Beatles (61 page)

Then Seb started talking. He spoke slowly and clearly as though frightened we would not understand him, as though he were a priest and the capacious arrivals hall his church.

‘Jim is not dead,’ he said. ‘Jim is not dead.’

We bent closer.

‘Isn’t Jim dead?’

‘He’s just pretendin’ to be dead. He’s gone his own way. To Africa to live with his new soul. It’s his old soul which is buried in Père Lachaise.’

‘What are you on about?’ Gunnar enquired.

‘No one’s seen the body,’ Seb continued. ‘Pamela was in on the whole thing.’

‘Pamela?’

‘His woman. Met them at the Rock’n’ Roll Circus and tripped out with Jim for a week. He said he was goin’ away soon.’

All of a sudden Seb became nervous, cast covert glances in all directions and waved us closer.

‘This is a secret, boys. Not a word to anyone else, alright? The FBI’s after him!’

We drank beer and our train appeared on the electronic information board.

‘What’ve you actually got in your shoulder bag?’ Gunnar asked.

Seb hugged it without answering. There were twenty minutes left to the train’s departure. Gunnar wouldn’t let the matter drop. He grabbed the bag and opened it. Inside was a syringe and a box of matches.

‘So you thought you’d take this shite home, did you?’

‘Christ, boys, I’ve gotta have a fix before we set off!’

Gunnar held the bag and sent him dark looks.

‘No,’ said Gunnar. ‘We’re chuckin’ this down the bog!’

He stood up. Seb leapt after him. He screamed.

‘Gunnar! For Pete’s sake! You’re killin’ me!’

‘I’m not, this is!’ Gunnar said, pointing to the green bag.

‘This is not firecrackers and bangers you’re playin’ with now!’ Seb shouted, suddenly clear-headed.

But Gunnar was on his way down to the toilets. Seb couldn’t believe his eyes.

‘He’s doin’ it,’ he murmured. ‘He’s doin’ it.’

I bought three bottles of brandy from across the road and we jumped on the train at the last second. Then we chugged out of Paris, on our way home, all four of us, through a stinking Europe that lay on our skin like grey dirt.

It was autumn. Gunnar started at Oslo University and found himself some digs in Sogn. Seb calmed himself down with milk and honey at his grandmother’s. I turned twenty, was granted a study loan, bought books for the prelim and continued to live in Munchsgate. Ola stayed with his parents in Solli and was accepted at Bjørknes School. Everything in the garden seemed to be rosy until the telegram from Trondheim arrived. That put an immediate end to Ola’s future plans. Kirsten was in her fourth month and a man of honour did not run away from his responsibilities. Ola bought rings and a train ticket and the evening he was due to leave I arranged a big stag night in Munchsgate. The study loan was still hot, so I served up a ton of shrimps, champagne, white wine, beer and gin. And so we sat there, and it was hard to lift the mood. We were chucking it down our necks and Seb, who had been sober since Paris, had obviously cracked big-time. I carried the shrimp shells to the refuse chute and on my return I found Ola crying. He was smoking and drinking and crying and trying to talk at the same time.

‘Shit, boys,’ we heard. ‘Shit! Now of all times when we’re together again!’

‘Calm down,’ Gunnar said. ‘You’re not goin’ to Alaska.’

Ola cried even louder.

‘This wasn’t how I’d planned it,’ he sobbed. ‘Gettin’ into Bjørknes and all that. Shit!’

Gunnar shook him with a gentle, but firm hand.

‘Listen, bridegroom. You can do your exams in Trondheim, too. And you’ll be able to live with Kirsten. Haven’t you always wanted that, eh?’

Ola dried his tears and smiled. I passed him a killer cocktail.

‘What the hell would I do without you boys!’

We pounded him on the shoulder and Ola waggled his head.

‘Hope it’s a boy,’ he whispered.

The atmosphere picked up. Ola looked as if he was already the proud father of four and knocked back the drinks at a furious tempo. Then his expression changed, he hunched up, terrified eyes receded into his head.

‘Imagine it’s not my child,’ he breathed.

‘Now you bloody well pull yourself together!’ Gunnar shouted. ‘We’ll pretend we never heard that.’

Ola was counting desperately on his fingers, counting and recounting, and with a little sigh and a lightning drum solo on his bottle of booze he slowly fell to the floor.

