Scenes from a Childhood

by Jon Fosse

  CONCRETE EDGES

  There’s a dance at the community centre. I go out to the community centre. I see Atle sitting on the edge of the cement steps leading down to the old outhouse at the youth centre, he has a plastic bag full of beer bottles in front of him. His eyes are red and he’s waving a beer bottle back and forth. A few people are standing outside the community centre. I stop outside the community centre. Some people are standing there, drinking and shoving. Atle raises his bottle to me. I walk towards him. Atle gets up and then he turns somehow and drops the bottle and then falls head first down the stairs. I run over to the stairs. I see Atle smiling up at me from the middle of a mess of blood and I see that he’s broken all his front teeth.

  BICYCLE AND GUITAR CASE

  Asle was riding around on the roads on his mother’s old bicycle, he’d repainted it blue. He almost always had a guitar case in his hand. As he rode the bike his long hair fluttered behind him.

  THAT WEIRD GUY

  After several years of going to dances at various community centres and mostly dancing alone, I realized one night – it must have been late, and I’d probably been given a lot to drink – that I was supposed to ask a girl to get up and dance with me. I’d seen her so many times. She rarely danced. She looked shy. She looked different from the other girls. I probably thought that there had to be a girl for me. And maybe I also thought that she liked me. Anyway, I liked her. I asked her if she wanted to dance. She bluntly answered no. And then I heard her say something to a friend about that weird guy.

  LONG FINE HAIR AND A NICE HAT

  Asle has long fine hair and a nice hat on his head. It’s 17 May, Independence Day. Asle is standing in the school playground. His mother is standing not far from him. Asle sees someone he doesn’t know go over to his mother. He watches his mother talking to the woman he doesn’t know. He just stands there. The woman his mother is talking to walks away and Asle watches his mother come over to him and then his mother says that someone she didn’t know just came over to her and asked her who that boy with the long hair and ugly hat was.

  What did you say? Asle says.

  My son, his mother says.

  AWFULLY GOOD

  My mother is telling a story about two boys who made stew in a tin can. They’d used water and potatoes and one of them added bits of sausage. They held the tin can between two sticks over a little bonfire they’d made themselves. Afterwards they ate, enjoying themselves. My mother had asked them if the stew was good, and they’d answered that it was awfully good.

  Was it awful or was it good? I ask.

  It definitely wasn’t a good stew but it tasted good to them, my mother says.

  But why did they say it was awfully good? I say.

  That’s just something people say, my mother says.

  But awful means not good, I say.

  That’s true, you’re right, she says.

  So was it awful or good? I say.

  It was good, it was awfully good, my mother says.

  I don’t understand. It doesn’t fit together. And there’s no point asking any more questions.

  That’s just how people talk, my mother says.

  YOU COULD HAVE PLAYED THE FIDDLE

  I.

  Asle is sitting in a café, waiting. His guitar case is sitting on the floor next to him. Asle and the guys he plays with are going to a community centre to practise. To get there Asle has to take the bus a little more than a mile. The bus doesn’t run very often, but luckily there’s a small café near the community centre where Asle and the others practise, and he can sit and wait there for half an hour until the bus with the other guys arrives. Asle sits there waiting, he’s been waiting almost half an hour now. Now they’ll practise for a couple of hours, and then Asle will take the bus back. Asle sees an old man over by the counter buying a coffee. The old man comes walking over to him and stops.

  You play, the man says, nodding at the guitar case.

  Yes, says Asle.

  Guitar, the man says.

  Asle nods.

  Guitar, right, the man says.

  We have a kind of band, Asle says.

  The one that practises at the community centre? the old man says. Asle nods.

  I’m not so fond of that kind of music, the old man says. But I do like music, just not that kind, he adds. I used to play myself. At dances too, he says.

  Do you want to come listen to us? Asle says.

  Sure, I could drop in, the old man says.

  We’re about to start practice, Asle says.

  I might as well drop in for a bit, the old man says, and he sits down at Asle’s table and sips his coffee. Asle looks at his watch.

  They’re there now, he says.

  Have you been waiting a long time? the old man says.

  Yeah, kind of long, Asle says.

  Because of the bus?

  Asle nods.

  I’ll finish my coffee then, the old man says, and he takes a big sip of coffee.

  II.

  The old man stands in the auditorium and watches Asle up on the stage with his guitar. Asle plays a chord, one string at a time.

  Hey! the man says. Play it all at once!

  Asle plays it all at once and he watches the old man come up to the edge of the stage. The man stops in front of him and after a moment asks him to play the same thing again and then asks him to play this string and not that string and Asle hears that this turns it into a melody, a melody he’s heard many times but doesn’t remember the name of, now it sounds delicate clear and sad. The old man is happy and enthusiastic.

  You could have played the Hardanger fiddle, you know, the old man says.

  Asle nods.

