‘How much money’ve you got for ice creams?’ George asked.
‘Don’t wanna buy ice creams today,’ I said.
‘You don’t want to!’
‘Want to spend it in Urra Park.’
‘My dad sent me an envelope with four tenners in it,’ George went on. ‘From the Persian Gulf. That’s enough for eighteen ice creams, fifteen hot dogs and six Cokes.’
‘We can eat ice cream at my house,’ John said. ‘Dad’s put by a carton of nut ice cream.’
In Stortorget the temperature had sunk below zero and there was snow in the air. We went to see Ringo. He looked smart and embarrassed, but then it started to rain again and the band leader was distributing see-through capes like the one Lue was wearing, and so Ringo didn’t look smart any more.
‘He looks like a johnnie,’ George laughed, but Ringo became dangerously annoyed.
‘Do I buggery! Look in the mirror and you’ll see a real p-p-prick!’
‘Wasn’t meant like that,’ George said to mollify him. ‘Got a pack of Consulates for afterwards.’
‘And if the Hand Grenade Man strikes, we’ll rely on you,’ I said.
‘Fine!’
John’s face went as grey as crispbread.
‘Don’t, for Christ’s sake, talk about the Hand Grenade Man!’
The procession began to move. We took our places and marched towards Karl Johansgate. All the bands were playing over each other, one worse than the next, and hysterical parents stood along the route, screaming and waving, and I pretended to be a victorious soldier returning from war, receiving applause from the crowds. We were heroes, I pretended to limp, the girls were looking at me unable to restrain their tears, waving white embroidered handkerchiefs, blowing me kisses, brave, wounded soldier. And all of a sudden an image appeared to me, crystal clear, it had been in the newspaper, in Dagsrevyen, and had been shown on TV: a small Vietnamese girl hobbling along with a stick, barefoot, naked chest, one arm covered in bandages. And behind her what looked like ruins, it is difficult to see, but I imagine dead people there, dead and burned and maimed, her family. The little girl staggers out of the ruins, past me, and she emits a terrible cry, and she is so afraid and desperate, I wonder where she will go and to whom.
‘This is where it’ll happen,’ John whispered.
‘Eh?’
‘The Hand Grenade Bastard. This is where he’ll bung it. In the middle of Karl Johan.’
We had reached the Studenten bar. I heard friendly shouts from the pavement and there were my mother and father jumping up and down and waving. I was happy that at least they hadn’t brought the little stepladder with them.
Approaching the Royal Palace, John was pale and quiet. The tension had begun to exert a hold on me too, anticipation of something, of a catastrophe, sweet and repulsive at the same time. There were two ambulances and a Red Cross bus by one of the side streets, but I supposed they were there every May 17. A Chinese firecracker was let off on the lawn, it sounded like a shower of bombs and we clung to each other. Now there were only a hundred metres left. The King was standing on the balcony waving his top hat, Prince Harald was there too with a few ladies, we took a deep breath and crept past. By the guardroom the procession was breaking up like a line of confused ants and we sought safety by the statue of Camilla Collett, sat down on the rock, put our flags on the wet grass and smoked a menthol cigarette.
Ringo ambled along after a quarter of an hour, with the drum over his shoulder and cap in hand. At that moment the clouds parted and the sun embraced Slottsparken, the park around the Royal Palace, and the sound of three cheers rang out.
‘You were more off-key than last year,’ George said. ‘But you were better than the Ruseløkka lot.’
‘Someone put a f-f-firecracker down the tuba,’ Ringo explained. ‘In the qu-qu-quietest p-p-part. Thought it was the H-H-Hand Grenade Man, I did!’
We looked across at the palace. The procession had dispersed now. But he could strike again later, at any time.
The sun disappeared again, taking the colours and shouts with it. A dark cloud encircled us and the first raindrops beat down on our heads.
‘Let’s go to my place for some ice cream,’ John said.
People fled in all directions, charged past us with prams, children and dogs in tow. Trumpets and ribbons were left lying in the dirt with trampled flags and a pair of shoes someone had abandoned. We were already so wet that it didn’t make sense to run. We just squelched out of the park, up to Briskeby, bought some sausages from The Man on the Steps, where we met a few giggle-pusses from the C class standing on tiptoe under a large umbrella and drinking Coke through a straw. We walked right past them, down Farmers’ Hill, without a turn of the head. After all, we had our pride.
