by Jon Fosse
And it’s really strange, he says
Because he reminds me a lot of you, he says
Yes, Asle says
and Sigve says that the picture painter there, the one who’s named Asle too and is about the same age as Asle, maybe a couple of years older, and who looks like Asle, yes, he gulped down that ground-beef sandwich practically in one bite, and then he’d said that that was the best meal he’d ever eaten in his life, yes, he was so hungry, so unbelievably hungry, Sigve says and then they walk to the cash registers and Sigve puts the bottles of beer down in front of the woman sitting at the register
Back again today, are you, she says
I don’t come in that often, Sigve says
Yes you do, she says
and she rings up the price of the beer on the register and Sigve puts the bread down in front of her and she rings that up and says the total and Sigve takes out his wallet and pays and then he opens his bag and puts the bottles and the bread into the bag, and Asle had been wondering why Sigve was carrying that big black bag around and now he knows why, he thinks and Asle puts the ashtray down in front of the woman sitting at the register
So, you’re buying yourself an ashtray, she says
I am, yes, Asle says
and she rings up the price and Asle takes out his wallet and pays and then he opens his shouldebag and puts the ashtray in and he sees Sigve walk towards the door
Goodbye, the woman at the register says
Goodbye, thanks, Asle says
and he follows Sigve and when they’re outside Sigve says that that he always carries his big bag with him when he goes to work in the morning and at The Furniture Factory they say that they can’t understand why he brings such a big bag to work, all he has in it is lunch and coffee, they say and then they laugh, but let them laugh, because the reason he always has this bag with him is that it means he can buy a few bottles of beer on the way home, and a little something else, Sigve says and he asks if Asle wants to come over? then they can have a beer and maybe a sandwich, if he feels like it? and then Asle can take the photograph he’s going to use to paint the house Sigve is renting, he says and Asle says he’d be glad to, it’d be nice to go over to his house, he says and Sigve says well then they should go straight there, it’s not far, he says and they walk to Sigve’s house and he unlocks the door and then asks Asle to come in and Asle goes into the hall and Sigve says that the door on the right is to the toilet, because they’d had a toilet and a shower put into the house, and the door to the left goes to the kitchen, Sigve says and then he opens that door and goes through it and he puts the bag down on the little kitchen table and then he opens another door and points and says that’s the living room and Asle should go inside and Asle goes inside and there’s a table there in the middle of the room with four chairs around it, one on each side, there’s a chessboard on it, and then there’s a big bookshelf and it’s chock full of books all jumbled together, some standing up and some on their sides, some slanted to the side and others straight, and then there’s a sofa along one wall and above it there’s the old photograph of the house that Sigve was talking about, and there’s one window on the short wall and in front of it’s an old armchair, and then there’s a door on the right and Sigve comes in with two glasses of beer and invites Asle to sit down and he nods at the table and Asle sits down and Sigve puts a glass down in front of Asle and then he puts the other glass down on the other side of the table, next to the chessboard, opposite Asle
Yes this is sure not like living up in the attic of a boathouse, Sigve says
and Asle doesn’t say anything and then Sigve goes back out to the kitchen and he comes back in with the bottle of beer that’s now a little less than half full and he puts it down on the table between them and then he sits down and raises his glass and says cheers and Asle raises his glass and says cheers and then he drinks, and well he’s never thought beer tastes all that good but even if it doesn’t taste good it works, it calms him down, yes, when he drinks beer he feels that life is good, yes, better than it feels any other time, Asle thinks and he takes out his tobacco pouch and he rolls a cigarette and Sigve does the same and there’s already an ashtray on the table and Asle lights his cigarette and then holds the match across for Sigve and lights his cigarette too and then they sit there and they’re silent for a moment
So, today you left home, Sigve says
I was supposed to go to The Academic High School too, he says
and he points to the books and says that he reads a lot, all kinds of books, on every topic, now and then he reads poetry too, that may be what he likes to read best of all, he almost always gets something out of modern so-called incomprehensible poetry, not that he understands it either, in the usual way, but he does kind of understand it, in a different way, yes, it’s like it’s something you have to understand with something other than intelligence, or your mind, Sigve says and he takes a big sip
It’s like those poems are incomprehensible the same way life is, he says
Yes, Asle says
