Per Petterson - It's Fine By Me

I didn’t answer, I did not even think, just looked down at my shoes and tried to steer the coffin, and then I looked at the trees that were covered by white curtains, and we followed the priest on his way to the open grave. The air was full of flakes that came down upon us, and when I stared up at them, it felt as if we were running, and that was exactly what I was thinking, that I would run away from all this. We were moving slowly towards the grave, and when finally we got there and were about to lift the coffin from the trolley, I had to look down. There was sleet at the bottom of the grave and water and wet clay. It looked cold and awful and I remembered the Easter when Egil and I had been poaching in a reservoir north of where we lived. Three perch we caught, and there were more there for the taking. We had sneaked out early, my father was still asleep, so I reckoned we would be all right. Egil was just a kid, but he was a demon at fishing, and I was sure that his eagerness to do it again was so great that he would keep his mouth shut. The plan was to hide our rods in the woodshed on the way back and say we had been playing cards at my pal Frank’s house because Good Friday was so boring. So my father thought too, and he was a keen poker player. The fish we had already given away to a woman we met on the road. We liked fishing, but we didn’t like fish. The problem was that Egil had stumbled into the lake, he was soaked to the knees, and I still had the rods under my arm when we walked up the path from the gate.

He was standing on the steps in his underwear, his head tilted and his hands down by his sides.

‘Come here, Egil,’ he smiled. Egil grinned with relief and went over to the steps. My father tousled his hair, and Egil leaned against his hip.

‘Where’ve you been so early, Egil?’

‘We’ve been playing cards at Frank’s house.’

‘You don’t say. And you dropped the cards in the swimming pool, did you, and you had to wade in after them?’

Egil laughed. ‘Frank hasn’t got a swimming pool, you know that.’

‘Wow, you don’t say? Where the hell have you been fishing then?’ my father said and hurled Egil against the wall. I felt the thump through my whole body and Egil was winded, he turned white and then he began to sob.

‘Now watch carefully, Egil,’ my father said. ‘Audun, come here.’ I looked at him. I put down the rods and took the box of bait and the extra hooks from my pocket and put them down too before I walked towards the steps. It was a distance of ten metres, and I took my time. I motioned to Egil to keep his mouth shut, and the minute I turned round, my father’s hand came out of nowhere and hit my face. I was knocked backwards and my cheek went numb, I couldn’t feel a thing and then it went hot and then there was a pain.

‘Are you watching carefully, Egil?’

‘Yes,’ Egil said.

I rose to my knees, I thought, I’m getting out of here, and then he lashed out again and hit me on the side of the head and my ears were ringing and I could barely hear Egil shouting:

‘We were fishing in the reservoir! That’s what we were doing, but it was Audun’s idea. It was. Cross my heart.’

I was ten years old at the time, Egil was eight and when school started after the Easter holidays I was still in bed, and every move I made was painful. Now the sexton was turning the crank and the coffin sank into the earth. Kari threw a bunch of roses and the priest threw soil. I turned and walked up to the church and out through the gate and stood outside on the road smoking and trying to think, but everything I touched was oily and just slipped out of reach.

Sleet gave way to rain. I held the cigarette in the hollow of my hand, and my confirmation coat had grown too small, it made me feel fat, it annoyed me, and then they were finished over in the cemetery. The small flock came slowly up to the gate and there they stopped, and the priest shook their hands one by one and said a few words. I couldn’t hear him, but the look on his face was mild and sympathetic, and eventually he came up to me and said:

‘So, you didn’t want to pay your brother your final respects?’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said. We were the same height and looked each other straight in the eye.

‘I know that when this life is over and the next begins, then there shall be peace,’ he said, and he was clearly pleased with his words. I looked into his face. If ever I wanted to punch someone, that would be now.

‘Kiss my arse,’ I said.

IT’S FRIDAY. ARVID calls and wants me to go with him to the club. He sounds worked up. I am tired, I sleep badly, and when I can’t sleep, I read. I have started Hemingway and Arthur Omre, but it’s too much. After the newspaper round and school, my brain is spinning. Still I say yes.

The club is in the shopping centre on the second level, and the entrance is right behind the spiral staircase leading up to the third. The staircase is a free-standing tower with a footbridge from the top to the market square, and Olav Selvaag, the entrepreneur, liked the tower so much that when Veitvet was finished he used it as a logo, and all his vehicles have it painted on the door.

An electric sign says Linderud Youth Club, even though Linderud is the next station. It’s childish, I know, but it has always annoyed me, and when I come up the slope by the post office and the music school, Arvid is standing by the staircase waiting. Several young people walk past him on the way in, but Arvid’s leaning against the railing, smoking in his yellow cord trousers and black jacket. Under the jacket he has a Fair Isle sweater and a large loose scarf round his neck. His hair is long now, if that’s the way to say it, because his curls grow out in all directions, and he is wearing a beret, which his grandfather gave him for Christmas last year. It’s not often he has the nerve to wear it.

He looks cool. The girls in his class dig him, but he is so shy he doesn’t get it, and that’s why it all comes to nothing. I may be wrong, though. Perhaps he doesn’t tell me everything, I don’t tell him everything, but what I do know is that everyone who passes through the door into the club is at least two years younger than we are, and I don’t understand what we’re doing here. It’s a year since we last came, and I said a sleepy yes on the phone because it seemed important to him.

I walk up to him and say:

‘Hell, Arvid, all they do in there is play table tennis and dance, and they dance like shit to music we hate. And I don’t even like table tennis.’

‘We’re not staying. We’ll be off after a while.’

‘So why go at all? It’s not even certain they’ll let us in. We’re over eighteen.’

‘Just for a little while.’

I should have stayed home. I should have lain down for an hour to sleep off the anxious feeling that’s in my stomach, but then they do let us in. The club leader is standing in the doorway looking sceptical, he is closer to us in age than most of the kids who hang out at the club. He stops us and asks how old we are. It’s embarrassing.

‘Eighteen.’

‘When?’

‘Just turned.’

‘OK, but we don’t want any trouble. You haven’t been to Geir’s bar first, have you?’

‘Are you crazy?’

‘And no fooling with the girls.’

We go in, and I stop in the middle of the hall. ‘Shit, Arvid, I’m not up for this.’

‘Just for a little while.’

The place is packed to the rafters. All the rooms are crowded with people, and I don’t know what to do with myself, so I stand in a doorway watching some snot-nosed kids playing table tennis. Arvid has gone off after checking out the room. The discotheque is right at the back, the music banging into the hall every time someone opens a door, and many turn to look at him as he hurries further in. He has shoved his beret into his jacket pocket, but still he looks cool.