As we rounded the corner, Ringo said:
‘Better a plaited twat than a t-t-twat in p-p-plaits.’
We laughed at that for a long time, wedged a firecracker in a dog turd, lit it and ran for cover behind the lake. It was the biggest shower of shit since the time we broke into the school garden and ate three kilos of plums and two cabbages.
At Gunnar’s house we ate a boxful of ice lollies and then sat round the record player. Ola placed the drum between his legs, grabbed the drumsticks and hammered away. ‘From Me To You’ went tolerably well, but he lost the beat in ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’. He was lagging behind, puffing and panting. In ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, though, he was really in the groove, his nose was twitching like a contented hare’s, towards the end he had a go on other things in the room, the lamp, the model boat, the Meccano set, the racquet, the medals on his chest were rattling like castanets, it was the best thing we had heard or seen since the woodwork teacher, Woodentop, had got his huge nose stuck in the lathe the previous year.
We took a breather. Ola was lying on his back. The door burst open and the doorway was filled by Ernst Jespersen, grocer and mild-mannered man in an over-sized suit, tall and rangy 1948 regional 1,500 metres champion.
‘You’re having a good time,’ he said.
‘Oh, yes,’ we nodded in unison.
‘The rain has let up,’ he said.
We looked outside. So it had.
‘By the way,’ he said, his gaze passing round the room and fixing on Gunnar. ‘By the way,’ he said. ‘Do you know anything about a missing cigar, Gunnar?’
Ola began to cough. Gunnar’s mien at once matched his white shirt, perfect winter camouflage.
‘Do you?’ his father persisted, his voice a little sharper at the edges.
Gunnar had already given himself away, the expression in his eyes, in his face, mouth, his whole body, it said everything there was to say, to perfection, nothing less, nothing more. Nevertheless, he made an effort and it sounded pathetic.
‘Which cigar?’ Gunnar asked.
‘A Havana cigar,’ his father said. ‘A Havana cigar which I had expressly put by for today.’
Gunnar was about to say something. I winced on his behalf, hoping he would tell him the truth, but at that moment Stig came out of his room, behind his father. His hair was longer than ever, he looked a bit like Brian Jones. And he was wearing some dead hip trousers with brown stripes and flares, the lot. He looked at his father, stretched his mouth into a big grin and said:
‘Sorry, Dad. It was me. I smoked it with Rudolf and Nag.’
‘My Havana cigar!’
‘I didn’t know it was so precious, Dad. There were so many of them.’
Gunnar’s father poked the air with a bent index finger.
‘You didn’t know it was so precious? No. That must have been why you took that particular one, was it, because it didn’t look like anything special. Are you trying to make me laugh?’
‘Sorry, Dad. I’ll be more careful next time.’
Stig winked at us and the door was shut.
‘I can’t do it,’ Gunnar said, ashamed of himself.
‘You gotta either tell the truth,’ I said. ‘Or you gotta lie. There’s no inbet
ween.’
Gunnar pondered. We heard his father rummaging around in the sitting room. On the floor above someone was playing the national anthem.
‘Then I’ll have to tell the truth,’ Gunnar said. ‘I can’t lie.’
After the prommers’ procession Ringo went to do some drumming outside the old people’s home. John, George and I mooched around the town waiting for four o’clock to come because that was when Urra Park opened. We set off a few firecrackers, chucked a banger through an open window, heard a terrific explosion but we were already three blocks away.
We stopped around a corner, leaned against a wall and were covered in sweat.
‘Shit,’ said George. ‘I can’t be bothered with this tie any more.’
We tore off the strips of cloth, unbuttoned our shirts at the neck, took a deep breath, and then we smelt it, we were in Pilestredet, the smell of malt from the brewery and tobacco from Tiedemann’s, sweet and a bit sickly. We sniffed the air like three anxious deer and then we breathed in again, as deeply as we could, until our blazers tightened round our chests, for like that we could perhaps get merry, with a bit of luck and the wind in the right direction we were bound to get merry.
