He came into the classroom on the second day to tell us a little about the school and which rules were important, and after he had gone Frøken said that one day in the not-too-distant future, he would come back and tell us about the wreck he had helped to find. She had been standing by the window with her hands behind her back and a smile on her face all the time he had been there, and she did the same when he returned two weeks later, as promised. My mind was ablaze with the stories he regaled us with, but I was also a tiny bit disappointed when it turned out the wreck lay in waters that were only a few meters deep. That detracted from the achievement to no small degree, I had expected a depth of say a hundred meters, with divers who had to hold the rope for a breather on their way up, taking maybe as much as an hour in all, because of the extreme pressure down below. An overwhelming darkness, flashing beams from their torches, perhaps even a little submarine or diving bell. But on the seabed near the coast, right beneath the feet of bathers, within the range of any boy with flippers and a diving mask? On the other hand, he did show pictures of the find, they had a diving boat moored some way out into the bay, they wore wetsuits and had diving cylinders, and it had all been planned down to the last detail with old charts and documents, etcetera.
Once Dad had almost been on TV, they had interviewed him and so on, about something political, but when we watched the news there was nothing, and the item didn’t come the next day, either, although we all gathered again to see it. However, he had been on the radio once, interviewed in connection with a stamp exhibition, I forgot all about it, so when I arrived home that day, it had already been broadcast and he had a go at me.
Many of the teachers chattered on about my name at first, they were colleagues of my father, I suppose, and assumed I was named after him, and I really liked that, their knowing about me, that I was the son of my father. From the very first day I did my utmost at school, above all in order to be the best in the class, but also because I hoped it would reach Dad’s ears how smart I was.
I loved school. I loved everything that went on there and the rooms where it went on.
Our chairs, low and old, made with iron piping, a slab of wood to sit on, and one to lean back against, our desks covered with cuts and ink from all those who had sat at them before. The board, the chalk, and the sponge; the letters that grew from the chalk in Frøken’s hand, an O, a U, an I, an E, an Å, an Æ, always white, which her hands soon became as well. The bone-dry sponge that darkened and swelled when she rinsed it in the sink, the great feeling it gave you when it rubbed out everything, leaving a trail of water that remained there for a few minutes, until the board was as green and pristine as before. Frøken, who spoke in Karmøy dialect, had big glasses and short hair, wore blouses and skirts, so much she asked us about and told us. She taught us not to speak all at the same time, and not just to shout out an answer but to put our hands up and speak only after she had pointed or nodded to us. Because at the beginning a forest of hands shot up in the classroom, waving impatiently to and fro, with students shouting me, me, me, because she didn’t ask us difficult questions, only ones everyone could answer. Then there were the breaks and all that happened in them, all the children who were there, large groups assembling and dispersing, activities blazing up and dying back. The pegs in the corridor outside the classroom where we hung our jackets, the smell of ten years of green soap, the smell of piss in the toilets, the smell of milk in the milk lockers, the smell of twenty lunch boxes with a variety of smørbrød being opened at the same time in a classroom. The system of monitors, whereby every week a pupil was responsible for handing out whatever had to be handed out, cleaning the board after the lesson, and collecting the cartons of milk in the long break. The feeling this gave you of being the chosen one. And the very special feeling of walking down the corridors when everyone else was sitting in class, how deserted they were, jackets hanging from the pegs on both sides, the low mumble from the rooms as you walked past, the shafts of daylight that lent the linoleum floor a dull gleam, and on sunny days caused thousands of specks of dust in the air to shimmer, like a miniature Milky Way. A door being thrown open, a boy charging out, could change the atmosphere down the entire length of the corridor, suck up all the attention and significance: suddenly he was all that counted. As though he drew in all the smells, all the dust, all the light, all the jackets, and all the mumbling, like a comet in the sky, one might imagine, where all the passing flotsam and jetsam were sucked into its long, pallid — by comparison with the shining center — tail.
I loved the moment when Geir rang the bell and we wandered up to the supermarket, the competition that had already evolved there, where you had to arrive early and put your satchel as far to the front of the queue as possible so that you could get the best seat on the bus. I loved waiting by the shop and watching the other kids drifting in from all sides. Some of them lived right at the top of the estates behind the shop, others came from down in Gamle Tybakken, and others still from the estates on the flat land beyond the hill. I especially loved watching Anne Lisbet. Not only did she have shiny black hair, she also had dark eyes and a big, red mouth. She was always so happy, she laughed so much, and her eyes, they were not only dark, they sparkled, as though she had so much happiness inside her they were always filled to the brim with it. Her red-headed friend was called Solveig, they were neighbors and were always together, just like Geir and me. Solveig was pale and had freckles, she didn’t say much, but she had kind eyes. They lived on the highest estate in Tybakken, in an area I had only visited a couple of times and where I knew no one. Anne Lisbet had a sister who was one year younger, she informed us when it was her turn to talk about herself in class, and a brother who was four years younger. Another boy in the class lived up there, his name was Vemund, he was a little plump and slow, perhaps even slowwitted, he was the last to run, the weakest, threw a ball like a girl, was useless at soccer, couldn’t read, but he liked drawing and most of the other things you could do sitting indoors. His mother was a big, strong, energetic woman with angry eyes and a piercing voice. His father was thin and pale and walked on crutches, he had some kind of muscle disease, and he was a hemophiliac, Vemund proudly told us. A hemophiliac, what’s that? someone asked. That’s when the blood doesn’t stop coming out, Vemund explained. When Dad has a cut and it starts bleeding, it never stops, it just bleeds and bleeds, so he has to take some medicine or go to hospital, and if he doesn’t he dies.