Time never goes as fast as in your childhood; an hour is never as short as it was then. Everything is open, you run here, you run there, do one thing, then another, and suddenly the sun has gone down and you find yourself standing in the twilight with time like a barrier that has suddenly gone down in front of you: Oh no, is it already
nine
o’clock? But time never goes as slowly as in your childhood either, an hour is never as long as it was then. If the openness is gone, if the opportunities to run here, there, and everywhere are gone, whether in your mind or in physical reality, every minute is like a barrier, time is a room in which you are trapped. Is there anything worse for a child than to sit in a car for a whole hour, on a journey he knows inside out, on the way to something he’s looking forward to? In a car full of cigarette smoke from two parents and with a father who hisses with irritation every time you shift position and happen to nudge his seat with your knee?
Oh, how slowly time went. Oh, how slow the landmarks were in appearing outside the window. Up the steep hill from the center of Arendal, through the residential district to Hisøy Bridge, along the whole length of the island coastline, past Kokkeplassen Sanatorium, where Mom worked, down the hill and past the shops there, over the bridge crossing the Nidelva River, and then the endless plains with houses and woods and fields to Nedenes. We weren’t even in Fevik yet! And from there it was still a long way to Grimstad, not to mention how far it was from Grimstad to Lillesand, and from Lillesand to Timenes, and from Timenes to Varodd Bridge, and from Varodd Bridge to Lund …
We sat at the back, silent, gazing out at the varied rolling countryside the road wound its way through. Past straits with islets and skerries, into the dense forests, past rivers and waterfalls, residential and industrial quarters, farms and fields, all so familiar that at any moment I knew what was coming next. Only when we drove past the zoo did we emerge from our torpor because who knew whether an animal or two might appear from behind the tall, long wire fences, free of charge! Then we were past it, and we sank back into our torpor. For an hour we sat in the back seat without moving, for an entire endless hour, before the town began to take shape around us, and the center of gravity shifted from the car journey to our imminent visit to our grandparents. Entering the town was like entering time, the clock started ticking again, there was the Oasen shop, further down our cousins, Jon Olav and Ann Kristin, the children of Mom’s sister, Kjellaug, and her husband, Magne; there were the chestnut trees along the road, the tall, dirty brick buildings behind them, there was the chemist, there was the kiosk they called Rundingen, there were the traffic lights, there was the music shop, there were the white timber houses, there was the narrow road, and then, all at once on the left-hand side, Grandma and Grandad’s yellow house.
Dad drove some way past the house, down the hill, and then reversed into the lane opposite. Only then could he drive up the short, steep drive.
Grandma’s face appeared in the kitchen window. When we had got out of the car, which was parked close to the wooden garage door with its black wrought-iron fittings, and were heading for the red-brick steps, she opened the door.
“There you are!” she said. “Come on in!” And when we were in the small hallway:
“Oh, how I’ve been looking forward to seeing you two boys!”
She gave Yngve a long hug and rocked him back and forth. He looked away, but he liked it. Then she gave me a long hug and rocked me back and forth. I also looked away, but I liked it, too. Her cheek was warm, and she smelled nice.
“We might have seen a wolf in the zoo!” I said as she let go of me.
“Did you?” she said, ruffling my hair.
“No, we didn’t,” Yngve said. “It was just in Karl Ove’s imagination.”
“Oh no?” she said, ruffling his hair. “Well, it’s good to see you boys anyway!”
We hung up our jackets inside, where there was an open built-in wardrobe, walked across the wall-to-wall carpet and up the staircase. On the first floor, the posh living room was on the right and the kitchen on the left. This living room was used only on Christmas Eve and other formal occasions. By the short wall there was a piano on which there stood three photos of the sons of the house wearing student caps, and above them hung two paintings. Against the long wall there were dark display cabinets, with some souvenirs from their travels arranged on top, among them a shining gondola and a golden-brown glass teapot with a very long spout, adorned with what I assumed were diamonds and rubies. At the back of the room there were two leather sofas, between them a corner cupboard decorated with painted roses and in front a low table. Through the large windows you had a view of the river and the town beyond. However, on a normal visit, which this was, we didn’t go in there, we took the door to the left, to the kitchen and the two living rooms below, the lowest of which was connected to the best room via a sliding door above a little staircase. Half of the long wall was taken up by a window, through which you saw first the garden, then the river stretching out to meet the sea and, furthest away, the white Grønningen Lighthouse, towering over the horizon.
