Jan Kjaerstad - The Seducer

Which brings me back to the Netherlands and its golden age, since it was thanks to the father of international law, Hugo Grotius, who wrote that ‘the sea is common to all, being so boundless that it cannot be the property of any one nation’, that the oceans were for so long considered to be mankind’s common heritage until, that is, in the wake of the Second World War, certain countries demanded greater disposition rights over their part of the Continental shelf. But the Norwegians were slow to catch on, thinking, as usual, mainly about fish, and I can safely say, without treading on too many toes, that there was a distinct dearth of expertise, interest and, above all, imagination. In the fifties, when the Norwegian Institute for Geological Surveys received an inquiry from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as to the commercial potential for the nation of the Norwegian Continental shelf, back came a reply which was both short and to the point, a classic example of professional incompetence: ‘Any possibility of finding coal, oil or sulphur on the Continental shelf bordering the Norwegian coastline can be ruled out.’ Not until 1962 when, as luck would have it, foreign oil companies contacted the Norwegian authorities, did it occur to anyone that there might be something afoot, and shortly afterwards an Order in Council was issued, establishing Norway’s rights to its part of the Continental shelf. A couple of years later Norway entered into delimitation agreements with Great Britain and Denmark and had the luck of the devil once again — I almost said it goes without saying — when the median line principle was introduced, although this was by no means a matter of course, thus securing for Norway, among other things, the rich EcoFisk field. All this thanks to luck and a handful of prescient and, above all, open-minded public servants, first and foremost among them the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Jens Evensen. The Netherlands may have had Hugo Grotius, but Norway boasts its own legal brain in Evensen. It would not be at all unreasonable if every Norwegian, out of sheer gratitude, were to have a bust of Jens Evensen displayed in their home.

And what were the gains from this? The gains were colossal; the gains were so high that they transcend the bounds of even the most chauvinistic imagination. In terms of geographical area, Norway is about the sixtieth largest country in the world. But take into account the area of the sea now coming under Norwegian dominion and suddenly only eleven countries in the world exceed it in size. Nowadays Norway lays claim to a section of the Continental shelf four times as great as its mainland, corresponding to one third of the entire European shelf — in other words, Norway has secured control over untold resources.

So what does this tell us? It tells us that the most improbable things happen all the time without anyone being aware of it.

The ‘nationalization’ of the sea and the seabed represents the most radical carving up of geographical areas and commodities since colonial times, and this is a point which never ceases to amaze me: in a country where people will march and protest against just about everything under the sun not one single citizen opened their mouth to question the gigantic area gain which fell straight into Norway’s lap thanks to the efforts of others and, in fact, this phenomenal expansion of Norway has not so much as figured on the public agenda. Unbelievable! I say again: Unbelievable! It may be that Norwegians will take exception to my use of the word ‘crime’ and indeed think it quite fair that Norway should receive such a big slice of the cake and equally fair that fifty-five countries in the world, to all intents and purposes, receive nothing at all, thus proving that we have long since realized Peer Gynt’s motto: ‘be sufficient unto oneself.’ Nonetheless if I might be so bold as to remind the reader of how these days everyone laughs at the Tordesilla treaty, signed at the end of the fifteenth century, under the terms of which Spain and Portugal simply split the Atlantic Ocean and thereby the world, between themselves. If we are to learn anything from history then we ought perhaps to question whether anyone today would view the nationalization of the continental shelf in the same light. In any case, I do not mean to preach, I merely want to point to luck as being the key factor in modern Norwegian history.

Dinner at the new villa in Grorud was drawing to a close. Sir William was looking a touch glassy about the forehead and seemed remarkably preoccupied with the heavy ring on his little finger, set with a blue, not black, stone which, to Jonas’s mind spoke of sorcery, of his uncle’s penchant for secret societies or perhaps rather his amazing luck. Jonas was just about to press on to the next phase of their plan when Veronika unexpectedly came to his aid: ‘Am I right in thinking,’ she said, sounding a mite anxious, ‘that some mushrooms can be confused with fly-agaric, especially when they’re small?’

‘That’s right,’ said Jonas. ‘Weird, isn’t it, how the poisonous ones grow right next to the edible ones?’

‘How can you actually tell if you’ve been poisoned?’ asked Veronika, trying to sound casual, but with a note in her voice which betrayed that she, too, had eaten a couple of mouthfuls of the stuffing that had been intended solely for Sir William.

‘Well, nausea for starters,’ said Jonas. ‘I’ve heard it can come on pretty quickly.’ He cast a sidelong glance at Rakel, who was having trouble keeping her face straight.

And that, basically, was all it took. There was one ghastly moment when Sir William realized that he had eaten fly-agaric and that one of the most lethal of all poisonous fungi was being absorbed by his intestine, thence to pass into his bloodstream. Sir William was in a bad way, he felt a wave of nausea building up inside him. To some extent he had good reason for thinking he had been poisoned inasmuch as Rakel had given him a very generous portion of stuffing. Granted, it had contained nothing but harmless mushrooms, but it had been laced with a substance procured from a pharmacist acquaintance of Rakel’s which made the stuffing taste a bit odd and acted as a mild, but undeniable, emetic.

Sir William rose to his feet, white as a sheet, and started to walk, to stagger towards the bathroom. ‘Is something the matter, Uncle William?’ Rakel asked. ‘Shut your mouth, Rakel, and just get out of my way or I’ll smash your face in, you bloody bitch, damn whore!’ Sir William was almost weeping with rage, but he was also scared stiff; brutishly he knocked a couple of chairs out of his way en route to the bathroom, making it abundantly plain that beneath the veneer of a modern lifestyle dominated by information and science, by expertise on Africa and oil technology, by higher education and every conceivable material advantage, that under all of this lurked primitive forces which, when given outlet, were ruthless in their ferocity.

Sir William made a dash for the bathroom, clearly nauseated, ashen-faced; and since in his haste and his desperation he forgot to shut the door behind him everyone could see him crouched under Kittelsen’s picture of Soria Moria Castle, spewing out chunks of beef and pastry and mushrooms which he happened to believe to be fly-agaric, all mixed up with red wine; some of it landing on the white tiles, some going into the pan. And even while kneeling there, or hanging over the lavatory pan, he still had the presence of mind to curse his brother’s damnable family, who had always wanted to do away with him, who weren’t even fit to tie his shoelaces and who, if he lived through this, would never see his shoes again either.

It was not the knowledge that the symptoms of fly-agaric poisoning should have made themselves felt much later which aroused Veronika’s suspicions, but the strained expression on Rakel’s and Jonas’s faces, which could be put down to triumph at having done what they set out to do, tinged with disappointment at not having succeeded in shutting up Sir William. Not even with a mouth full of vomit did he stop talking.