A Fool, Free

by Beate Grimsrud

  Her boyfriend gets angry and splits up with her when he finds the poems she has written about me. They’re about Eli under the hat, Eli in the leather jacket and punk paraphernalia, a terrifying armband with 20 cm nails. A dangerous beauty. Someone who seems to be mysteriously kind. Eli from Norway. Who stands out in the converted stable and reads out long poems that rhyme, that sound like music that no one can understand, but that lull you like a lullaby. Eli who plays floorball better than the boys. Who plays in a white tuxedo shirt instead of a tracksuit. Eli who radiates a primal energy mixed with super sensitivity. Who can smash the world to bits and go to bits herself. Eli who fascinates you and makes you warm and curious. Someone you can’t leave once you’ve become her friend.

  I’m astonished, elated and feel seen. I’ve always thought of Lolo as out of my league. A snob. I’m curious now. Who is she?

  *

  Lolo and I go on a trip to the mountains. We go skiing and she looks sweet in her yellow beret, with her bright blue eyes and thick blonde hair. She’s beautiful in much the same way as me, only it suits her better. I wear an armour of accessories and attitude, which doesn’t allow what could be described as beautiful to shine through. I’ve shaved one side of my head and permed my hair so that it stands straight out on the other. She laughs and listens when I tell her how you should dress in the mountains. Wool against your skin. Several layers and then something windproof. Lolo wants to wear nylon tights under everything. ‘Are you crazy?’ I exclaim. ‘You’ll freeze to death.’ For my part, I’ve taken off all my punk gear and dress as though I was going to spend the night in the snow. Lolo listens to all my advice, but does what she wants in the end. She goes skiing like a Stockholmer, in other words, someone who’s only been skiing a few times in the winter break. We go cross-country. She’s out of shape, but shows stamina going uphill. On the downhill she falls frequently but always gets up. She struggles up the mountain on slippery skis, but doesn’t complain. She’s tougher than I first thought. We laugh a lot. We eat freezing sandwiches in the wind. Go back to school and are together all the time.

  One evening we’re getting ready for a party. We have a little to drink. I’ve stopped taking Antabuse and it’s important for me to show Lolo that I can drink in moderation. She seems so confident. So controlled. So normal. So considerate. A city girl. We get done up and sit in her room in the accommodation block. Her unabashed closeness makes me so nervous that I brush my teeth with hand cream instead of toothpaste. I spit it out and drink some water. Lolo is worried but then laughs. She wants to put a necklace round my neck. I pull back, suddenly terrified that she’s going to strangle me. No one is allowed to touch my neck. My sudden movement makes her back off.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t know,’ she says. How could she know? I didn’t know myself. How can I give her a hug, or anyone else for that matter, if I’m so frightened of being strangled?

  ‘Under bunnen, nede i undergrunnen, går mennesker omkring uten smil om munnen. Underfundig i grunnen.’

  Underground, under the town, people walk around wearing a frown. Underhand, really.

  I’m standing in the old hall reading my poems. They are long, rhythmic harangues. I intone them in sing-song Norwegian. The audience listens. I’ve caught them. These are political texts, angry texts full of wonder, youthful texts. We do writing exercises and have talks from visiting authors. I write a piece about Marit’s death, which I don’t dare to show. At first I’m shy about talking about other people’s writing and my own, but that soon passes. I had no idea you could read so much into a poem. That there’s another short story behind the short story. That sometimes it’s good to fail. I read, make associations, make my own formulations. More than anything, it’s exciting to hear the thoughts that your texts trigger in others. How a reader helps to shape the content.

  I write and write and dare to get closer to my own language. I start to experiment, listen to the previous sentence, immerse myself in the language. But it comes as a surprise that the other students not only write, but also read. I feel inferior when they talk about important authors who I haven’t even heard of. Or about literary trends. I’ve barely read a book and can’t suggest any Norwegian authors when they ask. My defence is that I’m anti-literature.

