‘What should I do then?’ I whisper with a pounding heart. I feel death all through my body. It’s very close. ‘You’ll cope with death,’ the boy’s voice tells me. ‘I’ll help you. As long as you play football nothing scary can happen. I’m ten, just like you. I’m the best football player in the world, just like you. You can hide in the game.’
My chest burns when he speaks. ‘Don’t believe that the grown-ups see you because you’ve got long angel hair. They only see the hair. You’re not who they think you are. You’re also Emil. Every time the doorbell or telephone rings, or whenever I want, I’ll be there. Every time someone is about to die, I’ll be there.’
Then there is silence. I rub my head and hair on the glass fibre. Then I hear the voice again. ‘Eli, Eli,’ he calls. I say: ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ ‘Don’t tell anyone about me. I’m your secret.’
I leave the cupboard and sneak back into the living room. Marit is sitting at the table with the sewing machine in front of her. ‘I’m making a dress for you,’ she says. ‘Emerald blue.’ ‘Who was it at the door?’ I ask, still frightened. ‘It was the tramp. Come over here and try it on.’
I stand on the floor in front of her. Hold up my arms and let my big sister undress me and dress me again like a doll. ‘It was only the tramp?’ I ask, my heart still racing. Our tramp, as Mum and Dad like to call him. He always asks for Dad. Because he gets five kronor from him, whereas Mum only gives him two.
I wriggle in the blue dress. My body starts to itch. ‘Take it off!’ I shout, and Marit and I both try to get it off at the same time. I’ve got a red rash all over my arms, neck and face. ‘What is it?’ Marit asks. ‘Don’t know.’ ‘Where have you been?’ ‘The cupboard.’ ‘You didn’t touch the glass fibre matting, did you?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘That’s what it is then. You’d better have a shower.’
I don’t want to. I stand there in my knickers. The itching is unbearable. But I don’t want to have a shower. Don’t like having a bath or a shower when I’m not on my own any more and can be with Espen. His tears start to fall as soon as the water starts running.
And now I’ve got Emil as well. Someone who plays and has promised to help me cope with death. I will need lots of time to be with them. Marit says something at the same time as both Espen and Emil. It’s hard to hear their voices and chat when I’m supposed to be normal and answer other people’s questions. It’s too much. But I’m going to have to learn how to do it.
I run into the bathroom and pick up a brush. Rub it all over my body.
I want to have my picture in the local paper. I persuade the boy next door, Bjarne, to come with me and sell raffle tickets for a good cause. We’ve just heard about a volcano in Iceland on the news. We decide that we’re going to support the children affected by the catastrophe. I steal a vase from my second sister, Hild’s collection. It’s going to be the prize.
We have a notebook, a pen and a plastic bag for the money. Everyone who opens their door recognises us and wants to help. ‘What thoughtful children,’ they say. When we get home again, we find a hat and put as many folded pieces of paper with a number on it as there are names in the notebook. Bjarne mixes them all up in the hat. I close my eyes and pull out a piece of paper. It’s number thirty-three.
Old Mrs Vangen has won. We barely know her as she hasn’t got any children. We’ve never been in her house, just in her garden to steal apples. All the children on the street are a little bit scared of Mrs Vangen. She’s obviously a miser. She only bought one raffle ticket today.
We ring the doorbell and have to wait on the doorstep for a long time. Eventually Mrs Vangen comes and opens the door a crack, then peers out cautiously. She has a security chain that needs to be opened. No one else has that.
‘Oh, is it you?’ she says, sharply, though perhaps it was meant to be kind. ‘Come in.’ We stand in the hallway. It’s dark. ‘You, you, you’ve won,’ I stammer. ‘Oh,’ she says, surprised, takes the vase and carries it out into the kitchen. ‘Now let me see if I’ve got something for you.’
We want to go. Why do some people live on their own? No one who has children does. And we only know people like that.
‘I thought I had some chocolate, but no.’ ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say. ‘The children in Iceland are all that matter,’ I say. Mrs Vangen strokes my blonde curls. ‘What beautiful hair,’ she says. I twist away. It’s cold in the room. ‘We really have to go now,’ I say.
