The Conqueror Page 12

  One day when they were ten years old, a spring day with a gentle rain washing away the last patches of snow outside, Ørn had done something unexpected. Or perhaps it wasn’t. Looking back on it, it occurred to Jonas that he had known it all along. That this was why he was friends with Eagle: that this was his reward, so to speak, for long and faithful service. Eagle had pulled a heavy book from the shelf, a volume that proved to be a fine, tooled leather album with gilded pages. A Bible, thought Jonas, a holy scripture. For is it not the case, Professor, that every person has a story, does something which shows that he is an Ankenaton, a unique human being; the sudden revelation, coming as a shock to everyone around them, that a person worships the sun, is a monotheist, when everyone else is praying to a whole host of gods – that he holds one idea above all others, one which he pursues faithfully and single-mindedly and for which he would willingly wipe out everything else?

  Eagle opened the book, or album. It was not filled with photographs or scraps, football or automobile cards, as Jonas had expected, but with stamps: with transparent sheets of paper overlaying tiny, bright-hued miniatures. Jonas looked at Eagle, saw how all at once his face was glowing, as if illumined by a light – not to say a sun – shining out of the album itself, from beneath, like something out of a painting by Rembrandt. Jonas suddenly felt that he was being granted a glimpse of Eagle’s inner being, of a hidden majesty, a unifying vision.

  Stamps. The English word is so flat and square, smacking of repression. Not so the Norwegian word: ‘frimærke’ – ‘free marks’, marks that make one free. This must be why nothing could daunt Ørn, even when nothing else was going right for him: when he got inkblots all over his handwriting jotter or scored an own goal at football. Jonas looked more closely at the stamps, understanding and yet not. Because the surprising thing was not that Eagle collected stamps, pored over them with tweezers and magnifying glass. Most boys have collected stamps at some time in their lives, for a week or so, or a couple of years. But Jonas realized that Eagle was the type who would go on collecting stamps all his life, and what was more: that there was a system, a concept of some sort, behind what he was seeing.

  Jonas had himself taken a couple of tentative steps into the labyrinth of philately. For a while he had zealously cut up envelopes, filled the bath with water and scattered the corners with the stamps into it, so that the bath looked like a huge pot full of steeped slivers of flat bread, like the dish they ate on Christmas Eve before going to church, ‘mush’ they called it – and that was what this was, a mush. Jonas soon came to the conclusion that such a muddle was more trouble than it was worth: an ocean of stamps and only a bath to put them in. Besides which, there seemed to be no way of getting to grips with such a multiplicity of stamps, not to mention all the duplication: what does one do with two hundred stamps bearing the king’s head; or shoeboxes full of 35-øre stamps depicting whooper swans, all commemorating Nordic Day?

  Eagle had understood something that Jonas had not: you had to set limits for yourself. As he leafed through the album Jonas realized that Eagle had discerned a pattern in the chaos, for here the first sheets were covered with stamps depicting the Norwegian landscape, then came stamps featuring flowers, birds and animals, after which Jonas could run his eye over the history of Norway: from miniature images of rock carvings and ancient gods to tiny illustrations of Viking ships and stave churches which, in turn, were followed by stamps dedicated to kings, celebrities, buildings, all meticulously arranged in chronological order right up to the Second World War – a splendid geography-cum-history book, an alternative social history told through stamps. A bit like a comic strip, Jonas thought.

  But it was a separate collection at the back of the album that came as the greatest surprise. Jonas stared and stared, but he couldn’t figure it out. ‘A collection of Norvegiana,’ Ørn said. It sounded alien and mysterious, as if he were talking about a dreamland.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Stamps from other countries featuring images with some sort of Norwegian connection.’