  BJØRN AND I ARE GOING HIKING IN THE MOUNTAINS

  Bjørn and I are going hiking in the mountains. I put my old guitar in his case. I want to have my guitar with me in the mountains. Bjørn and I have big heavy backpacks. We leave early in the morning. We walk for several hours, further and further into the mountains. I’m carrying my guitar. We have a few bottles of beer with us too. When we’ve almost reached the top of a hill we see a little lake, it looks sheltered from the wind and that makes us decide to head towards it.

  You have your guitar and we have beer, Bjørn says.

  And we really do have a few bottles of beer. I used a trick to buy them: a couple of days earlier I’d rowed to the shop in the next village and told the man in the shop that I was the son of someone everyone knew drank a lot and I asked him if I could buy a few bottles of beer for my old man. I could, only a few bottles but I could. I know what it’s like when you need some, the man in the shop had said.

  We have guitars and beer, I say.

  Bjørn takes out one of our beer bottles. He opens it, drinks.

  It doesn’t taste so good, he says, and he hands me the bottle. I taste the beer, it doesn’t taste right, I shake my head.

  I can write a song, I say.

  About what? Bjørn says.

  About a girl I saw, I say.

  The girl you saw at the shop yesterday, with her parents? In the boat at the pier?

  She was pretty, I say.

  I start to sing.

  Maiden dear maiden, I sing.

  You don’t know that she’s still a virgin, Bjørn says.

  RED KISS MARK ON THE LETTER

  I.

  We sat in the grass, she was bigger than me, she had big brown hair going in all directions, and wide lips. We were fourteen. It was at a meeting for confirmation students from different schools. She had big breasts. She played guitar sitting in the grass. We swapped addresses. When I got home I got a letter from her with a big red kiss mark on it. I wrote her letters.

  II.

  We met up again a year later, in a café. There was going to be a concert at a community centre somewhere between where we lived. I didn’t dare say anything, didn’t dare look at her, but we sat together at the concert. Afterwards we wrote lots of letters. I got letters with lipstick kisses.

 
III.

  She and a friend took the bus the two miles to where I lived. It was Easter and we went up into the mountains. We didn’t have skis, we went on foot, it was warm and unpleasant, the snow was slushy, we sank into it. We held hands a little.

  IV.

  I think that I really should write to her. A year later I hear that she’s died in a car crash, the accident happened late one Saturday night.

  FRIENDSHIP

  When the workers were finished building the road they went away but left behind a rough old shed at the side of the road. It stood there for a few years. Then some kids broke into the shed and when they found blasting caps an older boy took them away and said that they were very dangerous, deadly, he knew some kids who’d blinded themselves playing with blasting caps, then everyone relaxed and the boys sat in the shed in the autumn evening wind and darkness and played cards in the light from the candles they’d brought with them.

  On one such evening Asle and the others are sitting around the low table covered in candle wax, on benches, playing cards. And then there’s a pounding on the door. That’s happened before, it was just someone coming to say one of them had to go home. There’s another loud knock and then the door opens and a strong stench of alcohol and vomit comes into the shed. It’s so dark that Asle and the others can barely see a small figure, unsteady on his feet, leaning against the door-frame. They see that he has a white plastic bag in one fist. And then Asle and the others hear him say something garbled and Asle and the others quickly look at each other and they know who he is, he’s someone older than them who’s been gone for a long time, they don’t know if he was in rehab or jail but it was probably jail. He comes in and throws his plastic bag onto the table, squeezes onto the bench, and then they see him get up again and they hear him say You have to go see your parents again sometime. He kicks the door shut. He gets an almost empty bottle of booze from the plastic bag, puts it out on the table, takes a portable chess set from the plastic bag, puts that on the table too, then says that he traded an electric shaver for the chess set and he twists the cap off the bottle of booze and drinks and repeats that you have to go see your parents again sometime. He holds out his arm, the one with the bottle, but everyone around the table shakes their head. He walks into the middle of the room on his sea legs. He takes something out of his jacket pocket. There’s a sound and then he’s standing there with a shiny knife in his hand. He leaps at the table and slams his knife into the tabletop, right in the middle of all the hands on the table. The knife stands upright in the tabletop, vibrating. It has a black handle with a red swastika on it. He pulls the knife out of the tabletop and stabs it in again, several times. He leaves the knife in the table, picks up the bottle, and takes a drink. He sees that the bottle is empty. He throws the bottle onto the ground. He stands there. Asle asks if he should take him home, and he nods.

  You have to go see your parents again sometime, he says.

  Asle puts the chess set back in the plastic bag, pulls the knife out of the table and folds it shut. Asle puts the knife in his jacket pocket and then the man and Asle go out into the dark autumn night, the rain and the wind. They go down the road. Asle hears him start to cry.

  You have to go see your parents again sometime, he says when he gets his voice back.

  ASLE HAS BECOME A POLITICAL ACTIVIST

  Asle has become a political activist. In the middle of winter he went up into the mountains to go skiing, he had an old backpack on and he’d written 50-MILE FISHING LIMIT NOW! on the back with a thick marker. A somewhat dignified somewhat older neighbour boy thought that was nonsense, which made Asle mad.

