Before I Burn by Gaute Heivoll

Author:Gaute Heivoll [Heivoll, Gaute]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781555970840
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 2014-01-06T23:00:00+00:00

XIV.

AS HE PASSED LAUVSLANDSMOEN SCHOOL he switched off the headlamps. At first he couldn’t see anything, then his vision improved, and soon he could see without a problem. He just had to get used to it. He switched the lights on again. By the playground he turned left onto the Dynestøl road. The fence by the football pitch was damaged in places. The school buildings lay shrouded in darkness. Whenever he drove past the school it felt as if he had hardly left it. Everything seemed to come back to him, even though it was nine years ago now. He remembered what it had been like. Being the best in all the subjects, being at the top, on his own. Sometimes he could still hear Reinert’s voice: Could you read for us, Dag? Could you play the first bars for us, Dag? Could you write this sentence on the board, Dag, as your writing is so neat? It had been Reinert who had given him the belief that he could be whatever he wanted to be. It had been Reinert who had seen him. Who had understood who he was, what he was good at, that he was quite unique. He wasn’t like the other children, and Reinert had realised that. The others would be farmers, electricians, carpenters and plumbers, and perhaps police officers.

But him, Dag? What would Dag be?

Now and then they would sit round the kitchen table at Skinnsnes discussing his future, and it was as though they were inside a magic circle. It didn’t happen so often any more, but he remembered the feeling that they were all filled with something great and rather solemn. And he knew that this greatness and solemnity lay in his hands. What he would achieve in his life, what he would become, everything lay in his hands.

Ingemann had wanted him to be a doctor. Or a lawyer. You can be whatever you want, you’re so clever, his father had said. You can be whatever you want, except a fireman, because that’s what you are already, he had said. And then they had all laughed. But he knew his father was right. At that moment he had felt anything was possible, he had unlimited gifts, the world lay at his feet, all he had to do was start walking.

He drove into the playground. Stopped the car, got out. It was dark everywhere, and quite, quite still, apart from the ticking of the hot car engine. He strolled past the building, peered in through the dark windows and glimpsed the rows of tables, the teacher’s desk, the board, a line of letters, some children’s drawings on the wall.

What would he actually be?

It would have to be something impressive, something that would make people open their eyes wide. He could hear what they would say: Has Dag become a doctor? Has Dag become a lawyer? Well, we knew he had it in him.

There were no limits. He could move to Oslo and start studying medicine this autumn; he could finish the course in two, three years.

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