‘June, July, August, September,’ he chanted. ‘It must’ve been the mornin’…’

‘Spare us the details,’ I grinned, mixing him a chainsaw of a drink.

Seb had not exactly been garrulous, but now he made a suggestion and opened a fat black book he took from his pocket.

‘Since we won’t be able to join you at your weddin’, I think we should perform a trial ceremony here,’ he said.

And, so help me God, Seb was sitting with the Bible in his lap and flicking through it.

‘Now he’s really gone bonkers!’ Gunnar shouted.

Seb was not listening.

‘Please rise,’ he said to Ola. ‘Kim can be Kirsten.’

‘He’s not gettin’ married in Nidaros Cathedral for Christ’s sake!’

Gunnar was aghast.

‘All the more important that we perform this symbolic ceremony,’ Seb said calmly.

Either he was clean out of his mind or this was a monumental piss-take. But we were with him all the way, we were not going to stand in his way.

Gunnar sat in his corner, shocked, while Ola and I stood swaying side by side and Seb read slowly and clearly from some chapter in the black book, then we promised to love each other in good times and bad, fumbled with the rings, split our sides laughing and rolled over the floor.

Seb maintained his mask and we roared even more. However,
Gunnar didn’t seem to think it very funny. He took Mao’s little red book off the shelf and found some solace in ‘Dare To Fight, Dare To Win’. Ola and I regained vertical posture, poured ourselves a drink and hiccupped in unison. The ceremony was over, the priest slammed the book shut and then Ola began to cry again, and this time he seemed inconsolable. The days with the boys were over, now it was nappies, debt, mother-in-law and nagging. No more Snafus, no more gatherings around the grooves and wild drum solos. We sniffled a bit, all of us. Then he fell asleep.

We transported Ola and his suitcase to Oslo East station in a wheelbarrow we found in the backyard, carried him onto the train and hung a sign around his neck.
Silent Homecoming
. Then the train departed. It puffed out of the station, past Fred’s window, and we waved as though it were necessary, stood there with empty hands, waving.

Didn’t see much of Gunnar after he had moved into the student village, and things were quiet for me now that Ola had left and Seb lived like a monk at his grandmother’s. I popped into a couple of lectures about logic, but never really got the point. One day there was a huge hullabaloo in front of the Frederikke building. A fanatical mob stood there waving their fists and screaming at each other, and in the midst of this melee was Gunnar, yelling. I sneaked over, it was the solidarity committee stand for striking pilots. ‘I suppose you think pilots don’t earn enough, eh!’ a guy at the table snapped. ‘You’d probably go around rattling a box in the aid of bosses striking at
Aftenposten
too, I wouldn’t wonder!’ I think Gunnar was standing on tiptoe, at any rate he seemed taller than I remembered him. ‘We support wage disputes! Wage disputes are a blow against the capitalist state!’ ‘The bloody pilots would do better to give a few thousand to the low-paid!’ ‘So it’s up to individuals to make up the gap between rich and poor in this country, is it! What sort of politics is that, eh!’ And so it went on for almost an hour, then the crowd dispersed and Gunnar was left, sweaty and cheerful, behind the table, rattling the box.

Then he caught sight of me.

‘Long time, no see,’ I said, putting five kroner in the box.

‘Think the bridegroom arrived?’ he grinned.

‘Haven’t heard a thing.’

We each rolled our Petterøes.

‘How are the studies goin’?’ I asked.

‘Badly. Don’t get any time for lectures. But a girl in the flat lets me borrow her notes. How about you?’

‘Mmm,’ I nodded, ‘goin’ alright.’

‘Feel like droppin’ by one day?’ I wondered.

‘I’ll see. I’ll see. Got loads of things to do.’

A week later he was on the phone.

‘Be at Universitetsplassen at three!’ he shouted.

‘Is somethin’ comin’ off?’

‘Now get a grip on yourself! The government’s tryin’ to cripple the university. Catastrophic budget. Can only just afford invigilators.’

But when I arrived at Universitetsplassen a few minutes before three, the square was deserted. I checked my watch and discovered that the second hand was not moving. I sprinted down Karl Johan with the cold November rain in my face. The clock over the garish Freia chocolate advertisement said half past four. There wasn’t anyone in front of the government building, either. I was freezing. Thought about the time I had deceived Gunnar over the leaflets. I stamped the ground, could hardly light a cigarette. I followed the road around the corner to Stortorget. That was where I spotted him, too late for me to snake out unnoticed. He was staring straight at me. I ambled up to the table where he was sitting with some other people I didn’t know.

