One of Us

by Åsne Seierstad

  Christmas came again, and he was playing full-time. There were periods when he spent sixteen or seventeen hours a day at the computer. On New Year’s Eve he spent the whole night logged on. Red-letter days were observed within the game. There were decorated trees at Christmas and fireworks at New Year.

  These celebrations were yet another way for the game’s manufacturer to replace real life and keep people logged on. In World of Warcraft, Blizzard had devised a game with no end.

  It took Anders a little over six months of full-time playing to become the leader of the Virtue guild, which did its raiding on the European server Nordrasil.

  Anders had been awarded the title Justitiarius. It was a title that took a long time and a lot of killing to achieve.

  When Anders was on a raid, he was not to be disturbed on any account. Virtue had decided to mount its raids and conquests between seven and eleven o’clock in the evenings. Everyone was expected to take part. Most members of the guild played for around twelve hours a day, and a raid required a great deal of planning. They had to lay in provisions and make sure they had enough ammunition and weaponry. The better equipped they were, the greater their chances of beating other guilds in the battle to find the treasure or kill the vampires.

  Andersnordic was good at motivating others and often got his fellow players to carry on performing even when they were getting tired and fed up. A bit longer, just a bit longer; he was known for never giving up.

  ‘We’ve just got to finish this off, then we can get to bed,’ he would say.

  * * *

  Sometimes the game came into conflict with real life, or the other way round.

  One February morning in 2007, a letter came for him. He had been admitted to the First Degree of the St John Lodge and was invited to his first meeting at the Freemasons’ headquarters. His mother was delighted.

  The sponsor question had been solved. Wenche’s second cousin would be his main sponsor, with primary responsibility for making a good Freemason of the boy. A secretary from the Pillars Lodge had undertaken to be his second sponsor.

  Anders hadn’t got time. He really hadn’t got time.

  It seemed so long ago. The admission interview in the vaults beneath the Armigeral Hall a year earlier was merely a faint memory.

  But he couldn’t say no to this. Good heavens, he’d been accepted as a Freemason!

  Had it just been a question of logging off for a few hours and attending the meeting … But no, he had to kit himself out in full evening dress with a black waistcoat. That was the dress code for the initiation ceremony. He had to arrange all that and make an effort with his appearance before he could go out among people.

  It was usual for the sponsor to come and collect the new member to take him to the solemn occasion, and the evening after his twenty-eighth birthday, which he had celebrated in World of Warcraft, Anders was called for by his mother’s second cousin.

  Anders got into the car. Andersnordic had made his excuses for the evening.

  On the way to the Freemasons’ headquarters, Anders started talking about the investitures of knights, about guilds and fraternities.

  His relative was rather taken aback. Freemasonry was all about perfecting your own qualities, he explained.

  Anders went quiet.

  The Freemasons’ headquarters was right by the parliament building. Inside the doors they were received by a Master of Ceremonies in a formal hat and white gloves, with a big sword hanging at his hip. In his hand he held a large staff, blue and black with a silver tip at each end.

  Anders was the only one being admitted to the lodge that evening. Quite a number of brothers had come along to attend the ceremony. They greeted each other in accordance with the rituals they had all had to learn. Some wore rings to indicate which degree they belonged to, while others wore chains and crosses round their necks.

  He was taken into a big room and the ceremony began. First, the Master of Ceremonies turned to Anders’s two sponsors: My brethren. On behalf of the lodge I am to convey to you its thanks for bringing this stranger to us, and accompanying him to the door of the lodge.

  Anders had to sign a document stating that he professed himself to the Christian faith and would never reveal the secrets of Freemasonry. Then he had a strip of cloth wound round his head. Now blindfolded, he had to repeat after the Master of Ceremonies:

  Should I act against this my given Promise

  I agree that my head be struck from my shoulders.

  My heart expelled, my Tongue and Intestines torn out,

  and all be thrown into the Depths of the Sea,

  that my Body be burnt,

  and its ashes scattered to the Air.

  He was led round the room until he lost his sense of direction, then along corridors and down some steps. A door was opened and he was asked to sit down. The blindfold was removed, and he found himself alone in a tiny room that was painted black. In front of him was a table with a skull and crossbones on it. He was left there alone until someone came in and asked him several questions. Then he was blindfolded again and taken back to the big room, where he went through the rest of the initiation rituals.

  He was a Brother of the First Degree.

  Inside, but on the bottom rung.

  All he wanted was to go home.

  By the time he was dropped off at Hoffsveien, he was too late to join the raid. But there was still time to log on.

  His mother’s cousin had told him that the Pillars met every Wednesday and he would be happy to give him a lift. A sponsor had to make sure that the new member he had invited in attended meetings and study groups and took on guard duties.

  Anders nodded. But he only attended one ordinary meeting in the course of the spring, and there he did nothing but crow. After the meeting, he remarked on a newcomer’s behaviour and how poorly the initiate fitted in. And it had all been going so slowly, he moaned.

  Jan Behring eventually stopped ringing Anders, even though Wenche asked him to persevere.

