Beatles (60 page)

‘Go to the embassy,’ Gunnar said in a matter-of-fact tone.

‘Stand barefoot at the embassy office with eyes like cannonballs and arms full of holes? Great idea. Next stop, the nick.’

‘But what did you do?’ Ola whispered.

Seb didn’t go to the embassy. He stole a harmonica and played
blues in the streets of Amsterdam. The coins came in, but he couldn’t move on or go home. Kicking the habit was too hard. Seb was hooked. He stayed in Amsterdam until the New Year.

‘Know who I bumped into one day, Kim?’ he exclaimed. ‘Nina.’

‘Nina?’

I crumpled, tasted the apple flavour of the liqueur, the essence, the blood of the apple.

‘Nina?’

‘Right. Nina from Vestheim.’

The room went quiet. It was dark outside the window. The pigeons were cooing on the ledge.

‘How was she?’ I asked slowly.

‘What d’you think? She was on dope. Just like all the others.’

Seb stared vacantly through the smoke.

‘Thought she was in Afghanistan,’ I said.

Seb chuckled, a hoarse, jerky laugh.

‘That’s what they all say. That’s what all the hopheads say. That’s what all the mind-blown, broken-down blood-fuckers say.’

He hid his face in his hands and shook. I was petrified. Fear had paralysed me, it was a poison dart in my back, couldn’t even smile.

Seb looked up.

‘But they never get there, you know. She’d been to Paris. Didn’t get any further. Had to go home to the canals.’

I threw up in the basin, the apple blood spurted out and sprayed my face. No one said anything. I didn’t have the energy to ask any more questions.

‘I never saw her again,’ Seb continued. ‘And then I came to Paris. Brought my harmonica and came to Paris.’

‘Where the hell have you been then? We’ve been searchin’ everywhere!’

Seb squeezed the cigarette out, burning his fingers without noticing.

‘This summer I’ve been to the cemetery,’ he said. ‘Père Lachaise.’

‘Eh? In a cemetery?’

‘By Jim’s grave.’

‘Jim?’

‘Jim Morrison.’

Then Seb went out like a light. We kept watch over him. He was as thin as a nail and rusty. Not even the cockroaches noticed him. They crawled across the ceiling. And outside the sun rose through the blue Paris air.

I went to see Henny while Gunnar and Ola kept an eye on Seb. I was too tired and hungover to dread the meeting. I gave the note with the address to a taxi driver and he drove me to rue de la grande Chaumière in Montparnasse. I remembered another time when I was sitting in a taxi in a foreign city on my way to see a girl. I was composure itself. I was foolish enough to believe that after all that had happened, things could not get any worse.

I looked up and down the narrow street until I found the number, a big green door with glass and bars, and a marble slab on which was written in gold letters:
Ateliers
. Three baguettes had been left at the bottom of the door. But the door was locked and there was no name on it. Abutting the house was a little bookshop with art books and reproductions in the window. Inside some clod was looking out at me with curiosity. I entered, managed to stammer something about a Norwegian girl, pointed to the address on the paper and he beamed the broadest smile I have seen. His hands danced above his head and he kept nodding and jabbered away. It was all Greek to me, but I think he was asking if I was Norwegian, too. I said yes and he went even wilder. He started rummaging around in a crammed drawer and pulled out a card which he pushed into my hands. I looked at it and a blunt knife was turned round in my heart three times: Munch.
Piken og døden
. The girl and death. Then he led me outside, pressed the button for the second floor, opened the door and waved.

I dragged myself up to the second floor and rang the bell. It was a long time before anyone came, long enough time for me to have cleared off ages ago. But I was standing there when Henny opened up, semi-naked. Then she threw herself around my neck and dragged me inside, stepped back a bit and examined me carefully. She was a bit fatter, there was a softness about her, she was even more attractive.

‘Hope I didn’t wake you,’ I said.

‘Yes, you did,’ she laughed.

She stood studying me, in the huge room with the large window and several green plants winding across the walls and ceiling.

‘You’ve changed,’ she said.

A door opened and I expected to see Hubert. But a girl came out of a bedroom, she undulated across the floor, naked, and embraced Henny, they kissed lovingly, for a long time, right there, in front of me. I turned slowly and averted my eyes, my cheeks burning.

‘This is Françoise,’ Henny said at length. ‘And this is Kim.’

