Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes Read online

  Arvid peered into the black hole, and now he wasn’t so keen. Suppose there were someone inside, you couldn’t know that beforehand, suppose she was in there hiding while everyone was searching, and once he thought about her he could almost hear her and he was sure that was how it was: she was inside, in the dark, waiting for him.

  But Jon was standing there, looking excited, and he had done his bit, he even had grazes on his cheek, and it was suddenly impossible for Arvid to say he didn’t dare.

  He felt a chill inside as he stuck his head in and began to push himself between the rickety stones. It was so dark inside he didn’t know whether his eyes were open or shut, and after deciding he wouldn’t go any further he felt Jon grab his feet and push him all the way in. It was a tight squeeze, the sharp stones scraped against his stomach and one of his jacket buttons came off, and then he was on the ground inside and screamed:

  ‘Shit, what did you do that for?’ But then he shut up because it was so low under the floorboards above him that his voice bounced back and boomed in his ears and filled up the dark.

  ‘Because you’re so damned slow,’ Jon said from outside. ‘Do we want the comics or not?’

  Arvid groped with his hands like a blind man at the movies, afraid of touching something strange or perhaps someone strange, and wasn’t that breathing he could hear? At any rate something was moving, there was a rustling of paper, and then he felt something brush against his thigh, something soft and living. He gasped for air, the hairs on his neck stood up, he went stiff and straightened up, but instead of hitting his head on the floor above he was suddenly able to stand upright. And then he realised he had his eyes closed, and when he opened them, it was no longer dark.

  There was a hole in the floor. He had his head and shoulders up inside the Barn and streams of light came flowing between the wide cladding boards and, when he looked around him, he saw an ocean of newspapers and comics.

  He seized the nearest bundle, tore at the string, and it snapped with a twang, and an avalanche of magazines came crashing towards him, sending swirls of dust up into the air. Arvid grabbed as many as he could hold, shrank back down through the floor and crawled fast towards the aperture of light, where Jon was standing unharmed outside, no ice in his stomach and only a graze to his cheek.

  ‘Wow!’ said Jon as magazines, newspapers and comics suddenly came flying from the crack in the wall, followed by Arvid with a look in his eyes that Jon had never seen in his friend before.

  They sifted through them and it turned out that, apart from three copies of Alle Kvinner, four of Aftenposten and six of Reader’s Digest, there were two of Tarzan and five of Texas they had never ever seen. Arvid fingered the spot on his jacket where the button used to be and said:

  ‘Call me Ali Baba!’ And then he laughed.

  Jon wasn’t the sort of boy to keep secrets, and soon the story about Arvid’s exploits was doing the rounds. At the same time the grown-ups had started to talk about the Barn being demolished, and about time too, Dad said, that dump is a danger to life and limb, you keep away from it, Arvid! I will, said Arvid, but out in the streets panic ran like a terrified squirrel between the houses, children exchanged looks and thought, so close to the riches and maybe their newly discovered way into the Barn would be lost and gone for ever!

  One evening Jon knocked on the door to ask if Arvid could come out. His big brother wanted to talk to him, Jon said, and Arvid asked his dad if he could. Dad glanced at his watch and said:

  ‘Have you done your homework?’ even though he knew full well that he had, Arvid always did it the minute he came home from school.

  ‘Yes, I have,’ he said.

  ‘OK, half an hour,’ Dad said as he always did. Arvid could have asked at ten o’clock on a Sunday night and his dad would have replied, ‘OK, half an hour.’

  Outside it was dark and wet, and although it was not raining, you felt the damp air settle on your skin at once and it was good to breathe. Arvid liked it when it was dark and wet, he felt tucked up in a woollen blanket and hidden away, yet able to walk wherever he wished.

  Trond Sand was fifteen years old and waiting by Thomassen’s with a cigarette in his mouth that he smoked, and Arvid could see the glow bobbing up and down like the lanterns at sea when they took the ferry to visit Gran and Granddad in Denmark.

  ‘Hi, Death Diver,’ Trond said.

  ‘Hi,’ Arvid said with a slight curl of the lip.

