The Seducer

Quantum Leap

The area championships’ meet was being held, for once, at the Grorud sports ground and not at Jordal Stadium, and Jonas Wergeland was getting ready for his last shot at the high jump. The bar was set at a utopian 1.60 metres. Clear that, and he was area champion — against all the odds.

Jonas was far from being the best in his age group, but sometimes luck was with him. Like today. From the minute he stepped out onto the field to warm up he had been feeling in incredibly good form, as if he were on pep pills. This was confirmed in the 100 metres when he beat his personal best by half a second to take third place; it was almost unbelievable. His trainer, surprised and disconcerted, came over to congratulate him, gabbling something about new training programmes and a free place on the tour to Finland.

The event at which Jonas really excelled, though, was the high jump, as he had discovered while still a small boy, when he and Nefertiti used to play on the sports field that the big boys had made all by themselves down by the stream that ran below the Solhaug estate — a pitch which was as legendary among all the local children as any Olympic arena. This sports field was a wonder to behold, with proper goals and nets, albeit handball size, and both a long-jump pit — boards and all — and a high-jump set-up. In one corner of the field was a shed where they kept such lethal pieces of equipment as javelins, discuses and shot, and which also acted, it has to be said, as a good hiding place for more suspect items: condoms in circular yellow packs, for instance, and a girlie mag, its pages gradually yellowed by wind and weather. When it came to the high jump, there was no talk here of simply scissor-jumping ingenuously over the bar; they also used a pole and even though many a suicidal attempt at a dive-straddle jump was made none of these could compare to the breathtaking flights made by the odd few with the aid of the bamboo pole — this last exotic enough in itself to lend the field an air of being part international arena, part South Sea island. Then again, there was nothing quite like being seven or eight years old and slinging oneself six feet into the air, sky-high so it seemed, on the end of a pliant bamboo pole, to land on a not very big and not exactly soft mound, sending the sawdust flying.

But this is for real, or at least more so, and Jonas Wergeland prepares for the decisive jump, for his one big chance to become area champion. He eyes the bar, one metre and sixty centimetres above the ground; it’s high, he’s never jumped that high, but he knows what Gabriel Sand, the old actor, will come to say to him, note my choice of words, will come to say to him, because they have not yet met, but they will meet and those things which will happen are already inherent in him, carried within him even now, so he knows that Gabriel Sand is going to tell him about the wave potential of human beings, about all the things we are but which we do not exploit because they seem so hard to fathom. Jonas knows that anything is possible, even the most unlikely things, when human beings have the muscle power to leap over a house, a fact which has been proved scientifically, in other words: the potential is there.

Jonas Wergeland also had something else going for him; that spring he had met Nina H., one of the greatest track-and-field athletes in the whole of the Grorud valley, in the whole of Norway, for that matter. They had been confirmed together in Grorud Church and had come to know one another well, very well, during confirmation classes in which the vicar placed particular emphasis on the seventh commandment and all the ins and outs of sexual morality, though this of course merely added a bit of spice to what were, otherwise, pretty deadly classes and, paradoxically, titillated those young confirmation candidates more than was good for them. To begin with, before they ever spoke to one another, Jonas had noticed how Nina H. glanced in his direction more than once, especially when the vicar referred, in his dry, roundabout fashion, to the untold perils and temptations of puberty, and Jonas felt that shiver which ran slowly from the base of his spine all the way up to the back of his neck, leaving an inexplicable tingling sensation between his shoulder-blades.

Like Nina H., Jonas was a member of the athletics side of Grorud Sports Club, which moved its training activities in the spring from the gym to the sports ground across the road, and it was here, one rainy training night when only a handful had shown up, that Jonas and Nina H. found themselves the only two left in the clubhouse. Nina showed such promise and was considered so trustworthy that she had her own key to the changing rooms. Jonas had showered and was sitting naked on one of the wooden benches, digging sand out of his spikes when Nina H. walked into the boys’ changing room, wrapped only in a towel. She said not a word, maybe smiled a little smile, before going down on her knees in front of him and stroking his thighs while she gazed into his eyes. ‘Just relax,’ she said. Then she gently cupped her hand around his ‘lingam’, as Jonas would have put it, seeming almost to weigh his penis in her palm, apparently rather surprised both by its consistency and its lightness, when in fact she was enraptured, studying the lines of his penis, its shape and proportions, following the course of every vein, taking in every irregularity in such a way that Jonas understood what his Aunt Laura was getting at with her pithy assertion: a good cock is worth its weight in gold. Nina H. looked as though she had found a treasure map, the sort they used to etch into walrus tusks in olden days.

