As an adult, I dream a recurring dream about changing sex. I meet all sorts of doctors and psychologists. They ask me questions and I’m measured and weighed. Open wide and say aaaa. I tense my small biceps and have to pick up a doll and cuddle it. I have to look at myself in a mirror and try on different caps and hats. I have to be a goalkeeper and do a goal kick. I have to open packages and they observe my reactions. But most of all, there are corridors, rooms for bureaucracy and different forms for different alternatives that have to be filled out. I find all the paperwork challenging and have to ask several times. Fill them out in different languages I don’t really speak, but pretend to. Crumple the paper into a ball and throw it away. Do it again. When I finally get to the form where I’m asked which sex I want to become, I can’t answer. Can’t decide which one. And so just put down a question mark. More masculine, more feminine?
I am ten and Marit is seventeen. We’re skiing from cabin to cabin in the mountains. Just me and my big sister alone in the mountain kingdom. We’re carrying enormous rucksacks. I keep banging my head on mine and start to cry. It’s so heavy and uncomfortable. I can’t move my neck normally. It’s an adult’s rucksack and my back is too short. Marit doesn’t complain.
After our first night, we eat breakfast and make a big packed lunch. Then we do what all the other guests do. Study the map and choose our route for the day. We decide to go to the Grimsdal cabin.
The sun is up and it’s going to be a glitteringly glorious day. We head off along the ridge. We can see the peak we need to go over, which we know is deceptive because it looks very close. Which it isn’t. After a short rest, we start to climb, several kilometres of herringbone in order to reach the top.
Finally we’re up. The summer cairn is as good hidden in snow. Only the top stones are showing. ‘It’s downhill all the way from here,’ I say blithely. I’m going to hold a downhill position the whole time. I’ve been looking forward to this all the way up all the slopes. Marit doesn’t dare. ‘See you down at the Grimsdal cabin then,’ I say, and turn on the spot. It’s almost a straight ten kilometres downhill. Marit slowly puts on the heavy rucksack. Amongst other things she’s got a reindeer hide, knitting and a book in it. I’d forgotten that the stupid rucksack got in the way of my head. But all that matters is the downhill now. No way am I going to stop. I turn round and see that Marit is nothing more than a red dot on the mountainside.
There’s a rushing in my ears. Kilometre after kilometre. The snow is hard and I’m going really fast. My legs are shaking. A pleasant pain warms me. The sun has gone behind a cloud. The snow is blue-white and everywhere. When I get down into the valley the tracks fork. I go to the right and follow the valley floor. Here and there, dwarf birches poke up through all the whiteness. I should see the cabin soon. But I don’t see it. There are no cabins to be seen.
I have forked off from the tracks several times and my trail has become thinner and thinner. I don’t meet anyone. Ski slowly into the dark. There’s no tracks under my skis any more. I’ll be there soon. Be there soon, I think. I can only see the tips of my skis in front of me sliding on the hard snow.
I’m exhausted and the rucksack is rubbing against my back. I say: ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ to myself. The wind howls. The hour it should have taken to ski down the mountainside has long since passed. I want to fall down and just lie there. I want to call out across the snow. There is an eternity of grey-blue air around me. An eternity of snow and air.
‘If you lie down, you’ll die!’ It’s Emil talking. ‘Is that what you want?’ That’s Espen’s voice, thin and teary. I sneer. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ That means that I hear them. ‘Is that what you want?’ says Espen. Don’t know. Maybe I could just sit down for a while. ‘If you sit down, you’ll freeze to death,’ says Emil. I start to ski in a big circle. If I go straight ahead and that’s wrong, I’ll never meet anyone. The mountain plateaus here are endless.
Emil says: ‘Sing something, or you’ll die.’ I sing ‘Fair is Creation’, like in church. Espen sings along. He’s got the kind of beautiful boy’s voice that I would love to have. I’m not alone. I ski in a circle for hours. Together with Espen and Emil. Every step is one too many. My disquiet evaporates for short moments. Deep tracks in the snow. It’s not as hard here as up on the mountain. I just need to turn round to make sure that I’m still alive.
