Child Wonder

by Roy Jacobsen

  “I’m little,” she said.

  “Are you heck,” I said.

  “Do I have to?”

  “Yes,” I repeated, this was a matter of life and death, and Mother had to exert her iron will not to shout: “Come on, pack it in, Finn, let’s go and eat and leave her alone,” etc.

  Linda looked glumly down at the paper, took a deep breath and read:

  “To the Tanja who packs up all her things every year and travels to Rumania and Sardinia …” And when she also succeeded in more or less stumbling her way through the impossible “Czechoslovakia”, Mother hoisted full sail and began to behave in a manner that I would prefer not to have to describe.

  “It’s my fault! It’s my fault!”

  Linda’s eyes grew wide in horror and she was assaulted with clumsy hugs and what I assume must have been outbursts of joy, although they were more like the throes of an excruciating demise. Mother jumped up holding her forehead as if she were unable to remember her own name or where she lived. And Linda was even more bemused. But I managed to snatch my letter before the more earnest sections were revealed, stuffed it in my satchel and took Linda into the kitchen to do some cooking, to make rissoles.

  “With onions,” Linda said.

  “With onions,” I said, taking the oval aluminium can from the fridge and giving her a large carving knife and showing her how to peel an onion, like this, like this, and started on the rissoles which were already half-cooked and needed little more than to be put in a pan with a lump of Melange margarine, I was prattling away non-stop because I had some vague notion that I should drag out the time, the longer it lasted the more composed Mother would be when at length she emerged to sort out the food, this is the kind of thing a son knows, heaven knows how, sooner or later his mother will come to her senses and take over and just laugh at the mess.

  And so she did. Mother does not let you down when it really counts. Here she comes, with dried eyes, restored and calm and says oh, good for you, before grabbing the carving knife and – as I said – taking over. Mother rules the roost. In the meantime Linda and I sit facing each other drumming our knives and forks on the table and chanting bitumen and tarmac louder and louder and faster and faster until Linda explodes with laughter.

  This is Freddy 1’s magic formula, which he still goes around mumbling; I have a suspicion his single reason for doing this is that he imagines they are elegant words, or because he is half nuts and can’t get them out of his head – he is full of weird words, red words and green words and words which are nigh on colourless, and in the end they all sound like a cry for help.

  22

  It would soon be Linda’s birthday. And here, too, she was on new ground, a new-born baby, an innocent, so the day had to be much more than the annual routines we others go in for, and it also marked an unparalleled performance in the reading test, with invitations to all the little girls the street could muster, Mother was going to bake, Marlene would sing, Kristian would do magic tricks …

  And what would I do?

  Nothing, I knew, something was beginning to take control of me, I was beginning to stay outdoors, until late at night, I sat in a tree in Hagan or in the bomb shelter or wittered on about setting up a room in the loft, temporary digs without Kristian, and when Mother asked me one day if we should invite some of my friends too, that did it.

  “On Linda’s birthday?”

  “Yes, is that so strange?”

  “Er … yes, in fact it is.”

  “What about Essi?”

  “I don’t play much with Essi any more.”

  She didn’t say much for a while, probably out of fear I would suggest Freddy 1, but a bit later she made the suggestion herself.

  “That Freddy, he could come, couldn’t he?”

  No sooner said than done. So when the evening arrived I hid my jacket and shoes in the bike room in the cellar; as the first guests, the twins, showed up, to a huge fuss, I managed to nip out unnoticed and down the stairs where I bumped into another guest, quite literally, Freddy 1, who was trying to hide something behind his back.

  “What are you up to?” I asked.

  “Er … don’t know,” he said sheepishly.

  We stood eyeing each other, a meeting we could well have done without, both of us, I knew. Then one more guest appeared, Jenny, more straight-backed than ever, and I was able to slip into the bike room and change my clothes.

