She sat down. I opened the fridge, took the juice from the door and looked at the date: 31 December. Shook it. There was a drop left.
‘Did he really say that?’ mum said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But don’t give it another thought. He was a bit drunk, as I said.’
‘Have I ever told you about the first time he met grandma and grandad?’ she said.
I shook my head. Opened a cupboard and took out a glass.
‘They made a deep impression on him, both of them. But especially grandma. He said she was like nobility.’
‘Nobility?’ I said, sitting down and pouring the juice into my glass.
‘Yes. He saw something special in her. Dignity, he said. You know, it was tough, very different to what he was used to. We weren’t poor in any real sense, we always had food and clothes, but things were tight, they were. At least, compared with his childhood home. I don’t know what he’d been expecting. But he was surprised. Perhaps also because they dealt with him in a way he was unused to. They took him seriously. They took everyone seriously. Perhaps it was as simple as that.’
‘How old was he then?’
She smiled.
‘We were nineteen, both of us.’
‘Do you want some juice by the way?’ I said. ‘There’s a drop left.’
‘No, you take it,’ she said.
I emptied the carton and threw it into the sink. A perfect aim. The sudden noise made the cat stir.
‘He talked about her eyes,’ mum said. ‘I can remember that. He said they were piercing yet gentle at the same time.’
‘That’s true,’ I said.
‘Yes, he’s always been good at observing others, your father has,’ she said.
‘You wouldn’t believe it now, the way he behaves,’ I said, taking a sip of the juice.
The acid taste made me grimace.
‘That’s partly why I’m telling you,’ she said. ‘So you can appreciate that he’s more than what he’s showing at the moment.’
‘I realised that,’ I said.
Some steam escaped from the gap at the top of the oven door and from the outlet at the back of the stove. How long had they been in now? Six minutes? Seven?
‘He was a very gifted person. There were so many sides to him. Much more so than any of the others around him — when I met him anyway. And there can be no doubt that it was a problem that his talents were never really appreciated when he was growing up. Do you understand what I mean?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Mm.’
‘But if he was as gifted as you say he was, how could he do to us what he did when we were growing up? I was petrified of him. The whole damn time.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Perhaps he was confused. Perhaps he was driven by external demands incompatible with what was inside him. He grew up with so many demands on him, so many rules and regulations, and when he met me I brought along other demands that probably didn’t suit him at all. Well, obviously they didn’t.’
‘Yes, he mentioned something about that,’ I said.
‘Did he?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you talk about all this?’
I smiled.
‘Wouldn’t exactly say that. It’s more him sitting there and moaning. But I think the rolls are done now.’
I got up, walked around the table, opened the oven door, took out the burning-hot rolls one by one as quickly as I could, put them in the bread basket and set it on the table.
‘Lots of external rules and monumental internal chaos, is that your diagnosis?’ I said.
She smiled.
‘You could put it like that,’ she said.
I split open a roll and then handed her the bread knife. The butter I spread melted the second it made contact with the greyish surface, which was partly doughy from the heat. I cut myself two slices of brown cheese and placed them on top. They melted too.
‘Why didn’t you just leave?’ I said.
‘Leave dad?’
I nodded with my mouth full.
‘I’ve wondered about that many times myself,’ she said. ‘I don’t know.’
We ate for a while without speaking. It was odd to think we had been in Sørbøvåg only this morning. It seemed like much longer. It was a different world.
‘Well, I don’t have a good answer to that,’ she said at length. ‘There were so many reasons. Divorce would have been a defeat. And then we’d been together all our lives. That creates a lot of bonds of course. And I loved him, that goes without saying.’
‘I don’t quite understand that,’ I said. ‘But I hear what you say.’
‘You can say what you like about your father,’ she said. ‘But he wasn’t boring to live with.’
‘No,’ I said and stood up to get my tobacco pouch from my jacket in the hall.
‘What about Kjartan then?’ I said as I returned. ‘Surely there’s a kind of inner chaos in him too?’
‘Is there?’ mum said.
‘Isn’t there?’ I said, and opened the pouch, took a rolling paper, filled it with tobacco and plucked a bit out to create better air flow.
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘At any rate, he’s searching for something. He’s been searching all his life, I would say. Now he’s found it he’s holding on to it.’
‘You’re thinking of communism, are you?’
‘For example.’
‘What about you?’ I said, rolling the paper back and forth around the tobacco. ‘Are you searching?’
She laughed.
‘Me, no! I’m trying to survive. That’s what I’m doing.’
I licked the gum on the edge, stuck it down and lit up.
The next evening I went out, first of all I sat around drinking with a few others in a gymnas friend’s house, we pinched some beers from the cellar and were thrown out, ran downhill to town, everywhere was covered with snow, it cracked and creaked beneath our shoes, and the freezing-cold wind was all around us, buffeting against our faces as we walked, we forced our way through, it was endless. At the Shell station in Elvegate we flocked around a little man who had been talking to one of the girls there and laughed at him, we sang, ‘Here comes toughie, toughie, toughie, tough,’ and then, ‘Here comes dickie, dickie, dickie, dick’ to the tune of ‘Here comes Pippi’. I kicked him up the arse as he turned and everyone laughed. After we had paid and left, he was standing there waiting for us all, with a pal. The pal was much bigger than him. Who could possibly have guessed? ‘Him,’ the little man said, pointing at me over by the pumps. The big pal came over to me, said nothing, then looked me straight in the eye. A second passed, perhaps two, then he nutted me. I collapsed in a heap. Hot blood ran from my nose down onto the concrete. What happened? I thought. Had he nutted me? It didn’t hurt.
Behind me I heard Hauk. I’m only sixteen! he was shouting. I’m only sixteen! I’m only sixteen! I sat up. They ran down the hill. Hauk and two others in front of him, the big man at the back. He was brandishing a knife. I got up and went over to the girls, whom no one had threatened. Marianne dashed into the toilet and emerged with an armful of paper, and I wiped off the blood. Not long afterwards Hauk and the others returned from the opposite direction, they were still frightened, went into the kiosk and asked the assistant to ring the police. The sparkle went out of the evening, the group dispersed, suddenly I was the only person left who wanted to carry on, and I had to catch a taxi home, sitting on the back seat while my nose and head pounded and throbbed.
The moment I opened the door I knew that Yngve had come home. Luggage scattered across the floor, his jacket on a hook, his sturdy boots. I decided to surprise him. My joy at the idea made my chest bubble with excitement, and when I opened the door, switched on the light and shouted, ‘Da-da!’ and he sat up in bed, utterly bewildered, I burst into laughter. I completely lost control, just kept on laughing, he looked at me, what happened, he asked, what’s up with your nose, I was laughing so much I couldn’t answer, he said, go to bed, Karl Ove, that’s best and we can talk tomorrow.