Beatles (44 page)

They brought him down strapped firmly to a stretcher. He lay with his eyes wide open, they met mine, pulled at me like a magnet. There must have been five people carrying him.

Then they pushed Jensenius into the ambulance and started the engine.

I ran upstairs. Mum was standing by the window.

‘What’s happened?’ I shouted. ‘What’ve they done to Jensenius?’

‘He couldn’t live on his own any longer, Kim. They’ve taken him to a home. He’ll be fine now, Kim.’

Jensenius had gone.

Cecilie was back.

The evening before, Dad was relaxing in the sitting room as though nothing was about to happen. He was doing the crossword with a gentle, thoughtful expression on his countenance. Mum was knitting. On the front of
Nå
there was a shot of John Lennon and Yoko Ono stark naked, taken from the rear.

Dad must have noticed I was observing him, he raised his eyes. The knitting needles stopped.

‘Another word for change?’ he wondered.

‘Revolution,’ I said.

‘Revolution,’ he repeated, counting on his fingers, bent over the squares. Mum went on knitting as though nothing was about to happen.

The day after, Bonus was opened in Bygdøy Allé, Nixon was elected President and Dad came home from the bank in a police car. Three men accompanied him, two in uniform, the last one in a long, grey cloak with gimlet eyes and pendulous cheeks.

Dad looked at Mum and me, and said in a voice I didn’t recognise and one he didn’t seem to trust:

‘Robbery. The bank was robbed today.’

The detective tried to cheer Dad up.

‘We apprehended the Homansbyen Post Office robbers within
twenty-four hours. Oslo is hermetically sealed. They won’t get away, you can be sure of that.’

‘There was only one man, I think,’ Dad said in the same voice.

‘Inside the bank, yes. He must have had accomplices outside.’

The detective sat down opposite Dad with his head close to Dad’s face as he flicked through a loose-leaf notepad.

‘Try to remember. Any details, even though you may consider them immaterial. Everything is relevant.’

Dad rested his chin on his hands and spoke through his fingers.

‘I’ve told you everything. He came into my office. Threatened to shoot unless I gave him the money.’

‘You didn’t
see
the weapon?’

‘No.’ Dad removed his hands from his face. ‘I had no choice!’ he shouted. ‘I had no choice!’

Brief silence. Dad’s shouting resounded in my ears. Mum was crying.

‘300,000,’ the detective mumbled. ‘Unusually large sum of money.’

‘It’s pay day today,’ Dad said wearily. ‘Friday. It’s quite normal for us to have that sort of amount.’

‘You didn’t
see
the weapon,’ the detective continued. ‘But you felt
threatened?
’

Dad had obviously been through the same questions several times before.

‘Yes. He meant it. Meant what he said. To shoot.’ Dad raised his voice. ‘It’s my duty to think of my staff. My employees come first.’

The detective nodded. His cheeks shook.

‘You did the right thing, herr Karlsen. Quite right.’

‘He seemed,’ Dad started, staring at the floor, ‘to be full of remorse.’

‘Yes?’

‘He seemed,’ Dad looked away, ‘he seemed a little mad.’

‘Mad?’

‘Yes. I mean abnormal. Of course it isn’t a normal… situation, but he seemed… mad.’

The detective became animated, flipped over a new sheet in his notepad.

‘Could he have been on drugs?’

Dad just shook his head.

‘I don’t know. Possible.’

The telephone rang. Mum went to take it, but the officer was quicker, as though he lived there.

He listened and put down the receiver.

‘It’s ready, boss. The rogues’ gallery.’

The detective rose to his feet. Dad stayed where he was.

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to come with us to Victoria again. To see if you can identify any faces.’

‘I’ve told you I didn’t see his face! It was covered with a scarf. And his hat was pulled down over his forehead.’

‘We always know more than we think we know,’ said the detective.

Dad looked up at him, frightened. His hands fell towards the floor like two weights.

‘What?’

‘We have to go now,’ the detective said impatiently, and Dad followed him like a sleepwalker.

There was a report on the TV news. One of the cashiers was interviewed. He had noticed the robber as soon as he entered the bank, he had a distinctive tic, the cashier exulted: ‘He kept tossing his head. Obviously nervous. That’s the sort of thing we bank employees notice,’ he said. ‘Anyway, it wasn’t so cold outside that it was necessary to wrap your scarf all the way round your face.’ A blaze of camera flashes greeted the cashier. Subsequently Dad came on the screen. He was looking away. The detective was walking beside him. It was better the time Dad and I were on the news together, in Bislett. It seemed an eternity ago.