  I left and went up through the estate, into Eikelundveien, along Liaveien, off to the right and up into relatively unknown territory. I had been here on my bike before, with pals, but a bike is one thing, on foot you are closer to the ground and a lot less mobile, both in time and space, more present, so to speak, in foreign parts. Around me there were gardens and detached houses in undeviating straight rows, packed with private life and stoicism in warm felt slippers. Then it started raining, it developed into a storm, sleet, and after passing the market garden I found myself opposite the boiler station on my own estate, again filled with that strange feeling of what it is like to return home without a single thing having changed.

  But I had got no further than halfway down the estate before I spotted the fourteen or so colourful vehicles parked alongside the boundary fence between here and Gamlehagan, surrounded by raucous loudspeakers and an exotic jangle that could only mean fairground music. I remembered hearing about this, that a fair was coming to Tonsen, with a wheel of fortune and tombola and pyramids of tin cans you could take a shy at with small bags of peas, as well as a shooting gallery.

  It was above all the latter that attracted my interest – I had in fact used an air gun before, at Østreheim, and was a pretty good shot, Uncle Tor had called me a natural talent. It had stopped raining by now as well, this was only October after all, it was somewhere between seven and eight o’clock in the evening and a last surviving angled ray of sun beamed down on me; furthermore, I had seventy øre in my pocket.

  But there was a queue, formed and administered by Raymond Wackarnagel and his henchmen, and a violent altercation was developing at the shooting gallery between the robust owner, a broad-shouldered hulk, who spoke Swedish in a way the queue considered highly amusing and the afore-mentioned Wackarnagel who was furious about something – I heard words like cheat and traveller and scum being bandied around.

  Before I could investigate the matter further I caught sight of Tanja, of all people, my Tanja, as invisible as always, sitting on a folding chair by the entrance to the chamber of horrors, as though she were on guard duty. It was a joy to observe that she had seen me first and now was waiting for me to notice her, and smile, which I assume I must have done because her eyes were downcast, with both pleasure and grace, of that there was little doubt.

  This made it possible for me to continue gazing at her, from the front for a change. It was quite a sight: she was holding her knees together tightly beneath the hem of her red flowery dress, like Mother in shoe-shop mode, and they were a bit pointed. Too pointed? Me, I’ve always had a soft spot for rounded knees. Moreover, she had such thin calves, from the knees down they went one way, inwards, until the skinny ankles passed into a pair of concertina’d stockings and large old-lady shoes, the type Gran wore in her rocking chair. Not forgetting her hair, that wonderful cascade of shiny ink that was now divided into two and ran down each side of the magical Modigliani face she, as I have said before, was making a half-hearted attempt to hide; it never occurred to me that it was not for my sake it hung there, it would always be there for me, whether I observed her from the front or the back, it was my hair, shaped and washed and combed for my sake, then I felt a blast of moist breath inside my ear.

  “Your turn, Finn, but actually I think you should give this shithead a miss, there’s somethin’ dodgy goin’ on here.”

  Wackarnagel is a man whose advice one ought to heed, but I had set something in motion here, and it had to be finished, so I put fifty øre on the counter, and the great hulk shoved a zinc bowl towards me containing five darts of various
colours plus a rifle way beyond well-used, which I weighed in my hands and studied: the scratches on the butt, the age, the wear and tear. I broke it open and loaded it, but as I was about to insert the first dart in the barrel, I started to quake, the dart fell out of my hands, and as I bent down to pick it up – to everyone’s amusement – again I caught the unmistakable aroma of flowers and petrol.

  “The barrel’s warped. Aim to the right.”

  I straightened up, put the dart in the barrel without looking around and took aim.

  “No supporting,” the Swede said.

  I sent him a questioning look. “No supporting!” he repeated even more vehemently.

  “He can barely reach up to the counter,” Wackarnagel said.

  The big man regarded me with dislike.

  “O.K., then.”

  I didn’t even know what they were talking about.

  “Rest your elbows on the counter,” Wackarnagel ordered.

