Jan Kjaerstad - The Discoverer

When did I receive the first hint that something was wrong?

We’re talking hindsight, I know, but I remember one time when we went to a Beethoven recital by a famous string quartet in the University Assembly Hall in Oslo. In the brief pause that followed the Cavatina in Opus 130, that extremely emotional adagio movement which wavers between tristesse and hope, as the audience held its breath, waiting for the ‘Grosse Fugue’ to begin, Margrete suddenly leapt to her feet and started clapping wildly and enthusiastically and shouting ‘Bravo!’ There she stood, under Munch’s sun, all alone and clapping, heedless of the sore breach of etiquette she was committing and the scandalised looks levelled at this person who dared to applaud in the middle of a piece, in front of such world-renowned and no doubt blasé musicians.

After the recital the ensemble’s cellist came over to us. Without a word he handed her the bouquet of roses which had been presented to him.

One afternoon, after we had been making love for what seemed like three days in a row, Margrete lay stroking my chest. One of her long fingers traced intricate patterns on the skin over my ribs. We all had a glowing spot inside is, she told me; and this glowing spot was a weaver. It wove into being a small, imperceptible lung. When we departed this life, this alone would remain, and go on breathing for us, saving us from death, even after we were dead. And this lung was our story. It has since occurred to me that Margrete’s secret organ must, in that case, contain the following image: that of a woman standing up in a packed assembly hall, under Munch’s sun, applauding all alone.

Why did she do it?

On that fateful, maelstrom-like April evening, as I sat looking at her body and put the muzzle of the pistol to my temple, I noticed that one hand, her fingers, seemed to be pointing to her lungs. Was that it? Was this, the Assembly Hall incident, Margrete’s story? Did it also tell why she had done it? For what if that misplaced applause was related to this sight before me, a shot in the heart. What if her shouts of ‘Bravo’ were as much a cry of protest as an impulsive, barefaced show of enthusiasm. She simply could not bear to hear the ‘Grosse Fugue’. I bent over the dead body and touched a fingertip with one of my own. I seem to recall feeling the pain in my chest already then, the nasty twinge of discomfort which would plague me for a long time, also in prison.

From the graze on her brow and the smear of blood on the door jamb I guessed that she must have hit her head off the wall, that she might even have spent a long time kneeling there, banging her head against the brick wall before going to get the gun. I had never understood: the molten gold in Margrete’s eyes was the result of the darkness within her. It was a light which had been constantly on the point of going out, which fought against a blackness. That was why they had been so beautiful. I had only seen the glow, not the darkness surrounding it.

A lot happened during those hours. I was confused, I was devastated by grief, but my mind was also uncannily clear, almost as if I had taken some sort of thought stimulant. I put on gloves and wiped the weapon clean. I also wiped the powder residue off her wrist. I was bewildered, I was shattered, but I was alert and businesslike when it came to removing all signs which could point to Margrete having shot herself. And when it came to leaving clues which would, in due course, point to me. I took the Luger’s old wrappings, the oilcloth and ammunition box from the cupboard in my workshop and hid them so well that it would take the police a long time to find them. I also took into account my older brother’s possible qualms of conscience — he knew about the gun. I was distraught, but at the same time so dazzlingly clear-sighted that the police investigators found only what I wanted them to find, and only at the stages at which I wished them to find them. My own version of what had happened, why I had done it — and it would be a long time before I told it — also took form, almost without my being aware of it, during those hours. It was watertight. Utterly consistent. Perfect, on both the emotional and the rational plane. Just so you know: getting convicted of murder is not as easy as people think.

It is morning at Balestrand. Kamala is asleep. I sit on the balcony of the hotel room looking out on the broad expanse of the fjord. I savour the light, I cannot recall seeing light like this anywhere else in the world. On the lawn below, Benjamin is lying outside his tent gazing up at the drifting clouds, when, that is, he is not shooting glances at the dragons on the spire of the English Church. It is a grand sight: the big, round tent, like a Mongolian ger , and him lying there with a blade of grass in his mouth. The other guests must be quite taken aback when they look out of their windows and see this: Benjamin, in Karakorum, Ghengis Khan’s old capital, an utterly content individual on a boundless plain. I remember when Dad came home from the hospital and told us that we had a brother who was Mongoloid. I thought he was talking about Globoids, the aspirins. Dad certainly looked as if he had a headache. He told us all about the chromosomes, and how Benjamin had one x too many, as it were. In my universe, Benjamin stands as the first representative of the so-called Generation X. He may not be capable of appreciating irony, nonetheless he has lived his life inside inverted commas.

I think about our expeditions into Lillomarka together. All the camping out. All the stories. I have wondered: could I have been trying to hide him. And myself. He found me, though. Benjamin was the first person to show me that I had imagination, that I could do something with the worlds I dreamed up, outside of my own head. Together we established a position on the sideline, an Outer Mongolia which was also an Outer Norway, an outside left. Thinking back to Harastølen and the refugees: I know why I am so obsessed with this fear of foreigners. It is because of Benjamin. If Benjamin has taught me anything it is tolerance. He broadened my view — the first, possibly, to do so — of what a human being is, and can be.

Rakel comes walking towards him. Benjamin points eagerly at something in the sky. Rakel sits down, puts an arm round him. She is another one — a hugger, a holder. They sit for a while, peering up at the clouds, chatting, then they start to pack up. They are going to catch a boat back to Fjærland then drive home in the truck. With a stop at a riding camp along the way. Benjamin is very happy with Rakel and her husband. Rakel tells me they are going to write a book together, the three of them. About trailer-trucks, long-distance lorry driving. Benjamin has already come up with a title: The Golden Horde .

Yesterday I went for a stroll along the road by the beach, past Belehaugene, the two ancient barrows, to take a look at the storybook villas built here a century ago by the artists: half stabbur , half stave church. Then I raised my eyes, only — and again: why was I surprised — to find myself still more entranced by the fjord, the mountains. I almost caught myself humming ‘Beauteous is the Land’. And once more I had to ask myself: Is this really Norway? If any Norwegian should become too blasé, start to hate their country, then they should take a trip to Balestrand, or sail between the unbelievably high mountains around the green fjord running up to Fjærland, expose themselves to the silver threads of the waterfalls and glimpses of wild side valleys. I know opinions differ on this — I know it took the Romantic movement to change people’s ideas about the countryside and what it had to offer — but if you ask me, there is no doubt: Norway’s great asset is its scenery. I have made caustic remarks about it, I have scoffed at it, but on reflection it seems perfectly understandable that it should have been Song of Norway , that regular holiday brochure of a film, which prompted Kamala to come to this country. In other words, I have the splendour of the Norwegian fjords to thank for the fact that, in a roundabout way, she eventually found me.