‘Any room?’

Gunnar looked up at me. The others resumed their heated discussion.

There was room on the bench. I squeezed in.

‘You didn’t make it after all, I see,’ Gunnar said in a flat tone.

I wondered whether to spin a long tale about a sick mother or about feeling indisposed in Munchsgate, but decided against it, couldn’t be bothered. I tapped my watch.

‘Stopped,’ I said.

Gunnar broke into the discussion, I was brought a beer. When I had finished it, the others stood up and trooped off. Gunnar was left sitting on the bench. We sat facing each other, didn’t say anything for a while.

Then Gunnar said, ‘We’ve started on a mission, haven’t we. We have to pull up the whole villainy by the roots. We don’t give a shit about reforms and Storting. We hate capitalism. We despise this so-called social democracy which has hoodwinked workers. We abhor the ruling party’s claptrap and can see through it. Two thirds of the world’s population suffer from starvation and oppression. Hence,
we do not believe promises, we do not believe words. We prioritise
action
.’

He paused to take a swig, but without his eyes deviating for a second.

‘And where the hell do you stand, Kim? You have to choose which side you’re on. Whatever you do, you’re makin’ a choice! The way you’re goin’ now you’re just an errand boy for Bratteli and Nixon.’

I don’t quite remember what my answer was, but I think Gunnar was satisfied with it. At any rate, he ordered another round and leaned over the stained tablecloth.

‘We’re from the lower middle class, okay, but they also suffer under the yoke of capitalism. We have to learn from the workers, put ourselves at their service.’

‘My grandfather was a tramp,’ I said.

‘And then he became a white collar worker. Yes, that’s the ideal in the social democracy. Bein’ a worker is not good enough. You’re a retard if you’re a worker.’

We drank. Gunnar continued talking.

‘Our parents’ve had to suffer under capitalism, haven’t they. My father was crushed by monopoly capitalism and had to sell rotten potatoes at Bonus. And your father became a victim of the bank, so the right-wingers could blacken the name of revolutionaries even more!’

Didn’t understand.

‘How was that again?’

‘It’s obvious, man. Didn’t you see what the bourgeois newspapers wrote afterwards?! Young drug addict robs bank. More severe punishments. More cops. More surveillance. They consider us criminals, Kim! Are you tellin’ me the bank didn’t have secret lists of Young Socialists!’

‘You don’t believe that the bank robbery… that the robbery was a set-up?’

‘Course it was! If it’d been a junkie, he would’ve been nabbed in no time. The town was hermetically sealed. But
no one
was arrested! And so the bourgeois press could have a field day bangin’ on about dreadful young people and buildin’ more and bigger prisons. Bloody hell, Kim, it stinks.’

Didn’t know quite what to say or where to look. I set to work on a roll-up.

‘Seen anythin’ of Seb?’ I asked.

‘Nothin’. Didn’t like that priest stuff of his, by the way.’

‘It was just a joke!’

‘Not so sure about that. The boy’s got the predisposition.’

We were interrupted by a girl coming over to Gunnar. She was wearing a red raincoat and carrying a shoulder bag full to overflowing. She bent down and gave Gunnar a quick kiss.

‘Merete,’ he said when he could, ‘lives in the flat in Sogn.’

‘Kim,’ I said, raising my glass.

Gunnar began to pack up his things.

‘He’s teeterin’ on the edge,’ he said, and he must have meant me. ‘But he’s a bit slow. Needs a good kick up the arse.’

Merete came a step closer, I was afraid she was going to have a punt. Instead she clenched her fist.

‘Never too late,’ she smiled. ‘You’re always welcome!’

Then they left. To go to the Action Committee meeting. I sat over the foul-smelling ashtray, and while I tried to get my watch working I caught myself longing for something to happen, anything, something wild and big.

The second hand started to move round.

One evening in mid-November Seb made an appearance. He looked dazed, but was off drugs and steady. He put down his bag and breathed out heavily. Seb was back in Munchsgate.

