I Refuse

by Per Petterson

  Now we were both tired after a hard day’s work. Two men were off with the flu, and the following day we had a big delivery, so we didn’t say much over dinner and probably would have to go back for a few hours after Jonsen had had a nap.

  I was chewing my food slowly and looking out through the window at the bend.

  ‘Here comes the police chief,’ I said. The familiar Volvo moved slowly down the road. Whoever was inside it was in no hurry. ‘Or the sergeant,’ I said.

  Jonsen turned. ‘Yes, here he comes,’ Jonsen said. ‘What have you been up to now.’ He laughed.

  ‘Absolutely nothing,’ I said, and I laughed, too. ‘At least nothing I can remember. I’ve been on the straight and narrow, haven’t I,’ I said, and then I said: ‘Do we have to go back to the mill tonight.’

  ‘I think we do,’ Jonsen said. ‘Work’s piling up. And then we have to go to Eidsvoll with a full load tomorrow.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘You take the sofa. I’ll take the floor.’

  I liked lying on the floor. I always had. With my arms down by my sides and the hard floorboards against my shoulders and the back of my head, I was out for the count every single time. But I didn’t sleep for long. You couldn’t, of course.

  Now I got up from the table with the empty plate in my hand and the cutlery and cast a glance through the window. I was about to turn and pile the washing-up on the worktop, and then I saw the car had stopped by our postbox. It was the sergeant. He opened the car door and lifted himself out with one hand on the door frame. He had put on weight. The skull belt hung beneath his belly now, where once it had been fastened tight across it, back when he had looked more like a sheriff. I hadn’t seen him in a while. Why would I.

  ‘He’s coming here,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ Jonsen said. He stood up, placed his hands on the table, leaned forward and peered through the window, towards the postbox where the police car was parked, and the sergeant was already well on his way up to the house.

  ‘Wow, he’s got fat,’ Jonsen said. ‘When did that happen,’ and then he said: ‘No, no, we haven’t got the time for this.’

  He headed straight for the hall with a napkin in his hand, and I followed him, close behind, like a trailer, and Jonsen almost threw the door open before the sergeant had a chance to knock. He was about to go up the steps, but then he stopped when the door opened. He looked tired and foul-tempered. There were lines round his mouth I hadn’t noticed the last time I saw him, down past his nose to his chin, they really caught your eye. It was summer now, June and warm, but he was wearing a thick denim jacket, open at the front and lined with fur around the neck on both sides, and in the middle, his stomach was bulging over the skull and the red eyes of glass. They didn’t shine as they had before.

  ‘Hello there,’ Jonsen said. ‘There is food on the table. It’s good, I can tell you that much,’ he said, ‘Tommy made it.’ Which was true. ‘There’s plenty left, if you’re hungry,’ Jonsen said.

  ‘I don’t want any food,’ the sergeant said.

  ‘Right,’ Jonsen said. ‘If you’re not here to eat, why are you here, then.’

  I joined Jonsen at the top of the steps, standing shoulder to shoulder with him, and we looked down on the sergeant and then he had to look up at us, and he didn’t like that. He was already seriously annoyed. You didn’t have to ring a psychologist to know that. We had a telephone now. They had finished digging. And we had a phone at the sawmill. You had to have one.

  ‘I’ve come about the fire,’ he said.

  ‘What fire,’ Jonsen said.

  The policeman sighed. ‘What fire,’ he said. ‘Are you stupid or what,’ he said. ‘The Berggrens’ house burned down a week ago, only two hundred metres down the road. The house where Tommy used to live.’ He pointed to me.

  ‘I know where I used to live,’ I said.

  ‘I know you know where you used to live. Do you think I’m completely stupid,’ he said. ‘The point is, the fire people say someone started it.’

  ‘So,’ Jonsen said.

  ‘So,’ the sergeant said. ‘Jesus. Everyone knows that if someone set fire to the house it was Tommy. Do you think we’re stupid,’ he said. ‘So Tommy is coming with me. The police chief wants to talk to him.’

  ‘Tommy didn’t set fire to the house. Is that clear,’ Jonsen said, and he closed the door hard, and turned to go back to the kitchen, but the policeman banged on the door just as hard, and Jonsen opened up and said:

  ‘What is it now.’

