Imagine your most cherished memories from childhood. You may remember a particular summer camp on an island. Staying up all night, the swear words you uttered for the first time, and the water acrobatics with which you impressed your fellow campers. Or the memories may be from another camp and another place, with your older sister and parents. The frivolous laughter throughout the evening when the adults didn’t care whether you were in your sleeping bag or not; the girls your sister got to know and with whom you fell head over heels in love one by one; the chewy, sour candy from the store, the kind that you couldn’t get back home. Minigolf, dancing on the lawn, boat trips on the Oslo fjord. The memories may be from the cabin by the sea. The first time you went there in spring, the expectations in the Volvo, the stuffy but promising scent you recognize when you opened the front door. Will he be there this year? Will she? Small changes in the landscape, big changes in the siblings in the neighboring cabin, changes in yourself that you didn’t notice before meeting the others and seeing where their eyes came to rest. Not to mention Line, whom you could really talk to late into the night, even though you were a boy and she was a girl. There were no hormones in the way. Just pure friendship. Titillating, everlasting, and sun-warmed summer friendship.
Imagine that it were possible to prolong such experiences, take them with you into the convoluted teenage years to a safe place where, for one brief week each July, you met kids of the same age who thought like you, dreamed your dreams, laughed at the same embarrassing jokes, dove into the sea when you did, dressed as half-trendy as you, and sang “My Rainbow Race” when you strummed the chords on the guitar. Without irony. That is what the summer camp at Utøya is like—one big, warm cliché. The stuff that summer memories are made of. Right up there with the chugging boat in the sunset over the islands on the fjord. Carefree children on the pier with mussels on the line. The very refreshing morning swim before breakfast. It’s the prosaic moments to which we return because they are safe, predictable, and pleasant. And because the sun always shines. “When it’s summer, our dreams come true,” sing the members of the AUF (Arbeidernes Ungdomsfylking, the Workers’ Youth League—the youth wing of the Labor Party) on Utøya.
On Friday, July 22, 2011, the cloud cover over the island is so low that it almost touches the heads sticking out of the tents. The rain is pouring down in buckets. The campground has turned into a mud bath. The encouraging news is that the mosquitoes are not as persistent as they were the night before. The bad news is that the frogs sound like the coming of the seventh plague. The small brown creatures can be found creeping all over the tents, the forest, and Lovers’ Lane. The lilies of the valley hang limply with their leaves down to the forest floor, next to the moss, cranberry, rose hip bushes, and pine cones under an insufferably energetic and loud woodpecker. As “The Utøya Song” says, “When summer is here, the lily of the valley comes into bloom and welcomes you as a friend”
Hundreds of youths crawl out of the tents to a techno version of the Gummy Bears theme song over the PA system. Some did not sleep well because of the rain or because they’d slept on earth, roots, and pebbles. Others talked politics and love most of the night. It wasn’t possible to break up the camaraderie around the barbecue pit, where one fine song led to another: Nordahl Grieg’s “To Youth” and “Victor Jara,” which is Lillebjørn Nilsen’s tribute to the eponymous Chilean folksinger. The campfire is significant in Utøya mythology, albeit not as significant as in the old days because of “unsexy inventions” such as fire regulations and pink, laminated A4 sheets saying “All open fires are forbidden on Utøya.” The tents have become more spacious with the rise in prosperity over time, but the size of the campsite has remained constant. Brown, green, and blue tents are pitched too close to conform to regulations, with white tent ropes tangled together. The campers playfully step through the ropes and pretend they are laser beams. The barbecue pits, with benches around them, can create the illusion of a campfire, especially when there’s a hookah in the middle that glows faintly at the top and spreads the scent of apples, lemons, and cinnamon. One of the camp participants from Hedmark County has decorated his tent with a hookah, Persian carpets, and fake flowers. Karaoke in the main hall has become a somewhat tacky substitute for campfire camaraderie, and there you can also enjoy hamburgers, fries, and vegetarian spring rolls. Everything can be washed down with politically incorrect sweeteners such as Sunett and a bottle of Coke.