It smelled good there, not only in the kitchen, where Grandma was making meatballs and gravy, which she did better than most, but everywhere there was a fragrance that underlay all the others and was constant, a vaguely fruity sweetness I associated with this house whenever I met it outside, for example when Grandma and Grandad were visiting us, because they brought the fragrance with them, it was in their clothes, I noticed it as soon as they stepped into our hall.
“Well,” Grandad said as we went into the kitchen. “Was there much traffic on the way here?”
He was sitting on his chair, legs slightly apart, wearing a gray cardigan over a blue shirt. His stomach hung over the waistband of the dark-gray trousers. His hair was black and combed back, apart from one lock, which had fallen over his forehead. A half-smoked, unlit cigarette hung from his mouth.
“No, went like clockwork,” Dad said.
“How did you do with the soccer pools yesterday?” Grandad said.
“Not too well,” Dad said. “Seven right was all I managed.”
“I got two tens,” Grandad said.
“That’s pretty good,” Dad said.
“I slipped up on numbers seven and eleven,” Grandad said. “The second one was annoying. The goal was scored after full-time!”
“Yes,” Dad said. “I didn’t get that one, either.”
“Did you hear what one student said to Erling the other day?” Grandma said from the stove.
“No. What?” Dad said.
“He came into class in the morning, and this student asked, ‘Have you won the pools or what?’ ‘No,’ Erling said. ‘Why do you ask?’ ‘You look so happy,’ the student said.”
She laughed. “You look so happy!” she repeated.
Dad smiled.
“Anyone for a cup of coffee?” Grandma asked.
“Yes, please. I’d love one,” Mom said.
“Let’s sit in the living room then,” Grandma said.
“Could we go upstairs and get some comics?” Yngve said.
“You can,” Grandad said. “But don’t make a mess!”
“Nope,” Yngve said.
Treading carefully, for this was not a house you could run in either, we went into the corridor and up the stairs to the second floor. Apart from Grandma and Grandad’s bedroom there was a big attic room there, and along the wall cardboard boxes containing old comics, going right back to when Dad was a child in the 1950s. There was a variety of other objects as well, among them an ancient mangle for wringing tablecloths and bed linen, an old sewing machine, a number of old games and toys, including a tin spinning top, and something that was meant to be a robot made of the same material.
But it was the comics that appealed to us. We weren’t allowed to take them home with us, we had to read them there, and we read plenty from the time we arrived to the time we left. Taking a pile each, we went downstairs and found a chair, and didn’t look up until food was on the table and Grandma called us to eat.
After the meal Grandma washed up while Mom stood next to her, drying. Grandad sat at the table reading a newspaper, Dad stood by the window in the living room looking out. Then Grandma came in and asked if he would like to join her in the garden, there was something she wanted to show him. Mom and Grandad sat at the table, they chatted a bit, but mostly they were silent. I got up to go to the bathroom. It was on the ground floor, I didn’t like it and I had held on for as long as I could, but now I was bursting. Out into the corridor, down the creaking wooden stairs, a quick dash across the carpeted hall surrounded, as it were, by three empty rooms behind closed doors, and into the bathroom. It was dark. In the seconds before the light came on I was shaking inside. But even with the light on, I was afraid. I peed down the side so that the splash of the pee hitting the water would not prevent me from hearing anything. I also washed my hands before flushing the toilet because the moment I pressed the lever at the side of the cistern I would have to rush out as fast as I could, as the noise was so loud and eerie that I couldn’t be in the same room. I stood at the ready, with my hand around the little black ball for a couple of seconds. Then I flushed, darted into the hall, also scary, because every slightest thing there silently “transmitted itself,” and set off up the stairs, not able to run, of course, with a sensation that something down below was following me, until I entered the kitchen and the presence of the others broke the spell.