  ‘Don’t try to be funny. Tommy has to come along with me.’

  Jonsen turned and looked at me. I was standing right behind him now. ‘Are you going with him to see the police chief,’ he said.

  ‘I haven’t got the time,’ I said. ‘We have to get back to work soon. We have to have everything ready for the delivery tomorrow. We have to do the paperwork and load up. We’re going to Eidsvoll with a full van, and there are two men off sick. I haven’t got the time.’

  ‘You heard,’ Jonsen said to the policeman. ‘He hasn’t got the time.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit where you’re going tomorrow. Tommy’s coming with me right now. The police chief wants to talk to him. I’ll bring him back afterwards. Jesus.’ The sergeant was so tired he was barely able to stand. He sighed. ‘Come on,’ he said.

  ‘You’d best go with him,’ Jonsen said. ‘Or else we’ll have to ring for a doctor.’

  ‘Fine, then. I’ll go with him. I’ll be back before you know it,’ I said.

  The sergeant shook his head. ‘Jesus,’ he said.

  I was there for an hour. The police chief was all right. He said I had set fire to the house. I said I hadn’t set fire to the house. I said it was my house, and Siri’s house, and the twins’ house, and the police chief said it wasn’t, it wasn’t my house, and I said, who owns the house then, but he didn’t know. It’s my house, I said, and I can do with it what I like. So it was you who started the fire then, he said. No, I said, it wasn’t me who started the fire. And so it went on. In the end, we both got tired of it. Then we talked about my father for a while, about what a bastard he had been, but I had to defend him a little. He’d had a tough life, I said, and then he was alone with us, I mean, my mother just vanished, and it wasn’t easy for him, being on his own, and the police chief said I might have a point, but anyway, he said, and shook his head. And then he said, do you have any idea what happened to your mother, and I said I didn’t have a clue. Six years she’d been gone and no one knew where. And then he asked me if I had set fire to the house, and I said I hadn’t. All right, he said, that’s it for now. The sergeant will drive you back. You’ll be hearing from me. Do you understand, Tommy. Yes, I said, that’s fine, and then he said, damn you, Tommy, if it was you who started the fire. It wasn’t me, I said.

  When I came out the sergeant was standing by the car. He was leaning against the open door. His eyes were closed.

  ‘Hi,’ I said. He opened his eyes and looked at me and closed them again. I didn’t know what was wrong with him, but there must have been something, he wasn’t like that before. Suddenly I felt very sorry for him. It just came over me. I went all warm. There were tears in my eyes. It’s true.

  ‘Are you not well,’ I said.

  He opened his eyes and looked at me. He ran his hand through his hair and sighed.

  ‘Hell, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong. I don’t understand it. But there’s got to be something. I’m so damn tired all the time, even though I sleep and sleep.’

  ‘But, have you been to the doctor.’

  ‘No, but I guess I’ll have to.’

  ‘It would probably be a good idea.’

  We stood like that for a while. Him with his eyes closed. Me with my hands in my pockets, examining his face. He was just over thirty, thirty-five, maybe. That wasn’t very old, but he didn’t look well. He looked older, forty, or more.

  ‘Do you want me to drive,’ I said.

  He
opened his eyes. ‘Maybe you should,’ he said. ‘Actually, that would be great. I am so tired,’ he said, and then he walked round the car and got into the passenger seat, and I got in behind the wheel and turned the key. The car started straight away, and we drove on to the road from the police station, and the Volvo was such a thrill to drive I felt excited, elated, I almost laughed sitting there. Fifteen minutes later I parked by Jonsen’s postbox, which was my postbox too and had been for four years, and through the window I could see Jonsen sitting at the kitchen table smoking and looking out on the road, his one hand under his chin and the other holding the cigarette.

  I slipped the lever out of gear and let the engine run with the handbrake on, and then we got out on either side, the sergeant and I, and when he came round the front grille and was about to get in behind the wheel he said:

  ‘Oh hell, am I stupid or what. You don’t have a driving licence, do you.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t. I won’t be eighteen until autumn. In November.’

  ‘Christ,’ he said, running a hand through his hair. ‘Am I stupid or what.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone.’

  ‘I won’t tell.’