Towels, bikinis, and swimming trunks that were hung up to dry on the clotheslines on Thursday have not dried yet. On Lovers’ Lane, there’s some evidence of the evening’s many promising expeditions. Two by two, hand in hand, they appear out of the “love fog” of frogs that crunch underfoot. A smaller group remembers how inspiring it was to sit around the hookah and learn the Arabic vocabulary while karaoke enthusiasts filled the air on the island with pop oldies. Others remember how Oslo boy Tore Sinding Bekkedal impressed everyone with the phrase “Hawwāmtī mumtil’ah bi’anqalaysūn” which means “My hovercraft is full of eels.” Some wake up in the wrong tent without having to clear up any misunderstandings, while others check whether daddy’s half worn out military brown two-man tent from the ‘70s has held up over the night. Have I been soaked right through in the sleeping bag? Is my mobile phone dry? Camera!
Johanne Butenschøn Lindheim is, surprisingly, awake in her turquoise three-man tent. Last night she got into her sleeping bag sensibly early, right after the Datarock concert. Johanne set the alarm clock to ring at a quarter to seven to be first in line for the shower. For a while after getting into her sleeping bag, she lay and listened to the buzz of camp life, with varied karaoke singing in the background, before she inserted the iPhone’s earphones and fell asleep to the voice of Melissa Horn. In the middle of the night, she woke up feeling bruised. Johanne always freezes at night on Utøya, but that night was especially bad. The tent, the sleeping mat, and the sleeping bag were all wet. There wasn’t much she could do to alleviate the harshness of the environment, so she remained prone and endured the cold until the alarm clock rang. And then she needed a hot shower.
Johanne felt a little old on Utøya. That’s why she didn’t come on Tuesday like many others but on Thursday morning. Wearing a crisp pink dress and white shoes, the nineteen-year-old had been picked up outside the family villa at Blindern by a film director and a cameraman at half past eight. The film crew was supposed to follow her to Utøya in connection with a documentary about student election debates. As they stood on the mainland waiting for the old military landing craft MS Thorbjørn, to take her and the film crew over to Utøya, she felt a tingling in her stomach. Johanne wondered whether she’d see many familiar faces or whether she’d feel lonely. She was both proud and embarrassed to have a cameraman in tow. Johanne was mostly feeling embarrassed when the director asked the camp administrator to wait before casting off so she could be filmed at the right angle while she got on board with a fully loaded bag over her shoulder onto the rough iron deck that had once been green. Johanne strongly resented the fact that others had to wait for her, and she didn’t like that Utøya’s camp administrator (whom she was already afraid of because she could be strict) had openly demonstrated her impatience. As the boat backed out into Lake Tyri, she glanced over at a boy wearing saggy pants and a cap. He bragged that he had slept in a parked car by the registration booth on the mainland because he and his buddy had missed the last boat over the previous evening. Not everyone goes to summer camp because of an interest in politics.
Johanne takes out shampoo, soap, and a towel from her red bag. She fishes out the new pink dress from the right side of the tent. Her jacket is in a bag outside, and it is certainly soaked through. She walks out of the tent toward the lavatory block. There she not only has hot water, which is a luxury in Utøya, but she can also be by herself for some minutes, which is just as scarce a commodity. In the dining hall, she eats salami on crisp bread for the first time in her life. It tastes surprisingly good together with cold milk. If she has mobile phone reception, she thinks, she can update her status on Facebook: “Am enjoying myself on Utøya.”
Jorid Nordmelan rises at dawn from the top bunk in the schoolhouse’s only bedroom. The twenty-year-old from Namsos is allergic to cigarette smoke, and that fact qualifies her to sleep indoors as there are always some people who pretend they haven’t been informed that the island has designated smoking zones. Moreover, she has earned it. Currently Jorid works in Oslo as the campaign secretary for the Labor Party, deployed to the youth organization. She didn’t really have time to come to Utøya, and she felt that she was done with summer camp. In the context of AUF, twenty can feel old. However, it was decided that she should go as it was considered a part of her job. When the AUF members become more familiar with the campaign secretary, it’ll be easier to ask them to put in an extra effort during the election campaign. It should be mentioned that Jorid slept outside last year, in a borrowed tent where the owner had forgotten to put in any flooring. That same year someone thought it would be great fun to collect as many frogs as possible and throw them into targeted tents. It’s not that Jorid has anything against frogs per se, but she left the camp in summer 2010 with one resolution: “No more sleeping in tents on Utøya.”
