Golden Slumbers
Autumn/winter ’70–’71
Standing on the auditorium steps with my matriculation papers in hand, I was aware that autumn had already begun, even though the sun was hanging over the National Theatre and filtering through the trees, it was an Indian summer, just as Dad had said once when we were going to pick apples, it was September and I thought that soon they would probably be nailing down the boards over the fountain again. I stood on the auditorium steps as people ran past me. I didn’t see anyone I knew. Some wore black hats. Some were in traditional costume or suits. Some turned up in denim, like me. I peered around for familiar faces, but saw none. I wondered what to do now. I walked down the steps over to the bench where Mum and Dad were sitting. They squeezed my hand and were proud, had needed to hold the stiff diploma with the red stamp, one after the other. Mum glared at my clothes, but refrained from making a comment. She said, ‘Are you going to stay in your room, Kim?’
‘Thought I would.’
‘But isn’t Sebastian coming back soon?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Are you coping on your own?’
‘Oh, yes.’
The conversation stalled. We smiled at each other, but at that moment Dad woke up, as though he had found his old self in his suit.
‘And you’re sure you’ve chosen the right subject?’ he asked in loud, clear tones.
‘Think so. But I have to take the prelim first anyway.’
‘Philosophy,’ Mum said slowly. ‘What sort of job can you do with that?’
We stood shifting feet again, then Dad took out a crisp hundred note, hot off the press from Norges Bank.
‘To celebrate with, in moderation, though,’ he said, nudging my shoulder.
‘Wow,’ I smiled. ‘Wow.’
Stood there with the crisp banknote while Mum and Dad walked arm in arm under the trees, didn’t quite know what to do with myself, sat down on the bench and lit a cigarette. A girl walked past distributing anti-EEC leaflets. Afterwards a boy from the Action Committee gave me another. I stuffed them in my pocket, looked around, no familiar faces. So I took the tram to Blindern, browsed around in the bookshop, examined a few set books and felt weary. It was better in the record shop, self-service, could listen to whatever records I liked. I flipped through a few jazz LPs, Davis, Coltrane, Mingus, but couldn’t somehow find my rhythm. I strolled over to Frederikke, bought myself a cup of toxic coffee and sat alone at a table in the huge barn. No familiar faces there, either. I smoked too much and had to go to the loo. On the floor below there was a line of student stands. The students launched themselves at me, stuffed me full of paper. Eventually I found the toilet, there was a man standing at the urinal, and he began to speak the moment I appeared, asked whether I was a member of the People’s Movement or the Action Committee. I beat a retreat, ran past the stands and emerged between the red tower blocks. People were sprawled over the grass, I walked past, slowly, but I didn’t know a soul. I headed for town again, via Tørtberg, some young lads playing football in blue and white, stood watching them, Åge was on the sidelines, yes, it was Åge, he had filled out a bit, but it was Åge, recognised his yells. The leather ball seemed so comical among the thin legs. I trudged on, chuckling, and then I was back in Karl Johan. What to do now, I wondered. I went to Pernille and had the last beer of the year. The glass in my hands was cold. That was when I realised. I had lost my matriculation papers. Must have left them in the record shop. Couldn’t be bothered to go back now. I sat until my back became cold. No one I knew in Pernille that day. I mooched around again, down to the quayside and watched the Nesodden boat reverse out and turn. On the way back, I stopped by Klingenberg cinema. Long queue and excited atmosphere. Woodstock. Had nothing else to do, queued, and then I sat in the auditorium, the lights went out and the images and the music assaulted my senses. Soon the whole room was illuminated by lighters, rows of them burst into flame and the thick, sweet smell wafted through the air. My neighbour nudged me and passed a glowing spliff. I accepted. There were four pictures on the screen at once. From behind I was given a chillum. A few guards patrolled the sides scratching their heads. A girl gave me a lozenge. Country Joe sang. The rain. The rain at Woodstock. I will never forget it. Then it was over and we shuffled into the streets. I ran a hand through my pockets. I was broke. The darkness reflected off the tarmac and I didn’t like the film that was crossing the sky, didn’t like the images at all. I ran home, to Munchsgate. The lift took me up. I stood with my back to the mirror. I exited on the fourth and rang Vigdis’s bell. She was at home and let me in. Afterwards I could only remember that I woke up in her tiny bath in my underpants, my head a quarry. I dragged myself up to my full height and when I saw my face in the mirror, I screamed, I screamed, for there was a stripe of blood across my face, my face was divided into two, it was ripped open, I screamed, and then Vigdis was there, chubby and naked, with pendulous breasts touching my back.
‘You’re weird,’ she said.
I ran my hands across my face, turned on the tap and bent down. I had to rub damned hard, it wouldn’t all come off, a dark shadow across my face remained.
‘You owe me three things,’ Vigdis said.
I looked at us in the mirror.
‘What?’
‘A bottle of gin.’
I nodded cautiously. Couldn’t complain about that.
‘Lipstick.’
The empty tube was on the floor. We looked at each other in the mirror.
‘And the third?’ I asked.
Vigdis ran her finger down my spine.
