The Wolves of Eternity, page 11
I almost felt like phoning the newspaper offices to complain. But it was probably only an empty-headed twelve-year-old, and a telling-off wasn’t exactly going to make the paper dry.
I put it down on the kitchen table and tried to turn the pages to Dag’s section without tearing them, but they were so stuck together I couldn’t separate them, so instead I went to the shop to buy a new one. Mum wouldn’t like it, she hated waste more than anything and could always see the value of things no matter what. But she didn’t have to know.
It had clouded over again and the light had faded. The river ran dark under the trees. I probably merged into the surroundings in my dark green anorak, I thought, and so every time a lorry came thundering through the flatland I stepped well back from the road just in case.
There were no customers in the shop when I came in, and the woman on the till, who’d worked there always, was sitting reading one of the weekly glossies.
NORWAY’S NEW PRIME MINISTER, VG’s headline said, and there was a picture of Brundtland with her index finger pressed to her temple – apparently she’d ridiculed Syse in parliament the day before.
I took a copy out of the rack. The checkout woman looked at me.
‘All very quiet in here,’ I said.
‘Always is before lunchtime,’ she said.
‘Isn’t it a bit boring?’
‘No, it’s all right.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been in at this time,’ I said, and picked a basket from the top of the stack. ‘Apart from at weekends, that is.’
‘You’ve not missed much,’ she said, and met my gaze. Her eyes were gigantic behind her glasses. What lenses did she use? She must have been nearly blind!
‘You never know what can happen,’ I said. ‘All of a sudden, an American film star could walk in through that door and ask for a packet of chewing gum.’
‘I’ve worked here twenty-five years.’
‘And nothing exciting’s ever happened?’
She shook her head.
‘That minister from the government was here once. Stray. That’s the only time.’
‘What did he buy?’
She smiled.
‘I can’t remember.’
‘I met someone in the military whose parents own a hotel in the Vestland. One day, all of a sudden, Al Pacino was there playing billiards, he told me.’
‘It goes to show, I suppose.’
‘He’s a very good actor, Al Pacino,’ I said, and went down the aisle, picking up a two-litre carton of milk, a loaf of bread and some cheese, the newspaper under my arm.
‘So you’re following your father’s footsteps?’ she said as she entered the amounts.
‘How do you mean?’
‘You said you were in the forces.’
‘No, just my national service, that’s all.’
I took a carrier bag and put my items in it, got my wallet out and paid.
‘Did you know him?’ I said.
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘He went to school with the rest of us.’
‘What was he like?’
‘Like? I don’t know, really. Just normal, I suppose. Like everybody else.’
I nodded.
‘Thanks, anyway,’ I said and smiled. ‘And remember, before you know it, it’ll be Sylvester Stallone standing here!’
* * *
*
Mum had gone to work again by the time I got home. She’d switched the coffee maker off, but the coffee was still warm in the pot. I switched it on again so it wouldn’t go cold and poured myself a cup before sitting down at the table and opening the paper. Dag had got a whole page, and as far as I could judge his pieces were all good. The bloke from No to Nuclear Weapons said the nucleus of the atom was unchanged by any chemical process, and splitting it, as we were now doing, went against Nature and was in fact a threat to life on earth as we knew it. Are we playing at being God? Dag had asked him. No, we’re playing at being the Devil, he’d answered.
I tried to phone him to tell him I thought his work was good, and to ask if he fancied coming round to watch the international match, but he wasn’t in. Instead, I went up to my room, lay down on the bed and carried on reading my Follett. When I got to the scene where the main character shaves a woman’s cunt in a bathtub at a hotel in Cairo, I got a hard-on, undid my trousers and started wanking as I’d done so many times before when I got to that scene, the only one I could remember in the whole book.
Just when I was about to come, someone opened the front door downstairs.
‘Hello?’ Joar’s voice called out.
I tried to keep going, but my fantasy couldn’t contend with reality, it all fell apart and the climax that had been so near was suddenly so very far away.
‘Syvert?’ Joar called out.
I did my trousers up and got to my feet.
‘I’m up here,’ I shouted.
‘OK,’ he shouted back.
OK?
‘What is it?’
‘Nothing!’ he shouted. ‘I’m home!’
He was slicing some bread when I came down. His school bag was dumped in the hall, his wet coat on top.
But I wasn’t his dad, so I said nothing.
‘Can we have some cocoa?’ he said.
With his pale face tilted down and his rather pointed or at least thin nose, the whirl of hair at the crown of his head, he looked like a little bird.
‘Of course we can,’ I said.
‘Will you make it, then?’
‘You can make it yourself, can’t you?’
‘Mum says I’m not allowed.’
‘You’re allowed when I’m here.’
‘But I don’t know how to make it.’
‘You don’t know how to make cocoa?’
He shook his head.