Jorid belongs to the Registration and Parking work crew. The name has been shortened to Mainland since the seven or eight in the group are the only party members who stay on the mainland. Their tasks are to register participants and guests, park cars, and check baggage. Jorid climbs down the steps of her bunk at around seven and fishes out her clothes from the bag on the chair. All members of the crew must have the same college jacket to distinguish them from the crowd. Moreover, it’s also a politically correct statement. The rainbow flag printed on the jacket is in support of gay rights, first introduced during a San Francisco parade in 1978, and each color symbolizes something beautiful: red for life, orange for health, yellow for the sun, green for nature, blue for harmony, and violet for the spirit. Jorid uses up her fresh morning energy to curse the too tight jacket, which clings to her body. It feels neither harmonious nor healthy. The jacket’s small size is yet another reminder that the campaign secretary is getting too old for camp on Utøya.
This morning, Jorid takes the first boat over to Utstranda on the mainland. She and the others set up a party tent, a table, a PC, and a petty cash box. It always gets hectic when VIPS and the press come to visit. Today will likely turn out to be chaotic. Parking spaces are few because of the rain and mud. The top two levels of the parking structure can’t be used. “Oh no, not another car” has been a frequently used phrase in the party tent the last few days. Hence it’s all the more important that drivers surrender their car keys so that the crew can strategically park the cars in the cramped space that’s available. An organizational slipup has led to there being too few people with a driver’s license among the crew on the mainland, so Jorid has ended up with many more parking assignments. She takes shelter under the tent and plays with the ID bracelets while they wait for the crew on the MS Thorbjørn to come over with breakfast.
Jorid has a red and white bracelet labeled “crew.” A bracelet without that label means that a camp participant has paid 1,000 Norwegian kroner for three meals a day. A blue plastic bracelet costs 700 Norwegian kroner and provides one meal a day, that meal being dinner. Journalists and photographers get green plastic bracelets and sparkling water at the information house. Lecturers have white plastic bracelets. Then there are all the party members who come on day trips and get bracelets that vary from neon green to orange, depending on what day of the week it is. Finally, there’s a separate category for police officers, government ministers, and political leaders. They don’t need red, white, or blue bracelets. Nor do they need to register. Jorid keeps herself fairly warm under the tight purple jacket while the others trample around her to keep themselves warm. Out there on the lake they see the MS Thorbjørn approaching with bread, cold cuts, and some spreads on board. It’ll have to be the cheese and ham for Jorid. She doesn’t understand how people can bear to eat that crap chocolate spread Nugatti.
Hildegunn Fallang rubs the sleep out of her eyes. She stayed up late in the red party tent that the Oppland County camp had set up on the island at the bottom of the forest, next to the trail called E6. Ingrid Endrerud did something they actually were not allowed to do: she fetched a narrow conference table with folding legs from the little hall. Party members placed the table amid the new camp chairs Morten Djupdal had purchased. The battery-driven Clas Ohlson lamp hanging from the ceiling was also acquired for the occasion. Coziness is a primary goal on Utøya, while rules may often be bent according to the occasion. The county friends talked about everything and nothing and ate a variety of chocolate spreads for supper—even though the fridge contained real mayonnaise, turkey ham, and blue cheese in a tube. The only dent in Hildegunn’s happiness was the frogs hopping around just outside the tent. She saw that they were small and knew that they couldn’t do any harm, but she has a surreal fear of the slimy creatures.