  It had never occurred to Jonas that people in foreign countries might have any interest in Norway. He examined the stamps more closely and found Sigrid Undset on a Turkish stamp issued in 1935. On another page he spied Roald Amundsen’s profile on a stamp from Hungary issued in 1948. And there, on a Cuban stamp, a picture of Armauer Hansen. Henrik Ibsen graced stamps from Bulgaria and Rumania, and Grieg was portrayed on one from the Soviet Union. The most baffling subject of all, though, was Egil Danielsen, honoured for his gold-medal win in the javelin event at the Melbourne Olympics – on a stamp from the Dominican Republic! Who would believe it! What did the peasants in the Dominican Republic think when they stuck this on their letters: Egil Danielsen captured at the very moment that the javelin left his hand? Jonas was dumbstruck. These stamps, all this foreign interest, left him quite bemused; trains of thought wove in and out of one another inside his head. I need hardly stress, Professor, that this was a decisive moment in Jonas Wergeland’s life.

  Ørn began to tell him about the postal system and the stamps, about how amazing it all was. This worldwide network. Proof of the possibility of peaceful coexistence. Ørn was all lit up, Jonas hardly recognized his friend. Ørn stumbled over his words, sounding old beyond his years as he breathlessly explained: ‘You see, stamps reflect the soul of a country.’

  ‘Great,’ Jonas said, slamming the album shut. ‘That’s great, Eagle, but can’t we do something else now? What about going down to the corner shop? I’ve got a couple of empty bottles.’

  He could tell that Eagle was disappointed, saw the light in his friend’s face fade. ‘Okay, we could pop down and get some chewing-gum,’ Eagle said, putting the album back on the shelf. Jonas noted its position, between The World of Music and Gone with the Wind.

  Although they had many another reading session on Ørn’s living-room floor that spring, Ørn never showed him his stamps again. And Jonas never mentioned them.

  Where are the dark holes in Jonas Wergeland’s life?

  One day Little Eagle didn’t come to school. He wasn’t there the next day either. Jonas called at the house to ask after him. Ørn-Henrik was ill, his mother said. He was off school for a whole week. When at last he returned everyone could see that he must have been really sick: his eyes were a nasty red colour, as if he had spent a long day in the chlorinated water of the Frogner Baths. And he had changed. Not that he was any less scrawny, but there was something else there too now.

  Jonas noticed it too. Ørn was moody, withdrawn, he seemed both utterly crushed and mad as hell, turned away huffily when Jonas spoke to him.

  One afternoon on the way home from school Eagle finally opened his mouth: ‘My stamp album’s gone,’ he said. ‘Completely disappeared.’

  It was springtime, he kicked some sand, stopped, spun round to face Jonas: ‘I can’t understand it. I can’t find it.’

  ‘Burglars?’ Jonas said.

  ‘No, that can’t be it,’ Eagle said. ‘I just don’t get it.’

  They walked on, said no more about it. Some girls were skipping, smack, smack, a heavy rope, a line lashing the ground.

  Over the days that followed, Eagle grew more and more antagonistic, even towards Jonas. Any approach met with a surly, almost abusive, response, as if he wanted to pick a fight.

  Then something even more mystifying happened. Just before May 17, that combination of spring rite and gala day, Little Eagle turned up at school with his head shaved, which is to say: with a strip of hair running from the middle of his forehead to the nape of his neck. Like a real Red Indian, a Mohawk or whatever tribe it was that wore their hair like that – a hairstyle which the punks of a later generation would copy and dye orange or bright green. It is no exaggeration to say that this hairstyle, Little Eagle’s hairstyle that is, seemed even more provocative – shocking, in fact – back then. You have to remember that this was before the Beatles grew their hair long. You could say that Little Eagle was one of the first punk
rockers in Oslo.

  Nobody knew what to make of it. Little Eagle’s act of rebellion was so awesome, not to say so totally loony, that even the older boys left him alone, as if they understood that this was not the old sparrow, the punch-ball, but a walking hand grenade with a dangerously loose pin. Little Eagle paraded through the streets of Grorud in May with his head held high, wearing his blazer and his Mohican hairdo, to the consternation of all and sundry, leaving people whispering in horror on the pavement. He had stopped talking, wouldn’t even speak to Jonas. So Jonas was surprised when, some weeks later, Ørn asked him to come with him up to the woods – Ørn had something he wanted to show him. It was Midsummer’s Eve, no less, in the morning; and Jonas was nervous because he was performing in a sketch later that day.