‘Here, why don’t you take an apple each.’ We each take an apple and hurry out. When we’re back out on the street we start to giggle. The apples are wrinkly, having been stored all winter. We throw them as far away as we can. ‘Let’s go back to my house and count the money,’ Bjarne says.
We sit in his room and empty the plastic bag of money out onto the bed. We count. It comes to three hundred and forty-seven kronor. ‘I’ll ask Mum to call the paper tomorrow,’ I say. There’s a pile of magazines on the desk. ‘Do you read them?’ I ask. ‘They’re for grown-ups.’ ‘We get given them,’ Bjarne explains. ‘My granddad does the crossword. I read about a downhill skier called Erika. She was in the Olympics and is from Austria. She changed sex and christened herself Erik. But then she couldn’t take part in any more competitions, either as a man or a woman.’
Bjarne finds the magazine and I stare at the pictures of the downhill skier before and after the operation. She looks pretty similar in both pictures, with short dark hair and a fringe. Bjarne starts to talk about something else. But I can’t take my eyes from the pictures. Before and after. Erika and Erik. Man, woman.
I’m going to do that, I think. Maybe that will save me from growing up. I have to be allowed to be a boy before I grow up, at least. The princess is going to turn into a prince. But I can’t say anything to Bjarne. They might write about it in a normal magazine, but I realise that it’s more complicated than that. That it’s a long secret journey. But I store the possibility somewhere deep inside and think about it nearly every day for the rest of my life.
The next day we take the money down to the local paper. We are photographed. And we’re interviewed as well, but it’s only me who speaks. I say that we’ve started a club that’s going to collect more money for those who need help. I want to give examples but can only come up with the poor children in Iceland.
Our photograph is in the paper the next day. I’m so proud. But my brother Torvald teases me and says that there aren’t any poor children in Iceland. That it’s one of the richest countries in the world. That I should have said Biafra.
I’m going to give a reading in Bohuslän. I take a train and then a bus and then another bus. There are fewer and fewer people on the bus, and by the time I get off there is no one left. I don’t like travelling to places I don’t know on my own, and it’s always a huge relief when I arrive at the right place. My bad eyesight means that I can’t see signs and timetables and what’s written on the front of a bus. I don’t dare to ask for help due to pride or shyness.
I’ve ended up on a small square edged by some shops and public sector offices. It’s the middle of the day. Not a person to be seen. I spot the library and go in. It’s empty in there too. I see a poster of myself advertising the reading this evening. I meet the librarian, she makes me feel welcome. She drives me to the hotel and says that she’ll come back and pick me up at six.
I sit down on a sofa to wait. Then a woman comes. She introduces herself as the hotel manager. ‘Do you serve lunch?’ I ask. ‘I’ll sort something out for you. I’ve got a whitefish. Would you like that?’ I nod. ‘Go and have a sauna in the meantime, while I get things ready.’
I’m in the sauna for a long time. When I go back up to the dining room, a table has been set with a white tablecloth and a plate with a big fish on it. And lots to go with it. Potatoes and vegetables. The hotel manager comes and keeps me company. ‘You’re the only guest in the hotel,’ she says. The only guest. I remind myself that we live in a sparsely populated country. I remember the time I was in Greenland on a research tr
ip. I took a boat along the west coast and every time we stopped in a small town, they made an announcement about something unique that we had to go and see. ‘You will find the only fountain in Greenland here.’ I got chatting to a Swede. He was going to cover for a Dane and would be the only psychiatrist in Greenland over the summer. I met him some weeks later in Nuuk. The problem was that he didn’t understand the Greenlanders’ broken Danish and they didn’t understand his Swedish.
The hotel manager chats away. ‘The owner called me and said you have to come home and take over the hotel. I was living in Gothenburg at the time. And I haven’t regretted it for a moment.’
Why do we move and why do we move home? Everyone thinks about moving away and everyone thinks about moving home again. From the country to the city, from the city to the country. From country to country.
‘I’ll have dinner ready for you at five. I just need to pop out and do some shopping first. Is there anything you don’t eat?’ ‘I eat everything,’ I reply. It’s good that I’m here. I make a difference.
