogs tried to out-howl each other.

Then the organ tones faded and Goose switched off the light. Afterwards everything was as before, just even quieter.

We flicked away the cigarette ends, strolled on, it was getting cold.

‘What did you really s-s-say to the Frogner gang?’

‘I told ’em you were there,’ I said.

Ola, still a bit shaky on his legs, grinned.

‘H-h-hope my dad’s not waitin’ up.’

‘Same here.’

‘F-f-fab party,’ Ola said.

‘Knockout,’ I said.

On Sunday evening Seb trolled into my room, stood in the middle of the floor laughing, dived onto the sofa and continued laughing there.

‘Bloody hell, you were wasted yesterday,’ he said.

‘Was I?’

‘Out of your head!’

He stopped laughing.

‘What did you actually do to the Frogner gang?’

I took my hand out of my pocket.

‘Showed them my finger,’ I said.

‘What did you actually do to your finger?’

I told him about all that had happened in Frogner Park. Seb listened with big, round eyes. I took my time, left nothing out, told him about the one I punched in the face breaking my finger, and that they ran off, shit scared, Seb had seen the one with the bandage round his head, that was the one I knocked down, it was. Seb was open-mouthed.

And then he told me all the things he had been up to, what happened in the room with Guri, about the most fantastic bit of all when the party was over, about the details, about everything. I don’t know which of us was lying more, the main thing was we believed each other.

Spring. No doubt about it. Bands were tramping through the streets practising boring marches and runners were training for the Holmenkoll relay race, but the surest sign of spring was Jensenius. The whale was awake and singing in the green ocean. And one day we stuck our heads out at the same time and saw each other.

‘More beer!’ he shouted.

Then he dropped a heavy purse and a shopping net.

‘Export!’ he shouted.

He was waiting in the doorway as I staggered up, he waved me in. He followed me into the sitting room where he collapsed in his usual tatty chair and emptied the beer down him as if pouring it down a drain.

‘Take a seat,’ he said.

I took a seat. The dust whirled up giving off a smell of stale bread.

‘You haven’t been playing the Robertino record,’ he said.

I shifted uneasily.

‘Yes, I have. I think it’s very good.’

Jensenius was lost in dreams behind the foam.

‘An Italian youngster with a throat of the purest gold.’

He expelled a heavy sigh.

‘But now destiny has taken his voice. Life can be cruel, Kim.’

‘Is he ill?’ I asked.

‘Voice is cracking,’ Jensenius said. ‘The devil has polished his throat with coarse sandpaper. Robertino is no longer Robertino.’

He swigged more beer. His stomach flowed over his filthy trousers. His shirt was buttoned up wrong.

‘The same thing that happened to me,’ he said dolefully. ‘Destiny’s cruel and fickle musical score. Just in reverse order.’

He fell silent for a few moments, staring in front of him with a gaze that looked backwards.

‘Robertino lost his soprano voice and gained the miner’s vocal register. I lost my baritone and gained the eunuch’s vocal splendour.’

He took a long draught.

‘What’s an eunuch?’ I asked softly.

‘Life’s slave,’ he said. ‘Deprived of his virility but left with his desire intact. Sometimes it’s unbearable, Kim.’

I studied the floor. The carpet was threadbare from his nightly wanderings.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

Jensenius opened three bottles. There was a mountain of bottle tops under his chair.

‘I’ll tell you, Kim. I was due to sing at the University of Oslo Concert Hall in 1954, a sparkling spring day, almost like today.’ He
pointed to the grubby windowsills. ‘I was going to sing Grieg and King Haakon would be present, Crown Prince Olav, the whole of the royal family, Kim! I took a taxi from here two hours before to be in good time. But I never arrived, Kim. King Haakon never heard Jensenius sing Grieg, Kim.’

He drank, his hand trembled around the bottle.

‘What happened?’ I whispered.

‘An accident is what happened, Kim. Where Parkveien crosses Drammensveien. A lorry coming from the left. The taxi driver was killed. I got the front seat in my lap. I was crushed, Kim.’

He emptied the remaining bottles without speaking. That was Jensenius’s story. And it was as true as everything that flows from my pen.

But on the woodburner was a bag of sweets, grey with dust and green with mould.

He turned sharply to me.

‘But
you
will be something great!’ he said.

I was apprehensive.

‘Me?’

‘Yes, Kim. You will be the greatest of us all!’

‘How?’

‘Singing, Kim! I’ve heard you at night. I hear you almost every night, Kim!’

I ran downstairs and rushed into my room. Outside, trees were exploding in green applause and bands never tired of doing encores.

‘The radio,’ I thought. ‘It must be the radio he’s heard.’

The first Saturday in May a car in Svoldergate was hooting up a storm, it had to be at least Jensenius trying to cross the road in one piece. I ran to the window. Dad! It was Dad in a new car, a bright red Saab gliding into Svoldergate like a giant ladybird. I sprinted downstairs, Dad had crawled out, was leaning against the warm car roof, having discarded his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, wow, what a spring. Mum came flying down, she fell around his neck and that’s how I prefer to remember Mum and Dad, beside the new car, their first car, a bright red Saab V4, arm in arm one May day in 1967.