and he says that he hasn’t read that much, just what he’s had to read for school and Sigve says that in that case he’s missed out on a lot, but he can borrow a book or two and he should read them and then he’ll understand what he means, he says, but he’ll need them back, because the books he wants to lend me are two of his favourite books, Sigve says and he gets up and he starts rummaging around on the bookshelf
I can never find the book I’m looking for, he says
and Asle smokes and drinks his beer
Yes well here’s one of them at least, it’s stories, or something, by Samuel Beckett, he says
and Sigve hands Asle the book
Have you ever heard of him? Sigve says
No, Asle says
and Sigve keeps looking
Yes, these are good too, poems by Georg Trakl, he was from Austria so he wrote in German, but these are translations of course, he says
and you probably haven’t heard of him either, Sigve says and Asle shakes his head and Sigve hands Asle that book too and he says that he should read both books and then he, Sigve, needs them back of course, he says, and Sigve says that he’s bought all these books himself but he never buys books at the regular price, that would be too expensive, but every other year the bookshops have their big sale, The Aga Bookshop has the sale too, Asle does know that there’s a bookshop in Aga, doesn’t he? it’s not far from here, when you’re looking from The Co-op Store or from his house the bookshop’s hidden behind The Church, and in fact Asle will have to go there tomorrow or one of these days to buy his schoolbooks, and there, at The Aga Bookshop, there’s a book sale every so often and that’s when Sigve buys books, he says and he falls silent and then he says that it was when he moved to Bjørgvin that things really went wrong for him, there was too much drinking, and he was friends with the wrong kind of people, as they say, but actually his friends were good people, not the wrong kind, no, but anyway it ended up with him getting fired from his job at a warehouse in Bjørgvin because he didn’t go to work for several days, and because he’d never been totally sober when he was at work, at that was true enough, and then it led to more drinking and burglary and prison and the DT’s, yes, if he didn’t know what those were then he wasn’t going to be the one to tell him, delirium tremems as they’re called in Latin, the shakes, and he wouldn’t wish them on his worst enemy, and then they had to transfer him from The Prison in Bjørgvin, the one by The Fishmarket, to The Hospital, and when he was better they sent him back to The Prison and when he’d served his sentence he went and bought himself a black bag of all things, yes, the one he still used, and the bag was black and plastic, with a zipper, and he bought himself three half-bottles of spirits and then a chessboard of all things, with pieces, and then he took the bus home to Barmen, yes, he and Asle saw each other the night he came home didn’t they, and he’d probably told Asle all this then, yes, that was the same night that Asle had quit the band he was in, yes, Sigve had
probably said more than he should have that time, that’s for sure, he says, and he’d said that he had to go somewhere, hadn’t he, and he showed up at his parents’ house totally drunk, yes, it was shameful, and he’d probably said that he had to go back and see his parents sometime, Sigve says and he had to go home because he had nowhere else to go, nowhere to live, and in spite of everything it was better to spend the night in the attic of a boathouse than lying on the ground outside
I remember that, Asle says
I’m sure do you, Sigve says
I probably said way too much that night, he says
and Asle says that he remembers Sigve saying that he had to go see his parents again sometime, and then he’d handed Asle a bottle and Asle had taken a little sip of it and then Sigve had slapped himself on his cheeks and said again that he had to go see his parents again sometime and so he had better keep going, carrying his bag in one hand and the half-bottle of spirits in the other, Asle says and Sigve says that it’s true what he’s saying, because he remembers it all, well, most of it anyway, he thinks, Sigve says
But I wasn’t wanting to talk about all that, he says
No, Asle says
That was a long time ago, Sigve says
I was on the skids, by the end I was drinking day and night, he says
and he says that now he has only one or two glasses a couple of nights a week and then on weekends, but he never drinks in the morning, never, he says, not even on his days off does he drink in the morning, because when you start doing that then look out, yes, he’s learned that lesson all too well, he says, so even if Asle does it he can’t start doing that, he can drink in the evening but never in the morning, Sigve says and Asle finishes his glass and Sigve pours him another one and then he says that it’s strange how much Asle looks like the painter who lives in a rented room in Stranda and Asle thinks that he needs to go back to his own room now, he has to unpack and make things as comfortable as he can there, he has to set up his easel and painting things, the other things too, but it shouldn’t take long, and then he wants to get some sleep and so Asle says that he should probably be getting home
Next time we’ll have a beer at The Hotel, Sigve says
Yes, Asle says
And your ID card, the one you got from the post office, yeah, we can do something about that, like I said, Sigve says