  ‘I heard you got into the Barn. You’re the only one who made it. Pretty neat, if you ask me.’

  ‘Ah, it was nothing special.’

  ‘It was, trust me,’ Trond said, taking a drag from the cigarette, blowing smoke out again and it looked white and ghost-like against the black sky. Trond flicked the butt and it twirled round and landed with a hiss on the shiny, wet tarmac.

  ‘You know Bandini?’ he said.

  Stupid question, Arvid thought, everyone knows Bandini. Bandini was the strangest man in Veitvet, and that was saying a lot, for in Veitvet there was no shortage of strange men. Bandini was Italian and an artist, the only one Arvid had ever seen close up. He had a walking stick and wore a green army jacket and his long hair was tied in a knot on top of his head. Mum thought that was charming. Bandini was also the politest man she knew, and in this block everyone and his brother could learn a little from that, she said, casting a meaningful glance at Dad, who might as well have his Sunday-school fees back, for it had been a complete waste of money.

  On the lawn outside his house Bandini had placed a car engine painted blue, and when there were enough people in the street he would go out and pat the engine and say, this, my friends, is great art. But Dad said it was a Ford Anglia engine, and it was not great art at all, it was a load of crap. He said that because he once had an Anglia himself, but when he started working at Jordan he couldn’t afford a new car after the Anglia packed up.

  Most of the time Bandini sat in his flat painting naked ladies. At the kiosk he was Knoff’s biggest customer for Cocktail, for it was not easy to get live models in Norway, Dad said, who liked Bandini well enough, for he had also been to THE WAR, in Italy, but had fled because a man called Mussolini wanted to cut off his head.

  ‘Of course I know Bandini,’ Arvid said.

  ‘He’s moving back to Italy,’ Trond said. ‘He can’t manage the hills up to Trondhjemsveien any longer, and Mussolini croaked fifteen years ago, so there’s no problem going back.’

  Trond lit another cigarette and went on:

  ‘So he gave all his magazines to the paper collection, and I was thinking you might do me a favour. Get my drift?’

  ‘No,’ Arvid said.

  ‘You don’t wanna do me a favour?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I mean what favour?’

  Trond rolled his eyes. ‘Bandini’s mags, they’re in the Barn, right?! And you’re the only one small enough to get in and big enough, intelligence-wise, to know what to look for! You can have my steam engine for ten mags. Get my drift now?’

  The steam engine! Arvid had seen it many times in Jon’s house. It was on a shelf just inside the door to Trond’s room and was so shiny and beautiful to look at it almost hurt to think about it. And it worked. Arvid was allowed to have a go one time when Jon and he had been alone, and he had wanted one since he first saw it.

  ‘I haven’t used it for years,’ Trond said. ‘You can have it for ten mags.’

  ‘But which mags do you mean?’

  ‘For Chrissake, of course you know. The ones he uses to paint from. They’re in the Barn. Ten of them, you can manage that.’

  Arvid knew what Trond meant because he had been to Bandini’s once for a glass of water and had seen what was hanging on the walls in there, but he didn’t say a word about it to anyone at home.

  ‘All right, I’ll see what I can find.’

  ‘Great, come on.’

  ‘No! Not now!’ Arvid remembered the dark inside, the place stuffed with darkness, no light from the timber cladding now, no light from
the crack in the wall.

  ‘I have to get back in, Dad will be furious. I’ll do it after school tomorrow.’

  Trond looked at him as he blew smoke from the corner of his mouth and said:

  ‘OK, Death Diver, it’s a deal. But don’t you mess me about!’

  ‘I won’t,’ Arvid said.

  The day after, he almost ran home from school. On the way he passed the Barn, but he didn’t even give it a glance, for he had to hurry home with his bag first and didn’t want to think about anything until he had to.

  He slung his bag in the hall and shouted to his mother, who was in the kitchen frying meatballs:

  ‘Be right back. Have to go to Jon’s to fetch something!’ And then he slammed the door before his mother had a chance to answer.

