Echoland

by Per Petterson

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘What?’ Mogens said.

  ‘Nothing,’ Arvid said, jumping quickly to be the first on land.

  He lay down on his stomach in the grass and thought of something else, thought of mountain passes covered with heath and miles of pure air above them, and the smell of tar from telegraph poles when you rested your head against the cracked wood in the boiling sun, he thought of the Bay of Naples where he had never been, but it was bluer than blue and the most beautiful in the world, and he heard Mogens tie up the boat, come after him and lie down at his side. But Arvid was sleepy now, the sun was big and hot and it burned his back and it felt good, for when he lay like this on the ground he couldn’t feel the wind. He took a blade of grass and chewed it, the juicy, slightly bitter taste burned his tongue as he watched the cows, which were lazy now, as he was, they were all lying down. The air flowed above their rounded backs while they chewed the grass like he did, he was an animal and had no wish to be anything else.

  ‘Do you believe in God?’ Mogens said.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Arvid said from afar, but it couldn’t have been him talking because he couldn’t feel his lips moving and a mist fell before his eyes even though it was a perfectly clear day.

  ‘Nor me, I guess,’ Mogens said. ‘I’m not all that sure though,’ but Arvid wasn’t listening any more, he was sleeping and in his dream everything was warm and round and when he woke up Mogens was on his feet throwing clods of earth at the cows.

  ‘Hey, why are you doing that?’ Arvid said, and was wide awake and as clear as ice.

  ‘It got so quiet here for a while,’ Mogens said. ‘Something’s got to happen.’ His voice was calm, but his right arm was firing off clods of earth with easy force.

  ‘Goddamn it, stop doing that,’ Arvid said, but Mogens didn’t stop.

  All the cows were standing now except for one, and Mogens took aim again and hit the cow’s rump with the clod, and it didn’t get up, it was suddenly standing. Arvid lay in the grass looking between its legs and said: ‘Mogens.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘That last one wasn’t a cow.’

  ‘Not a cow? What do you mean?’

  ‘It hasn’t got udders.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Mogens said, and his arm fell in slow motion and a last clod fell to the ground and Arvid got up and sensed something in his chest, as if he were angry, but he wasn’t.

  ‘I’m off,’ Mogens said, because the animal turned, and it was a bull, that was easy to see now. It scraped the ground with one hoof, harder and harder until the sandy soil formed a cloud around its legs. It started to move and at once Arvid felt he wasn’t afraid, not at all and he tore off his red trunks and waved them in the air and the bull tossed its head.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ Mogens shouted from the boat. ‘He’ll tear your dick off!’ But Arvid didn’t answer, just waved his trunks even more eagerly as he shouted: ‘Toro! Toro!’ and the bull moved faster and broke into a run. Arvid watched it coming closer and knew this was how it should be, there was no one who could get him, no one who could touch him, and a wind rose in his chest and blew, he could really hear it and he smiled.

  ‘Toro! Toro! Come on, you bastard!’ he yelled, and he was naked and invincible, he was Huckleberry Finn, he was Pelle the Conqueror, he was Arvid Jansen, and the bull was pounding towards him with lowered horns, but Arvid didn’t turn until he could see the whites of its eyes and then he turned slowly and stuck his bum out and then he ran. Not too fast, but fast enough and he was by the creek and threw himself in with a victorious laugh, swam a few strokes and got to the boat and pulled himself up.

  He stood on the rear seat with his backside facing Mogens, who was rowing for dear life, he waved the red shorts in the air like a wet flag and felt the wind on his bare hips and chest as never before and he shouted: ‘No one touches me! No one will ever knock me down! The bull stood with its front legs in the water and bellowed and Arvid laughed again.

  ‘You’re stark raving mad,’ Mogens said, and Arvid heard his voice as if for the first time in ages and sat down and slowly the wind dropped until it wasn’t blowing at all and he felt so empty and without air that he could barely breathe.

  Mogens sent him a strange sidelong glance.

  ‘Why don’t you believe in God?’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why don’t you believe in God?’