  We have a lot of time during the day for writing and then there are the long weekends when the others go home. I stay behind and don’t know what to do with myself. I want to create all the time. One late evening, when I’ve been drinking and am stumbling around between the old oak trees, I stumble upon my writing teacher. I’ve got a studded belt and spiky armband so everyone can see that no one can touch me. But my teacher has understood. ‘We didn’t ask you to come here,’ he says. ‘You behave as though you’re at some kind of special needs school, under duress.’ Then suddenly, in the dark of the old building and trees, so drunk that I can barely stand on my own two feet, I realise that I have in fact chosen to come here myself. That I’ve got something to learn.

  I think, as I always do, that things will get better now. But behind my back, the teachers start to consider whether I should be expelled. A media teacher recognises my impatience and talent and suggests to the principal that I should instead get individual tuition from him. I learn to take photographs and develop them, to film with Super 8 and to cut films. I’ve barely held a camera or seen a film before. Have no examples, but I’m keen and full of ideas. Can scarcely sleep at night.

  The teacher is patient, he praises me and helps me navigate my ideas. I have never come across such an enthusiastic teacher before. He applauds all my mad suggestions. He helps me to believe that I’ve got something of value to tell. Encourages me to do it in my own way.

  We take a picture of me with Emil’s cap on, with white make-up, and enlarge them to life size so we can make a film. Him and the Other Boy, where I play both boys. One who talks all the time and one who is mute, in other words, the photo. They’re hitchhiking and tell the same story, each from their own perspective, to the drivers who can’t be seen. Him wears Emil’s cap, the other boy doesn’t. I alternate between acting with the cap and without, against the photo of me. The one sitting in the front seat is the one who does the talking while the one in the back is silent.

  The end result is a forty-minute film and the whole school crowds into the gym hall to watch it. The person who was almost expelled has won. The media teacher is proud, and I understand that I have gone from being the worst to being the best.

  I sit by the kitchen table and wait for Jonathan. Flick through one of my scrapbooks. Used to do things like that. Read art periodicals and foreign fashion magazines. Cut and paste. Make collages. I’ve got several thick books, full of ideas. Night would fall and I’d continue.

  It’s a long time since I last did it. I’ve made several films for TV and cinema, and each film has a book of story boards and visual ideas. The film work has dropped off a bit right now. I look through a book with ideas for film sequences where the image size is distorted. The film was never made. I carry on to a poster I’ve called ‘Matter Out Of Place’. Where objects are placed in the wrong position and therefore display an outsideness. A queer theme. That hasn’t amounted to anything either. Making collages is one of the things on the list of anxiety management methods that Jonathan and I have written in our folder. I’ve got as far as buying a new book and writing the year on the front in big numbers. I look forward to starting to fill the book one night.

  Torvald is coming to collect me from the folk high school. The year is over and I’m going back to Norway. I can’t leave. I can’t finish, just when I was getting used to it. I’ve never had it so good. I’ve met lots of people. I’ve met Lolo. I can’t say goodbye to anyone. I’ve been seen and encouraged.

  I drink half a bottle of vodka. I pull all my stuff out of the drawers and cupboard and throw everything on the floor. I can’t pack. I find a whole lot of empty bottles. ‘Yes, yes, yes. What is it?’ ‘Smash them,’ Erik says. I smash one bottle after the other on the floo
r. Now I can’t pack. I drift between the buildings and watch the others carry their things out to their parents’ cars. See that they want something new. That they dare to let go. How easy it has been for them to be here. No depth. I want to stay. They can’t leave. I haven’t put any shoes on, am walking around in my socks. What’s going to happen to me now? Just when I’ve started writing in earnest. When I’ve dared to find a story that’s mine. When I’ve learned to talk about my own writing. When I’m just learning to talk about other things too.

  Torvald is alarmed by the mess in my room. He gets a rubbish bag and starts to tidy up. There are bits of glass in all my things, so he has to pick them out with his hands. I sit on the bed crying. ‘Stop it,’ he says. I stop. He pulls down the Karl Marx poster that I’d put up upside down. What does the old man mean to me? Nothing. Just something I took with me from the last folk high school. I rip it to shreds. The white hair and beard, no one will be able to put it together again. A shiny picture of Jesus also hangs upside down. He’s got a halo around his head and his hands on his burning heart. It’s on such thick cardboard that I can’t tear it at all. I take it outside and burn it. Not going to collect men any more.