  Fatso was sitting on the stoop reading Arbeiderbladet as he always did at this time of day. He had his woollen jacket on, it was mid-October and cold, but Fatso didn’t take his newspaper inside until the first snow had fallen.

  ‘Hello,’ Fatso said. ‘How’s it going, Arvid?’

  Arvid didn’t answer, just walked straight by, and as he rounded the corner by Thomassen’s Fatso called after him, ‘You’re as damn polite as your father!’

  Arvid walked up the hill to Grevlingveien and sneaked between two houses and down to the Barn from the top. That way not many could see him, for the crack in the wall was on that side, and he was lucky, for no one saw him at all.

  He had the knack now, and it was easy to get in through the hole. Instead of wearing a jacket with buttons he had on a thick jumper and he slid in with ease and knelt groping his way forward to find the hole in the floor. And then he found it and pushed himself up with his shoulders hunched, and he was up looking around.

  The place was stripped. Not a magazine, not a newspaper, not a comic, not so much as a lousy Popeye. Just loads of mess and rubbish and dust, dust and more dust. But beneath the roof sat two men with ropes around their waists and they were up to something, they had hammers and monkey wrenches and they were banging and unscrewing some huge bolts. Arvid stood up fully to see better and then he saw a strip of light widen and then he knew. It was the wall, they were tearing down the wall! Arvid threw himself into the hole like a frightened badger, but he didn’t look and halfway down got stuck. He heaved and pulled, but it was no use, his belt was snagged at the back, and he began to take it off as fast as he could. But his fingers were as stiff as dry twigs, and the men were pounding away at the wall making the whole Barn shake, and one shouted to the other:

  ‘All right, Joakim, let it go.’ And he gave the wall a savage blow with his hammer. Arvid gasped. Joakim! The wall swayed, he was going to die, he was going to be squashed, and then he screamed:

  ‘Joakim!’

  ‘What?’ The man turned. ‘Oh, shit me! Olav! There’s a kid in here!’

  ‘I was told to say hello!’ Arvid yelled.

  ‘What?’ The man was desperately banging the wall, striking it again and again, both of them were smashing at it for all they were worth.

  ‘I want to sleep,’ Arvid whimpered and buried his head in his armpit. ‘I want to sleep.’ And then the wall fell, as if in slow motion. Outwards.

  ‘Lord Jesus,’ the one called Joakim said as he climbed down. Once he was on the floor he ran over to Arvid, lifted his head off his arm and looked into his face.

  ‘Are you all right, boy?’

  Arvid turned round and he could see daylight, and there was his house just across from the Barn. He looked up at Joakim and smiled.

  ‘I thought she was under the floor, but she wasn’t. She must have run off somewhere else.’

  He struggled to his feet and set off towards the light streaming in where the wall had been, he could see the bright, blue autumn sky and the sun, and then he turned.

  ‘If I wish for a steam engine this Christmas, do you think I’ll get one, even if it’s expensive?’

  ‘Definitely,’ the men said, looking at each other. ‘No doubt about it.’

  ‘Great,’ Arvid said. ‘Bye.’ And he ran out of the Barn, his heels banging on the barn wall, that was lying there like a bridge out into the world.

  ‘Jesus,’ Joakim said. ‘What’s the matter with kids nowadays?’

  Today You Must Pray to God

  One morning the form teacher came in for the first lesson, dropped down heavily on the chair behind his desk, surveyed the class and said:

  ‘Today you must pray to God, for today there may be a nuclear war.’ He cleared his throat, took a deep breath and said:

  ‘Nuclear war,’ one more time, his double chins shaking, and silence fell on the classroom.

  Nuclear war.

  Arvid had heard them talking about it at home, and of course he knew what it was. It was the end, for everyone, no joke.

  Uncle Rolf had dropped by, and his voice was excited and out of control downstairs in the living room that evening. Uncle Rolf hated the Russians almost as much as he hated farmers, and Arvid had crouched at the top of the stairs, where he would sit when he wanted to listen without being seen, and Dad didn’t think the Russians were such bastards, not the way Uncle Rolf did, but he wasn’t too cocky either, you could tell from his voice. It didn’t cut through the room like Uncle Rolf’s did.