At four o’clock we stood outside Urra Park, stone cold sober. It was packed with people, the same arrangement as the previous year, the way it should be. Tin cans, hoopla, nails in a plank of wood, tombola, ice creams and Coke. We started with the tin cans, we were each given a cloth ball, three throws and down they came. There we stood with a giant teddy bear, but we couldn’t be seen dragging that around, so we gave it to a little girl in a national costume, a good deed, appropriate for a day like this, now we could get up to some devilry.
We hammered in some nails, threw rings, ate sausages and at five o’clock Ringo turned up, in full regalia, with the drum over his shoulder and the sticks in his belt.
‘How’s it goin’?’ we asked.
‘A-a-alright. The old ’uns couldn’t hear a thing. Clapped in the middle of the numbers.’
He bought himself a Coke, and out of nowhere Dragon appeared, Dragon and Goose. Dragon was wearing the world’s smallest suit, looked like he was wearing short trousers, with his thighs and arms bulging out of the shiny, threadbare material. He seemed happy and waved his cap. We looked at each other. Goose looked at us, deathly pale and trembling. Dragon was as drunk as a skunk.
‘Sherry, you shee,’ he said with his tongue askew.
Goose, shifting feet nervously, was peering around to see if any of the teachers were there.
‘He was sitting in The Man on the Steps,’ Goose whispered. ‘He just followed me. Came after me.’
‘You should hop it before Lue comes,’ John advised in a kind voice.
Dragon aligned his eyes into a gaze and snarled, ‘I’m gonna kill Lue!’
We grabbed Dragon between us, dragged him over to somewhere quieter, got him onto a bench and told him to sober up.
‘I’m gonna kill Lue!’ he yelled, forcing his mouth into a cold, malicious grin, the like of which we had never seen before.
‘Shall we take you home?’ John asked cautiously.
‘Not bloody goin’ home!’
A smile unfolded over his face. He shoved his hands into his pockets and pulled out a firecracker and matches.
‘Not here,’ George said, trying to take it off him. Dragon pulled his hand away.
Then he put the firecracker in his mouth, struck a match and lit the fuse. It hissed, the flame advanced on the powder. Dragon closed his eyes, the fuse was half burnt, Gunnar said something, Ola just gaped, Goose retreated, Seb and I exchanged glances. Then Dragon raised his fat hand and was about to take the firecracker out of his mouth and throw it, we held our breath, but his lips were stuck to the paper, I could see quite clearly that the skin on his lips was being stretched, it was glued to the red paper around the powder. Dragon’s eyes were wide open, terror-stricken, it only took a second, not even that, then it exploded in the middle of Dragon’s face. He was thrown backwards, he sat spread over the white bench with a large blood-spattered hole right under his nose, his teeth were gone, his lips were gone, his whole mouth, he was staring at us, seemingly uncomprehending, as the tears streamed down his cheeks into the red crater. People ran over, Gunnar threw up behind a tree, Seb and I tried to explain what had happened. Not long afterwards the ambulance arrived and Dragon was driven off with a flashing blue light and sirens.
Urra Park slowly emptied. We were the last, all the stands had been packed up and all the prizes taken away. There was blood on the white bench.
‘Gimme the firecrackers,’ Gunnar exclaimed. ‘And the bangers and the jumping jacks.’
We did as he said, put the ammunition in his hand, knowing what he would do. He walked over to the drain and dropped them in one by one. We didn’t protest because at this moment Dragon was lying under a white light with his gaping red hole as knives and scalpels flashed.
We headed for Frogner Park. It wasn’t May 17 any more. Darkness lay across the sky like a blanket, sausages and ice cream and Coke lay like a dead weight in our stomachs. The flags hanging from the balconies and the windows resembled bloodstained banners.
As we passed Frogner Lido, Ola said, ‘I regret all the c-c-crap I’ve ever said to D-D-Dragon.’
So did we. It was important to have said that. We were glad Ola had spoken up.
‘I’ll be n-n-nice to him when he comes back to s-s-school.’
That seemed to ease the pain inside, we breathed out all the badness. Ola banged the drum once, Dragon would be fine again, that was certain.