  ‘I’ve been in the nuthouse,’ I say to Torvald. He doesn’t answer. ‘Help me,’ he says. ‘I’ve been in the nuthouse this autumn.’ ‘Did it cost anything?’ he asks. ‘Well, they didn’t say that it did,’ I reply. ‘Do you know why I was there?’ ‘No,’ he says. ‘Neither do I,’ I say. ‘They locked me up. I took pills.’ I want to say, what if it happens again? But Torvald wants to talk about something else. ‘It took me eight hours to drive here,’ he says. ‘Can we eat before we go?’ ‘You don’t need to pack, because I’m not leaving,’ I say. ‘Let’s just pack everything and go anyway,’ Torvald says. Typical. Like a dad, but then Dad wouldn’t have said that. Like a big brother. I’ve always done what Torvald said, and will do it again. But not this time.

  ‘I don’t want to leave,’ I say. ‘I understand, but that doesn’t stop us leaving, does it?’ he says. ‘I’m not leaving.’ ‘What are you going to do then?’ ‘Stay here.’ ‘But everyone’s leaving. You can come back to see them another time.’

  I hit my head with the heel of my hand. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ I’m scared. Scared of going home. I’m a stranger here, but not any more. I’m not a stranger at home, but will be when I go back. I get up and walk out, still without shoes. I walk out to reception and ask to talk to the principal.

  ‘I can’t leave,’ I say. ‘If you’re wondering why, I can’t tell you.’ ‘But hasn’t your brother come to collect you?’ ‘Yes, he’s here.’ ‘And you can’t leave?’ ‘No.’ ‘But do you want to stay here when everyone else has gone?’ ‘For a while, then I’ll get used to the fact that they’re not here any more.’ ‘You’ve not been drinking, have you? You’ve got no shoes on your feet.’ ‘No.’ ‘Because you know, artistic souls like yourself can’t take alcohol.’ I know.

  ‘What’s an artistic soul?’ ‘Someone who takes life very seriously indeed.’ Then I know that I’m not going to leave. ‘If you think it would be better for you to stay a while, then you can work on the grounds for a few weeks,’ the principal says. ‘There are summer courses here, so the canteen will be open.’

  I go back to my room. Torvald has nearly finished packing. ‘Eli,’ he says. ‘Please don’t ever say that again.’ ‘What?’ ‘What you say about the nuthouse. You must never tell anyone.’

  I hold my tongue and I hold my tongue. I tell Jonathan just how much I’ve held my tongue. ‘Your family must surely know,’ he says. ‘I’m pretty sure that they don’t,’ I reply. ‘Are you sure? All these years.’ ‘Quite sure.’ ‘Why have you kept it a secret?’ ‘Because they don’t want to know.’

  I could have done with Marit now. Maybe I would have been able to tell her. Tell her that I’m ill. That I’m not ill. Maybe she would have said that it was okay.

  When I’ve finished the few weeks’ work in the garden at the folk high school, Lolo and I go to West Berlin. We stay in a huge squat together with other young people from all over Western Europe. It’s an international work camp. I, who promised myself I would never go near another squat again, have changed. And also I’m with Lolo. Somehow it seems that that’s allowed. The people are older than when I was in Copenhagen and there are no druggie children who’ve run away from home.

  We get board and lodging free in return for helping to renovate the building. We paint the stairwells in bright colours. We build a barbecue in the garden. We shop in the nearby market and take turns making food. We visit the Berlin Wall which is covered in graffiti and take a train to East Berlin to buy cheap film. Look at the small cars and grey houses, and the people, we want to talk to them, but can’t speak German.

  Lolo and I are inseparable. We hold hands. One of the German helpers wants to know if we’re together. We don’t know what to answer. ‘It’s what they do in Scandinavia,’ a girl from England says. ‘They hold hands.’ We sleep in a big room. With an enormous bathroom done out like a living room with armchairs and big plants. Or do we have a bath and toilet in our living room? I read a piece for Lolo there in the Berlin night. She’s very taken. ‘You’ve got something there,’ she says.