  Arvid didn’t know where Cuba was, it hadn’t come up in geography yet, and he didn’t know what went on there, but it didn’t matter, it was the end anyway, no joke.

  After the lesson was over he went home. He unhooked his satchel from the desk, held it under his arm when they walked out for break and slipped quietly and unnoticed through the school gates.

  There were four lessons left that day, but he saw no reason to stay at school if there was going to be a nuclear war. If it was all over he would rather wait at home with his mother.

  He trudged homewards. He had his high rubber boots on and they were turned down and had Elvis written on the lining, even though it was his mother who liked Elvis, the blue jumper with the zigzag pattern and the cap he always wore, in the summer too sometimes. It was a blue cap with a white stripe along the edge and a white bobble on top, like the ski jumper Toralf Engan wore, and everyone else for that matter, and he used to pull it down over his forehead because it looked tough.

  He wasn’t frightened, his body was just so suddenly tired that he had to concentrate on every step he took, and the tiredness grew and grew until it lay like lumps beneath his skin, he could almost feel them with his fingers, and his boots were heavy, as if filled with blue clay. He didn’t cry because he and his dad had agreed he would not do that so often now, but his face felt as dry as old cardboard and just blinking was an effort of will.

  When he got home so early, his mother gave him a puzzled look but said nothing, and he thought that was fine, for when you’re about to die there’s really nothing to discuss. Even so, it was odd that she was cooking, but then again there was no need to go hungry while you were waiting, so he sat down at the kitchen table, and she gave him two slices of bread with peanut butter and a glass of milk. He said:

  ‘Thanks,’ and then he didn’t say another word for four days. His body was frozen, he couldn’t understand why nothing happened, why no one was concerned, and it took him a long time to thaw, it was as though his body had to be cracked open before things could be as before.

  He didn’t pray to God, because he didn’t believe in God, but he thought that maybe there were others in his class who did. He lay in bed staring at the wall listening to the morning service downstairs in the living room, he heard his dad go to work in the morning and come home in the afternoon, he heard them argue in the kitchen in the evening.

  He just lay there and would not get up, and in the end his mother became worried and took him to the doctor although Dad said it was a waste of time. He was a strange doctor, for he didn’t look down his throat or listen to his chest or anything, he just talked. But Arvid felt better afterwards even though he was often very tired and could fall asleep in the middle of the
day.

  Before the War

  Above the big radio in the living room hung a photograph of two men in a boxing ring, one of them had just landed a blow on the other, and the one doing the punching was Dad. Arvid stood looking at the picture, the sun was shining at an angle through the blinds making strange patterns on the carpet. It was Saturday morning, and he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘They used to call me Sledge. That was before the war.’

  Arvid had heard this so many times, he was fed up with it, but he was not fed up with the photograph. Dad looked so good there above the radio, his body one blur of movement, powerful yet slim, his feet dancing as if they didn’t know how to stumble.

  Dad held Arvid’s shoulder as he studied the picture and said once again:

  ‘That was before the war.’

  He spoke a lot about what happened before the war, and once Gry asked kind of casually: ‘When was it that you two met, you and Mum?’

  ‘In 1947,’ Dad answered trustingly, and Gry went and looked it up in a book and found out what she’d been almost certain about, that 1947 was after the war.

  ‘I’m not that fast now,’ Dad said.

  Maybe not, Arvid thought, but despite being forty-nine he had the body of a fit thirty-year-old. He looked how Arvid would never look, Arvid was certain about that.

  Arvid was slight, he didn’t look like the others in his family, for he was the only one with dark hair, and he was smaller. He was the smallest in his class and was often roughed up, which was why he would learn to box, his dad had decided, and training had already started. They used the living room as a gym, they moved the table to the side and rolled out a large rug as a boxing ring. They had woollen mittens instead of boxing gloves and they circled round on the rug and his dad punched holes in the air round Arvid’s head and lectured:

  ‘Never let them push you around, always give as good as you get, don’t put up with anything, it will come back to bite you. And if you have to, hit first, just to set an example.’