Jan Kjærstad - The Conqueror

And what did he do then? This too he knew by instinct. He took out his knife and cut the brain out of the dragon’s head. As he did so, the body crumbled into dust, leaving only the horns behind; they looked exactly like any old set of reindeer antlers. Jonas stood with the brain in his hand, surprised by how small it was, like a black-lacquer puck with a silvery pattern shining through when he turned it to the light. It smelled sweetish, like fruit. It should come as no shock to anyone that a dragon brain is prepared in the same way as one of Norway’s national dishes. Jonas boiled up water in a pan and gently laid the brain into it, just as one would do with slices of cod, and let it steep for a little while. The sight he beheld did not really surprise him: the black-lacquer appearance of the clump gradually changed, as if the dragon’s ability to metamorphose did not stop even when it was dead. Within a few minutes its dark aspect gave way to a dull white hue, like that of a lichee inside its shell or — why not? — a pearl. Jonas lifted out the brain and placed it on a pot-lid. He saw how it gave off a faint white glow, a glow that came from within.

He sliced off a piece and ate it, just as hunters eat a piece of the lion’s heart in order to steal the animal’s strength or, in Jonas’s case: its way of thinking. How did it taste? Warm. Like when you popped a torch into your mouth as a child. He took several bites, realizing as he did so what lay stored within the dragon’s brain, what that silvery pattern denoted: light. I wouldn’t be surprised if this turned out to be as valuable as any diamond, he thought.

Jonas sat there, somewhere between the two ridges on the vast expanse of Finnmarksvidda and suddenly he saw it all so clearly: all his life he had wanted to be a conqueror. Not so that he could lord it over other people, but to find someone who could lord it over him. As he consumed the last piece, he felt himself being lit up from within. He knew that light was bound to play some part in his future and when, after his national service, he began his studies at the Institute of Astrophysics and turned all his attention to the stars, this represented his first attempt to pursue that presentiment. From a certain point of view, it still involved hunting dragons.

The trek back to Av’zi went surprisingly smoothly, he seemed to be filled with a new kind of energy or enthusiasm. It should be added that, safe back at camp, Jonas Wergeland was given a dressing-down that is still talked about today, in front of the whole company. When he did not show up on the Sunday evening, only his mate’s story prevented the launching of a wide-scale search, complete with missing person announcements on the police wavebands. No civil charges were brought against Jonas, but he was given the maximum disciplinary penalty: twenty days’ detention under guard, or in the glasshouse, as it was called. As far as Jonas was concerned it was a small price to pay. He had not merely seen the light; he had swallowed the light.

We are often fooled into believing that life progresses in a straight line. But it would be truer to say that life forms a spiral; it is full of repetition, events which all but touch, even though they are far apart in time. I’m assuming that you too have made spirals in the snow, Professor, at least as a child and that you have, therefore, experienced the fun of being able to shift, with just one short step, to an outer turn or an inner one.

The first time that Jonas Wergeland encountered the unknown Norway was on an expedition masterminded by Little Eagle, because there were times, as I mentioned earlier, when his otherwise so puny little friend could reveal unexpected sides of his character. And the fact that he normally walked one step behind, like a humble slave meant that these occasional aberrations made an even more lasting impression on Jonas.

They were playing Monopoly, a popular board game then as now, and the following story could, in a way, be regarded as a footnote to the story of Jonas Wergeland’s disastrous speculation in Tandberg shares — or vice versa. Jonas had just raked in almost all of Ørn’s money when his friend, after whooping and cheering because he’d managed to avoid the square that said ‘Go To Jail’, had seen his red plastic VW Beetle come inexorably to land on Trosterudveien’s green square — on which Jonas had four houses. And it was at that point, as he was flicking through a pile of thousand-kroner notes, that Jonas said, more to make Ørn feel better: ‘You know, there isn’t any difference in Norway now between the rich and the poor. Gerhardsen has distributed the wealth more evenly, everyone’s becoming more and more equal.’ Jonas had heard the chairman of the residents’ association say this when the men were standing around a newly planted tree, drinking brown ale on one of the communal work days.

What was Ørn’s reaction? He was angry, really offended: ‘Yeah, well, some are more equal than others, mate,’ he said, tossing his little Beetle into the box to indicate that the fun was over.

This was in the early afternoon on a lovely, if slightly chilly, May day. ‘Get your jacket,’ came the order from Ørn, this lad who was normally so meek and mild. Jonas thought the little shrimp was going to kick him out, but after a few reassuring — but, as Jonas was later to discover, mendacious — words with his mother, his chum more or less took Jonas in tow and marched off to the baker’s on Trondheimsveien, where they stocked up on provisions in the form of a bag of day-old cakes before catching a bus into town and thereafter climbing into one of the exotic carriages on the Holmenkollen line, with a sense of boarding a sweet-smelling schooner bound for undiscovered lands.

‘Where are we going?’ Jonas asked.

‘Due west,’ Ørn said.

Until now, the most daring expeditions they had made had been up the banks of the stream to find the source of the Alna — equipped with airgun and packed lunches, and usually accompanied by Colonel Eriksen the old elkhound. I should just add here that they discovered no less than three branches of the river, which they dubbed the Red, White and Blue Alna respectively. So their journeys of discovery actually had something in common, since the trip up the hillside on the rails of the Holmenkollen line would also bring them to a secret source.

‘I thought we were going to see your Dad at The Grand,’ Jonas says, a mite disappointed at the thought of the Napoleon cake that might have been.

‘No, we’re going to take a look at the cannibals who eat there,’Ørn said.

By the time they passed the sign for Slemdal station, Jonas had figured out that all this had something to do with Monopoly — Slemdal was one of the classy red properties on the board — and he felt a sudden surge of expectation when they got off at the next station, Gråkammen, and found themselves in the middle of Hemingland, the self-same district to which, in a few years’ time, Sir William, his uncle, would lay claim as if it were the most natural thing in the world, after the lucrative African campaign, masquerading as an altruistic endeavour, which he had conducted under the auspices of the Norwegian state’s foreign aid programme. But this was the first time Jonas had ever got off at Gråkammen. Burning with curiosity, he followed Ørn across the road, munching as he went on one of the rather dry cakes that the boys had been able to buy for a few øre, although it actually tasted not too bad, what with the pink icing and the thin layer of jam in the middle. They passed some fine yellow-painted villas on the right-hand side. But Ørn was making for a building at the end of the road, on the opposite side, with a garden which Jonas had first taken to be a park, due to the glimpses they caught of bronze sculptures and duck ponds, not to mention ornate pavilions. ‘Look at that,’ Ørn said, his hands on his hips. ‘That house used to belong to Ringdal the ship-owner. What do you think Einar Gerhardsen would say to that? Is that what you call more and more equal?’