Jan Kjærstad - The Conqueror

Ørn could be pretty sarcastic when he liked.

The building before them could hardly be described as a house, it was more like a fortress, only a little smaller than the block of flats in which Jonas lived, which was home to twelve families, all of them content with the space they had. This villa had been built out of natural stone and had a huge balcony extending over the front entrance, its teak balustrade seeming to speak of links with distant climes. Ørn pointed and talked, going on about the massive wall that had apparently been built in the thirties by the unemployed. Jonas couldn’t think how he knew all this. ‘It’s a lie to say that there aren’t any dukes or counts in Norway,’ he said. ‘Because there are, and this is where they live, hidden away inside their castles.’

They turned right onto the next side road, strolled down a street lined by houses which left Jonas feeling that all the people who lived up here must be ship-owners. Pennants fluttered over acres and acres of grounds, as if the flagpoles were masts on grass-covered tanker decks. Beyond the fences, statues of deer stood among blossoming fruit trees, and now and again they caught a glimpse of a servant or a chauffeur who — even now, in a Norway with a Labour government — lived in their own wing, or in the lodge. ‘Look up there,’ Ørn said, pointing to a towering redbrick mansion on the hillside, as if they were on a guided tour. ‘There’s Herlofson the shipping magnate’s humble but and ben.’

More than once in his life Jonas would be reminded of that walk around Hemingland with Ørn: when he himself was in Africa and saw Africans wandering around white residential areas, staring through heavily guarded gates at lush gardens and swimming pools fronting fabulous bungalows — this sight made him think of his tour of Oslo’s west side with Ørn, that it was the same thing, that they, Ørn and Jonas were almost like wide-eyed blacks in surroundings they found it hard to believe could exist in the same country as their own Grorud.

They carried on along the road, gaping in disbelief at gardens graced by red tennis courts, or driveways in which Mercedes-Benzes and Jaguars sat behind cast-iron gates, like rare beasts in their cages. Jonas could almost hear that dry voice on the radio: ‘Oslo stock exchange, stocks and shares, government bonds…’

‘Know where we are?’ Ørn asked, clearly looking as if he was about to play his trump card. Jonas shook his head; he hadn’t noticed any street sign.

‘Trosterudveien,’ said Ørn.

So there they were, at the source of the Monopoly board, on the self-same desirable green property on which Jonas, only a few hours earlier, had built his costly and, for Ørn, ruinous houses. The board was suddenly a reality. And there was no talk of play money here; even Jonas knew that.

Ørn cut down to the left, and a moment later they were standing outside the gates of a building that made Jonas think that there must, after all, be more than one palace in Oslo. Before them lay an enormous brick edifice, three storeys tall with a black glazed tile roof and Virginia creeper climbing picturesquely over the walls. At either end was what looked like a sort of kiosk. But the most impressive feature of all was the doorway onto the garden: four massive pillars supporting a balcony topped by a curving copper roof, and a semi-circular flight of steps leading down to the lawn and the pond with its fountain. Fifteen years later, at the College of Architecture, Jonas would discover that this wonder was the work of the famous architect Henrik Bull, who had also designed the National Theatre and the Museum of History, but even now, as a child, Jonas sensed that he was looking at something complex, which had to do with both history and the theatre. ‘Soria Moria Castle?’ he said.

‘Wilhelmsen,’ said Ørn. ‘Wilhelmsen the ship-owner’s, or rather, his widow’s, residence. Standing in ten acres of ground. That ought to do it, even in a country with Gerhardsen as prime minister.’

This made Jonas think. Not so much about the distance from here to Grorud as about that from his grandfather’s cottage, the home of one of Wilhelmsen’s employees, to this palace on Trosterudveien. Could it be, Jonas wondered, that the network of sailing routes depicted on the cardboard backing of an old calendar in his grandfather’s outdoor privy, a sight he had contemplated while answering nature’s call through all the summers of his childhood — that these lines actually ended here. In the spider’s nest, as it were.

‘So I suppose you could say there is still some small difference,’ Ørn said. ‘Everyone has more, that’s true, but only because the cake is bigger. You still have people who are poor and people who are rich.’ He took the bag that Jonas was holding, only to discover that Jonas had eaten the lot. ‘And some get nothing but the crumbs,’ he added.

‘But why?’

‘It’s all a game,’ Ørn said. ‘And some people cheat.’

The term ‘monopoly capital’, which became so popular in the seventies, had a very special connotation for Jonas. But at this particular moment he had to turn to look at Ørn, and suddenly it seemed to him that his friend was surrounded by a great aura of dignity. Or courage.

To be honest, Professor, in this case my sympathies are with Little Eagle, that Red Indian in the palefaces’ hostile territory. Maybe all those people who are feeling oh, so pleased with the way things are, and like to parade fine words about equality, should take such a walk around their own city now and again, and visit unknown corners where the very grandest residences lie hidden, where the really wealthy live behind tall hedges, as if they would prefer to keep their fortunes a secret, almost as if they feel guilty. Because it is not done to flaunt one’s wealth in Norway, a country where feudalism never took root and where any sort of disparity is still regarded with deep mistrust. And that is why, as he was walking there among these houses — or, not houses, but properties, several of them as big as the whole estate at home — it became clear to Little Eagle that he was a Norwegian. For what does it mean to be a Norwegian? To be a Norwegian is to express indignation at an unfair distribution of the assets that a society has created collectively. Ørn understood, despite his tender years and despite his precocious, didactic oversimplifications, that he was a true child of the Gerdhardsen era, and indeed of five hundred years of history in which so much emphasis had been placed on equality, an idea guarded so zealously that it would have to be described as a passion.

Jonas’s thoughts ran along very different lines: ‘You see?’ he said. ‘It’s all a matter of throwing your dice the right way.’ He felt no sense of moral outrage, nor of envy; his response was more one of wonder or excitement at having come upon a slice of unknown Norway, and one which was connected, at root level, to his own life. Their walk had, moreover, sown a vital seed: he fancied becoming an architect, designing houses, when he grew up. You could say that the idea for the Villa Wergeland, and particularly the extension in natural stone, was conceived that day on Trosterudveien.

As if reading Jonas’s mind, Ørn said: ‘I’m going to be a socialist.’

‘What’s a socialist?’ Jonas asked.

Ørn blew up the empty paper bag and hit it hard with the palm of his hand, making a loud bang.

Whether socialism was responsible or not, in the years to come a number of those vast gardens would be divided up into plots not unlike Jonas’s green squares on the Monopoly board, and houses built on them. Times change. Many of the proud names from the Monopoly board have long since lost their original ring.

While they were waiting for the tram, Jonas stood looking at Ris Church, thinking that it couldn’t be easy for a vicar in these parts to preach a sermon based on a text that says one should not lay up treasures on earth. ‘What’s that on the top of the spire?’ he asked. ‘St George?’