Everyone clapped. I bowed to the right, then the left and sat down next to Bjørn. Drunk, happy and confused, I waved to her as the bus drove past.
‘What a bugger it didn’t happen on the first evening,’ I said.
‘Did you get her address?’
‘Yes, I’ve memorised it. She lives in. .’
I had forgotten. I couldn’t drag it up for the life of me.
‘Didn’t you write it down?’ Bjørn said.
‘No. I relied on my memory.’
He laughed. ‘You prat,’ he said.
We carried on drinking in my room. Bjørn accidentally broke a lamp, he was turning round with a bottle in his hand and hit the glass dome, which shattered. Someone else, I don’t recall who, smashed the other one out of pure devilry. Then I took down the big picture hanging on the wall, which had irritated me all week, and threw it out of the window. It exploded into smithereens on the tarmac five floors down. Lights came on in the room beneath us. Shit, what was the point of that? Bjørn said, no problem, I said, we can just take one of the pictures in the corridor and hang it here, they’ll never notice. What about the picture downstairs? I’ll get it, I said, and did as I promised. Took the lift down, went past the unmanned reception into the square, where I collected all the fragments I could find and put them in the pool around the fountain, close to the nearest wall, so that you could only see them if you were standing over them. On my way back along the corridor I grabbed one of the pictures hanging on the wall. The incident must have sobered people up, for the room was empty when I returned, apart from Bjørn, who was lying on his back with his mouth open and his eyes closed. I got into bed and switched off the light.
The next day was all about packing, having breakfast and getting ready for departure. The hotel manager came out as we were stowing the baggage in the bus, he wanted to know who had been in Room 504, that was Bjørn and I, we went over, and he, the little man, was so angry that he was jumping up and down in front of us. People like you shouldn’t be allowed to stay in a hotel! he yelled. You have to pay for this! It was all very unpleasant. We apologised, said we hadn’t meant anything by it and we would pay. I think we even bowed to him. The others stood around grinning. The team coach, Jan, came over, said he would handle this, the hotel would be properly compensated for any damage we had caused, he was extremely sorry, they were young, anything could happen, we bowed again and got on board, people like you shouldn’t be allowed to stay in a hotel! he yelled again. Jan took out his wallet and passed him a wad of notes, the bus started up, he jumped on, we drove slowly onto the road while the hotel manager glowered at us with hatred in his eyes.
Once at home, I quickly fell back into my old self, or it fell back into me. At school, where teachers focused on exams, I stayed in the shadows, I skulked around in the breaks and in lessons filled my notebooks with my scribblings. The trip to Switzerland had been a procession of triumphs, and I hoped the russ — school-leaver — celebrations would be the same. At home I wrote the social studies special paper in one night, a twenty-page comparison of the Russian revolution with the Sandanista revolution in Nicaragua, which I had followed with interest for several years, and I wrote a letter to a hotel in Switzerland asking them for the address of a guest, if at all possible, as in my possession I had a purse I would like to return, belonging to an American girl, whose name was Melanie, surname unknown, but she had stayed at the hotel over Easter.
At the end of April I had a party at home. As editor of the russ newspaper, a duty I shared with Hilde, I probably should have been on the russ committee, as had always been the case, but for some reason we were excluded. Perhaps because Hilde and I didn’t really fit in there, or because we hadn’t accepted our posts with the requisite nonchalance, what did I know? Whatever the reason, I invited the whole of the committee, as well as many others, home one Saturday evening. Mum was sleeping at a friend’s and would be home in the afternoon, so I had told everyone that they must not under any circumstances arrive before six. But at three a red russ camper chugged up the hill. In it were Christian and two girls. He wanted to drop off the beer, he said. But I told you six o’clock, I said. Yes, but now we’re here, he said. Where can I leave it?
Ten minutes later there was a stack of beer crates in the kitchen. The stack went from the floor right up to the ceiling. It was fair to say the ceiling was low, but mum, whom Christian barely greeted when he entered the kitchen, was not enamoured of the sight. What’s this? she said after they had gone. Are you going to drink all of this? You’re not going to have some drunken orgy here, are you? I won’t allow it. Relax, I said. This is a russ party. Everyone’s eighteen. There’ll be quite a bit of drinking. But I’ll take responsibility for everything. I promise you. It’ll all be fine. Are you sure? she said, eyeing me closely. There’s enough beer here for a hundred people. How many crates are there actually? Yes, but take it easy. There’s quite a bit of drinking at russ parties. But that’s the whole point. Is it? she said. Not the whole point, I said. But at any rate an important element. I know you don’t like the idea, and I’m sorry it’s here, but everything will be fine, I promise you. Well, anyway, it’s too late to do anything about it now, she said. But had I known what I know now you wouldn’t have had my blessing. Promise me you won’t drink much yourself now. You’re responsible for everything going well, you know. Yeah, yeah, I said.
We had dinner beside the yellow beer-crate tower, mum got in her car and drove to town, I put on a record, grabbed a beer and lounged on the sofa waiting for the others to come.
A few hours later the drive was full of russ vehicles. Everywhere there were screaming girls and boys in red russ outfits, all holding bottles of beer. Music was pounding from several of the cars, and in the living room the stereo was so loud that the music coming from the speakers was distorted. Three or four times more people had come than had been invited.
At one in the morning everything seemed to build up to a climax. Christian screamed and kicked a big hole in the bathroom door. Trond was sitting in the kitchen beating out the rhythm of the music on the edge of the table with two large knives, every beat was a new notch. People were being sick on the doorstep outside the living room, people were being sick on the shingle between the cars, people were being sick in Yngve’s bed. Behind the lilac bush someone was performing a knee-trembler. Others were jumping up and down to the music, roaring for all they were worth. People stood on car bonnets and roofs, one of them naked, swirling his sweater around his head. Even though I had made up my mind not to give a toss, and had succeeded by getting drunk, I carried a constant horror within me which, at various points, would surface in my consciousness, no, oh no, I thought then, only to recede as I became involved in one of the many incidents going on around me.
At three the tempo began to slow. Some people were still dancing, some were sitting and smooching, some were asleep, lying across the table, hunched in corners, outside under bushes. I sat on the sofa in front of the TV snogging a girl, we had hardly exchanged a word, she had been sitting there, I sat down beside her, we started to snog. She was dark-haired, everything about her was dark, even her clothes, she was the only one not dressed in a red outfit but in a black sweater, black skirt and black tights. Want to come with me to the room over there, I whispered, she nodded, I had drunk a lot and was thinking this will make everything different because now I didn’t give a shit about anything, wasn’t nervous about anything, and I took out my keys and unlocked the door to my room, held my arm around her, she pulled off the little handbag she wore diagonally across her chest, lay down on the bed, my bed, it reverberated through my brain, I rolled her jumper over her head, kissed her dark nipples, rubbed my face between them, lovingly and lingeringly, here we go, I thought, now I’ve got a girl here, now we’re going to have it, and my legs were trembling as I sat up to pull down her tights, she let me do it, I took off my trousers, this is it, she was naked, her skin shone white in the dark, I put my hand between her legs and felt the curly though still smooth hair, and I was naked, and I squirmed a bit, she said you’re so heavy on top of me, I pushed down with my arms and then my dick was in her pubic hair, I thrust, further down, she said, I moved and there it was, wet and soft and then, no, no, oh bloody hell, no.