Хьелль Аскильдсен - The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat and Other Stories from the North

While we were eating, the men discussed the World Cup match between the GDR and West Germany. Everyone loved Jürgen Sparwasser, the way the centre forward got around the defence and drilled the ball up into the top of the net. Most of them believed it proved Communism was completely superior to Capitalism. I stared at Lars Paalgaard while I was eating. He didn’t say anything. Either he had no clue about football or his mind was far, far away. After we’d eaten—I ate quickly and ravenously—my father turned towards Lars Paalgaard: The two of us should have a talk. What do you think? Paalgaard turned to Mother questioningly, but she just looked down into the drink she held in her lap. Are you coming? my father said to Paalgaard. He’d got to his feet. The two of them walked up towards the road: a tall man in a pale suit and a stocky guy in T-shirt and flared jeans.

They stood there up by the T-Bird, almost in the same way Paalgaard and my mother had been standing on the shore the night before. After a little while the two of them got in and sat in their respective seats. It didn’t seem like they were talking. To me, it looked as if they were just sitting there, staring straight ahead through the windscreen. Lars Paalgaard had both of his hands on the steering wheel. My father had lit a cigarette. It was comical, it was as if they were just playing that they were driving at full speed down the highway. If somebody had taken a picture of them from a distance, it would have looked like an idyllic image of two men taking a drive through a beautiful summer landscape.

Mother had risen to her feet now and was standing with her back to the others; she smoked and stared almost demonstratively out towards the fjord. The neighbour family’s dog ran around with a ball in its mouth and tried to get people to play, but everyone was watching those two up in the T-Bird. I saw people rolling their eyes and some of them whispering among themselves. After a couple of minutes, Paalgaard twisted the key in the ignition and the car began rolling slowly out onto the gravel road. Somebody sighed; my mother turned around. She called Paalgaard’s name, but the car didn’t stop. She started walking up the hill, at first quickly, then more slowly. She shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest as if warding off a fit of the shivers. The car drove through the aggregation of cabins and disappeared between the pine trees. That was the last time I saw Lars Paalgaard alive and, had I known it then, I would have said something to him. I don’t know what, but I would have said something or other.

Father came back around 12.30 that night. I was sitting by the window in the cabin, waiting for him.

Fredrik had gone to bed. My mother said I should get away from the window, but she didn’t have any kind of sensible reply when I asked her why. You should do it because I tell you to, she said. I couldn’t see anything unusual about my father when he came walking up under the street lights and cut across the way up towards the cabin. As he approached, he was met by a co-worker, a dark-haired guy they called Elvis, but I don’t know why. He neither looked like Elvis nor could he sing like Elvis.

Elvis offered my father a long drink and a pack of cigarettes. They spoke to one another. Without warning, my father ploughed the glass into Elvis’s face. When the guy lifted his hands to protect himself, my father grabbed his hair and smashed his face against his knee in one swift movement. He repeated this movement several times with great force, until the guy collapsed on the grass. I don’t really know whether I heard any sounds, but later I imagined that on that night I heard Elvis’s face crack.

My mother started yelling and screaming. She chased me into bed. You go upstairs, she said and pointed towards the second floor. You go now! I did as she said. I didn’t want to be confronted with my father when he was so furious, I knew what he was capable of. I lay in bed listening, trying to put together what was happening from the sounds. I heard voices that got mixed up in one another, loud and excited, but I was unable to distinguish one from the other or make any sense out of them. The view from the tiny window on the second floor faced the grove, away from what was happening out front. I stared over at Fredrik and wondered whether I should wake him. This clearly involved him too, but he was sleeping calmly and I thought it was best to let him sleep in peace.

Ten minutes later I heard a car outside, more voices, arguing and shouting. There was a revving of a car engine and then silence. I must have fallen asleep, because the sound of loud voices arguing down in the living room yanked me awake. I heard my mother say that she was a grown woman. Why can’t you behave like a grown man? she asked. I heard a man sobbing. At first I thought there had to be a third person down there, someone who was with my mother and father, and that it was the third person who was crying. But I tiptoed over to the door, opened it a crack and looked down. I couldn’t see my mother. My father was hiding his face in his hands and when he took his hands away, I saw that he was crying. I had never heard or seen my father cry before. I crept back into bed and put the pillow over my head.

The next morning my father was sitting out on the steps reading the newspaper. He was smoking. I saw that they were Winston cigarettes and I wondered if they were Lars Paalgaard’s. My father whistled while he read, as if everything was fine. Good morning, he said. Did you get any sleep? Yes, I said. I went to get a glass of water. I sat on a rock with my back to the cabin. Jesus, my father said and started reading out loud from the newspaper. It was an article about an American politician who’d been caught red-handed with two prostitutes in his car. People want to have a whole lot of things for nothing, my father said, have you thought about that? I’d never thought about that, so I didn’t reply. Without looking up, my father said that people cheated on their taxes, people stole and made promises and lied and tricked each other. He said there was a clear line between right and wrong in this life, and that I must never decide to study law, because the job of lawyers was to mess with that line. I had to promise him that I would never study law. As if I had ever even considered it.

I didn’t understand what he was babbling about and I felt restless. I didn’t know what it was then, but I do now. Something was taking shape inside of me, in my own life, something that was going to explode inside of me when the time was right. Where is Mum? I asked. She drove off at five this morning, my father answered. Why were you crying? I asked. When? he asked. Last night, why were you crying? Grown-ups cry sometimes, he said, it’s OK. He finally looked over at me. Don’t be disappointed about what your parents do, he said and waited for me to answer. Do you love your father? he asked. He said my name twice. Yes, I said. Do you think I will take good care of you? he asked. Yes, I do, I said. I will take good care of you, he said.

I read somewhere that 1974 was the year with the greatest number of working-class people in the world. After 1974 the percentage of people working in industry started going down. In 1974 Odda had its historical moment—when social democracy reached its peak, all visions were within reach, the working class had civilized capitalism, and the welfare society was as close to reaching fruition as it ever would be. After that, things didn’t run on their own steam any longer, and a few years later the world changed direction with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Even Jürgen Sparwasser defected to the West when he retired in 1988. He had been promised a car, a house and heaps of money for his goal against West Germany. He got nothing.