  When I drink alcohol I start to shake. I lie on the bed and shake all over. I stutter and only manage to stammer out single syllables over and over again. My thoughts get stuck.

  ‘You really are damaged,’ Lolo says. ‘What happened to you? I don’t know if I dare be with you. Either, or,’ she says. ‘Either I leave you or I never leave you.’

  I’ve moved into a box room in a flat with Lolo and her cousin in Stockholm. I don’t think it’s alcohol or drugs that are the problem. They’re more a case of self-medication.

  The problem is that I need to talk to someone. The problem is that I’m about to break. That when I get a problem in one reality, I move to another. That the boys’ voices inside make me stop mid-step and say: ‘Yes, yes, yes’ and listen to their constant demands. That my thoughts stop on the verge of an empty abyss. That sleep won’t come. That my stomach aches.

  I go to a doctor and have to swallow a long tube. They examine my stomach. I’ve got a stomach ulcer. The doctor asks why. The boys say I mustn’t tell anyone about them. Or I’ll be punished in the most terrible way. Can I find help to get help to get rid of them? I don’t know if I can carry on living.

  I have to save myself. I’m a scream. I’m twenty-two years old and I get in touch with the mental health services. Lolo encourages me to call. She doesn’t want to watch me shaking and stammering and falling to pieces on her own. Lolo talks to them on the phone. She says that she can’t bear to see me like this. ‘Throw her out,’ says the voice. ‘You can’t look after an alcoholic.’ ‘She’s not an alcoholic,’ Lolo says. ‘I’ve promised myself not to abandon her. She won’t survive on the streets.’

  I get an appointment far too far into the future. We wait. I have far too much faith that someone will be able to help me. That there’s an adult somewhere, a warm person who knows something I don’t know. How to make it better. What is wrong. But there’s a misunderstanding. I’m convinced that I’ve come at the right time. I’m nervous and bursting with hope.

  From my medical journal: Pat did not turn up for appointment yesterday. Have received copies of her medical journal from Uppsala. Appears to be a case of extensive alcohol and hash misuse by a vulnerable person. Will wait for pat to say whether she is interested in continued contact.

  Note, afternoon: Pat comes in at around 3 p.m. in intoxicated state. Says that the time suits her better. I tell her that it is not what we agreed, which she eventually accepts. Comes back to reception again just before closing in the same state. Is offered another appointment, but says she is not interested. I am of the opinion that we will not be able to help this pat.

  Note: Have consulted the senior doctor about pat. Pat rang and asked for a new appointment. We will prob not be able to offer her much, but will give her a n
ew appointment on Tuesday.

  New appointment: When I ask her whether she has been admitted before, she looks at me blankly, but when I push her a little, she says she was in hospital because she had a sore stomach and was very unhappy. When I ask about drugs and alcohol, she looks very surprised and says that she does not use them. When I ask what she does for a living, she replies: nothing, don’t know where the time goes. Says the reason she has come is that she wants to start psychotherapy.

  Pat makes an odd impression. Is well padded with scarves and sweaters and a couple of shirts. Does not sit still for more than a few secs at a time. Pulls apart a pen. Sits drawing in a notebook. Looks down at the floor. In general, gives the impression of motor restlessness. Is also very reticent in giving information about herself. When I press her, she tries to remember when and where various things happened, but is rather confused. On the other hand, she says several times that she wants psychotherapy. When I tell her that I think she is not ready for it at the moment, she becomes agitated, says that she knows what is best for her. Thinks that she has wasted fifty kronor if she does not get a referral for therapy. I try to explain to her that it is important for her to have more structure in her daily life. To find a job and somewhere to live. It transpires that she does not live at the address given in her medical journal, but she does not want to say where she is staying at the moment.

  Assessment: Clearly disturbed young woman, with extensive history of substance abuse from early puberty. Claims that she does not use drugs now, but hard to tell. Was clearly under the influence when I met her here. We cannot give her any more help.