by Tore Renberg
‘Hm?’ Sandra juts her chin out. ‘I didn’t hear what you said.’
The sound of footsteps coming across the gravel behind them. Daniel and Sandra turn around. Malene. It’s Malene.
60. INTERNATIONAL EMOTION (Tiril)
She should sit at the front of the stage playing piano. Sing. Just her, a piano and the audience. Like Amy Lee. But she can’t play the piano. It’s just as well Thea is taking care of the music so she can concentrate totally on vocals. There’s a video like that on YouTube, where Amy is sitting on a stool singing while the guitarist in the band is responsible for the music. But Amy is kind of fat there and doesn’t look too good, and the backdrop isn’t great either.
‘Candles?’
Tiril has pictured it. That they can cut out the spotlight and the coloured lights. It would be a lot more intense if they bought a load of candles – pillar candles, purple and white – and turned off the lights in the hall.
‘Yeah, good, eh?’
Tiril and Thea walk through the double doors into the gym hall. Lots of people are there, things are already underway and Svein Arne is busy helping with rehearsals. He’s the one responsible for organising things, Svein Arne Bendiksen. He’s in charge of the school revue and he’s a musician – good at everything. People say he held the county record in playing fast on the guitar when he was younger and he’s able to play the saxophone, the piano and the oboe, and one time a guitarist from a really huge band, Tyler Straits or something, heard Svein Arne play, and he said that Svein Arne was a mega talent.
‘I’m certain it would look good,’ Tiril continues, as they hurry into the hall. She unbuttons her jacket and waves to Svein Arne.
‘Tiril! Thea! Great!’ Svein Arne comes towards them smiling. ‘Good stuff, we can have you on soon.’
‘Listen, we were thinking,’ Tiril says, ‘about the lighting…’
‘You’ll have to talk to the lighting crew about it…’
‘Yeah, I know, but you’re the director,’ Tiril laughs, ‘or the manager. Anyway, what about if it’s all totally dark, right, when we’re introduced. Then we, like, come on stage, Thea in white, me in black, and I go and light up ten or twenty big candles while Thea plays the intro…’
Svein Arne nods, clearly impressed. His long curls bobbing about his enthusiastic face. ‘But if it’s going to be that dark, then maybe you should consider wearing something other than all black…’
‘Nah, I’ll have some candles right beside me…’
He laughs. ‘Right, just make sure you don’t catch fire then. Great. That sounds atmospheric. You’re on in about twenty minutes. We’re going through the programme in the same order as tomorrow. I’m just going to finish up with the dancers from Eksilstuna. You have to see them, they’re really good.’
He jogs back to the stage: ‘Right, okay, we’ll go again. Ingrid, Susanna, wasn’t it, yeah, Susanna, Kadi … Kadija, yes, Malin, Badra! Mina! Ulrik! Okay, let’s take it from … let me see … what is it Taylor Swift sings there … we are never, ever, ever, yeah two times on ever, no wait, actually it’s three times here…’
‘Taylor Swift,’ Tiril snorts. ‘Candles. Thea, you play the intro. I’ll go and light them. It’ll look cool, yeah?’
Tiril takes off her jacket. Then she gets a look in her eyes. Money. Twenty pillar candles. That’ll cost a bit. She can’t afford it. She’s not getting paid before next week.
‘Thea?’
‘Mhm?’
‘I was wondering … can you get the money for candles?’
‘Sure,’ Thea says, with a facial expression as if it were an odd question.
‘Cool. We’ll buy them tomorrow. He’s really good, Svein Arne, isn’t he?’
‘Mhm, yeah, he can play so many instruments.’
They survey the gym hall. Strange when it’s filled with people from other countries. They’re all being put up in pupils’ homes. There’s one in Tiril’s year who has a Finnish girl from Jyväsklä staying with her, another in Malene’s year who has a girl from Antsirabe in Madagascar living with her – she’s really cool, she’s going to give a speech, apparently, and recite a poem. And Ulrik, he’s going to play the guitar; cute, little Ulrik, so popular he makes all the girls melt.
‘They’re all from twin towns of Stavanger,’ says Thea. ‘Do you know anyone?’
