Per Petterson - It's Fine By Me

I come out of the tower at ground level and run in the snow between the houses and across Veitvetveien. There are two cars stranded by the kerb with their iced-up windows and starter motors sounding like bad attacks of bronchitis as the drivers inside twist the keys. The frosty mist from my mouth fans out in the air, and coming down Veitvetsvingen, I see Arvid standing on the road by the car with the key dangling from his mitten.

‘If there’s a crisis, I’ll go with you,’ he says.

‘Sorry about the skiing trip.’ I rub my ears, there is an ice-cold wind, as there always is, and I haven’t worn a cap for years.

‘No problem. At least I’ll get some fresh air, I’ll just roll down the window.’

‘Oh no, you don’t.’

We pull the grey tarpaulin off the car. It is unwieldy and stiff, and when we fold it there is a cracking noise, and with a struggle we force it into the boot. The windows are ice-free, and the car starts first time. There is no nonsense with Frank Jansen’s car.

‘You can tell your father I’ll pay for the petrol.’

‘He’d expect nothing less,’ Arvid says.

We drive round the bend and along Grevlingveien towards the shopping centre and then up to Trondhjemsveien. I switch on the heating and the fan starts humming, and then there is a smell of something burning, and only very slowly does the car thaw out. We keep our mittens on. The road is nearly empty, only the occasional lorry steams past, and then we are lost in a spray of snow, and I have to cut the speed to keep the car on the road, and then suddenly the road gets all slippery, and I really have to concentrate.

Driving with your mittens on is difficult. My hands slip on the steering wheel and I clench them so hard my whole body goes tense, and my neck feels so stiff I can hardly turn my head. We drive without speaking. Everything out there is white, but the roads have been cleared, and the trees that glide past bristle with rime and crystallised snow. I give up on the mittens, pull them off, and the wheel is cold and damp against my palms, and we can see the white smoke curling upwards from the chimneys on every rooftop. We drive past Grorud, with the church, and the school down in the valley, and Lake Stemmerud up in the woods, where we used to swim in the summer. I almost drowned there once, but then it was thirty degrees plus. I was diving and hit my head on the bottom and didn’t have the strength to swim ashore, so instead I crawled along the bottom until my lungs were screaming. It was just my luck I didn’t crawl the wrong way. It was so embarrassing I didn’t tell anyone.

Arvid says nothing until Gjelleråsen Ridge:

‘Is it a serious crisis, you think?’

‘James Dean is no good. I’ve told them all along, but no one will listen. I don’t get what a great bird like Kari’s doing with him. Maybe we have to do a little kidnapping. Are you up for it?’ I try to laugh, but it’s not funny.

‘I’ll do whatever you tell me. You’re the boss on this one.’

‘Maybe there is no problem. But, whatever happens, Kari and the baby are coming with us when we drive back. Kari’s always been OK with me.’

‘So you owe her, is that it?’

I shrug. ‘She’s my sister,’ I say. ‘Call it what you like.’ Arvid is about to answer, and then he doesn’t and looks away and says to the window:

‘Sorry. Stupid thing to say.’

Yes, it was, but I can’t think about that now. Behind my eyes there are images flashing, making it hard to see straight. My hands tingle, and heat wells up inside me, and inside the car the windows are freezing up, until finally I can’t see a thing. Arvid takes an ice-scraper from the glove compartment, but the humid air freezes and clogs the windows faster than he can remove it, and I have to pull over, roll the windows down and then we both scrape the windscreen. I look at my watch again, this is taking too long.

‘Jesus, haven’t you finished yet?’

‘Take it easy,’ Arvid says. ‘We’ll have to drive for a while with the windows down, I guess. The fan’s not the greatest in the world.’ He scrapes the windows clean on the inside, and I do the outside. I kick at the snow and check my watch and say:

‘OK, let’s get the hell out of here.’

I drive through Gjerdrum to Ask with the windows open, it’s cold as hell, and from Ask I cut across to Kløfta, towards Ånerud. That’s where his place is. I have been there only once, for the christening, but I remember exactly where it is, I remember JD on the steps with the baby in his arms, the proud father, and Kari, pale and worn in the background.

I turn just before the Shell station and look at Arvid. He is quiet and serious.

‘Do you remember the last time we were here?’ I say. ‘At least this time we’ve got enough petrol.’ The petrol gauge is at three-quarters full. He smiles, but says nothing.

‘Do you regret coming with me?’

‘Hell no, it’s not that. Of course I want to come with you.’ That’s about all he has to say, and I do not ask, I have to keep my mind on the driving. The road goes up hill and down dale out here, and there are sudden bends, and even though the road has been cleared, it’s still slippery and churned up. We round a bend, and I concentrate so hard on what’s straight ahead of me that I miss the driveway. I don’t have time to slow down, so I brake instead, and skid sideways past the gate and come to a stop crosswise on the road some twenty metres further down. There is no one else around, only the engine is humming, and Arvid looks at me.

‘No problem,’ I say, wrenching the wheel hard. There is just enough space to coax the car straight, and it’s back and forth a hundred times, but I make it in the end, and then I slowly drive up to the gate and switch the engine off. We sit looking at the house. It’s quite a large house for two adults and a baby. Once upon a time the house was dark, built with tarred boards perhaps, and then later he might have made a half-hearted attempt to paint it white, and given up after one coat, and the brownish tar is showing, and now the paint is flaking off and the house looks weary. On the drive there are two snow-covered vehicles: the lorry I have seen before and a Ford Mustang, and there are no footprints or wheel tracks in the snow. To the right, at the back, is a woodshed. As far as I can make out, there are no tracks leading up to it. Inside the house, the curtains are drawn. No smoke from the chimney. It all looks cold and abandoned.

‘Hell, there’s no one here,’ Arvid says.

‘We’ll see about that.’ I get out of the car and slam the door so hard you can hear it from miles away, and I wade in through the gate and halfway to the house. The snow is up to my ankles. I stop and stare at the curtains in the window on the first floor.

‘KARI!’ I shout. My voice cracks in the freezing air and falls in splinters over the drive, there is a tinkling sound, like glass. I just know someone is standing behind the green flowery curtains.

‘KARI!’ I shout again. My back starts to itch, and I have this fleeting feeling that I have stood like this before, a long time ago, and then I remember when and decide I will not run off a second time and leave Kari behind. But from the house there is not a sound. I walk slowly towards it. A saw and a crowbar stand up against the porch. I pick up the crowbar and feel the frost tear at my palm.

‘Audun!’ I turn. Arvid has opened the car door. He’s getting out, he looks at me and points to the crowbar and shakes his head. ‘Drop that damned thing!’ he shouts, but I hold the metal tight in my hands, and then the child is screaming inside the house. There is a pain in my chest, and I hunch around that pain. I smash the crowbar against the porch, sending a sharp, crisp report into every room, a dry twig snapping in the cold, a gunshot. There is something about that sound. I raise the crowbar, I am about to strike again, I am ready now, I will smoke him out if I have to, and the door swings open, and Kari comes out in her red coat with a large sheepskin bag in her arms. The baby is all wrapped up, I can’t see its face, but I can hear the little whimpers from deep inside, and then Kari stops, rocking the bag gently and says: