Per Petterson - It's Fine By Me

In the evening a bonfire can be nice and bright in the darkness, but during the day it is different. Whoosh it went, and within a few minutes the whole house was ablaze. The heat was intense, and I stepped back. When the bushes also caught fire my first thought was to run to the station and get water from the tap at the back, but there were people all around, and I had nothing to say to them. So instead I stood still watching the flames. They rose higher and higher as they spread to the bushes, and I guess they could be seen from a long way away, if anyone cared to look.

‘Kiss my arse,’ I said, and swung the rucksack on to my back. I set off, giving the station as wide a berth as possible. I waded through knee-high grass wet with dew along a path only we kids knew about, and then I was back on the main road. At the crossroads by the chapel, I didn’t go straight on as I usually would have. Instead I turned left on to a gravel road that at first was winding its way between the green fields of barley and then through a cluster of trees and on to places I had never been to before.

I walked for most of the morning. As the hours passed by, the landscape turned hilly and rolling, and all the hollows that cut across the path I was taking never ran in the same direction. Downhill it was easy to walk, but my rucksack felt heavy as lead against the small of my back on the way up again, and I didn’t dare stop and take it off until I was certain that what I saw round about was all new to me. And yet I kept seeing familiar things: a crag, a red house, a fence that had collapsed into disrepair. The straps were gnawing the flesh off my shoulders, and I put my thumbs under them to relieve the pressure, and that worked fine for a mile or so, but then that too became painful.

The sun rose and stayed high in the sky. The air was dry in my mouth, and with each step the dust came whirling up from the gravel road. On the track behind me, I could see my footprints like two straight lines in the thick dust, and if I didn’t keep my mouth closed, the dust would crunch between my teeth. At the top of a rise I finally stopped. I really needed a drink.

I didn’t have the strength to walk one step more. I looked around me. Across the little valley ahead, on the next peak, I could just make out a yellow barn behind a grove of birch trees. It stood out, the yellow was shrill and very unusual. I had never seen a yellow barn in my life, and I thought maybe I could get some water there. I had never been here before, so I guessed it was safe.

Briskly I set off downhill. The road curved down the slope, and I heard the river before I saw it. I walked faster even though the soles of my feet were burning as if someone had rubbed them with a grater, but I didn’t care. At the very bottom and around the bend, the river came flowing out of the green shadows between the trees and then into rapids, and the boulders whipped the water into a froth that curved under a bridge, and then the river spread, and there was a deep pool where the water gently whirled before shooting off again over wet, shiny boulders that looked like huge marbles.

That pool looked good.

To get there I had to leave the road, clamber down an incline and over a barbed wire fence. I slid down, took off my rucksack and threw it over the fence. I took a running jump, I was flying, and then I was over. I picked up the rucksack and held it in my arms the last few paces, underneath the bridge on the warm rocks and over to the still water and put it down, avoiding the cowpats. I scouted around. All I could see was a few cows. Not a soul in sight. I took off my sunglasses and all my clothes and stacked them in a pile and went naked over to the pool. I didn’t wait, I didn’t count, I just jumped in.

It was cold as hell.

Suddenly, and just like in the books, I felt a claw around my chest. I sank, I couldn’t move, the water was deep, and I felt my body starting to spin. This can’t be true, it’s too short a life, I thought, I am only thirteen, for Christ’s sake, and then I kicked for all I was worth, but the current was strong and I was pulled into it, my body spinning like a log. I couldn’t hold my breath for much longer, and then my hand hit a rock. I took hold and crouched round what air I had left and put my feet against the rock and kicked off and suddenly there was sun and dazzling yellow foam, and I drifted on to the next rock, and it was towering above me, and I clung to it and took breath after deep breath and gazed towards the bank. I was halfway out in the river, but the bank was not that far. I could make it. The cows lay chewing and watching me, their eyes large and round like vacant mirrors. I was nothing to them. OK, I thought, and then I jumped, and again it was cold, and there was a roar in my ears, I held my head high and swam with all my might, staring at the cows that glided past all too quickly.

‘Shit!’ I yelled and maybe it did some good, for soon I had solid ground under my feet and I could stagger on to dry land. Rotting branches and jagged stones dug into my feet, but I didn’t feel any pain.

Slowly I climbed the bank up to where my clothes were piled. My body was still cold, and my legs were heavy, I didn’t have the strength to run. There was a large cowpat, and I stopped right in front of it and stood there for a good while before deciding to walk around it on the right-hand side. When I got to my things, I lay face down on the grass. I can dry off in the sun, I thought, I will just lie here and rest a little, and then I’ll go on.

When I awoke I was lying in a room with a skylight in the ceiling. The air was grey, like smoke, and a narrow beam of light came down from above. The ceiling was grey and the walls grey. There was no door to the room, but I saw the railings of a staircase coming up in a corner. I ran my hand over my body, and I was naked under the duvet. It too seemed grey, and the faint light was a delicate light and as soft as the duvet, and everything seemed soft in here.

Slowly I rolled over, and my body felt very heavy, and through a window right down by the floor I could see a small part of the yellow barn. Beside the bed was a bucket. I had thrown up in it. I could not remember when. I checked to see if I felt sick, but I didn’t. Only very heavy. I closed my eyes.

The next time I awoke, I heard footsteps on the stairs. I opened my eyes and it was darker now, and I could barely make out a woman coming up behind the railing. She was a large woman and light footed, and her hair was dark in the darkness, and she was coming towards me. She stopped beside my bed and took the bucket and carried it to the stairs. She moved without a sound. I watched her through half-open eyes, pretending to be asleep. Then she came back, dipped her hand in her apron pocket and put something on a shelf by the bed.

‘What’s that?’ I said.

‘It’s your sunglasses. You were shouting and making such a terrible fuss about them that Leif went back to the river and found them where your clothes were.’

‘Did I shout?’

‘It can’t be denied.’

‘I don’t need them now. It’s so dark in here.’

‘That’s good. How are you?’

‘I feel heavy.’

She smiled. ‘I guess you do. Look here now,’ she said and bent over me and pulled the pillow out and shook it and put it back behind my head. Her breast brushed against my cheek. It was large and soft. She straightened up. I closed my eyes.

‘Go back to sleep,’ she said.

‘Right.’

She walked without a sound towards the staircase, took the bucket and started down the steps. I could see her face. It wasn’t that round, and soon she would be all gone.

‘Who’s Leif?’ I said. She turned and smiled. Only her head could be seen above the floor.

‘That’s my husband. Signe is my name.’