‘I don’t want to say.’
She had to work and I had to go home. I went up a floor, stumbled into my room, vomited into the waste paper basket and dived onto the mattress, as though from the ten-metre board, ten metres into an empty pool, and slept for nine months.
PART 3
Come Together
Summer ’71
It was overwhelming. There were thousands, tens of thousands of people, had never seen so many in one place before. We were standing in Youngstorget, it was the beginning of June and the height of the afternoon, and Gunnar and Ola were on leave.
‘Now let’s have some fun with the middle classes!’ Gunnar yelled through the din of stamping feet, clapping hands, slogans, crackling microphones, rattling money boxes, music and wind.
I just smiled in return. People were pouring in from all sides, we were squeezed together tighter and tighter, it was like being on an enormous dance floor where everyone was dancing with everyone.
‘Where’s Seb?’ Ola shrieked into my ear.
I shrugged. I had no idea where Seb was.
‘Hasn’t he come home yet?’
Gunnar looked frightened.
I shook my head, for it was impossible to speak in this chaos. Big placards and banners and Norwegian flags were raised over the massed turnout. ALL ROADS DO NOT LEAD TO BRUSSELS. EEC MEANS INCREASED LIVING COSTS! NO TO EEC – YES TO DECENTRALISATION. And then those at the front began to move towards Karl Johan and the City Hall square, and it took at least four hours from the time the first ones set off until the last. You might have been forgiven for thinking some were walking in circles, but they weren’t, it was the nation that had taken to the streets in Oslo that June in 1971.
The town was green and red, and smelt of lilac and exhaust fumes, sun and clenched fists.
In the City Hall square it was even more cramped. A speaker’s platform had been rigged up on the back of a lorry and Norwegian flags fluttered against the sky. We were standing roughly in the middle of the crowd and being pushed from behind. Ola was becoming paler and paler. He seemed to be sagging suspiciously close to paving height.
I dragged him up.
‘You unwell?’
He rolled an eye, sweat streaming down his forehead.
‘Claustrophobia,’ he whispered. ‘Gettin’ claustrophobic.’
He started gulping and we steered him out of the crowd, found refuge by the
National Theatre.
‘How d’you manage in the submarine if you can’t even stand it here?’ I grinned.
Ola’s spirits were reviving.
‘I didn’t manage,’ he groaned. ‘Almost ruined an entire NATO manoeuvre. Became a cook at Madla naval base instead.’
That made us laugh for a good long time and we headed for Saras Telt, ordered a round and sussed each other out. It was a long time since we had seen each other, we looked for changes, wondered if we were the same as before.
‘So you haven’t heard a peep from Seb?’ Gunnar asked.
‘Zilch. Zero.’
I hadn’t heard from Nina, either, nor from Jørgen. My mother would have had to re-address any post that came, but the postbox had been empty every single bloody morning, a black well, no sign of life, not even so much as a garish postcard.
‘Funny,’ Gunnar mumbled, looking concerned, he drank, rolled a Petterøes cigarette. ‘Have you spoken to his mum?’
‘Nope.’
‘What’ve you actually done this year?’ Ola asked. He was back on top form.
I took my time.
‘Not a lot. Slept.’
‘Haven’t you taken the prelim?’
‘Didn’t apply.’
Another round was carried to the table. We clinked and drank.
‘Strange that Seb hasn’t dropped a line,’ Gunnar repeated.
‘You haven’t exactly had writer’s itch, either,’ I burst out. ‘Didn’t you have any leave or what?’
They were embarrassed and I regretted speaking out of turn. Ola had spent all his leaves with Kirsten, Gunnar had been working with a team in Bodø.
I laughed it off.
‘It was dismal here without you,’ I said, knocking back the glass.
Gunnar looked straight at me, his eyes didn’t deviate by one millimetre.
‘That was bad of us, Kim. Very bad. We accept the criticism for that. But now we’re here, anyway. Though Seb isn’t.’
He didn’t manage to say another word as Stig crashed down at our table holding a pile of anarchist newspapers in his arms.
‘Greetings, kinfolk. This is where you sit poisonin’ yourselves of your own free will, is it?’
He snapped his fingers at the beer glasses.
‘And you, too, brother. Thought ML’ers were united in their fight against alcohol.’
‘Drunkenness,’ Gunnar said. ‘We are against drunkenness. But workers are damn well allowed to have a bloody beer of a warm summer’s evenin’, aren’t they?’
Stig shaded his eyes and peered around.
‘Workers? Where did you say they were?’
‘Been in the procession?’ I asked, to lift the lid off the pressure cooker.
‘Sure thing, boys.’ He slapped Gunnar on the back. ‘Shame you couldn’t have joined us, brother.’
Gunnar slowly turned towards him.
‘I bloody did.’
‘Did you? Thought the action committee considered mass demos bourgeois crap. Thought the action committee had its own slogans.’
Before Gunnar had a chance to come with a riposte he stood up and stretched out his arms as though he were the pope and was going to bless us.
‘Pop by Hjelmsgate one day, lads. We have a book café and biodynamic food. See you!’
