“Join in, come on!” she said.
We got in line. I wanted to impress her so much, just slip into the spinning corridor the rope drew in the air, but I didn’t manage more than two jumps before it hit my calf and I was out. Strangely, Geir, whose motor control was not that great and whose arms and legs flapped about wildly, managed very well. Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump – and then he hurled himself out with such force and determination that he had to take a few extra steps to prevent himself from stumbling, not dissimilar to a runner throwing himself at the tape.
Now she would think that Geir was better than me.
The somberness of that thought was gone the very next moment because it was her turn. She ran in and danced inside the rope, an absolute virtuoso, her weight was first on one leg, then on the other while she stared straight ahead, as though her head had nothing to do with what her body was doing. But as she jumped out, no longer needing to concentrate, it was me she looked at and sent a smile to.
Did you see that?
her smile said.
Did you see me just now?
The water covering the largest sunken areas of the cul-de-sac where we were standing was almost yellow. In the smaller puddles it was a greenish gray, like the surrounding gravel, only a shade lighter. And shinier, of course. From the forest below came the babbling of a stream. The drone of a machine was also audible. I had never been there before, and walked over to the edge to look down. From the house above me on the edge of the forest, a broad, rocky slope fell away sharply. Beneath it there was a yellow bog. Behind that, pines huddled together. Between the trunks I could see a green workmen’s shed and a yellow generator. That was what was making the noise.
Then some drilling started. I couldn’t see who was doing it, but the sound, such a monotonous rat-a-tat-tat, with that brittle, almost singing tone of metal on rock lying like a veil over it, was unmistakable. I knew it through and through.
I turned back and saw Geir nodding his head in time with the rope to adapt to the rhythm for his turn. But this time he didn’t do so well, his foot got tangled at once, and as the two rope swingers resumed their mechanical motions, he shuffled over toward me. Behind him Anne Lisbet slipped in. But as soon as she was in position the rope hit her on the arm. She seemed almost to have done it on purpose.
“Are you coming, Solveig?” she said.
Solveig nodded and left the line. Both of them came over to us.
“What do you want to do?” Anne Lisbet said.
“Maybe go and look for some bottles?” I said.
“Yes, let’s!” Geir said.
“Where, though? Where are there any bottles?” Anne Lisbet said.
“Along the main road,” Geir said. “And in the forest behind the play area. Around the sheds. Sometimes by the Rock. Never in the autumn, though.”
“At the bus stop,” I said. “And under the bridge.”
“Once we found a whole
bag
full,” Geir said. “In the ditch near the shop. We made four kroner on the deposits!”
Solveig and Anne Lisbet looked at him, impressed. Even though the bottle idea had been my suggestion! I had come up with it, not Geir!
Without thinking, we had started to walk. The sky was as gray as dry cement. Not a breath stirred the trees; everything was still, brooding, as if turned in on itself. Except for the pines, that is: they were as open and free and sky-embracing as ever. Standing more as though they were in repose. It was the spruces that were turned inward, swallowed up by their own darkness. The deciduous trees, with their thin trunks and splayed branches, were nervous and wary. The old oaks, of which there were quite a few on the slope beyond the road, where we were heading now, were not afraid but lonely. They could endure the loneliness, though; they had stood there for so many years and would stand there for so many more to come.
“There’s a pipe there that goes under the road,” Anne Lisbet said, pointing to the slope running down alongside the road. It was covered with black soil, laid recently, because no flowers had come up yet.
We walked down. And, sure enough, a pipe did go under the road, made of concrete, perhaps a little more than half a meter in diameter.
“Have you ever crawled through it?” I said.
They shook their heads.
“Why don’t we?” Geir said. He leaned over with one hand on the edge of the pipe and peered into the darkness.
“What if we get stuck inside?” Solveig said.
“
We
can do it,” I said. “So you can cross the road and wait for us.”
“Do you dare?” Anne Lisbet said.
“Of course,” Geir said. He glanced at me. “Who’ll go first?”
“You can,” I said.