Dad didn’t come home until midnight. He didn’t speak to us. He went straight into his bedroom and to bed. The day after he didn’t get up and didn’t want to read the papers. Mum rang the doctor. He came with his stethoscope and bottles of pills, spent a long time with Dad and talked to Mum in a low voice afterwards. One of the bank directors came too, consoled Mum and said that Dad had taken the only possible course of action: he had kept his composure. Hubert rang. But Dad didn’t get up. Dad stayed in bed.

In the January draw Hubert won first prize and travelled to Paris. Dad still hadn’t got out of bed. The robbers still hadn’t been caught and the newspapers were no longer writing about it. Hubert rang the same day and said he had won and was on his way to France, Mum told Dad. An hour later he was standing in the sitting room in his pyjamas, thin, grey, with black stubble like a shadow across his ravaged face. His eyes were sick and watery, they stared at us and he said nothing. It was the first time I had seen him since the historic day when Bonus was opened and Nixon was elected President. I hardly recognised him and he didn’t seem to know who he was, either. I was frightened out of my wits. He just looked at Mum and me with those sick eyes of his, as though we were strangers in some deserted boarding house. Then he slumped into his chair, took the magazine lying on the little table beside him with the photograph of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, which had not moved since the day before the robbery. He flicked through to find the crosswords and continued where he had left off, holding the bank biro as if clinging to an anchor.

But Dad was not completely lost to us. He could dress himself, the suit hung off him, so thin had he become. He shaved, but could not remove the shadow that had fallen across him. He went back to work, to the bank, one cold morning and came home with flowers from the staff. Mum put the bouquet in water and it stayed there for three weeks. Dad solved more crosswords, the doctor dropped by one day and they had a friendly chat. Dad was on the way up, slowly, out of the nightmare he had had since the previous year. But he could not shave off the shadow. It had taken root and he never managed to fill out his suit again.

He began to be himself, but there was one strange thing. He didn’t
seem to be bothered about anything any more. He didn’t mention my hair, he said nothing about me coming home late and he didn’t ask how school was going. He didn’t even talk about Hubert, who had gone to Paris for good.

However, if things were moving slowly for Dad, they were going much faster for Gunnar’s father. Bonus glittered like a funfair in Bygdøy Allé with eight tills, self-service and offers on products all year round. Grocer Holt was about to throw in the towel. His customers disappeared one by one, only the oldest were left, the ones who bought least and had the most time. It was the same with Ola’s father, only those with the least hair went for a haircut.

One evening we were at Gunnar’s listening to his father pacing up and down in the room below, Stig came in and took a seat. He was studying philosophy at Blindern and spoke way over our heads.

‘Dad’s a Norwegian citizen, right, but he’s lower middle class and he doesn’t exploit anyone, does he,’ Stig said, looking us in the eye.

We listened.

‘You have to make a distinction between the lower middle class and monopoly capitalism, right. Bonus is killin’ off the lower middle class. Bonus is monopoly capitalism. It’s not just Dad who suffers as a result. Small shops keel over all the way down the line. Soon there is only the supermarket left. And what happens then? The prices soar sky high! Do you think that’s chance, eh? Bonus. Irma. Domus. They entice you with low prices. Crush the small shops. And then they go for the kill with the customers. Simple as that.’

We listened.

‘That tells you where the struggle is, boys! Down with monopoly capitalism! We’re gettin’ a taste of it first-hand, aren’t we!’ Stig rose to his full height, stroked his beard and peered down at us.

‘Dad’s not the enemy. Dad’s one of the victims. It’s the workin’ class and the lower middle class that have to suffer!’

He darted through the door and was gone.

‘He’s right,’ said Gunnar.

We chewed on this for some considerable time. That was how it seemed. He was right. But beer was cheaper at Bonus.

