After the festival - 2013

This text was inspired by the 11 novels and the meeting of their authors at our 11th European Festival of 1st Novel in Kiel - May 2013

Twenty eight

Roses are red violets are blue… and it was green.

I can't believe I'm doing it. I found an old notebook in this old paper box in the cellar at my parent's home. I couldn't open it at first. I didn't want to. I exactly remember it now, although I didn't even think about it in the last 10 years. I wrote it as I was 18-19 years old, some scenes of my childhood. A very hard time for me. I had to find the right place and the right moment to read it. So I left, I traveled to an unknown country, just far away. And I finally found the place in the wild nature, apart from the civilization. Why am I writing in it, almost 10 years later? This trip on the ferry, back to my normal life, seems to be the perfect moment to reflect on it, and now, I'm feeling, I have to tell what happened. To tell about now.

Yes, I'm on the ferryboat, from Oslo to Kiel, a town in Germany I never heard about before. Coming back from that trip far away from home, but very close to myself. I spent a few days in the nature and read what I wrote ten years ago. I realized how lucky I am, that this is only my past and not my present anymore. I realized how much I reached since I left my parent's home and their town too, since I decided to live my own life without them. After reading this text, I sighted, and I didn't feel sad or sorry at all. I just felt like, I wanted to live and to enjoy my life at the moment. So I decided to take the bus to Oslo and to spend there a few days - I had still 2 days and one night before the trip back.
In the bus, I tried to hear at the people speaking, it sounded very weird. You couldn't even imagine, that a human body could make such sounds. The man who was sitting on my side noticed that I am not norwegian. Okay, I don't look like a norwegian at all, so it's not that surprising. Erik was a big man, blond haired and blue eyed - how original - and he tried to make me pronounce some words. I tried hard, but I didn't succeed… At least, he understood my english despite of my french accent… Erik proposed me to show me his city - he called it the ugliest capital city in Europe. I don't think he's right. In my eyes, it was just wonderful.
We saw many nice places and crazy things. I was very impressed by that disco where we were last night. It just looked awesome and weird at the same time, as if you were standing in the stomach of someone, you could just lean against a post looking like an enormous spine, with the detail of each vertebra. The drinks were served in two kidney-formed bars, one for Absolut vodka and one for Staropramen. The toilets were designed like guts, that what a little bit disgusting, but that's probably the way scandinavian people like it. A kind of surreal atmosphere.
Erik went for drinks, and he probably had to wait a long time - the disco was full on this saturday evening, and the queues in front of the kidney bars were very, very long. So I stood a while leant against the vertebra post, just looking at the people shaking their souls out of their bodies on the dance-floor. A woman in a disco cannot stay a long time alone. Another guy came to me, gave me a beer and tried to tell me things. I answered "Sorry, I'm french." That was maybe the worst answer I could give. He started to talk in english. I didn't understand everything. I just remember a few elements, strange things without any logical connection… he was probably Ungarian, Roman or Rolan, worked as a dentist, he wanted to go by train to Bucharest, but the train didn't leave. Anyway, I didn't get what he wanted to do there, and it's quite hard to imagine how to come from Oslo to Bucharest by train. Then he tried to tell me about man and woman, some pseudo philosophical thoughts about relations, love and so on… he was telling stories of shapes, puzzles, tangram… I just let him talk - he was obviously trying to flirt with me. It was not really funny to hear at him since the music was so loud and he was shouting the whole time in my ear. At least he payed for the Staropramen.
I felt quite scared as he show me a big banknote and asked me how to say blowjob in french, but I was glad Erik came back right in this moment. He just looked the guy in the eyes, said something to him in norwegian and he vanished within a few seconds. Afterward, we decided to go to a more quiet place, a nice bar in a hotel on the seaside. We talked about life, our countries, our favorite books, my journey in Norway and could have talk for hours. We stayed till they closed, but we didn't drink that much since we had so much to tell. On the way back, through the cold night, we saw a big honey colored full moon and imagined fantastic things that happen on such a night. He told me scary stories about red-eyed werewolves, seals, biting vipers and sandfoxes... and then he philosophized about the french language. Erik had never been in France and didn't speak french at all. He just could remember an old song from a tape of his parent's and he loved the sound, the melody of the language. He repeated 50 times the word "l'attaque, l'attaque" - the only one he understood in the song - with every expressions, loud, low, he shouted it, he laughed it, he cried it, sang it in 5 different keys on Verdi-arias... I rarely laughed that much.