“OK,” he said, bending down and squeezing into the pipe. It was too narrow to scramble through on all fours, I could see, but not so narrow that you couldn’t wriggle through. After a few seconds of twisting and turning his whole body had disappeared. I looked at Anne Lisbet, leaned forward and stuck my head in the pipe. A smell of something fusty, like mildew, filled my nostrils. I placed my elbows on the bottom and edged the rest of my body forward, moving like a grub. When all of my body was inside, I raised myself as far as was possible, and with my forearms, knees, and feet pushing against the cement wriggled into the gloom. For the first few meters I could see the shadowy figure of Geir in front of me, but then the darkness deepened and he was gone.
“Are you there?” I shouted.
“Yes,” he answered.
“Are you scared?”
“A little. And you?”
“Yes, a little.”
Suddenly everything vibrated. A car or a truck must have driven over us a long way up. What if the pipe broke? What if it caved in and we were stuck in it?
The tips of my fingers and toes began to tremble with a faint sense of panic. I knew this feeling, it could arise when I was climbing a mountain and then I would be paralyzed. Frightened out of my wits, I would stand perfectly still, incapable of ascending or descending, in full knowledge of the fact there was only one way to go, only my own movements could get me out of this. I couldn’t move, I had to move, but I couldn’t, had to, couldn’t, had to, couldn’t.
“Are you still scared?” I said.
“A little. Did you hear the car? Here comes another!”
Again the pipe vibrated around me.
I kept quite still. There was water lying in several places at the bottom of the pipe and it was advancing up my trousers.
“I can see light!” Geir said.
I thought of the enormous weight on the pipe. It was only a few centimeters thick. My heart was pounding. Suddenly I wanted to stand upright. The urge grew wildly inside me, but collided with the recognition that it was impossible, the concrete was wrapped around my body like a cocoon. I couldn’t move.
Sometimes Yngve would sit astride me while I was lying under the duvet. He would hold me so firmly that I couldn’t move at all. The duvet was tight across my chest, my hands were locked in his, and my legs were rendered useless under his weight and the taut duvet. He did it because he knew I absolutely hated it. He did it because he knew that after a few seconds of being held captive I would panic. That I would summon all my strength in an attempt to break free, and when I couldn’t, when he held me in his grip, I would begin to scream as loudly as I could. I screamed and screamed like a being possessed, and I was, I was possessed by terror, I couldn’t break free, I was stuck, completely and utterly stuck, and I screamed from the bottom of my lungs.
Now I could feel the same grip around my heart.
I couldn’t move.
Panic was growing.
I knew I mustn’t think about not being able to stand up, I should crawl forward patiently and everything would be fine. But I couldn’t. All I could think of was that I couldn’t move.
“Geir!” I shouted.
“I’m nearly out!” he shouted back. “Where are you?”
“I’m stuck!”
Silence for some seconds.
Then Geir shouted, “I can come and help you! I just have to get out and turn first!”
The panic attack was like an exhalation of breath, because it was out of me now. I moved my arms forward and dragged my knees after. The material of my jacket scraped against the pipe above. Only a few centimeters above that there were tons of rocks and earth. I stopped. My legs and arms had gone weak. I lay down flat.
What would Anne Lisbet and Solveig think about me now?
Oh no, oh no.
Then the panic returned. I couldn’t move. I was trapped. I couldn’t move! I was trapped! I couldn’t move!
Somewhere in the darkness in front of me something moved. Cloth scraped against cement. I heard Geir breathing, it was unmistakable: he would often breathe through his mouth.
Then I saw him, a white face in the blackness.
“Are you stuck?” he said.
“No,” I said.
He grabbed the sleeve of my jacket and pulled. I raised my back and moved first one arm forward, then the other, one leg, then the other. Geir wriggled backward without letting go of my sleeve, and even though he wasn’t pulling me, because of course I was scrabbling my way through, it felt like he was, and the sight of his white face, pointed like a fox’s and unusually concentrated, meant that my mind was no longer on the pipe and the darkness and not being able to move, and so I could move, little by little over the damp concrete, which became lighter and lighter until Geir’s feet were out of the hole, followed by his torso, and I could poke my head out into daylight.