However, things between Cecilie and me were in neutral gear. That was fine with me. Cecilie was my anchor that winter and I was pleased that Slippery Leif, Peder and Kåre and the rest of the gang were being neglected. We met in the evening, somewhere or other, because I did not want to take her home with my father in the shape he was. And going to her house was out of the question, I was excommunicated and would never be allowed to cross Olav Kyrres plass. We roamed the streets, the snow-covered streets, went to the cinema where I was bored out of my mind, but was permitted to hold her hand and that was enough. We were in neutral and I was happy. But sometimes I was frightened. She had left off going to Dolphin, didn’t talk any more about guitar chords and didn’t mention the din Seb and I had made at the folkies’ head office. It was as if she had grown tired of a toy and chucked it out of the pram like a spoilt child who gets everything she points to. That was what I thought in my darkest hours. It was not that often. But when I was under the thrall, I considered myself one of those toys she might chuck out at any point. Nevertheless, I was happy, we were together in the evenings, sat on benches, went skiing, watched the snow melt and the sun grow stronger, heard the snow drip and trickle. Cecilie and I were in neutral until the badgers came onto the scene.

It all started with the dustbins. Every morning they lay on their sides and refuse was scattered everywhere. The first suspects to be questioned by furious janitors were the young kids. But they swore they hadn’t touched the bins, why on earth would they have done, the time was past when you could find jewels and postage stamps in the dustbins, and no one could be fagged to collect beer caps any more. But the bins were up-ended every night and after a while watchmen were stationed in backyards. The news came as a shock. Skillebekk was almost evacuated. Beasts had been spotted. Rumours spread as the snow melted. It could have been anything from a rat to a bear. It was the sole topic of conversation in shops, at the tram stops, people stopped each other in the streets, people who had never exchanged a word before, theories were aired, everyone racked their brains as to what kind of creature could be preying on Skillebekk. Even Dad had pricked up his ears. The flood of rumours streamed on, dinosaurs and crocodiles, no
creature was exempt, until a vigilant hunter in Gabelsgate was able to lay the facts on the table: a badger. There were badgers afoot.

It was the start of spring, or the end of winter. The snow ran in dirty rivulets down the streets, skis were stowed in cellars, cycle chains were lubricated, snow boots put away and new shoes brought into the house. The badger hunt was on. It didn’t rummage through the rubbish any more, it had been frightened into hibernation, but it had to be found. It was not right and proper that there should be a badger in Skillebekk.

One evening Cecilie came to my house. It had been the warmest day so far that year, one great river of a day, and the hunters were out in force on the streets. I wanted to join the hunt, too.

‘Let’s go out and find the badger,’ I said.

Cecilie gave me an old-fashioned look.

‘Badger?’

‘That’s right.’

She followed me out. We walked up Gabelsgate. People were standing and peering into gateways, crawling along hedges, climbing up trees. Cecilie was at my side.

‘A badger?’ she repeated.

‘That’s right.’

‘How did a badger get here? In the middle of the town?’

This was a question that had vexed many people’s minds. Some thought it had swum into Oslo fjord. The most stupid claimed it had come through the sewers. The hunter in Gabelsgate said it had come from Nordmarka in the autumn and found itself a place to hibernate and slept there all winter.

‘Doesn’t matter how it got here,’ I said. ‘The fact of the matter is that it’s here. We have to find it.’

We trekked down Drammensveien and I knew where to search. We should search the land in Robsahmhagen, between Gabelsgate and Niels Juels gate, where the old wooden house was, with the storeroom and the stable. If it was a badger, it would be there.

We met the hunter. He was coming out of a gateway and looked frenzied, walking as if he had lead between his toes and this was not too far from the truth.

‘Have you found anything?’ I asked.

‘We’re on its trail,’ he said. ‘We’ve observed droppings. The dogs have its scent.’

He was pulling a couple of dogs, he was not the only one, dogs were sniffing everywhere, they were dragging their tongues along the ground and wagging stiff tails.

He looked at my feet.

‘You don’t go out on a badger hunt wearing casual footwear,’ he jeered.

I had my new boots on, suede, pointed, quite high heels, iron tips, didn’t take a step without them.

He pointed to his boots.

‘See! Rubber boots! With coke inside! If the badger bites, it’ll make his jaw crunch, my lad! Hence the coke. It’ll let go as soon as it hears the sound of coke!’

He cast a contemptuous glance at my boots and waddled down the street with the dogs panting behind him.

I knew the way to Robsahmhagen and would find the badger first. We crept through a few gardens, clambered over a fence, and there we were, in the filthy slush, in the middle of the reserve, in the middle of Oslo, a little ridge, tall trees, the large wooden house, the stable and the storeroom on pillars.

‘Where are we?’ Cecilie whispered as though we were somewhere sacred.

