Jan Kjaerstad - The Discoverer

‘I thought you worked with precious stones,’ Jonas said on one occasion as he stifled a contented belch, having just consumed one of her superb omelettes, a golden half-moon with a filling which was a delight to the palate.

That was not such a bad guess at that, she said, stroking one of the shells on the shelf. She probably could be regarded as a diamond-cutter of sorts. She was in the process of cutting a very big diamond, endeavouring to bring out the light in it. ‘I have spent years, many, many years on extracting every ounce from that day,’ she said. Jonas suddenly felt that he could discern different facets to her countenance, or that he was observing her from three sides at once, just as in the sketch on the wall. One thing, at least, was for sure: Karen Mohr did not have ‘a bit on the side’, what she had lay in the centre.

During his visits Jonas often noticed Karen Mohr run her fingers over a ceramic figurine or a smooth, round pebble on the shelf, with an absent-minded smile. Or she might pause beside the green plant which Jonas liked best because its leaves looked as though someone had taken the scissors to them — a mónstera , she told him later. Sometimes she would fall to fingering those elaborate leaves as if, through them, she was suddenly transported into reminiscences in which she relived certain inexhaustible seconds.

‘Did you leave right away?’ Jonas asked.

‘I stayed for some weeks,’ she said. ‘But I never saw him again, if that’s what you’re wondering.’ She poured herself a glass of Pernod. Jonas loved to watch the clear liquid turn greyish and semen-like when she added water. He had conceived the notion that this might be what fertilised her imagination.

Jonas’s eyes also lingered on the objects in her living room, as if he were understanding more and more of what he was seeing. At first he had thought that she was sad, hurting somehow, but he soon realised that she was happy; she was one of the most contented people he would ever meet. Karen Mohr taught Jonas that happiness could be something other than he had imagined.

‘It may be that we only live once during the years when we walk the earth,’ she said, as if reading his thoughts. ‘In which case we really have to cherish this time.’ She cleared the table. ‘I was lucky. I had those weeks by the Mediterranean. Some people, a great many, I think, have never experienced life — raw, vibrant life — in such a way.’

A lot of folk would, nonetheless, automatically have construed that eccentric living room of hers as being an escape from something. Jonas — possibly because he was a child — never thought of it that way. He understood, although he could not have put it into words, that even though Karen Mohr might retreat into a parallel world from time to time, she never lost sight of the ‘normal’ world. It was more as if that other world, her memories of Provence, was forever filtering through to enrich her life in Oslo. She said it herself: ‘I don’t live in another world. I live in two worlds. Compared to most other people, who inhabit just the one, I am twice as happy.’ It would be no exaggeration to say that Karen Mohr was one of the greatest teachers Jonas Wergeland ever had. A true educator. Someone who brought out the best in him. Broadened his mind. Raised his consciousness. She taught him that it was possible to live in two places at once.

In due course, Jonas received an explanation for her mysterious outings on that one evening each month. One Saturday afternoon when he happened to be there, she suddenly said: ‘It’s time you were going. I have to get changed. I’m going into town.’ It turned out that she was going to a restaurant at the bottom of Bygdøy Allé by the name of Bagatelle, commonly known as Jaquet’s Bagatelle, after the owner Edmond Jaquet — although actually by this time it was being run by his son Georges. The Bagatelle was still a colourful and popular restaurant when Jonas was at university, not least because Georges Jaquet kept his food and wine prices low enough that even Jonas and his friends could afford to eat there. And since they were studying astrophysics, they gave Georges Jaquet many more stars than the latter-day Bagatelle could ever boast.

On one Saturday evening in the month, Karen Mohr dressed in her best and dined alone at Bagatelle on Bygdøy Allé. She described to Jonas what a pleasure it was to be welcomed by the unfailingly charming Georges in his dark suit and be seated at a white-clothed table under a drawing by Le Corbusier himself, who also happened to be a cousin of Edmond Jaquet’s. Jonas’s mouth watered when she told him what a treat it was to read the menu — different every day and written in both French and Norwegian; the thrill of running an eye over such tempting offerings as turbot au vin blanc and riz de veau grand duc . And she always had a word with the head chef or the sous-chefs, often in French. Georges set great store by regular patrons like Karen Mohr; she could even take the liberty of nodding discreetly to journalist Arne Hestenes or Robert Levin the pianist. Jonas never asked her why she frequented Bagatelle, but he fancied that he knew the reason. She went there to contemplate her life. To consider the fact that she had turned down one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century. Perhaps the name of the place helped her to reduce the whole episode to a mere bagatelle. Or maybe she was actually celebrating it. Whatever the case, it was not a nostalgia trip, but a salute to a moment. Jonas imagined her having snails as a starter, to check the speed of her reminiscences, ensure that they slid through her very slowly.

On another occasion in her flat, when Jonas was enjoying freshly baked croissants and Karen was drinking what she called café au lait, not from a cup but from a bowl, Jonas had asked her why she had turned down that painter, because he understood that she had rejected him, had said no to more than just having her portrait painted. Karen had thought for a moment, most likely because she was not sure whether Jonas would understand. Then she had said: ‘Even though I had only met him minutes before I knew that he was, how shall I put it, too simple. I could tell that he was a genius, and yet — perhaps for that very reason — he was too simple. Most men are too simple.’ To Jonas it sounded as if she were saying: too flat . Karen Mohr raised her bowl to her lips and took a sip. Jonas suspected that she was concealing a smile.

The worst of it was that she had no regrets, she said. Despite the intensity of the moment, those few charged seconds, the pleasure of being the object of his searching gaze, and despite the fact that she may well have been saying no to living with him, to sharing the luxury of his fame. And she had made the right decision.

‘Even though you could have made a name for yourself?’ Jonas asked.

She looked at him as if she did not understand the question, then went on talking about something else — if, that is, it was not the same thing: ‘I did not deem him … worthy,’ she said. That word ‘worthy’ was to become a catchword in Jonas’s life.

‘Did you ever find someone who was worthy?’ he asked, doing his best to pronounce the word with the same gravity as Karen Mohr, stretching the vowels and rolling the ‘r’.

‘No, I never did.’ And then, anticipating Jonas’s next question. ‘But I have never reproached myself.’

Jonas could not know that many times in the future his eyes would fill with tears at the memory of her face as she spoke of this. She had provided him with a mainstay, one that would stand within him forever; she taught him something about the uncompromising nature of love, the solemnity of it — a solemnity which made him feel a little uneasy, gave him a sense of the heavy responsibility which rested on his shoulders whenever he was faced with a woman. Karen Mohr had received an offer from a man admired by half the world, but had not deemed him worthy. Love is no mere bagatelle, that’s for sure, was Jonas’s first thought.