Beatles (51 page)

‘You can’t even take booze, Kim. Keep off that gunk. D’you promise?’

I looked at Gunnar.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Get those leaflets handed out before Saturday!’ he shouted and was gone.

I couldn’t rest, I was as busy as Gunnar, but Gunnar was achieving something, he was turning out stencilled leaflets and had a goal, I was just going in circles, I was a carousel round the mirror, insomnia, the record player and fear. In the school breaks I couldn’t stand still, wandered up Gyldenløvesgate, tried to find peace by the fountain, by the covered, frozen fountain. One day Jørgen happened by as I was sitting there.

‘You’re skipping rehearsals,’ he said quietly.

‘I don’t have time,’ I said.

He ruffled my hair and smiled.

‘You have to come next time,’ he said, suddenly serious again. ‘We’re going to run through the whole play.’

I lit a cigarette and started to speak.

‘I’ve written a letter to a girl,’ I said. ‘Nina. Her name’s Nina. We went out together a few years ago. But she hasn’t answered. But she sent me loads of letters I didn’t answer. Think it’s revenge, don’t you?’

A doleful expression fell over Jørgen’s face, a shadow that dissolved slowly.

‘I’m going to England in the Christmas holidays,’ he said.

‘Great,’ I said. ‘Liverpool?’

‘London.’

He folded his hands and leaned across to me.

‘I’m nervous,’ he said.

‘She could bloody answer me, couldn’t she. I’ve written
four
letters!’

‘Nothing wrong with being happy and sad at the same time,’ Jørgen said.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Of course. That’s what it’s all about.’

‘Do you love Nina?’

‘Yes.’

‘She’ll write. If you love her.’

‘Are you goin’ to England?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ Jørgen said. He almost sounded glum.

‘Napoleon’s comin’!’ I shouted.

The bell rang and we ran back to the chalk and wet sponge.

One Friday I skipped the last two lessons and raced down to the Experimental School. I had meticulously gone through the texts on
The White Album
and a line in ‘Green Onion’ reverberated in my brain:
The walrus was Paul
. I had leafed through all the dictionaries in the Deichman library and discovered that the walrus was an ancient symbol of death. I was in a state of permafrost. I was full of fossils and solidified energy. The only living thing in me was fear. I sprinted down to Akersgata and found Seb in the common room. A girl was standing in front of him screaming.

‘You’re a bastard! A bloody bastard!’

Seb tried to calm her down. The girl banged her fists on the piano keys and swung her scarf round her neck.

‘
You’re
the one who destroys things!’ she raged. ‘You destroy everything for the whole school.’

‘I can do what I like,’ Seb said.

‘Not here you can’t! Here you’re part of a community. And when you bring shit in here, you destroy everything for the rest of us. Don’t you understand? You’re the kind of person the Ministry of Education and Kjell Bondevik are after!’

The girl turned on her heel and stormed out of the room. Seb stood by the piano which was still ringing from the angry, biting chord.

He spotted me and traipsed across the floor.

‘You great lout,’ he growled. ‘Fancy a game of pinball?’

I manoeuvred him over to a stained table. A record player was thumping out Led Zeppelin a floor above. Seb rolled a loose cigarette.

‘Stressed?’ he asked, lighting up. The tobacco sizzled round his lips.

‘Who was the girl?’

‘The chief salamander,’ Seb grinned.

All of a sudden she was there again, red-faced, pointing at Seb with a clenched fist. But her voice was calm and precise.

‘At the general meeting we passed a motion that our school will be drug-free, Seb. You know that very well. If you go to the park and dope yourself up and murder your brain cells, that’s up to you, even if it’s a very stupid thing to do. But what you do
here
concerns all of us. Have you got that, Seb?’

Seb flushed behind his wispy beard, a touch of colour lit up his wan face, he forced himself to look up.

‘You’re right, Unni. Hell, you’re always right.’

She smiled, her fist melted and she stroked Seb’s hair, gave him a hug and slipped away.

‘Tells it like it is,’ I said.

‘Unni’s the boss here,’ Seb said, hunching over the table. ‘Somethin’ comin’ off? Premiere nerves? You’re up and down like a yo-yo.’

I began to talk.