‘Well…’ she wrinkles up her nose, ‘spoke a little with a girl from Denmark…’
‘They’re from, let me see,’ Thea counts on her fingers, ‘Fjardabyggd, that’s in Iceland somewhere, Esteli in Nicaragua, Houston, in Texas of course, and from Esbjerg in Denmark, Nablus, that’s in Palestine…’
‘Yeah, yeah, Brainy, I know, you’re so good at…’
Thea continues: ‘And from Aberdeen in Scotland, from Eksiltuna in Sweden, and Jyväskylä and Antsirabe…’
Somebody pokes Tiril on the shoulder. She turns around.
Bunny’s little brother.
What the hell is he doing here?
‘Can I have a word?’
There´s something different about him. For one thing, he’s on his own. He never usually is. He’s always with those annoying friends of his. For another, he doesn’t have that cheeky grin on his face. And thirdly, he’s just standing calmly. He has a pair of headphones around his neck. She can’t remember ever having seen him stand quietly.
‘I don’t have the time.’
‘It’s all right – we’re not on for another twenty—’
Thea. Great. You had to open your mouth.
‘Just a couple of minutes,’ says Shaun. ‘Five. Tops. Promise.’
‘Listen,’ says Tiril, folding her arms, ‘you’ve ratted to Kenny, you’ve spat in my hair, you’ve—’
Shaun shakes his head. ‘I didn’t rat to Kenny. I wasn’t the one who told him.’
‘Yeah. Right.’
‘Can you not just come outside with me for a sec? Just for a bit. Five minutes. Two minutes.’
‘Where Kenny is standing waiting with your idiot mates to beat the shit out of me. Do you think I’m stupid, Shaun?’
He remains standing, quite still. Tiril tries to remain firm, but can’t maintain it. Some old memories well up inside her, from primary school, when she and Shaun used to have pretend fights in the snow, when he tripped her up, when she threw snowballs at him, when she sat on his chest and gave him typewriter torture.
‘One minute.’
She gets to her feet.
‘Okay. One minute. Max.’
Shaun nods and begins walking towards the door. His body isn’t swaying from side to side as much as usual. He’s small, almost a foot shorter than her. He walks with his hands in his pockets and his head down. She follows him. Out through the foyer, out the front doors. Shaun walks a little away from the gym hall, over behind a tree.
She comes to a halt when she reaches him. ‘Well, what is it?’
‘I—’
‘He’s bang out of order, Kenny, you are aware of that? Do you know what he did?’
Shaun nods. ‘I can’t do anything about it, some others told him, and Kenny … Kenny’s not quite right in the head, it’s not my fault.’
‘What do you want, so?’
‘I—’
Tiril takes a deep breath. Her chest rises.
‘Have you got a fag?’
Shaun nods. He takes a ten-pack from the pocket of his baggy hoodie. They sneak around to the side of the gym hall. He produces a lighter, lights one for her and then one for himself.
‘We’re probably the only ones in second year who smoke.’
He nods. ‘I was the only one who smoked in sixth class too. Going to try to quit soon.’
‘Me too. Not good for the singing voice.’
Tiril is pushed for time, but she looks him over. Small, scared and strange, that’s what he is. Her eyes fall on his headphones. ‘What are you listening to?’
Shaun gives an embarrassed shrug. ‘Ah, nothing.’
‘Give me a look at your phone, t
hen.’
‘Eh,’ he says, shifting his feet.
‘Give me a look.’
Shaun takes his phone out of his pocket, makes a face, not eager to let her see. But Tiril grabs it, begins to scroll. Just hip-hop, just shit music. Eminem, Rihanna and a load of bands she’s never heard of – David Banner, Khia, Akinyele… what the fuck? Her finger stops moving. She glances up at Shaun.
‘Eh…’ He blushes.
‘Put it in my mouth?’
‘Eh, yeah, that…’
‘What the fuck is this … smell your dick? We fuck virgins?’
She removes the headphones from around his neck, puts them on and presses play. A sleazy drumbeat. A siren. A creepy man’s voice whispering: Cum girl, tryna get your … what’s he singing? Tiril raises one eyebrow at Shaun while she taps the next song on the playlist. A faint drumbeat, another creepy voice, a woman this time: All you ladies pop your … what is she singing?
Tiril takes off the headphones. Her cheeks are flushed, she tries not to swallow but can’t manage. The little, embarrassed halfwit stands there in front of her and she doesn’t have time for this.