  SMOKING

  At the dance there’s a girl in the cabin door asking if he wants to come dance with her. The girl is short with beautiful long brown hair. Asle would love to dance with her. Afterwards they go for a walk. It’s raining, they step under the porch at the door to the prayer house. The girl asks if he’s in the mood for a fat one. And Asle says yes, great, he’s never tried before but. Then the girl stands there, out of the rain in front of the door to the chapel, with silver paper in her hand and she rolls a fat one. Asle takes a drag and starts to cough terribly. The girl laughs. She laughs and laughs. Asle doesn’t feel anything except when she kisses him very warmly on the cheek when they go back to the community centre.

  ASLE WANTS A DOG OF HIS OWN

  On Sundays when he was little Asle and his parents used to go for walks. They used to walk past a little house and the man who lived there had a little white dog with black spots. Whenever they walked past the house the dog leaped over to Asle, who patted it and talked to it. Asle wants a dog for himself so badly but his mother says he can’t have one. Asle wants a dog of his own.

  A THING

  Asle and his cousin are good friends, she works in a music shop in the city and has promised Asle that when they get a good used electric guitar in she’ll buy it for him. Asle’s given her the money and now he’s waiting for that sweet guitar to come by boat from the city where his cousin works. Asle thinks of that guitar as the best, most magnificent guitar in the world. Asle waits and waits, and he knows that this guitar is better than any he can imagine. Then the guitar arrives on the boat from the city. It’s red and black. It’s a nice guitar. Asle’s happy with it. But Asle can tell that someone else made the guitar, played it, scratched it. And somehow he hadn’t imagined that anyone else would have held his guitar. It was not supposed be an actual thing somehow. Asle realizes he’s a little disappointed.

  ASLE HAS NEVER READ A BOOK

  Asle has never read a book. And then they read a novel for school. Asle discovers he really likes it, because everything that in life only moves back and forth is like music somehow in the novel, so he really likes it, but it’s not exactly the same as music, because he knows what music is but this is a kind of music where everything that goes back and forth stays quiet and nice to think about.

  ALWAYS BE FRIENDS

  I.

  Geir Henning had to go to the hospital in the city, he’d started getting so short of breath that he had to get a new kind of medicine. But he wasn’t just going to the hospital, he was going to buy himself some new records too, he said, and Svein and I said we’d come by that afternoon so we could listen to his new records. Svein and I bike out to Geir Henning’s house. As we pull into the yard we hear music. We follow the sound and then we see Geir Henning sitting in the garden with the record player on the garden table. He smiles a big smile when he sees us.

  II.

  When the teacher comes into the classroom we can see from his face that something’s wrong. I look around. I see that Geir Henning hasn’t come to school today and I know that he’s dead. The teacher says he has something he has to tell us. Geir Henning is dead. He died in the night.

  III.

  Svein and I stand looking at Geir Henning’s coffin being lowered down into the ground. I think about his heavy breathing, his hoarse voice, his peeling skin. And I think that Geir Henning and I will always be friends.

  THE CABIN

  I.

  The summer before I was going to start school, my grandfather decided that my two best friends and I should build ourselves a cabin, out of wood and nails, he’d help us, we could build it at the bottom of the hill, he’d pay for the tin for the roof, he’d help us however he could. I didn’t understand. Hadn’t my grandfather always been after these two friends of mine because they shouted and made too much noise, hadn’t he usually sent them home as soon as he saw them. Didn’t my friends always imitate how my grandfather used to send them home. And now my grandfather wanted me and these two best friends of mine to build a cabin, with his help and his blessing. I didn’t understand. But we built the cabin, maybe not with the greatest enthusiasm but the cabin did get built.

  II.

  One day we said we were done building the cabin. I was on my way up to the cabin and I see my grandfather standing at the open window of the house. He shouts for me. I run over and stand outside
the open window. My grandfather asks me to bring a couple of tools in from outside, and to leave the handcart under the ramp up to the hayloft. He also asks me to go see if maybe I left a hammer up at the cabin. I nod. I run off to do what my grandfather’s asking me to do. I think about how my grandfather rarely asks me to do anything.

  III.

  I wake up that night and realize that something’s wrong. I sit up in bed, I see in the semi-darkness my grandmother lying in my sister’s bed and her eyes are wet and red. She looks at me and says that grandfather is dead.

  EVERY SPRING IT’S THE SAME

  Every spring it’s the same. My grandmother comes to say that the sheep need to be herded up to the mountains and she asks me and my friends to help. She buys soft drinks and crackers. We equip ourselves with our sticks, my grandmother shouts seesssoo seesssoo and most of the sheep come with their lambs leaping after them. My grandmother gives the sheep bits of hard bread. My grandmother walks in the lead, the sheep following after. My friend and I walk in the back, each with our stick. Now and then a sheep jumps into a meadow, but we’re there with our sticks and we herd it back into the flock. We go up into the mountains. We keep walking until we can let the sheep go, then we sit down and my grandmother takes out the drinks and packets of crackers and then my friend and I drink soft drinks and eat crackers and the crackers taste good even though we don’t like crackers.