Marit must have got there a long time ago. Marit knows nothing about Espen. No one does, except me. The world is so full of people, but there’s no one I can tell. You live in the same air. But are completely alone in your own body. Like a balloon. The air outside and the air inside the thin shell that can burst. You just have to avoid the pin that is a constant threat. Which means that one day it will all just go pop.
‘Lie down then. Lie down on your rucksack and die. They’ll miss you. But they’ll get over it. They’ll remember you as you never were. They’ll believe that you struggled all night. But you didn’t. You just lay down. They’ll find you frozen with your thumb in your mouth.’
I can’t face going round and round all night. It would be easier to die. But I can manage a little more. Maybe I can manage to do it all night. Maybe I do want to live. If Espen says I can’t then I can. Emil says I can. He’s a bit stronger. He’s like me. But the rucksack is too big. It’s rubbing again. My legs are completely numb. My back and neck ache. I’m hungry.
Is it better to exist than not to exist? I try to stop thinking for a while. I’m not thinking now. But I’m thinking all the same. Wonder what Marit is doing. Sitting in a warm cabin, having soup and waiting for me. I should have got there first. Wonder what Mum is doing. I want to eat sweets.
Suddenly I notice that they’re not here any longer. Espen and Emil have gone. It’s empty. Only me, who can feel them sinking away deep inside me. Only Eli is in me. Espen and Emil don’t want to die with me.
There’s a hole in reality. That’s where I am now. On the edge. See myself from outside. The big rucksack in the dark. It must be night soon. Reality is not here. It’s in the warm cabin where Marit is having soup and wondering where I’ve got to. I pull off my hat. How could Marit be so stupid as to let me out of her sight? Just because I’m a better downhill skier. How could I think that I would know the difference between left and right down in the valley?
It starts to snow. White snowflakes falling out of the dark. Dancing around in the air. I stick out my tongue and taste them. Then I hear a voice through the dark, shouting in the distance far away. ‘Eli! Eli!’
‘Here,’ I shout back. It’s not Espen. It’s outside. ‘Eli!’
‘Yes!’ I head towards the voice. ‘I’m here!’
Then a dark shadow appears on the snow. A small skier. We’re in each other’s arms. It’s not me with the rucksack who’s the heaviest. It’s Marit, her arms hanging round my neck. She lets loose her tears, great rivers. ‘I’m here,’ I whisper. My voice barely carries. It dissolves in the air. ‘I got lost,’ I say. ‘But I’m here now.’ We fall over in the snow and Marit is still crying. It warms me right through. Does she really love me that much? I feel sparks in my stomach. This magical warmth is worth all the pain. Marit really loves me.
We stand up. I follow my sniffing sister all the way back to the cabin. It feels like I’ve won something. It feels fantastic. Marit says nothing, but halfway she takes the rucksack. When we get to the cabin I can hardly stand up in the warmth of the room.
We crawl up onto the sleeping platform. There are grown up skiers there too, snoring. When we’re lying next to each other, Marit says quietly: ‘Let’s not tell anyone about this.’ I close my eyes and fall asleep.
I sit on the edge of my bed in the psychiatric ward. My favourite nurse on night shift is sitting beside me. He’s an auxiliary and will soon finish his law degree. The hospital will lose a real pearl.
‘My head is splitting in two,’ I say. One that sees badly and one that doesn’t see badly. Don’t tell anyone. ‘It’s splitting open. The blood is pouring out.’ He puts his hand on
my head. ‘It’s just as whole,’ he says. ‘No splits, no blood.’ ‘It’s splitting,’ I say. He takes my hand. Puts it on my head. ‘Feel,’ he says.
Marit is emigrating to Australia. She has a boyfriend from down under. When the day comes for her to leave, the whole family goes to the airport with her to say goodbye. Marit is going to fly to London and from there, take an emigration boat all the way to Australia where her boyfriend is waiting. They need labour there.
The year is 1974. It is the last migrant ship to sail between London and Sydney. After that, unemployment catches up with Australia as well. The passage is free. But you have to stay there for at least two years, or repay the ticket.