  They had struck off into the woods at Hukenveien, at the spot where Little Eagle had once been tied to a tree and Petter had shot at him with a bow and arrow. It was only by luck that Eagle wasn’t blinded. They stand there on the grassy slope beside the stream that flows down from the swimming hole. Jonas waits, hasn’t the foggiest notion of what’s going on, what Eagle wants to show him. Then, out of the blue, Eagle starts laying into Jonas. Goes totally berserk. Punches and punches him, even though it’s no use, Jonas is bigger than him, brings him down without any trouble. But Eagle will not give in, wriggles like a worm on a hook. Jonas can see that he is mad, blazing mad, so mad that he’s in tears, although Jonas knows he’s not hurting him, he’s just holding him down, and maybe that is why he’s in tears, because Jonas is just holding him down, doesn’t punch him in the face like the others would, just keeps a firm grip on him, a vice-like grip, with his knees and hands. Eagle writhes about for some time, struggling and struggling, while the tears rain down. Jonas thinks Eagle looks ridiculous, mainly because of the Mohican, which gives him the illusion of fighting with a real Red Indian, or a being not of this world. Jonas feels his contempt subsiding and in the midst of all this he suddenly has the idea of altering a couple of lines in the sketch he’s going to do, a little twist that will turn a rotten skit into a pretty good one.

  At long last Ørn lies still. His eyes are closed. There’s snot on his upper lip. He’s a sorry sight. They lie quietly for a long while, Jonas on top of Ørn.

  Little Eagle opens his eyes, looks straight up into Jonas’s eyes. His gaze does not waver. He never used to do that. He stares long and hard at Jonas. Jonas looks down at Ørn. He knows what he is seeing. Never in his life has he seen it before, but he knows what it is: hate.

  ‘You bastard,’ Ørn says.

  Just the once. And not all that loudly.

  They go on lying there. Ørn gazes into Jonas’s eyes. For ages they lie there. Jonas thinks it’s funny, but he doesn’t laugh. Something about the situation stops him from laughing.

  Then he gets up. Little Eagle clambers to his feet, turns and walks off. Jonas waits for a few minutes before following him down the road towards Solhaug, catches a glimpse of Ørn’s back as he turns in between the blocks of flats. Jonas went home to change his clothes, shut his eyes to go over the new lines for the sketch that he was going to be presenting outside of Number One, in front of all the grownups.

  Ørn didn’t come to see it. Jonas did not see Ørn that evening – not even then, on Midsummer’s Eve, the longest, lightest day of the year.

  Soon afterwards Ørn moved away. Little Eagle, it transpired, was gone forever.

  Cain and Abel

  Stamps illustrate the uniformity of an era. For months, years maybe, everyone, millions of letter-writers, stick identical images on their envelopes. Stamps were the forerunners of the mass media: there too, for weeks on end, one sees the same face, the same picture, everywhere. It was against just such a background that Jonas Wergeland’s programmes stood out; he produced a stream of images unlike anything ever seen before, on NRK or any other channel.

  After the scandal broke, Jonas Wergeland’s television programmes were pretty much put under the microscope, as if people were searching for clues, some warning of what was to come. The programme on Niels Henrik Abel, in particular, with its unforgettable opening shot of the Pont Arts in a grey, December-chill Paris – the eyes fixed longingly, almost pleadingly on the façade of the Institut de France – was subjected to a lot of scrutiny. Initially, its pointed visual statements were construed as a sign of admirable commitment – something singularly lacking in most TV programmes – but the prevailing, hypocritical consensus later was that here Jonas Wergeland had gone over the score, that this out-and-out caricature of Frenchmen and all things French was far too spiteful by half. ‘Behind the virtuosity of this programme one discerns something dark, hateful even,’ one famous opportunist would later write. However that may be, the story of Niels Henrik Abel formed the basis for the most subjective and aggressive of Jonas Wergeland’s programmes.

