During the days before we were due to leave I finished an article on Prince that I had been mulling over for ages. His new record, Sign o’ the Times, was absolutely brilliant and I wanted everyone to know.
Then we left. Bus through Denmark and Germany, spirits were high, we were drinking duty-free beer on the way, and when we got to the hotel, Bjørn, Jøgge, Ekse and I jumped off while the bus continued over the border to Italy, where a Serie A match was on the programme. We preferred to be in a bar drinking. When they came back at ten we were in a fantastic mood while they were exhausted after the journey and everyone wanted to go to bed early. I shared a room with Bjørn, it was on the fourth floor and more luxurious than any room I had ever slept in, with attractive furniture, mirrors and a carpet on the floor. We reclined on the beds, bottles of beer in hand. It was eleven at the latest, what about a trip into town to have a look? The rule was no noise after ten, by eleven everyone was supposed to be in bed, but they hadn’t exactly posted guards on the doors. We waited for a while, not wishing to risk meeting anyone in the corridors, then we went out, hailed a taxi, mumbled, ‘Downtown,’ leaned back and were driven along unfamiliar streets with the soft light from the street lamps shining down over us. The driver stopped in a square, we paid, got out and strolled towards the centre. Soon we came across a large building, we could hear music inside, there were bouncers on the door, we went in. There were discotheques, bars, an enormous casino and a stage where beautiful women stripped and other scantily clad women, equally beautiful, wandered around the audience.
Bjørn and I exchanged glances. What was this fantastic place?
We drifted round, looking and drinking, hung around the stage and watched the striptease, discovered to our horror that the scantily clad girls who were walking between the tables were the same ones as those dancing on the stage, hardly had we watched one go up than she was down and walking past us on the floor. We went into a disco, propped up various bars there, mooched around the room with the roulette tables, where the men were dressed in dark suits and all the women wore evening gowns, ended up in front of double doors at the other end and saw a hall beyond, with groups of people standing around and chatting while waiters dressed in black and white carried trays of wine glasses and canapés. We didn’t talk to anyone else, drank non-stop, left at about half past three in the morning and six hours later were running round a field in a semi-conscious state. Slept for a couple of hours before the next round of training, had dinner, drank some beers in the bar and then it was off to find a taxi to go to this palace, where we floated around like in a dream until the following morning. Then we had to get up and go skiing in the Alps, there was something dreamlike about that too, for the sky was completely blue, the sun was shining, everywhere we looked white mountains towered in the air, and after a few minutes on the lift, with our skis dangling beneath us, everything was perfectly still. As though we had passed into another state. All that could be heard was the low hum of the lift close to us, otherwise it was completely and utterly still. A sense of jubilation filled me, for the silence was as vast as an ocean, while there was also something painful about it, as there is in all joy. The silence high up in the mountains, surrounded on all sides by beauty, allowed me to see myself or become aware of myself, not in relation to my psyche or my morality, this had nothing to do with my personal qualities, this was all about being here, this body which was ascending, I was here now, I was experiencing this and then I would die.
I slept on the bus back, had a headache when I awoke, drank a few beers in the bar, had dinner, downed a few more because tonight everyone was going out, there was a disco near the hotel, we were there until one in the morning. I danced and drank and had a good word for everyone I saw. On the way back Bjørn and I climbed up onto a roof. It wasn’t any old roof, it was a Swiss roof, turret after turret soared upwards, we shinned up, climbed and sweated and finally stood aloft, roughly thirty metres above the car park, where a small crowd had gathered. Our legs trembled as we shouted into the night, then we crouched down and began the descent. When there were only a few metres left two men with torches ran over. The beams wandered back and forth in the blackness. Polizei, they said and came to a halt beneath us. One was holding his ID card and shining the torch on it. That must be Chief Inspector Derrick, I giggled. We jumped down. Our football coach came over to us, he could speak some German, and explained the situation to the two police officers, who, despite their sceptical glares, let us go. On our way down the hill to the hotel one of the players from the senior team came up alongside us. He said he thought we were so courageous, we were so tough, going out and drinking every night and climbing up that roof, he really looked up to us, he said, and wished he could do things like that, he didn’t dare, he wasn’t as tough as we were, and for that, he said, I admire you.
That was the word he used. Admire.
I would never have believed it, I said to Bjørn after he had disappeared into the group behind us. No, said Bjørn. That wasn’t bad, I said. He admired us. Bjørn looked at me. Shit, I said, the police coming and shining their torches on their badges. Polizei! Polizei! We laughed. Then it struck me that he knew we had been out drinking at night. Did that mean everyone knew? What did it matter anyway? The worst that could happen was that we would be barred from playing, but this was the fifth division we were talking about and the end-of-school festivities were in sight, so it wasn’t a big deal.
When we returned everyone had gathered in our room. Some of the senior team had brought girlfriends with them on the trip, a couple were here, and I saw Bjørn talking to one of them, Amanda, who went out with Jøran. She was around twenty-five. Was Bjørn really trying it on with her? Here?
Yes, he was. As people began to withdraw he did too and I was left alone on my bed, I fell asleep fully clothed, only to be awoken an hour later by Bjørn shaking me.
‘Amanda’s coming,’ he said. ‘Could you go somewhere else? For half an hour?’
Befuddled by sleep, I got up.
‘OK,’ I said, went to the window and opened it.
‘You’re not going to go out there, are you? This is the fourth floor or have you forgotten?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’ll be fine.’
Beneath the window, all the way, ran a brick ledge almost the width of my feet. Two metres above it there was another. I stood on the lower one, gripped the upper one tightly and then shuffled along centimetre by centimetre. Bjørn watched me with his head out of the window.
‘Don’t do this,’ he said. ‘Come back.’
‘Now you’re with Amanda and I’m here. I’ll be back in half an hour.’
He eyed me for a moment. Then he closed the window. I looked down. There was a large fountain outside the entrance, around it an open square, on the margins a few parked cars. A high brick wall separated the hotel grounds from the road beyond. There was no one around, but that wasn’t so strange, it had to be three in the morning at least.
I slowly shuffled towards the window of the room adjoining ours. The curtains were drawn, there was nothing to see. I edged back, stopped by the window, leaned forward and peered in. They were lying on Bjørn’s bed and smooching, their legs intertwined, Bjørn’s hands were sliding up and down her thigh under her dress. I straightened up, took a few steps to the side, squinted down again. Still deserted. How long had I been there now? Ten minutes? I let go of the ledge with one hand, patted my jacket for cigarettes and my lighter, succeeded in knocking one out, sticking it in my mouth and lighting it without swaying once. When the cigarette was finished and lay like a small glowing eye on the tarmac far below I shuffled sideways and banged on the window. Bjørn jumped to his feet. Amanda sat up. Bjørn came over to the window, Amanda ran out of the door, Bjørn turned, ready to give chase, or so it seemed, but then he reconsidered and opened the window for me.