Naïve. Super Page 2

  They give me a bag to carry it in. Then I cycle home.

  I fax Kim: In the best of moods. Bought a red ball.

  I lie down on the couch with the ball resting on my chest.

  Now I’m waiting for evening to come.

  When it gets dark I’m going to go down into the courtyard and throw the ball against a wall. I look forward to that.

  The Tree

  I’ve been throwing the ball in the courtyard several nights in a row now.

  Usually I go down after the late news and place myself in a corner where there are no windows. It is a little-used patch, illuminated only by a single light bulb.

  There’s something very good about throwing. I don’t quite know what it is. More people ought to throw. We ought to be throwing, every one of us. Things would look different then. We would be happier.

  I throw the ball against the wall and let it bounce off the ground once before catching it. It’s a good ball. It always comes back. And it fits comfortably in my hand. I had forgotten how good it is to feel a ball. To hold it. It’s so round. It makes me forget about time.

  I’m throwing again now.

  The red plastic ball hits the wall and emits a little tone. Then it bounces off the ground and emits another tone. Then I catch it, hold it for a moment and throw it again. I do it automatically. Without thinking about what I’m doing. I can think about other things.

  Tonight I’m thinking about my grandfather. A few weeks ago he told me a story. It’s a story about a good world.

  My grandparents live in a yellow wooden house they built a long time ago. They have a big garden that they’ve always spent a lot of time on. Flowers and trees and bushes mean a lot to them. They know all the names and when things are supposed to be planted and when they have to be watered and pruned. They often talk about plants and give flowers to friends and family. It’s been that way for as long as I can remember. When they built the house, my grandfather planted an apple tree. At the bottom of the garden. I have never seen that tree. It was gone when I was born. But I’ve heard about it.

  When the tree had grown for many years, it started to yield apples. A lot of apples. My grandmother used to make juice and preserves from the apples.

  It was a good apple tree.

  But then something happened.

  It had been a good summer and the apples were nice and big. They were about to be picked.

  But one morning the tree had been destroyed. Several thick branches were lying on the ground. My grandfather said it looked bad. It would not grow apples again. The tree was going to die.

  My grandfather went inside to give my grandmother the sad news. Then he took off his work clothes, put on something more appropriate, and went down the lane past the cemetery and down to the college.

  There he spoke to the principal.

  The college acted, and after some time three young students came forward.

  They had been out pinching apples and things had got a little out of control.

  They had very guilty consciences.

  It was a prank. Not a big thing, but serious enough. And both my grandfather and the principal were concerned with sorting things out fair and square.

  A new apple tree cost 150 kroner in those days. It was agreed that the boys should pay for a new tree.

  They would pay 50 kroner each.

  My grandfather told me it was a lot of money back then.

  The boys would pay a weekly sum the rest of that autumn and well into spring, until everything was paid back and they were even.

  My grandfather had himself been to that college and he knew the boys didn’t have a lot to get by on. They were boarders, some of them were far away from home and their families had already dug deep into their pockets in order to send them to college. They had to take the money for the apple tree out of their own allowances. That probably meant any expensive and boyish activities had to be limited considerably. They could hardly buy anything, not go to the cinema, not treat the girls to a soda, pretty much nothing at all.

  Every Saturday the boys came dejectedly to my grandparents’ door to pay. They said very little. They just held out their hands and dropped the coins into my grandfather’s huge palm. He nodded gravely and confirmed thereby that things were going the way they should. It went on that way. Winter came and went, and then spring.

  In May the garden was once again in bloom and the polytechnic was about to go on vacation. The boys were going home for summer. When they came by for the last time, they were all dressed up. It was something of an occasion for them. They rang the doorbell and my grandmother invited them in. She had made coffee and waffles. The boys were served and they made the last payment and shook my grandparents’ hands.

  The case was closed.

  The boys were relieved. They cheered up, and for the first time they talked with my grandparents. They told them about school and summer. They told them where they came from. Their faces were happy. The debt was paid. They were cleansed and could finally hold their heads high.

  After a while the boys got up to leave. Goodbyes were said, and they walked towards the door.

  Then my grandfather got up.

  Hang on, he said, there was one more thing.

  And the boys stopped. My grandfather crossed the floor. He went over to the big kitchen dresser and opened it. He stuck his hand deep inside it and came out with three envelopes. Then he walked over to the boys and gave one to each of them.

  The boys couldn’t quite understand. They looked at each other. Then they opened the envelopes and tears started running down their cheeks.

  My grandfather had given them their money back.

  I’m still standing here throwing the ball. I’ve really got into the rhythm of it. I can’t see any reason to stop, even though the going is good. This game won’t go bad. No matter how long I keep at it, it can’t possibly go bad.

