It's Fine By Me (20 page)

Authors: Per Petterson

Tags: #Fiction, #General

BOOK: It's Fine By Me

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‘That would be great,’ she said and let go of my hair.

I rang and told him what had happened, and he listened quietly until I had finished the story. I was starting to like the man, and then he said:

‘That’s fine, Audun. You just come and get it. I’ll leave the key in the car, so all you have to do is drive off. But forgive my asking, what’s up with you lot?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what’s up with us. Things just are what they are.’

‘Well, fine then, you give my regards to your mother and tell her Happy Christmas and all good wishes.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

It’s not far to Aker Hospital. We drove ten minutes down a very quiet Trondhjemsveien, and of course it
was
him. I never doubted it. What my mother was thinking, I do not know, but there we were, standing in front of the steel table with his body on it, looking at the white face, and neither of us had really seen it for more than five years. We didn’t cry, and I don’t know why we should have. My mother gave the man in the white coat a nod and said yes, that is Tormod Sletten, and then she leaned over my father and stroked his hair.

‘You were a stylish man. No one can take that away from
you,’ she said, and turning to me, she said, ‘You’re starting to look like him, Audun, but of course, you’ve got my hair. There’s no denying that.’ She smiled and stroked my hair, too, and my cheek, and then it got a little awkward. Luckily she started talking to the white coat about the funeral, he could arrange it for the 29
^thhe said, and I made for the wall and leaned against it and looked over at the table in the middle of the tiled floor. He was different now, his hair was grey, almost white, and his face was white, smooth even, and the furrows down his cheeks were not so distinct. Maybe they have done something to him, I thought, and carefully passed my hand over my own face.

As we left they gave us a bag with his personal effects. ‘We had to confiscate the gun,’ the doctor said. ‘We searched through his things, but couldn’t find a licence for it.’

‘That’s fine by me,’ my mother said. She gave me the bag, and we walked along the corridors. We could hear our footsteps between the walls the whole way down, and there were red and green Christmas decorations hanging from every lamp, and on the door out there was a huge wreath with a bell. Back behind the wheel, I opened the bag and looked into it. There wasn’t much: his knife, a few keys he had kept for long-forgotten doors, two fifty-kroner notes and a small black and white photograph. I picked it up, and the woman in it, I had never seen before. She had short, black hair and was sitting on a rock by a lake, maybe Aurtjern, the bay seemed familiar to me.
Marianne
it said on the back in his messy handwriting. I sat looking at the name, and then it came all the way back to me.

‘Marana,’ I said.

My mother leaned over the handbrake to study the photograph.

‘Well, I never, that’s Marianne Røkken,’ she said. ‘She was in my class at school. We were friends for a few years. She too fell in love with your father. I remember well when that photo was taken, because I was the one who took it. Fancy him carrying it around. That man!’ She shook her head, and I looked more closely at the photo and realised it was the clothes that made her seem like a
woman
. She was probably no older than I am now. And it struck me that there were things in my mother’s and father’s lives that I would never get to know.

It was a strange Christmas Eve. When we came back from Aker Hospital, Kari was in the kitchen talking to Roberto. He had stopped by with presents and silly jokes, singing arias, and had just started a rendering of ‘Jerusalem’ that was the worst I had ever heard. He was making more noise than the four of us put together. I drew Kari aside and told her what had happened, and we agreed not to tell what we’d known the last few months. There was enough going on already.

At last the roast pork was in the oven. The aroma spread slowly up to the first floor and mingled with the sauerkraut and the burning candle wax, and the dead man’s name was never mentioned. At three o’clock I watched Disney’s Christmas programme as I always do.

