Per Petterson - I Refuse

The moon was mirrored on the ice, and the ice looked as solid as it was. It was a night of blue ice, minus ten degrees, and the moon lit up parts of the rocky hill behind the lake and drew dark lines down where the ravines ran from the top to the far bank. A fir tree leaned over the lake casting crooked shadows across the ice. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Everything was still. They stopped for a moment in the snow by the bank and gazed at what lay in front of them. Jim turned to Tommy and said:

‘You could get religious for less.’

‘You’re already religious,’ Tommy said.

‘Not so much any longer, in fact. I’m a socialist. I’m for a classless society.’

Tommy didn’t answer, but stood with his back straight, staring across the lake to the far bank and the shadow of the hill and the moonlight leaking in between the trees and the perfect, shiny ice.

‘I’ll be damned,’ he said. Then they walked down to the ice.

It was winter, it was 1970, December, they had both turned eighteen, one after the other, Jim in October and Tommy in November. Only two days later Tommy took his driving test and bought himself an old white Mercedes he had been saving up for. The Beatles had split up, they would never come back as they had been. It was Yoko Ono’s fault, but it made no difference, there was nothing left to say, it wasn’t even sad. The Sixties were gone anyway. It was over.

Now they lifted the laces over their heads and dropped the skates on the ice and took off their woollen mittens and knelt down to loosen the knots and extend the leather on both sides of the tongue so a foot could slip in. They tightened the laces carefully all the way up to the ankle and ran them twice round it and tied them in a simple knot and then crossed them on the way down again and wound them tightly round the foot between the leather and the blade and tied the flat brown laces in a final double loop and got up and took a few cautious steps on the ice. It was a long time since they had been on the ice, skating, but it went better than expected, their ankles didn’t buckle. They set off slowly, side by side, along the bank and had to hold each other’s shoulder, arm over arm, hand over hand, most of the way until they turned into the first cove and came out again in much better style a bit further up. Then they moved faster and skated around the edge of Lake Aurtjern in a circle, more confident now, it was like figure skating, floating, swinging through the air, and Tommy laughed, Jesus, he shouted, here we come, and they both laughed, and their voices had a very special sound, not like in a forest at all, but more like inside a room, on an indoor stage, but without an audience, then, which of course was the point, that there should not be an audience, and with a few hefty thrusts of their skates they raced across the lake in a straight line and braked sideways-on in the middle of it all with a shower of ice spraying up from the blades like you could see in an ice hockey match on TV and stopped and stood still and only slowly looked from side to side, and there was nothing but forest, and no one else was out tonight.

Jim was out of breath, the air came from from his mouth in icy fumes, and it was him who said:

‘Tommy. How long have we been friends.’

‘All of our lives,’ Tommy said.

‘I can’t remember us ever not being friends. When would that have been.’ Jim said. ‘I think it could last the rest of our lives,’ he said carefully, in a low voice. ‘Don’t you think.’

‘We will change. We were more like each other before than we are now.’

‘We’ve never been like each other. Think of your parents. Of the time you had.’

‘That’s true, I guess. And you’ve been a Christian. I’ve never been a Christian. Or maybe a little. A little Christian.’

‘I’m not a Christian any more. I’m a socialist.’

‘Yes, that’s right, you are,’ Tommy said. ‘But it will last if we want it to. It depends on us. We can be friends for as long as we want to.’

‘And we want to, don’t we,’ Jim said.

‘Sure,’ Tommy said. ‘I will, at least. Won’t you.’

‘Sure I will,’ Jim said, and he felt so happy, for what would the future have been without Tommy, what would life have been, and they could talk in this way only because it was night and the light was different and they had their caps on, which made them different from who they were during daytime in the real world and at the same time made them more similar to each other, even though Tommy was taller than Jim. But they couldn’t see that, and the moon shone over Lake Aurtjern and it was as cold as hell and no one could see them with their caps on anyway, and nothing was as it used to be, and they could say anything they liked, and Jim said:

‘Is it because you think I’m an OK person that you’re friends with me. Is there something special about me that you think is good.’

‘We’re friends because we’re friends. We’ve always been friends. You’re Jim. You’ve always been Jim.’

‘Is that a good thing.’

‘Sure, it’s good.’

‘That’s great,’ Jim said, but suddenly he wasn’t so sure if it was enough. It didn’t feel like it was, not quite, because maybe it was more like you had to be worthy. He had thought that a few times, that he ought to make himself worthy, that was how it felt. But he swallowed those feelings, he let them go, and so instead he said:

‘Do you ever hear from your mother or father.’

‘No.’

‘Don’t you think that’s sad.’

‘No, I don’t think it’s sad. I don’t give a damn.’

‘I can understand that,’ Jim said. And Tommy thought, does he, and maybe he did, for they were so close to each other that there might be some current between them, an electric arc that made one feel what the other felt. That could be it, because right now Tommy had been thinking about his mother, that she could see him gliding around on this lake in the night and from the heaven above she said in the voice that he didn’t remember, is that there my son, she said, with that cap on, no it isn’t, I don’t know that boy, he doesn’t look like my Tommy, which of course he didn’t any more. It was already six years since she had gone missing, and that’s why he had no one else but Jim, apart from Jonsen, and Jonsen was more like an uncle, and he was his boss at the sawmill where he now worked full-time for the second year. He had Siri, but Siri had changed, she went to the gymnas in Valmo and lived with the Lydersens in Mørk. He saw her a few times, when they met at the petrol station and went down behind the Co-op to the lake, as they used to do before, but they often came up again frustrated and embarrassed, and they didn’t meet that much any more. The twins had become like all the other children in the neighbourhood, they said hi Tommy, hi Jonsen, in one voice, and walked past them, arm in arm on the road, and Tommy stopped and watched them until they were out of sight behind the Liens’ door, and not once did they turn round to look back at him, who had taken care of them, who had been their brother.

‘I don’t talk about them,’ Tommy said.

‘I know,’ Jim said. ‘You don’t have to.’

‘I know,’ Tommy said, ‘and I don’t mind you asking. It’s just that I don’t feel like talking about them. There’s nothing to say.’

‘That’s fine by me.’

‘I know. It’s fine. Do we make another round.’

‘Definitely.’

That was when it happened. Suddenly there was the loud sound of ice cracking beneath them and just as loud it came back off the hill behind the lake and almost knocked them over, and they got scared and thought, now the goddamn ice is breaking under our feet and it will open up and we’ll fall into the freezing black water and in no time we’ll be paralysed and drown, no question about it. And you could forget about swimming with your skates on. So they leapt forward as though a starting gun had been fired and it was the speed skating championships in Bislett Stadium, with its inside and outside lanes and the stands and all that belonged to it, but this was no skating race, and no one could see them, there was only Jim and Tommy under the moon above Lake Aurtjern, and then there was another crack and it cut through the soft, gentle night with a dry, sharp sound and they threw themselves forward and pushed off with the blades, and still they moved so unbelievably slowly, in slow motion, as if in thick treacle. And it was going to go wrong, they could both feel it, or at least Jim did, so whether he meant to or not, he struck out with his right arm, and his hand in its mitten hit Tommy in the chest and knocked him backwards while Jim shot forwards, and Tommy was sent flying on to the frozen lake and landed on his knees and slid for a few metres more and sat there finally with his elbows on the ice and his hands in the air watching Jim and his back, as he reached the shore.