We stand by the check-in desk. Marit looks younger than her eighteen years and has put on far too much make-up. It’s not in to wear make-up. This is the heyday of feminism. Marit is wearing an unfashionable home-made fitted suit. Maybe she’s already in Australia. On the other side of the world and a grown-up woman. The rest of us are all dressed in the same light-green long-sleeved t-shirts and dungarees.
Mum goes to the ladies’ to cry. She has had to sign the emigration papers as the legal age is twenty. She’s away for a long time. Marit checks in her enormous suitcase. She’s packed an entire lifetime. Dad asks a woman to go into the ladies’ toilets to get Mum. She’s not allowed to finish crying. Mum refuses to come out. Dad takes a photo of us children with Marit in the middle. He sends another woman in to get Mum. When she finally comes out, it’s a hasty farewell. Then Marit disappears through security control.
In the car on the way home, Dad tells us about a friend of a friend who flew to Sydney. Disembarked. Picked up his luggage. Went out onto the road outside the airport, was run over by a bus and died. I don’t want to hear, but Emil does.
Granddad moves in with us. He doesn’t want to live in an old people’s home. His second wife has now died and he has never made a sandwich himself. He thinks Mum should look after him. He’s going to sleep on the sofa in the living room.
He wants to be called MP, main person, and likes to show us that he’s got an entry in the encyclopedia. He was one of the best chess players in Europe between the wars. He designed IQ tests and sold them to newspapers and was a professor in mathematics. He was a working class boy who got scholarships all the way through school because he was so gifted. He’s nearly ninety. Wanders around at night confusing nursery rhymes and mathematical formulas. Round and round from the living room to the hall to the kitchen. When he passes through the kitchen he turns on a hotplate, and when he comes back through again looks at the glowing hot plate and swears. He’s scared of burning to death.
I’m woken by his singing. When he sees me he says: ‘Three point fourteen, two times two, big devils and five small demons ahoy.’ He looks completely different and his speech is unclear. Then I notice for the first time that he hasn’t got any teeth at night.
Dad is wrestling with my little brother, Odd. The chairs go flying and they roll around on the kitchen floor. Suddenly Odd starts to cry. Dad is too strong. Dad is the strongest of us kids. Dad can’t fill in a form at the post office, we have to do it. Most often Torvald. It’s best to have him with you. Dad doesn’t know our postcode or telephone number. Sometimes even Odd is lifted up onto the counter and little Odd rattles off the numbers that Dad doesn’t know.
What is it with Dad? When he goes to pick Odd up from the nursery, he can sometimes come home with the wrong child. When he’s driving the car he can’t decide where to go. He just follows the car in front, turns when it turns. Sometimes he gets in behind parked cars and waits for them to move. No one in my football team wants to drive in Dad’s car to away games. Because there’s a risk you won’t get there.
Dad has lost his job as the janitor at school. Mum won’t say why. Suddenly he was back home one day. And the pupils liked him so much. It’s the grown-ups who think that Dad doesn’t do what he should. He gets a job as a swimming instructor. He stands on his hands on the diving board, bends slowly backwards and flips into the water. The children are there to learn, not to watch him show off. He loses his job as a swimming instructor. He’s at home when we come back from school. He cooks fish without cleaning it and we won’t eat it. ‘You have to eat,’ he shouts. We pick at it, clean it and eat a tiny bit and Granddad gets a bone caught in his throat and after that always gets his food in a container from the home help. Ready chewed.
Mum starts to study. She doesn’t want to be at home with Dad and Granddad. Dad paints a picture, flowers in bright colours, trees in a winter landscape. The little money he manages to scrape together, he uses for glass and frames for new paintings and yet more new paintings.
The doorbell rings. ‘It’s the minister,’ says Emil. It’s not the minister, it’s not the tramp, it’s not the boys from the street. It’s Jonathan.
We sit down at the kitchen table. I haven’t eaten breakfast. Don’t want to. Don’t want to do anything. My body is heavy from all the medication. I don’t think he can help me. I can’t either. I’m an adult now and I should be able to look after myself. ‘I’m just sitting out on life,’ I say. He’s already started with the paper and pens. ‘Write that down, just the other way round.’ I start to scribble. ‘No,’ he says. ‘A bigger piece of paper and a thicker pen, so you see it every day.’ I write: Don’t sit out on life. We put it up by the fridge.
