The Seducer

Juggernaut

On the other hand, there were certain days in his life that Jonas Wergeland wished he could recall with less clarity, fearing as he did that they took up too much room in his memory, that they overshadowed, or blocked out, other precious memories: days so crammed with detail that as time went on they seemed to quash and eat away at other days, while at the same time swelling and growing, to abnormal proportions, like a young cuckoo. So it was with the memory of the Midsummer’s Eve celebrations at Solhaug when he was ten years old, and more particularly from the moment when the amateur jazz band laid into their instruments once more, lustier than ever, after a couple of exceptionally strong highballs at Five-Times Nilsen’s.

This last-named gentleman’s name was, in fact, simply Nilsen — if, in line with what has gone before, I may be allowed to dwell on one small detail. Nilsen worked in one of the town’s biggest gentlemen’s outfitters, but he was such a nondescript and unassuming man that people hardly took any notice of him — he could have been mistaken for a tailor’s dummy had it not been for the tape measure around his neck — but once, when the housewives of Solhaug had been lying sunbathing on the flag green, surrounded by magazines, flasks of coffee and grizzling toddlers, and it had been hinted, more out of a spirit of sympathetic solidarity really, that it must be a bit dull being married to such a quiet man, Fru Nilsen had drawn herself up, adjusted her very demure sun-top and said that she for one certainly had nothing to complain about as long as he could take her to seventh heaven five times in one night. So there. From then on he was known only as Five-Times Nilsen. Rumour had it that he also owned highball glasses decorated with ladies who were fully clad when viewed from the outside, but naked on the inside, so it was no wonder that the band, now reinforced by an accordion, was simply raring to go, launching into one sing-along after the other: ‘Kostervalsen’, ‘Ut på Nøtterø fins’, ‘Sol ute, sol inne’, ‘Bedre og bedre dag for dag’ and all the other songs about sunshine and sea and happy days, so in keeping with the spirit of this party of theirs, songs which in those days everyone knew by heart, like Christmas carols and I mean every absolutely — every verse.

Jonas wished with all his heart that he could linger, stay there on that green so vibrant with neighbours and plates of smørbrød and sing-songs, but he had to go, he knew he had to go, because Nefertiti was missing and he had to find her.

And so he walked off, trailing his heels, looking back to see Herr Moen, the chairman of the residents’ association, wearing a velveteen jacket bought on sale at Five-Times Nilsen’s shop, doing the honours of lighting the bonfire, far too early as usual, because the children just couldn’t wait, and Jonas simply had to stop and watch, hypnotized by the flames licking up over the pyramid of old furniture, once such splendid indispensable items, now nothing but a pile of old junk, and in no time the whole lot was ablaze, the fire consuming the vestiges of thrift and harder times, while folk stood there gazing as if in a trance at a Midsummer bonfire that would never be bigger or consist of more remarkable or more historic objects, a veritable museum in flames; with the climax, greeted by loud cheers, coming when the flames reached chairman Moen’s old sofa perched on the top, a sofa so hideous that chairman Moen could not think how he had managed to put up with it for so many years, but now he had a brand spanking new sofa, a corner unit angled to face the television set: all things considered he had never had it so good, he thought to himself as he stood there, feeling quite moved, with the matchbox in his hand, two highballs inside him and his face golden in the light from the bonfire. It was Midsummer’s Eve, and all Norway was united by blazing beacons, forming a bulwark around the blessings of social democracy.

Not until the draw was about to start did Jonas collect himself. Some sort of a raffle was always held on such occasions, to raise funds for one thing or another, that year it was new street lamps, not that the old ones weren’t perfectly okay, but there’s nothing that can’t be improved upon, and tickets had been sold in advance, so all that remained was for Fru Moen to call for attention everyone, please: Fru Moen, who had once given Jonas a swingeing clout round the ear for taking part in a contest with the other lads to see who could pee farthest up a wall which just happened to be right under her balcony, but who today was sporting a Farah Diba hairdo so awesome that Jonas could have forgiven her anything as she picked a colour from one hat and a number from another, with all the children’s prizes being drawn first, since it would soon be the little ones’ bedtime.

