Child Wonder (22 page)

I straightened up, put the dart in the barrel without looking around and took aim.

“No supporting,” the Swede said.

I sent him a questioning look. “No supporting!” he repeated even more vehemently.

“He can barely reach up to the counter,” Wackarnagel said.

The big man regarded me with dislike.

“O.K., then.”

I didn’t even know what they were talking about.

“Rest your elbows on the counter,” Wackarnagel ordered.

I did as he said, that is, as I had already done, supported the gun, squinted, aimed a little to the right and hit the inner circle, a nine, to the left of centre. I aimed the next shot even further to the right and got even closer to the centre. The third was a bull’s-eye, if that is what it is called, a ten, and also the last two shots landed where they should, all of this to mounting jubilation.

They were not all bull’s-eyes, though, I was informed, but forty-five points was enough for a prize, Tarzan bathing trunks or bag of Twist sweets.

“Take the sweets,” Wackarnagel said.

But there were tiger stripes on the trunks, so I took them, and at that moment my eyes met Tanja’s, she was back on her chair with her irresistible knees.

“Are you gonna have another go?” Wackarnagel enquired.

“Haven’t got any money.”

“Here. But this time take the Twist!”

Another fifty-øre coin landed on the counter, and the hulk pushed another bowl of darts towards me with a resigned sigh.

“No supporting!” he said again. And this time he meant it.

“Don’t be an idiot!” Wackarnagel pitched in.

“Makes no odds,” I said.

Wackarnagel gave up and the crowd fell silent. I loaded, adopted a suitable stance, rested my left elbow on my hip bone and scored forty-five points again, to another round of cheering, and this time I chose the bag of Twist, which Wackarnagel seized and distributed its contents among deserving takers, and there was a surprisingly large number of them today, the atmosphere demanded it, I suppose.

“Christ, Finn beat the bugger, didn’t ‘e, lads. Here’s another.”

Another fifty øre landed on the counter with a clink, such a smooth, shiny fifty øre it must have been at the zenith of its career as a coin, an unambiguous sign seen through the microscope of euphoria, every hair of the Norwegian buhund was visible, it barked. Now things had seriously begun to build up inside me, though, the ardent stares from between Tanja’s two cascades over by the chamber of horrors, my laughable bid to escape, this autumn which had turned out no better than the spring, perhaps thanks to Kristian, and not least the fantastic birthday party which was taking place at this moment in our flat,
without
me.

But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the top shelf where there were no fewer than six enormous teddy bears – four pink, one light blue and one yellow – in a row constituting the shooting gallery’s main attraction, above the sign with the unattainable “48–50 POINTS”, which meant that if I managed to shoot three tens and a couple of nines I would be able to carry off the light-blue teddy bear and give it to Linda and solve all my problems, even if it did mean ignoring Wackarnagel’s orders.

But that was a price I was prepared to pay.

Anyway, Tanja was calming my nerves, like the letter when it worked. And once the first ten in the third round was bagged, I felt even more confident. The next two were spot on as well. Then my feet turned to clay, unable to carry me, I had to relax my arms and put the gun on the counter and gasp for breath, I felt faint. Wackarnagel observed me with amazement.

“What is up, Finn?”

“Dunno,” I mumbled.

“Shut up!” he yelled to the assembled gathering. “Finn’s concentratin’!”

That was one way of looking at it, I suppose. The fact was, however, that I had to go down on my knees and lay my hands flat on the ground. But crouching in this impossible position restored my strength, I straightened up and loaded – slowly, in a trance, to respectful silence, I raised the gun and promptly scored another ten, this time not accompanied by an outburst of cheering but by a large collective gasp.

Where would I summon the strength for the last bull’s-eye? From Tanja, again, and I already knew as I squeezed the trigger that it was on target. So did the Swede, who let out a booming, round curse as the dart struck the board.

“Five bags!” Wackarnagel cheered, and the unhappy stall owner was already counting the Twist bags when I received the signal from Tanja.

“No,” I declared with firmness. “I want the teddy bear. The blue one.”

Everything went quiet.