  Arvid stared at the thick rushes with their brown tops and the dragonflies whirring like small helicopters in all the greenery and didn’t feel like answering, but in the end he said: ‘Because he killed my brother.’

  ‘You haven’t got a brother. Just a sister.’

  ‘That’s what I’m saying. But I did have one, for three months. He was born early and was dying and I prayed to God to let him live, but he died anyway.’

  ‘That wasn’t God’s fault!’

  ‘Of course it was. He can fix everything, but he didn’t give a shit.’

  ‘But don’t you think he exists?’

  ‘Sure he exists, but he’s got nothing to do with me. I can take care of myself.’

  Mogens grinned. ‘You’re the craziest kid I know,’ he said. ‘I wish you were a girl. Only girls are as crazy as you and I’ve always liked those crazy girls. It’d be great if you were a girl.’

  Arvid didn’t have the strength to get angry.

  ‘I’m not a damn girl,’ was all he said.

  BY HIS OWN HAND

  HE FELL AND fell and fell and made a grab for the dream, but it was gone before he landed on the floor beside the bed. And even though he knew the dream was bad, churning away in a corner of the room, he rolled over twice and stretched out his hands, took a deep breath and smiled. He saw the stripes of light on the ceiling move, the blinds rustled and he felt the morning air on his cheek from the open window. A cycle bell rang in the street and the sound mingled with the drone of his father’s snoring.

  Gry mumbled from the mattress, rolled over and said: ‘Is that you, Arvid? Happy birthday, good night,’ and rolled back.

  Arvid grinned. ‘Buona notte,’ he said. Gry wasn’t like him, she was tired in the morning, on holidays too. He got up, stepped over her and tiptoed into the living room. Above the piano Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives with his chin in his hands staring sadly beyond Jerusalem, the moon was a pale glow, it was night for Jesus and would never be anything else, but for Arvid it was morning, with hot bread rolls and cocoa for breakfast, secret smiles from Gry and a parcel on the table. And day dawned and he was allowed to go to Grandfather’s workshop because it was his birthday and he was twelve.

  They walked up Danmarksgade, looking in the windows, taking their time, Grandfather first in his threadbare suit, without a tie, his hands on his hips, and Arvid two steps behind. Pennants flapped on long lines across the street, from building to building, flying the Danish and Norwegian and Swedish and German colours. Arvid pretended it was for his birthday even though he knew it was to welcome the tourists, and they turned into a gateway and on the other side of the yard was a small, half-timbered house with two doors. To the left there was a flat with rose bushes beneath the windows and to the right was the workshop. Arvid could smell the fresh chipboard long before Grandfather unlocked the door.

  The room was long and narrow and at the end there were two dusty windows where the sun shone in on the bandsaw that was standing in the middle of the floor and was dangerous. The blade was shiny and honed and could send out howls that chilled you to the marrow. Arvid had always gone into the yard to wait there when Grandfather used the saw, but this year for the first time he stayed inside and watched without holding his ears and felt the howl run down his spine.

  On the right-hand wall above the workbench tools were hanging on hooks with their outlines behind them to show where everything belonged. When Grandfather entered the workshop in the morning there were never any tools lying around, every hook held its hammer or plane or hacksaw from the previous evening and all the wood shavin
gs had been swept into a pile beside the door. When the pile was big enough Grandfather filled two jute bags and put them in the front of the delivery bike and pedalled off to an old billiards friend, who used the shavings to light his wood-burner. Grandfather and Grandmother had an oil stove.

  Everything was brown inside, light or dark in the sun and the shade, except the saw and knife blades, which were rust-free and glinting, and Grandfather took off his jacket and hung it on the peg behind the door and folded his shirtsleeves up to the elbows and put the large, brown apron on. Arvid didn’t have a jacket, only upper-class kids wore one in the summer, so he took off his jumper and hung it beside his grandfather’s jacket. He couldn’t fold up his shirtsleeves because he had a T-shirt underneath, but Grandfather gave him a little apron that Grandmother had sewn especially for him.