  ‘He never goes out, just sits in his room on that internet thing,’ she complained.

  * * *

  The goal for the spring was to be the top guild on the server, to lead the guild that succeeded in killing every monster the game could generate.

  The guild members were located all over Europe and they played in English. As guild leader, Anders had a lot of responsibility. He had to make sure the players had the equipment they needed: provisions, swords, axes and shields. He had to make tactical choices and come up with battle strategies, but he also had to listen and be responsive to the other players’ ideas.

  In the course of that spring, Andersnordic grew less tolerant. He didn’t care if he hurt people’s feelings. When the game did not go his way, he was churlish. He would push, harry and nag.

  This occasionally led to open dissent. One player thought he was taking the law into his own hands, calling him a bully and a control freak. Anders removed the player from the forum.

  Some left of their own accord because he was too hardcore. He couldn’t bear slackers, he said, and had no scruples about ejecting players if he didn’t like them or thought they didn’t work within the team. A player who dropped in on a Friday night with a glass of wine beside the keyboard and accidentally went down the wrong hill was not anyone he would want to take along on a raid.

  Andersnordic preferred to throw people out late at night when the others were offline and could not protest. When the outcast logged back in, access to Virtue would be denied. Sometimes the other players would speak up for those who had been ousted, but the guild leader was implacable: this was serious, you couldn’t just drop in for fun now and then. Players who had been involved since way before Andersnordic first logged in suddenly found themselves abandoned.

  Slackers were generally people who had a life outside the game. A life that sometimes imposed its own demands, even obliging them to log out for long periods. The norm was to play for a few hours in the evening, after work. Most people
couldn’t sit up all night. As for Anders, he was living on his savings and his mother’s food.

  * * *

  World of Warcraft is one of the most addictive games ever created, precisely because it is constructed on social lines. Players develop bonds with each other through their avatars, and the sense of solidarity can be strong. Every minute you spend away from the game means setting the others back slightly.

  It allows you to enter a system that seems easy to grasp. If you can think strategically, success is achieved. You can measure your achievement in the minutest detail. Your goals are concrete. You get a virtual pat on the shoulder every time you log in, and your status is gradually enhanced as a result of time spent there. Everyone can succeed. Such is the online world.

  Anders, who had wanted to be part of the power elite, was now one of the soldiers of World of Warcraft. From having been excited by the Freemasons’ stately props, he was now fascinated by computer-generated suits of armour. From having been obsessed with making money, he was now a collector of WoW gold. From having been concerned with his appearance, he now lurked in his room, grubby and unkempt.

  Anders, once so keen to build networks, no longer needed anybody but himself.

  * * *

  Then he was struck by hubris. Again. He changed server. To fight with the best.

  He joined the guild known as Unit on the Silvermoon server. His guild was made up of newcomers, but on the official forums Andersnordic boasted that his crew would take over the server. They were simply the best.

  ‘Who’s that megalomaniac?’ the Swedish player Braxynglet, ranked second on the server, asked his online peers.

  At Silvermoon, Anders was a misfit from the start. They made fun of his style. They made fun of his name. It was odd that he used his real name – Anders – and that he hinted at his background – nordic. It was against the norm. They laughed at him, both behind his back and directly at him. He never seemed to catch it. He always responded nicely and in a friendly way, whatever they wrote.

  Braxynglet despised newcomers who bragged. His way of putting this could sound like racism – a hatred of others, of outsiders. Anders took a liking to the Swede, never seeming to understand that he himself was the intruder, the foreigner, the immigrant. He spoke and acted on the forums as if he were one of the best, and sucked up to those at the top.

  For a while, Braxynglet adopted the motto Mohamed is gay. Anders responded warmly, telling the Swede he was so cool, but still Anders was given the cold shoulder.

  He was rejected by those who mattered.

  He did not fit in. He was patient and persistent, but he never made it to the top of World of Warcraft. He was never among the Top 500 on the servers that mattered, and thus was never ranked.

  He acted like a king, when he was only a toy.

  * * *

  Everything else was going to the dogs. When the 2006 accounts for E-Commerce Group were due with the auditor in 2007, board chairman Breivik was not contactable and the auditor resigned. The year after that, E-Commerce Group was compulsorily wound up. According to the bankruptcy report, the company had broken tax laws, share-trading laws and accounting laws.

  Outside his room, life was unravelling.

  But inside, the game went on.

  Because the game had no end.

  One night after a raid he stayed chatting to a player in his guild who was considering whether to pull out. He needed to get to grips with real life again, he said. Anders admitted he had thought the same. He was going to stop soon, he said.

  But he didn’t.

  He stayed in his room.

  It’s only temporary, he had said. But he stayed in there for five years.

  Five years in front of the screen.

  A tonic to his depression.

  Three Comrades

  Give me the pure and the straight,

  the men who are steady and strong

  Those who have patience and will

  never in life to go wrong …

  Yes, give me the best amongst you,

  and I shall give you all.

  No one can know till victory is mine

  how much to us shall fall.

  It may be it means we shall save our earth.

  To the best goes out my call.

