My father is waiting but Amalie stands in between me and our car. It is my birthday. The teacher made the class sing to me and I was embarrassed but just a little proud. I looked up at the last bit, the bit in the birthday song where they say my name, and there it was on Amalie’s lips, Nick. Happy birthday dear Nicholson. Dear. She is prettier in the sunlight because of her hair, which is wispy and curls upwards in the heat of the afternoon. Her pleated skirt is just the right length. Her knees peek out from under it, the pretty curve of her calves. The other kids are running to the bus or wrestling each other on the lawn or milling in groups erupting in occasional laughter. Amalie is alone, shyly kicking her heavy black school shoes in the gravel.
She steps forward, blocking my path and I smile, trying to lift my eyes up to her face, but her chest is beginning to puff out under her shirt and the light is pouring down in such a way that you can see the outline of her little bra under the thin cotton fabric. There is a tingling in my groin. I will have to tell my father that my sexual health is perfect. He will be proud. I can feel the orgone swelling all the places it is meant to.
‘Are you doing anything for your birthday, Nick?’
There it is, my name on her tongue. I can almost taste the little nip of the N in her teeth. One day, soon I will taste it in her kiss. I know I can make it happen. I just need a little time and the right combination of elements. Privacy, familiarity, patience.
I shake my head and grin. ‘If I was I would have invited you to come.’
When she blushes the orgone takes my penis and lifts it inside my school shorts. I am flooded with the tingling pleasure of the energy coursing through my body. Perhaps she can see the lump there but I don’t care. I am healthy, potent, sexually powerful already and I have only just turned thirteen.
‘But maybe at the weekend I can have a party. Would you come if I had a party?’
She looks down at her dusty feet. Her face is blotched with red, but it’s a pretty, breathless colour. Excitement rather than shame. She nods.
‘Saturday?’
She hesitates. Maybe she has something to do on Saturday.
‘Hang on,’ I tell her, ‘Sunday. I think Sunday is when I was going to have that party.’
She smiles and nods and her voice is shy and strained when she says, ‘OK, that would be lovely.’
I want to hug her but that would ruin it. I shoulder my satchel and grin.
‘Ten o’clock? See you Sunday at ten.’ I try to sound as casual as I can, as if this is something I always say to the prettiest girl at school. I walk past her towards my father, waiting across the road in the car. He would have seen me talking to Amalie. He would have seen how pretty she is. When I open the door of the passenger’s side he is grinning. He reaches over to ruffle my hair.
My father is older than the other fathers, but he has more muscles than some of them and he is smarter so I don’t mind.
‘Can I have a party on Sunday?’ The words are out of my mouth before he can even say hello.
‘Sunday? I thought you—’
‘I changed my mind.’
‘Well, that isn’t much time to organise a whole party. Invitations, decorations, food…’
‘Oh no. It isn’t for a bunch of people. It is just for me and Amalie.’
‘What, only one friend?’
I nod and point down into my lap where my penis is still just a little tingly. ‘I felt the orgone energy, Dad. I felt it when I was talking to Amalie.’
He nods, sagely. He knows all about orgone. He learned from Dr Reich. He reaches across and for a moment I think he is about to pat my groin to feel the swelling of my penis, but instead he pops the glove box and a spill of red paper and black curling ribbons falls out into my lap.
‘Your mother would be so proud of you.’
‘What’s this?’ We don’t have money like the other kids. I am here on scholarship. Birthdays are a time for cake and lasagne, but never gifts. It has been a rule in our house since Mum died.
‘An artefact,’ he tells me. ‘The changing of the guard.’
I am ripping the paper off too roughly, but I can’t control my excitement. It has been a great day, the best day, and when I see the leather cover exposed through a tear in the paper, the letters WR pressed into the soft skin of the notebook, I feel like all the air has been punched out of my chest. My fingers are trembling and I force myself to slow down. WR. Wilhelm Reich.
An artefact indeed.
‘I thought they burned all Dr Reich’s books.’
‘I stole this when I was your age. Perhaps I shouldn’t be proud of that, but I am. All the other notebooks ended up in that pyre. I was there, watching the burning books, the orgone accumulators, the orgone shooters, the cloudbusters, all the equipment that Dr Reich used to gather the sexual energy. All his notes and his research…well, you can imagine the flames, Nick!’
I am imagining the flames. Bright blue, the colour of orgone, crackling with phosphorescence. I wrestle the bow off the book and press my hands against the cover. I can almost feel the energy throbbing against the soft leather.
I open the book and run my fingers over the paper. The indecipherable scrawl. The pen that Reich held in his thick fingers. An artefact indeed. I feel like Moses has just come down from the mountain and presented to me the tablets from God’s hands. This is better, though. This is the original power, the one true thing connecting us all. The origins of orgone energy, the source of sexual health. I know my eyes are damp when I look up to my father.
‘You have come of age, son.’ My father’s voice sounds strained. He is as emotional as I am. He holds out a key and presses it in my hand.
‘The key to…? The cellar door?’
The one room that I am not allowed to open, the mystery of my whole childhood. I’m overwhelmed. I can feel the tears spill over my lids and track a wet line down my cheeks.
‘You are thirteen, Nicholson. A magic number. You have reached full sexual maturity. You are ready to test your power.’
I close the book and press it to my heart. The key is clutched so tightly in my fist that it will leave an imprint on my skin when I finally place it on the desk beside my bed. I lurch forward and hug my father. He smells like pipe tobacco and aftershave, soap and sunlight. I breathe him in and whisper into his chest, ‘This is the best day of all my life, Dad.’
He hugs me back so hard that my ribs hurt. ‘Remember this day, Nicholson. Today is the beginning of your adult life. Happy birthday. Now you are a man.’
I can feel myself inflating with joy. My father, Amalie, even Wilhelm Reich all conspiring to bring me happiness. Did Dr Reich know that his work would live on in the body of a young man some day? Was he all-seeing? I can feel the beating heart of his notebook against my chest, an echo of my own excitement.