Françoise kissed me on the cheek fourteen times and retreated into a corner.

I had to speak.

‘Where’s Hubert?’ I asked.

Henny found herself a chair and lit a cigarette.

‘Hubert lives on the Ile de Ré,’ she said. ‘An island on the Atlantic coast.’

I slumped into a chair, too. My hangover was receding.

‘I have to get hold of him. Is it far away?’

‘You’ll have to take the train to La Rochelle and the ferry from there,’ Henny explained.

I told her about Seb. I told her we needed cash for the train tickets home.

‘Come with us to Coupole!’ Henny said.

Françoise and Henny disappeared into the bedroom and were gone for some time, I sat there in the greenhouse sweating, my brain in a whirl, then finally they emerged and we walked to Coupole, a hangar-sized restaurant, and as soon as we had sat down, the table was surrounded by smooth types with water-combed hair and crumpled, double-breasted suits and white shoes. Françoise and Henny ordered eggs and tea, I ordered a beer and all the greasers wanted to say hello and spoke close to my ear. Then Henny prattled away in French and the snails each put a banknote on the table and patted me on the shoulder and I no longer thought they were so greasy, in fact I have never been a good judge of people, in fact I’m a bit dense.

‘Françoise and I are broke, you see,’ Henny said, pushing the money over to me.

I was embarrassed and drank up my beer.

‘I can easily hitch,’ I said.

‘Take the money,’ she insisted ‘And say hello to Hubert.’

She jotted down his address and explained to me where the railway station was. Three quarters of an hour later I was sitting on a train westwards in a compartment full of sleeping Frenchmen. I just had to sit quite still and allow my thoughts to settle, but my head was a dustbin and I was unable to empty it. Instead I fell asleep, too, and perhaps that was the best thing that could have happened. But at twelve I was awoken by a terrible noise. The other passengers in the compartment were opening bottles of wine, wolfing down blood-red tomatoes, eating ham and chicken, putting rotten cheese in their laps and I escaped into the corridor, yanked down the window and let the wind double-cleanse my head. Villages. Fields. Vineyards. Over a river, on a sudden impulse, I threw out the photos I had been carrying in my back pocket.

I trekked onwards from La Rochelle by bus and ferry and docked on the Ile de Ré at the onset of night. There, I had to take another bus and jumped off in Le Flotte half an hour later, a tiny harbour where the breeze came in off the Atlantic. I heard fishing boats rolling on the waves and saw the lights of two bars. I entered one and showed them the address. They knew where it was, I was given a beer on the house and then a young lad accompanied me over the last part. He stopped outside a gate, pointed and went on his way. An old woman came out and subjected me to closer examination. I showed her the slip of paper and said
Norvège
. She clapped her hands and nudged me into a courtyard where there was a low wall with a veranda in front.

‘Yber!’ she bawled. ‘Monsieur Yber!’

And then out he came, leaned over the balustrade and peered down at us. I ran up the stairs. Hubert was standing there in his belted dressing gown seeming quite unsurprised. He had a beard.

‘You’ve hidden yourself well,’ I said.

He laid his hands on my shoulder.

‘Come in,’ he said softly.

It was a fairly spartan room. In the middle of the floor there was a table. In the corner a pile of canvas stretchers. The walls were bare.

In the harsh light I could see the fear. After such a long time, I was suddenly unprepared.

‘That was not a great move,’ I said.

‘Life here’s cheap, Kim. I can live here for the rest of my life.’

He went into the kitchen and poured mussels into a saucepan. He stood with his back to me. I could hear the crashing of the sea.

‘Do you get any painting done here?’ I asked.

Hubert didn’t answer. He poured white wine over the mussels, chopped onions and took a swig. He stood with his back to me. I spotted a picture of a man with a bloodstained bandage round his head. I smelt the aroma from the wine and the mussels.

‘That was not a great move,’ I repeated.

‘Has your father forgiven me?’

His voice sounded like one of my mother’s old records.

‘Yes,’ I said.

We sat up for the rest of the night eating mussels and drinking white wine. Hubert told me that La Flotte meant the sea, and when he was a bit drunk he said that
moule
, mussel, also meant pussy. I couldn’t face any more mussels.

‘Regards from Henny,’ I said.

Hubert stood up to fetch another bottle.

‘It didn’t work out for us,’ he said quietly.

