One of Us

by Åsne Seierstad

  ‘Dad, you must read it!’ he said. ‘This paper’s great! It tells you about stuff in a totally different way from anywhere else.’

  * * *

  When the summer holidays were over and he started in his first year at Sjøvegan Upper Secondary, a school under threat of closure, he wanted to do more than subscribe to Klassekampen. It wasn’t enough to think about socialist answers to society’s problems on your own. He rang the party office in Tromsø and asked how he could start a branch of the AUF in Salangen.

  ‘Give notice of a founding meeting and then we can come and help you recruit members,’ came the answer.

  Simon put up notices all round the school:

  INAUGURAL MEETING FOR

  SALANGEN WORKERS’ YOUTH LEAGUE.

  In the Cultural Centre.

  One evening in mid-September, three boys drove over from Tromsø. One was the leader of the Troms AUF, Brage Sollund, whom Simon had talked to on the phone. The second was the best recruiter in the county, named Geir Kåre Nilssen. With them they had a skinny Year 10 boy with glasses and a brace on his teeth. His name was Viljar Hanssen.

  Over Tone’s tacos they drew up their plan of action.

  ‘Right Simon, this is what we’ll do tomorrow,’ said Geir Kåre. ‘You go straight up to the prettiest girl in the school. It’s vital we get her on board, because in most schools she’s the one who decides what’s cool or not. Then we’ll sign up her friends, and once that’s done we’ll move on to the boys. Okay?’

  Simon nodded.

  ‘We’ll start with the tough guys. They’re always the hardest to reach, so if we can get them, this could be really big. Then it’s all easy because the rest will follow.’

  Simon nodded again.

  ‘I’ve got a formula for you,’ Brage said. ‘AUF = 90% social + 10% politics.’

  Brage had brought along a book to help Simon prepare for the meeting, a history of the AUF called The Salt of the Party. Brage read out a passage about when the legendary Einar Gerhardsen was leader of the Workers’ Youth League: ‘In spring 1921, Gerhardsen made it a condition of standing for re-election as chairman that there be no more dances. Study activities were to be intensified “to make every member of the group a conscious communist”. His condition was accepted, but the outcome indicate that revolutionary consciousness remained lacking at grass-roots level. At the general meeting six months later, only thirty-six members remained of the original 322, a slump of almost ninety per cent!’

  The boys laughed.

  No, Simon wouldn’t forget the social side.

  They rang the local paper, which promised to come to the inaugural meeting, they planned which issues Salangen AUF would focus on, and they ended up on mattresses under warm quilts in the basement sitting room, joking the night away.

  * * *

  The recruiting session was timed for the lunch break.

  ‘Okay Simon, the floor is yours,’ said Geir Kåre, giving his new friend a pat on the shoulder.

  A few seconds’ hesitation, and Simon strode up to the prettiest girl at Sjøvegan.

  ‘AUF?’ she queried. ‘For ten kroner?’

  Then she smiled. ‘Go on then,’ and wrote her name on his pad.

  Viljar came with him, and the boys went from one group of pretty girls to the next.

  The membership pad was filling up. Soon they had asked everyone in the school playground and the canteen. Viljar was impressed.

  ‘He’s got a way with words, that Simon! Everybody joins,’ he said to Brage and Geir Kåre.

  The things Simon focused on when he spoke to each new group were: no to closure of Sjøvegan School, and yes to hot school lunches. Cheaper bus fares for young people. Things that most students agreed on. But to achieve them, they needed the AUF, Simon said, and the AUF needed them. It was as simple as that.

  ‘You’re very persuasive!’ Viljar said to his fellow party member, one year his senior, when the lunch break was over. ‘Salangen’s golden boy. The local prince,’ declared the lad from Tromsø with a laugh. ‘They would have joined anything, as long as it was with you,’ he teased.

  Viljar was right, because everyone liked Simon. Whatever he suggested, you wanted to be a part of it. He was cheerful, he was cool, he had style. The girls in the school canteen were always aware of it when that Simon walked in.