‘The badger has to be here,’ I mumbled into her ear, she smelt good, had to grab her, she wriggled out of my grasp with a smile.

‘What will you do if you find it?’

I hadn’t considered that.

‘Come on,’ I said.

We crept this way, then that, no one saw us from the house, we didn’t see anyone, either. Darkness began to settle. We could barely see each other and I switched on a torch.

Cecilie stood in the light.

‘Is it dangerous?’ she asked.

I didn’t know much about badgers.

‘Dangerous? A badger! It’s no bigger than a frog!’

I shone the light around me. Snow, brown grass, trees, branches. We stood still and listened. Only heard the tram in Drammensveien.

Then the light caught a wire netting door that had been ripped through and some steps leading down into the ground.

Cecilie clutched my arm and pointed.

‘It’s bound to be there,’ she said.

I shone the torch away, lit up a fence.

She guided my hand back to the door.

‘It must be there,’ she repeated, pulling me along.

We stopped by the old air-raid shelter.

‘You’ll have to go down,’ she said.

‘Badgers don’t live in houses,’ I ventured. ‘They build lairs.’

Cecilie looked at me.

‘You go first,’ she said.

I tried to hold the torch still, but had to use both hands. I shone the torch down the steps. They were steep. At the bottom there was a half-open door.

‘Come on then,’ Cecilie prompted, impatient.

Didn’t she know, wasn’t she aware, that no one in the whole of Frogner would have dared go down? Some had gone as far as the door. They had never been the same since. Even during the War of the Staple, despite being surrounded on all sides, no one had dared hide in there. It was said there was a German in there, a German who hid there when the war was over.

I shone the torch down the steps.

Cecilie nudged me forward.

I started to walk. The steps in front of me jumped in the torch light. Cecilie was right behind me. I stopped at the half-open iron door.

‘Go on,’ urged Cecilie.

I opened the door. The creaking sound was terrible. I shone inside. The beam lit up a pitted wall, pitted with bullet holes, a pile of planks, a box, another door.

Cecilie pushed me. I went on. It was quiet, as if the world around us no longer existed. I gripped the torch tightly, stood by the next door.

I held my breath. I held my breath and my heart pounded inside me. The veins throbbed in my hand, pulsated in my neck. Fear washed through me, red and burning.

Cecilie was right behind me.

I cast the light into the next room.

I went in.

Cecilie stayed where she was.

The smell hit me at once. An acrid stench that stung my nose. My hand went walkabout, the light floated round and when I finally had it under control I found myself looking into the eyes of a furious badger. It was lying across the floor and stabbed its pointed features in my direction growling feebly like a sick dog. I stood rooted to the floor, the foul stench in my nostrils, then I slowly retreated, but my back didn’t meet the door, I backed straight into the clammy wall and was stuck there.

I shone the torch at the badger.

It glided towards me as if it had no feet. It flashed its teeth, red and white, I slid sideways along the wall, tripped over something, screamed, but was unable to utter a sound. The badger crawled closer, the stench became more and more overpowering. I was trapped in a corner. The badger came closer. Sweat poured down my back. The terror came from below, like a precipice. I was in a corner. The badger came closer, black, white, with bristles protruding from each cheek like antennae. I flashed the torch at it, I didn’t dare do anything else, didn’t dare let it lie there in the dark, didn’t dare stand in the dark. We exchanged flashes. Then it rushed towards me, scraping along the floor. I squeezed into the corner, felt the rough, clammy angled walls against my shoulders and head. It crawled towards my legs, the stench made my eyes water, then it came to a sudden halt. It stopped, got its foul-smelling mouth into position and ran its snout across my feet. I was jammed in a corner with a badger smelling me. It sniffed and snuffled for an eternity with its revolting pointed snout, it seemed to be smiling, grinning, then it turned its backside to me, sat on my boots and rubbed for a good long time, never seemed to finish. I was shaking, I shone the light on the crazy animal rubbing itself clean on my immaculate boots. Then, satisfied, it crawled into another corner from where I heard squeaking and whimpering. I followed the badger on the floor, up onto some twigs and leaves, and there lay four furless carcasses with pink heads and gummed-up eyes. I stood watching. The smell rose up my nostrils like a putrid column. Then I
heard Cecilie’s voice, she was shouting to me from somewhere in the dark. I pointed the torch and followed the sound.