Do you have it with you? he says
and Asle nods and he takes out his wallet and his ID card and he hands it to Sigve and he looks at it and he says that he’ll be able to turn the nine at the end into a four easily, because it’s written with a totally normal blue ballpoint pen, and he has several ballpoint pens, and one of them will have to look the same, and then maybe he’ll just need to scrape a little at the top of the nine with a nail, carefully, yes, so carefully that no one will be able to tell and then, yes, with that Asle will be old enough to buy beer, both at The Co-op Store and at The Hotel, and if anything goes wrong, well then it’s no big deal, they don’t care if it’s fake, Sigve says
Yeah, Asle says
and then Sigve gets a bunch of ballpoint pens and a piece of paper and an eraser and a nail and then he makes a little line on the paper with each of the pens and he picks one of them and then he starts scraping with the nail, gently, gently, scraping ink off the semicircle at the top of the nine and he is just barely touching the ID card with the point of the nail and then he carefully rubs it, he picks up the ID card and looks at it and then puts it back down and picks up a pen and then he kind of goes over the lines running up and down so that the number turns into a four and then Sigve picks up the ID card and says well that was easy enough, there’s no way to see that that isn’t a four, well maybe someone could tell if they looked at it with a magnifying glass but no one in a hotel or a shop will do that, so now Asle can buy as much beer as he wants, Sigve says
Thanks, Asle says
and then Asle says he’s going home to his room
I have to unpack, and set up my easel at least, he says
Of course, Sigve says
But someday, sooner or later, we can maybe get a couple of beers at The Hotel, he says
and then Sigve says that Asle mustn’t forget the photograph of the house and he goes and takes it down
Yes it sure looks like it’s been hanging there a long time, Sigve says
and he says that Asle should just come by and knock whenever he wants, and then they’ll go to The Hotel, at least if it’s anytime in the afternoon or evening, he says and Asle says yes he will
Thanks for the beer, he says
No problem, Sigve says
and then Sigve says that he mustn’t forget the books and then he dashes back into the living room and gets the two books and Asle takes them and opens his shoulder bag and puts them in
The Asle who lives in Stranda has a brown leather shoulder bag just like that, Sigve says
and Asle doesn’t understand why Sigve keeps talking about that other Asle he’s never met, but maybe it’s just something that comes to mind? something to say? Asle thinks and he and Sigve say see you later and then Asle leaves and under his right arm he has the old photograph of the house Sigve’s renting and Asle thinks that he should have gone to see Grandmother, but now he smells like beer, and she’d notice, and she wouldn’t like that, so it would be just as well if he looked in on her tomorrow, and he’s already been to see her once today, with his parents, and from now on he’ll go and see Grandmother every day after he gets out of The Academic High School, he thinks, but that was good, the beer, so maybe he should go buy himself a bottle or two, Asle thinks and he walks into The Co-op Store and gets a bottle of beer and he goes over to the cash register and the woman sitting at the register asks if he can prove that he’s eighteen and old enough to buy beer, yes, that’s what she says, prove it, Asle thinks and he takes out his wallet and ID card and hands her the ID and she looks at it and hands it back to Asle and then she rings up the price on the cash register and Asle pays and he opens the shoulder bag and he puts the bottle in the shoulder bag, and then it’s sitting there next to the sketchpad and the ashtray and the two books he’s borrowed from Sigve, and then the woman sitting at the register says goodbye and Asle says goodbye and then he leaves and then he walks up the road, in his black velvet jacket, with his shoulder bag, with his long brown hair hanging down his back he walks up the road and I sit at the round table in front of the window and I look at the same spot in the water, at my landmark, at the waves there, and I might have dozed off a little, I think and the fire in the stove must have burned out and I realize I’m a little cold and it isn’t dark outside yet but it’s always a little dark all day at this time of year, and if I were doing what I usually did I would have long since been painting by now, but I realize that I just don’t want to paint, I have no desire to paint, and I’ve always liked to paint, yes, I’ve liked it since I was a boy, and now, I think, I’ll go light the stove again and get it a little warmer in the room, I think, and I then I probably should eat something? I think, so I’ll just go make myself a sandwich, I think and I still feel so tired so tired and now maybe I want to get a little sleep? lie down on the bench? or maybe I’ll read a little first? because I do feel like reading, I think, it’s been a long time since I’ve felt like reading, because painting sort of took over, yes, took up all my time, but he, Sigve, used to read a lot, but then he died suddenly while walking to work at The Furniture Factory one morning, he just fell over, and he wasn’t that old, I think, and Ales read a lot, she read everything, and in the last few years after she started painting icons she read mostly about icon painting of course but she also read a lot in the last few years she was alive from the Christian mystics from the Middle Ages, and she especially read a lot by Meister Eckhart, and I read him too, and so maybe I’ll read some more Meister Eckhart now, I think and I think that Ales often used to say that there was something in Meister Eckhart’s writings that I was also doing in my painting, not directly, of course, but in a way I was
