Per Petterson - Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes

Sometimes, when his yodelling was at its worst, Dad went out onto the balcony because he wanted a view of the land as he sang. ‘When the fjords turn blue!’ he roared, but except for the bullfinch tree there was nothing out there, only the terraced houses and the tenement buildings, and then Mum would drag Dad back into the living room and say:

‘Now you damn well pull yourself together, Frank!’

And he did, at least when he’d had no more than two of those drinks.

But there were other things, Arvid could tell, for he didn’t always go to sleep at once, he just pretended to so his dad would stop singing. There were voices seeping up from the kitchen. They slipped out through the crack under the kitchen door, glided along the rug in the hall, over the worn carpet in the living room and up the stairs, wearing themselves shiny and sharp on the way. Sitting at the top of the stairs, Arvid could feel the voices skid off his body. He was cold, but inside him there was a heat, like a little flame only he could put out, and one day he would do that, he thought, put it out when they least expected and turn to ice, but he would never let anyone else make the flame go out, not even let them come near.

The voices grew louder, the kitchen door must have been open now, and he heard a bang and the sound of something breaking. He knew what it was, it was the last plate in the set they had brought with them from their life in Vålerenga, and it was a sound Arvid knew well because it was he who had broken the last but one. It happened one day when he tried to carry a knife, a fork, a glass and a plate to the kitchen counter all in one go. The plate slithered out of his hands and smashed into a thousand pieces on the kitchen floor, and it startled Arvid and he was afraid his dad would get mad since he was so fond of that set, or so he said, but only Mum saw what happened and she said:

‘Don’t worry about it, Arvid. I couldn’t care less.’ And she looked like she didn’t as she swept up the pieces and threw them in the bin.

Now Arvid could hear someone clattering around in the hall, and then Mum came rushing into the living room, boots on, wearing her raincoat and gloves, trying furiously to tie her headscarf under her chin.

With one angry movement she snatched the pack of Cooly cigarettes from the coffee table, turned round and saw Arvid sitting on the second step from the top.

‘So that’s where you are, Arvid?’ she said in a strange voice.

‘Yes.’

‘Aren’t you cold?’

‘I am.’ He huddled up and was truly cold now.

‘You go upstairs to bed. I’ll be back soon. I’m just going out for a little walk.’

He got up and his legs hurt, they had gone stiff, and as he was about to enter his bedroom he heard the front door slam.

In the next room his big sister, Gry, was sleeping. He went in and shook her by the shoulder.

‘Gry! Wake up!’

Gry twisted away and buried her face in the pillow.

‘What is it?’ she mumbled from the depths.

‘Mum is out walking again.’

Gry rolled out of bed and together they went to the bedroom window. Outside it was night and wet, and they could see her striding out beneath the street lamp on her way up the slope, and there were raindrops glittering in the light above her headscarf. She was the only person out on the street, and when she was gone, past the shopping centre and towards Trondhjemsveien, it was deserted, only the street lamps and the rain.

They knew where she was going, even though they were never allowed to come with her, and anyway she walked so fast there would have been no point, but she had told them. She walked up Trondhjemsveien, on the left-hand side, as far and as fast as she could. When she reached Grorud or thereabouts, she crossed the road and came all the way back at the same insane tempo, smoking non-stop. Arvid had seen how the pack of Cooly dwindled.

‘Why does she go out in weather like this?’ Arvid said.

‘She has to, don’t you see?’

‘How do you know?’

‘We women know that sort of thing, Arvid,’ Gry said, laying her hand on Arvid’s shoulder.

‘Jesus,’ Arvid said, wrenching himself away. ‘You’re only in the fourth grade.’

And then he went back to his room. He had decided to stay awake until Mum returned, but he fell asleep and when he woke up he had wet the bed. His mind made a half-hearted attempt to remain in the trough of sleep, but in the end it had to come up and he felt that all-too-familiar freezing-cold sensation around his hips.

He lay quite still and tried to go back to sleep, squeezing his eyes shut and thinking of sheep and clouds and all those things that Uncle Rolf had taught him to do, but it was rubbish and didn’t help, and he had to get up. Carefully he took off his sodden underpants and put them under the dresser. This was his secret trick and it always worked. Every time he had wet himself he put the clammy underpants under the dresser and the next night they were gone. It was like magic, but he tried not to think about it. He didn’t want the magic to go away.

Mum was back. He could hear her light steps on the stairs and he jumped into clean underpants and got back into bed, close to the wall, and he almost curled around the wet patch he could do nothing about, but he knew it would be gone by morning. Mum came in to see if he was under the duvet. He pinched his eyes shut to show he was asleep, but she came up close and said:

‘Are you still awake, Arvid?’

‘Mm.’

‘You should have been asleep hours ago.’

‘Mm. I know. But I have slept.’ He wondered if he should open his eyes, and then he did, and she sat down on the edge of his bed and stroked his hair.

‘Were you afraid for Mummy, Arvid?’

Afraid? He was not. She always went for these walks when there was something up, and even if he didn’t like her going out when the weather was bad, he had never been afraid. He shook his head, but then he remembered something.

‘Mum?’

‘Yes?’

‘Why do you cross the road? I mean, why do you cross the road when you’re almost in Grorud and you’re on your way back?’

‘Because I don’t want to walk with the cars heading in the same direction as me.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it makes me feel they are all going away and I’m left standing there. You see?’

‘Mm. But what do you do?’

‘I don’t do anything. I think.’

‘About what?’

‘Nothing you have to bother your little head about.’

She thought he didn’t understand a thing. Everyone thought he was stupid because he was only three feet seven inches tall. But he was not stupid, and he knew well enough what went through her head when she was out there walking, and when she said, ‘Goodnight,’ turned off the light, and went downstairs he was absolutely sure, because then he could hear them down below.

‘So you’re back. You’ve let off some steam, have you?’

‘Oh, that’s so typical of you, Frank! You don’t understand a thing! You just say wait and we have to think this over, but I don’t want to wait, do you understand? I’m not twenty any more!’

Next morning when he woke he had slept longer than usual, the room was light and underneath him he had a clean sheet. How that could have happened he didn’t know, it was more magic, and as soon as he realised he tried to think about something else.

Everywhere it was strangely quiet, he could not hear a sound, and he was the early riser, always awake before Gry, while Mum lay in bed reading, as she did no matter what time he poked his head round the door, and Dad would be in the kitchen making breakfast before he left for work. Then Arvid used to sneak down and stand by the kitchen counter eating a slice of bread, trembling with cold until Dad tousled his hair and left with the bag under his arm.