One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway by Åsne Seierstad Page B

report to the captain. They spent the restof the night sitting on the bridge, under arrest.
    It was Spok’s parents who had suspected something was up, and it did not take many phone calls before they worked out what was going on. They rang the ferry company, which immediately found the boys on the passenger list.
    What’s all the fuss about, Morg’s mother said when Spok’s father told her they had found the boys on the ferry from Denmark.He thought her irresponsible; she thought he was overreacting. Spok and Wick found their parents waiting on the quayside in Oslo the next morning. Nobody had come for Anders.
    Spok’s parents did all they could to get their son out of what they saw as a negative environment. Spok started playing football as a cover, but continued to juggle the two worlds, the straight and the crooked, and wenton tagging.
    Anders was the one driving him on. He was running his own race and had systems for everything. His mother had now moved into a terrace of flats in Konventveien, where he stacked all the dearly acquired aerosol cans along by the wall under the veranda. He arranged them by number and colour codes in long, shining rows. He hoarded more of some colours and those cans protruded furtherout from the wall than the rest. Green. Orange. Yellow. Silver.
    Inside the flat, beyond the spray cans, there was another war, sometimes cold and sometimes hot. The neighbours could hear the exchanges through the thin walls. Elisabeth’s teen rebellion had arrived with a vengeance. Doors slammed, glasses and saucepans went flying and hit the walls. The girl had years of anger to vent.
    As a rule,Anders vanished into his room whenever his mother and sister were arguing, and only appeared in the kitchen for meals. Then it was Elisabeth’s turn to leave the room. She refused to eat with her mother and half-brother, and usually sat in her room on her own with a plate on her lap.
    But outside the home, Elisabeth blossomed. She was attractive and popular, witty and amusing. And she wanted toget away. Away from her mother, away from Silkestrå, away from Norway. When she was eighteen, she went to America as an au pair. California was the place for her. Now she was saving up to go back; for good, she hoped.
    While Anders was at secondary school, Wenche started going out with an army officer. Tore and Anders got on well with each other. He was a warm person and easy to be with. For afew years he was a sort of father figure for Anders, though he didn’t hide the fact that he thought Anders was a bit of a weakling, clumsy and awkward at men’s jobs like hammering in nails and mending bikes.
    Once Anders was in his teens, he was able to go by himself on his bike to his father’s place in Fritzners gate when he was invited to dinner. They sometimes played Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit,and his father helped him with his homework. On one occasion his father invited him on a trip to Copenhagen. But theirs was never a close relationship. Jens was basically dissatisfied with his son and annoyed by his habits. He stayed in bed late and when he finally got up, he prepared himself about ten slices of bread to eat in front of the television, his father complained. He found him lazyand unenthusiastic, apathetic and taciturn. He wasn’t very curious or eager to learn, his father remarked. No, the boy liked the easy life and being waited on, Jens thought.
    Anders’s father did notice, however, that he sometimes seemed vulnerable and sad, as if there were something troubling him. But Anders never shared any problems with him or said what the matter was.
    The boy was craving loveand attention, and it was as if he longed for something that was missing in his life, his father later admitted. But he was incapable of meeting the boy’s needs. He remained aloof and never made Anders feel loved.
    The first time Anders was caught tagging, the police rang both his parents. His father was outraged that Anders had committed a criminal act.