Hildegunn takes out her earphones, sticks her head out of the opening in the blue tent, and sees a friend put on soccer boots in the rain. The campaign song from the 2005 election, “Red,” is playing over the PA system. The girl from Hadeland is tired, cold, and hungry, but her opening statement that Friday morning is: “That’s so nice. They’re even playing ‘Red.’” Henning Kvitne’s song brings forth good feelings, as the 2005 campaign was their first. “Red for the heart that beats / Who has not only himself in his thoughts / Red for the strong warm hands / That help also those they don’t know.” Hildegunn wears shorts, a T-shirt, shin pads, and studded shoes; she grabs a slice of bread and jogs down to the soccer field.
A girl with long dark hair wakes up a little groggily in her military green three-man tent. Some experienced party leaders have no qualms about sleeping indoors because they’ve earned the right. Not so Ingrid Marie Vaag Endrerud. She’s of the opinion that if one is staying on Utøya, one should sleep in a tent. Admittedly she has the luxury of sleeping alone in the tent on a thick blue inflatable mattress, but she doesn’t act important because of that. On the contrary, she is feeling pretty small now. Due to a lack of players, the cheerleader from the town of Gjøvik has to play in the soccer match. Soccer doesn’t come to her naturally. Ingrid is taking drama in school. She shouts more loudly and frequently than anybody on the cheerleading squad. She can’t play soccer, but she can cheer best. The AUF leader pulls out black thermal undergarments with red seams, blue denim shorts, and a thick woolen sweater from a bag. For a moment Ingrid contemplates wearing sneakers, but she’s so bad at playing soccer that no one will notice that she’s not properly equipped. Ingrid puts on her reddish blue rubber boots and a yellow raincoat and goes out of the tent. She’s already late for the soccer match.
In the Oppland camp the obvious topic of conversation is yesterday’s Datarock concert. Party members danced for over an hour in front of the outdoor stage to hits like “Computer Camp,” “Life Is a Musical,” and “Fa-Fa-Fa” An avid fan from Gjøvik dressed up in Datarock’s signature red jogging suit. Some of the girls thought he was a member of the band and asked whether he could autograph their breasts. The eighteen-year-old had no choice but to say yes. As the concert drew to a close, one girl managed to drown out the music with, “Can I get a hug?” All the youngsters, or at least as many as there was room for, were allowed to come up on stage to join the band from Bergen. The vocalist, Fredrik Saro, then urged everyone to hug each other. “Together, Datarock and AUF shall save the world,” he cried out and got wild cheers in response. The musicians would hardly say the same thing at a Young Conservatives Camp. When a British magazine recently asked the band members what they liked best about Norway, the answer was succinct: “Our extensive social welfare system.” For a lot of Norwegians, and for everyone in front of the stage at Utøya, the welfare state is synonymous with the Labor Party. When the music started up again, the band members moved up against the load-bearing wall at the back of the stage. They finished with the theme song from a popular teen movie in the 1980s: “I’ve had the time of my life / No, I never felt this way before / Yes, I swear it’s the truth / And I owe it all to you.” Many felt that this was the best concert ever on Utøya. “Insanely great” and “awesome” were some of the words bandied about.
After the concert, the Datarock guys hung out with the youngsters at the cafeteria building, selling red suits and signing autographs. Several campers got the Bergen band to sign autographs on the back of their Utøya ID bracelets. Jorid noted the hysteria in the distance, along with her friends Hanne Hestø Ness and Lene Maria Bergum, who worked at the night cafe. She was more than satisfied that the band members were obviously stone cold sober, unlike the warm-up band. They had just as much fun in the cafe as in the main hall, where karaoke was being performed. There’s a widespread misconception that it’s impossible to sing and dance while making junk food. The kitchen crew has been running smoothly since Tuesday, thanks to an inspiring chef, who also insisted that everyone had to be polite to one other. The obedient crew took his words literally and always said thank you. “Hamburger; thank you.” “Order received; thank you.” “The french fries are done; thank you.” “Thanks for tonight; thank you.”