  Rudolf Nilsen, ‘Revolusjonens røst’ (The Voice of the Revolution), 1926

  ‘Mum, can I join the AUF?’

  Tone stood there, receiver in hand. Simon had rung home at last.

  ‘Mum, can you hear me? It only costs ten kroner!’

  ‘So good to hear from you, Simon. I mean that’s why we gave you the phone, right, so you could ring home!’

  It was the winter of 2006 and Simon was thirteen and away on a trip, staying overnight in Tromsø for the first time. In Year 7 he had been elected to the student council at the secondary school in Salangen. This year the county council organised a youth conference for northern Norway, and Simon was asked to represent his school. At the conference they discussed what improvements could be made to young people’s lives in the north.

  A teenage boy called Stian Johansen had talked about the AUF, the youth organisation of the Labour Party.

  In the break, Simon went up to him. He introduced himself politely and carefully.

  Baby face, thought the speaker

  ‘I’d like to join the AUF,’ said Simon.

  Stian whipped out his membership pad and asked Simon to fill in his name and address. Recruiting new members was important. More members meant more influence and, crucially, more money in the party kitty. For every member in a political youth organisation, the state paid a contribution. Recruiting lots of people enhanced your status in the apparatus.

  When Stian saw Simon’s date of birth, he smiled. ‘I can’t sign you up – you’ve got to be fifteen. But if you get your parents’ permission it’s all right.’

  Tone stood there in the kitchen, listening to the cheerful voice of her elder son. ‘It’s so much fun here, there’ve been lots of exciting discussions and debates, and the ones I agree with most are the lot from the AUF. Can I join? It only costs ten kroner!’

  ‘Of course you can join the AUF, love,’ laughed Tone.

  ‘Okay, I’ll fill in the form now and then bring it home with me, so you and Dad can sign it. I’ve met so many cool people, Mum! But I’ve got to hang up now.’

  It wasn’t exactly an expression of youthful rebellion on Simon’s part for him to join the AUF. He had grown up in the labour movement: his father sat as a local councillor for the Labour Party.

  Discussions round the dinner table were political, whether they were about the war in Afghanistan or drilling for oil in the sea around the Lofoten Islands. Simon was against both. The conversation also revolved round more domestic issues, such as whether it was fair for Håvard to have to do penalty rounds the same length as Simon when they had throw-snowball-at-log competitions in the garden. They had to run extra rounds when they missed the target, just like in biathlon. Simon and Håvard had inherited their father’s competitive spirit. In athletics, Simon came high on the list of results in the high jump championships, and Håvard became the Norwegian champion in the boys’ 1500 metres. To enlist the boys’ help at home, Tone would often come up with competitions like ‘Who can get to the bin with a rubbish sack first?’ When they got to the skip at the top of the slope they opened the hatch and took aim from a distance.

  But politics was even more exciting than sport. As a result of centralisation in Troms county and the falling numbers of children per year group in the north, each time there was a new budget to balance the politicians weighed up whether to close the upper secondary school in Salangen. Every year it fought for its life, and won. When Simon was in Year 8, he attended a county council meeting for the first time, to speak about why there should be no cuts to the school provision in the area.

  Before long he was elected leader of the Salangen youth council. He devoted his energies there to campaigning for facilities for young peo
ple. In small towns and villages, sport often provided the only social life, and those who weren’t sporty could find themselves left out. The central issue for him was trying to reopen the youth club that had closed down years before. The local council pledged to fund it as long as Simon could guarantee that the young people undertook the voluntary work of renovating and maintaining it. He gave his promise. The youngsters were given basement premises with a music room, dance floor, pool table and a little café they would run themselves. It would be a place to meet, for everybody. It just needed a bit of redecoration first.

  ‘But Mum, how can I get people to come and help?’ Simon asked.

  ‘You need something to lure them in,’ Tone suggested.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I could make pizza,’ she offered.

  Simon put up posters to advertise the working party, and by the time he got home from Velve, as the club was called, he was elated and splashed all over with red and cobalt blue paint.

  ‘Loads of people volunteered, Mum! We ran out of paintbrushes!’

  * * *

  On his sixteenth birthday, 25 July 2008, Simon was old enough to become a member of the Norwegian Union of Municipal and General Employees. He joined that same day. His friends thought it was odd that he wanted union membership before he had a job.

  ‘Everybody ought to join a union,’ he argued. ‘Even school pupils. The stronger we make the trade unions now, the better working life will be by the time we finish our education!’ If they had a large enough pool of members, the unions could stamp down harder on shady practices in the world of work, because young people were often exploited, not paid the going rate for the job, or forced to accept poor working conditions. Employers broke laws on health and safety in the workplace and younger job applicants didn’t always know their rights. That was why it was important for the trade union’s summer patrol to go round the country checking up on conditions for young people.

  The nicest surprise about membership was that it included several months’ subscription to the left-wing newspaper Klassekampen – ‘Class Struggle’. Simon read about the way the financial crisis was hitting the poorest people in developing countries, about social dumping and the unemployment explosion in Europe. Critical of those in power, the paper debated all the topics that interested him.