Per Petterson - It's Fine By Me

‘Odd! You heard what I said! I’m in charge here!’

No one can see him except for me. He is sweating, his white coat is too tight on him. He runs a hand through his thinning hair, and Goliath gets up and goes over to the press, pulls the spatula knife from his work pants and cuts the paper just above the star. Swish it goes! And then the two ends hang in the air. He puts the spatula knife in its pocket and sits down with his back to the foreman. Davidsen is close to crying. He looks at his watch. Very soon it will be too late to fire up. There won’t be time enough to wash the press down and start afresh before the shift is over. His shoulders crumple.

‘Audun, you’ll do the splice. That’s your job.’

‘I don’t work here,’ I say.

‘Don’t try to be funny. Do as I tell you.’ I look at Goliath. He nods. I get up from my chair and go over to the star and put it in neutral, pull the paper until I have enough to work with. Then I take out the sticky tape and make a strong join.

‘OK, let’s go,’ Goliath says, and stubs out his cigarette. ‘Get those blankets wet.’

Afterwards he comes up to me. ‘Do you know what, Audun,’ he says, ‘you’re a troublemaker.’

‘At least I do my job,’ I say, and then he smiles his wry smile. Maybe his mouth just is like that.

FOR THREE DAYS it has been snowing, and then it turns bone cold. Everything is different, it feels warmer down the stairs to the rotary press, and when evening comes, the doors open, casting yellow shadows, and my footprints shine in the dark on my way home from the late shift. My body is tired in a different way, time passes, that’s why, I know, and my mother doesn’t play opera as much and watches more TV. There are times I miss Kirsten Flagstad and Jussi Björling, but Jussi is taboo now. My hands have cracked up, so the ink doesn’t really wash off. Touching my shoulders and thighs is like rubbing stone, and then I think about what those hands might do to Rita’s skin or even Fru Karlsen’s, and I find some sticky mess in my mother’s cabinet and smear myself with it. And yet there is a change I have been waiting for that doesn’t happen.

I lie in bed under the duvet with only my nose out over the top and see the starry frost on the old windows. We were supposed to have changed them for a new kind, the ones you operate with a handle and tilt, but my mother didn’t want to spend the money, and now she has fallen out with the neighbours who think it looks ugly and unsymmetrical. Before I’ve even considered getting out of bed, the telephone rings. I lie back waiting for my mother to answer it. She doesn’t. The flat is completely silent apart from the shrill ringing tone that comes up the stairs and into my room. If only I had remembered to close my door last night, then perhaps I would not have heard it, but now it’s too late.

I don’t want to, and then I have to. I thump my fist on the pillow, thrust the duvet aside, jump out and run downstairs in my underpants only, knowing the phone is bound to stop the second I pick it up. It always does. But it keeps ringing, and I grab the receiver and shout into it: ‘Yes, hello, what is it?’

‘Jesus, you got a hangover?’ It’s Arvid. I am frozen, I cover one foot with the other and try to make myself as small as I can, but I am one seventy-eight tall and practically naked.

‘Shit, don’t you know the working class have a right to weekends off? By the way, this is a rare honour.’

‘And the same to you. Anyway, you’re not supposed to rest, you’re supposed to work the time you’re on this earth. You must seize the day and the hour, you have to go skiing with me in the woods. The snow is great, and I need some air. Imagine a Kvikklunsj chocolate bar and cocoa in Lilloseter or Sinober.’

At least he’s trying. And I think: come on, Arvid, and say:

‘Sinober’s too far. And I haven’t had my skis on for two years. I don’t even know where they are. Isn’t it damned cold?’

‘Don’t forget Ingstad out on the tundra. In the mornings he had to thaw the dogs over the fire. That was cold. Minus fifteen is more like a sauna. Find your skis, you’ve got them in the cellar, I know you have. See you out by the military camp in an hour. Green Swix is good for waxing. Goodbye.’

He hangs up, and there is only silence. I stand listening. Where is my mother? I go upstairs and knock on her bedroom door, and when she doesn’t answer, I open it. The room is empty, the bed’s been made. I look at my watch. It’s just nine o’clock, and it’s a Sunday, and then the telephone rings again. I’m still half naked, every room is cold, and I curse and have to go back downstairs.

It’s Kari.

‘Is Mamma there?’ She says Mamma .

‘No, in fact she’s not, I don’t know where she is. I’ve just got up. The telephone keeps ringing, I’m standing here stark naked, and I’m freezing my arse off.’

‘Audun?’

‘Yes.’

‘I want to come home, Audun. I don’t want to spend Christmas here. I want to come home.’ She whispers the last words. ‘I think I have to hang up,’ she says quickly, and then it’s the dialling tone. I stand with the receiver in my hand, listening, and all I hear is the beep.

‘Kari?’ I say before I even start thinking, and then I slam the receiver down and go upstairs to my room and search for clothes. I find a thick jumper and a pair of old skiing pants at the back of the wardrobe and red knee socks. Then I go down to the kitchen and put the kettle on for coffee. Where did I last see the ski wax? I go to the worktop and pull out drawer number two under the cutlery and there they are: small tins of red, blue and green Swix. In the country it was always the firewood box we rummaged through, when something went missing, and here, when the odd item disappears, it ends up below the cutlery in drawer number two. The skis are on the fire escape outside the kitchen window, I suddenly remember. They have been there for two years. I pick up the green Swix, hold it in my hand, weigh it, and then I see the photograph of Kari with her newborn baby on the wall above the kitchen table. I put the tin back, close the drawer and go out into the hall and dial Arvid’s number. He picks up.

‘Hi,’ I say. ‘Is your father there?’

‘My father?’

‘Yes, your father. Can I have a word with your father?’

‘Christ. OK. Don’t go away.’ He puts down the phone, and I hear him walk into the living room and call up the stairs, and then all goes quiet, and after a couple of minutes a door is shut, and Arvid’s father says:

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, it’s Audun. I know this is a little over the top, but I have to ask. Would it be possible to borrow your car for two or three hours today? It’s my sister in Kløfta. I think there’s a crisis, and I need to go. The bus takes too long. I’ll be careful. Word of honour.’

‘Well, actually I was going to use it myself today, but I suppose it can wait. It’s important, you say?’

‘I think it is. It would be cool of you. I have no one else to ask.’

‘Then you’d best be going right away.’

‘I’m already there. Thank you very much.’

I guess a reefer jacket and red knee stockings is not the latest fashion, but there is no time to change, and I lock the door as I leave. Wherever my mother is, she has her own key. And then I remember the kettle on the stove and have to go back in. I hurry through the hall, and in the kitchen I pull the kettle off the hotplate and close the lid with a bang. I start to sweat under my jacket by the stove and remember that this was the day I had planned to stay in bed and just take things one after the other. I slice off a chunk of brown bread before I leave and chew on it as I lock up and hurry along the Sing-Sing gallery.