‘This year I’m goin’ to dive from the ten-metre board,’ I said.
‘You wouldn’t dare,’ Seb said.
‘Wanna bet?’
‘Pack of twenty.’
‘Done.’
Almost no one was out now, no old ladies walking their poodles, no one playing football with upturned benches as the goals, no one snogging under the trees, even the poofs had gone, no one breathing hard behind the foliage, the bushes by the patch known as Hundejordet, Dogland, in Frogner Park were unoccupied. Only the dead on the other side of the fence were keeping us company. The wind rattled Ola’s medals.
‘Know what I think?’ I said under my breath. ‘I think the man who drowned himself in Bygdøy was the Hand Grenade Man.’
The others gawped at me.
‘D’you think so?’ Ola whispered. ‘How come?’
‘He would’ve chucked a hand grenade into the procession today if he’d been alive,’ I said.
‘I think so, too,’ Seb said.
At that moment fireworks exploded across the sky. Terrified, we looked up. Blood was running in thin stripes over the town.
And in the far distance we heard music.
One Friday, after a week in which we had been well-behaved and hard-working, we went on a class trip. We caught the tram to Majorstuen and from there walked to Vindern, across the fields and up behind Gaustad. We were not alone. 7C was with us, Nina and Guri in the vanguard. It was a hell of a long walk. Lue’s face was shiny before we reached the Police College, he was gasping like a fifteen-kilo pike and munching small pastilles. Inkie was with us too, the plaits’ class teacher. She always wore brown, today she was sporting large, brown knee-breeches and looked like a cross between Harald Grønningen and Wenche Myhre, Olympic skier and pop star. Another teacher was with us too, a natural science teacher, Holst, a fairly young, weedy type who scuttled around like a lap dog, yapping all the time.
We sat down in a clearing, a green gateway to the forest, and at once Lue started to fuss. First of all, he counted us three times, but no one was missing, except for Dragon, who was still in hospital, there was a problem with his palate as well. Lue’s voice thundered across the landscape. Inkie and Holst stood to attention beside him.
‘Each and every one of you is to find one flower and one plant, and you have to show it to Holst. Do not wander off. You have fifteen minutes in which to do this.’
The classes got to their feet and scurried off in all directions. We went back the way we had come, furthest from Lue, and when he was out of sight we sat down and poked the grass.
‘Should’ve brought a f-f-football,’ Ola muttered.
A beetle wandered past. We let it go. Above us flapped some large birds with long necks, probably geese on their way to Lake Sognsvann. All of a sudden Ringo stood up and stared.
‘Funny-lookin’ house down there,’ he said, pointing.
We stood up and looked in the same direction.
‘That’s Gaustad,’ George whispered. ‘Where all the nutters live.’
We saw a high wire fence, the buildings were old and eerie, with almost no windows. A large chimney protruded from one of them, a big smokestack.
‘D-d-d’you think,’ Ringo stammered. ‘D-d-d’you think they b-b-burn ’em?’
There was no smoke. The sky above was clear blue.
‘It’s just the kitchen,’ John said. ‘Think of all that food!’
‘The nutters eat a helluva lot,’ George said.
We sat down. The beetle had climbed up a tall blade of grass. It hung there as the blade bent towards the ground, a black shell on the end of yellow grass.
Something stirred behind a bush and Lue’s head hove into view.
‘And you have already found four flowers?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘But we’ve caught a huge beetle.’
‘We want flowers,’ Lue shouted. ‘Let the beetle go this instant and find a flower!’
He turned on his heel and vanished between the trees like a spirit.
We mooched round staring at the ground. There were no flowers in the forest, we would have to go out into the clearing. Suddenly I was on my own. The others were by a bush a long way behind me. Then I was no longer alone, a branch cracked, I spun round and there was Nina.
‘How many flowers have you found?’ she asked.
‘None,’ I said.
‘I’ve found two.’
She was standing right in front of me, no more than a metre away and I could feel her breath. And I could see she had blonde hair under her arms, for her blouse was quite loose, and breasts, hers weren’t the biggest in the school, Klara probably had custody of those, but anyway, I gulped and looked for the other boys, but they weren’t there.