Jan Kjærstad - The Conqueror

In other words, it was not me personally who took the initiative for this project. I was contacted, not to say headhunted, by the publishers, to write as they put it, ‘the definitive Wergeland biography’. They assured me, in the most fulsome terms, that I was the ‘perfect’ man for such an assignment, and since the prospects of commercial gain seemed more than fair, they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse — to coin a phrase from less law-abiding circles.

That said, I cannot deny that I was tempted, that the thought had already crossed my mind. For a long time, even after everything came to light, I had felt a certain sympathy for, and possibly a distant affinity with, Jonas Wergeland. Besides which, it really got my back up to see how he was treated. Thanks to a combination of a major success and a painful divorce, I know how it feels to be hounded by sensation-hungry reporters.

I think we can safely say that the year 1992 was an annus horribilis not just for the British queen but also for Jonas Wergeland. Who does not remember the shock, the disbelief, on that spring evening when the killing of Wergeland’s wife, Magrete Boeck, was the lead item on the Evening News ? Even the newsreader looked profoundly affected, stunned almost. Like most people, I followed every news broadcast during the days that followed, feeling both fascinated and appalled. And there was plenty to hold our interest. I cannot recall ever having seen such an explosion in the media before, with extended television broadcasts and extra editions of the tabloid papers; anyone would have thought, from the headlines, that the royal palace had been blow sky-high — yes, that’s it: you’d have thought some accident had befallen the Norwegian monarchy.

Shocking news stories come and go, and some people may already have forgotten the whole thing. Allow me, very briefly, to remind you of the intriguing spreads in the newspapers, featuring faithfully rendered sketches of the crime scene, Villa Wergeland, with arrowed boxes containing descriptions of each room, not least the living room, where even the outlines of a polar-bear skin and the body of Margrete Boeck were depicted with an astonishing wealth of detail and graphic bravura. There was a welter of theories, a welter of voices all striving to understand, explain, comfort. Both friends and opponents of Jonas Wergeland, even the odd relative, made effusive statements. What everyone longed for, was positively screaming out for — not surprisingly — was some comment from Jonas Wergeland himself, seeing that it was he who had found her, he who had reported her death. It was as if they expected, more or less demanded, that he answer questions along the lines of: ‘What did you feel when you arrived home from the World’s Fair in Seville and found your wife murdered?’ Only after some days did word get out as to what had happened when the police arrived at the villa on the evening of the murder: Jonas Wergeland had broken down completely and had had to be admitted to hospital. When it became known that Norway’s top television celebrity was lying in Ullevål Hospital, practically in a state of shock, it is no empty platitude to say that an entire nation felt for him.

The police were not giving away much. They had a few vague eyewitness accounts from neighbours and some other tips, but all of it conflicting. They issued no descriptions of people whom they wished to question in connection with their enquiries, no Identikit pictures. The police were, however, operating on the theory that Jonas Wergeland’s wife had probably been taken by surprise — word leaked out that the killer or killers had battered her head against the wall before shooting her. It was rumoured that the police were pursuing a line of enquiry that led back to Margrete Boeck’s past, in another country no less. They concentrated on the murder weapon, issued pictures and descriptions of it. Then things died down. Jonas Wergeland was discharged from hospital but refused to speak to anyone. Weeks went by without any sensational developments in the case, and when there’s nothing new to report, interest tends to wane — such is the implacable law of the media.

So much for the event itself. Jonas Wergeland’s tragedy, his destiny, one might say. Because the whole sequence was not altogether unlike a Greek drama. I suppose even back then I had in mind a story in which hubris played a large part, in which dark powers were underestimated. So when the publishers approached me I jumped at the chance. I did not have to think too long before signing on the dotted line.

I decided to follow my usual procedure: one year for the groundwork, followed by another year for the actual writing. That ought to be enough, I felt, it certainly had been in the past, to produce studies of lives which, in the grand scheme of things, will surely prove to be of more consequence than Jonas Wergeland’s. I started gathering material, conducted interviews, travelled, read, sorted and sifted and wrote notes. In any case, I knew right from the start what my aim ought to be: to shed light on the mysterious creative process behind Jonas Wergeland’s television programmes. If I could understand that, I might also be able to understand this other thing. I sketched out a framework, came up with a couple of intuitive hypotheses — things seemed to be shaping up nicely.

I live, as I suppose most people know from various newspaper and magazine articles, in the Oslo suburb of Snarøya, on one of the highest points in the area. My study is in a sort of turret at the top of the house. The house itself was modelled on Fridtjof Nansen’s mansion at Polhøgda, not that far away. From my desk I can watch the planes landing and taking off at Fornebu Airport, on the south-western section of the runway, as well as the boats sailing up and down the coastline of the Nesodden peninsula. It’s an inspiring vista: it makes me feel as though I am at a junction, that I am sitting in a control tower from which I have a complete overview. At times I can almost believe that all this activity around me is generated by my writing.

This illusion was soon shattered. The first sign that the biography of Jonas Wergeland was going to be different manifested itself in a pressing need to devote an extra year to the collection of material. And when I did finally set to work up here — after, that is, having gone through the phase in which I commit key points from my notes to memory, almost letting my brain soak up all my lines of argument — I saw that none of my hypotheses held water. And what was worse: that I could not come up with any new ones.

I sat in my turret, feeling hamstrung, or rather, that I had bitten off more than I could chew, staring at the stacks of papers and books round about me, the notice boards covered in cryptic notes and maps of Cape Town and Jaipur; the best encyclopaedia on the market lay next to a commemorative history of the Grorud Ironmongers, works on everything from woodcarving and organ music to Duke Ellington and the moons of Pluto. Chapters had been studiously plotted out on index cards that were then neatly filed in boxes and ring binders in a particular order, all of it adhering to a detailed chronological framework. Drawers and filing cabinets were brimming over with cuttings, copies of articles, transcripts, photographs, letters. The place was littered with audiocassettes and videotapes containing recordings of interviews and film footage. I sat in the turret and tried to take in all of this contradictory, unrelated, bewildering data. I soon realized that it would take me years merely to read such a volume of material. How to select those details that were significant? How to build a life out of all those boxes and binders bulging with television reviews, items on local history, snippets about women friends and the unreliable recollections of old friends? And above all: how was I to link together this mass of bits and pieces? When I eventually sat down to write, determined to make a start somewhere at least, I found myself absolutely and utterly stuck, my fingers refused, quite literally, to strike the keys.