Beatles by Lars Saabye Christensen

Author:Lars Saabye Christensen [Christensen, Lars Saabye]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908129550
Publisher: Arcadia Books Limited
Published: 2014-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

PART 2

Hello Goodbye

Autumn ’67

I was in my seventeenth year, scrambling through an autumnal forest, tripping over twigs, branches whipping into my face, the compass needle quivering on the north-south axis, but Skinke’s hand-drawn map didn’t match the terrain, I was getting lost, now I think, now that the footsteps are closing in around me, the footprints around the house in the January and New Year’s wet snow, someone has been here again, they must have looked in, now I have to get out of this chaos, but the compass I received at my confirmation gives absurd readings, invisible birds scream above me, I plough my way through, time is getting short, I am beginning to panic, time is running away from me, I am the last man to return, I push the branches to the side and at last I see Cecilie, she is sitting on a rock beneath Ullevålseter, feeding a goat.

‘How many control points did you find?’ I asked.

‘None,’ she says.

‘I found the third down by Lake Sognsvann. That was all, then I lost the trail.’

‘Orienteering is the most stupid thing I know,’ Cecilie said, continuing to feed the goat with slices of bread.

I sat down on the rock an arm’s length from her, trying to think of something smart to say.

‘Thought I’d got lost,’ I said. ‘It’s an absolute jungle.’

‘I came straight here,’ she said.

‘Went fishing here a couple of years ago. With Seb. And Gunnar and Ola. They’re in the B stream. Sciences.’

Cecilie didn’t seem particularly interested. Cecilie didn’t seem particularly interested in anything. The goat was sucking her fingers and she was looking in any other direction but at me, just like in the classroom. Cecilie sat next to me in the second last row, I saw her profile against the window, I couldn’t get over her profile, erect and soft at the same time, and her eyes, brown I think they were, brown, but they never looked in my direction, they looked at the ceiling, out of the window, down at the desk, across the dark green forest where the autumn sky let a cold, transparent light fall to earth.

‘Shall we have a beer at Setra then?’ I asked quickly, blowing a persistent ant off the back of my hand.

Cecilie just got to her feet and left, I followed her up to the house, where we found a window table. I ordered a beer, Cecilie wanted a blackcurrant toddy.

‘Think we’ve veered a bit off course,’ I said.

‘Why’s that?’

‘You seen any of the others from school?’

She shook her head. Her hair came undone, and I liked it when the knot in her hair loosened and strands pointed in all directions, wow, my stomach turned to lead.

I drank my beer.

Wondering what to say next.

I rolled a cigarette. Cecilie didn’t smoke.

‘How do you like the class?’ I asked stupidly.

She chuckled – I didn’t quite know why – and looked out of the window. An old man came plodding up with a rucksack and walking stick. The goat was standing with its head in the grass.

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