  He was given a big block of wood and a hammer and a chisel. On the wood Grandfather had drawn lines to show Arvid where he should chisel to turn the block into a boat. It was the same piece of wood and the same boat every year. Arvid wasn’t all that interested, he wasn’t much good at woodwork anyway, but it was handy to have something to do while he watched Grandfather working, and that was what he liked.

  Grandfather could take a piece of wood in his hand, gently weigh it, fasten it in the vice and after a quarter of an hour it was something completely different. He tightened the vice around Arvid’s block of wood and Arvid watched his hands working, he couldn’t keep his eyes off them, for everything the hands did seemed so easy even though they were big and hard and gnarled, and when Grandfather clenched his fists the knuckles rose up like white mountain peaks. His skin was so tight Arvid was afraid it would split. Grandfather saw Arvid’s eyes and held out his hands.

  ‘Hit them. Come on, hit them as hard as you can!’ This was an old game which was amusing only for Grandfather, but Arvid knew he had to do it, so he hit one of them.

  ‘No, not like that, as hard as you can!’ Arvid punched with his fist and it hurt so much he had to grit his teeth not to scream.

  Without looking at Arvid, Grandfather took his fist away and said: ‘Hands can do so much. They can make furniture for example, but what I regret is all the hens they have strangled. Far too many hens.’

  Arvid imagined Grandfather’s hands strangling hens, twisting their necks. Once he had gone to use the outdoor toilet at Aunt Kari and Uncle Alf’s farm and when he opened the lid there was a hen’s head down there, but the beak was still opening and closing, making sounds. He stayed away for several days afterwards.

  Grandfather grew up on a farm. It wasn’t a small farm, but there were so many of them they had to work round the clock to feed everyone. Great-grandfather would drive his children like animals, would harness them to the plough if he had to, and he grafted as hard himself, and when he finally became so fragile he didn’t have the strength to carry on, he went to the barn and hanged himself from one of the beams. That was when Grandfather realised he wanted to be a cabinetmaker and left for town even though he was the one to inherit the farm, and when Arvid asked him questions about the old days he seldom got any answers.

  His great-grandfather didn’t have a proper grave, just a plaque on the ground by the gate to the cemetery. Arvid had seen it, he could just make out what it said: BY HIS OWN HAND.

  ‘Why did you strangle hens, Granddad?’ Arvid said, and Grandfather looked at him as if he were stupid and then he felt stupid and didn’t like it.

  Arvid chopped away at the block of wood and after two blows with the hammer he had already gone inside the line, he couldn’t control the chisel and Grandfather eyed him with that puzzled expression he always had when Arvid was with him in the workshop. Arvid blushed and Grandfather kept on working. He had been to the butcher’s the day before and got two big bones that he cut up and ground down to two small pieces, which in turn became shiny, elegant fittings for the keyholes in the dresser he was making. Grandfather worked fast and beautifully and Arvid stood watching with the chisel hanging from one hand and the hammer from the other, but gradually the stench from the honing of the bones was so strong that he put down the tools and apron and went towards the door. On the threshold he stood with one foot in and one foot out, and Grandfather laughed behind him.

  ‘Smells of dead bodies, doesn’t it?’ he shouted through the noise of saw cutting bone, and Arvid walked across the yard into the street, where the sun was shining and cars drove much too fast in both directions. He didn’t know what dead bodies smelled like and didn’t want to know, and he strode along the pavement away from where Grandmother and Grandfather lived, towards the Løveapoteket and Kirkeplassen and the bus terminal and when he came to the big junction, he turned left towards the railway station.

  Inside the station there were large posters with pictures of trains travelling all over the world, and he stopped in front of the one with the train to Hamburg, the locomotive with the stylish front and the carriages in a long line behind steaming over a bridge like the one over the Limfjord and he thought maybe he would like to be a train driver and sit at the front of a train and go wherever he wanted and feel the speed as he leaned out of the window as he had seen in a film at Grorud Cinema. But he knew he would never be a train driver, he had no idea what he wanted to be, except perhaps for one thing.