‘I need money,’ I said. ‘Four train tickets to Oslo.’

Then we polished off a
Prince Hubert de Polignac
and the sun arose again, as though nothing had happened. We went onto the veranda and heard the fishing smacks chugging out to sea, heard the sea and the wind and people.

‘They caught a shark last week,’ Hubert said. ‘A shark.’

He walked with me to the bus stop by the harbour. There was a smell of fish and salt and seaweed.

‘Sure you’ve got enough money now?’ Hubert asked.

‘Plenty enough,’ I said.

‘Say hello to everyone.’

‘Think you should come home soon,’ I said. ‘You can come home now, no problem.’

He took my hand and would not let go. He shook me and his beard moved from side to side. He could not let go and his eyes were full of saltwater. The driver hooted. He did not let go. All the faces on the bus were turned towards us. So I had to tear myself away.

I sat at the back and watched Hubert standing alone at the bus stop, and as my mind sped back over a whole life he disappeared behind masts and seagulls.

At Hôtel Odéon there was mayhem. Seb had done a runner. He had gone to the toilet and had not returned. That was twenty-four hours ago.

‘You should’ve gone with him,’ I shouted.

‘We’re not bloody nannies, you bonehead! And where the hell’ve
you
been, eh?’

Ola stepped between us.

‘Don’t quarrel now, boys. We don’t want any bloody quarrellin’.’

We went to Le Ronsard but didn’t get much further. Evening was drawing in and Paris twinkled and screamed at us and snarled bad breath into our faces. If I started counting people I would go mad. They trudged past, line after line, they stood in big groups at all street corners, they filled shops, cars, houses, bars, they were everywhere, I was reminded of the time we played hide and seek in Nesodden, I had found the perfect place, a little hollow behind a bush, I lay on my stomach, closed my eyes, thought I would be even more invisible like that. Then I felt my legs itch and I realised I was lying in the middle of a path of ants, they were all over me, I didn’t dare move a muscle, I lay still as the ants covered me, and I thought, while I was lying there, about the adder I had seen, the dead adder in the anthill by the fence, as someone far away was slowly counting to a hundred.

Gunnar unfolded the map on the table. Seb was an addict. Seb had hopped it to get a fix. A girl played ‘Light My Fire’ on the jukebox. Then I knew.

‘The cemetery,’ I said. ‘Morrison’s grave.’

We found Père Lachaise on the map and hailed a taxi.

‘If we find him, let’s catch the train tonight,’ I said.

Père Lachaise was a whole town, a windswept ruin, where stray cats ran between graves and there weren’t only common-or-garden gravestones, there were houses, statues, staircases, temples, pillars. I felt ill just being there, it was the other side of Paris, the realm of the dead, just a taxi ride from the tumult of human life.

We searched up and down, saw women dressed in black standing
among the trees in silence, heard cats howling, saw withered flowers and smashed stained glass, smelt the stench of rotting foliage and cellars, we walked our legs off, were scared of getting lost, standing in the middle of an insane labyrinth. Ola was grey-faced and silent, Gunnar searched with vacant eyes, the wind tore right through us, heavy clouds hung in the sky and the first drops fell with a rumble of thunder. Then we heard another sound, coming from the graves close by, an electric piano, bass, drums, thunder, rain and then Jim’s voice. ‘Riders On The Storm’. We ran down the path.
Morrison Hotel
was written on a wall, we followed the arrow beneath, heard the music clearly, the echo, the rain, the thunder, clambered past a few imposing stones, and there, on a bedraggled piece of land, sat a scattered band of freaks, one of whom was Seb.

We were struck dumb by the solemnity of the occasion and quietly sat down beside him. A dark-haired, pale girl clung to the cassette player, crying without making a sound. On a wooden board was written
Douglas Morrison James
. A wine bottle containing a flower protruded from the ground. A circle of mussel shells surrounded the grave.

‘We’ve got to go,’ I whispered to Seb. ‘We’re catchin’ the train tonight.’

He stood up without a word and followed us, without offering any resistance, a substantial, unreal calm seemed to have settled over him, his eyes shone beneath his wide central parting. We returned to the hotel and collected our things, took the metro to Gare du Nord and I bought four tickets to Oslo via Copenhagen. The train left at five minutes to eleven, that was still a couple of hours away. We stocked up with beer at the station buffet and sat down to wait.