  My grandfather told me he had been planning to give the money back all the time. It wasn’t about the money, he said.

  I’m thinking about the boys. They’re grown-ups today. Probably over fifty years old. They must have had the feeling that the world was good. That things fitted together. That something meant something.

  I wonder what they are doing now. They probably have families themselves, and gardens with apple trees.

  My grandfather is a really good guy.

  I wonder whether I am a really good guy.

  I wonder whether there are any really good guys at all in my generation.

  Time

  This morning I found a book in my brother’s bookcase. It’s in English and deals with time and the universe and everything.

  I flipped through some pages, but started sweating and had to put it down. It was too much for me.

  There are limits to what I can handle right now. I walked around in the flat for a while, feeling uneasy.

  To divert my thoughts, I started to look through one of my brother’s old photo albums. There are several photographs of me there. I am little. And often dressed in the strangest clothes. Corduroy. Always corduroy.

  I must have had outrageous self-confidence as a child.

  In one of the photographs I am standing next to my new bike. It’s green and has five red ladybirds on the crossbar. I’m wearing a yellow and brown pair of dungarees. I’m going cycling. That was the only plan.

  When I awoke in the morning, I would think; the bike. One thought.

  Today I wake up and have a lot of thoughts. At least five. It’s a hassle.

  I don’t know what it’s all about. What is it about?

  I faxed Kim, asking whether his parents used to dress him up in corduroy when he was little. I also ask him if he knows what it’s all about.

  He faxes me back answering yes to the first question but no to the second one.

  Kim always faxes me back immediately. It’s like he’s just sitting there waiting for me to fax.

  That worries me a bit.

  While I sat looking at the shee
t from Kim which said yes and no, the uneasiness came back. I realised I had moved, and that I was spending increasingly more time over by the bookcase. The book stood there and I stood a distance from it. I peered at it while moving closer and closer.

  In the end I was sitting with it in my lap, thinking I might just as well explore the core of my problem now rather than later.

  I’m not quite sure, but I think it was a mature decision.

  The book is written by a professor called Paul.

  I’m thinking that someone with a name as friendly as that couldn’t possibly want to scare me.

  I have been reading for several hours now, and I am discovering that my entire being is becoming influenced.

  Even though it says Paul is known to write in simple terms about complicated things, I find it difficult.

  Paul dabbles with difficult things.

  My basis for understanding him is weaker than average.

  I opted out of maths and physics after my first year of secondary school. At the time I figured I could see a whole lot of other things I’d rather base my existence on. Today I’m not so sure any more. Maybe it was a mistake.

  In other words, I don’t understand everything. Maybe I understand even less than I think, but what I do grasp fascinates and scares me.

  I had no idea my brother read books like this. There are obviously things I don’t understand about my brother.

  There’s even more I don’t understand about time.

  In a laboratory in Bonn stands a three-metre-long metal cylinder. Paul writes that it is shaped like a submarine and lies in a steel frame surrounded by wires and measuring instruments. It’s an atomic clock, and it is currently the most accurate clock known.

  It is more accurate than the earth’s rotation.

  Such accuracy amazes me. It obviously has little to do with the earth. It’s just something somebody has decided. I like that. Strangely enough, I feel time becomes more tangible that way.

  I think I’d like to have an atomic clock.

  To compensate for the irregularity of the earth, a second is added now and then. The last time they added a second was in June 1994. Nobody ever said anything about that.

  The definition of time has changed due to atomic clocks. Before, a second used to be one-86,400th of a day, but now it has become 9,192,631,770 cycles of a caesium atom. I think it’s a lot.

  This information puts me out of the game. I feel unwell and need to fetch the ball. I throw it for a while against the refrigerator before I’m able to continue reading.

  I remember when we used to drink milk in primary school.

  Many of us had digital wristwatches. With a chronometer function. We had hundredths. We timed the most absurd things. It was the big thing in those days.

  For a long time it was all about drinking your school milk as fast as possible. I always took more than five seconds, but Espen, that thug, drank the entire carton in well under a second.

  In light of what I have just read, I think that’s amazing. Personally I engage in very little that takes less than a second. On occasion I take photographs with a shutter speed of one thousandth of a second.

  But that’s nothing compared to what caesium atoms get up to. Can I be sure that it’s valid? More than nine billion cycles per second? I can’t picture it. It’s too many. My ability to estimate how many units there are in an amount is limited. I can easily tell whether there are four or nine cows in a field, but if it’s more than fifteen I have to count. And anything more than a thousand doesn’t really matter.

  I have no means of controlling the caesium atoms.

  I have to assume that Paul knows what he’s talking about.

  I have to take his word for it.

  Now I’ve read some more.

  It gets worse and worse.

  Paul says gravity influences time.