kind of doing the same thing, she said and she was definitely right about that and it’s cold, I think, so I need to light a fire in the stove, I think and I think that Ales often said that it was these so-called Christians, Catholics and other kinds, who were always constantly misusing God’s name, again and again, yes, the people who took God’s name in vain the least were the ones who never took the word of God into their mouths at all, because, as Ales said, der Mensch kann nicht wissen, was Gott ist, that’s what Meister Eckhart wrote, Ales said, and she said that Was Gott für sich selbst ist, das kann niemand begreifen, she said, yes, Gott ist keinem Dinge völlig nichts, Gott ist für sich selbst nicht völlig nichts, Gott ist nichts, was man in Worte fassen kann, Eckhart wrote, Ales said and she said that when she heard how many Christians misused God’s name she thought that if God was the way they thought he was then she couldn’t believe in him anyway, she said, I remember she said that one of the first days we were together, I think and I’ve read nowhere near enough but I have read a little now and then in The Bible, and there are passages there that have given me a lot, maybe most of all where it says that the kingdom of God is inside you, inside us, inside me, because I constantly feel something like God’s nearness, I think, and Ales said that maybe what I felt was an angel passing over me? or maybe The Holy Spirit was nearby? she said, I think, but those are just words, because what’s the difference really? I think, and I think that The Bible has to be interpreted, has to be read metaphorically, yes, like it’s not the real thing but a picture, like a painting, with its own truth, because The Bible is literature, and when it comes right down to it literature and visual art are the same thing, I think, and to understand The Bible you have to start from its own spirit, for the letter kills but The Spirit gives life, as Paul wrote, I think, because even if The Bible is literature it’s also more than literature, I think, and even I’m only a borderline member of The Catholic Church, I think, or really I’m outside it, because of how I think, still I’ve found my place in The Church, I think, and seeing oneself as Catholic isn’t just a belief, it’s a way of being alive and being in the world, one that’s in a way like being an artist, since being a painter is also a way of living your life, a way of being in the world, and for me these two ways of being in the world go together well since they both create a kind of distance from the world, so to speak, and point towards something else, something that’s both in the world, immanent, as they say, and that also points away from the world, something transcendent, as they say, and you can’t entirely understand it, I think, and then I again think that the kingdom of God is within me, because a kingdom of God does exist, I think, and I can feel it when I make the sign of the cross, I think and I make the sign of the cross, and I do that all the time, but only when I’m alone, except in Church, and I sometimes do it many times a day, whenever the pain comes, and also when gratitude comes, yes, then too, yes I make the sign of the cross all the time and there’s a power in doing it, yes, there definitely is, even if it’s impossible to say what kind of power it is, because the power is outside of words, but it’s there, the power, and that’s a fact, and it’s impossible to understand why it’s like that since it’s just not something you can understand, I think and I look at all the rosaries hanging on the wall on the short side of the room above the bench, because I do have a lot of rosaries, and I got all of them from Ales, and now the ones I got from Ales and Ales’s too are there on a hook above the end of the bench, aside from the one I always wear, I think and I think that there is also a strange power in the Eucharist, yes, every time the priest holds up the bread in the consecration, as they call it, to change it into Christ’s body a kind of light shines out from the host, yes, I see it, I see it with my own eyes, the host gives off a weak light in all directions, stronger or weaker, light comes from the host, or from something like a halo around it, sometimes you can only just make out the light, yes, it’s like it’s in a fog, but you can still make it out inside the fog, or else it’s more like a halo around it, it’s not something you can understand but I know what I know, I’ve seen what I’ve seen, and of course I might be imagining it but so what? I think and I think that words, yes, language, both connect us to God and separate us from Him, I think, and now it’s gotten so