After driving for half an hour, Lars Paalgaard slowed down and pulled over on the roadside. There were several cars parked along the road and a man wearing white shorts waved the T-Bird into place. On the gravel pitch down by the shore, I could see merry-go-rounds and a Ferris wheel. I heard shouts and laughter. It wasn’t until we came closer that we discovered how jam-packed it was. People bustled back and forth, ran around aimlessly or stood in groups and in lines. Children walked around holding balloons and candyfloss in their fists. Fathers tried to fish up prizes with small metal clamps. Some tried their luck on the wheel of fortune, others shot air rifles or threw balls at cans. Shouts came from the merry-go-rounds, and over by the roller coaster there was a sign that read: Do you dare?
You have to take some chances in life, Lars Paalgaard said and tickled my mother’s ribs flirtatiously. Not in a million years, she said and pulled free. She took her wallet out of her handbag. Why don’t we meet back at the car in an hour? she asked and gave me a five-dollar bill. I accepted it and didn’t know whether to thank her or give the bill back. My parents had never given me so much money before. I want to ride the bumper cars, my little brother said and stuck to me like glue. Fredrik was six years younger than me. He’d been born prematurely and that was probably why my mother had made him her favourite; she’d told me that she’d been sure she would lose him. The summer weeks we were at the cabin, Fredrik always latched onto me. He trotted behind me, always had to know where I was. He was teased by the older boys because he was tiny and thin. I boxed and was a loudmouth, nobody dared mess with me. At the fair the roles were switched: I trotted after Fredrik, I let him do whatever he wanted. A lot of girls made eyes at me and giggled, but I didn’t have the strength to think of anything except whether my father knew about this deal with Lars Paalgaard. I refused to believe it. Father was at home in Odda working and the plan was that he would come join us next weekend.
When we walked back up the gravel road an hour later, Lars Paalgaard and my mother were leaning against the T-Bird. He looked relaxed, had his hands in his pockets and a smoke in his mouth. She waved a huge teddy bear at us. Just before we reached the top, I noticed Paalgaard checking his fly. He tugged at the zip and laughed with my mother while he whispered something into her ear. She leaned against him, giggling in a way that seemed wrong to me. At that moment I understood that I was not in any sense out of danger. I could be hurt or injured in a way that would be fatal, not just because of my own actions, but also because of the bad decisions of others.
Mother asked if we’d had a good time and if we’d spent the five dollars. I didn’t answer. Fredrik said that we’d gone on the Kamikaze, where we’d been shot 20 metres up into the air before it dropped us down again. We got into the car without saying anything else. The last of the evening sun tinted the T-Bird pink. Paalgaard stepped on the gas and the car pitched into the twilight. I turned around and looked back at the fair where the blinking lights were now just starting to appear. At different places along the highway, out on headlands and down on beaches, people had lit bonfires. The T-Bird slid mightily away. It bore no resemblance to any cars I’d ridden in previously. The wind was hot against my face, even at 70–80 kilometres an hour. It was around eleven by the time we turned into the road to the cabin. People were still outside, nobody wanted to go to bed and maybe miss the most beautiful night of the summer. The sound of the usual gang rose up into the night like a yellow wave. They sat smoking outside the cabins; they were playing football over on the grass; but most of them had gathered around a bonfire down by the fjord. On the days before Midsummer Night’s Eve, we’d gathered up branches and kindling left by the loggers, we’d even got hold of an old rowing boat. We were outsiders, but always had to have the biggest bonfire in the village.
Every summer my father drove us to Skånevik, and then we stayed there until a couple of weeks before school started. It was the smelting works that owned the cabins and the employees could use them for free. They were called sports cabins, though I never understood why, there was nothing sports-like about them. The cabin we always stayed in was made of logs and painted red. It was located at the top of the hill that started by the highway and sloped down towards the pebble beach. During the summer weeks the entire area was filled with the dynamite-kids whose fathers were unionized under Chapter 5 of the Norwegian Chemical Workers Union. Everybody knew everybody else and it was like a part of Odda had been moved a few miles further south, to a place that smelled better, looked better, and where it stayed light until much later in the evening. We dived and jumped off the dock by the store. We went fishing and played ball all day long. We boys chased the local girls, the ones who didn’t know us already and were still curious about who we were. The girls from Odda who were here on vacation with us had long since understood we were trash.
The mothers usually stayed throughout the summer, while the fathers drove back and forth, showing up when they had a long weekend or vacation. At this time I had begun to understand that not all the fathers, not even my own father, were necessarily all that interested in making a beeline for Skånevik. Home alone, they could drink at the general store, sleep late, be free of nagging and scolding, kids and the wife. For my own part, that spring I’d started sleeping with the daughter of the director of the works, and I just longed for home. She was two years older than me and there were all kinds of rumours about her in Odda. She had called me one afternoon to invite me up. I’d no idea she even knew who I was, but I didn’t give the rumours in circulation a second thought. I had a shower and took the path leading to the villa at Toppen.
Even so, I didn’t dare touch her or do anything at all until the next time she called and I wandered up the same path. Then she put my hand on her right breast; it was buried beneath a layer of sweater, blouse and singlet. She didn’t say anything that afternoon, just led me up to a bedroom on the second floor. She didn’t stop me or barter with me—I can’t go along with this or that—the way other girls carried on. Afterwards, she said I had to hurry and leave before her mother came home and found us. I gathered up my clothes and shot a glance at her before I went out into the hallway. She lay half-naked with her panties on her thigh. She was slender with light brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She had thick lips and her eyes were almost closed. Downstairs I stood looking out of a window with a view over Odda.
Every time I went up to the house to sleep with her, I justified it by deciding it was her fault. She was the one who’d called me. She was the one who wanted this. But I couldn’t stop. I wanted to hear her breathing when she was transformed from being someone everyone saw to someone I imagined only I was allowed to see. I wanted to hold her and be with her and do all this even though I didn’t know what it was. She was so different, she was a place beyond shame or sin, her desire was without inhibition. Don’t stop, she said to me. Don’t come yet, she said. Don’t do it like that, she said. Do it like this instead, she said and showed me. In the evenings I stood in the room I shared with Fredrik. I looked up at the lights that were on in the villa at Toppen. I stood there and waited for her to call.