Ю Несбё - The Kingdom

She stopped abruptly. Smiled fleetingly and raised the wine glass to her lips, as though realising she was lecturing to an audience that was probably not interested. We sat a while in silence. I coughed.

‘I read somewhere that everyone, even the most isolated tribes, like symmetry in a face. Doesn’t that suggest that some things are congenital?’

Shannon looked at me. A smile glided across her face and she leaned forward in her chair.

‘Maybe. On the other hand, the rules governing symmetry are so simple and strict that it’s not surprising we share the taste for it all over the world. The same way belief in a higher power is something that’s easy to turn to, which makes it universal but not congenital.’

‘So if I was to say that I think you’re pretty?’ The words just slipped out of me.

At first she looked surprised, then she pointed to her droopy eye, and when she spoke now her voice wasn’t warm and dark, but had a harsh, metallic ring to it. ‘Then it’s either a lie or you’ve failed to comprehend the most elementary principles behind the idea of beauty.’

I realised I had crossed some kind of line. ‘So then there are principles?’ I said, trying get back over on the right side again.

She gave me a look as though trying to decide whether to let me get away with it or not. ‘Symmetry,’ she said at last. ‘The golden ratio. Shapes that imitate nature. Complementary colours. Harmonising notes.’

I nodded, relieved that the conversation was back on the rails again but knowing I’d have a hard time forgiving myself for that slip.

‘Or in architecture, where you have functional shapes,’ she went on. ‘Which are actually the same as shapes that imitate nature. The hexagonal cells in a beehive. The beaver’s regulatory dam. The fox’s network of tunnels. The woodpecker’s hole of a nest which becomes a home for other birds. None of these are built to be beautiful, and yet they are. A house that’s good to live in is beautiful. It’s actually as simple as that.’

‘How about a service station?’

‘That can also be beautiful, provided its function is something we regard as praiseworthy.’

‘So then a gallows…?’

Shannon smiled. ‘…can be beautiful as long as the death penalty is regarded as necessary.’

‘Wouldn’t you have to hate the condemned person to think like that?’

Shannon licked her lips, as though testing the notion. ‘I think it would be enough to find it necessary.’

‘But a Cadillac is beautiful,’ I said, pouring more wine. ‘Even though compared with modern cars its shape isn’t especially functional.’

‘It has lines that imitate nature, it looks as if it was built to fly like an eagle, bare its teeth like a hyena, glide through the water like a shark. It looks as though it’s aerodynamic and has room for a rocket engine that could launch us into outer space.’

‘But the form lies about the function, and we know it. But we still find it beautiful.’

‘Well, even atheists can find churches beautiful. But believers probably find them even more beautiful because they’re associated with everlasting life, the same way the female body affects a man who wants to pass on his own genes. Without his being aware of it a man’s desire for a female body will be slightly less if he knows that she is not fertile.’

‘You think so?’

‘We can test it out.’

‘How?’

She smiled weakly. ‘I’ve got endometriosis.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a condition in which cells similar to those in the layer of tissue that normally covers the inside of the uterus grow outside it. It means I’m unlikely ever to have children. You agree that an awareness of something lacking in the content makes the exterior a little less attractive?’

I looked at her. ‘No.’

She smiled. ‘That’s your superficial, conscious self answering. Let your unconscious chew over the information for a while.’

Maybe it was the wine that coloured her usually snow-white cheeks. I was on the point of answering when she interrupted with a peal of laughter.

‘Anyway, you’re my brother-in-law so not very suitable as a guinea pig.’

I nodded. Then I got up and crossed to the CD player. Put on J. J. Cale’s Naturally .

We listened to the album in silence, and when it was over, Shannon asked me to play the whole thing again from the start.

The door opened in the middle of ‘Don’t Go to Strangers’ and there on the threshold stood Carl. He had a serious, resigned look on his face. He nodded in the direction of the bottle of sparkling wine.

‘Why did you open that?’ he asked in a subdued voice.

‘Because we knew you would persuade the council that what this place needs is a hotel,’ said Shannon, raising her glass. ‘That they’ll allow you to build as many cabins as you ask for. We’re celebrating in advance.’

‘Do I look as though that’s what happened?’ he said, staring gloomily at us.

‘What you look like is a very bad actor,’ said Shannon. She took a drink. ‘Get yourself a glass, sweetie.’

Carl’s mask dropped. He gave a loud laugh and came towards us with his arms outspread. ‘Only one vote against. They loved it!’

A halo of enthusiasm seemed to hover over Carl as he drank up most of what was left of the sparkling wine and gave a vivid description of events at the meeting.

‘They lapped it up, every word. Know what one of them said? “One of our mantras in the Left Party is that everything can be done better; but today, he said, nothing could have been done better.” They agreed to the zoning plans on the spot, so now we have our cabins.’ He pointed to the window. ‘After the meeting Willumsen came over to me, said he’d been sitting on the public bench and congratulated me not just for making me and my family rich but for turning the farmland of every villager into nothing less than an oilfield. He said how much he regretted he didn’t own even more of the mountain than he did, and on the spot he offered us three million for our land.’

‘And what did you say?’ I asked.

‘That maybe that was double what the land was worth yesterday, but that now the price had gone up tenfold. No, fifty-fold! Cheers!’

Shannon and I raised our empty glasses.

‘What about the hotel?’ asked Shannon.

‘They loved it. Loved it. The changes they asked for were minimal.’

‘Changes?’ The light brow over her right eye rose.

‘They thought it was a bit… sterile, I think the word was. They want a bit more Norwegian local colour. Nothing to worry about.’

‘Local colour? Meaning what?’

‘Details. They want turfed roofs, some lafted timber here and there. Two big trolls carved in wood on each side of the entrance. Stupid things like that.’

‘And?’

Carl shrugged. ‘And I said yes. It’s no big deal ,’ he added in English.

‘You what ?’

‘Listen, darling, it’s psychology. They need to feel they’re in control, that they aren’t just a bunch of peasants being ridden roughshod over by some loudmouth who’s just come back from abroad, understand? So we have to give them something . I acted as though these concessions were going to cost us, so now they think they’ve pushed it as far as they can and they won’t be asking for anything else.’

‘No compromises,’ said Shannon. ‘You promised.’ Her staring eye flashed.

‘Relax, darling. In a month’s time, when we turn over the first shovelful of earth, we’re going to be the ones in the driving seat, and then we’ll give them some practical explanation of why we can’t use this kitschy stuff after all. Until then we let them think they’ll get what they want.’