Some girls from Østfold County seduced the karaoke enthusiasts with the song “Let It Swing.” The audience stood up and sang along. They were almost as popular as the bold and hip-swiveling Eskil Pedersen, who’s always surprised that someone has signed him up to sing macho songs like “Barbie Girl” and “Oops, I Did It Again.” Not this year though. As the newly elected AUF leader, he volunteered freely. In his opinion, he didn’t sing Britney Spears’s hit song “Hit Me Baby One More Time” in a raunchy manner. Eskil flirted with the audience, blowing many kisses to them. “Oh, baby, baby. My loneliness is killing me.” But no one made a bigger impression than the three Oppland guys who danced to the catchy song “Mambo No. 5.” Their vocal skills were so-so, and none of them knew the lyrics, but what an impressive dance performance it was! The young girls with too much makeup screamed in front of the stage in the main hall as if they were at their first Justin Bieber concert. Not all the girls are on Utøya for the political workshops. And not all the guys either. So no one was shocked when one of the fifteen-year-old girls stopped in the middle of her dancing, pointed to one of the guys, and cried out, “He’s mine!”
Ingrid, Morten, and Hildegunn spent the rest of the evening in the red party tent at the campground. The high point was when one of the young and popular dance guys from Oppland came to the tent after karaoke. Hildegunn and Ingrid asked him whether the other two had been swarmed by the girls. The answer was a smile and a nod pointing to the steps in front of the cafeteria building. Morten told him to go and take a picture with his mobile phone camera, so he left but soon came back with the results. Hildegunn and Ingrid felt like old gossipmongers, sitting on their camp chairs and grinning at the images of the girls flirting with the guys by the steps to the cafeteria. Or was it the other way round? That’s how Utøya should be: you fall in love, frequently and deeply. With people and also with the island. And preferably with politics. Ingrid crawled into bed at two in the morning. It was three when Hildegunn rationally but reluctantly left the others and lay down exhausted on the cot in the tent she had borrowed from Morten. “We’re supposed to play a soccer match tomorrow,” she said before leaving.
Ingrid Endrerud doesn’t like to play soccer, but she’s sacrificing herself for the common good. Last year the Oppland County team won the soccer tournament that is played among the various county teams on the island. This year they’re having problems even forming a team. They have had to join forces with their rival county, Hedmark. Inland, as the team has been dubbed, has a colorful team song. “We’ve come out of the barn; swimming lessons have we learned in Lake Mjøsa; we’re tough, we can swear—go Inland!” Many of the youngsters have put on rubber boots, as Ingrid has done. Someone suggested that they should play mud rugby instead.
Hildegunn has to play at the back in the middle of a puddle. Ingrid is playing midfield and has understood that the point is to run up and down, a strategy that the eighteen-year-old masters surprisingly well. Soccer matches on Utøya are not like other soccer matches. Even the nonsporty types find it rewarding to run after a leather ball here. The competition is dead serious, but the game is unpretentious and inclusive. Cheerleaders scream themselves hoarse, and friendly curses are shouted. The North and South Trøndelag teams are not only rivals on the field but also argue on the sidelines about who has initiated the phrase “Beer and beatings, moonshine and fucking, South Trøndelag, South Trøndelag, yeah, yeah, yeah!” North Trøndelag members insist that they are the ones who’re best at moonshine and beatings. Hedmark and Oppland cooperate today. There are fewer egoistic players. Ingrid doesn’t score, but she centered the ball to a player who passed to the guy who kicked the ball into the goal. Innlandet Island wins 7–0 over Hordaland County and qualifies for the semifinals.
Morten is rudely awakened by jubilant cheers from the soccer pitch. When party members in Oppland want a bed indoors at Utøya, they send an application to county secretary Morten Djupdal. To whom does the county secretary himself apply? He applies to Morten Djupdal. And here he is, indoors in bed, as he hears Ingrid’s laughter coming from one of the rooms in the barn. In the application to himself he justified his request for an indoor bed on the grounds of “headaches because of insomnia.” People who’re easily offended ethically could argue that everyone has trouble sleeping on Utøya, but Morten would rather not get bogged down in bureaucratic details. “I guess the soccer match went well,” he thinks as he gets out of bed.
