Jan Kjaerstad - The Discoverer

Even when she was lying still, apparently deep in thought, Margrete was the centre of attraction. Everything revolved around her. I observed her out of the corner of my eye. I caught the flash of a bracelet. She took something from her rucksack and handed it round, it obviously was not a pack of Marie biscuits; judging by the exclamations from the others it had to be something fantastic — Chinese fortune cookies or suchlike.

Breakfasts with Margrete. Every one an occasion. Her face. The things she could come out with. Her body language. Her way of being quiet. Her expression when she was thinking. Her habits from an itinerant life abroad. Always linen napkins. Always fresh flowers on the table. Always toast. Always a particular brand of English marmalade. Always freshly ground coffee beans, her own blend. Always orange juice which she pressed herself.

We lay not far from one another. There was really only one spot where you could lie at Svarttjern, a couple of hillocks on the west side. It was also a good place to dive from, or rather: try to impress the girls with your latest, well-rehearsed dives. Margrete was not impressed by that sort of thing though, she never so much as glanced in the direction of the daredevil divers and their antics. I peeped at her on the sly. Peeped is the word. I felt like a Peeping Tom. It got to the point where I was staring quite blatantly. I couldn’t help it. I felt my heart swell with love. It had possibly been lying dormant during the summer holidays, but now it flared up. I thought of my grandfather lighting the primus stove in the outhouse, the moment when the flame turned blue. I knew it, I was a goner. This may sound a mite high-flown, but I lay there thinking of one of the words which Karen Mohr often used: fate. I am quite certain that the thought of marrying Margrete Boeck crossed my mind there, on the banks of Svarttjern, on an August day when we were in seventh grade. But how was I to catch her attention? Catch her? Or, more correctly: how was I to get her to discover me?

Why are salmon more given to biting at certain flies? Or is it only that we think they have a greater tendency to bite at certain patterns? It is a mystery. The salmon is not looking for food when it swims up river. As the spawning season approaches it reduces its food intake. In theory, it should not bite at a fly. And yet it does. Is it that it feels annoyed? Is it trying to defend its preserves? Might it simply be that the fly, this elaborately tied lure, is so irresistibly beautiful? Why do we fall in love? You are faced with three girls. Triplets. As good as identical. And yet you choose one of them. The one with the yellow scarf. You bump into a girl at the school gates and you lose your temper, you snap at her. Only afterwards do you realise that you are hooked. Why did I ‘bite’ at Margrete — like a salmon going for a Blue Charm?

There were many obstacles in the way. To begin with the most obvious one: she was lying next to Georg. It was so bloody predictable. You only had to say that there was a new girl starting at the school, from Bangkok, that she was like this and or like that and everybody would stick their hands in the air and say she was sure to end up going out with Georg. He was in the year above us and had always been the first at everything: the first to own a Phantom ring, the first with speedway handlebars and cross-country tyres, the first to wear a reefer jacket, the one whose voice broke first. He always had a match clenched between his lips, as if he were terrified that somebody might ruin his perfect teeth, his flawless looks.

I hated it. Looking at Georg was like staring at a poster that said ‘Forget it!’ I tried to tell myself that I was not in love. It was one thing to wrest Margrete out of another boy’s embrace. It was quite another to try to compete with Georg — Georg, who could blow three smoke-rings and get them to hang in the air while he stuck a finger through them, Georg who documented every new conquest with pictures of him French kissing the girl in question in the photo booth at Eastern station. They might not be going out together yet, but there were depressing rumours to the effect that Margrete ‘fancied’ him. I watched them out of the corner of my eye, in agony, noticing the way they were giggling together, suffering even greater agonies when Georg — all solicitude, so it seemed — straightened one of her straps at the back.

Something had to give. I lay there with a blue flame burning inside me, my hopes rising when the girls went in for a swim. I believe I prayed to God that something would happen, that I would be given a chance. Now. This minute. And not the way it happens in the movies, where the hero usually has to wait until the wedding, until only seconds before the bride says ‘I do’, before he can steal her out of the other man’s arms.

I have been thinking: there was something about Margrete’s glossy black hair, which was cut quite short, that reminded me of Bo Wang Lee. Was that why I fell for her the way I did?

My chance presented itself. Leo and I were sharing a bag of monkey nuts, absent-mindedly snapping shell after shell. The girls were in the water. Suddenly Margrete screamed so loudly that everybody turned to look. I thought she must have got her foot caught in one of the tree trunks which could be seen floating, like water nixies, just under the surface and which, if you were unlucky, you could get caught on, or even be dragged under by. Then I heard it: ‘I’ve lost my bracelet,’ Margrete cried. She was so upset that she switched to English, as if she was still at the International School in Bangkok. I managed to grasp, nonetheless, that it was her mother’s bracelet, that she had borrowed it, that it was of gold and a bit big for her, which is why it must have slipped off without her being aware of it. Who but a girl from Thailand would wear a gold bracelet when she went swimming? She was broken-hearted, sobbing loudly. Some of the girls tried to comfort her.

Georg and the others leapt into the tarn. Shouts and yells filled the air as the water was transformed into a churning mass of flailing bodies. It occurred to me that this was how it must look when natives dived for coins thrown by tourists. Eventually they gave up, one by one.

Margrete glanced up at the hillock on which I was lying, snapping peanut shells in two. I thought I saw a question in that look. Or was it an entreaty? With her streaming wet hair, her forlorn expression, she seemed more bedraggled. More attainable. Georg looked almost sheepish, the match between his teeth was gone.

‘Let me have a go,’ I said, getting to my feet amid the sort of dramatic hush that falls when someone steps forward and volunteers for an impossible mission. Aunt Laura had told me the story of how van Gogh cut off a piece of his ear to impress a woman. This might not have been quite so original, but still — it was something. I would happily have dived until I cramped up.

‘You?’ Georg said. ‘Can you swim?’ I saw the confusion in his eyes, a desire not to lose face, a suppressed fury. I faced up to him. A sergeant taking command from a colonel. He was blocking the way to the water. He could have punched me. Or, he could have tried to punch me. But he must have guessed that just at that moment nothing could touch me. That inside me there dwelt a miracle. He took a step to the side, like a crab. I walked, no: I strode down to the edge of the rock and with all eyes upon me I dived in; it was in all probability the best dive of my life, with little or no splash. I came up to the surface and flicked my hair back with a practised toss of the head. ‘Whereabouts?’ I shouted, heard it echoing in the silence around the tarn. Margrete had come down to the water’s edge. She pointed. She seemed to be pointing at me. ‘There,’ she said.