I boiled up a few litres of tea and we talked at cross purposes for a while, couldn’t find the right tone straight off. Seb’s face was thin and serious, and I went to find us a nice cold beer, but realised that things might get out of hand. Seb was standing by the window sweating.

‘I’m gonna try to find another room,’ I said. ‘There might be a place in Sogn.’

He turned round quickly.

‘No point doin’ that, is there? You can live here. With me.’

‘D’you mean that?’

‘Of course I mean it. Shit, you mustn’t move, Kim.’

We stood there smiling, Seb with the black window behind him, the town and the hard frost. I took a step towards him and hugged him.

‘This’ll be great, won’t it,’ I mumbled.

I saw that the tattoos on his arm had almost gone.

Seb tidied the mattress and I unrolled the sleeping bag alongside the other wall. He was asleep before I had turned off the light. I lay awake until dawn. Then Seb woke up, dressed and stole out quietly. He didn’t return until the evening and didn’t say where he had been. And I didn’t ask.

One thing was certain. There was not a lot left of the old Sebastian. I wanted to talk about Paris, about his drugs, about Jim Morrison, about Nina, but Seb seemed to have drawn a line under it, didn’t mention it at all. He just lay on the mattress, deep inside himself, brooding, or else he was out. I didn’t have the remotest idea of what
he was up to. The atmosphere was beginning to be ominously heavy in Munchsgate. I was scared he was back on drugs, and after mature reflection I carried out a blitz on his things one day when he was out God knows where. I didn’t find any drugs. I found a pile of papers written by Moses David. So that was how the land lay. I went out and bought a bottle of red wine and sat down to wait for Seb while reading David’s letters. The countdown to doomsday had already begun. The earth would be powder by New Year. He returned at ten o’clock. By then the bottle was empty and I didn’t feel like hiding the fact that I had found his Jesus certificates.

‘Where d’you get this crap, eh?’

‘From a guy,’ Seb said, sitting on the mattress.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve gone all religious!’

He sat still for a long time, flicked his hair behind his ears, rested his chin on his hands. He didn’t answer.

‘You of all people, after wiping the floor with the priest in the confirmation class! Eh!’

I tried desperately to remind him of his heyday, but Seb didn’t react. I was really frightened. Then he began to talk.

‘I’ve learnt,’ Seb said in a low voice. ‘I’ve tried booze and dope and smack, but I didn’t find what I was lookin’ for. Now I’ve found the path. I’ve found the path, Kim.’

‘Where in hell are you goin’?’

‘We have to have somethin’ to hold onto,’ he went on. ‘Everyone has to have a fixed point, a light, a meanin’.’

‘That’s word for word what it says in these papers!’ I shouted.

‘Otherwise we’re empty shells and life is a wasted second. Gunnar has
his
path, Kim. Ola has a family and is a father-to-be. But you, Kim, you’re still moochin’ around not knowin’ what you want to do with your life.’

I couldn’t believe my ears. Then I felt my blood boiling beneath my skin, I could see it, could see my blood. I tried to speak as calmly as I was able, my voice caressed my tongue like sandpaper.

‘You’re not waitin’ for Jesus,’ I said. ‘You’re not searchin’ for Jesus. It’s Jim Morrison you’re waitin’ for. You’re still high, Seb. You haven’t bloody come down yet. Your eyes are as opaque as sauerkraut, Seb. You don’t know what you’re sayin’.’

‘I may be blind,’ Seb said, with the same accursed composure. ‘That’s why I’ve put my fate in His hands. He’ll see me through.’

At that, I crept down into my sleeping bag, and when I awoke Seb was gone again. Beside the mattress was the old, black Bible.

I made breakfast and there was not a great deal to do. Another day lay before me, but I didn’t have any clean paper or anything to write with. I tried to read, but was too unsettled and leafed aimlessly through Schjelderup’s psychology book. I ploughed through a section about Kretchmer’s constitutional types and had to smile, couldn’t help myself, tried to categorise us, it was pretty crazy. Ola was the pyknic type, that was definite, and Gunnar was the athletic type, Seb was a clear case of the leptosome build, and me, I was dysplastic, one of those with some kind of unpleasant physical abnormality. My crooked finger followed the lines in the book making me feel nauseous, so I put it away. There was nothing left to smile about. The day was grey and leaden, a restless heap of hours. I remembered another day, a Tuesday too, sluggish and slow like this one, but it had turned round, a metamorphosis into heart-throbbing pleasure, this Tuesday could never provide the same, it was and would remain a Tuesday, abject, stillborn.