cold that I need to light the stove, I think and I get up and Bragi falls onto the floor, because I’d forgotten he was lying asleep on my lap, that’s too bad, again, I think and Bragi looks at me with his dog’s eyes and then I go over to the stove and I put some wood chips and kindling and a log in and light it and it catches right away and I put another log in and I look at the logs and I think that I never would have become Catholic if Ales hadn’t been Catholic, but I became one too, because I couldn’t stop drinking so much, by the end I was drinking almost around the clock and I couldn’t stop, and because to paint well I had to be sober, if I drank even a little I lost the concentration and precision you need for painting, so it was either alcohol or paintings, I think and when the alcohol was gone then the mass replaced it, because everyone needs something, in a way, I think and I think that near the end of when Ales and I were living in Bjørgvin I spent so much time in The Alehouse, I think, and Ales had to come get me more than a few times, I think, because sometimes I’d be drinking around the clock, and I never regretted converting, because becoming Catholic, not just feeling God’s closeness all the time as I’d felt before I became Catholic too, was good for me, it’s as simple as that, and Ales said everything so clearly, and I always think muddled thoughts, but now that I’ve realized I don’t have any desire to paint any more should I maybe start reading more? because Ales read a lot, yes, she read and read, novels and plays and poetry, she read in all the Scandinavian languages and she read academic literature in English and German as well, so we were similar in that way, because even if I didn’t graduate from The Academic High School I was on what they call the Modern Languages track but when I stopped going to The Academic High School and started at The Art School I could barely read a book in either English or German, and not at all in French, but I learned English and German gradually, by reading, it was just French, yes, the only French that stuck were a few expressions that I’ll probably always be able to rattle off, and as I stand there looking at the logs I think that I know so little, for example I don’t even know something as simple as why I’ve always signed my paintings with a big A in the right-hand corner of the painting itself and painted the title on the top of the stretcher on the back, always in thick black paint, why did I do it in that particular way? I think and I think that all the titles were either in Norwegian, Nynorsk, or in Latin, and the ones in Latin were always quoted from somewhere in the Latin mass, because I prefer it when the mass is celebrated in Latin, I think and I can’t just stay standing here looking at the logs through the open hatch of the stove, I think, and it’s been a long time since I’ve eaten anything, so even if I don’t feel hungry I should probably go make myself a sandwich, I think and I shut the hatch of the stove and I go out to the kitchen and I see the leg of lamb hanging there, and there’s almost no meat left on it and I think that I am hungry and still I don’t feel like eating, I think, but I will get myself a little something to drink, I think and I pour myself a glass of nice cold water and I drink it down in one gulp and I still feel tired, so maybe I’ll just go lie down on the bench for a bit? I think and I go into the main room and lie down on the bench and spread the grey blanket over me, the one Grandmother handed to me when they came to take her to The Hospice and that I’ve had with me ever since, wherever I’ve lived, and Bragi hops up onto me and lies down curled up against my feet and I close my eyes and I see Asle sitting at the back desk of the classroom and The Teacher is standing up front at the lectern and he says that he’ll be teaching us English, as a main subject, and French, which we’ll all be starting together, he says, and to find out a little more about us he would like us to read a little English out loud for him, and he’s taken a text that, if he may say so himself, he personally wrote for this very purpose,
and divided it up into sections, he says and now each and every one of us will read our own section, and we might as well start on the right, yes, with you, The Teacher says and he looks at the girl sitting at the front desk to his right, and it would be nice if you all stayed sitting at the desks you’re sitting at now, and if you would first say your name and then read, one section each, and while we’re doing that he will make a name chart for the class to help him remember all our names, there are so many names to keep track of when you’ve been a teacher for as many years as he has, The Teacher says and then he gives a packet of sheets of paper stapled together to the girl sitting in the front desk of the row to the left of the row where Asle is sitting and she says her name and then she starts to read and as far as Asle can tell she reads English well, she pronounces the words nicely, and she reads with a nice flow to the sentences and then she’s done and then she hands the packet of paper to the boy sitting at the desk behind her and he says his name and then he reads for a while and Asle can’t hear if it’s good or bad because he’s suddenly