‘I am doing my own work,’ I say.
‘What do you mean? Are you being insolent?’
‘I am not being insolent.’ I am just saying I do my work. No one can say any different.
‘I’ll tell you one thing, Sletten. I’ve been keeping an eye on you. You’re a troublemaker, are you not?’
‘You can call me whatever the hell you like, but you can’t say I don’t do my work.’
I crossed the line there. But this day started too well. I must have been an idiot to think it was going to last.
I drop what’s in my hands and walk towards the hall, where I can see Samuel’s back. He still stands singing and has not heard a thing. I start to count. When I get to five, the foreman shouts:
‘SLETTEN!’ I stop and turn round.
‘YOU’RE FIRED! YOU CAN GO HOME, NOW!’
‘Kiss my arse,’ I say.
That was quick. I go in past Samuel, and my legs are trembling. There is air instead of bones inside them. It’s a strange feeling. I can ask old Abrahamsen to help me get a job at the harbour. I am strong, I can lift sacks. I don’t know. What is certain is that my mother will be beside herself. I walk past the soundproof room where Goliath is sitting by the console filling in today’s log. He looks up as I pass. I don’t look back, just go to fetch my book and then on to my place at the rolls star and put the book in my bag. The old roll will soon be empty. I could just go away and let it run out, but everything has been so perfect today, and no one can say I don’t do my job, even if I don’t have it any more. I go over and swivel the star round, start up a new roll and when it’s up to the right speed, I let the splice go. It sticks. Davidsen, the foreman, can go hang himself. It’s a little early to make a join if you want to save paper, but it’s better than having the press run empty, and I don’t want to wait. I want to leave now.
When the join has gone through the web and been taken out at the folder, I grab my bag and walk along the press. Goliath looks up again, he sees the bag, he looks surprised and comes to the door.
‘That join was a little early, wasn’t it?’
‘I didn’t want to wait. I’m leaving.’
‘Leaving? Hell, you’ve only just got here. You’ve been away for more than a week.’
‘I’ve been fired.’
‘What are you talking about? No one gets fired from my team without me being told about it.’
‘Maybe so, but just the same, I was fired five minutes ago, by Davidsen.’
‘Goddamnit. HARALD!’ Harald comes running in with blue ink dripping from his spatula. He has been stirring one of the tubs, and now it’s running down his trousers. ‘YES?’ he shouts over the drone of the machine.
‘Stop the press. Nice and easy. And don’t move a fucking finger until I’m back.’ He heads for the door. Then he stops and turns to me.
‘And you stay right here.’
‘Don’t make any trouble for my sake. I don’t give a shit about Davidsen.’
‘Sometimes you’re such a fathead, Audun, it’s painful to watch. If you gave a little less of a shit, maybe you would get on better. But I can’t lose a good roll man because of some useless foreman. So you stay right here. Do you understand what I’m telling you?’
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Fine.’ Goliath pulls up his shoulders and rushes out the door, and the roar of the press subsides, the valves let out steam, and the web of paper goes white, and then it stops and it’s quiet. Samuel looks up from his post by the stacker, he is still singing, and now I can hear what song it is, it’s ‘Johansen’s Jumper’. Trond looks up from the book he is reading. He borrowed it off me, and I borrowed it off Arvid. He’ll get it back, one day.
‘What’s that noise?’ Trond says.
‘It’s Samuel singing.’
‘Oh, shit.’
I stay at my post by the rolls star. This is just crap. I want to get out of here. You do it yourself, or you leave. That’s the way it is, and I want to go.
‘What’s going on?’ Trond says. ‘Why have we stopped?’ I shrug and stay there. I am the only person sitting. The others are standing, scratching their heads, and then Goliath and the foreman come in through the door. They are yelling at each other. Goliath is waving his arms around as he walks towards the press. I grab my bag and stand up.
‘Sit back down,’ Goliath says. ‘This is a fag break.’ He fetches his chair from inside the soundproof room and places it right in the middle of the floor with his back to the foreman. The others do the same, and they sit down, take out their tobacco and roll cigarettes. Davidsen is the only person standing now, and his face is beetroot-red.
‘Hey, Odd!’ he shouts. ‘Start the press now!’
Goliath lights his cigarette, inhales and blows out.
‘Jesus, that was really wonderful,’ he says. ‘Today it’s been one thing after another, I haven’t even had the time to smoke a cigarette. We’re spoiling management, that’s what we’re doing.’
‘Odd! You heard what I said! I’m in charge here!’
No one can see him except for me. He is sweating, his white coat is too tight on him. He runs a hand through his thinning hair, and Goliath gets up and goes over to the press, pulls the spatula knife from his work pants and cuts the paper just above the star. Swish it goes! And then the two ends hang in the air. He puts the spatula knife in its pocket and sits down with his back to the foreman. Davidsen is close to crying. He looks at his watch. Very soon it will be too late to fire up. There won’t be time enough to wash the press down and start afresh before the shift is over. His shoulders crumple.
‘Audun, you’ll do the splice. That’s your job.’
‘I don’t work here,’ I say.
‘Don’t try to be funny. Do as I tell you.’ I look at Goliath. He nods. I get up from my chair and go over to the star and put it in neutral, pull the paper until I have enough to work with. Then I take out the sticky tape and make a strong join.
‘OK, let’s go,’ Goliath says, and stubs out his cigarette. ‘Get those blankets wet.’
Afterwards he comes up to me. ‘Do you know what, Audun,’ he says, ‘you’re a troublemaker.’
‘At least I do my job,’ I say, and then he smiles his wry smile. Maybe his mouth just is like that.
17
FOR THREE DAYS it has been snowing, and then it turns bone cold. Everything is different, it feels warmer down the stairs to the rotary press, and when evening comes, the doors open, casting yellow shadows, and my footprints shine in the dark on my way home from the late shift. My body is tired in a different way, time passes, that’s why, I know, and my mother doesn’t play opera as much and watches more TV. There are times I miss Kirsten Flagstad and Jussi Björling, but Jussi is taboo now. My hands have cracked up, so the ink doesn’t really wash off. Touching my shoulders and thighs is like rubbing stone, and then I think about what those hands might do to Rita’s skin or even Fru Karlsen’s, and I find some sticky mess in my mother’s cabinet and smear myself with it. And yet there is a change I have been waiting for that doesn’t happen.
I lie in bed under the duvet with only my nose out over the top and see the starry frost on the old windows. We were supposed to have changed them for a new kind, the ones you operate with a handle and tilt, but my mother didn’t want to spend the money, and now she has fallen out with the neighbours who think it looks ugly and unsymmetrical. Before I’ve even considered getting out of bed, the telephone rings. I lie back waiting for my mother to answer it. She doesn’t. The flat is completely silent apart from the shrill ringing tone that comes up the stairs and into my room. If only I had remembered to close my door last night, then perhaps I would not have heard it, but now it’s too late.