  The man knows no limits.

  Totally without warning he says that time is influenced by gravity and by movement. I look at the sleeve of the book. It’s from a serious publisher. What he’s saying is probably right.

  I get annoyed.

  Why hasn’t anybody told me about this?

  Don’t physics teachers understand that this kind of information makes all the difference? Are they stupid?

  The reason I opted out of physics was because we sat drawing protons and neutrons without grasping how it all really fitted together. I was bored. I’d much rather turn to face the girls and make a ring with my left thumb and index finger, and then move my right index finger in and out of this ring repeatedly.

  Time was never mentioned.

  Not one of my teachers has ever mentioned time – not so much as a word. I ought to find out whether they know anything or not.

  Maybe they’ve known all along. In that case I ought to wreak revenge. I ought to give them a hard shove in the back when they least expect it.

  I feel cheated.

  I feel I can’t trust anybody any more.

  Time on the sun passes one two billionths slower than with us. It has to do with gravity. Paul says gravity is stronger up there.

  I thought time was time and gravity was gravity.

  Evidently that’s not the way it is.

  With a couple of really good atomic clocks one could prove it in the Empire State Building.

  I’m not making this up.

  If one places an atomic clock at the bottom of the Empire State Building and another one at the top, after a while one will see that the one at the top goes faster.

  During the course of a human life one would save a few thousandths of a second by staying at street level.

  Those sitting at the top would be a little older than the rest of us.

  Now I’m putting the book down.

  I feel I’m becoming groggy. I’m in rebellion.

  There is no time.

  I can hardly see the conclusion being any other.

  There is at least not any one, single time.

  My time. Your time. Paul’s time. The sun’s time.

  Lots of times.

  Many times equals no time.

  If that’s the case I ought to be glad.

  Why aren’t I glad?

  I feel stressed.

  Maybe I’ll be glad later.

  The Bike

  I’m still not glad.

  I was mad to read that book. Blind courage.

  I no longer feel so sure that Paul is just friendly.

  It is possible that time does not exist, although things still move. Life is in motion. We are born and we die. I grow older. What good does it do that time is not the same on the sun?

  Someone ought to come and employ me. Someone ought to ask me to build something. Carry something really heavy. Sandblast something very big.

  It’s been a long time since I worked up a real sweat.

  I’ve written a new list. It shows what used to excite me when I was younger. It’s quite long.

  – Water

  – Cars

  – Balls

  – Telephones

  – Animals that were bigger than me

  – Fish

  – Mirrors

  – Bed sheets with sharp creases

  – Wood-chipping

  – Crossing my fingers when lying

  – Riding in elevators

  – Lorries

  – Sticks

  – Animals that were smaller than me

  – Loud noises

  – Tractors

  – Trains

  – Aeroplanes

  – Policemen

  – Fires and firemen

  – The tram

  – Outer space

  – Things that were completely red

  – Ants

  – Swans

  – Dentures

  – Paint

  – Staplers

  – Things that could be thrown

  – Saws

  – Plasters

  – Milk

  – Seaweed
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br />   – Heights

  – The colourant in blueberries

  – Lego

  – Things that moved faster than other things

  – Snow

  – Trees

  – Knots

  – Liquorice snuff

  – Rubik’s Cube

  – Lawnmowers

  – Cameras

  – Poo and pee

  – Pine cones

  – Soap bubbles

  – Africa

  – Things that had a golden or silvery colour

  – Strong wind

  – Soda

  – Things dad did

  My existence was full of these things. It was so nice and uncomplicated. When I wasn’t sleeping I ran around and was excited. I never walked. I ran.

  I look at the list for a while and then fax it to Kim. I feel I owe him a fax now.

  I speculate about making a list of things that excite me today. I find pen and paper, but notice that I am hesitating.

  I am afraid the list will be a short one.

  I should never have stopped running.

  Now I’m on my way down to the shop to buy a litre of skimmed milk. When I return, the courtyard is full of children. There’s a kindergarten in the courtyard. I hadn’t noticed until now.

  A boy on a tiny bicycle with side wheels comes over to me. He is wearing dungarees and a cap. And on top of his cap he has a blue bicycle helmet. He looks at me and at the milk I’ve bought. He asks if I’m the owner of the cool, red bike. I nod in the direction of my bike, which is parked against a wooden fence, and ask him if that’s the one he’s talking about. It is.

  It’s mine, I say.

  The boy is full of wonder. He says he wants to have a bike like that.

  We walk over to my bike to have a look at it. It is big and red. The boy feels the frame. I am wondering how he knew it was my bike.

  He’s seen me lock it, he says. And he tells me that he lives in the next building. All the way up top.

  Then you have a short way to the kindergarten, I say.

  He nods.