‘Awesome Pornrap for Shaun,’ she says.
‘Eh, yeah…’
She shakes her head.
‘You are a sick slacker,’ she says, handing him the phone.
He takes it and shrugs again, as if that’s the only thing in the world he’s able to do. ‘Yeah, I suppose I am, all right,’ he says in a low tone.
‘That music,’ she says. ‘It’s, like – Jesus, Shaun.’
Again he shrugs. ‘I know. That’s the kind of stuff I like.’
Shaun gazes at her, looks at her for longer than any boy has ever done.
‘What was it you wanted to talk to me about?’
‘Huh?’ His eyes flit about.
‘What was it you wanted to talk to me about?’ Tiril asks again, aware of an antsy warmth in her body and suddenly realising what all this is about. Without quite being able to explain it to her herself, without being able to take it in her hand and look at it shimmer, she decides to say yes when he asks if she’ll be his girlfriend. No, she decides to be the one in control, so she blows out the smoke and says: ‘Shaun. Do you want to go with me, or what?’
His eyes grow large.
‘What? Do you want to get down on one knee or something? Are you not able to speak now?’
She gives him a thump on the shoulder, but Shaun stands there, as though rooted to the spot, his eyes growing larger and larger.
‘Come on,’ Tiril says, ‘now you’ve got what you want. You need to cut back on the porno rap. There’s proper music out there. Have you heard Evanescence? And don’t make such a big deal out of this here. Kiss me. Make it quick. I haven’t got all night.’
Shaun blinks a few times, raises himself ever so slightly up on his toes, and gives her a kiss, a slightly awkward one, but nice all the same.
61. BRILLIANT, SPOFFI! THIS IS GOING TO WORK LIKE A DREAM! (Rudi)
Granted, at first sight, yeah. At first sight Jan Inge may not cut such an impressive figure as he does when you see him in action. But then we´re talking discrimination, Rudi thinks, and isn’t that a mortal sin? What we’re looking at then is a type of racism, a type of Nazism, obesity Nazism, and what was it we learned in primary school about not judging people by their appearance, their race or creed? It’s bullying, pure and simple. And Rudi’s seen it so many times when he’s been in the presence of the great Jan Inge, and he doesn’t mean ‘great’ as in fat, but ‘great’ as in brilliant, and what would Gran have to say about that? Shame on you! People who meet Jan Inge and look away, people who talk shit behind his back, call him a hobbit, or people who quite simply talk shit to his face. Do they not think he’s hurt by that?
Great men have feelings too.
The worst Rudi’s experienced was the time they had a job on with the Tornes Gang from around Haugesund. A shower of bastards. Doped out of their minds all day long, swapping women all the time, swindling each other, no conscience and no love, either for the profession or for the people engaged in it. It had seemed so promising, a nice decent break-in up in Haugesund. They’d come by information, they needed people, they’d heard about Jani’s gang – naturally enough, word gets around. But Jesus, Mary and Holy Saint fucking Joseph. It started from the minute they met them. ‘Whataboutye,’ said the Tornes guy, the one with ears as big as an elephant, ‘fat ass there is Jan Inge, is he?’ ‘Whataboutye,’ his brother chipped in, Tornes guy number two, the one with such a tiny nose you’d think he’d snorted it away, ‘all right hi, Porky, you going to drive the Skoda, are you?’ ‘Whataboutye,’ Tornes guy number three takes over, the youngest brother, the one with the mental big wart on his forehead, ‘all right hi, Fatso, are you the one called Videoboy?’ Oh fuck, Gran, wash my mouth out with Domestos. I’m happy you didn’t have to see that. That’s how they went on, for two whole days, and if it hadn’t been for Jan Inge himself refusing to let Tong and Rudi do over the whole Tornes Gang and cut them into pieces, then that’s what would have happened to them, and they would have been messed up and smelt even worse.
It’s only fair and proper, thinks Rudi, that I stand in Jani’s shadow.
Der Führer, without making invidious comparisons.
Look how he puts his arm around Pål. Strolling along in the lee of the substation. Seems like a sound bloke, Pål. Heart in the right place. Feels like one of us in a lot of ways, thinks Rudi, as he hears Jan Inge say: ‘Are you with us, Pål? Will we do this? Go through with, what I like to call, a time-honoured classic?’