Last year there were only the two of us at the table, and I cannot deny it felt a little dreary. This time the table was
crowded: Kari sitting with her little one, and Alf had come down to be with his daughter on Christmas Eve, he was loaded with presents, but we were not impressed, and Olav, my mother’s new boyfriend, rang the doorbell at five sharp. He brought plastic bags almost bursting at the seams and was visibly nervous. I decided to be nice and shook his hand. That helped a little, he started to relax, and my mother giggled and gave me a hug. He wasn’t exactly my type, pretty plump all round and almost bald, but his arms bulged under his shirt, and when he smiled he even looked a little bright. I asked him if he read books, and he said he liked Mikkjel Fønhus. That was fine with me, I had read a few myself, and they were not bad. He was a printer at Aas & Wahl and after a few aquavits that gave us enough to talk about. But watching my mother shimmy round the table, sweaty and smiling as I’d never seen her smile before, I knew that there was only room for one of us. Then and there I decided to pay old Abrahamsen a visit, once this weekend was over. He had a spare room, and maybe he could use the extra money.

And then the 29
^thcomes around. At Grorud Cemetery, the gravedigger has been thawing the ground for two days. I get up at the crack of dawn and start reading
The Apache Indians
by Helge Ingstad. Arvid gave it to me for Christmas. It’s a nice-looking edition from Gyldendal’s travel series, which he stumbled across in a second-hand bookshop, and there are several dedications on the inside leaf as well as the one to me. One of them says: To Arvid from Minna,
Arthur and the boys. He liked that, and we have made up stories about who these people might be. But it’s hard to concentrate even though Ingstad could really write. It’s dark outside, and I can hear Olav snoring in the room next to mine, and my mother talking in her sleep. It drives me down to the kitchen. It’s dark there, too. I light a few candles and open the lid on the stove, put water on for coffee and flick through the book until the water is boiling. Then I sit down at the table and smoke and drink coffee and watch the coming day. The smell is different, there is someone breathing in every room, I hear little one whimpering in the one next to the kitchen. Soon she’ll be awake and crying. In the glow from the candles, I take out the photograph of Marianne and look at it. The face is familiar now. She is only eighteen years old in the photograph, and it’s summer, and if I ever get to write anything solid and good, I will start with that photograph.

It’s the same priest. I am sitting on the front bench and listen to him speak. This time we were prepared and told him as little as possible. He recognised us, and for a second there, he was lost for words, but I have to say he makes the most of it. He is a pro. My mother turns and winks at me and smiles wearily. I smile back. It’s all so strange we don’t know how to behave. She is sitting with Olav. It’s difficult not to like him now. I never would have thought he’d show up here. Kari is sitting beside my mother, rocking the baby, and old Abrahamsen on the bench behind, wearing the suit I had given him back, and all of Arvid’s family is here, and
Roberto, and not one of us cares in the least what the priest has to say.

In the cemetery it’s all white between the gravestones, and the stones are white on top, and only the steaming pile of fresh soil by the new grave breaks up the idyll. We form a small procession as we walk down. The coffin trolley creaks in the snow, and there are cold candles and burnt-out torches after Christmas. Mild weather is on the way, I can feel it in the air, you could make snowballs now, and if I’d been a few years younger, I would have. We round a vast, vulgar monument put up for some rich family, and we are there. In a circle we stand around the grave, and the priest sings
Alltid freidig når du går
all alone. We hoist the coffin by the straps, and the sexton winds the crank handle until the coffin is lowered halfway into the grave, beside Egil’s. There are more flowers than last time, it’s like a goddamn party, and suddenly that seems so unfair, and then I start crying. Everyone turns, but I cannot stop. The priest looks at me, he smiles, he’s pleased, I am on the right track, he always knew I would be. I’m sure he has prayed to God on my behalf. My mother comes over and puts her arm around my shoulders, and Arvid looks me straight in the eye with a grin. I’ll take care of him later. I smile at my mother, but that only makes it worse. My chest feels tight, I sob aloud. It’s so goddamn embarrassing, I hide my face in my hands so I don’t have to look at Arvid, or any of them. Martin Eden would never have done that, I know, but, hell, I am only eighteen. I have plenty of time.

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Epub ISBN: 9781409029762

Version 1.0

www.randomhouse.co.uk

Published by Harvill Secker 2011

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Per Petterson has asserted his right under the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

First published with the title
Det er greit for meg
in 1992 by Forlaget Oktober, Oslo

First published in Great Britain in 2011 by

H
ARVILL
S
ECKER

Random House

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