I go up to my room, stuffed, and lie down on my bed to rest. Then I practise reading the texts and look at the key words that I’ve written about what I’m going to say. I know the texts more or less off by heart so I don’t need to worry about bad lighting. I’m going to talk for one and a half hours. I’m looking forward to the evening. Only hope people will come. I gave a reading in Gothenburg yesterday and there were over a hundred people there.
Dinner is the same as lunch, only even more food. I can choose between several dishes. It would be impossible for me to eat it all. The hotel manager keeps me company again and tells me what it was like to come back to her hometown after twenty years in the city. I’m given a key. ‘The door can be quite difficult.’ We go out and practise. ‘Here’s my mobile number. I only live a stone’s throw away.’
The librarian picks me up. Around twenty people come. Some to listen to me, others to meet people. There’s a good atmosphere and they laugh a lot and ask questions. They get even livelier in the break when coffee and cake are served.
When I get back to the hotel I can’t open the door. I try again and again. Suddenly the hotel manager appears out of the dark. ‘I knew that you’d have problems,’ she said. It’s ten o’clock. We say goodnight. ‘Breakfast at eight,’ she says and then goes home. I go into the big building and think that I’m going to sleep in here all on my own.
I wake all sweaty from a dream and get up to drink some water. Think that I’m all alone in this big building. It would have been different if the building had been smaller. There are meant to be lots of people here. I am lots of people.
Espen starts talking. He’s been woken by the water from the tap. He cries and says that he’s frightened. That someone will lock us in an even smaller room in an even bigger building. I try to console him. Do I have to be the adult? Do I have to be the one who’s not scared?
I go out into the dark corridor just to test myself. I feel my way. I walk along to the end and back. Then I get into bed again. Emil can’t help reminding me about a hotel corridor in a skyscraper in New York. I pressed the button to call the lift. It took some time. Then the doors opened and I saw a policeman and a nurse and a black rubbish bag the size of a person on the floor. I froze and watched the lift doors slide shut again.
I can’t sleep. I’ve got small holes in my eyelids. Close them and I can still see. The dark. And an even smaller room in a small house. I’ve been locked in the toilet. I’m five years old. The door has a key that can lock the door from the inside and the outside, but the light switch is only on the outside. I’ve been throwing things around and screaming from deep down in my belly. High pitched like a bird. I’m carried, screeching, into the toilet. Everything will end up in small pieces. My frustration and anger know no end. I cannot be comforted. The key is turned and the light switched off.
I am to calm down in there in the dark. There’s nothing to break in there in the dark. I hurl myself against the walls and door. I know that it won’t help. What helps? I flush anything that’s lying loose down the toilet. I fumble around in the dark. Soap and toilet paper. I can keep flushing until the toilet breaks. I can turn on the tap and let Espen weep in the running water.
I am blind. I am confined. I am wound up like a propeller. Then all the energy drains out of me, there’s nothing left to break. Empty of screams and tears. But I will have to stay there for a while, I know that from experience. Mum lets out a sigh. I think. And Dad is sitting somewhere in a meadow painting the landscape. Marit, Hild and Torvald will have to pee behind a bush in the garden. They wait. Are worried and wonder how long I’ll be locked up. Odd is still in nappies and if Mum is lucky, he sleeps between crying.
I turn off the water. Dry my swollen blotchy face with the hand towel and sit down on the floor. There’s a cupboard I can’t reach. Tried to climb up on the sink. There are plasters, bandages, creams and pills in it. I wrap myself up in the hand towel. And start to tell stories. I tell myself stories. One day I’ll tell them to the whole world.
There’s a knock on the door at half past seven. A personal wake-up call from the hotel manager. I get dressed without having a shower and go down to the dining room. In amongst all the empty tables is one with a white tablecloth, set for one. The food has been laid out on the sideboard. It looks like it’s the middle of the high season. There are several boiled eggs. There’s scrambled eggs and bacon. Sausages and yoghurt and porridge and pineapple and other fruits and a basket of warm bread. Where shall I begin?
I’m standing in the kitchen at my gran’s. My gran is massively fat. They say it’s because she’s got diabetes. I’m eight and it’s the first time I’m visiting her and Grandpa on my own.