When they meet people they’re going to cooperate with in some way or another, Rudi often feels that he can’t really talk to them, like they’re living in a world far removed from his. But Pål. Top bloke, plain and simple. Really good feeling, knowing they’re not just doing this for the money, but also to help their fellow man.
Fellow Man.
That was a book, so it was. Granny was always on about it. She had books on the brain, Gran. Sitting there with her books. Hamsun and Agatha Christie and whatever their names were. Nothing wrong with that, total respect for book people, Rudi thinks, even though I’ve chosen the real life and everything it has to offer, instead of the book life with all it has to give.
Pål doesn’t reply. But Jan Inge allows him time.
It’s all about being calm, pensive and dignified.
‘Let me tell you a story,’ he hears Jani say, from over in the thicket. ‘A little story. My father – I won’t mention his name or where he lives – my father had some problems once. Lets put it like that. Some problems that his kids, my sister and me that is, weren’t completely aware of. If you and I were to walk the miles together, I could tell you all about it. About what a child sees, about what a frightened little child understands and what a grown-up understands, and what a person who sees an axe coming down on their throat understands. You like horror, Pål? No? I could – and maybe I will? – show you some films one day. Suspiria? No? You haven’t seen Nightmare in a Damaged Brain? The Thing? No? Carnival of Souls? You haven’t seen it? Night of the Living Dead? The Hills Have Eyes? Hm. You sure I haven’t met you before? Anyway. My father. He had an insurmountable number of problems. And this is in spite of being a happy-go-lucky guy. If there’s one thing that characterises him, it’s his unbelievable good humour. It’s almost mystifying. But problems. Big problems. But you know, we were just kids, and I mean, what did we know about adult life. I mean, what were we? A trifle, blades of grass in the field. So, we’re talking the very early eighties here – keywords are Blondie, Wham!, Blade Runner, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, John Holmes, Desiree Cousteau – and let me make it quite clear that we’re anti-porn. We’re feminists, twenty-four hours a day. At your service, women! The eighties – reminds me of Speedos and tight shorts, Rossignol skis and Björn Borg, things your kids will never know anything about. Smells they won’t associate with anything. I mean, who remembers Kim Carnes? Me, Pål. Me. Or
, hold on … ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ … no, now I’m getting mix—Rudi! Eighty? Eighty-one? Eighty-two?’
‘No idea, that’s your area of expertise.’
Jan Inge nods: ‘I think I might be wrong, forget that about Kim Carnes.’ He plods on for another few steps with Pål, who still remains silent. Rudi has begun patting Zitha, the dog breathing calmly to his touch.
Jan Inge breathes in and out heavily. ‘I’m showing faith in you now, Pål. Because I like you. But also because I want to show you that in our firm, we’re different. We’re not some cocaine-snorting gang of idiots from around Haugesund. We work with, and for, people. We don’t bow to the Hell Angels or the Bandidos. We don’t jump for joy because David Toska and his gang come to town. We work away quietly. We’re almost like part of the very bedrock of the city. Anyway. My dad. So he had a large number of insurmountable – is that what it’s called? Insurmountable? Rudi? Insurmountable or insuperable?’
Rudi pouts while pondering the question. ‘Errrr,’ he says, ‘I think you could use either of them.’
‘Right. They were the problems he had. Insurmountable and insuperable. I can just say it right out: the biggest problem was my mother. A she-devil, Pål. The mother of all fears. A heart of glass. We can talk about it another time, when the two of us are sharing a pipe by the ocean – I’m speaking metaphorically now – then, we can talk about it. But now we’re discussing my Dad. And I’m getting to the point. Around this time, he was made an offer. An offer, Pål. Just like you.
Now Rudi feels a tugging in his chest. This is precisely what he loves about Jan Inge. Standing here, on an ordinary Wednesday, watching him in action. His thoughts flying hither and thither, his words too, and who knows what he’s after but then it comes, the point.
‘Yes,’ he hears the master say. ‘My father got an offer. This was the oil age now, Pål, not the internet age—’
‘Mayhem! Get thee behind me!’ Rudi makes the sign of the cross with two fingers and holds them towards the sky.
Jan Inge laughs his reedy laughter. ‘It’s the era of oil, and my father is in that business and he gets an offer. While he’s up to his neck in problems. Will he accept a job over there?’