The previous year has progressed slowly for him as county secretary. Recruitment had been nonexistent, and the county board lost enthusiasm in the course of the spring to the point that it was sometimes just him and the Oppland party leader around the conference table. Many members declined to join the summer camp, and Morten was so distraught over the situation that at the end he just sat in his office and wept. He arrived on Utøya totally burned out on Tuesday, which was actually his last day as county secretary, and had spent the last few days sleeping in the warm bed in the barn. He puts on a black AUF hoodie and thinks that he should go up to the Oppland campsite. The campers there are almost certainly demotivated by the crappy weather and are wondering whether to go home. Morten is also the county’s delegation leader at this year’s summer camp. His task is to help keep the party members’ spirits up: “Remember how nice it was yesterday! There’ll be good weather tomorrow, just wait and see.”
In order to prevent the muddy pitch from being irreparably damaged, the matches are canceled for the rest of the day. The soccer players look like hell on the pitch in the fog. They have to shower quickly before the former prime minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland, arrives. Hildegunn has never liked to wash herself in the common showers; with three hundred girls going through the showers in the course of the day, it can get quite muddy and gritty, so she’s one of those who puts on swimwear and dives into the lake from the Nakenodden promontory. It is cold but not that cold. In any case, it’s just as cold in the showers. Afterward, she puts on loose black chinos, a gray AUF hoodie, and an Aztec yellow raincoat. The dark green rubber boots she has on were borrowed from her mother. Outside the tent the rain is still coming down in buckets.
Thursday was just idyllic. At the amphitheater, in front of hundreds of youngsters on the sunny, grassy slope, Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre discussed the Middle East conflict with Sidsel Wold from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), Norwegian People’s Aid’s Kirsten Belck-Olsen, and Eskil Pedersen. The youngsters liked the foreign minister’s message that Israeli occupation must end and that the Palestinians should have their own state, and he got a lot of extra cheers when he demanded that the West Bank barrier be demolished. There was just as much applause when the foreign minister made a backhanded comment about Barack Obama, who had declared that Americans would not accept UN recognition of the Palestinian state: “The United States has said it would veto [recognition]; that’s its business.” AUF has long been a supporter of the international economic boycott of Israel. New this year is that the youth organization advocates a unilateral Norwegian trade embargo. Eskil believes that the drastic measure must be interpreted in light of the widespread frustration among party members that Israel continues to violate human rights. Negotiations and discussions continue while the plight of the Palestinians worsens day by day. AUF wants to have a more activist Middle East policy than that of the Labor Party and the Norwegian government.
Enthusiastic boys and girls got up from the ground, shook off the grass, put their hands to their hot faces, and regretted that they had ignored their mothers’ advice to put on sunblock. Stine Renate Håheim had sat at the bottom of the slope, close to the trees, and half her face got sunburned. She had come straight to Utøya after a two-week stay in Athens, where about four hundred activists from around the world were waiting for permission to travel to Palestine with medical supplies. That Norwegian members of parliament get involved in controversial projects such as Ship to Gaza isn’t the norm, but neither is the twenty-seven-year-old from Nord-Aurdal municipality. She was exasperated by the fact that the foreign minister, earlier in the summer, would not answer the question of whether the blockade violated international law. She also supports the youth organization in calling for a unilateral Norwegian trade boycott of Israel. The former AUF central committee member responsible for the Middle East arrived on Utøya tired but excited, with a new sense of idealism and commitment. Sidsel Wold and Kirsten Belck-Olsen, whom she has met several times in Palestine, are two of the toughest women she knows.
After the debate, Støre strutted up to the tent area. In the northern Norway camp, the foreign minister was greeted by waving AUF flags and banners. The youngsters wouldn’t talk to him about the High North policy, as one might assume, but rather about the famine in the Horn of Africa. They had taken the initiative to start a fund-raiser. Party members wanted the foreign minister to be the first to put money into the donation box. “If you have some money, that is.” Støre had 200 Norwegian kroner. While the photographers’ cameras flashed against the lights and the television cameras zoomed in on the donation box, he said to the national media, “Typical AUF” It’s July, the vacation period and carefree days. The youngsters are on a secure island with full facilities in the north of Lake Tyri, far from the hustle and bustle of the city. Yet their thoughts are with those who have nothing. It’s beautiful. Some may argue that they’re far removed from reality. Naive, romantic, and idealistic. But the island is a place on earth where you don’t shun clichés—you actively seek them out. On Utøya, socialism is always on the wing, even if the sun don’t shine, as it says in the AUF song.