Outside, in the lane, the stream of people on their way from town to the stadium had increased, and soon also Dad, Mom, and Yngve would be getting ready to go. Grandad always cycled there and left a little later than the others. He was wearing a gray coat, a rust-colored scarf, a grayish cloth cap, and black gloves, I could see him from the window, as he freewheeled down the hill. Grandma took out some rolls from the freezer, we were going to have them when the others returned home, and put them on the counter.
She sent me a mischievous look.
“I’ve got something for you,” she said.
“What’s that?” I said.
“Wait and see,” she said. “Cover your eyes!”
I covered my eyes, and heard her rummaging about in the drawers. She stopped in front of me.
“Now you can look!” she said.
It was a bar of chocolate. One of those triangular ones you don’t see often that are so good.
“Is it for me?” I said. “All of it?”
“Yes,” she said.
“What about Yngve?”
“No, not this time. He’s been allowed to see the match. You have to have a treat as well!”
“Thank you very much,” I said, tearing off the cardboard packaging to reveal the bar wrapped in silver paper.
“But don’t say anything to Yngve, OK?” she said with a wink. “It’s our secret.”
I munched the chocolate as she sat doing a crossword.
“We’re getting a telephone soon,” I said.
“Are you?” she said. “Then we can talk to each other.”
“Yes,” I said. “We’re actually at the end of the waiting list, but we’re getting it anyway because Dad’s in politics.”
She laughed.
“In politics, Karl Ove?” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “He is, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he is. He is indeed.”
“Are you enjoying school?” she said.
I nodded.
“Yes, very much.”
“What do you like best?”
“The breaks,” I said, knowing that would make her laugh, or at least smile.
When I had finished the chocolate and she was immersed in the crossword again, I went up to the loft and brought down some of the games.
After a while she looked at me and asked me if we shouldn’t go to the match as well. I wanted to go. We got dressed, she took her bike from the garage, I sat on the luggage rack, she sat on the saddle but kept one foot on the ground and turned to me.
“Ready?” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Hold on tight, here we go!”
I wrapped my arms around her. She pushed off with her foot, put it on the pedal, and freewheeled down the little hill, turned right, and started pedaling.
“Are you OK?” she asked, and I nodded until I realized she couldn’t see me, and said, “Yes, I’m fine.”
And I was. It felt good holding her, and cycling with her was fun. Grandma was the only person who touched Yngve and me, the only person who gave us hugs and stroked our arms. She was also the only person who played with us. Dad might do it at Christmas, but we always did the things he wanted to do, like playing Mastermind or chess or Chinese checkers or Yahtzee or crazy eights or poker with matchsticks. Mom joined in when we played, but we did most things with her, either on the kitchen table at home or at the arts and crafts workshop in Kokkeplassen, and it was fun, but not like with Grandma, who didn’t mind doing what we were doing and followed with interest when Yngve showed her something from his chemistry set, for example, or helped me when I was doing a jigsaw puzzle.
The wheels went more and more slowly until they almost stopped completely and Grandma got off and pushed the bike to the crest of the hill.
“You just stay where you are, if you want,” she said.
I sat gazing over the town while Grandma pushed the bike, a trifle out of breath. Reaching the top, she got back on the saddle and it was a gentle downhill ride all the way to the stadium. A sudden huge groan erupted, as if from an enormous animal, and then there was clapping. Few sounds were so irresistible. Grandma cycled down to one end of the stadium, rested the bike against the wooden fence, and let me stand on the luggage rack for a few minutes while she held me so that I could see what was happening on the field. The players were a long way away, all the details eluded me, apart from the yellow-and-white shirts against the green of the turf and all the spectators standing around the field, a black surging mass, but I caught the mood, I inhaled it and in the days to come I would savor it in my mind.
Back home, she began to prepare the meal we would have before leaving, and not long afterward the door in the hall opened, it was Grandad, his expression was grim, and when Grandma saw it she said, “So they lost?”