Per Petterson: It's Fine By Me

Per Petterson was born in Oslo in 1952 and worked for several years as an unskilled labourer, a bookseller, a writer and a translator until he made his literary debut in 1987 with the short story collection Ashes in my Mouth, Sand in my Shoes , which was widely acclaimed by critics. He made his literary breakthrough in 2003 with the prizewinning novel Out Stealing Horses , which has been published in forty-nine languages so far and won many prizes.

I WAS THIRTEEN years old and about to start the seventh class at Veitvet School. My mother said she would go with me on the first day — we were new to the area, and anyway she had no job — but I didn’t want her to. It was the 18th of August, the sky was all grey, and as I opened the school gate and went into the playground, it started to rain. I pushed my sunglasses up my nose and walked slowly across the open expanse. It was deserted. Midway, I stopped and looked around. To the right there were two red prefabs, and straight ahead lay the squat, blue main building. And there was a flagpole with a wet, heavy flag clinging to the halyard. Through the windows I could see faces, and those sitting on the inside pressed their noses against the panes and watched me standing in the rain. It was bucketing down. It was my first day, and I was late.

By the time I reached the entrance, my hair was streaming and my shirt was soaking wet. I took it off and wrung it hard and wiped the sunglasses on my jeans before I put them back, and I pulled my shirt over my head. Then I went in.

The first thing I saw was the Norwegian Constitution. It was on the wall, behind glass, just to the right. The second thing was the headmaster’s office. There was no mistaking it, because there was a sign on the door. I headed straight for that sign without slackening my pace in case someone was watching me, and I would hate to make them think I didn’t know where I was going. I knocked and stared straight at the door while I was waiting, and when a voice shouted ‘COME IN!’, I opened the door and did not look to either side.

It was a large room with shelving along the walls, a spirit duplicator in a corner and a desk. Behind the desk sat a large, rather fat man. He raised his head from a pile of papers and looked me over. Through the sunglasses it was hard to see if he was smiling, but I don’t believe he was.

‘The tops of your boots,’ he said. I looked down. Like everybody else I wore brown rubber boots folded down over my calves and on the lining I had written BEATLES in block capitals. I crouched and turned them up.

‘I can’t think of anything I dislike more,’ he said.

I shrugged and waited. He sat eyeing me and there was a long silence before he said:

‘Now take off your sunglasses. I like to know who I’m talking to.’

I shook my head.

‘You won’t?’

I shook my head again.

‘May I ask why?’ His face was a balloon, a moon with dark patches.

‘I have scars.’

‘Scars?’

‘Terrible scars round my eyes.’

‘Is that so?’ He slowly nodded with that round head of his and stroked his chin. ‘May I have a look?’

‘No.’

‘No?’ He was lost for words. He drummed a pencil. ‘Well, what’s your name then?’

‘Audun Sletten. I’m supposed to begin the seventh class here.’

‘I see, so you’re Audun Sletten, are you? I’ve been waiting half an hour for you.’

‘I got lost.’

‘You got lost?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that possible? There’s only one way down here, isn’t there?’

I shrugged. He felt unsure now. I knew he could not see my eyes. I was the Phantom. He sighed and stood up.

‘You’ll be starting in the B class. It’s mixed. We have a girls’ class, a boys’ class and a mixed class in the seventh year. Follow me.’

He walked towards the door with small, quick steps, even though he was a big man, and heavy, like John Wayne, slightly knock-kneed, and I jumped to the side so he could pass, and then we were in the corridor. I trudged after him. Compared with the school I used to go to, this one seemed never-ending. Halfway down the corridor he stopped and turned.

‘Are you sure those scars are so terrible?’

‘They’re so goddamn terrible,’ I said. His hand moved towards my glasses and I took one step back and raised my fists. It was instinctive. Then he lowered his hands.

‘You’d better mind your language,’ he said, ‘we don’t want any swearing here.’

I said nothing, and we walked to the very end of the corridor where he stopped, knocked on a door and opened it, not waiting for an answer. He held it open and waved me in. They all looked at us. One girl giggled. I sensed him breathing down my neck and braced myself in case he should try anything stupid.

‘This is Audun Sletten, the new boy I’m sure you have heard about. He’s come to us from the countryside so please give him a warm welcome. He, too, likes the Beatles. Don’t mind the sunglasses. They’re glued to his nose.’

The girl giggled again. She had black hair down to her shoulders. Before leaving he stooped and whispered in my ear.

‘I will call your mother about the scars, don’t you worry.’

‘We don’t have a telephone,’ I said aloud, but by then he was gone.

‘Well not everybody has one,’ the teacher said, ‘but thank you for telling us.’ Half the class laughed.

‘You can have the vacant desk by the window.’ He had gold-framed glasses, his hair was thinning at the front, but he looked as if he kept in shape because his shirt was tight round his chest and his biceps. I walked in front of the class, past the dais and along the row and sat down at the desk by the window. I hung my bag on the hook at the side. It had stopped raining. The sun cut through the clouds and the light turned the playground into a lake, and there were rafts on the shiny water, and fishing rods and a dam like the one up by Lake Aurtjern, and you could stand there and cast your line where the fish hugged the rocks. As I turned to face the blackboard everything went dark and it took some time before I could see through my sunglasses what was written there in chalk. WELCOME! it said. I ducked under the desk and folded my boots down again.

The bell rang and I was the last to leave, I didn’t want anyone at my back. The teacher’s name was Levang. He wanted to shake hands and be nice, so I shook his hand and mumbled something even I couldn’t make out, and headed off. I crossed to the other side of the playground and leaned against the wire mesh. There was a football pitch beyond the fence, but it was deserted now, the dark shale steaming. To the right of me by the prefabs, kids were chasing each other, playing tag and splashing water. To the left, by the main building, the older ones were standing in clusters talking. A few girls were skipping rope, and coming straight towards me was a boy on crutches. I had seen him in the classroom, on the right, a little closer to the blackboard. I glanced left and right, but there was no one else by the fence. He had dark, curly hair and boots like mine, with KINKS written on the one and HOLLIES on the other. They were English pop groups, but I did not have any of their records. I did not have any records at all. We just had Jussi Björling, the Swedish opera singer, although I did have a transistor radio that I listened to in the night.

He stopped a few metres away from me, leaned on his crutches and smiled.

‘Cool shades,’ he said.

Cool crutches, I thought, but I didn’t say it. They were cool in a way, like an extra part of his body he took with him everywhere, he didn’t even notice, they were just there.