  In the course of the day eighty new members were signed up. Geir Kåre and Brage had never seen anything like it. Simon basked in the glory of his success.

  ‘But I did talk to them beforehand, you know,’ he admitted. He had made the most of the time at break, before football matches or at athletics training, on the way to school or in the canteen queue. They had all known they had to bring ten kroner to school with them that day. Simon had wanted to be as well prepared as possible when the townies from Tromsø turned up with their membership pads.

  ‘Ha ha,’ said Viljar. ‘So you’d warmed them up in advance, eh?’

  He in turn had been recruited by Brage, who came up to him at a youth conference when Viljar was thirteen and asked: ‘Hi, have you heard of the AUF?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good, I’m its leader.’

  The local paper, Salangen News, had already announced the same morning that ‘Friday the 19th of September 2008 will be a historic day in the community of Salangen. A local branch of the Workers’ Youth League is to be set up. Simon Sæbø is heading the initiative.’

  The Tromsø lads made sure there were bowls of sweets on the tables at the start of the meeting. Simon was unanimously elected leader, a friend of his called Johan Haugland was appointed his deputy and a committee was selected. The brand-new leader told the local paper he was going to fight for extended opening hours for the youth club, and activities like ‘football matches on the big screen, pool tournaments and an inaugural outing up to the hunting and fishing cabin at Sagvannet.’ The paper provided the detail that there would be dinner at the cabin on Friday and Saturday, but participants had to take food with them for other meals. The local branch would hold regular meetings in coming weeks, the paper promised, and rounded off the piece with Simon’s mobile number in case there were any further questions.

  Their meeting place was to become the Sæbøs’ blue house in Heiaveien. Tone would fry up some mince, add taco spices and heat the shells in the oven. She would put out dishes of sweet corn, chopped tomatoes and grated cheese. Other times she made her own pizza. If Simon forgot to buy in banners, marker pens, paper or anything else they needed, his mother had usually already done it. Inspirational leader he may have been, Simon was a logistical nightmare. Luckily, he had a very organised mother.

  The young people demonstrated in support of the school, against what mankind was doing to the climate, in favour of the youth club and against drilling for oil in the Arctic. They held ‘get to know each other’ evenings, concerts and seminars. Simon had overcome his childhood stage fright. Now he was keen to be the compère when they staged cultural events in the town. After a demonstration against racism, the under-eighteens from the asylum seekers’ reception centre were invited to the youth club. The refugees had never felt entirely welcome there before, feeling it was ‘the Norwegians’ place’. But when big posters went up at the reception centre saying ‘Welcome to Velve’ they came, first hesitantly, then in big groups. Simon even tried to recruit some of them to the AUF. The fact that they had not yet been granted leave to stay was of no consequence, they could just give their address as ‘Sjøvegan Asylum Centre’. He’d treat them to the ten kroner.

  * * *

  The minibar was emptied before they got there. The hotel always took care of that before the delegates to the county youth parliament checked in. The county administration made the demand whenever accommodation was provided for unaccompanied minors.

  On the floor was the crumpled plastic bag that they had brought the beer in. Empty bottles were already lining up by the door.

  There were three of them, all mates. Simon and Viljar sat on the
bed, Anders Kristiansen in the easy chair. They were comrades-in-arms from the AUF. Before the conference started, they always held their own sectional meeting. The county had invited young people from different political parties, culturally active youngsters, environmentalists, and a few individual high fliers with no political affiliation. There was also to be a geographical spread, and a gender balance.

  Anders Kristiansen was the driving force in the gang of three. He was the one who brought them back to politics whenever Simon and Viljar started joking and messing around, or talking about girls.

  ‘Listen you two, about the road safety plan: I’ve got a few comments. Look…’ he might say, and then they tuned back in.

  If they disagreed about anything, they would always turn to Anders and ask, ‘What do you think?’

  And then they would do it the way Anders wanted. In actual fact all three of them were used to getting their way, but Anders was the first among equals.

