Per Petterson - It's Fine By Me

‘Isn’t it good?’ He reads the piece twice and looks up at me.

‘Purple prose,’ he says.

‘What the hell do you mean by that?’

‘Too much. Sentimental. US propaganda.’

‘But, for Christ’s sake, don’t you get it? Those people just took off, burned all their bridges and this girl is trying to show how afraid they were, and at the same time how grand their deed was.’

‘Maybe, but it’s still purple prose.’

I snatch the book back.

‘Sometimes, Arvid, Christ,’ I say, and read on to myself. Maybe he is right, maybe it is purple prose, but I like it.

‘Is what you’re doing of any importance to the rest of us?’ Rønning says. He’s standing by the dais with his thumbs tugging at his braces, gazing down the row of desks.

‘There was just something in the text. I thought it was good. I didn’t mean to interrupt.’

‘I see. Perhaps you might like to read it aloud for us?’ It’s like he’s rolling his ‘r’s even more than usual today. I look at him pleadingly, but he grins and splays his hands. Hell. I read. I read the whole page and finish with that sentence, the grandmother almost chokes me, my voice cracks, and everyone turns to look at me. I’m supposed to be the tough guy in the class, the strongest, the best athlete and generally as dour as shit. It just turns out that way, I don’t know why. I stare back, they think I am strange, it’s fine by me, they’re like mist, I hardly see them. Arvid’s and Venke’s faces are the only ones I can really make out. There is a shine in Venke’s eyes.

‘That’s not bad at all,’ Rønning says.

‘Forget it,’ I say.

After the lesson Rønning stops me at the door. He waits until everyone has left and says, ‘I am sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you into reading aloud. I wasn’t aware it meant so much to you.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Well that’s good then. Is everything OK with you? You have been a little, what shall I say, reserved these days.’ He smiles. I shrug.

‘I think maybe I’m going to stop coming here.’

‘Now? Well into your final year? Well, school isn’t everything. Don’t think I believe that. There are many other things you can do. Perhaps you need a break. Sleep on it for a week, then come to me, and we can talk about it.’

‘OK, that’s fine,’ I say.

‘By the way, I have a book at home about Ellis Island. It might be of interest to you.’

WHEN WE PUT Egil in his grave, it was Easter. Kari was supposed to move to Kløfta the week before. There had been some fine days, it was spring for real, nature was going berserk, and her boyfriend was standing in the sun outside the block with his lorry waiting. He couldn’t be bothered helping us, and that was just fine with me. I couldn’t stand either him or his lorry. I went to my room to fetch something I had bought for Kari, an old Supremes album I had got hold of at Ringstrøm’s Records, and I was standing by the window looking down at him. He was leaning against the red bonnet smoking, flicking the ash from his cigarette, and running his hand through his Brylcreemed hair. Then he stubbed out the butt on the footpath and looked up at the windows with sleepy eyes and a sullen smile. He was James Dean, and he had made this long trek to rescue Kari from suburban hell.

Egil came out of the stairway and walked up to the lorry with a large box in his arms. He’d been in a lot of trouble over the last year, and now he had stayed close to home for a while, but I could see how he was restless, he had this scowl on his face. He shoved the box on to the back of the lorry and the two of them started chatting. Egil was keen and unable to stand still, and after a few minutes he was sitting behind the wheel and had started the engine. It began to roll down Beverveien and rounded the bend at the end of the road. When I came out with Kari, he had driven the whole loop and was on his way back down from the top. I gave Kari the record.

‘Here you are,’ I said. ‘Listen to this and dream about the old days.’ She looked at me in surprise and was so happy that she hugged me right in front of her boyfriend.

‘Silly you. Thank you so very much. You think of everyone, don’t you?’

‘Yuk,’ I said. I didn’t want anyone to think that about me. It wasn’t even true. But she was my sister, and she had always been OK.

‘Don’t get married straight away,’ I said. ‘Think about it first,’ and she laughed, but her boyfriend sneered, and when the lorry was back in place, I walked up close to him and brushed him pretty hard with my shoulder as I hurled a bag of clothes on to the back.

‘Hell,’ he said, and spun round, but I didn’t even look at him, just kept him behind me, and he had to stand there panting on his own.

Egil stepped out of the cabin. He was excited, his whole body shaking.

‘Cool wheels,’ he said, gazing at Kari’s guy as though he really was James Dean, and right away James Dean was in a much better mood and combed his hand through his greasy hair and said:

‘Of course it’s cool, I fixed it and did the paint job myself. You know, Egil, if it’s a job you’re after, there’s enough to do around my place.’

‘Do you mean that?’ Egil said, and was even more excited.

‘Dead right I do. You’re a natural.’ He gave a generous swing of his arm, and glanced at me.

Egil turned. ‘Did you hear that, Audun?’

‘Sure I did. You’re welcome!’ I said and walked straight to the stairway and didn’t look back. That was the last thing I said to him. I met my mother on my way up. She was crying because Kari was moving out.

‘Is something the matter?’ she sniffled.

‘No. I’m just getting the last few things.’

Egil went with them up to the country to help unload the truck and have a look at the place where he might be working. He didn’t come back. Two days later he drove one of James Dean’s Volvo Amazons into the river Glomma and drowned.

On Good Friday, spring was cancelled and the next day the sleet came. It stuck to our faces as we came out of the church with the coffin between us. I had thought it would be heavier. I was holding one handle, and behind me came Arvid and behind him it was Kari. On the other side was my mother, and behind her Roberto, and last came Egil’s teacher from school. He had stood up for Egil many times, had pleaded for him when he broke into the Co-op, but it was no good. Egil had been his special vocation, and now it was over.

There was no one else. JD said he didn’t feel too good, so he stayed in bed back at Kløfta and drank blackcurrant toddies. It was fine by me. There had been talk about letting my father know, but I refused and said if he showed his face I would take off into the woods and stay there until he had left.

The priest was bad. He had been to our flat to offer his comfort and ask about Egil and what he was like, so he could prepare his talk for the church. He was the priest, so we told him the truth, he had been a pain in the ass, and when we were halfway through the truth, he got up from the sofa and took his coat.

‘OK, that’s enough. I think I will do it my way.’

And he did. Nothing of what we had told him was included. Just some waffle about the shining light he had been to those around him, how his youthful vigour had been brought to such a sudden end and then the after-life with its eternal restoration, sunshine beyond compare and twittering of birds, and I just switched off, my mother stopped crying and Kari sat staring up at the ceiling. Not a tear between us.

‘What a sack of shit, he is,’ Arvid whispered behind me as we came out into the slush and laid the coffin on the long trolley and started hauling it across the gravel. ‘He got Egil mixed up with Little Lord Fauntleroy.’