We came back to his flat. It was maybe 3 o'clock in the morning. But we didn't want to sleep yet. He explained me why he needed such a long time in the disco - he met a friend, a polish guy who came to Norway 6 months ago. They work together at the MCN (Media Consulting Norway) and usually talk together in the breaks - they are the only two guys who are above 30. He left his despotic wife after 15 years. Of course, the priest of his village didn't want to accept it - he had always been, the "man from elsewhere" - and he just talked about him like about the devil. His "friends", his neighbors avoided him, refused the contact with him. He couldn't even buy anything in the shops, the passant crossed the street as soon as they saw him coming. Because of this generalized mobbing, his life turned to a purgatory. He talked to Erik often about this priest who is actually gay, and every one knows it, but no one ever dared to say it - they are all scared. They probably all had sordid experiences with the priests of this church, and that's how they keep them under control maybe. They terrorize them. He came to this village as he was 20 years old, because he was in love with her and wanted to marry her. And didn't notice that he was actually flirting with the death, that he kissed a vampire, that his marriage would turn to his jail. Now he's talking about it as if he lived long years of famine.
He already tried to commit suicide twice as he left Poland. Now he tried to rebuild his life in Oslo. But he was quite depressed because of the distance to his son and his daughter. He tried even some irrational things and went to a kind of witch in a former rectory, in the swedish countryside, after he found her advertisement in the newspaper - she promised the "return of your beloved" and he tried to get his children to him that way, and to keep his wife away too. A kind of exorcism. Well, I hope for him that it will get better soon, with or without sorcery.

I probably felt asleep at a certain moment. As I woke up on the next day, the sun was rather high in the sky. I laid on the couch, with a soft, warm cover over me. Out of the window, it was green. Erik was already standing in the kitchen, making coffee. I just stayed on the couch a while, looking at him. He stood a very long time next to his aquarium, looking at his goldfish, drinking coffee. And then, he started to sing half loud the melody of the Moldau. And then he told him something in norwegian, that sounded like poetry. There was something special in the air. A peaceful light, no noise from outside, just the singing birds and the light breath of the wind in the willows in front of the flat. And Eriks lyrical inspiration for his goldfish.
Then he turned his head, had a look in my direction and our eyes met. He felt a little bit confused, and smiled to me. I smiled him back. He brought me coffee. I wanted to enjoy these quiet last moments with him. We talked that much yesterday.

On the afternoon, we just walked next to the water, looking at the fishes in the see, not saying anything. Each time as our eyes met, we smiled shy and looked away. Our hands almost touched several times, but neither he nor I dared to do more. We both knew it was a nice time, but I had to leave in a few hours. Then Erik brought me to the harbor. And we didn't know what to say. Just in front of the door where he should left me, we stood long minutes, mute like fishes, contemplating the deep blue eyes of each other. Then he hugged me, I leant the head on his shoulder - well actually a little bit under it - he was at least 30 cm bigger than me. I felt my eyes filled with warm salty tears and couldn't speak a word. After a while, I kissed him on the cheek and went to the ship. I walked slowly, trying to breathe deeply and not to cry. Erik stood where I left him and was looking after me. I turned my head several times. As I was far enough, I couldn't keep my tears anymore.

Now, I'm on the ship, laying in my bed and looking at the water out of the small round window. In a few hours, we will arrive in this unknown city, Kiel. I felt like writing this down, because I never thought it could be true. I couldn't sleep anyway. I'm so impatient to come back to my normal life and to share it with Erik. But I should stop to write now. I think the noise of my pencil writing on the paper was too loud. He just woke up and opened his eyes a little bit. He looked at me a tender way and said something that sounded nice. I might look in a dictionary. It sounded like "Negligevapse".