It's Fine By Me Read Online Free PDF

air down and howl WAAAHH! The horse turns in a flash and veers to the right and comes to a halt another twenty metres down the field, its flanks quivering, and then lowers its neck and snatches a mouthful of grass as though nothing has happened.
    ‘Goddamnit,’ Arvid says, ‘that was something. Do you think it would have knocked us down?’
    ‘What? No, I’ve never heard of anything like that. I don’t know what spooked it, but I knew it would stop.’
    ‘You screamed.’
    ‘Because it was so damn beautiful.’
    Arvid throws himself down on to the grass with his arms stretched wide and bursts into laughter, and I too have to laugh, because what was awkward between us has evaporated in the wake of the horse. I sit down on a boulder and roll myself a cigarette.
    ‘How are you? Your mother said you got a week.’
    ‘I don’t know, really. It was lousy being expelled, but now I have time to read more.’ He waves his book. ‘Strong stuff. Do you know it?’
    It’s Jan Myrdal’s Confessions of a Disloyal European, thathas just been published by Pax. I know Jan Myrdal. Arvid has been taking the Metro to Oslo East every weekend to buy the Swedish paper Aftonbladet where Myrdal has a column, but this book I haven’t seen.
    ‘You can have it when I’ve finished.’
    ‘I can buy it myself. I guess I have more money than you have. How’s Henrik?’
    ‘We planned it together, but of course I was the one who hoisted the flag, and that’s what I told them, so it was me who got expelled. But listen to this,’ he says, and reads:
    ‘“In Ceylon I talk to a nice European tea planter.
    ‘“‘So how many people live in this district?’ I ask.
    ‘“‘We are only four families,’ he says.
    ‘“‘That’s not very many,’ I say.
    ‘“‘And twenty-five thousand Tamils, of course,’ he says.”’
    ‘Shit, let me see.’ He hands me the book, and I read the page, and the next; it’s pure, concise writing about things that you walk around turning over in your mind. I have to have this book, there is something different here, open, bold. I give it back.
    ‘Come along,’ I say, climbing the rock to the highest point and Arvid comes with me. From where we stand, we can see past the fields to Rødtvet and Kaldbakken and a tiny slice of Trondhjemsveien where the footpath descends to the houses in Veitvet. I point.
    ‘Do you know who I saw there yesterday morning?’
    ‘How would I know?’
    ‘My father.’
    ‘Your father? Hell, isn’t he dead?’
    ‘Did I ever say that?’
    He thought for a moment. ‘No, I guess you haven’t. As far as I remember, you haven’t said a thing about him, ever. That’s why I thought he was dead.’
    ‘No. He isn’t dead.’
    ‘I see,’ Arvid says. He looks bewildered, and looks down at Trondhjemsveien as if there was something he could find there.
    So now I’ve said it. I shouldn’t have, because then I may have to tell him more. Arvid is my friend, and now he looks at me, and my mind goes dim, and all around me it’s getting dark, the forest is dark, it’s late in the day and no longer possible to see in between the trees. It’s all shadows. I turn my back, but that doesn’t make it any better, a chill runs up my spine, and I can’t stand still. I start to move down the rock, jumping from boulder to boulder as fast as I can, and Arvid is behind me.
    ‘Hey, you, wait, for Christ’s sake.’
    But I don’t.

4
    THERE IS A man dressed in black wandering the paths in the great forest. He walks day and night with a grey rucksack on his back. In the rucksack he has a pistol. Sometimes there is a metallic clink when it knocks against other things he carries with him. But no one hears. Only he is walking these paths. His pace is even, confident and not too fast, he has all the time in the world. He walks twenty kilometres a day, and when evening falls, he lights a fire close to water. The flames illuminate his weather-beaten face and when he bends down to throw more