Marit once knitted Gran a stripy waistcoat for Christmas. It was so big that there was room for Torvald, Hild and me inside it. It was too big for Gran as well, which must have upset her. I’ve certainly never seen her wearing it.
Grandpa built the little yellow wooden hut. He’s a carpenter. There’s a workbench in the cellar with all kinds of interesting tools. I can potter about down there if I want. And Grandpa has a drawer of building blocks that you can build anything with. I’m going to stay the night. I don’t know them really and they don’t know me. I’ll wet myself. But they don’t know that yet. I haven’t said anything and Mum hasn’t told them.
I’m standing in the old-fashioned kitchen. I want to get a glass of water. The tap is directly under the water heater. Gran is right behind me. I hold out my glass and turn on the water. It’s boiling hot. It hits my hand and I drop the glass. A reflex. I hear it smash. Gran hears it smash. My hand is burning under the boiling water.
Then there’s an explosion. Gran’s hand slaps me hard in the face. The shards of glass have just stopped tinkling. Ow, crash, slap. Ow, crash, slap. I run as fast as I can. Out of the kitchen, out of the house, out of the gate. Down the street and into the park. I hide myself in some bushes. Sit there shaking. Ow, crash, slap.
I sit there until it gets dark. Then Grandpa comes to find me. He holds out his great carpenter’s hand and I take it and get up. I’m glad that Grandpa found me. I wasn’t looking forward to spending the night in a bush.
I can’t apologise to Gran about the glass. Because I didn’t mean to do it. Gran has such a hard voice. Even though she’s lived half her life in Norway, she still speaks bad Norwegian. I’m far from home and know what’s going to happen. I’m going to sleep on the sofa bed in the living room and I’m going to wet myself in a strange bed. I stuff my pyjama bottoms full of towels. Don’t drink anything all evening and try to stay awake. But in the early hours, I need to pee.
I’ve had my ears pierced. I stand in Mum and Dad’s room and look at myself in the mirror. Two small pearls nearly hidden by my hair. I tuck my hair behind my ears. I’m a bit proud of my blonde, thick, curly hair, but I also hate it. It has become a part of me that isn’t really me. From the outside it’s me, but not from the inside. Grown-ups always com
ment on it and pat it as if I were a dog.
I don’t know how it ended up on my head and nor does Mum. Her hair is thin and brown, just like my sisters’. Mum loves plaiting it. My hair is like a special little person for Mum. But it’s going to go soon. To make the truth visible.
My doll-like face. The big brown eyes. Then I see what’s wrong. I don’t want a hole in each ear. I want two holes in the same ear and nothing in the other. How can I explain that to Mum? I start with the hair. ‘Mum.’ ‘Yes, what is it?’ ‘Sit down,’ I say, and Mum sits down on the kitchen sofa. ‘I want to cut my hair short. A bit longer on one side than the other, with a long sloping fringe and short at the back, and two earrings in the same ear.’ Mum stuffs her hands into her apron pocket. ‘I won’t let you,’ she says. ‘I’ll do it anyway.’ ‘Do you have to?’ I nod, and feel sorry for Mum.
‘Ask Marit,’ she says. Marit is happy to help me with anything, but this time she doesn’t want to. I sit on a stool with a towel round my neck. It’s Mum who has to cut my hair. First she makes a plait that she then cuts right off. She’s going to keep it. Then she starts to style it. Slightly longer on one side, and Mum does it as well as she can. At least we’re saving money by not going to the hairdresser.
When she’s done, I look at myself curiously in the mirror. Mum is standing behind me with the scissors in her hand. She says in a thick voice: ‘You look like a little troll.’ Her words warm me. I headbang. Play the air guitar. Run my hand through my hair so it stands out in all directions.
‘You’re Emil,’ a voice inside me says. I shoot myself with my hand in the mirror. I shoot Eli and the princess and all that has been. I purse my lips, narrow my eyes. Slowly, slowly I let my hand fall and put the revolver back in its holster. I make a little clicking sound with my mouth. As if the baddy has been rendered harmless.
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