Anne Lisbet and Solveig were standing close together by the opening and looking at me.
“Did you get stuck?” Anne Lisbet said.
“Yes,” I said. “For a while there, but Geir helped me.”
Geir brushed down his hands. Then he brushed the knees of his trousers. I straightened up. The space beneath the gray sky was vast. All the shapes were razor sharp.
“Why don’t we go down to Little Hawaii?” Geir said.
“Good idea,” I said.
It was wonderful to run on the forest floor. The surface of the water in the little lake was completely black. The trees rising from the two small islands were still. We jumped over to our respective islands. Anne Lisbet and I on one, Solveig and Geir on the other.
Anne Lisbet’s lips seemed so vital; they opened and smiled with such ease, now and then of their own accord when her eyes remained unmoved. They seemed to obey the slightest impulse of her mind. She thought of something, they spread across her hard white teeth, soft and red, occasionally followed by an exclamation or a glow of happiness in her eyes, occasionally unconnected with anything else.
“You’re sailors,” she said out of the blue. “And you come home to us. We haven’t seen each other for ages. Shall we play that?”
I nodded. Geir nodded, too.
The two girls jumped onto land and went a little way into the forest.
“You can come now!” Anne Lisbet shouted.
We moored, leaped ashore, and walked toward them. But we weren’t quick enough for them, Anne Lisbet was impatiently dancing from one foot to the other, she set off running, toward me, and when she reached me she threw her arms around me and hugged me and pressed her cheek against mine.
“I have missed you so much!” she said. “Oh, my darling husband!”
She took a step back.
“Again!”
I ran back to the lake, jumped onto the little island, waited until Geir was on the other one, then we repeated our actions with one difference, this time we ran as fast as we could to the girls.
Again she wrapped her arms around me.
My heart was racing, for I was not only standing on the ground in a forest with the sky far above me, I was also standing on the ground inside myself and looking up into something light and open and happy.
Her hair smelled of apples.
Through the material of her thick padded jacket I could feel her body. Her cold, smooth face against mine, almost glowing.
We did this three times. Then we delved further into the forest. After only a few meters it sloped down, and as the trees growing there were mostly deciduous, the ground was covered with red, yellow, and brown leaves, a floor to the bare walls of trunks. There was the sound of a rushing stream somewhere nearby. The forest tapered to a path running steeply down to the main road, which we couldn’t see until we came out a couple of meters above it.
On the other side, a field sloped down, beyond lay Tromøya Sound, as gray as clay, while the sky that opened above was a shade lighter.
The traffic was fast moving, and we kept to the ditch as we walked along. The bottles we usually found here were always new and shiny while those we found in the woods were often covered in grass and had leaves stuck to them, sometimes they were also full of little insects and lifting them up was like lifting up a bit of the field.
Today, however, there were no bottles to be seen. When we reached Larsen’s house – a dilapidated, shed-like construction that had once been part of a farm but was now squeezed into a corner between the forest and the road, whose owner was a teacher at the same school as Dad and according to rumors had turned up for work drunk several times – we crossed the road and followed the steep gravel road down to Gamle Tybakken. We looked for bottles on the way, but our efforts became more and more halfhearted. Soon we came to a built-up area. Old white houses set far back in well-established gardens full of fruit trees and fruit bushes. Where we were walking, the colors were so sharp, all the leaves were brilliant yellow and piercing red, and so matte in the sky’s pale, slightly frigid gray, it gave me a sense I was walking at the bottom of a tin can, with the sky the lid and the hills that rose all around me the sides. After a few hundred meters we walked past a large property with a lawn stretching up toward the forest above. The house at the top was surprisingly small, considering the size of the land. A narrow gravel track led up to it, and we stopped by the mailbox at the end because, outside the house, beside a large stream that plunged down from the forest, an old lady was pulling at a tree that had got wedged in it.
The tree was perhaps three times bigger than her, with a broad panoply of thin branches around it.