The Ballad of a Broken Nose

by Arne Svingen

  I understand that the teacher wants to put together the best possible program so he can brag about it in the staff room at lunch for the next six months. The others want to crush Class B.

  It’s impossible not to lie at moments like this. I should really have prepared an answer that would just trip off my tongue before the teacher even finished speaking.

  “Eh,” I start, trying desperately to formulate the words that don’t seem to want to go together. “Eh, it won’t really work.”

  The truth is that I haven’t given a moment’s thought to what I might say in an emergency like this. It won’t really work? What is it I’m doing instead? Visiting the king?

  The teacher looks pensively at the ceiling and carries on: “I want . . . I mean, we would really like you to close the show. You sing really . . . I have to say, I’m impressed, Bart.”

  Ada is still studying a stain on the top of the desk. There must be a magic sentence that can get me out of this.

  I think so hard my brain hurts. Searching for words other than no. That word is all I want to say now, loud and clear with an exclamation mark to finish.

  “I can . . . I suppose . . . do it,” I say eventually.

  “Fantastic! That’s wonderful, Bart. That’s made me very happy.”

  Don’t suppose he’ll be quite as happy when I’ve done the finale and ruined everything.

  The teacher carries on saying how pleased he is with Class A. The school was founded in 1910 and the teacher has only been working here for three years, but he knows all the same that this will be the best show in the school’s history. We will definitely be better than Class B.

  It’s kind of weird, but I’m not angry with Ada, even though I should be. I’m actually more annoyed with myself for not being angry.

  In the break, people come up to me who I can’t remember ever speaking to.

  “The teacher played your recording to everyone,” says August, who’s one of the ones who most often gives Bertram an extra shove. “You’re pretty awesome.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We’re going to thrash Class B.”

  Why does everything have to be a competition? Can’t we just do our best and hope that people like it? I have to keep questions like that locked up in my head. If I said them out loud, I’d probably get a thrashing myself.

  Obviously, I can’t actually sing at the end-of-year show. But you can’t just say that you’re ill or you’ve lost your voice. Maybe kidnapping or ending up in the hospital will do the trick. But I’m not so sure.

  “What do you think the answer is, Bart?” the teacher asks from the front of the room in the next class.

  “Um,” I start. I have no idea what subject we’re doing. “I was thinking about singing and things like that,” I tell him.

  “That’s fine, Bart. Absolutely fine. You just carry on. I’ll ask someone else.”

  Talk about giving yourself a knockout punch.

  I’m the first person out of the classroom after the last class.

  My fifth chapter

  Something crunches under my shoes as I walk up the stairs. The sound makes me shudder. If I was going to do something horrible and illegal, I would do it somewhere where no one could see. No one seems to think like that in our building. So something crunches under my shoes in the hall. But it doesn’t cut me.

  A small man comes veering down the stairs and I hug the wall to avoid a collision.

  I let myself into the apartment. Mom’s watching TV.

  “There’s my boy,” she says, and waves me over.

  I get a hug that squeezes the air out of me. Mom is the nicest person I know. She’s quite strong as well. It makes me feel fuzzy inside when I think things like that.

  “I’m going to do my homework,” I say.

  “You’re going to be something great one day. I know it.”

  “And if I don’t turn out to be great?”

  “You’re going to be something great. I just know it.”

  The doorbell rings. We’re not expecting anyone.

  “Geir!” a man’s voice shouts. Wouldn’t surprise me if it was the one who passed me in the hall. “Open the door, for crissake!”

  Neither Mom nor I have ever been called Geir.

  Mom goes over to the door and calls from inside: “You’ve got the wrong apartment. Geir doesn’t live here.”

  “Come on, Geir.”

  “There’s no one called Geir here.”

  There’s silence outside. Then he hammers on the door again.

  “What’ve you done with Geir?”

  The door starts to vibrate alarmingly. All the doors in the building are identical and not particularly solid. Sometimes at night you hear someone standing out there wondering why the key doesn’t work. When I think about it, that happens quite a lot during the day too.