filled with a kind of terror, the packet of paper is moving from desk to desk and getting closer and closer to him and soon it’s going to reach him and then he’ll have to say his name and then he’ll have to read out loud and he’s never felt terror like this before, and the terror gets stronger and stronger the closer the packet of paper gets and one person after another says their name and reads and never never in his life has Asle felt so scared, it’s like his whole body has gone stiff and like the fear is a stake through his body, a stake paralyzing him, and he can’t do this, he just has to get out, he can’t do it, Asle thinks and he’s breathing more heavily and he’s afraid he’ll fall off of his chair and his hands are all sweaty and he’s clutching the desk and he bends forward over the desk and his hair hangs down in front of his face and his whole body is rigid and, and, he can’t do this, he needs to run away, but he can’t run away either, he thinks, because he can’t, he can’t move, he can’t escape and the girl sitting at the desk in front of him turns around and looks at him and then she hands him the stapled packet of paper and Asle takes the packet and his hands are shaking so much that he’s afraid the packet will fall to the floor but he manages to get it onto his desk and then he sits there and he starts reading, word by word, voice shaking, he stops, he skips over one word and then he hears The Teacher say thank you and Asle picks up the packet and his hands are shaking so much and then he turns and hands the quivering paper to the girl sitting at the desk next to him and she takes the paper from him and he turns back forwards and his whole body’s shaking and the girl sitting next to him says her name and then she starts reading in a calm voice and it’s nice hearing her read, her voice is so relaxed, and she reads in such a steady flow, Asle thinks and he realizes that he’s starting to calm down, and it’s like the voice of the girl reading now is making him calmer, and what just happened? he thinks, and he thinks that having to read out loud has never made him scared before and he was always having to read out loud in school, he thinks, and he thinks that he can’t go to school if he’s like this, so he’ll have to drop out of The Academic High School, he thinks or else he’ll have to talk to The Teacher and tell him, say that he’s scared to death of reading out loud and ask if he can get out of doing that, he thinks, or else he’ll just have to drop out of The Academic High School, and he can do that, he doesn’t need to go to The Academic High School, there’s nothing forcing him to stay, he had to go to primary school and middle school but he doesn’t have to go to The Academic High School, he thinks and The Teacher says that today’s time is almost up, it’s breaktime, they got through about half the text this time and the rest of the class will say their names and read their sections next time, he says and Asle thinks that there’s maths next period and even though he can’t do maths and has never been able to do maths and will never learn how to do maths, and will never understand a thing in what they call mathematics, at least he won’t have to read anything out loud, he thinks, and then the last period is history, and that’s one subject Asle has always liked, and he won’t have to read out loud then either, so he’ll be spared today, but tomorrow there’s French and then Norwegian, and he doesn’t know a word of French so he won’t have to read in that period, Asle thinks, but in Norwegian class he might have to read out loud and so he has to tell The Norwegian Teacher before then that he can’t read out loud, that he’s scared to death of that, yes, scared to death of hearing his own voice reading something out loud, so they’ll have to let him get out of that or else he’ll have to drop out of The Academic High School, that’s what he has to say, Asle thinks and The Norwegian Teacher is also the instructor in history, and he was the one who wrote the weekly schedule up on the blackboard during the first period and told everyone what teachers they’d have, and what books they needed to buy, and he was dressed a little strangely, in grey trousers and a blue-grey velvet jacket, and he was wearing both a belt and suspenders, and both the belt and the suspenders were narrow, and both were clearly visible, and his trousers were wide, and his velvet jacket was too, and then he had a thin red tie on, while The Teacher they would have for English and French just wore trousers and a pullover, a grey pair of trousers and a white pullover with blue stripes and I lie here on the bench with the grey blanket tucked tight around me and I open my eyes and I scrunch my hands in Bragi’s fur and I pull him closer to me and I close my eyes and Bragi moves a little and I pet him, I close my eyes and I see Asle standing there and he’s telling Beyer that he doesn’t want to go to the opening and Beyer says he’s about to have his first show, doesn’t he want to be there for the opening? and also, Beyer says, well, if the painter doesn’t come then it’s possible not a single painting will sell, he says, a totally unknown painter, making his debut, yes, and still a student at The Art School or at least until just recently, and now he doesn’t want to come to the opening