  I did as he said, that is, as I had already done, supported the gun, squinted, aimed a little to the right and hit the inner circle, a nine, to the left of centre. I aimed the next shot even further to the right and got even closer to the centre. The third was a bull’s-eye, if that is what it is called, a ten, and also the last two shots landed where they should, all of this to mounting jubilation.

  They were not all bull’s-eyes, though, I was informed, but forty-five points was enough for a prize, Tarzan bathing trunks or bag of Twist sweets.

  “Take the sweets,” Wackarnagel said.

  But there were tiger stripes on the trunks, so I took them, and at that moment my eyes met Tanja’s, she was back on her chair with her irresistible knees.

  “Are you gonna have another go?” Wackarnagel enquired.

  “Haven’t got any money.”

  “Here. But this time take the Twist!”

  Another fifty-øre coin landed on the counter, and the hulk pushed another bowl of darts towards me with a resigned sigh.

  “No supporting!” he said again. And this time he meant it.

  “Don’t be an idiot!” Wackarnagel pitched in.

  “Makes no odds,” I said.

  Wackarnagel gave up and the crowd fell silent. I loaded, adopted a suitable stance, rested my left elbow on my hip bone and scored forty-five points again, to another round of cheering, and this time I chose the bag of Twist, which Wackarnagel seized and distributed its contents among deserving takers, and there was a surprisingly large number of them today, the atmosphere demanded it, I suppose.

  “Christ, Finn beat the bugger, didn’t ‘e, lads. Here’s another.”

  Another fifty øre landed on the counter with a clink, such a smooth, shiny fifty øre it must have been at the zenith of its career as a coin, an unambiguous sign seen through the microscope of euphoria, every hair of the Norwegian buhund was visible, it barked. Now things had seriously begun to build up inside me, though, the ardent stares from between Tanja’s two cascades over by the chamber of horrors, my laughable bid to escape, this autumn which had turned out no better than the spring, perhaps thanks to Kristian, and not least the fantastic birthday party which was taking place at this moment in our flat, without me.

  But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the top shelf where there were no fewer than six enormous teddy bears – four pink, one light blue and one yellow – in a row constituting the shooting gallery’s main attraction, above the sign with the unattainable “48–50 POINTS”, which meant that if I managed to shoot three tens and a couple of nines I would be able to carry off the light-blue teddy bear and give it to Linda and solve all my problems, even if it did mean ignoring Wackarnagel’s orders.

  But that was a price I was prepared to pay.

  Anyway, Tanja was calming my nerves, like the letter when it worked. And once the first ten in the third round was bagged, I felt even more confident. The next two were spot on as well. Then my feet turned to clay, unable to carry me, I had to relax my arms and put the gun on the counter and gasp for breath, I felt faint. Wackarnagel observed me with amazement.

  “What is up, Finn?”

  “Dunno,” I mumbled.

  “Shut up!” he yelled to the assembled gathering. “Finn’s concentratin’!”

  That was one way of looking at it, I suppose. The fact was, however, that I had to go down on my knees and lay my hands flat on the ground. But crouching in this impossible position restored my strength, I straightened up and loaded – slowly, in a trance, to respectful silence, I raised the gun and promptly scored another ten, this time not accompanied by an outburst of cheering but by a large collective gasp.

  Where would I summon the strength for the last bull’s-eye? From Tanja, again, and I already knew as I squeezed the trigger that it was on target. So did the Swede, who let out a booming, round curse as the dart struck the board.

  “Five bags!” Wackarnagel cheered, and the unhappy stall owner was already counting the Twist bags when I received the signal from Tanja.

  “No,” I declared with firmness. “I want the teddy bear. The blue one.”

  Everything went quiet.

  “Eh?” said Wackarnagel.

  “Yes,” I said with equal firmness. “The blue one.”

  Wackarnagel looked around. But I felt I was on solid ground, and being the social genius he was, he switched on his fleshy smile and slapped me on the shoulder.

  “Course you’re gonna have the teddy, Finn.” Then added in a lower voice in my ear, “You little shit, Finnikins,” and like the referee in a boxing ring, held up my right arm.