Reluctant though he was, Jonas had to tear himself away from the smells of bonfire and perfume and coffee and home baking. He sped to his entry and leapt onto his bike the way he had seen the cowboys leaping onto their horses at the Westerns they showed at Grorud cinema. Jonas took Hagelundveien, cutting through Nybygga, thinking about the knife being raffled right at that very moment, wondering whether he might win it, a dream of a knife, with a handle shaped like the head of a fish and a sheath like the body of a rainbow trout, and meanwhile Nefertiti was sitting outside the forest ranger’s little cottage, a stone’s throw or two away from Bergensveien, along with Colonel Eriksen the elk hound, and nobody could know what she was thinking, not even me, and meanwhile, up on Hukenveien, an unknown, unsuspecting driver was climbing into the cab of a Scania-Vabis LS 71 Regent, and meanwhile Jonas was pedalling up the steep hill past the corner shop, thinking about the toy revolver that was being raffled right at that very moment on the green next to the Midsummer bonfire, a new sort, an ‘Apache’ it was called, that had just come on to the market, a long, slender Colt which, although he could not have said why, easily knocked all his other toys into a cocked hat, so that suddenly they were no fun to play with, they seemed so babyish, the heads of Indian chiefs stamped into plastic handles, imitation mother-of-pearl, while this was black and gleaming and relentlessly authentic, with just one silver star right in the centre, and meanwhile Nefertiti was sitting outside the forest ranger’s little cottage on the edge of the forest, under the sheer face of Ravnkollen, scratching Colonel Eriksen’s thick coat, and no one could know what she was thinking, not even me, and meanwhile an unknown driver was starting the six-cylinder diesel engine of his Scania-Vabis Regent, with its terrible 150 horse power, and meanwhile Jonas had cycled as far as Trondheimsveien, thinking about the Matchbox car that was being raffled right at that very moment, a miraculous copy in miniature of a Cadillac, with tail fins and a caravan with a door that could open, a toy that could transform any place on Earth into a little bit of California, and meanwhile Nefertiti was getting to her feet and saying goodbye to Colonel Eriksen, and the dog stood there with his tongue lolling, feeling uneasy as if it had caught wind of an elk, and no one could know what she was thinking, not even me, and meanwhile an unknown driver was setting out along Hukenveien in his seventeen-ton Scania-Vabis, and meanwhile Jonas was wheeling round the junction with Trondheimsveien, thinking about the Lego set that was being raffled right at that very moment, a fire station with two fantastic towers and loads of see-through bricks and garage doors that flipped up, as well as a leaflet giving step-by-step instructions for how to build it, the sort of intricate challenge that was just crying out for him to get his hands on it, and meanwhile Nefertiti was climbing on to her Diamant three-speed and pedalling slowly up Bergensveien, one hand holding her chromatic mouth organ to her lips, and no one could know what she was thinking, not even me, and meanwhile the unknown driver was easing up on the pneumatic brakes of his Scania-Vabis Regent and letting his seventeen-ton truck coast down the top end of Bergensveien, because there was no one on the road.

Is this the most crucial story in Jonas Wergeland’s life?

Are there some stories that are more crucial than others?

As Jonas turned into the straight stretch on Bergensveien, almost on a level with Tango-Thorvaldsen’s shoe shop, he saw Nefertiti, her plaits dangling down beneath her cap, the back of her white blouse, way up ahead, almost at the spot where she would veer left across the road to turn into the Solhaug estate, just before the exit from the bend, at the point where Bergensveien disappeared behind the hill, where all manner of awful things could be hiding, and Jonas shouted as loud as he could, but Nefertiti did not hear, she cycled on, as if in her sleep, playing her mouth organ, and all of a sudden Jonas realized he was shivering, even though it was a warm evening, and he knew that something was about to happen, he had known it from the minute she gave him her crystal prism, the one he had in his pocket, the one he would carry with him wherever he went for years and years, but right at that moment it was of no use; he shouted, he yelled, but she made no response, and suddenly Jonas knew that he would not win the knife or the gun or the car or the fire station, that instead he was going to lose something indispensable that day, that the Lego world of his childhood was about to be brutally smashed to pieces, so he cycled like a soul possessed, close to tears, as if he could still prevent it from happening, but it was as if his wheels were spinning in mid-air, he was not closing on her and by now Nefertiti had reached the crossroads and Jonas could actually feel the ground shaking, as though a minor earthquake was about to hit, and he called out, screaming her name, but she did not hear, she had one hand on the handlebars, the mouth organ in the other; Jonas strained to hear what it was she was playing, as if this were the key, to a riddle that he had to solve in order to avert disaster, but he caught only snatches of a stanza, and just then he saw the truck rounding the bend, a mighty diesel roar, a horror on six wheels, just as she started across the road, from right to left, slowly, so interminably slowly, and then, now, she turned, to face him, not the truck, as if only now had his shouts got through to her, and she looked at him, he was fifty metres away from her, but he saw her eyes quite clearly, blue as the sky on the lightest day of the year, with the longest eyelashes in the world.

