Jan Kjærstad - The Conqueror

So what sort of sound does a dragon make? Like a hundred lions? Or like a peach stone scraped across a blackboard?

The voices for the play about St George presented no problems, because Jonas did them all. Jonas was a master when it came to mimicry, to putting on different voices. And after the visit to the Pentecostalists’ tent he was even more conscious of containing a whole gallery of role models within himself; it was almost as if he had been ‘possessed’ by the spirit to perform radio plays involving a host of voices.

The challenge therefore lay in the sound effects. And Jonas and Little Eagle were perfectionists. For months they had been completely taken up with this new hobby, every day after school. They could spend a week finding the right sound for their own dramatization of the ascent of Tirich Mir, based on the book by Arne Næss. At last they hit upon it: to give the listener the picture of a mountaineer digging his crampon into ice, they stuck the tip of a pocket-knife into a lump of resin. In their eyes this was an achievement on a par with the ascent itself, and they were quite sure that philosopher Arne Næss would also have applauded it, perhaps even embarked on fruitful speculations as to the link between resin and Tirich Mir — looked upon it as an incitement to climb still further in his thoughts. ‘I probably get as much pleasure from a good sound effect,’ Ørn once said, ‘as a counterfeiter gets from looking at a perfect forgery of a hundred-kroner note.’

So far nothing had had them stumped, not thunder, not lightning, not fire — they used rustling cellophane for that — not even steamy love scenes: Ørn’s simulated kiss was in the Casanova class. Ørn was also a wizard at imitating cars — right down to the different marques. They walked about with their ears on stalks; every noise was a potential sound effect for a radio play. It reached the point where they begged Ørn’s mother to let them cover the living-room walls in egg boxes to get rid of an annoying echo. And although she refused, she had to turn a blind eye to the mysterious disappearance of a whole host of things from the kitchen: a hand whisk, greaseproof paper, brushes and pans — even the vacuum cleaner. You needed more than a few measly props for a masterpiece such as In the Sultan’s Harem or Napoleon and the Battle of Austerlitz .

In the play about St George, they endeavoured to get to the forest scene as quickly as possible. This was the part where they could give their imaginations free rein. They pretended that they were inventors, freely experimenting with every conceivable, and inconceivable, device from bicycle pumps to balloons. They did not, however, use coconut shells to emulate the sound of a horse walking or galloping, Ørn reproduced this perfectly by drumming his fingertips on the coffee table. One small stroke of genius, though, was the chirping of the birds at the beginning, before things began to get creepy, which Ørn produced by rubbing a damp cork against a bottle — for a whole afternoon they amused themselves with producing the distinctive calls of various different birds, taping them and chortling delightedly at all the lifelike results. As the drama grew darker they added more wind — the radio tuned to a station that was off the air — and the rustling of leaves on swaying branches. Peas in a cardboard box sounded like a shower of rain, a couple of tin cans gave the chink of armour. Ørn was a sight to be seen, bouncing back and forth like a yoyo between his various ‘instruments’. ‘When you’re finished with this you’ll be able to get a job as the ball in a pinball machine,’ Jonas said.

The real — the nigh-on insoluble problem — was still the dragon itself. For what does a dragon say? They both tried roaring in different ways, but it sounded as silly as having a lion bark like a poodle. They tried using Ørn’s mother’s Mixmaster, they tried spray cans, they considered — talking of hissing sounds — dripping water onto the cooker hotplate, but were not allowed into the kitchen. Their best solution involved Ørn sitting with his head inside a tin pail, it sounded bloodcurdling enough and would do at a push. By shaking Ørn’s dad’s leather jacket in the air — didn’t it even reek a little of dragon? — they managed to replicate the sound of leathery wingbeats. Finally, Jonas added the crowning touch to their inventiveness by bringing along Daniel’s kerosene lamp which, when they lit it, gave the most glorious sense of fire being breathed.

After numerous dry runs, mainly to get the coordination right, they were ready for the final take. If it turned out well, they were to let the little kids hear it; with any luck they’d scare the socks off them. The introduction went like clockwork, Ørn struck the largest pot lid with a ladle, and Jonas announced in a deep, dramatic voice: ‘Grorud Radio Theatre presents’ — then left a nice pause for effect before intoning in an, if possible, even deeper voice: ‘ St George and the Fearful Dragon .’ Another clang of the pot lid. The first part also passed without a hitch, went better than ever before; Little Eagle flew back and forth between the various articles scattered around the room and on the table, screwed and scraped, wafted and rattled, he was the soul of confidence, drumming with his fingers on the tabletop and shaking boxes, ripping clothes — it all sounded quite professional.

St George draws near to the dragon’s lair, in the middle of a dark and forbidding forest; the wind howls, the leaves tremble, the air is rent by a scream: Jonas makes his voice as high-pitched as possible, a princess’s cry for help, a maiden in distress, Jonas switches to the narrator’s neutral, but no less compelling tone, tells how St George leaps off his horse, walks through dry leaves — Little Eagle rakes through strips of paper — sees the dragon come flying towards him — Ørn waves the leather jacket frantically in the air, it sounds good, it sounds really great, this is going to be such a success — the dragon lands with a thud — Ørn jumps off the sofa onto the floor, the dragon comes charging through the undergrowth — Ørn stamps orange boxes to smithereens — they had practically had to go down on their bended knees to get these particular, orange boxes, with slats of just the right thinness, from the grocer — it sounded diabolical, like an elephant, a dinosaur, or yes, a dragon approaching. ‘Now you shall die!’ Jonas cries in St George’s heroic, fearless voice, a challenge which is supposed to be followed by the dragon’s spine-chilling, stupefying fiery breath; Ørn is right on schedule with a lighter held in front of a blowlamp which has so far been used for nothing more exciting than melting Swix ski-wax, but which will now make small children turn weak at the knees; in his mind Ørn is already over by the pail that will lend resonance to the dragon’s hideous roar, but first a terrible blast of flame, the only problem is that suddenly the lighter won’t work, it only goes click, click, Ørn tries frantically, but it’s no good, click click it says, Jonas gazes at him in desperation, it had all been going so beautifully up until now, and there is something about this situation which makes Ørn laugh, to roar with laughter, to laugh in a most particular way, almost gloatingly, spitefully is perhaps the word or carelessly, because he doesn’t take this quite so seriously as Jonas; Little Eagle laughs and laughs, as if he can’t believe this is happening, laughs resignedly, in disbelief, howls with laughter, pops the tin pail over his head in an attempt to smother his mirth, but carries on laughing inside it. ‘You don’t scare me, vile dragon, foul abductor of innocent women,’ Jonas continues in St George’s voice, doing the sword-out-of-scabbard sound, wanting to see the play through to the end for the practice, if nothing else, runs a bread knife over the vacuum’s metal tube, while Little Eagle just laughs and laughs, so hard that he topples off the sofa and knocks over the table, and all his props, including the microphone, making a deafening racket, and they have to stop, switch off the tape recorder. ‘Drat it, that’s just like you, Ørn,’ Jonas fumed, ‘ruining the very end.’