  ‘I appreciate that,’ he said. ‘Christ, I’m so tired,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps you should go and see a doctor,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll have to,’ and he pushed the lever into first gear, and the car left the village as slowly as it had arrived a couple of hours before.

  I went up the steps, into the hall and into the kitchen where Jonsen was sitting at the table smoking.

  ‘Were you driving,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘He’s not well,’ I said.

  ‘You’re probably right,’ Jonsen said. ‘He didn’t look at all well,’ and then he said: ‘What did the police chief have to say.’

  ‘He asked if I had set fire to the house.’

  ‘And what did you answer.’

  ‘I said I hadn’t.’

  ‘Right, that’s it then. You take the floor and I’ll take the sofa, and then we’ll be off to the mill in an hour.’

  SIRI ⋅ 1970 ⋅ 1971

  JIM STARTED THE third class when I was in the first. It was after the summer of 1970. He was still living in the neighbourhood with his mother and caught the bus from there up to Valmo gymnas. Halfway there I also got on, when the bus went through Mørk. Which it always did. I had taken this bus for several years already, to primary school for one year, and then to secondary school. Lydersen moved me there, from Mørk to the school at Valmo. Or child welfare did. It was probably them. To keep me away from Tommy. And that was a success.

  It felt special that I saw so much more of Tommy’s friend than I saw of Tommy himself. Or perhaps not special, perhaps strange, wondrous.

  I saw Jim every day. We talked several times a week, and once I asked him if it was Tommy who had set fire to our house, and he said that in fact he didn’t know, but I was sure he did, or at least believed that Tommy had done it. I did, too. Who wouldn’t. Apart from that I never asked him about Tommy, and he never told me anything. I am sure we could have said things to each other, about Tommy, about what he was doing or not doing and what we thought about it, but Tommy was part of Jim’s private life, and Jim was a part of his. At least I assumed they were, but Tommy was not part of mine. Perhaps this should have hurt me, when you think how close we had been, how close we had been to each other, but it didn’t hurt me, it felt more strange, bewildering.

  The first time Jim kissed me was one September afternoon that autumn. He had got off the bus after school at the stop by Mørk railway station where I also got off, instead of him staying on until the last stop in the neighbourhood where the bus turned round and drove back to Mørk, empty, and then he had to walk the whole way home, it was quite a distance, but he was happy to do it, he said, it took only an hour, and then he could buy Orientering, his favourite left-wing magazine, at the station kiosk. I didn’t know anyone else who read that paper. He bought it every Friday and the old lady at the kiosk sat behind the window all dolled up and ready, with her make-up on, waiting for the good-looking Jim at the same time every week, but this was a Thursday, and to be honest, it was the other way around, it was I who kissed Jim.

  There was something about Jim. You saw him as soon as you came into the playground, his long, blond hair, the reefer jacket he always wore now, with its gleaming brass buttons, and the tobacco pouch tucked into his armpit while he rolled his cigarettes, only he did it that way, and he always smiled when there was a discussion going on, and there was something about his eyes, they were unusual, nervous, but not in a foolish way, an unpleasant shifty way, instead they made you curious, you wanted to know more about him, you wanted to hold his hand and walk him home, you wanted to kiss him and close those eyes, if only for a second. That was what I wanted to do from the moment the school year started, and it caught me off guard. I had seen so little of him since I moved to Mørk, and now he was around me all the time and was the old, familiar Jim and then a new and altogether different Jim, and he stood out more when he wasn’t with Tommy.

  I hadn’t kissed anyone before, I was sixteen and it might well have been late, I had no idea, but I was certain that kissing Jim would add something to my life that had not been there before, a new dimension, although that is hardly a word I would have used back then. But that’s what I meant. After a while it felt necessary, inevitable, but not like people may have thought, to restore something that had been lost, that’s what they were thinking, and said so out loud, that something had been lost for us children in the Berggren house, that there was a flaw in our lives, a void that no one could fill because we’d lived the way we had at home, you could see it in the looks they gave us, but no, that wasn’t why. What I wanted was to kiss Jim to move on, to add something and change myself.

