other prose
premières
by Gunnar Staalesen
Like a beeto honey
The witch ring
1900 Sunrise
Fallen Angels
Amalie Jensen Blues:the story of the one who
(almost) became my first
girlfriend
of Gunnar Staalesen by Gunnar Staalesen![[ Staffage ]](bilder/prikblaa.gif){kind=small}
![[ Cultural City Bergen ]](bilder/logo50.gif){kind=logo}
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Excerpt from Falne engler (Fallen Angels) 
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The parson got to his feet. He was a relatively young man, with a childish face, large glasses and a forelock. To me he looked more like a candidate for confirmation than a curate. But his voice was grave and authoritative as he began: "We are gathered here today, beside Jan Petter Olsen's bier..." And my thoughts drifted back to the classroom. Once more I pictured the thirty-odd boys that had made up the class during our first seven years of schooling, from 1949 to 1956 |
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I sat by one of the windows with a good view of the Puddefjord. When the lessons became too boring, my eyes strayed to where boats of all sizes surged by: tug boats and the Askøy ferries, freighters and passenger ships. They departed for foreign shores like Kleppestø and Rio de Janeiro, carrying with them their inevitable cargoes of stockfish and bananas. Their fragrances intertwining. The sight of bundles and white crates adorned with blue and yellow labels. The incessant loading and unloading. Warehouses with cranes and windlass that reminded one of gallows. Sliding doors that gaped wide. And up on the edge of Nordnes Park, secure behind a fence, us kids with our eyes popping out - a million miles away from either Kleppestø or Rio de Janeiro. I was surrounded by the class. Jakob was sitting at the front. He lived on the very edge of the school district, at the far end of Skottegaten, on the corner opposite Claus Frimannsgate. He played piano and always got the best marks. There was Benny, who was the class bully and actually called Bernhardt: ten kilos heavier than most of us, a smoker at the age of ten, a drinker at the age of thirteen, went to sea at the age of fifteen, and later became the most reliable excavator driver in town. On the back row there was Paul Finckel - short-winded, plump and already something of a wit - entertaining a convulsed gallery with his glib comments. There was the happy-go-lucky-oh-to-hell-with-it-charmer Helge, who actually became the first of us to go down that road, when he plunged into the cargo hold during unloading in Liverpool one Easter day in 1964. There was the quiet-mannered, dark-haired Arvid, so introspective that he died of cancer at the age of thirty-six. And there was Pelle, who lived up my street and was my best mate in those days. We were co-conspirators in everything from secret fraternities and detective agencies, to street-archery and cycling clubs, before our fathers' careers intervened. Pelle's family moved to Fredrikstad, and that was the last I ever saw of him. And there were more than twenty others, big and small, red-haired and blonde, freckled and flabby. When we lined up for the class photo, we were indistinguishable from any other any class of boys in those days: in cardigans, pullovers and windproof jackets, in shorts knocked together from our fathers' cast-off Sunday-best 30s trousers, and in honour of the occasion we posed with our knitted hats in our hands: those blue woolly hats with blue stripes along the hem, that had run in the wash, or plain grey caps whose bobbles had long-ago been lost in combat. No one had scrawled black crosses above our heads. No one had told us when we were going to die. The congregation sang: "Lead gentle light - through the fog - lead me onwards." It was a song that I remembered from music classes of long ago. "I walk in the darkness of night, far from my home - lead me onwards." Beside me Jakob Aasen sang in a loud, clear tenor. "Guide my feet - I have no need to see my way - so long and far - one step is enough for me." In the front row someone was sobbing quietly. When one of us passed away, it was as if we were still sitting in that same classroom, about midway through our schooldays, in fourth or fifth grade. Most of us were still sitting at our desks. Helge and Arvids' places had already been empty for many years. And now Jan Petter had also arisen and left us. One by one we would be plucked out, as if being sent to the school dentist. One by one we would leave the room, until all the desks were empty. Then the great head teacher arrived to send some of us up to the art room on the top floor, and the rest down to the boiler room in the cellar. The young priest spoke and the singing recommenced, " God's love - bursts forth - like a spring, clear and pure..." The hymn took me back to the times Rebecca and I had sat together in the gallery of the assembly hall where her father, the lay preacher, spoke with a trembling voice of salvation and perdition. Rebecca, who had passed in and out of my life, moving to and fro', from when I was four years old until I was more than twenty. It was almost as if I didn't need to close my eyes to picture her, the way she looked as a five-year-old, in a cardigan with tin buttons, or aged eighteen, just sitting there waiting whilst I bent over and kissed her carefully. "Live with love - and behold God's peace - for God himself is love." The priest performed the committal. "Out of earth were you created, to the earth shall you return, and from the earth shall you be resurrected." Three clods of earth fell with a dull thud on Jan Petter's coffin. The sound of quiet sobbing came from the front bench. Shoulders were shrugged and someone mumbled something under their breath. "In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen." We sang "Fairest Lord Jesus". The violinist played "In lonely moments" by Ole Bull. Jan Petter's widow and his two children went forward, each laying a rose on the lowered coffin before venturing out into the cold Western Norwegian winter. We all filed out behind them, walking slowly. As I passed the coffin I stopped for a moment. The door out to the corridor had closed behind Jan Petter. Soon the bell would ring. The question that you involuntarily asked yourself was "Who will be next? Will it be my turn next time?" That's just the way it is. You never knew when your turn would come to visit the school dentist. And you never know when you're turn will come to die. Translated by Kevin Reeder
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