“Eh?” said Wackarnagel.

“Yes,” I said with equal firmness. “The blue one.”

Wackarnagel looked around. But I felt I was on solid ground, and being the social genius he was, he switched on his fleshy smile and slapped me on the shoulder.

“Course you’re gonna have the teddy, Finn.” Then added in a lower voice in my ear, “You little shit, Finnikins,” and like the referee in a boxing ring, held up my right arm.

I grasped the bear, which was the same size as me, exchanged a final glance with Tanja, to receive the definitive nod of appreciation, but saw to my horror that instead she was rolling her eyes and looking away.

What?

I shouldered my way out of the laughing crowd and ran off, suddenly feeling decidedly stupid. As I passed No. 7 I found myself being watched again, by a gang of girls who were skipping, and being shouted at by name, and I was too old now, I knew that to the core of my being, to run around scot-free with a colossal teddy bear on my back, a synthetic monster which on the way down had become electric and was making my hair stand even more on end than usual. Beyond exhaustion, I crawled up the stairs, slung down the monstrous animal and the Tarzan trunks in the hall and burst into my room to barricade myself behind a locked door.

“Are you there, Finn?” Linda called, rattling the door handle. “Open up, come on.”

Easier said than done. For what on earth did Tanja mean by rolling her eyes?

I knew all too well what she meant. That was the problem. I had made the wrong choice, I had chosen Linda before her, it was unforgivable, childish, laughable – would anyone more accustomed to brothers and sisters have committed the same hideous blunder? Of course not. Brothers and sisters are people you hate and you do not weigh them down with gargantuan teddy bears; they deprive you of room and food, they are in the way and are too old or too young, too clever or too stupid, and I had opted for the sentimental rather than the magnificent path – I had had Tanja in the palm of my hand, not only that, I had stood up to Wackarnagel, no less, and converted his fifty øre into the dumbest bear on earth.

“Come on, Finn, open up!”

“No,” I said, not so loud, but it wasn’t a bad attempt. And where was Mother?

“Open up,” Linda pestered. “Are you hiding something?”

She even sounded curious. “The bear’s great.”

“It’s a shit bear!”

“Eh?”

“It’s a shit bear! I nicked it!”

Finally the sound of Mother’s voice, unfamiliar and carefree:

“Don’t mess about now, Finn, otherwise Kristian will have to break down the door.”

“What did you get from Freddy 1?” I summoned the strength to ask. And even more laughter was heard from the other side of the door, thereafter the noise of movement, a chair, the knob on the cooker, the left hob at the back, there was no mistaking it, the coffee pot hob, chatting and sugar bowls and teaspoons – I was simply being drowned out by everyday life and all I could do was turn the key in the lock. Linda opened the door, came in and thanked me for the bear.

“Thank you very much.”

It had been quite a party. For once Freddy 1 had not made a fool of himself with all the young girls, but he had eaten well, Kristian’s conjuring tricks had gone down a bomb, so had Marlene’s singing and the games, Kristian, the contented post-party family man with rolled-up shirtsleeves, on his home ground, he was no better than the blue teddy bear, he was on the same miserable level as the fact that my escape had gone unremarked. Linda had not even noticed my absence until I returned, and Mother was intending to overlook it, I realised, as we sat round the supper table eating leftovers, cakes and sweets. Friendly comments on the guests were exchanged, a sport in which I could participate, as though I had not done a bunk at all but had performed my duty as the elder brother.

“Yes, now you two will be able to sleep well,” Mother said, stroking our cheeks when at last we were in our beds, first Linda, then me, then Linda, then me … for after such a wonderful day she could not decide who to stroke last, that is the way it should be in a nuclear family where symmetry prevails, I thought I had grown up, but in fact I was the child I had always been, the only difference was that now it seemed like a nightmare.

Things were not going too well for Linda in the new class, presumably because she could no longer stick up a hand and reel off the first thing that came into her mind in order to be praised and have her cheek stroked. I have a vague notion there was a pedagogic strategy behind all of this, don’t mollycoddle Linda any more, she had been mollycoddled enough.