  I can now reveal, Professor, that there were personal reasons for this. And here I am thinking not of stamps, although I’m sure you have already spotted the connection, you may even own one of the stamps issued on 6 April 1929 to mark the centenary of Niels Henrik Abel’s death. No, I am referring to one of Jonas Wergeland’s first and little-known trips abroad, to that same city of Paris. He was feeling nervous even before he had got through passport control, as if he was prepared for anything to happen at an airport named after Charles de Gaulle. This insecurity, which he thought must spring from some sort of national inferiority complex, grew even more palpable as he was passing through Customs, where a man in uniform eyed him sternly. And it was at this point that Jonas, as he saw it, made his big mistake: he smiled. The customs officer promptly called him over and asked to see his luggage. Jonas had the feeling that the man was doing this purely out of resentment – he wasn’t going to have any stupid Norwegian smiling at him. He didn’t conduct a neat search of Jonas’s suitcase either but rummaged around in it as if sure of turning up something, and when he found nothing, Jonas was led into another room where the first man and another officer proceeded to interview, or virtually cross-examine him – that, at least, is how it seemed to Jonas. ‘Here in Paris I’m not a Norwegian, I’m a nigger,’ Jonas said to himself. I would like to emphasize that I’m sure such things did not happen very often, that this was in all likelihood a cosmic exception to the usual hospitality of the French passport and customs authorities. Nonetheless, it did happen. Jonas spoke to the two officers in his best French, but they acted as if they did not understand, interrupted him with curt, antagonistic orders, out of sheer bloody-mindedness, Jonas kept thinking; and this they did even though they knew he hadn’t done anything, this they did because they had every right to do so, Jonas could be a dangerous character, a big-time smuggler. Jonas had smiled: now who would smile at a strange Frenchman if they had nothing to hide? They asked to see his tickets, inquired as to where he would be staying, how much money he had with him, he understood what they said, they did not understand what he said, although they should have been able to; several times Jonas heard the word ‘zéro’ – not ‘rien’, but ‘zéro’ – and automatically assumed that this referred to him; I’m not sure, Professor, but it isn’t altogether inconceivable that they also asked him to undress, that they also searched his person in the most thorough and humiliating way and still with every right to do so, I say again, even though he had done nothing wrong, ‘il est nul’, but he had smiled, he was suspicious, a pathetic Norwegian, a nigger in Paris, they had sussed out that he was a nothing trying to make out that he wasn’t just a nothing, they simply would not have a nothing in their country, in France, a land of ones, the cradle of European civilization; Jonas felt that they were laughing at him the whole time: at his clothes, his sad excuse for a suitcase and not least his halting French, which had been good enough at school but a joke here. ‘C’est un zéro en chiffre.’ They let him out of the room with a little laugh, and even though they did not find anything, Jonas felt that they had exposed him, that they had stripped him bare, in more than one sense. ‘They raped me
mentally,’ he said later. Even if he was not a nothing, they made him feel like a nothing.

  Am I on the right track? Why else would Niels Henrik Abel, as played by Normann Vaage, walk around Paris made up to look like a Negro? Jonas Wergeland’s story about Abel was a tale of intellectual racism, of the degradation of a small nation, of the world’s doubts that anything good could really come out of Norway. There was a personal reason for the underlying rage in the programme, but that is not the whole explanation. Jonas Wergeland was on safe ground here – for who could help but feel outraged at the thought of how Abel was treated in Paris?

  Jonas Wergeland could, of course, have centred his programme on Abel around the discovery of elliptical functions and the heart-stopping race to pip Gustav Jacobi to the post, but from the very start he knew how to angle this programme in his series on heroic Norwegians, Thinking Big: he would focus on Abel’s waiting. Niels Henrik Abel was, in short, a brilliant scholar, a man who, in the words of one mathematician, was in the process of ‘discovering Magellian passages to huge areas of that same, vast analytical ocean’. An individual who, in his short life, would establish a legacy ‘which will keep mathematicians occupied for five hundred years’, as another put it. The programme captured this unique person at the point on his grand tour when he arrived in Paris, the mathematical capital of the day, to present what has since become known as the great Abelian theorem, his masterpiece, to the French Scientific Society, in hopes of seeing it published in their Mémoires des savants étrangers’ and thereby winning international recognition and a university lectureship, as well as the chance to develop all of the other ideas proliferating inside his head to an extent unseen in any other mathematician at that time. Abel is in Paris. This is his moment of truth. The only problem is that he comes from Norway.