  “No one’s done anything with Geir. He just doesn’t live here,” Mom explains.

  “Geir! You owe me money!” the man outside shouts, and keeps knocking.

  You wouldn’t need to be a weightlifter to break down the door, so it doesn’t help trying to drown out the noise with an MP3 player. We have to get the guy to stop.

  I go over to the door and say loudly: “Geir is dead!”

  He stops knocking.

  “Huh? Geir’s dead? You know what, thought he might be ’cause I haven’t seen him in ages. That’s crazy, I mean, that I thought that, like. I mean, sorry for bothering you. Are you his son?”

  “Eh, yes.”

  “Sorry. Won’t bother you again. Too bad about your dad, I mean. That’s crazy.”

  He carries on talking for a while, but his voice gets quieter and quieter and soon it’s hard to hear what he’s saying. I’ve no idea who Geir is, and have no plans to be his son.

  “Smart,” Mom says, and asks if I want a doughnut.

  It turns out that Mom’s been to the store and bought Coke, chips, and a dozen doughnuts, but forgotten to buy supper.

  “I can go down to the store again,” I say. “We could have sausages or meatballs, or something simple like that. Maybe with some potatoes.”

  “Yes, why don’t you?” Mom says. “Good idea, Bart.”

  She goes back to watching TV; it’s a repeat of some reality show. I start to put my shoes on, but stop before I tie the laces.

  “But maybe you’ve got no money?” I say. The twenty kroner she gave me won’t buy supper.

  Mom looks at me. She’s got icing all around her mouth.

  “I’ll be getting more money soon. Very soon. Then you’ll get pocket money.”

  “It’s fine. I can have a doughnut, it’s all right.”

  I take off my shoes and start to do my homework while I eat a doughnut with pink icing.

  * * *

  Just the thought of standing in front of all those serious faces and the big stage makes the notes jangle, even though I’m locked in the bathroom.

  “Is everything okay?” Mom asks in a worried voice when I come out.

  “Just got something in my throat.”

  “Oh, it’s horrible getting something caught in your throat.”

  “I’m sure I’ll get it out.”

  “It normally sorts itself out. Still hungry?”

  There’s one solitary doughnut with white icing left. My stomach screams no, but Mom holds it out to me and I don’t want her to ask again if something’s wrong.

  “Thanks. Looks tempting.”

  Just then the doorbell rings again. I’ve suggested that we should paint the door yellow so people stop getting the wrong door. But Mom’s scared we’ll get thrown out.

  Presumably it’s Geir’s friend who’s forgotten that Geir’s dead. Mom and I pretend not to notice when there’s another ring on the bell. The doughnut is a mass of sweet dough swelling in my mouth.

  “It’s Ada,” a voice says outside the door.

  I’m sure there are greater shocks in life. But right now I can’t think what they might be. I’m shell-shocked and prompt
ly give up any attempt to get my act together.

  “Bart? Are you there?” Ada asks.

  “Is it someone you know?” Mom whispers.

  “No,” I say.

  “But she said your name.”

  “Well, I mean . . . yes, but . . .”

  “Bart, can’t you just open the door?” Ada says in a loud voice.

  “I think you’re going to have to let her in,” Mom says.

  “I’m sure she’ll go away eventually.”

  I look over at the door. Ada is standing behind it. She’s come up the stairs and down the hall. Things have crunched under her feet. She’ll have looked down and seen the used needles and other trash. Maybe she’s bumped into some of the neighbors. Someone stumbling on the stairs or staggering down the hall. Maybe someone with knees that don’t work and the world’s smallest pupils down by the mailboxes.

  It’s actually all right living in public housing as long as no one at school knows. But now it’s out of the bag. Untrustworthy Ada is standing outside my door. What’s she doing here?

  “Who is she?” Mom whispers.

  “No one.”

  “Well, obviously she’s not. She knows your name.”

  “Someone in my class.”