‘Mix two spoonfuls of cocoa and a spoonful of sugar with a bit of water in a mug. Then you heat the milk and pour it on top. Nothing could be easier. Can’t you fry an egg either?’
‘I’ve never tried,’ he said.
‘What’s Mum thinking?’ I said. ‘You’re twelve years old!’
‘Were you allowed to cook when you were twelve?’
‘Allowed? I had to. There were all sorts of things I had to do. Look after you, for a start.’
I smiled at him. He looked at me, but didn’t smile back.
‘I’m sorry I killed the bird,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry too for getting so angry,’ I said.
He took a plate from the cupboard, put his bread on it and went over to the fridge to get something to put on the bread.
‘I don’t know why I did it.’
‘You did it because it was exciting. All boys have done it at some point. Think no more about it. Are you going to make that cocoa, then, or shall I?’
‘I can do it.’
His voice cracked slightly as he spoke.
‘What was that?’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Is your voice breaking now?’
He blushed and turned his face away from me as he took the milk over to the cooker.
‘Have you got hair on your . . . ?’ I said, not knowing whether to say willy or if he was big enough for me to say dick.
‘It’s none of your business,’ he said, still looking the other way. ‘Where’s the cocoa?’
‘So you have, then!’ I said.
He busied himself without saying anything, poured the milk into the pan, mixed the sugar and cocoa into a paste and whisked it into the milk.
‘Do you want some?’ he said with his back to me.
‘I wouldn’t mind,’ I said.
‘Can you pour it, then? I’ll only make a mess.’
‘You’re a big lad now, you’ll have to do it yourself,’ I said, and laughed.
He said nothing, but from the look on his face when he put my cocoa down in front of me I could tell he wasn’t just embarrassed, but proud of himself too.
‘Have you got homework to do?’
He nodded.
‘We’ve got to write a composition for Friday.’
‘About what?’
‘Either “My Dog Says” or “A Day I’ll Never Forget”.’
‘It’ll be a cinch for you,’ I said.
‘I hate writing.’
‘What do you like, then? Maths?’
‘A bit. We might be able to take computer studies in ninth. That’d be good.’
‘I’m really glad I’m finished with school,’ I said.
‘Aren’t you going to university?’
‘I’m not sure. Maybe, maybe not.’
He looked at me over the rim of his mug, that probing, penetrating gaze of his. He put the mug down and began buttering a slice of bread.
‘Why do we die, exactly?’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘Yes, why do we die?’
‘Are you thinking about the bird now.’
‘Maybe.’
‘It died because it got shot to pieces. You can’t function any more when a bullet’s just gone through your brain, can you?’
‘But if that hadn’t happened, it would still have died sooner or later.’
‘That’s just the way it is.’
‘But why?’
I shrugged.
‘No one knows.’
‘There must be a reason,’ he said.
‘Things get old and wear out. A car will only keep going so many years before it starts breaking down, and eventually there’s nothing you can do other than scrap it.’
‘But you can take a car to the garage and get it mended.’
‘Like hospital,’ I said, ‘it only helps for a while.’
‘That’s not right,’ he said. ‘You can put new parts in a car when the old ones stop working. You can’t with people and animals.’
‘I wouldn’t speak too soon,’ I said. ‘They’ll be putting artificial organs in humans next.’
‘Will death disappear then, do you think?’
‘Yes, I think it will, don’t you? If everything that stops working can be replaced?’
‘The first thing about that,’ he said, looking down, with his elbow propped on the table, his slice of bread in his hand, ‘is that if you had all the parts in your body replaced, then you’d no longer be you, would you?’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ I said.
He smiled, then seemed to retract it again.
‘The second thing is that it doesn’t answer the question of why death exists, does it?’
‘It doesn’t, no,’ I said. ‘You were a bit ahead of me there. Was that the point?’
‘Hm?’ he said, chewing his bread.
‘You were just briefing me, was that it?’
He shook his head while he swallowed.
‘I’ve been thinking about it for a while, that’s all. Why a bird dies, but a stone doesn’t.’
‘That’s simple,’ I said. ‘It’s life that dies, and a stone isn’t alive.’
‘I know that,’ he said. ‘But why does life die?’
‘No one knows, and no one ever will,’ I said, and got up. ‘Thanks for the cocoa, mister. Now go and do your homework!’
‘Where are you going?’ he said as I went into the hall and put my anorak on.
‘Out, that’s all. Won’t be long.’
It had cleared up again. The light from the white sky made the sodden fields shimmer faintly. I didn’t know what I was going to do, or where I was going to go, all I knew was I didn’t want to stay in a second longer.
But Mum still had the car and none of my mates lived within walking distance. Besides, I supposed they’d all still be at work.
I walked towards the main road. Luckily, we had practice at six. It had never been the highlight of the week before, but it definitely was now. It was our first match at the weekend, so most likely we’d be given the team sheet tonight. I wasn’t expecting much game time to begin with. But it was still something to look forward to, and think about.
