The Conqueror

~ ~ ~

I — yes I, the professor — feel compelled to interrupt here. I feel a powerful need to apologize for what I would call the form of the preceding pages, which is not at all like anything else I’ve ever written. I have weighed up the pros and cons, I have tried every alternative and still, believe me when I say: this is the best solution. For all concerned.

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.

I was at my wit’s end. I sat in a room packed with information. Around me loomed all sorts of fancy equipment: fax machines, photocopiers, video players, printers and, not least, computers, providing access to diverse networks — what I lacked, though, was the mental software necessary in order for the combination of data and hardware to produce some result. What should I include and what should I leave out? I could write a score of pages simply on Jonas Wergeland’s penchant for tweed jackets. At one point I felt tempted to do more research, take a trip to Tokyo, for example, see whether I could discover any clues to what had actually happened there — maybe that would break the block, endow me with a flash of crystal-clear insight — but I knew I would only be running away, putting things off. I could not afford to shilly-shally like this. The publishers were on my back. The press had got wind of the project, and the biography was already being described as a really juicy exposé. Everyone was waiting.

I had been suffering for some weeks from this attack of writer’s block when help arrived. It was a Sunday evening, with a thick fog outside. I had just lit a fire, wondering, as I did so, at an unusual and fierce burst of dog barking, when the doorbell rang. This marked the start of the strangest week of my life. On the doorstep, seeming almost to have materialized out of the fog, stood an enigmatic individual swathed in a black cloak, a figure that conveyed an instant sense of authority and dignity. ‘I have come to your rescue, Professor,’ this person announced bluntly and walked straight in before I could say a word. ‘I assume your study is up in the turret.’ The figure proceeded resolutely up the spiral staircase. I had no choice but to follow.

After removing the cloak with a flourish that put me in mind of a bullfighter, the stranger promptly sat down in the best chair in the study and ran an eye over all the clutter, all of that ridiculous, and so far useless, equipment. ‘Could I ask you, please, to dim the lights?’ this person said, almost as if disgusted by the shambolic scene, by the desk buried under papers and books — this sea of details, so impenetrable that I referred to it as ‘my dark sources’. I could see that the stranger was impatient, that this person, no matter how odd it may sound, gave the impression of having eaten too much, of being full to bursting. ‘I know you are working on a biography of Jonas Wergeland,’ the stranger said. ‘I also know that you have got bogged down. So I am going to help you. I am used to chaos.’ This person pulled the chair closer to the fire. ‘I am not blessed with omniscience — but I know a great deal. I hold, among other things, the key to the riddle of Jonas Wergeland. Or, not to beat about the bush, I carry, if I may make so bold as to say, the whole of his story in my head.’ It may have been because I was confused, but I thought I detected a slight accent, as if Norwegian was not my visitor’s mother tongue.

‘That is why I have come to you, Professor. You see, I cannot write, only recount.’

‘Why are you doing this?’ was the first thing I managed to say.

‘Out of pity,’ my visitor said. ‘Sheer pity.’

I was not sure whether the stranger was thinking of me or of Jonas Wergeland. ‘And your purpose?’ I asked, putting the same question in another way.

‘To save a life. Otherwise there would be no point.’

I still couldn’t tell whether the stranger was referring to Jonas Wergeland or myself. And it took some time for it to dawn on me that this person was actually offering me a job as chronicler of Jonas Wergeland’s story — on two conditions: that I undertook not to deviate from the order in which the story was recounted and that I wrote it by hand.

‘Can’t I use a tape recorder?’ I said.

‘No,’ the visitor replied. ‘I’m old-fashioned. I belong, so to speak, to another age. I do not wish to talk into a machine. I wish to talk to a face, I must have a person — call it a scribe if you like — to whom I can tell the story. I don’t trust machines.’

‘I just thought it might be handy to have the tape as backup,’ I said. ‘In case I missed anything.’

‘You don’t understand,’ the stranger said. ‘That’s the very possibility I mean to deny you. I said I would help you, not write the book for you. I don’t expect you to quote me word for word. I’m not looking for a copy. I want you to interpret what I say as you write. The stories will not be as I tell them but as you perceive them. If you do not get it exactly right, if you have to rely on your memory, then all to the good. And you are, of course, free to add things gleaned from your own material to improve upon it.’

I accepted. I had to accept if the publishers were ever to get their biography. At the back of my mind I thanked my stars for the fact that I had once, in a previous career, been ambitious enough to learn shorthand, had attended a course run by the Norwegian parliament, no less. Although for a long time I could not be sure, I have come to the conclusion that my visitor must have been aware that I was proficient — or at any rate moderately proficient — in this rare skill.

‘Well, we might as well get started right away,’ the stranger said, as if in the habit of giving orders. ‘Hurry up, I have the entire sequence worked out in my head, and mark my words, Professor, in this case the sequence is crucial; only by following it can you hope to understand anything at all. So please do not distract me; just one story out of place and it all falls apart.’

These words, the way they were uttered — with a kind of, how shall I put it, pent-up aggression — gave me the feeling that the stranger had something against Jonas Wergeland, almost hated him, in fact. The figure kept a close eye on me from the chair by the fire as I fetched my spiral-bound notebook and a pen, staring at me as intently as a juggler with twenty balls in the air. Then the stream of stories began, and though during the course of their telling I still felt an urge to cry out, to protest, to pose questions, to ask their narrator to stop, I managed to refrain, to confine myself to taking notes, tried to get down as much as possible. I’m sure I hardly need add that this was the longest and most arduous single bout of writing I had ever undertaken.

Nonetheless, it was a relief to sit there with a blank sheet of paper in front of me, to have the chance, in a way, to start from scratch again. The results of that first evening, of our joint efforts, can be read on the preceding pages. And I believe the stranger was right: there was something about being forced to write, almost without thinking, as my visitor talked, that had a fruitful effect, so much so that I even managed, during short pauses, to jot down brief notes that I could enlarge upon later, points I suddenly recalled from my own research. The stranger created the necessary distance, enabling me to discern things from fresh angles, in a new light. Besides which, I liked the constant use of my title: ‘Professor’ — no one has called me that in fifteen years — as if my unknown visitor was, above all, well aware of my past. This gave me the confidence, at a later stage when I was transcribing my notes, to rework the text, sometimes quite drastically, on the basis of data from my own sources. Sometimes, when I read through the stories I found myself wondering whether this was what my visitor had said. Or whether, in the writing, even in those passages where I believe I have copied down the stranger’s exact words, somehow or other the story has gone from being half-true to being half-false.

The second evening on which the stranger sat down in the chair by the fireplace, rather like a general commandeering my house, this enigmatic character started without any preamble — and with eyes riveted, so it seemed, on the darkness, if not, that is, on the tall pine tree outside the window overlooking the fjord — on a story that was totally new to me.