  “Someone in your class? Who’s come here?”

  “She might go away soon.”

  “I can hear you whispering in there,” Ada informs us from outside.

  Mom gets up and opens the door.

  “Hi, I’m Bart’s mom,” she says, holding out her hand. “Linda. Why don’t you come in?”

  I can see how Ada looks at Mom, then takes in the view of the apartment. Mom moves to one side and Ada steps in gingerly. I guess I should have described our place a long time ago. But somehow it didn’t seem like the right time. We don’t live in one of those apartments that a real estate agent would call desirable. In fact, it can hardly be called an apartment. Mom and I live in one room. I sleep on a sofa bed and Mom sleeps on the normal sofa. There are piles of magazines and papers and stuff on the floor, but you can see some of the linoleum in the middle of the floor. We’ve got a bookshelf full of anything but books and a fridge that’s a bit too warm. One wall is pale yellow; the others are white and show the marks of where pictures once hung. We need curtains, but there are other things we need to buy first. We’ve got a list somewhere. It’s quite long.

  Mom and I live here. We’ve never had a visit from anyone in the class before. And now Ada is standing in the middle of the room and the apartment feels smaller and more cramped than ever. Mom tidies away the sheets and blankets on the sofa.

  “Sit down. I was just about to go shopping,” she says.

  “But you haven’t . . . ,” I start saying, and then suddenly stop.

  “It’s fine,” Mom says. “Why don’t you get Ada a glass of juice or something, Bart?”

  I nod. I finished the juice yesterday.

  Neither Ada nor I say anything until Mom has gone out the door. I attempt a smile, but don’t know that I succeed.

  “Your mom is—”

  “I know,” I interrupt.

  No matter what word she was going to say, I don’t want to hear it. Beached whale. Ginormous. Superfatso. Very overweight. Back end of a bus. There’s no nice way to say it. Because she’s not a little round or chunky. She’s much more than that.

  “She’s . . . nice,” Ada says.

  “Oh right. I guess . . . she is. How did you find me?”

  “I got your address from school.”

  “You shouldn’t have come.” It just falls out of my mouth.

  “I’m really sorry about what happened. Lise saw you give me the envelope and wanted to know what it was. And I just wanted us to do the best we could and the teacher was wild for it. I’ve never seen him like that. . . . But then I remembered what you’d said about not playing it to anyone. I thought that maybe what you really wanted was for me to play it after all. Why did you give me the recording?”

  Why is she asking about things that are impossible to explain?

  “I don’t know.”

  “Whatever, I just wanted to say . . . sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Well, it’s not really. But it’s nice of you to say sorry.”

  “Why don’t you want anyone else to hear it?”

  I take a deep breath.

  “I can’t sing for other people. Not even for you. I can only do it when I lock myself in the bathroom. That’s why I had to do a recording for you.”

  “Because you get so nervous? Stage fright sort of thing?”

  “Yes . . . or I don’t know. Everything just clams up. Do you want some juice?”

  “Okay.”

  I’ve already forgotten that we don’t have juice.

  I can’t find a clean glass, so I have to wash one before I fill it with water from the tap.

  “Here you go.” I give it to Ada. “Sorry it’s such a mess in here.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she says, and takes a drink. “Aren’t you having anything?”

  To wash another glass would just show how often we do in fact wash the dishes, so I shake my head. It’s not that we never clean up, we just don’t do it every day.

  “It’s nice . . . water.”

  I try to think of something to say to make it less awkward. Maybe those words don’t exist.

  “Have you been living here long?” she asks.

  Questions like that don’t make things any better. She might as well ask if we’ve not had money for a long time, or if it’s something more recent.

  “We’re hoping to move soon.”

  I’m not lying. Because I’m not saying that we are going to move. I’m just saying that we hope to move. I certainly do. I hope every single day. When I’m woken up by arguments in the middle of the night, my hope is more acute. Whenever I almost make friends at school, I hope so much that my stomach aches. And sometimes I think that Mom actually hopes even more than me.

