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

Now Dad was away, and when Arvid looked into Gry’s room, her bed was empty. He tiptoed down the stairs to the living room, and that was empty too, but the cellar door was open, and if he listened carefully he could hear a faint splashing of water he knew came from the laundry room, and that meant his mother was down there.

He was all alone in the flat, and it gave him such a chilling sensation of freedom that for a moment he stood still, it was so unexpected. He could do whatever he wanted, and then he knew exactly what he wanted to do. He quickly fetched a chair and placed it by the bookcase, stepped up onto it, and started to climb. He knew it was all right, the shelving was screwed into the wall. When he swung himself up to the very top he almost knocked off the old vase they had brought with them from Vålerenga, and even though Mum might not have cared about that either he managed to catch it at the last moment.

Carefully he straightened up. It was a long way down to the floor, and for a fraction of a second he was balancing on the edge of the bookcase and felt the rush of fire in his stomach. Then he raised his arms as high as he was able to, which was not that high, but it was enough to touch the large clock. He pushed it off its hook, and for a moment it rested in his hands, and Jesus it was heavy, and then it tipped over and sailed through the air and landed on the floor with a crash that was a hundred times louder than he had expected. He stood on top of the bookcase in his underpants, and they were slowly getting wet, and he looked down at the splinters of glass, the scattered cogwheels and the two clock hands wobbling round in a meaningless void. From the cellar he heard the click-clack of his mother’s steps, ‘Arvid! Arvid!’ she cried, and then he pushed his face to the wall and held his hands to his ears.

They called him Fatso, and fat he was , that is his belly was fat, it stuck out like an over-inflated balloon and was peculiar to look at from the side, but otherwise Fatso was slight. It was a long time since Fatso had used a belt for his trousers, because it just slipped under his belly, and then his trousers fell down and his wife was so embarrassed, she said, that she told him to find another solution. That’s why he wore braces, or ‘guy ropes’ as Dad said on the sly, and that was how he looked, like a tent.

No one called him Fatso to his face. ‘Bomann’ they said, for that was his name, and as far as his belly was concerned there was only one thing wrong with it, Dad said, it was always full of beer. Builders drink a lot of beer, everyone knows that, and Arvid knew it too. But Fatso didn’t just drink beer; he had the biggest and most sophisticated home-brew kit in the street.

There was bubbling and sputtering in almost every flat along the road, and those who didn’t have a kit themselves shared with a neighbour. The smallest set-up was Thomassen’s on the corner, but that was to be expected, Dad said, for Thomassen worked for the police and had to be discreet.

It wasn’t long since Thomassen got his own kit, and until then especially Fatso, but not only him, had worried that Thomassen would report them, and great was the relief when the machinery was set up under his kitchen sink. Jon Sand, who lived next door to Thomassen and was the same age as Arvid, said all the neighbours had chipped in for the kit. They had been talking about it in the laundry room, and Thomassen couldn’t refuse when he was given it for his birthday. But Jon was always making out he knew just about everything, and it was common knowledge that his mother and father were the biggest gossips in Veitvet, so Arvid didn’t pay it any mind.

One day Arvid’s mother called him the way she always did.

‘Arvid! Dinner!’ she yelled, and it was really annoying, why did she always have to shout so damn loud, she was the only person who did that, and the other kids grinned and said, ‘Arvid, your Mum’s shouting for you,’ as if he hadn’t heard! But it was Thursday and offal, and unlike the rest of the family Arvid thought offal was really good (animal fodder, said Dad, cheap, said Mum) so he set off at a run. He ran a lot, he couldn’t keep his legs still for more than a couple of minutes at a time, and he raced like a terrier up the flagstone path in front of the house.

Fatso was sitting on the front steps reading Arbeiderbladet , and Arvid could have sworn he stuck his leg out although it would be hard to prove, but anyway he fell flat on his face and screamed an air-quivering God damn it. Fatso lowered his paper, lifted his index finger and said:

‘You’re not allowed to swear, you’re too little!’

‘Mind your own business, Fatso!’ Arvid howled, for his knee hurt like the devil and tears gushed from his eyes when it started to bleed. But he had said what he wasn’t supposed to say out loud, too loud, he knew it at once, and now it was too late to take it back.

Fatso stood up in one surprisingly quick movement considering the huge belly he was carrying.

‘What did you say?!’ he said, grabbing Arvid’s shoulder.

‘Fatso!’ Arvid screamed, for now he was both frightened and defiant, and Fatso dragged him hobbling to the door where it said JANSEN, and just then Arvid’s mother opened it.

‘Did you hear what he said, fru Jansen?’ said Fatso.

‘No, Bomann,’ Mum said. ‘I’ve just got here, haven’t I. So, what did he say?’

‘He called me Fatso,’ Fatso said. ‘No one calls me Fatso!’

‘No one does, Bomann.’

‘No, they don’t? This whelp of yours just did. Fatso, he said. No one calls me Fatso. I won’t have it and I bet he didn’t come up with it himself!’

‘I don’t understand, Bomann,’ Mum said. ‘I’ve never heard anyone call you anything except Bomann, that’s for sure, and the boy is only eight years old. Why should that bother you?’ Mum said, and Arvid, who was a bit annoyed with her because she was lying, was impressed too, for she lied so beautifully, she didn’t even blush, just looked at Fatso with her brown eyes in such a good-natured way, and Arvid had never heard her say anything but Fatso when they were by themselves.

‘I’ll tell you something for nothing,’ Fatso said, ‘if I ever hear that whelp call me Fatso again I’ll do him over!’

‘Right, Bomann, I think you should go and sit on your step and finish reading that paper of yours instead of standing here playing the bogeyman,’ Mum said as softly as she could, and then she dragged Arvid indoors for dinner and offal.

Now Arvid had an enemy for life. For a long time they walked around hating each other from a distance, and whenever Arvid walked past his front-door steps, Fatso shook his fist and Arvid stared down at the flagstones and hissed:

‘Fatso, Fatso, Fatso Beerbelly!’

Every payday Fatso got drunk. It was not unusual, he got drunk on other days as well, but on payday he was drunk before he got home, and even though his wife didn’t mind a drop herself, she never took it well, for she was afraid he would squander or completely blow his money, and she could get pretty angry and loud. Not that she stood on the front step ranting and raving like certain others, outdoors she was as mild and gentle as a lamb, but indoors it was a different matter. It wasn’t difficult to hear, for Fatso lived next door to Arvid and his family, and Selvaag the contractor had taken quite a few short cuts with insulation when the terraced houses were built. He’d taken short cuts on most things, Dad said. The gaps between the floorboards were so wide that the little ones tripped in the cracks and were slower to walk than other children, at least that’s what Dad claimed, so Fatso didn’t dare go home when he’d been drinking after work on payday. Instead he went up to the edge of the forest on the other side of Trondhjemsveien and lay down to sleep. Everyone knew this except his wife, for no one told her. Every single payday night the light burned in Fatso’s kitchen, and there she sat waiting for him and didn’t know where he was.