  The bus stopped after the station, in the sun, and it was the time between two trains going into town and two trains back, and there was no one on the platform waiting for any of them. We stood there until the others on the bus had left and walked home or cycled home, and then I took Jim by his sleeve and pulled him into the shadows behind the old, yellow timber building, and he didn’t resist and smiled all the way, and his hair was long and blond and tousled in the wind, as if he’d come straight from a rock by the sea and was different from Tommy, he was more girl-like and fair, more loose, he was less determined and more rhythmical, he could dance, for sure, and I liked him because he was softer, more flexible, more dancer, more seriously nervous and seriously cheerful, and that made him easier for me who was more Tommy than he was, it’s what I had always thought, that I was more Tommy than Jim. He was shorter than Tommy and taller than me, not much taller, but tall enough for me to have to lean my head back when we kissed, and it would look so perfect, if anyone saw us, and it felt perfect, and it was easy for both of us to do. He ran his fingers through my hair and lightly held my head in position with both hands, like in a bowl, and I rested my head in his hands, in that bowl, just the way I knew he wanted, the way I also wanted, I had planned it in advance, and for a brief instant during that kiss I knew I would never want to be without it. Not just with Jim without it, but with anyone without it.

  We took a breath, I could feel my cheeks turning red, not red, more numb, no, not numb, but more like your fingers are when you come in from the biting cold in wintertime and your bare hands meet the wild heat of the house; right then, when they really quiver, just before it starts to hurt as your fingers thaw, that was how it felt, and I pressed my mouth against his skin, behind his ear, and then there was a sudden reluctance, not much, but enough for me to feel it in his neck, a withdrawal, I thought, he won’t come all the way to me, it’s Tommy, I thought, who is holding him back.

  ‘Don’t you want us to do this,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t want us not to do this,’ he said, and then he said: ‘That
was a strange sentence.’ And his neck went soft and pliable, and then he kissed me, and it was just as good, maybe better, even, and when we couldn’t do it any longer, I thought, what’s coming now, what do you do afterwards, what will you say, and we let go of each other, and he didn’t speak, and I didn’t speak, and he looked past me and said:

  ‘I guess I’d better buy my newspaper. And then I have to start walking. It takes a good while to get home.’

  ‘I know.You have to. But I don’t think she’s dressed up today. It’s Thursday.’

  ‘Who hasn’t dressed up,’ Jim said.

  ‘The lady in the kiosk. Fru Vallerud.’

  ‘Does she dress herself up.’

  ‘Yes, she does, for you. Every Friday. Everyone knows she does. Haven’t you seen her on the other days.’

  Jim thought back. ‘No, I don’t think I have,’ he said. ‘Jesus, does she dress up for me. I’ll wait until tomorrow then. And cycle in as I always do.’

  ‘I think that would be best for her. She might be upset.’

  ‘I’ll wait until tomorrow then,’ Jim said. And we looked at each other thinking maybe we could kiss again, though there were people on both platforms now and more on their way to catch the train to town or the opposite way, further out, to Jessheim, Eidsvoll, places like that, to the north, and another school bus pulled in to the stop and left again. Jim and I were still standing in the shadow of the yellow building, but not many people could see us, and we kissed again, and I liked it so much, and we let go of each other, and Jim said, bye, Siri, and I said, see you tomorrow at school. Yes, I’ll see you there, he said and then he walked up to the main road, across the little bridge with his satchel over his shoulder, and in the middle of the bridge he turned and raised his hand and smiled, and I walked back my usual way, down to the Co-op and past the petrol station where Lysbu was outside by the green pumps, in the sun under the white roof, under the arch, talking to a driver wearing a blue uniform, a taxi driver’s uniform it looked like to me, but we didn’t have any taxis in Mørk and never would have, so he must have come from Oslo, or from Lillestrøm. I waved to Lysbu. He waved back and smiled, and as I walked by them I had to think about Tommy, it wasn’t easy not to, at that particular place, and then it all felt bad again, and suddenly difficult, but by the time I got to the Lydersens’, it had passed, and I thought, was it so easy to let go of it. What does that say about me. But then I ran my fingers back and forth over my lips, and they were still numb in the new way, and at the same time electric, quite naked, quite raw, I’m a different girl now from the girl I was this morning, I thought, and that was how I wanted it to be. I was on my way out.