Jan Kjaerstad - The Seducer

Then they made love, and for the first time Jonas lay on top of a woman, in the commonest of all positions, the missionary position; it just turned out that way, for one thing because she liked it best that way, enjoyed him better in that position, and he was surprised at how different it was, how close he got, how much nearer he came, how much deeper, and how he had become carried away in a totally different way, and even though it was he who had taken the lead he soon lost control, a very strange, and totally new experience for him, with the result that he barely had time to register her orgasm, which was not of the epileptic sort but quiet and powerful, with her seeming to retreat into herself, before he was overtaken by an acute, two-fold sensation both of falling and of floating upwards, so that his mind switched off, went into neutral, and for several seconds he was far away.

Only after he had come back to his senses did it occur to him that he had not thought of anything at all, nor had he had any sense of being expanded, as on earlier occasions; and while he was lying there, wondering about this, still curled up close to Margrete with the scent of her skin in his nostrils, he realized that he had become a totally different person, and this he knew, quite simply because he could tell that this was love and because love is not only an expansive, but also a transformative, force.

He turned onto his side and lay there looking at her, her face, the aura that surrounded her, and he told himself again that this was the hub: lying here, propped up on one elbow, gazing into a face with closed eyelids, that shimmer on the skin, conscious all the while of his body, every single cell, radiating peace and contentment. And as he looked at the jade turtle which she had placed on the bedside table and which seemed transparent, seemed to hover, in the half-dark, he knew that he would stay with her, that he had to stay with her, that this was enough, that there was nothing else worth striving for, he had to stay there, with her, with that living wisdom, that inexhaustible fantasy, that life-giving imagination, this had to be his goal in life, just to be there, within that force-field, talking to her, watching her bake, listening to her stories, curling up beside her, curling up close, to be next to that skin, never to let that golden sheen out of his sight. To learn to tell stories.

She opened her eyes. ‘What are you thinking?’ she said.

‘That I’m going to be one of the quiet ones in this country. That I’m going to be an architect, and build little houses that are nice to live in.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘That I don’t need to fumble in the dark any more. That I’m going to stay here and love you.’

‘It won’t be easy.’

‘I’m a great seducer,’ he said.

She smiled in the dim light. Her eyes, her face, shone. Glowed. She reached out a hand and described circles on his brow with the tip of her finger, slowly, and then, before letting her hand fall back onto the pillow, a straight line shooting out like a tangent.

In the end, however, there is no way round it, and you are bound to land here, here in this room, and you come to a stop, utterly exhausted, as if after a great battle, you think, and with a victim, you think, an innocent victim, and you crouch down next to Margrete, and you think and you think, and you look at Margrete and think long and hard, look at her again, dead on a polar-bear skin, shot by a Luger, you think, killed by people who are terrified of anything that is different, you think, not just of a story that is different, but of people, you think, and you look at the picture of Buddha, that beautiful picture of Buddha, and you look at the telephone, and at that you have to stop, even though it all comes flooding in, the memories, you think, the stories, even though more and more spokes keep being added to the wheel, and now you realize, now you know, you have known it ever since you were very young, that life can only be comprehended as a collection of stories.

You crouch there, looking at Margrete, you look at her face, and you look at that golden sheen, as from a Golden Fleece even now, you think, and you remember her ability to sleep , because, she said, sleep has a cleansing effect, everyone who sleeps cleanses the universe, she said, and you would often watch her when she was sleeping, and maybe she is sleeping now, you think, that’s how it looks, anyway, as if she were doing something sacred, you think, and again you are overcome with grief, because you are thinking not only about those wicked individuals, the people behind the Luger, you are also thinking about yourself, and you blame yourself, you are ridden with guilt, because you were not there , and you think that you deserve to die, too, and you think, you think long and hard, and you look at Margrete, and you think of soft spring rain all those years ago, and you think that it must, nonetheless, be possible to go on living, that there is hope, because where there is no longer any hope there are no stories to be told either, you think.

So you stand up, and for a fleeting moment you are seized by doubt, and you think that everything might tie up in a totally different way, that you have got it all wrong, and you start towards the telephone, and you walk the hard road to the telephone, like Hindus walking over red-hot coals, you think, and as you are walking the hard road to the telephone, ridden with guilt, I just want to say, once and for all, that I believe you, I want you to know that: I believe you. And know, Jonas Wergeland, that the one who is writing this does so in the hope that your fellow countrymen will understand but also, and perhaps more so, in order that you , when you eventually read this, will understand. And what it is that I want you to understand, only you know.

So walk those last few metres, the hard road to the telephone, thinking as you do so that it must be possible to go on living, because you are alive to the alchemy of storytelling, that even shit can be turned into gold, that even tragedy can be transformed into stories one can live on, live off, and you walk over to the telephone, you reach the telephone, you lift the receiver, and you look at the two circles of the receiver, you key in a number, like a tangent, a way out, you think, and you are afraid, you know that what is now about to happen could change everything that has happened, and you know that from now on all of this could be rearranged to form quite a different story, and you know that anything can happen from the moment you start to speak, to tell your story.

Jan Kjærstad was born in Oslo in 1953. He read theology at the University of Oslo and made his début as a writer in 1980 with a short story collection, The Earth Turns Quietly. The Seducer forms the first part of a trilogy which also includes the novels The Conqueror and The Discoverer . These novels have achieved a huge international success. Jan Kjærstad is also the author of essays, a children’s book and editor of the literary magazine Vinduet .

He was the recipient of the Nordic Prize for Literature in 2001 and was also awarded Germany’s Henrik Steffen Prize for Scandinavians who have significantly enriched Europe’s artistic and intellectual life. Other awards include the Norwegian Literary Critics Prize and the Aschehoug Prize.