‘What that Pelle character said the other night about Paul bein’ dead, dyin’ four years ago, that was just a con, wasn’t it? Or what the hell was it?’

Seb unfolded a king-size grin and laughter rippled out of his mouth.

‘You don’t mean to say you fell for that hogwash, too, Kim, old chap, did you!’

I put on a grin too and placed one hand over the other like two sandwiches in a lunchbox.

‘Of course not. Just thought it was a bit far-fetched.’

‘And have you been sittin’ at home lookin’ for Paul’s death notice on every damned record since
Help?
Eh?’

I shrugged.

‘Not exactly. Had a look. Some very weird things.’

‘At the school there’s a committee that’s trawled through the whole lot. Now they’ve discovered that George must be dead, too. They’re gonna start on John next week. The hardliners think Ringo is the only one who was born.’

‘You don’t believe it then?’

‘Come on, Kim. D’you think they can conjure up some joe, give him a facelift and distort his voice? Just advertisin’, man. Money in the bank. Surely you didn’t
believe
that?’

I laughed out loud.

‘Are you crazy?’

Fat cheeks peered round the door and spotted Seb.

‘You comin’ to the Norwegian class?’

‘Went there last week.’

‘Bjørneboe might be on the agenda, you buffoon!’

Seb clattered to his feet and was on his way.

‘You comin’?’ he called out to me.

I flew after him. In the corridor the walls were painted all over with psychedelic figures, quite different from the slaughterhouse corridors at Vestheim and Frogner.

‘Haven’t got the time,’ I said.

Seb stopped.

‘Will you be droppin’ by one evenin’?’

‘The pill,’ I started. ‘The pill Pelle had. Have you come down yet?’

Seb stared at me, took a closer squint, turned up my eyelids and examined my pupils.

‘Come down?’ he said.

‘Had a tough time last week,’ I mumbled.

He gave me a searching look.

‘You talkin’ about the tablets Pelle had?’

‘Right. I’ve been trippin’ ever since.’

He stifled his laughter.

‘That was just quinine, man. Pelle was bluffin’. It was
quinine
. You can get it at the chemist. Without a prescription.’

Seb shot off down the corridor and a door slammed. My head was spinning. Four girls with their hands covered in wet clay came towards me giggling. They could have kneaded me into whatever they liked. They could have made teacups or jars or candlesticks out of me, put me in the kiln and burned me into eternity. I could see from their eyes that they would have liked to. They came towards me with dripping fingers, bent, ready to attack.

‘Napoleon’s comin’!’ I shouted and ran home, frightened, angry, furious and frightened.

Mum was standing in the hall when I burst in.

‘Jørgen rang,’ she said before I had taken off my military jacket. ‘He said you mustn’t forget the rehearsal tonight.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know!’

‘Are you nervous about the premiere?’

‘Premiere’s not takin’ place till after Christmas!’

‘You’ll have to articulate when you’re on the stage, Kim.’

‘Not gonna be on the stage. The big moo says I have to stand in the auditorium and shout the line.’

I set a course for my room. Mum followed me.

‘There’s a letter for you,’ she said.

The blood drained from my brain. It was too much for one day. I was almost on my knees.

‘Letter?’ I gasped.

‘It’s on your table.’

I dragged myself in. It lay beside my books, a big, thick envelope with Danish stamps. My name was typewritten. I already knew something was up. Blood was coagulating, clotting in my mouth.

I opened it.

Out fell all my letters. There were several of them. They were unopened. Eventually I found a typewritten sheet. In the top corner it said:
The Royal Danish Embassy, Copenhagen.
At the bottom was her father’s name. I read slowly. It wasn’t long. He wrote that Nina had gone abroad early that summer, to Paris, with some friends. She still had not returned. They had received a letter from Turkey in which she had written that she was thinking of going east, to Afghanistan. That was two months ago. They had not heard from her since. They would ask her to write to me when she returned or when they found out where she was.

I sat on the floor. The withered Virginia creeper banged against the windowpane. When I closed my eyes, I could see her, thin, smiling, teeth gleaming behind big, red lips. I could visualise Nina and now she was somewhere else in the world and no one knew where.

