Dag Solstad - Novel 11, Book 18

Yes, he was drawn into it. He liked the milieu that came with putting on amateur productions. He got to know people. Turid and he had acquired a shared leisure interest, which almost became a passion. Turid became a leading light in the Theatre Society — being a drama teacher, she was, after all, almost a professional. She loved to appear on stage and knew how to hold an audience in the hollow of her hand; Bjørn Hansen would stand in the wings and observe how the citizens of Kongsberg allowed themselves to be thoroughly charmed by his partner, the woman for whose sake he found himself here, and he felt very proud. He observed her when she returned to the stage after having conquered her public, her whole body trembling and her face having a dreamy, inward expression. ‘Superb,’ he whispered, causing her to give a start before hurrying on to the dressing room and preparation for her next appearance. Turid Lammers’s return to her native town, Kongsberg, had certainly benefited the Kongsberg Theatre Society. Indeed, she became its central player. She knew how everything worked, both front- and back-stage. But she was no prima donna. In fact, she never took the lead, leaving that to others. She chose to shine in minor roles, albeit central minor roles, but they were not main roles. The others always encouraged her to take the lead, but she refused. It wouldn’t be right, she said. But offstage the main role was hers, her ideas concerning costumes always prevailed. Choice of material became, in the final analysis, her choice. If the suggested stage director was not to the liking of Turid Lammers, he simply did not get to be director. The Lammers villa became a natural centre for the Society’s preparations: here costumes were sewn, ideas conceived, parties hosted. Here the friends of the Kongsberg Theatre Society came and went pretty much as they pleased, at any hour of the day or night. Here came Jan Grotmol, an Adonis employed by the railways. Here came Brian Smith, an engineer at the Kongsberg Arms Factory and a guaranteed success with his deep bass voice and his broken Norwegian. And Mrs Smith, who spoke only English but was educated as a needlework teacher (lace). Here came Dr Schiøtz from the hospital and Sandsbråten, the old postmaster. Here came the beautiful women to whom Turid Lammers granted the main roles, to their everlasting gratitude. Here came Herman Busk, the dentist, who happened to become Bjørn Hansen’s best friend, as well as elderly shop assistants, young students, gardeners, dairymen and, not least, numerous teachers of all ages and both genders, from all of the schools in the Kongsberg district, along with representatives of the health service. And two labourers.

The atmosphere was one of enthusiasm, though it did have a tendency towards arrogance. The friends of the Kongsberg Theatre Society looked upon themselves as creative spirits and considered their hobby as a vocation, because in their view everyone possessed an animating power that was frequently suppressed or tamed, but which could unfold freely in the theatre, through acting things out, through play. Man as player, or homo ludens , as they said, was their ideal, which it became Bjørn Hansen’s fate in life to represent as well. For he had already become one of them, not only in his capacity as Turid Lammers’s companion, but also because he fully shared their fascination with standing behind the curtain before the performance and peeking into the auditorium through a narrow opening in it in order to see the public flowing to their seats in this illuminated cinema in anticipation of the curtain rising. The Society played either farces or operettas; there was controversy among its members every year whether they should perform straight farces (especially comedies of mistaken identity, where success was assured) or whether they should risk taking on an operetta, which was more ambitious, and usually an operetta or a musical came out the winner. My Fair Lady. Summer in Tyrol. Oklahoma. Bør Børson . This was in the 1970s. Bjørn Hansen debuted in Oklahoma , as a walk-on. A member of the chorus, he danced around in a cowboy outfit, having learned a few simple steps, and sang with what little voice he had. It worked out nicely. Later he participated every year and could honestly say that few Norwegians had sung the refrain of more operetta tunes in public than he. Although he had never before stood on a stage, it worked out nicely. It was fairly bewildering, but Turid Lammers said she was not surprised, adding that, if they had not been living together as man and wife, she would have nominated him for a really big role next year.

This was how Bjørn Hansen’s existence had shaped up. This was his life. At Kongsberg. With Turid Lammers, this woman he had to live with because he feared he would otherwise regret everything. Turid Lammers was the life and soul of the circle. Her beauty and sophistication dazzled everyone. Why didn’t they get married? Because Bjørn Hansen assumed that Turid Lammers would consider such a question coming from him to be infra dig. Hadn’t he left everything and come to Kongsberg, to her, to live with her without any guarantees? To the others in the circle, Bjørn Hansen’s presence in the Lammers villa was completely natural. He was a man who had been offered the chance to leave everything, and to do so in the company of Turid Lammers. When Bjørn Hansen saw Turid Lammers shining so brightly in the surroundings of the Kongsberg Theatre Society, he too thought that way. But he had also caught sight of something else about her, namely, that she was all the time under the influence of something that had long ago come to an end, which did not exist. Turid Lammers was not going anywhere, there was no direction to her life, except to remain where she was and sparkle. All this enthusiasm, all these plans, all this energy finding an outlet every hour of the day, in the classroom, in the florist’s, in the Society, in her life with Bjørn Hansen — all this had no meaning beyond itself.

Was he playing a dangerous game? In any case, he awoke one night to find her side of the bed empty. It might have been about a year after he arrived in Kongsberg. He had become accustomed to his new life. He saw that she wasn’t there. He looked at the time. Four. She had gone out in the evening, to a rehearsal. He couldn’t sleep, just lay there twisting and turning. When she came it was half-past five. Where had she been? Where she had been? Was she not a free human being? Bjørn Hansen could not bring himself to enter into a discussion of human freedom on such premises and went to sleep. When he got up two hours later, she sat at the breakfast table, as usual. She revealed that she had been talking with Jan at his place, his digs, all night. Bjørn Hansen nodded. Jan was the strikingly beautiful railway employee who played Sigismund in Summer in Tyrol , which they were rehearsing; he had a scene with Turid Lammers. ‘I see.’ — ‘I see, I see, is that anything to get jealous about?’ — ‘I’m not jealous!’ — ‘You’re not jealous?’ Turid Lammers laughed. Aloud, scornfully. She kept at it until Bjørn Hansen admitted that he had been jealous, that he was bothered by her staying with Jan.

And that had been true. He had actually been jealous. He had known that Jan was going to the same rehearsal as her, and when he woke up at four o’clock and she was not sleeping beside him, it occurred to him that she was perhaps sleeping somewhere else, with an Adonis from the railway, this homo ludens who had suddenly awakened her innermost desire. He had felt forsaken, and so afraid of losing her. Turid was pleased with his admissions. She maintained that it was unworthy of him to be jealous and that, in fact, it was also an insult to her. Nothing had happened, as he ought to have known. She had been having a deep conversation with Jan. The hours had flown by, because Jan had been telling her about his expectations of life, and she had been listening. She had been listening to a young man who still believed that life was really something that should be lived somewhere wholly different from here, in places where he wished he lived, and she had been so taken by the sudden openness of this man — who was so attractive and such a dreamer — that she had completely lost track of the time. If she had known it was so late and that Bjørn had woken up and felt tormented by such thoughts, she would have come home long ago. For some reason or other, Bjørn believed her, and afterwards he always believed her assurances that there had been nothing going on.