Jan Kjaerstad - The Discoverer

The memory of Karen Mohr would come into his mind in the oddest places, such as the time, decades later, when he found himself confronted by a desert of sorts, and saw thousands of warriors marching towards him, soldiers in full battle gear, rank upon rank. For a few seconds he had thought that they were coming to get him, to punish him; that this vast army had been mobilised because he, Jonas Wergeland, had been unfaithful in love, had shown himself unworthy .

For several terrible weeks Jonas had laboured under the delusion, as nightmarishly vivid as only the mind of a jealous man could produce, that his wife was having an affair with one of his closest friends. It is tempting to recount all his suppositions and mental agonies, his occasionally churlish behaviour and pathetic accusations, but while the whole notion of being a cuckolded husband is not nearly as old hat as many would have it — the sort of thing that only befalls the Strindbergs of this world — these aspects must take second place to the account of how the other party, Margrete that is, dealt with the situation and, not least, with her husband’s need for a bulwark of promises and assurances, in short: his desperate longing for security. And when one considers what Jonas himself had created in the way of problems some years earlier — with his fateful escapade in Lisbon — it is hard to see how Margrete managed to muster the patience she displayed; it says a lot about originality and forgiveness, about a woman who in so many ways had no equal.

For months Jonas inhabited two worlds, one of which — the delusional one — gradually gained the upper hand. In his imagination, he was constantly witness to every detail of Margrete’s infidelity, her rendezvous and sexual gymnastics with a man whom, till then, he had counted his friend. And every night in bed when, shamefully but nonetheless belligerently, he confronted her with accusations based on his delusions, lengthy tirades which always ended with him asking how else she could explain why she was no longer interested in him, sexually, she would hear him out, then repeat what she had said the night before, and the night before that: ‘It doesn’t matter what I say, you won’t listen anyway.’

Then one December day she came home from work and asked him to take the following week off from his job at NRK. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Just do it,’ she said. ‘Make some excuse about illness in the family,’ she said. ‘But why?’ he said again. ‘Because I want to show you a world as unreal as the one you’re living in right now,’ she said. Later Jonas was to think that what she had actually been saying was: ‘Because you are dead. Because I want to bring you back to life.’

A week later they were at the airport. Jonas wanted to ask where they were going, but some foolish sense of pride prevented him from doing so. Margrete did not say anything either, not about their destination anyway, otherwise she was quite chatty, making comments about the other passengers, relating funny incidents from her many travels as a girl. Not until they were in the transit hall at Copenhagen’s Kastrup Airport, when Margrete indicated to him that their flight was now boarding, did Jonas see the name of their destination on the display: Beijing! Beijing, China. Margrete slept through most of the long flight, but Jonas was so agitated that he was not even capable of enjoying the deluxe in-flight service. But when they landed, she said, as if referring to his recent uncivilised behaviour: ‘Here, in these people’s eyes, we are both barbarians, here — on neutral ground — we might be able to talk to one another.’

As it turned out, though, Beijing was merely a stopover point, they still had a bit to go. Once again Jonas was amazed by what a woman of the world Margrete proved to be in such situations. She obviously knew a smattering of essential Chinese words and phrases — she could certainly make herself understood — and while they were waiting for their domestic flight, she managed to get hold of some sort of fast food: bulky, white polystyrene boxes whose contents Jonas dared do little more than pick at, but which she, Margrete, gobbled down with every sign of genuine relish, aided by chopsticks which she plied as if they were natural extensions of her fingers. With her faintly oriental features one could have been forgiven for thinking that these were her natural surroundings.

Throughout the flight, on board a domestic aircraft which reminded him of a run-down flat, reeking of grease and stale cooking smells, Jonas sat stiff with fright. Most of the passengers were soldiers, all clad in heavy overcoats which they kept on and which gave off an odour of sun-warmed rubbish bins. Jonas kept an anxious eye on the emergency exits — he could feel a distinct draught from the one closest to him. In all the confusion he had not caught the name of their destination, so he swallowed his pride and asked Margrete. ‘Wait and see,’ she said. ‘Why can you never just enjoy a surprise?’

But when they landed, late in the afternoon, Jonas still had no idea where they were. There was no snow, but it was bitterly cold and it was getting dark. They were met by a driver and a man who was obviously some sort of guide. Margrete had arranged everything in advance, more as a matter of form than out of necessity. It very quickly became plain to Jonas that she was every bit as well-informed as their guide. They drove through a broad, monotonous landscape. Jonas recalled a film he had once seen, Yellow Earth by Chen Kaige. ‘Excuse me, but can you tell me where we are?’ Jonas asked the guide. The man turned to look at him in some surprise: ‘Welcome to Xi’an, one of the oldest cities in China,’ he said with a smile.

At the hotel, a showy but characterless modern building right next to the old clock tower in the heart of Xi’an, they ate a silent supper in the restaurant. Their guide, a middle-aged man whom Margrete had invited to join them, sensed that something was up and in an effort to lighten the mood, as they were finishing their meal he went over to an ancient, out-of-tune piano and began to play a piece which at first — and mainly because that was what he was expecting — Jonas took to be a traditional Chinese melody, some old chestnut, a worn-out tune, but suddenly he recognised it. It was not very well played, but it was, nonetheless, ‘Morning’ by Edvard Grieg. The other diners applauded enthusiastically. The guide was all smiles when he returned to Jonas and Margrete. Jonas knew he ought to say something, that he owed it to the guide to ask how he came to know that tune, since the answer would no doubt reveal a lot about the man and his background, his life, but Jonas had been poisoned by his own thoughts, his own worries, by the underworld which at all times existed alongside the one he inhabited: a phosphorescent green stalactite cave in which Margrete committed the most obscene acts with another man, one of Jonas’s friends, at that; an ice-cold basement which, by means of some sort of osmosis, had seeped into his Xi’an world. He was so bewildered that he proceeded once again, in the hotel room, as if it were the only thing of which he was capable, to ask Margrete what the other man was like in bed, whether he took her from in front or behind? He knew he ought to be feeling more enthusiastic, show some interest in the place and the sights they would be seeing there, but his mind was clouded, as they say. The thought of Margrete’s supposed affair bulked larger for him than the whole amazing existence of China. Margrete did not answer him. But she talked, chatted about other things, reassured him indirectly, as it were. And at night she snuggled up to him, she did not get mad; at no time over the past six months had she avoided him, not even when he had hurled the most appalling accusations at her, even though it was possible — he did not dare to pursue this thought to its conclusion — that she had problems of her own; every night she lay down behind him, snuggled in close to his back, as if to warm him. Or as if he were a child, a little creature that did not know what was best for it, that had to be protected from itself. It was bitterly cold in Xi’an that December: ‘I’m freezing,’ he said.