Dag Solstad - Novel 11, Book 18

The last words were uttered with a gloating expression on his face, which Bjørn Hansen did not think suited his son. For Peter had put things straight. What the college had not managed, young Korpi Hansen had undertaken to clear up. When Peter had entered the classroom for the first period, he had taken his stand and surveyed the scene. He was expecting to catch sight of Algot, who then would have winked at him or revealed himself in some other way: ‘Well, here I am, on the second day of instruction! That’s not half bad, eh?’ But Algot was not there. Peter looked around the room, silently counting everyone present, himself included. Thirty-nine. There should have been forty. Then he sat down and followed the first period, in physiology, though he had found it hard to concentrate. As soon as the break came, he had run up to the office. They recognised him from yesterday. He again asked if it was really true that they had not heard from Algot Blom. They replied, with a resigned air, that they had not. ‘But he hasn’t come!’ Peter erupted. — ‘Well, no, but we haven’t received any message.’ — ‘Is that quite certain?’ Peter asked. ‘Couldn’t you check once more?’ he said. But the office girl refused. Then Peter became indignant, but fortunately he controlled himself. He simply turned sharply about and swept out. Not to go to his next class, which had already begun, by the way, but to the Wire Service Office. There he had opened the Oslo telephone book at B and searched the pages (with furious, agitated fingers, his father thought) until he found Algot Blom’s private address, which Peter had assumed must be that of his parents. He had entered a phone box and punched in the number. No answer. Next he had looked up the number of the main store of the Algot Blom firm, had entered the box, had once again called the number. He had asked to speak to the manager. The manager, however, was occupied just then, and the voice on the line, a man’s, asked what it was about. ‘It concerns Algot Blom, Jr,’ Peter said. ‘I’m a close friend of his. Do you know how I can get in touch with him? I mean, do you know where he is just now?’ — ‘Junior?’ the voice said. ‘Junior went to London the day before yesterday.’ — ‘And when will he be back?’ — ‘For Christmas,’ the voice replied. ‘As far as I know. When they get their Christmas holiday.’ — ‘Ah, yes,’ Peter said. ‘So he chose to study optometry in London, after all.’ — ‘Precisely,’ said the voice. ‘Only the best is good enough, you know.’ Peter put down the receiver.

Afterwards he regretted having hung up so quickly. He could have asked for Algot’s address and telephone number. But he had become so confused. However, since he had passed himself off as Algot’s friend, which he was of course, he could not let it appear he had no idea that he had gone to London to study optometry. He had said nothing to Peter about that. ‘We’ll meet at Kongsberg in the autumn,’ he had said. But instead he had opted for the more famous optometry course at City University in London. Peter had at once gone back to the office. He did not say that Algot was in London, but only asked them again whether they would consider checking if Algot Blom, Jr, had left a message that would explain the fact that he had failed to show up, now that instruction in the optometry programme had begun. But the office girl would not. Nor would her superior, a man who turned up just as Peter was repeating his question. Well, he insisted that they check into it. They might have overlooked something. Had Algot written and renounced his place, perhaps? If so, there was a vacancy. Didn’t they understand? That if Algot Blom had written to renounce his place on the course, someone else could now have it, and wouldn’t it mean a lot to someone who was now without a place suddenly to be informed that, if you wish, you can come right away, there is a vacancy on the optometry course at Kongsberg. Peter had insisted. But to no avail. They couldn’t be bothered to look into it any further. Finally Peter had to give up. He was, after all, a new student and reluctant to call attention to himself as a troublemaker. But there was a limit to how much he could take.

Peter related this incident in an extremely detailed and pedantic manner, making sure that not a single move he had made in his efforts to tidy things up was omitted. He was furious. With the school management, not with Algot, who was simply missing. Gone, leaving an empty place behind him, which the school would not do a damn thing to fill. Bjørn Hansen felt uncomfortable. He did not like the story Peter told, he did not like the way it was told, and he did not like what it told him about his own son and about his future prospects. He was especially worried about the latter. What would happen to his son now? The very reason why he came to Kongsberg to study optometry had disappeared. He now found himself at Kongsberg on false premises.

But Peter began his studies as if nothing serious had occurred. From now on he did not mention Algot any more. Algot was an empty place in his consciousness and he was looking to the future. Not many days passed before Bjørn Hansen regarded his son as a young man hanging on for dear life. ‘He hangs on for dear life.’ He had not liked Peter in Peter’s own story. Although he tried to look on his son with all possible sympathy, he was not able to. Odd formulations constantly popped into his head, and they got stuck. Such as, ‘Peter eats my food, he’s very welcome.’

Why did he think this way? About his own son? ‘Peter eats my food, he’s very welcome.’ The background to this thought was as follows: Bjørn Hansen and his son lived together in a four-room flat in the centre of Kongsberg. Peter was a student at Kongsberg Engineering College and lived with his father instead of moving to a furnished room. Bjørn Hansen continued to live his regular life just as before. Peter had his own life. They saw one another only in the morning, just barely, and in the evening when Peter returned. When Peter was home he mostly stayed in his room. If he came out into the living room, it was to watch TV, which he asked, every time, whether it was all right to turn on. Breakfast, however, they had together, or at least at the same time. If Peter got up first, he went, after visiting the bathroom, into the kitchen, prepared breakfast for himself by the breadboard and put on the coffee, which was ready when his father came out to have breakfast. Sometimes they would eat at the same table, but it happened just as often that the son took his chunks of bread and a cup of coffee into his room so as to prepare himself for the day’s lectures at his leisure, as he said. If the father got up first, he made coffee and sat eating at the breakfast table when his son came out and made his breakfast, before he either sat down at the table or disappeared into his own room again. But they shared the food, for Bjørn Hansen had said that it was impractical for them to buy a loaf of bread each, a bottle of milk each, etc., etc., perhaps even to use two coffee pots, as long as they happened to live in the same flat and used the same fridge and stove, to which Peter had made no objection. They had dinner separately, as it would be impractical for Peter to show up at a set hour. Besides, he obviously wanted to spend as much time as possible with his fellow students, not least eat with them — that’s how you get acquainted, after all. And so Peter often ate out, in the college canteen. But it also happened that he came home in the evening without having had time to eat, as he said, and then he took a chunk of bread from the kitchen, something that happened more and more often. For that reason Bjørn Hansen began to make a double portion of his own dinner, so that his son could have the leftovers from his father’s dinner when he came home. As time went by, Peter always did that, and only picked up a roll or a Danish for himself, or quite simply just a cup of coffee, when he went to the canteen for dinner with the other students. But on Sundays Peter had to manage by himself. Then Bjørn Hansen dined either with Berit and Herman Busk or at the Grand Hotel, and Peter would as a rule fry a chop, as his father could tell by the smell when he came home.