And then there was the international after that. It was only a friendly, but it was Argentina we were up against, and Maradona would be playing.
As I walked along the road, the river running grey next to it, a wall of dark green spruce on the other side, it occurred to me to go down to the moorings and have a look at the canoe. It had been under a tarp more than six months, easy to steal for anyone who knew what they wanted. Not that I was afraid of that. It wasn’t exactly worth much anyway.
Several boats were in the water already. The canoe was still there, on the ground under a tree at the bottom end.
Maybe I could go out for a paddle, I thought as I lifted the tarp and the green hull became visible.
I’d have to go and get the paddles first.
Could I be bothered?
Yes, I could.
I could ask Joar if he wanted to come.
I ought to.
It’d be good for him to get out.
But was that what I wanted?
I’d been big brother enough for one day, I reckoned.
A little trip down the river, it’d be good.
I went back and found the paddles at the far end of the barn, together with the life jackets and a bailer, almost yellow in the grainy grey light. Next to them were the boxes of Dad’s things.
Something in me wanted to see what else was in them. Not to get closer to him, more the opposite, to remove him from me, put him back in his boxes, back with his things.
I crouched down and opened the one that was nearest.
The things from his desk. Passport, driving licence, wallet. A folder full of bills, some loose soldering schematics, circuit boards, small bundles of wires, pens and pencils, typewriter ribbons, his Polaroid camera. And the Chinese figurine of a human with a monkey’s head that he’d kept on his desk and which I’d thought was made of gold, only it wasn’t. I hadn’t seen it since he died, when I was eleven, and all sorts of emotions ran through me as I held it in my hand. There were some ring binders too, with documents in them, mostly with the Royal Norwegian Air Force letterhead. And at the bottom, spines facing up, five books. I’d never seen him read anything other than the newspaper and occasionally my comics, which he sometimes borrowed when he was tired, so I picked one out.
The alphabet it was written in was indecipherable. It had to be Russian. The others were the same.
Why on earth would he have books in Russian?
I put everything back in the box again, picked up a paddle in one hand, a life jacket in the other and went outside. Mum’s car was parked out front now, and I saw her in the kitchen. I thought maybe I should tell her where I was going, but on the other hand she didn’t need to know everything. I was an adult. Even if she didn’t necessarily see things the same way.
There was no one around at the moorings. The river flowed by with barely a sound. I put the life jacket on, pulled the tarp away and dragged the canoe over the grass between the trees and the gravel, down to the river. I got in and paddled out midstream. Little galaxy-shaped eddies formed here and there in the water around me. Behind the wall of tall spruce trees that were almost black under the overcast sky, the heathland rose up, and behind it, where again it sloped away, was the sea.
I wondered if I’d have sensed it, if I hadn’t known.
It felt that way. You always sensed the sea, if it was close by.
Then I thought of the Russian books.
Maybe they’d been a present from someone. But who would give a person books they couldn’t read?
I reckoned he must have bought them himself on one of his trips abroad, as a curiosity. The Chinese monkey man was something he’d bought in a big city somewhere, Berlin, if I remembered right, but it could have been London; wherever it was, I remembered him coming home and showing it to me, telling me about the shop he’d bought it from. An old Chinese man had been sitting stock-still behind the counter, and his shop had been filled to the rafters with all sorts of weird things. He’d bought Mum a silk dressing gown from the same place, though I’d never seen her wear it, and I got a mechanical bird that lifted up its head and sang. It broke after only a few days. I hadn’t told them, just left it on the windowsill.
If he’d bought things from a shop like that, he could have bought the books from a similar place, intrigued by them being in Russian and not knowing what was in them.
I’d have to ask Mum about it.
I let the canoe drift downstream on the current, adjusting its course now and again, but otherwise resting the paddle on the gunwale. It was going to be hard work paddling back the other way, so I had to make sure not to drift too far. Under the bridge, where the river narrowed, the boat went slightly faster, slowing again on the other side, where it opened out again, and I had to start paddling. I loved to feel the heaviness of the water when I thrust the paddle down and pulled it back, so hard that it gave a shudder, propelling myself slowly forwards at the same time.
A wall that was also an opening.
* * *
*
Two hours later, Gjert pulled up outside the house in his black Ascona and tooted the horn.
‘All right, loser,’ he said without looking at me, his hand rummaging for something in the glove compartment as I got in.
‘All right, gobshite,’ I said, putting my holdall on my lap. ‘Anything been happening?’
‘Like what?’ he said, and pushed a cassette into the stereo, threw the car into gear and set off back towards the road.
‘How should I know?’ I said.
The first chords of ‘War Pigs’ came through the speakers.
‘When was the last time you had a shower, anyway?’ I said.
He gave me a quick look.
