My Struggle: Book 3 Read Online Free Page A

roll the drums away, filled our pockets with cable clippings, plastic handles, and detonation cord. In our world no one had greater status than these workmen; no work seemed more meaningful than theirs. The technical details were of no interest to me, they meant as little as the make of the construction machines. What fascinated me most, apart from the changes in the landscape the workmen wrought, were the manifestations of their private lives that came with them. When one of them produced a comb from his orange overalls or baggy, almost shapeless, blue trousers and combed his hair, safety helmet under his arm, amid all the droning and pounding of the machines, for example, or the mysterious, indeed almost incomprehensible, moment when the workmen emerged from the shed in the afternoon wearing absolutely normal clothes and got into their cars and drove off like absolutely normal men.
    There were other workmen we watched closely, indefatigably. If anyone from Televerket appeared in the vicinity, the news spread like wildfire among the groups of children. There was the car, there was the workman, a telecom engineer, and there were his
fantastic
climbing shoes! With those on his feet and a tool belt around his waist he clicked on a harness that went around both him and the pole, and then, with a series of slow and deliberate, but for us completely mystifying, movements he began to mount the pole. How was this
possible
? Straight-backed, with no visible sign of effort, no visible use of force, he
glided
up to the top. Wide-eyed, we stared at him while he worked aloft. Not one of us would leave because soon he would be climbing down again, in the same easy, effortless, incomprehensible way. Imagine having shoes like those, with the curved metal hook that wrapped itself around the post, what couldn’t you do?
    And then there were the men working on the drainage. The ones who parked their cars by one of the many manhole covers in the road, which were either set in the tarmac or placed on top of a brick circle somewhere close by, and who, after putting on rubber boots reaching up to their
waists
!, levered up the round, enormously heavy, metal lid with a crowbar, shifted it to the side and climbed down. We watched as first their calves disappeared from view, into the hole under the road, next their thighs, then their stomachs, then their chests and finally their heads … And what was there beneath if not a tunnel? Where water flowed? Where you could walk? Oh, this was just great. Perhaps one of them was over there now, beside Kent Arne’s bike, which was lying strewn across the sidewalk, about twenty meters away, except that he was
under
the ground! Or were these manholes kinds of stations, like wells, where you could inspect the pipes and draw water when there was a fire? No one knew; we were always told to keep well away when they climbed down. No one dared ask them. No one was strong enough to lift off the heavy, coin-shaped metal covers on his own. So it remained a mystery, like so much else in those years.
    Even before we started school we were free to roam wherever we wanted, with two exceptions. One was the main road, which ran from Tromøya Bridge to the Fina station. The other was the lake. Never go down to the lake on your own! the adults instilled in us. But, actually, why not? Did they think we would fall into the water? No, that wasn’t it, someone said when we were sitting on the rocks beyond the little meadow where we sometimes played soccer and looking down over the edge of the steep cliff into the water, perhaps thirty meters beneath us. It was the water sprite. It abducted children.
    “Who says so?”
    “Mom and Dad.”
    “Is it
here
?”
    “Yes.”
    We gazed down at the grayish surface of the water in Ubekilen. It didn’t seem improbable that there was something lurking beneath.
    “Only here?” someone asked. “If so, we can go somewhere else. Lake Tjenna?”
    “Or Little Hawaii?”
    “There are other