But she was not so lost any more either, and in the middle of a religion lesson in late October Flintstone made an unannounced appearance in our classroom beside frøken Henriksen, beckoned to me with a long, yellow finger, bent upwards to indicate that I should follow him into the corridor, and left.

Outside, he didn’t say a word, he strode ahead at such a pace that I had to run to keep up with him, past all the doors and coats and down a staircase until we were by the canteen where Linda and her old teacher, Samuelsen the cleric, were involved in what looked like a bitter family row.

“I want Mamma!” she howled and threw herself around my neck.

It was the first time I had heard her use that word. And there was no doubting who she meant.

“This has been going on for close on an hour,” Flintstone declared, looking reproachfully in my direction, as though to indicate that now I could see the upshot of my idiotic bid to save her. However, since I did not understand where he was going with this, he added with irritation: “So I think you should take her to your mother.”

“What?”

“You heard what I said.”

Right, but there were loads of kids here who went nutty and wanted Mamma, and they were silenced, simply and brutally, so why give in to Linda of all children?

Flintstone made a wheel sign with his yellow finger to encourage us on our way. We went through the gate and down Lørenveien, both without our satchels, Linda clinging to my arm with such desperation that it was beginning to get on my nerves, especially since she would not say what was tormenting her, or what had put her in this state.

“Just tell me what this is all about!” I shouted.

We reached the terminal beside the corn silo where a tram was waiting for its next trip through the town, and we hopped onto the outside platform of the rear carriage, and stood there. As we rumbled down Trondhjemsveien at least we had something else to occupy our minds, what with the traffic and the noise, Torshovdalen Park and Sinsen Cinema where I had once seen a film, in colour, which inspired me to tell Linda about a fair with African medicine men and guns and teddy bears the size of Christmas trees, the type of story that made Linda laugh, when we were interrupted by the conductor rapping his ticket clippers against the little brass hatch in the door.

I was about to put sixty øre in the bowl when, lo and behold, there was Kristian on the other side of the glass door, just as surprised as I was, it seemed, and embarrassed? He shouted something, through the glass, and repeated it when he saw I couldn’t hear, then gave up and came out onto the platform, closing the door behind him, and asked very sternly what we were doing here.

“We’re going to see Mother.”

“During school hours?”

Yes, well, that was the way it was. But what concern was that of his?

Linda had hidden behind me and peeped out with a wary smile, for there was no doubt this was our lodger, completely out of context and wearing a uniform that made him look like King Håkon VII, the way we knew him from fru Syversen’s jubilee plates.

“Don’t you want any money?” I asked.

Kristian leaned back so far his cap slipped down the back of his neck, and he stared up at the sky.

“I’m having a think,” he said cryptically.

“Huh?”

“I’m wondering what to do, Finn! Do you understand? About you and this bloody sister of yours.”

“Here’s the money, anyway,” I said, giving him the sixty øre. “Two children.”

“Don’t be so daft,” he retorted, snatching open the door and going back inside to the other passengers.

We didn’t fare a great deal better in the shoe shop. We were not allowed to be there, so Mother used to hide us in the rear fitting room on the rare occasions we turned up, where we had to sit as quiet as mice and read. This time we didn’t even have our school bags with us. And appearing without an explanation did nothing to improve matters, because Linda would still not say what this was all about. But she had at least calmed down, and Mother kept bundling some shoes into the cubicle for her to try on, with me sitting on a small stool enjoying the shoe-shop smell that has been an integral part of our family life since the dawn of time, and reflecting on what Flintstone had in mind, sending us here like this.

It was also strange that Mother didn’t put the thumbscrews on Linda, although every time she popped by she asked what had happened, without once getting an answer.

On the way home it was the same old rigmarole. And now I was beginning to sense it again, Mother who could not take it any longer, Mother who turned her back on it all and didn’t want to see or hear anything, and after we had eaten and Linda was despatched to her room to do her homework on a piece of art paper, she said tearfully that she couldn’t face any more crises, please no more.

“Right,” I said.

She looked at me, dumbfounded.

“What do you mean
right.”