I hadn’t kissed anyone before, I was sixteen and it might well have been late, I had no idea, but I was certain that kissing Jim would add something to my life that had not been there before, a new dimension, although that is hardly a word I would have used back then. But that’s what I meant. After a while it felt necessary, inevitable, but not like people may have thought, to restore something that had been lost, that’s what they were thinking, and said so out loud, that something had been lost for us children in the Berggren house, that there was a flaw in our lives, a void that no one could fill because we’d lived the way we had at home, you could see it in the looks they gave us, but no, that wasn’t why. What I wanted was to kiss Jim to move on, to add something and change myself.
The bus stopped after the station, in the sun, and it was the time between two trains going into town and two trains back, and there was no one on the platform waiting for any of them. We stood there until the others on the bus had left and walked home or cycled home, and then I took Jim by his sleeve and pulled him into the shadows behind the old, yellow timber building, and he didn’t resist and smiled all the way, and his hair was long and blond and tousled in the wind, as if he’d come straight from a rock by the sea and was different from Tommy, he was more girl-like and fair, more loose, he was less determined and more rhythmical, he could dance, for sure, and I liked him because he was softer, more flexible, more dancer, more seriously nervous and seriously cheerful, and that made him easier for me who was more Tommy than he was, it’s what I had always thought, that I was more Tommy than Jim. He was shorter than Tommy and taller than me, not much taller, but tall enough for me to have to lean my head back when we kissed, and it would look so perfect, if anyone saw us, and it felt perfect, and it was easy for both of us to do. He ran his fingers through my hair and lightly held my head in position with both hands, like in a bowl, and I rested my head in his hands, in that bowl, just the way I knew he wanted, the way I also wanted, I had planned it in advance, and for a brief instant during that kiss I knew I would never want to be without it. Not just with Jim without it, but with anyone without it.
We took a breath, I could feel my cheeks turning red, not red, more numb, no, not numb, but more like your fingers are when you come in from the biting cold in wintertime and your bare hands meet the wild heat of the house; right then, when they really quiver, just before it starts to hurt as your fingers thaw, that was how it felt, and I pressed my mouth against his skin, behind his ear, and then there was a sudden reluctance, not much, but enough for me to feel it in his neck, a withdrawal, I thought, he won’t come all the way to me, it’s Tommy, I thought, who is holding him back.
‘Don’t you want us to do this,’ I said.
‘I don’t want us not to do this,’ he said, and then he said: ‘That was a strange sentence.’ And his neck went soft and pliable, and then he kissed me, and it was just as good, maybe better, even, and when we couldn’t do it any longer, I thought, what’s coming now, what do you do afterwards, what will you say, and we let go of each other, and he didn’t speak, and I didn’t speak, and he looked past me and said:
‘I guess I’d better buy my newspaper. And then I have to start walking. It takes a good while to get home.’
‘I know.You have to. But I don’t think she’s dressed up today. It’s Thursday.’
‘Who hasn’t dressed up,’ Jim said.
‘The lady in the kiosk. Fru Vallerud.’
‘Does she dress herself up.’
‘Yes, she does, for you. Every Friday. Everyone knows she does. Haven’t you seen her on the other days.’
Jim thought back. ‘No, I don’t think I have,’ he said. ‘Jesus, does she dress up for me. I’ll wait until tomorrow then. And cycle in as I always do.’
‘I think that would be best for her. She might be upset.’
‘I’ll wait until tomorrow then,’ Jim said. And we looked at each other thinking maybe we could kiss again, though there were people on both platforms now and more on their way to catch the train to town or the opposite way, further out, to Jessheim, Eidsvoll, places like that, to the north, and another school bus pulled in to the stop and left again. Jim and I were still standing in the shadow of the yellow building, but not many people could see us, and we kissed again, and I liked it so much, and we let go of each other, and Jim said, bye, Siri, and I said, see you tomorrow at school. Yes, I’ll see you there, he said and then he walked up to the main road, across the little bridge with his satchel over his shoulder, and in the middle of the bridge he turned and raised his hand and smiled, and I walked back my usual way, down to the Co-op and past the petrol station where Lysbu was outside by the green pumps, in the sun under the white roof, under the arch, talking to a driver wearing a blue uniform, a taxi driver’s uniform it looked like to me, but we didn’t have any taxis in Mørk and never would have, so he must have come from Oslo, or from Lillestrøm. I waved to Lysbu. He waved back and smiled, and as I walked by them I had to think about Tommy, it wasn’t easy not to, at that particular place, and then it all felt bad again, and suddenly difficult, but by the time I got to the Lydersens’, it had passed, and I thought, was it so easy to let go of it. What does that say about me. But then I ran my fingers back and forth over my lips, and they were still numb in the new way, and at the same time electric, quite naked, quite raw, I’m a different girl now from the girl I was this morning, I thought, and that was how I wanted it to be. I was on my way out.
This was a new kind of autumn.
Sometimes it’s not possible to remember exactly what happened during a certain phase of your life, a certain season, to remember what you did or said at the time, who you said it to, remember the weekdays, the schooldays and birthdays, who was invited and how many years they carried with them, but you do remember what colours the days were, and your palms remember the soft, the smooth and the rough, remember every surface, remember stones and the bark of trees, remember water, and you remember a piece of clothing, that it was important, but not why it was important, and you suddenly remember a telephone number, but you don’t remember who it was that you were calling, 25 00 45, who could that have been, and a sentence comes to mind, but you can’t remember if it was him or you who said it, but it didn’t matter, for no one could tell your voices apart. But you can remember what the weather was like, and the sky above, all the skies, and all the days had the same sign, it was plus, plus, plus, and they came towards you and passed by in slow motion, and the piece of clothing was a dress, and wearing that dress you swirled round on one foot only, and you lifted one hand and looked at it, and it was a new hand, it was your hand, but you hadn’t seen it before, and you laughed and said: I’ve got a new hand, look at my hand, Jim, it’s waving, it will never go home again.
Shortly before Christmas he started to change. I didn’t know why, we stood in the snow in the playground, and I asked him if anything had happened that he wanted to tell me about, but nothing had happened, he said. Everything is just as it always was, he said, but of course it wasn’t, and that was what I said, I said Jim, something must have happened because you’re so different, don’t you like me any more, is that what’s happened, I said, that you are tired of me, but then all you have to do is say so, that would be much better, I said, and it was true, that was my thinking, and then he said, why do you say I’ve changed, I haven’t changed. But you have, I said, you don’t laugh any more, you’re always so serious, it makes me sad, you don’t even touch me. Why don’t you touch me. I don’t have to touch you all the time, he said, do I, and I said, I have to go now. We’ve got physics, and I don’t understand a thing. About physics.