Seeing the way she stuck out her tongue just a little before putting her lips to the head of his penis, Jonas could not help thinking of their confirmation, the sight of her at the altar rail in exactly the same position, on her knees, her eyes half-closed, how lovely she had looked. She wasn’t religious, he was pretty sure about that, and yet she had an air of expectancy about her, as if she knew that this was a solemn moment, that it was right, no matter what, that it had to do with life, rites of passage, a leap marked by something symbolic; now her hands were round his hips, in a room pungent with sweat, and her lips and tongue were doing things he had never imagined possible, things for which even his sister’s anatomy lessons had in no way prepared him, and he felt his body swelling as her tongue fluttered around the ridge of his glans, how his muscles suddenly bore witness to resources of energy unknown to him, and when he came, when the semen spurted out in great warm jets over her lips, and she even opened her mouth to swallow some of it, as if it really were a blessing or at any rate a fortifying drink of some sort, he could not stop himself from thinking of how she had opened her mouth in just that way, with her tongue protruding slightly, to receive the wafer from between the vicar’s fingers; and even when his conscience instinctively started sending out blasphemy signals and quashing this comparison, he realized that this, what she was now doing to him, what she was now giving him, ought also to be seen as a sacrament, and I — even I — would be the last to object to that.

Their game did not stop there, however; they switched places as if intent on taking their confirmation classes a stage further or, better, taking up a matter they had not previously touched upon. Now it was Jonas’s turn to kneel in worship, he ran his fingers over Nina H.’s long, muscular legs, remembering that that was the first thing he had noticed about her, her thighs, showing under skin-tight jeans, because she was a runner; Jonas had even stood watching in admiration sometimes when she was practising tempo runs on the curves, contemplating her marvellous stride, the look on her face which intimated that it might not be the idea of competing which drew women to take part in athletics but the mystical element; at any rate it was an aesthetic delight to see those long legs propelling her body forward so swiftly, the very lift of the knee, the springiness, the flexing of the tendons, while at the same time he felt there was something erotic about the sight, an idea which is not so far out when you think that the Chinese, for example, when they wish to declare their love, say ‘I have seen a woman’s foot.’ Nina H. had long been a member of the distinguished 1,00 °Club, and her room at home was bedecked with silver, so I assume that most Norwegians, at least, will know exactly whose legs Jonas Wergeland was now crouched between, legs which it would later be said ought to be insured with Lloyds, and will recall her triumphs in the 100 metres hurdles, not least the race she ran and the gold medal she won at the European Championships in the mid-seventies, the most beautiful race ever run on European soil, as one ecstatic journalist described it. And now here he was, Jonas Wergeland, on his knees in a changing room redolent of countless boys and their united efforts and dreams of gold, his face pressed between those legs which would at a later date be regarded as nigh on public property and his tongue buried deep in certain far more private and unknown parts of her anatomy. The fissure between the labia majora and minora has been compared, not without some justification — at any rate if one thinks of the opening up of new possibilities — to the physicists’ fission of the atom, and Jonas truly did have a sense of something explosive inside him, an urge, an appetite, which had been totally missing from his sister’s pragmatic demonstration and which gave him the chance to try out a skill which also vouchsafed a glimpse into the heart of creation, deep-red secrets. Rakel had at least explained to them that not all women’s genitals were the same shape or size — far from it — and as far as Jonas could tell, Nina H. had, according to his own terminology, a splendid example of a gazelle yoni, as seemed only natural, considering her particular discipline; a tight vagina which clamped itself around his finger like a suckling mouth, a soft vice, as if her vagina, too, had benefited from all the training to which she had subjected her body. This was Jonas’s main impression, kneeling there between Nina H.’s perfect legs, surrounded by a scent reminiscent of damp sawdust, that this thing, this place which his tongue was exploring was, first and foremost, a muscle; or rather, not a muscle, but a source of potential energy which, if he tapped into it, would boost his own body’s performance, like a pole when you made a jump. And as if to assure himself of a share in this flood of vitality, he flicked his tongue still harder, until Nina H. raised her arms, grasped the hooks above her head, pulled herself up and hung, almost suspended in mid-air, while she came and came and came again, her athletic body writhing as if she were doing a split jump, with a smile on her face and her eyes closed, so that Jonas looking up, saw her for the first time, with her arms raised above her head and that smile of relief, as he was to see her time and again on television in later years, when she broke through the tape, almost always coming first.

