In The Wake by Per Petterson Page A

He was not fast enough. He could keep running in the tracks longer than most, but weaker men crossed the finishingline before him. He was never frontman, never anchorman, and even though no-one was untouched by his capacity for taking a beating in the ring, standing firm with his little smile, driving his opponent crazy, for much longer than anyone thought possible, it was hardly ever enough to make him one of the chosen few sent out to tournaments to fight for the club and its colours and be seen by thecrowd the way he had longed for. He had the strength and he had the will, but he did not have the speed nor the imagination to give him that little extra. But that did not break him, as you might have thought. He just went on, year after year, and far beyond the point in time when what he trained for would be possible, and it made him different from all the other grown men I knew. He could endureanything. And now he stood leaning against the yellow wall of the corridor in Aker Hospital crying because he was in pain. We had not had a proper talk for as long as I could recall, maybe not since the year I was twelve and we sat by a bonfire far into the Lillomark Forest, and he showed me how a boy only 142 centimetres tall could make an asshole of 160 afraid. I suddenly felt faint and ill.There were only the two of us in that corridor, and I could not take another step. No way. I stood there for I don’t know how long, and I remember thinking it was incredibly hot, that I was thirsty and wanted a drink, but I am sure he did not know I was there, for he never turned round, just held his hand to his stomach and his face to the wall as he wept, and that was what saved me. I held my breath,turned silently and walked away. Straight out of the hospital, into the car and then drove home.
    I sit on the chair beside Mrs Grinde’s door looking at the floor and talk and talk and do not know whether what I say and what I think are the same things, but if they are it is hard to believe, for in the years that have passed since that day at Aker Hospital I have never told anyone what happened.Not my mother while she lived, not the one who left her make-up in the bathroom, not my brother, now hovering in a stable way down in the valley between this and a different world entirely, and G. Grinde stands in front of me in the hall biting her lip and running her hand through her hair. I can’t see her doing it, but I know she is, and she shifts her weight from foot to foot, not impatientlybut restlessly maybe, at a loss. But when I look up she peers at me short-sightedly and says: “Are you sure he didn’t know you were there?”
    I look down at the floor again and say: “No.”
    She makes a decision then which I do not catch on to, because I am gazing down between my knees with my hands pressed to my temples, swallowing again and again and I do not see her face. It’s not until much laterwhen we lie close in the heavy warmth, and she has in fact switched the light off, that I realise it was then it happened, and yet again it strikes me what a story can accomplish.
    I wake once, and it is still dark. I raise myself on my elbow and look out the window and see the light from my apartment in the opposite block, and two floors up there is light in the Hajo family home. My friend thefamily father stands at the centre of the room, his head bowed and his face in his hands, his whole body rocking back and forth, I can see him quite clearly, but I cannot find a way to think about it with this unknown perfume making me drowsy, and when I lie down again she turns to me under the duvet and does something that makes me gasp, it almost hurts. I cannot remember when anyone last did justthat to me. And she is so warm, and her hair smells of the same perfume, it tickles my face and the way her skin touches mine makes me think of an animal whose name I do not know but would have liked to see, and once she strokes my chest and shoulders and says: “You’re so