I went for a walk. That was not a great deal better. Oslo was bleak. The trees in Karl Johan stood like scarecrows in a tarmac garden. People walked with heads bowed, struggling against the wind and the high cost of living. Freaks shivered in their Afghan coats. Afghanistan! By the National Theatre the Salvation Army sang from the bottom of their hearts. A Jesus tripper stood perfectly still and erect with a large placard: The World Will End In Thirty-Nine Days. I went for a coffee at Frokostkjelleren and what Gunnar and Seb had said to me gnawed at my innards. I had to sit there screwing up my courage, telling myself that I was not lost yet, it was just a question of taking the first step, in one direction or another, and I could be where Seb and Gunnar were, just a question of saying one word, the word. But something in my body, in my hands, in my legs, in my chest, fought against it. It was not so simple. But I was wrong. I had to begin somewhere. Here. Now. I stubbed out my cigarette and went straight home to Munchsgate to get my life into shape. That was where I hit the wall. Seb was sitting on the divan beside a
sunken-cheeked individual with a headband and a cap. He turned slowly to me and said, ‘God bless you, Kim.’

I didn’t recognise him at once, the hairy Jesus freak. Then he stepped forward, came towards me like a photograph and came into focus. It was Goose.

‘Christian?’ I whispered.

‘You can call me Goose, that’s alright.’

Goose stayed until the evening telling us about his stay in a collective owned by the Children of God near Gothenburg. But now he had been sent to Oslo to gather souls there. Then I spotted his sleeping bag. I looked at Seb.

‘It’s alright if Goose stays here, isn’t it?’ he said.

What could I say?

And Goose stayed. During the day they went out with their placards. In the evening they sat by candlelight leafing through the Bible. I had to buy food, for they were both dead broke. But the morning Goose tried to make further inroads into my moribund study loan things boiled over for Kim Karlsen.

‘Think I’m goin’ to give you cash for your mafia, do you?’

‘You don’t need any money,’ he said.

‘Reckon the ticket prices will be pretty high on doomsday,’ I said. ‘Thirty-two days to go now, isn’t it?’

That didn’t cut any ice. Nothing cut any ice with Goose. He was composure in person. He just turned his shiny eyes on me and advertised for eternity.

I tried another approach.

‘
You
don’t need any money. No, you scrounge off others. You come and go here like a holy parasite and send me the bill.’

Not a spark.

‘I share my beliefs with you,’ he smiled.

I understood the point. We were one too many.

I just had to get away. But I couldn’t face going back to Svolder, it was so long since I had been there, I didn’t have the courage to answer all their questions. The night I found myself locked in the Palace Theatre I had made the decision to visit Cecilie in Iceland.

I had gone out for a whole evening, trying to make myself as small as possible in Munchsgate. At twelve I was coming down Karl
Johan when I needed a pee. I nipped into the entrance of the Palace Theatre and took a leak there. In mid-sprinkle I heard some iron grating hit the ground. I packed away my tackle and ran out. Didn’t get very far. I was locked in and Karl Johan was deserted. I shouted, shook the bars, but no one could hear me and the grille was unmovable. I panicked, my spine a fuse hissing towards my brain. Then I forced myself to think clearly. And, as I did, snow began to fall outside, big white flakes fluttering down onto the street and turning it white. I thought coldly and clearly, then looked at the film posters. The next performance was the following day.
Donald Duck Goes West
. In other words, that was as long as I would be stuck for. Again I shook the grille and shouted. It didn’t help. I was locked in. I lit my last cigarette, I was beginning to get cold. The yellow piss was frozen into a map of Norway. Then I spotted a crack in the door to the cinema, I tentatively pushed the handle and the door slid open. I stood still, my pulse a wild bronco, then I entered the empty auditorium, sat down in the middle, put my feet on the seat in front and stared at the black screen. And slowly images began to move in front of me, all the images I had stored and from which I cannot escape. There was a smell of sweat, melted chocolate, perfume and clothes. I heard a full house breathing. I sat like that all night, in the blue room at the Palace Theatre, film after film rolled across the screen, and I decided to go and see Cecilie, she had invited me, I had her address.