He shuffled over to another table. Gunnar didn’t say anything for the next three quarters of an hour. Then he said, ‘Damn it! We have to find out what’s happened to Seb!’
I slunk home later that night. The postbox was empty again. I took the lift to the fourth and rang Vigdis’s bell. A girl I didn’t recognise opened the door and I could see that there was a new name on the door, too. Vigdis had moved a long time ago, several months before. She gave me a strange look. So I didn’t manage to give her what I owed her after all. I clambered up the last floor and let myself in. It didn’t look good. I would have to tidy up. It was time I did. I opened the window. I emptied the stinking waste paper basket, stuffed clothes into the wardrobe, tidied away books, stacked the records, blew fluff off the stylus, poured away rancid milk, chucked out the rock-hard, green crusts, washed and cleaned. Seb would have a nice welcome if he came back, and if he didn’t, we would have to go and look for him, by Christ we would.
The following day we visited his mother, and she confirmed our worst fears. Seb had never reached Bordeaux. His father had waited and waited until in the end he had had to leave without Seb. Something had happened to Seb on the way. He had sent one card, just after New Year from Amsterdam, saying he was going to Paris and was fine. His mother looked unhappy and frightened.
‘And how are you?’ she ventured with a smile, appraising each one of us.
‘Fine, getting by.’ We shuffled our feet and made for the hall.
‘Tell me if you hear anything!’ she begged, wringing her hands.
It was raining outside so we held a pow-wow at Krølle. The situation was critical. We would have to go to Paris and search for Seb.
‘We can hitch down there,’ I said. ‘Take a couple of days. Cinch.’
‘I’m flat broke,’ Ola said.
‘There was a bloke in the military who used to have a summer job in Majorstuen Transport Office,’ Gunnar said. ‘They need loads of people all summer.’
‘And when we get to Paris, I can touch up my uncle for cash!’
We batted to and fro what could have happened to Seb, there were quite a number of things, we huddled round the table, whispering, freezing, it was urgent now, there wasn’t a day to lose.
On Monday morning we turned up in Aslakveien in Røa with a herd of others smelling of booze and rolling red mix with trembling yellow fingers. A man with a peaked cap, Cap’n, noted down our names and then someone shouted and the hired workers trudged off after the drivers. Gunnar got a job, Ola got a job, and at last my name was called out, too. I was sent to the warehouse for six straps and took them back to the Bedford where five big lumps with hairy arms were waiting. I had minor palpitations. I had been assigned to the piano van. They must have confused me with Gunnar. They measured me up with cold smiles and exchanged glances. My thighs were thinner than the driver’s upper arms. I could just about carry the straps.
‘Chuck them in the van,’ one man growled, ‘and sit on them.’
I did as I was told. The others grinned. Then we set off. It bumped and jolted, I was suddenly reminded of the black Mariah and cold sweat began to form. I peered out of the filthy van window, behind me came the Bedford lorry. We drove towards Majorstuen and stopped outside Mayong in Slemdalsveien. The others piled out to eat breakfast. They had forgotten me. They left me to sit in the cramped, stinking van. I pushed and pulled at the door, but it would not open. I was an incarcerated dog, and I hated them. Then one of the men came out and opened the door. I scrambled out and gorged myself on oxygen. He patted my back and gave a rough guffaw.
‘Sorry, pal. We forgot the luggage.’
The heavily muscled gang was sitting behind the window chuckling over their burgers. I wished Seb was home. I took a seat at their table with just enough money for a coffee.
Feverishly I rolled a cigarette.
‘You know that in fact you’ve got to wear a hairnet on this job, don’t you?’ said one beefcake tensing his tattoos. ‘So that you don’t get your hair caught in the straps. Worse than getting your dick caught on a hook, that is!’
The laughter rippled around the table, and I laughed with them, had at last stopped fiddling with the roll-up.
‘We’ve got to carry a piano, have we?’ I asked before the laughter had subsided.
It quickly died and everyone looked at me. They shook their ample heads.
‘Nope. Not a piano.’
I was relieved and my confidence grew.
‘Concert grand,’ said the driver.
It had to be taken to the large music room in Chateau Neuf, the student house and concrete block that had blighted Tørtberg. The legs had been unscrewed, so it was on its side, wrapped in a tarpaul
in and lashed to an iron frame with six holes for the straps. The whole thing weighed half a ton. There were six of us. Or five and a quarter.
I couldn’t manage the knot in the strap and had to have help. They rolled their eyes and I felt a bit like the time when my father used to stand behind me to knot my tie. Then we adjusted the strap lengths, put the hooks in the holes and at a signal from the foreman we stood up. It was like having your spine pushed down one leg. Blood and head parted company and I staggered giddily through the door and to the stairs with the entire world on the hook. We stopped and put it down. The strap burned my neck and shoulders, the knot cut into my kidneys.
‘You go at the front,’ said the foreman, pointing to me. ‘Adjust your strap so that it matches Kalle’s.’
Kalle was the one with the tattoos and the biceps. I took off the strap, loosened the knot and looked Kalle up and down. He just stood staring at me.
‘What the hell are you doin’?’ he yelled.