  “I’m sure it’ll be good. Moving, I mean,” Ada says. “Even though it’s nice here. It’s not as bad as out in the hall, at least.”

  “Thanks.”

  How can you give someone like me a compliment? It’s not as dirty as out in the hall. Well, it’s true, if nothing else.

  “I’ve got the CD with me,” she says, and takes it out of the inner pocket of her jacket.

  I put it down on the table as if it was something I don’t want to dirty my hands with. Ada doesn’t fit in here. I fit in. Everything about her is wrong here. I hope that she’ll finish her water soon and leave. But before she does, I ask her to promise one thing: “You won’t say anything to the others, will you?”

  “About what?”

  “About . . . here.”

  “How you live? Course not. I won’t even say that I’ve been here. Why would I?”

  No, why would she? That would be the same as admitting that she hangs out with people who live in slums. I really want to say to her that she’s perhaps not the best person in the world at keeping secrets. That she seems to be a bit leaky.

  “What are you going to do about the show?” Ada asks, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Do you think playback’s an option?”

  “They might see through it.”

  “Maybe I could move to South America.”

  Ada bursts out laughing. Then she spots something in the mess.

  “Is that . . . ?”

  I try to see where she’s looking.

  “So you were telling the truth?” she continues. “You do boxing?”

  “Yes. But mainly I get thrashed. I haven’t started to punch back yet.”

  She laughs again. Then she looks around the room, as though she’s looking for more surprises. She could have said something about us having a lot in a small space. Or wondered if the piles of paper and magazines ever toppled over. Or asked if I knew what was at the bottom. I don’t know how you make small talk in an apartment like this. Whatever, I’m glad she doesn’t ask any more questions.
<
br />   “I should maybe go now,” she says.

  The strange thing is that she doesn’t stand up. As if she’s waiting for me to do something. I look around the room and think about what it must be like to see this chaos for the first time. I’m so used to it that it’s almost as if the mess doesn’t exist.

  “Muhammad Ali was actually called Cassius Clay, but he changed his name when he turned Muslim,” I say.

  “Is that someone you know?”

  “No, he was a famous boxer from way back. He’s from the USA.”

  “Oh right, tell me more.”

  And so I tell her more. Even though I bet Ada isn’t that interested in boxing. It turns out I know quite a lot about Muhammad Ali, because the stories just pour out of me. About him being called The Greatest and that his heavyweight title fights against Joe Frazier and George Foreman are legendary. He could say things about his opponents in rhyme, and I can even remember some of his quotes. She seems interested, even when I tell her about a technique he called rope-a-dope and that he refused to fight in the war in Vietnam, a country we’ve learned about at school.

  When I take a break, Ada suddenly starts talking about her dancing. She does locking, jazz, and musical theater, and she describes the classes in a way that makes me say that it sounds a lot like what we do at boxing. But they don’t punch each other, and no one goes home with a black eye.

  Suddenly we’ve been talking so long that Mom comes home, out of breath, with two huge bags of groceries. I don’t know where she got the money.

  “Do you want to stay for supper?” Mom asks. “We’re going to have meatballs.”

  Ada hesitates.

  “I could call and ask,” she says. “Is it okay if I go out into the hall?”

  “Of course.”

  I know why she has to go out into the hall. She has to lie. Tell her parents that she’s with anyone other than weirdo Bart and his fat mother in a dirty public housing apartment. Not so hard to understand, really.

  Ada is allowed to stay and have supper with her friend or whoever she told her parents it was. Mom starts to clear the table, the only table we have, which is actually too low for eating.

  “How nice to get a visitor,” Mom says.

  Ada smiles.

  The whole time we’re eating, I’m terrified that Mom’s going to talk about our welfare money and cheap supermarkets. Or lie about her Telenor job. But Mom only asks the usual questions and otherwise keeps her mouth shut. The meatballs are actually good, even though they’re not homemade. The conversation limps on, but at least there are no silences.