  He was six months younger than Simon and came from the neighbouring municipality of Bardu, home to Norway’s largest military garrison. Just like Simon, he started a local AUF branch when he was fifteen, and was elected its leader. He was the most practical of the three, the one who always took charge of the tickets if they were going anywhere and kept tabs on the paperwork for meetings, not least the agenda.

  ‘Troms county is far too centralised,’ Anders was saying now. ‘Everything that counts happens in Tromsø. We must spread activities across the county, devolve power; only then we can keep the population figures up in the more rural areas.’

  ‘We’ve got to get the “Home for fifty kroner” resolution passed,’ said Simon, who had come by bus from Salangen to Tromsø that same afternoon, a journey of three hours. Troms spreads over an extended area, and people live long distances from each other. For young people, the bus is the best means of transport. But a journey requiring lots of changes could cost a lot. The proposition was that young people would be able to go as far as they wanted in one direction for fifty kroner.

  ‘You and your buses,’ laughed city boy Viljar. Until he moved to Svalbard when his father – an expert in Arctic birdlife – got a job there, he used to boast that he had hardly even been across Tromsø Bridge. ‘I see you need to get to the big city now and then for a breath of air!’ he said laughingly to Simon. Though he now lived among polar bears and snowmobiles on Svalbard, they still saw him as a typical Tromsø type – with it and brimming with self-confidence.

  ‘The bus is important, all the same,’ Anders said firmly, with the documents and minutes from the previous meeting in front of him.

  Anders Kristiansen liked to keep account of things from an early age. Aged just one, he would stand by the fence keeping all the passers-by updated: ‘Mummy at work. Daddy at home.’ And he liked to make sure everybody was all right. When his mother washed Mousey, his cuddly toy, and hung it out to dry on the clothes line in the garden, he came rushing up to her.

  ‘Not by the ears, Mummy! Not by the ears!’ Once the pegs had been taken off Mousey’s ears, Anders said gravely: ‘You mustn’t ever hang anybody by the ears, Mummy. Nobody can stand that.’

  When Anders started at nursery school, he was already interested in work and taxes, and how everything was shared out. ‘Where does money come from?’ the boy asked. He wanted explanations of everything and to know how things functioned, from the lawnmower and his father’s kitchen knife to who was in charge of whom. Who was the boss where his father worked, and where his mother worked? Who was the boss at home? Who really decided things?

  When he was five and found out there was somebody called the Prime Minister, who decided most things, he said in his thick Bardu accent, ‘When I’m big, I’m going to be Prime Minister.’

  If he was in doubt about the slightest thing, he ran round to their neighbour. Because she had an encyclopedia. Vigdis worked long days in the canteen at the military base in Bardufoss. Whenever Anders came to see her she gave him a glass of squash and made coffee for herself. Then they sat down side by side on the sofa with their noses in the book. One word led to another and the little boy and old lady soaked up new ideas and definitions.

  When confirmation was approaching for the year group above his, Anders asked:

  ‘What does “atheist” mean?’

  ‘Someone who doesn’t believe in God,’ came Vigdis’s brisk reply. She didn’t need to look that one up.

  ‘Well then, I’m an atheist and a pacifist,’ the thirteen-year-old told her.

  Vigdis tutted in dismay. Faith in God was a serious matter in the village.

  But Anders stood his ground. When his classmates were preparing for confirmation the following year, Anders took a unilateral decision not to be part of it. His maternal grandfather, a strict Lutheran Pietist from Narvik, said straight out that he was not happy with Anders’s choice. According to the Pietists, harsh punishment in Hell awaited those who turned their faces away from God.

  ‘It must be pretty damned empty in Heaven then,’ Anders’s mother observed drily when she heard what the old man had said. There were all too many things for which you could get sent to Hell in Narvik, and Gerd Kristiansen had heard her fair share of such talk when she was a child. She supported her son and refused to believe anyone from Narvik was guarding the gates to the Heavenly Kingdom. Anders said that if he had had faith in any higher power he would have believed as much in Allah and Buddha as in God the Father.

  Life on earth was what concerned him. The here and now. ‘They’ve got to listen to us,’ Anders had been saying since he was a child. ‘We’re part of society too! Why are there only grown-ups on the local council?’