  I grasped the bear, which was the same size as me, exchanged a final glance with Tanja, to receive the definitive nod of appreciation, but saw to my horror that instead she was rolling her eyes and looking away.

  What?

  I shouldered my way out of the laughing crowd and ran off, suddenly feeling decidedly stupid. As I passed No. 7 I found myself being watched again, by a gang of girls who were skipping, and being shouted at by name, and I was too old now, I knew that to the core of my being, to run around scot-free with a colossal teddy bear on my back, a synthetic monster which on the way down had become electric and was making my hair stand even more on end than usual. Beyond exhaustion, I crawled up the stairs, slung down the monstrous animal and the Tarzan trunks in the hall and burst into my room to barricade myself behind a locked door.

  “Are you there, Finn?” Linda called, rattling the door handle. “Open up, come on.”

  Easier said than done. For what on earth did Tanja mean by rolling her eyes?

  I knew all too well what she meant. That was the problem. I had made the wrong choice, I had chosen Linda before her, it was unforgivable, childish, laughable – would anyone more accustomed to brothers and sisters have committed the same hideous blunder? Of course not. Brothers and sisters are people you hate and you do not weigh them down with gargantuan teddy bears; they deprive you of room and food, they are in the way and are too old or too young, too clever or too stupid, and I had opted for the sentimental rather than the magnificent path – I had had Tanja in the palm of my hand, not only that, I had stood up to Wackarnagel, no less, and converted his fifty øre into the dumbest bear on earth.

  “Come on, Finn, open up!”

  “No,” I said, not so loud, but it wasn’t a bad attempt. And where was Mother?

  “Open up,” Linda pestered. “Are you hiding something?”

  She even sounded curious. “The bear’s great.”

  “It’s a shit bear!”

  “Eh?”

  “It’s a shit bear! I nicked it!”

  Finally the sound of Mother’s voice, unfamiliar and carefree:

  “Don’t mess about now, Finn, otherwise Kristian will have to break down the door.”

  “What did you get from Freddy 1?” I summoned the strength to ask. And even more laughter was heard from the other side of the door, thereafter the noise of movement, a chair, the knob on the cooker, the left hob at the back, there was no mistaking it, the cof
fee pot hob, chatting and sugar bowls and teaspoons – I was simply being drowned out by everyday life and all I could do was turn the key in the lock. Linda opened the door, came in and thanked me for the bear.

  “Thank you very much.”

  It had been quite a party. For once Freddy 1 had not made a fool of himself with all the young girls, but he had eaten well, Kristian’s conjuring tricks had gone down a bomb, so had Marlene’s singing and the games, Kristian, the contented post-party family man with rolled-up shirtsleeves, on his home ground, he was no better than the blue teddy bear, he was on the same miserable level as the fact that my escape had gone unremarked. Linda had not even noticed my absence until I returned, and Mother was intending to overlook it, I realised, as we sat round the supper table eating leftovers, cakes and sweets. Friendly comments on the guests were exchanged, a sport in which I could participate, as though I had not done a bunk at all but had performed my duty as the elder brother.

  “Yes, now you two will be able to sleep well,” Mother said, stroking our cheeks when at last we were in our beds, first Linda, then me, then Linda, then me … for after such a wonderful day she could not decide who to stroke last, that is the way it should be in a nuclear family where symmetry prevails, I thought I had grown up, but in fact I was the child I had always been, the only difference was that now it seemed like a nightmare.

  23

  Things were not going too well for Linda in the new class, presumably because she could no longer stick up a hand and reel off the first thing that came into her mind in order to be praised and have her cheek stroked. I have a vague notion there was a pedagogic strategy behind all of this, don’t mollycoddle Linda any more, she had been mollycoddled enough.

  But she was not so lost any more either, and in the middle of a religion lesson in late October Flintstone made an unannounced appearance in our classroom beside frøken Henriksen, beckoned to me with a long, yellow finger, bent upwards to indicate that I should follow him into the corridor, and left.