After lunch, or what is called dinner on Utøya, Støre played for AUF Oslo against South Trøndelag in a soccer match. He changed to shorts, soccer boots, and a T-shirt. The soccer boots were impressive since he had come directly from the family cabin. Everyone on the Oslo team was supposed to wear T-shirts with an advertisement for AUF’S newly launched website, jeg.stemmer.no. Johanne Butenschøn Lindheim picked out a size XXL from the cardboard box. The leader of AUF Oslo looked at her in surprise and smiled, “Aren’t you just a medium?” True enough, but Johanne liked to have a little more room. The film team requested that she go through the session again so that it could get better pictures. For Johanne the repetition was bearable, but then she began to worry that the camera was getting on people’s nerves.
The South Trøndelag players already got a psychological advantage during their warm-up when they ran back and forth on the field and sang to underline the fact that there was nothing wrong with their condition. Furthermore, their supporters’ chants from the sidelines were louder and more creative. The members of one group held each other around the shoulders, rocked side to side, and sang, “It’s my day today, my God what a wonderful day.” NRK was filming the match but was lured away by free waffles and soft drinks. Photo enthusiast Tore Sinding Bekkedal picked up NRK’S camera and started to film the dribbling and tackling. The Oslo team had lost one of its most powerful weapons in the battle to psych out its opponents. Eskil had previously made the mistake of cheering too loudly for one particular team or cursing at the referee. This could be interpreted as partiality on the side of the AUF leadership. Hence he now preferred to shout diplomatic encouragements from the sidelines such as, “Come on everybody!”
If the foreign minister were to be tackled in such a way that the result was a torn ligament, it would first of all be unfortunate for Støre, but there was no ignoring the fact that it would give the press photographers a fresh new angle to the news coverage from Utøya. Eskil’s other concern was short-lived and hypothetical, though no less a scoop for the journalists. Before the match someone had joked that Trond Giske (the industry minister and Støre’s party rival) would show up unannounced and play for South Trøndelag. It would have been a legendary Utøya match; moreover, no political commentator with the right instincts would refrain from using the match as a metaphor for the battle of the Labor Party’s two crown princes. Neither Støre’s reinforcement of the team nor the new T-shirts helped, although the foreign minister almost scored once.
Cooling down in Lake Tyri seemed like a good consolation prize for Johanne. She wondered whether she should bathe in her undergarments, but she kept the soccer jersey on. There was, after all, a movie camera close by. The hot and sweaty gang from Oslo took running jumps from the pebble beach in Bolsjevika Bay into the water. The lake was surprisingly cool and the stony bottom was uncomfortably rough, but Johanne nevertheless felt a sense of joy right then and there. Furthermore, the carefree and playful splashing made for interesting scenes for the film documentary. The youngsters from Oslo came up together from the water. Dripping wet, walking barefooted on the gravel, and carrying soccer boots in their hands, they moved up the hill toward the campground. Johanne changed to her favorite dress and put on makeup in the tent before she hung up the wet suit and sports bra on a stick. The sun felt warm, worries started fading, and that Utøya feeling finally came. But the first person to see Johanne in the beautiful blue dress made a backhanded compliment: “Westside Lady.” Comments about her affiliation and dress are usually meant jokingly, but when they are repeated often enough, if one knows the strength of “eastside romanticism” in the labor movement, it’s not easy to be completely unaffected.
Jonas Gahr Støre left Utøya inspired by the youths. He noticed during the visit that with Eskil as the leader, AUF has been freshly energized. The foreign minister left Lake Tyri with a sense of belonging in a meaningful community. AUF members returned the compliment by insisting that the foreign minister had helped to make the perfect Utøya day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, not a breath of wind in the air, only the sun reflected on Lake Tyri. Eskil couldn’t recall a nicer, warmer, and more summery day on Utøya. Sun, swimming, soccer, Middle East, Datarock, karaoke, hookahs, and intimate conversations long into the night.