Jan Kjaerstad - The Discoverer

She took me by the hand and ran laughing towards the car, opened the door to the back seat. We fell upon one another, groping blindly, found each other’s mouths again, kissed, licked, bit, kissed, literally took leave of our senses. I pawed at her breasts like a teenager while her hand felt hungrily for my crotch. It was a bit like what as boys we had called petting, heavy petting. I have ridden in similar old Peugeots since then, mainly in a number of Third World countries, and I have never been able to sit there on those rather lumpy, plastic-covered seats, or look at the rickety chrome door-handles — those that aren’t actually missing — the ashtrays, the distinctive dashboard, without thinking of Ulla and petting.

Something was happening outside, in line, as it were, with what we were up to in the car, or rather: the weather appeared always to be one step behind us, mimicking our ardour. In between all the kissing and feeling up I managed to take in the fact that the wind had risen dangerously and the palms were taking on the form of inside-out umbrellas. She tore off her blouse and bra, amid much loud and impatient moaning, wriggled out of her skirt, then her panties, tossed these garments into the air as large leaves began to swirl past outside; she arched her back with excitement, thrusting her pelvis into my face, offering herself like a piece of peeled fruit, the flesh glistening. The rain outside increased to a torrential downpour. Through the window I caught an occasional glimpse of the surrounding countryside, which now had the look of an underwater scene, as if we were inside a bubble that had been lowered into the ocean — I almost expected to see fish swimming past; and what I saw between her legs had also acquired something of a marine cast, reminiscent of sea anemones, coral reefs. I felt — there, inside the car — the same heavy pressure as when I went diving. I had the weird notion that this must have summoned up a depression, that all of this was my fault. It was the very end of the cyclone season, no warnings had been issued, and yet this, the tumult outside, had all the makings of a cyclone, the sort of cyclone which, at its height, could cut the sugar harvest in half. Rain streamed down the windows, making it impossible for us to see out, it was like being in a car-wash. Side by side with, or underlying, her desire, Ulla seemed to have a fascination with the power of the rainstorm, as if she drew energy, an even greater sexual charge, from the water pelting down, striking the car roof with a sound like the drumming of small, galloping hooves. I am not certain, but it may even have been here that she had the crucial flash of inspiration which, some years later, would find artistic expression. Ulla turned to making fountains, monumental works; she became an internationally renowned and much sought-after fountain designer, an artist who married the soft with the hard, moisture with steel, water with stone, the softly purling with the rigidly erect. She was intrigued with the possibilities of building such fountains in deserts and received commissions to do just that, primarily from wealthy Arabs, people with a reverence for water. Ulla made a fortune from water, from her ability to work on the borderline between engineering and art, her knowledge of the power and the beauty of falling water.

She must have been sunbathing in her swimming costume; her body was completely white, while her limbs and face were brown; she appeared to be lifting a torso up to me, or at least, I remember thinking of armour, that this, the white section of her body was an impenetrable carapace, something of which I knew nothing, even though I was well into my twenties. She spread her legs. I had the impression of something swollen and inflamed, as though she had applied lipstick there too. I had never done this before, she helped me by putting her hands at the back of my neck and drawing my head down to her fragrant and moistly glistening vulva. I licked those lips, poked my tongue inside, the rain poured down, drummed on the roof, a stray branch hit the bonnet with a bang, she hardly noticed, I too was in a daze, only half aware of what was going on. But when the lightning began to fork across the sky and the thunder made the ground shake — the car was basically sent flying, it hovered in mid-air — I started to worry, as though I were half expecting us to collide, partly because at that moment her body began to writhe uncontrollably. She came — she came to the accompaniment of a rending bolt of lightning and a piercing scream which passed over into a stream of incomprehensible babble, then she burst into floods of tears, all while we were on the point of being engulfed by water and shaken to bits by thunderclaps. ‘Where are you?’ she sobbed, grabbing at me, trying to pull me down, pull me inside her. And just as I was thinking: I’ve waited long enough, I’ve waited a damn sight more than long enough — which is to say, just before I gave in, lifted her up onto my lap, slid her down over me — I realised, with another part of myself that we would be wiped out by a natural disaster if I were to fulfil my intent, that only restraint on my part could prevent the cyclone from sweeping full force across the island, and I pulled away from her with a grunt of disappointment, coupled with a sense of truly having saved our lives.

Why did I hesitate back then? It certainly was not because — to use a Freudian cliché — I wished to sublimate my lust. I think I may have had some inkling, in the grip of desire though I was, that it was really supposed to be different. That even sex, for all the indescribable pleasure it gave, ought to be different. Better. Even better. I was about to say: higher. In the same way as I wrestled with thoughts concerning suppressed sides of my nature, so I knew, or suspected, that not even in the sexual sphere could we realise our true potential, stand upright, as it were. What if human sexuality was still at the reptile stage? Because there was no denying: despite five thousand years of civilisation, sex did not seem to have moved on at all. Of all the arts, the sexual act was the least evolved. While painting had had its Rembrandt, its Monet, the art of love was still stuck in the Stone Age. For a long time I did not know what to think about it, this restraint I displayed in the final instance with women. I do not believe it did me any harm, though. Not until I met Margrete when I was a grown man, did I see everything — including this — with fresh eyes.

Only seconds later the rain stopped, leaving behind it the same sense of release as when a drum roll, like a crescendo in the subconscious, suddenly ceases. The wind subsided. We — she also — came to our senses with the same air of bewilderment as people woken by a hypnotist. We stared at one another, or quickly looked away from one another, shyly almost, before opening the doors and clambering, all but tumbling, out of the car, out into the sunlight which streamed unexpectedly and with added intensity down over a strangely sodden landscape, anyone would have thought the whole countryside had had an orgasm. The air was searingly fresh, it reminded me of my childhood and the smell of Granny’s tube of Mentholatum.

I never did find out what had actually happened. Nor could the newspapers provide any explanation for the sudden storm. That was sex with a woman for you, I told myself. A tropical island in a foreign ocean. A clip round the ear from a cyclone. Forces over which we had no control, would never have control. I glanced round about, feeling as though I ought to be happy to have survived. Not the cyclone, but the amatory eruption.

I eyed her up and down. Her face seemed distorted, her mascara had run, her lipstick was smeared. I was glad I could not see myself. I was sure that more powerful forces had been at work inside the car than out — and that despite the fact that I could see the devastation all around me, the sturdy broken branches strewn on the ground, as if a giant had wandered past.