So Jonas Wergeland knew it was little coincidence that he should now find himself here on the field, only a week after the occurrence in the changing-room, simply bursting with energy. It was his turn to jump. No one could have guessed that they were about to witness something quite exceptional; in Norway sensational moments in athletics tend to be very few and far between. Not that I mean to make fun of Norwegian pole-vaulting, but I need only remind you of Audun Boysen and a Norwegian record in the 800 metres which was to remain unbeaten for half a generation, and that a Norwegian is likely to win an Olympic gold in athletics only once every 40 to 50 years.

So it was not as if anyone were expecting anything, nor was Jonas himself really prepared for what was about to happen, mainly because he still favoured the scissors technique, a bit more old-fashioned than the dive-straddle but far less dangerous when you are having to land on all manner of rock-hard mats, so Jonas concentrated on his ritual — in the high jump the ritual is half the point, or half the fun, even on the sports field down by the stream at Solhaug they had performed the craziest rituals prior to jumping, and it was most important that one followed the same procedure every time, as in church, so Jonas slowly removed his track-suit, jogged back and forth, stretched a bit, checked that the bar was sitting properly, flexed, checked his start mark, did a trial run-up, gave his limbs a shake, loosening up, flexed again, did a couple of high-kicks, knowing that he was annoying the life out of the other competitors, particularly the guy who was going to win if Jonas knocked down the bar, since he had already jumped successfully at a lower height, the jammy bugger, so Jonas had to clear it, he might not even believe he could do it, but there was something about his body, an unaccountable litheness, the itch to jump. He stood still, glanced over at Grorud Church, the tall spire, retreated into himself, shutting out his surroundings, shutting out the sounds, shutting out even Nina H., who was over there by the curve in the track, leaning on the fence and watching; he knew that this was it, this was the decisive jump — no, not a jump, but a leap. Jonas took the measure of the run with his eye, several times, swore at that bar to stay put, measured the run again and again brushed back his hair, brushed back his hair once more, heard some guy sighing with exasperation and yet did not hear him, broke into a trot, took a few short strides then picked up speed, more speed, full speed, heading towards the bar from the right side, taking long strides now, knew he was looking good, knew he was looking fantastic; standing outside of himself, looking on, even while he was running, relishing the image of himself; he was on the move and standing outside of himself at one and the same time, running in an arc towards the bar, sensing that this would give him greater momentum, jumped like a tangent striking out from a semicircle and there, right there, in that tenth of a second when he came down with everything he had on his left foot — he always planted with his left foot, for the simple reason that most people planted with the right, and he was Jonas Wergeland who would take a different approach to most other people whenever he could — just as he brought that foot down, abruptly compressing himself, as a writer will do in a fine poem, he heard a cry break through his film of concentration, ‘Come on, Jonas!!’, and instinctively he turned to see who was shouting, almost losing his balance, almost going over on to his back, so that his body actually twisted and he flew over the bar left shoulder first and, as if that were not enough, he flew over the bar back first, or at least that was how it seemed to the spectators who were all set to burst out laughing, except that their laughter was nipped in the bud as they saw Jonas Wergeland jumping over, way over, 1.60 to become area champion, a feat which prompted Nina H. to call out again, exultantly, as if she were lying beside him on the pile of foam-rubber mats: ‘Fantastic, Jonas!’

Jonas was a star for a day or two, and people talked about it for weeks; shook their heads as they described how this crazy guy had jumped ‘backwards’; shook their heads, that is, until they saw the American Dick Fosbury on television during the Olympic Games in Mexico City that same summer, taking the gold in the high jump with the selfsame technique which Jonas, albeit by accident, had demonstrated on the Grorud sports ground. That Jonas Wergeland would later be described as a pioneer will come as no surprise to anyone who saw him do the Fosbury flop long before anyone else in Norway.

Jonas did not know it yet, but he was now on the track of his unique penis.

And now you are making another leap, an impossible leap in which everything gets twisted and you land involuntarily, with a stab of pain, as if you had landed wrongly, here, here in this room, thirty square metres of it and it might as well be a galaxy, in which someone is playing Johann Sebastian Bach’s celestial music on the organ, and I understand why you do not make that call, why the thought of picking up the phone simply does not enter your head, why you stand stock-still in that room with a dead wife and let the seconds pass, you even cast the occasional glance at your wristwatch, an exclusive make, a present, you think, it must have been a present, you think, and you remember, wondering as you do so from what corner of your mind the memory has surfaced, the stopwatch you were in the habit of using on the skating rink, that blissful sense of being in control, the significance of every second magnified, tenths of a second and, most important of all: the ability to stop the hand, stop time, break the circle, and you look down at your wrist-watch to find, to your surprise almost, that time continues to pass, regardless of the sight before you; you see the second hand moving forward in tiny jerks as if every second were a minuscule impossible leap, and you think that surely one of these small leaps ought also to be capable of flicking things back to the way they were, much like yanking a dislocated joint back into place, you think, or sending things off in another direction, the way the bow of the Skipper Clement abruptly altered course, you think, knowing all the time that this thing here, this body on the floor, springs from something else entirely, that time has nothing to do with cause and effect.