  He went on to the platform where a train would soon be leaving for Ålborg. The steps up to the nearest carriage door were tempting, but he walked past and along the whole train to the end of the platform and down the little steps and walked along the gravel beside the rails and on for quite a long way.

  The sleepers smelled of tar and in some places dandelions protruded between the small stones and there were bushes between the rails and the fence by the road. He crouched down behind one of them, for he knew he was trespassing. Then he heard the whistle and from a distance he watched the train leaving the station. Soon it had picked up a good speed and he waited until it was close and when the locomotive had passed he jumped up from behind the bush and stood by the rails and felt the draught from the carriages ruffle his hair. He held his feet together and his knees stiff and found his balance in the soles of his feet and then he leaned forward with a straight back while trying to breathe evenly. At first he kept his eyes closed and then he forced them open and he saw the flickering lights so close that it hurt, he felt the throbbing of the wheels on the rail joints shake his body and after the whole train had passed and he had survived he held his arms aloft, made a V-for-victory sign and whirled round twice. Then he ran his fingers through his hair and rubbed his face and there was blood on one hand from a cut to his cheek and he didn’t know when he got that, but it didn’t matter because he had survived.

  He clambered over the fence and was on the road that ran along the park, and he knew the way from there. It was a long walk, but he kept up a good pace and was home well in time for lunch at twelve. They were having meatballs, which he always chose when it was his birthday.

  Grandfather came home to eat and Arvid was sitting on the divan in the living room when he returned. Grandfather looked at him and was about to say something, and Arvid could already hear the snap of the words even before he had opened his mouth, but then Grandfather changed his mind and only winked as if they were sharing a secret. Arvid sighed with relief although he had no idea what the secret might have been.

  TANGO, IN A FLAT, BROAD-BRIMMED HAT

  IT WAS THE quiet hour after lunch. Arvid sat reading at the bottom of the steps by the door that stood open to the yard. The sun was shining and the pattern of the bars in the gate fell on to the tarmac and he could hear bikes trundling past in the street and people calling to each other in Danish and every now and then a car. It was so still by the steps that he heard the flies in the little window. The door to the milk shop was ajar, he was keeping watch and when the bell rang and someone came in, he was supposed to shout to his grandmother that there was a customer. She was up in the living room playing the piano. It had a strange sound, it was an old cinema piano t
hat Grandfather had bought cheap and remade and when Grandmother played, it always sounded like a silent movie.

  He was reading a book called His Brother’s Keeper. It was a Christian book and he didn’t like Christian books, but there was nothing else here apart from Pelle the Conqueror, and he had read that twice. The book had been printed in Gothic script. He was learning to read Gothic script because he knew there were so many books that had been published in this script and he had to read them before they rotted and were gone and no one would know what people used to think in the old days. But he was a bit fed up with them always thinking Christian thoughts.

  Grandmother sang psalms, always psalms, and she had written them herself and composed the music, she was a writer of psalms and had four notebooks full of them. He knew many people had told her to send them in to get them published in a book, but she didn’t want to, for it would be like making yourself important at the expense of God, and that was pride, and pride came before a fall.

  Her voice was high-pitched and different from when she spoke. She always spoke in a low voice, at least when Grandfather was in the room, but now it was high-pitched and shrill. There was something disgusting about this voice and yet there was an allure that tugged and tugged at him and wanted all of him, but he knew that if he let himself go he would be swallowed up and then there was no knowing what would happen.

  Fortunately the bell rang and a customer came in, and Arvid dropped His Brother’s Keeper and called for Grandmother and then the quiet hour was over. Everyone appeared from their secret places, where they had been resting, and Søren stood in the yard, Mogens’ father, waiting beside his car. It was still Arvid’s birthday and Grandfather had taken the rest of the day off to go for a drive. Grandmother had to look after the shop and Arvid’s father had to go out to do some negotiating, and only he and maybe Arvid’s mother knew what it was about, but the others got into the Opel Kapitän, with Søren sitting in the driver’s seat.