I closed my eyes again, the wind shook the panes, I had already forgotten what he looked like, Paul McCartney, I knew that time was over, The Beatles had gone their separate ways, everything was
clear now, I would never stand in front of the mirror again, relax my eyelids, arch my eyebrows and pretend to be left-handed. That was over. That was over.

I opened my eyes and could feel that I was tired, desperately tired as though I had not slept all my life, tired to the marrow of my bones.

Mum woke me. She was on her haunches shaking me with a scared expression on her face.

‘Did you fall asleep on the floor! Are you ill, Kim?’

I jumped up. The letters. I picked them up and opened a drawer. There was no room, it was crammed full with leaflets. I put them in another drawer.

Pym and Dad were talking in the sitting room. Mum sat beside me.

‘You’ll have to hurry,’ she said. ‘The rehearsal begins at seven!’

It was strange weather outside. The sky seemed to have been tinged by an alien light, the air seemed explosive, it quivered in the odd blue light from above. Now and then a gust of wind swept through the streets with a howl, like a jet plane. Then it was still again. It was like crawling through a canon while the fuse was burning.

I was the last to appear in the gym hall, and big-titted Minni began to tell me off the moment I showed my face through the door.

‘Do you think it’s right to keep the whole cast waiting for you?!’ she shouted.

‘No,’ I said. This day was seriously beginning to be more than I could take.

‘May I ask whether you intend to come to the premiere?’

‘I’ll try,’ I said.

She spread out her hands and put on a sarcastic smile.

‘Well, I am truly relieved, Kim Karlsen.’

And then we were off. She broke in after about every second line, chalked positions on the floor, directed, articulated, groaned, cut out parts, added, shouted, scolded, cried. A couple of girls broke down and ran to the dressing room howling, I think that was something they had seen in the cinema by the way. They were enticed back with Cokes and flattery, and then it all started again. At least I roared my one line in the right place, but the big moo was not happy with my intonation, I had to feel the whole history of the Russian
people, the horrors of war, Siberia’s freezing temperatures and the mothers’ fears; the century-long sufferings should be compressed into my two words. After roaring
Napoleon’s coming
twenty-three times, I didn’t give a flying fart, grabbed my jacket and trudged off. They must have thought I would return, so the cast was quite laid back. But I didn’t return. I went into the streets and now the wind had picked up with a vengeance, it hammered through the town, I was literally thrown back into the entrance, crawled out on all fours and only just managed to struggle to my feet. My eyes smarted, my ears howled, I tensed my stomach muscles, held my hands in front of my face and walked head down into the wind.

It took me at least half an hour to reach the fountain. There I found shelter behind a low wall and, after sixteen matches, succeeded in lighting a cigarette. There was no one around, just a poodle blew past me like a black ball of fluff. The trees in the avenue were bent to the ground. The street lamps swung in all directions, casting their beam around wildly like a drunk with a torch. Somewhere a windowpane tinkled. The air was one huge howling wind.

I dragged myself up and staggered on, I tripped and was blown onto a lawn, grabbed a clump of grass, crawled for a while, found my footing and stood upright. A newspaper flew between the trees like a prehistoric bird. I lumbered over to the avenue and fought my way from trunk to trunk. It was half past nine by the time I was standing in Tidemandsgate. I called her name, but the wind smothered all sounds. I yelled again, but no one could hear, I couldn’t hear myself, just felt the rasping in my throat and the painful throb in my eardrums.

I sank to the pavement, a gust of wind spun me round, I could hardly breathe, lay with my mouth open gasping for air. A tree fell across the street, crushing a wooden fence. Something sailed past and smashed against a wall. A roof tile. Tiles were sliding off house roofs. A splinter hit me on the forehead and I felt something wet run down my nose. I forced myself off the ground, protected my face with my arms, was about to walk into the wind when I saw him coming, Jørgen was walking in the storm with his hands in his pockets, whistling as if nothing had happened, as if nothing had happened. He stepped into the wind without any difficulty, jumped over the tree and ran up to me.

‘Thought I would find you round here,’ he said.

A roof tile sliced past him.

‘Careful!’ I shouted, pulling him to the side.

‘This is where Nina lived, isn’t it?’ he said, peering at the large wooden house that stood darkly in the overgrown garden.

‘Worst weather I’ve ever experienced!’ I bellowed. ‘Think the electricity has gone all over town!’