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ I say. ‘What are they saying?’ he asks. ‘They’re saying that I should go into the corner of the kitchen and move my arms up and down. ‘Say “no, I can’t”,’ Jonathan says. I get up. ‘Sit down,’ he says. I sit down.
‘Yes, yeeees.’ ‘Say no.’ I say: ‘No. I won’t do it right now. I can’t.’ ‘Why can’t you?’ Jonathan asks. ‘I’m talking to someone else.’ ‘Who are you talking to?’ ‘Jonathan.’ ‘Good.’ ‘You have to wait.’
I sit there. I have managed not to obey my voices. I sit at the table and my leg shakes. My therapist is pleased.
Winter is here again, with snow, sun and skiing. I win the Nordic combined competition at school. Cross-country and jumping. I jump in a clown costume that Marit made for a carnival. One trouser leg is red, the other blue. The wide jacket has big red polka dots on a blue background. The collar is like a big flower. I also wear a clown’s nose. A red ball. It doesn’t matter whether I’m making a fool of myself or if the others think it’s cool. I don’t care. I could be a trendsetter, I could be an outsider.
I stand up on the highest platform. ‘Go a bit further down,’ Espen whispers in my ear. But I think quite the opposite. If it was possible to get even higher, I would. I manage to work up a good speed and give it all I’ve got. Make a perfect Telemark landing. Carry on down the outrun with my arms in the air. Thirty-two metres.
I stand on the top rostrum and am presented with a medal and a laurel wreath with long ribbons.
I’m in sixth grade and have extra classes in Norwegian. On one of the last days of term at the end of primary, my teacher starts to cry. She had forgotten to skip me when we were reading out loud one by one round the class. I stammered on every word and got stuck in the first sentence. Could only see black and couldn’t differentiate any letters. Then I started to guess what was written there. She hastily asked the person next to me to take over. All of a sudden she starts to cry and no one can understand why. ‘I’ve been teaching you for six years now. You are the first class I’ve ever taught. And the idea of sending anyone on to secondary school who can’t read is terrible.’
My support teacher has no tears when she tries to drum into me the difference between short and long vowels. ‘Double consonants, bounce the ball so you can hear it.’ She has one lying on the desk. And a rubber band for words with long vowels and single consonants. I stretch the rubber band and bounce the ball. But still I get it all wrong. I practise one word one day and the next day it’s as though I never knew it. I mix up B and P and G and K and jump over letters in the words or write too many.
‘Well, that’s us don
e now,’ she says one day. ‘No doubt you’ll get another support teacher in secondary. Have you thought about what you want to be?’ ‘An author,’ I reply without hesitation. ‘An author,’ she says, surprised. ‘I think you can forget that.’ ‘And a playwright,’ I continue. ‘And maybe I’ll act in some of them myself in the big theatres. And films, I’m going to write for the cinema and TV. And draw the covers for my own books.’ I find it hard to stop, there’s so much I want to do.
‘I think you can forget the idea of ever being an author. Not only do you have to be good at writing, you have to be able to read as well. You can’t do either. Think of something more realistic, it will make things a lot easier.’ ‘It is realistic, because that’s what I want to do.’ ‘I see,’ the support teacher interrupts. ‘Well, good luck in secondary school.’
I look up and study the support teacher. Suddenly I feel very sorry for her. Sorry for someone who doesn’t know that you can be whatever you want to be. Perhaps I’ve been sitting here with someone who didn’t want to be a support teacher. I know what I want.
There is a new youth worker at the Christian Junior Club. He’s called Arild. He’s much older than the other workers, thirty-something maybe, with a full moustache, untrendy clothes and sweaty hands. Seems to be lonely and very religious. He’s new in town and appears to only know God.
I am thirteen and my friend Lena is fifteen. We go to visit him in his small rented flat. We go to tell him about everything that’s bad. To confess and have our say. It was Arild’s idea and we’re hungry for someone who will listen.
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