Jan Kjaerstad - The Seducer

We make no secret of the fact that the novel the reader now holds in his or her hand proved to be something of a headache for the judges of our major competition to find the best biographical novel. Not only was this manuscript the most topical — and by far the most controversial — of all the many manuscripts submitted, but when, after lengthy deliberation, the judges did decide to present the award to this novel and opened the envelope containing the winning name, they found that the author preferred to remain anonymous and that any eventual prize-money, and any other fees, were to be paid into a bank account in the name of a small but well-known humanitarian organization.

The question of literary merit aside, that we the publishers have had to consider whether the manuscript ought, in fact, to be published in book form, in line with the other two prize winners, was due, of course, to the extraordinary and much publicized events which form the basis for the novel — and, even more so, the grim sequel to said events of which, by the way, no mention is made in the novel. The fact that this book has been published serves, not least, as a reminder that in Britain freedom of speech is a constitutional right. Nonetheless, in an effort to forestall any unnecessary debate, we would like to point out that the publishing house’s legal advisors have gone through the manuscript, and, since a number of names which appear in this novel correspond to those of real people, copies of the manuscript have been passed to those individuals who might feel injured or offended by its content. We would like to make it clear that in every case — although for quite different and sometimes surprising reasons, to be sure — they have given their permission for this book to be published.

Although the following account is founded on biographical facts, the validity of which can be checked by anyone so minded, it is just as manifestly a novel , allowing all of the liberties and the possibilities offered by that genre. We the publishers wish to emphasize that this is, in the final analysis, a piece of fiction, the ‘truth’ of which it will be up to the reader to decide.

A brief notandum : several of the judges remarked on a certain linguistic inconsistency in the manuscript. We the publishers have not, however, made any alterations to the text, other than the correction of purely orthographical errors, not because the author is unknown but because in the case of such competitions we elect to publish the manuscripts as they stand.

Let me tell you another story. Although I do not know whether that is possible, not after all that has been written and said, but at any rate let me try. I have balked at it for long enough, I admit. I have put it off and put it off. But I have to do it. Knowing full well that this will sound unutterably provocative and appallingly high-flown, I will be straight about it: I do it not only for myself but for the whole of Norway.

I realize there are many people who believe they know everything there is to know about Jonas Wergeland, inasmuch as he has risen to heights of fame which very few, if any, Norwegians have ever come close to attaining and been subjected to so much media exposure that his person, his soul as it were, has been laid open as strikingly and in as much detail as those ingenious fold-out illustrations of the human body presented for our delectation in today’s encyclopaedias. But it is for that very reason, precisely because so many people have formed such hard-and-fast opinions about Jonas Wergeland, or Jonas Hansen Wergeland as his critics liked to call him, that it is tempting, even at this point, to say something about those sides of his character which have never come to public attention and which should serve to shed considerable new light on the man: Jonas Wergeland as the Norwegian Tuareg, Jonas Wergeland as a disciple of the Kama Sutra , as champion of the Comoro Islands and, not least, as lifesaver.

But to begin in medias res , as they say, or in what I prefer to call ‘the big white patch’, representing as it does a stretch of terrain of which Jonas Wergeland — all of his fantastic journeys notwithstanding — was totally ignorant, and which he would spend the remainder of his life endeavouring to chart.

It all started with Wergeland asking the taxi driver, who had been stealing curious, almost incredulous, glances at him in his rear-view mirror all the way into town, to stop at the shopping centre, just where Trondheimsveien crosses Bergensveien, a spot where Jonas had stood on countless occasions, contemplating the way in which all roads in the world are connected. Although he could not have said exactly why, Jonas wanted to walk the last bit of the way to the house, possibly because the light that evening was so enchanting; or because it was spring, the air smelled of spring, spring to the very marrow; or because he was glad that the plane journey was over, filled with a sense of relief at having cheated Fate yet again. Which brings me to another fact known to very few: how much Jonas Wergeland, globetrotter, hates flying.

Wergeland was returning home from the World’s Fair in Seville, but he was now making his way across ground which, for him, had every bit as much to offer as any World’s Fair, representing as it did that spot on the Earth’s crust which was closest to his heart. He strolled along, wheeling his lightweight suitcase behind him; breathing in the spring air as he let his eye wander over the climbing frame in his old kindergarten and beyond that to the stream down in the dip: the Alna, a stream up the banks of which he and Nefertiti had made countless expeditions, with Colonel Eriksen on a leash and an airgun over the shoulder, in search of its beginnings, which had long posed a mystery as great as the sources of the Nile once did. He walked past the old Tango-Thorvaldsen shoe shop, to which annual visits had had to be made: a sore trial to Jonas these, both because his mother could never make up her mind and because the shoes were always too big, agonizingly so, even after they were long worn out. It was spring, the air smelled of spring to the very marrow, and Jonas passed Wolfgang Michaelsen’s villa where he could almost hear the swooshing of the Märklin trains over the tracks of what must have been the biggest model railway in Northern Europe. Jonas strolled along, trailing his suitcase, smelling, listening, drawing the air deep down into his lungs; seeing in the twilight the coltsfoot, like tiny sparks of yellow growing along the side of the road and up the slope towards Rosenborg Woods, which they had used to call ‘Transylvania’, because they had had to cut across this bit of ground after the spine-chilling Dracula films they saw, far too young, at film shows in the People’s Palace. It was spring, the air smelled of spring, and Jonas was feeling extraordinarily fit and well, free, thanks to the air, thanks to the fact that the plane journey was over, or perhaps because straight ahead of him he had the low blocks of flats where he had grown up, or because on the other side of the road he could see his own house, popularly referred to as Villa Wergeland, sitting under the imposing granite face of Ravnkollen, in such a way that he sometimes felt protected, sometimes threatened by the very bedrock of Norway.

Jonas Wergeland turned in through the gate, trailing his suitcase. It was spring, the hillside smelled of spring, as did the air. It had that edge to it, Jonas noted: chill but bordering on the mild. He felt light, full of anticipation; he was happy, genuinely glad at heart to be home. The only thing causing him a twinge of unease was a touch of incipient nausea as if he might have eaten something dodgy on the plane.