Complete silence.
‘Has it got something to do with ignorant?’ Andrea said. A faint blush rose up her cheeks as she watched her hand doodling on her book.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘To ignore is to fail to notice or to show no interest. An ignorant person is someone who shows no interest in anything. And if you aren’t interested in anything you don’t know anything about it either.’
‘Then I’m ignorant,’ Kai Roald said.
‘No, you’re not. You know lots of things.’
‘Such as what?’
‘You know a lot about cars, don’t you? More than me anyway! And you know a lot about fishing. I know nothing about that.’
‘Why haven’t you got your driving licence, by the way? You’re eighteen after all,’ Vivian said.
I shrugged. ‘I can manage fine without.’
‘But you have to get a lift whenever you want to go anywhere!’ Vivian said.
‘I get around, don’t I?’ I said. ‘But that’s enough now. Let’s get on with our work.’
I stood up.
‘What do you know about Martin Luther?’
‘Nothing,’ Hildegunn said.
‘Nothing?’ I said. ‘Absolutely nothing?’
‘Yes,’ said Live.
‘Was he Norwegian?’ I said.
‘No,’ said Hildegunn.
‘What nationality was he then?’
Hildegunn shrugged. ‘German, wasn’t he?’
‘Is he alive now?’
‘Of course not!’
‘When did he live? When your parents were small? 1960s?’ I said.
‘He lived in the olden days,’ Vivian said.
‘In the 1500s,’ Hildegunn said.
‘What did he do? Was he a plumber? Fisherman? Driver?’
‘No,’ Kai Roald said and giggled.
‘He was a priest,’ Andrea said in the casual way that was intended to show that this was one of many things she knew.
‘You know loads,’ I said. ‘Martin Luther was a priest who lived in Germany in the sixteenth century. Now you find out ten things about Martin Luther and write them down. Then we’ll go through them at the end of the lesson.’
‘How will we find them out?’ Vivian asked.
‘Isn’t it your job to tell us actually?’ Hildegunn said. ‘Isn’t that what you get paid for?’
‘I get paid for teaching you,’ I said. ‘And there won’t always be a teacher in front of you telling you what you need to know. So what do you do? You have to learn where you can find things out. Don’t you? Look them up in a book. Find an encyclopedia. I don’t mind what you do as long as you find out ten things. Off you go!’
With sighs and groans and grimaces they got up and made for the school’s modest library, each armed with a pencil and a notebook. I sat down behind my desk and looked up at the clock on the wall. Half an hour left. Once this was over, there were five lessons left. And Monday was crossed off. Then there were Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday left.
This weekend I would definitely have to write. No trip to Finnsnes during the day, no party in the evening, just sit in front of the computer from the moment I got up to the moment I went to bed.
I had five short stories now, apart from the two stories based on dreams. All of them had the same protagonist, Gabriel, and the same cast of characters. The action took place in Tybakken. What was strange was how close the place was to me. Sitting in front of the typewriter was like opening a door to it. The scene rose inside me in its entirety and repressed everything around me. There was the road outside the house, there was the tall spruce with the stream running past, there was the slope down to Ubekilen, the stone wall, the rocky outcrop, the boathouse, the crooked rickety pontoon, the island with all the seagulls. If anyone rang my doorbell now, and they did all the time, fourth years, seventh years, the tall ninth year who for some reason gravitated towards me, some of the young fishermen, I would jump out of my skin. It didn’t feel as though my childhood surroundings were intruding on the present but vice versa: I was really back in my childhood, and it was the present that was intruding. If I was interrupted, a whole hour or more could pass before Tybakken would be in the ascendancy again.
That was what I longed for. When the trees were trees, not ‘trees’, cars not ‘cars’, when dad was dad, not ‘dad’.
I got up and took a few steps into the open-plan area so that I could see what they were doing. Everyone was sitting around the table in the library, apart from Andrea and Hildegunn, who were heading for their chairs.
‘Did you find anything?’ I said as they walked past.
‘Of course,’ Hildegunn said. ‘We’ve finished. What shall we do now?’
‘Sit down and wait.’
In the classroom beyond, separated from the library by a long stack of bookshelves, sat the third and fourth years bent over their desks, some with their hands in the air, while Torill went round helping them. In the other corner of the room sat the first years, on cushions, around Hege, she was reading from a book, they were staring ahead, their eyes dreamy, their faces sleepy. She caught my gaze, looked up without a pause in her reading and smiled at me. I rolled my eyes, turned to my classroom and met Andrea’s look. She had been sitting watching me. Now she looked down.
‘What did you find out then?’ I said.
‘Do you want to hear now?’ Hildegunn said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not really. We’ll wait until the others have finished.’
‘Why did you ask then?’ said Andrea.
‘Reflex action,’ I said.
Across the carpet came Kai Roald and Vivian. After they had sat down I walked over to the library corner, where Live was still busy writing.
‘How’s it going?’ I said.
‘I’ve got five,’ she said. ‘No, six.’
‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘That’ll do. You can write down the last four as we go through them.’
She picked up her bits and bobs with that serious expression she put on when somebody told her to do something. But she was unable to conceal her great inner insecurity, at least not from me. What her peers saw when they looked at her was not easy to say.
We spent the last twenty minutes of the lesson going through their points. I talked and expanded while they watched me with vacant eyes. What good Martin Luther would do them I had no idea. For them it was probably more about being here and writing in their notebooks with their pencils. Sitting on their seats and listening to someone talking about something.
The bell rang. They asked if they could stay indoors in the break, the weather was so bad, I said absolutely not, off you go, waited while they put on their jackets and hats, went into the staffroom, where everyone was busy with their own preoccupations, and sat down with a cup of coffee, which was already bitter after an hour in the machine.
Nils Erik, who was sitting reading the local paper, glanced across at me.
‘Coming up to the pool later today?’ he said.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Drop by my place.’
In front of us Torill opened the fridge door, leaned forward and took out a yoghurt. She removed the lid and licked it before throwing it in the bin under the sink, found a spoon in the drawer and started to eat. She looked at us and smiled with a streak of pink yoghurt on her lower lip.
‘I get so hungry at this time,’ she said.
‘You don’t have to apologise,’ I said. ‘We snack as well.’
Beside me Nils Erik folded the newspaper, got up and went to the toilet. I drank a mouthful of coffee and turned to Jane, who came out of the photocopy room at that moment with a pile of papers in her hand. The corners of her mouth drooped as always, her eyes were bored and introspective, leaving you with no real desire to find out what went on inside her.