So there you stand, Jonas Wergeland, connoisseur of art, the bomber’s last victim, son of a mother who had seven lovers, and you notice the fireplace, notice that someone has had a fire going, Margrete often lit a fire, you think, she liked having a blaze as big as a bonfire in the grate when she was reading a book, because bonfires and stories went hand-in-hand she said, and you see that she must have been reading not that long ago, because there is a book on the coffee table in front of the sofa, and you sniff the air in the room as if the smells might actually reveal something, give you a clue, and you catch a whiff from the fireplace, a suggestion of smoke and dead embers and you detect the vaguely stuffy odour of synthetic materials, of dust on electronic equipment in use, warm plastic, and you feel so hopeless, as if this mélange of scents is telling you that you are looking here at something, a constellation of old and new, which you will never understand.

But just as you are about to resign yourself to the inevitable, it comes to you, as pain turns to perception, that it has something to do with burglars, a break-in, you think, and Margrete has surprised them, you think, how stupid can you get, you think, why couldn’t you just let them take whatever they wanted, you suddenly find yourself shouting at the dead woman, and for a few seconds you even expect an answer, an explanation, because you know how gullible Margrete is, how ingenuous, you never could fathom that naïve, trusting side of her, bordering on stupidity, you think and you picture the scene: Margrete, standing in the doorway and asking, politely no doubt, what they were up to, as if she could make the burglars see reason, you think, and you picture what happens next, aching inside, and now there she is, stone dead, on the floor in a pool of congealing blood.

You look round the room, notice the picture of Buddha, and you have to strain your eyes in the gloom simply to ascertain that nothing is missing, everything is where it should be, including the more valuable pieces, you think, the silver, stuff that would be easy to sell, so what in hell were they after, you think, what’s the most valuable thing in the house, you wonder, and in a flash you see it all: the pictures, you think, the paintings in the dining-room, four perfect gems, these days one was forever reading about such cases, stealing to order, some unknown collector, you think, some madman, with a few pieces of his own personal jigsaw puzzle missing, some loony who didn’t want to sell them, only to keep them locked away in some room, so the thieves knew what to go for, you think, your rare early paintings by famous artists and you start towards the dining-room, to confirm what you already know, feeling grief momentarily replaced by anger, but the sight on the floor pulls you up short, as if you were about to trip over a huge turtle.

Now you remember, a ripple across the smooth surface of your mind, you are an artist, you were born with a silver thread running up your spine and you have been an artist all your days; you are glad to have rediscovered your identity and you are struck by the distinctive light in the room, as dark as a Rembrandt, you think, even as you take in, afresh, the magical Nordic spring evening outside the windows, the deep-blue sky and the yellow band on the horizon which will soon be gone and you look at the little jar of coltsfoot on the table and you look at Margrete and you notice the way the light from the lone lamp lends an odd, yellowish sheen to her skin, and you see how the two small, gold earrings positively glow in the semi-darkness, and you see the red, you don’t want to see it, but you see it, the red patch, carmine red, you think, like blood, you think, and you are struck by a sensation which surprises you, shocks you almost, and yet you cannot deny it: a feeling of standing in the middle of a work of art which fills you with a sneaking sense of pleasure, one might almost say glee, in the midst of the pain, in the midst of the agony, and you recognize this as a unique and precious moment in your life, endowing you with clear-sightedness and awareness as only great art can.

You stare and stare, endeavouring to spin out this feeling, but it does not last because the music has come to an end and the cobweb, the imperfect safety net woven by the organ music, snaps, not even the biggest organ in the world can help you now and once more you find yourself, after a far too foolhardy leap, a hard fall, standing in the middle of the living room in your own home, stunned, blank, desolate, and you gaze around the room in despair, searching for some detail, like the little chunk of reddish sandstone on the bookshelf, something capable of lifting you out of all of this, taking you on an imaginary journey, you think, to Ayers Rock, Australia, you think, anywhere at all, you think, and again you glance down at the second hand, as if this were your only fixed point, the only spoke in a fragile wheel, you see the second hand suddenly transformed into a propeller, a propeller slicing into your body, cutting you up, carving you into tiny chunks that float, drift off, going their separate ways, and you have been tortured by this sensation long enough, your body is racked by convulsive sobs, and you try to think, but you cannot bear to think and so for the moment you will have to postpone a vague idea of going through to the dining-room to see how many paintings the burglars have taken.