Jan Kjaerstad - The Discoverer

Jonas stood in the National Gallery listening to a string orchestra, noticing how the instruments gleamed like freshly varnished boats, and he thought of how they would see one another several Saturdays in succession. She would go to the Film Club with him and afterwards they would stroll down to Karl Johans gate and say goodbye at the corner of Universitetsgaten, where their ways parted. And it would be on one such Saturday, in late April, when Leonard had gone off home, leaving Jonas alone with Sarah, that she would place her fingers lightly on the back of his neck and draw him towards her and they would kiss for the first time, right there on the corner, in the middle of Karl Johans gate, in the middle of the main thoroughfare in Oslo. Not counting the kiss from Margrete in elementary school, this would be the first serious kiss of Jonas Wergeland’s life and yet again he would discover that there was something unique about these first experiences with girls, for while one’s first oysters, for instance, or first sip of wine seldom tasted good, Jonas would feel that this kiss, the touch of her lips, exceeded all expectations — which is saying a lot, when one considers his gift for simulation; it would be like experiencing a twelve-string kiss after dreaming of a six-stringer. It would, therefore, be only right and proper that this should take place on Karl Johan, the most public spot in the whole of Norway; and Jonas would be quite giddy with pleasure, the very fact of blatantly kissing in the middle of the main street on a Saturday afternoon, kissing for all to see, rendering it all the more exciting, causing a delicious tingling sensation to ripple from his lips into every muscle and joint in his body, until it seemed to him that he had actually keeled over and was hovering, flat on his back, the way conjurers could make people hang in mid-air, while at the same time standing in the middle of Karl Johan, kissing.

Jonas stood in the National Gallery’s red room, next to J.C. Dahl’s huge painting from Stalheim, that sweeping vista, and thought of how they would kiss and kiss, greedily, avidly; how Sarah would stand with those longed-for fingers of hers on the nape of his neck before running them through the hair at the back of his head as if she had found some invisible strings on which she could play; and they would stand there intertwined, intent on losing themselves in one another, and he would note the way her nostrils vibrated when she kissed him, just as they did when she was playing the violin, and his tongue would meet hers and he would think to himself that he would never break contact with it, that nothing could drag him away from that mouth, not even the sight of a neighbour, such a notorious gossip as Mrs Five-Times Nielsen; and they would stand there, kissing unrestrainedly, and the days would pass, and the outdoor cafés would open, offering prawn smørbrød and foaming glasses of beer, and the long children’s parade would pass them by on May 17th, shouting and cheering and waving flags in their faces; but they would carry on kissing, totally engrossed, while summer came in with blaring brass in the small circular bandstand directly opposite and people popped into Studenten for fragrant ice-cream cones; they would stand with their lips pressed together while pigeons landed and shat on the statue of Henrik Wergeland in Studenterlunden and young men came out of Cammermeyer’s bookshop carrying copies of Line by Axel Jensen; they would kiss and kiss even while Spanish-speaking tourists unfolded maps round about them and different flags were raised on the poles along Karl Johan as heads of state from various countries saw fit to visit the city, and the weeks would pass and they would kiss, feverishly, oblivious to the fact that school had started and schoolchildren were pouring out of Norlis’ bookshop armed with new sets of compasses and rulers, and focused-looking law students were once again strolling into lectures in the old University banqueting hall; they would kiss while tempting posters advertising the season’s programme were hung up outside the National Theatre and even when autumn drew on and the leaves fell off the lime trees still they would stand there kissing, observed on the last Friday of the month by cabinet ministers driving, discreetly, impotently, past them and up to the Palace in black limousines; they would kiss, shamelessly, insatiably, while people walked by on their way to see American films at Palassteatret, they would kiss, stand there embracing, mouth to mouth, only snatching a breath every now and again, much in the way that whales occasionally rise to the surface, while the Town Hall bells marked each hour with a different folk tune they would remain in this haze, kissing despite the fact that it began to snow, kissing all the harder in fact, to keep warm; and they would stand there, lost to the world, as Christmas approached, with festive decorations in the street and people going into the record shop to buy Bach’s Christmas Oratorio as a present for especially dear friends, and they would kiss as the New Year fireworks banged and crackled above their heads, they would kiss, unfazed by the decidedly merry diners emerging from Restaurant Blom, reeking of brandy and trying vainly to hail cabs, and they would kiss as folk trudged past with skis over their shoulders, off to catch the tram to Frognerseter, they would go on kissing until spring came, with birds singing and newly-sprung, heart-shaped leaves on the lime trees and ejaculating fountains in Studenterlund, Jonas would stand there for an eternity, kissing Sarah, and perhaps for that very reason this kiss would be as much of a revelation as if she had removed her mask at the very end of an exhausting masquerade and when it was gone so too would the thrill, though Jonas could not have said why or how — if, that is, it was not that the thrill lay in the mask and not in the face, and all at once Jonas realised that he was kissing an illusion, depths which again turned out to be flatness; in any case, Jonas would have to tear himself free and with the kiss thus over he would say a cheerful, but uneasy goodbye.

They would go on seeing one another for some months, would kiss repeatedly over those months, but because what he had found behind the mask was not what he had hoped for there would come a day when he would decide to break it off, and he would be strengthened in his conviction that Sarah, like him, had reached the stage where she wanted to do more than kiss — yet again Jonas would, in other words, find a romance being struck by Melankton’s syndrome. Unless, that is, his own fear or, to couch it in more positive terms: his honourable intent, was actually a vicarious motive. For what if all of this merely concealed a horror of losing his independence, a fear of having to consider another human being?

And he would take her back to that corner on Karl Johan, imagining that she would not make a scene with so many people about. But when he said it, said that it was over, breaking it to her as considerately as he could, she would not let him off that easily and she would ask him why, and he would finally come up with the answer for which he had searched on a couple of previous occasions, an answer which, while it might smack of high romance and chivalry, would strike at the heart of the matter; and even though this answer had been drawn from another person’s life Jonas would now feel mature enough to use it himself: ‘You’re not worthy,’ he would say and even though he said it gently and was at pains to assure her that someone else would find her worthy, she would simply stand there staring at him in disbelief, and then, still with her eyes fixed on his, she would scream, really howl, so stridently and piercingly that everybody, every single person on or about Karl Johan would look round in alarm, but still she would go on wailing, as unabashed as when they had kissed; a ghastly shriek, like the screech from the highest violin string, with her hands over her ears. Then she would turn on her heel and hurry away, while in his head, like a grim echo, he would hear a verse from ‘Have You Seen Her Face’.