  Anders Kristiansen was of course chosen to lead the Bardu student council. Just as Simon Sæbø on the other side of the municipal boundary and Viljar Hanssen of Svalbard were.

  The county youth parliament was made for them.

  Now they sat there, the three comrades, representing their council districts and putting forward their views over a few beers, trying to reach a consensus on their strategy for the meeting. Before the night was over, they always reached agreement about the most important issues they would be voting on. Then Viljar and Anders had to make sure they woke Simon the next morning, so he didn’t miss the ballot. Simon was a very sound sleeper.

  That evening they were talking about more than just buses; they were talking about power.

  The county youth council in Troms was led by a girl from the Progress Party Youth. She was pretty, quick-witted and popular. But the three comrades were planning to outmanoeuvre her and stage a coup. Just before the ballot they were going to propose a motion from the floor that Anders Kristiansen should become leader. With all his excellent qualities, victory lay glittering ahead of them.

  It was all Viljar’s idea. He was an ardent anti-racist and saw the Progress Party as a bunch of brownshirts, not representative of general opinion in the youth council.

  This was the plan: Just before the vote, Viljar would stand up and propose his comrade. Nobody would be expecting another candidate. Then they would all go up in turn and speak warmly of Anders. Viljar, the one of the three who really had a way with words, would talk about Anders as a political phenomenon from the sparsely populated district of Bardu, where he had shown more initiative than anybody else, not only as an AUF leader but also as chair of the student council.

  He tried out the wording on his friends.

  ‘It’s not just that the local people mean a lot to Anders, but that Anders means an awful lot to the local people,’ he said with passion, and went on: ‘Anders’s list of achievements is as long as our coastline.’

  The three comrades had also roped in Johan Haugland, deputy leader of Salangen AUF, for their coup. He was going to talk about the main distinctions between the Progress Party and the Labour Party, and thus between the two candidates.

  ‘And lastly we want you to inspire the girls, Simon,’ directed Viljar. ‘Say whatever you like, as long as you melt their hearts
. You’ve got to make them feel that with Anders as leader, the council will really come to life. Say something like: Anders is not only my best friend, he can also be your best friend,’ suggested Viljar. ‘Or ask them: Do you want to be led by some bloody racist?’

  ‘That’s over the top,’ said Anders.

  ‘How about: We want a leader who likes dark people as much as pale ones,’ Viljar persisted.

  ‘Pack it in,’ muttered Anders.

  Simon was swinging on his chair in the corner of the room. ‘No, it’ll be fine,’ he said. He had started making notes. ‘Anyway, don’t worry, Anders, I’ll judge the mood when I get up there. I’ll think of something, and it’ll be good!’ Simon wasn’t the sort to go in for meticulous planning, preferring to think on his feet.

  The little round table in the hotel room was covered in a clutter of empty beer bottles, snus tins, documents and scribbled notes.

  Anders started to yawn. He generally did when anything dragged on into the small hours. So he went off to bed while Simon and Viljar took a quick look in the mirror.

  Then they hit the town. Laughing, they slipped into the Blårock Café even though they were several years below the age limit. Over a beer they talked about girls, sports, girls, clothes, girls, life and girls. Simon had a girlfriend, but had his eye on a few girls for Viljar. ‘Check her out, check her out,’ he said and then vanished, reappearing with a girl and saying, ‘Have you met Viljar?’ Then he moved off, further into the club, and was gone again.

  The night before the coup, they stayed on there until closing time and ended up at an after-party. They got back to the hotel just as the breakfast room opened. Stuff happens.They locked themselves into the room they were sharing, showered in turn and started doing their hair. It was the hair that took the time. They stood side by side in front of the bathroom mirror with towels round their hips and the requisite amount of Renati hair wax in their hands. The wax had to be rubbed in from the back, moving up and over. The hair at the sides had to be styled in to their cheeks, while the hair at the back was shaped in a wave round the head, finishing above one eye. It took a heck of a lot of effort to make the whole thing look casual.