Nefertiti did not only turn as she was crossing the road, she also braked just as the truck came into view, going way too fast, almost as if it were attacking, as if it had been there all their lives, ready and waiting, not to materialize until then, letting off an almighty fart as the driver eased up on the brakes coming out of the bend and, for reasons Jonas would never understand, he had a picture of the truck as a gigantic bull elk with its antlers lowered, a creature that nothing, not even a silver bullet, could stop, and he saw the truck, or rather, he did not see the truck, all he saw was the Michelin man on the roof of the cab, or rather, not just one, but two Michelin men, and he saw the indicator lights on the sides, the pale-grey cab with its red radiator trim, armoured with engine covers that opened out like butterfly wings. Pin-ups stuck onto cardboard on the radiator grille, the two extra lights on the bumper, the indicator rods, the huge wheels, above all else the enormous wheels; for a second the whole colossal truck seemed to be nothing but six gigantic wheels bowling towards one fragile girl; not only did Jonas see that, clear as crystal, he also saw the old, white wooden house on the right-hand side of the road, and behind it the vast granite face of Ravnkollen where they sometimes lay with torches in the autumn, signalling with flashes of red and green when cars were coming; and to the left of the road he saw the gable end of the nearest block of flats, and the window of Fru Sivertsen’s flat, which he had once smashed during a fierce rock fight, and beyond it, Egiltomta, with its little cliff and their favourite ledge, right next to the tiny pine tree that stuck straight out of the cliff face, with roots that could transform rock to water; all of this ran through his mind and he saw it all, clearly, with exaggerated clarity, as if the actual reality of the moment of impact had been carved up and laid out before him in all its individual parts, like being presented with a huge spread and allowed to take his pick, but more than anything else it was the tiny conifer straight out of the mountain of his childhood he remembered, clung to, because he had already seen it once before, there too in a situation where life was moving too fast or, if one prefers a more conventional scenario: a little conifer that he would see again, later, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, halfway up a basalt cliff during a heart-stopping trip down the rapids of the Zambezi, in the heart of darkest Africa.

The very second before the truck hit the bike and Nefertiti’s soft body at a speed of fifty kilometres per hour, the unknown driver instinctively tried to avert the accident by ramming on the brakes and laying on the horn. At the sound of this deep, resounding note, like the amplified blare of a tuba, Jonas saw the Scania-Vabis shift shape, first to an organ on wheels, then to a ship, a vessel the size of the Danish ferry, its bow surging straight for you, and as the seventeen-ton truck hit a girl with a cap and plaits and the longest eyelashes in the world, Jonas saw — or at least he would swear later that he had seen — a multi-coloured light flashing and rippling back and forth between all the lights on the lorry and the Michelin men on the cab roof covering their eyes and the pin-up girls on the grille kicking their legs, while the whole cab was surrounded by a blinding orange light.

When the truck hit Nefertiti she still had the mouth organ to her lips, and her last breath was forced through the instrument before it soared aloft like a silver bird in a different direction from and further than Nefertiti, who was tossed high into the air, shot out almost, like a human cannonball, one of those foreign circus acts that they had tried to emulate up in the loft, with the aid of an old mattress; Jonas saw it all from the seat of his bike, endeavoured to follow both those arcs, the mouth organ’s and Nefertiti’s, and he could see that the mouth organ was going to land right next to the little stream just down from the road, where they had once gazed in fascination at dry ice bubbling on the bottom, and he knew, even as his eyes were following Nefertiti’s course through the air, that he would pick it up and keep it for the rest of his life, safe in the knowledge that by blowing through that filter he would be able to survive even in a gas chamber of lies, and he was still following Nefertiti’s course through the air and he knew she was already dead, and he thought to himself, before she hit the ground, that this was not the end, even though it was the end, that it would never end, not when it came to Nefertiti anyway, just like that expedition to Rakkestad and inner Østfold when, after saying goodbye to Nefertiti’s long-lost aunt, and with their heads reeling with all that they had seen and done, they had almost reached the railway station when they suddenly saw a van swing past, a van bearing a logo they knew better than any other: the jolly Eskimo girl, the Diplom ice cream girl, and because she seemed to be waving to them, they followed her until they came to two red-brick buildings with a sign over the door that read: Østfoldmeierienes fabrikk A/L — Ostfold Dairies Ltd — and just then a man in a white coat came out and asked them if they would like to take a look inside, and he led them into a hall that smelled of vanilla and chocolate and strawberry, as well as praline, made from almonds roasted with sugar on huge frying pans in one corner; they could not believe it, but there they were, right inside an ice cream factory, surrounded by ladies in white overalls and white caps, all busy making Pin-up lollies, Pin-ups of all things, heaven knows how many Pin-up ice-lollies they had consumed in their time. Of course, the production process was very different from today, so there the ladies stood, filling trays of moulds with ice cream from the ice cream chiller by hand, after which the trays were passed through a bath of brine, in which the sticks were stuck into the lollies while they froze solid, then they were lifted out again at a point where different ladies took them two at a time, one in each hand, and dipped them in chocolate; Jonas and Nefertiti blinked, hardly able to believe their eyes, the absence of whirling machinery and conveyer belts did not make it any less magical, but more so, in that they could watch every part of the process at once, a bit like being in Father Christmas’s workshop, and Jonas felt as if he were standing at the end of a chain of cause and effect, at the source of something. When they returned from Rakkestad naturally no one would believe them, just as great discoverers are seldom believed, especially when they claim to have been inside the castle of Soria Moria itself, but they had brought back proof, a treasure; their good fairy in the white coat had given them samples of a brand-new make of ice cream, carefully packed in a cardboard box with dry ice wrapped in newspaper: it was called a Combi Ice, and it consisted of a transparent, plastic tub containing vanilla ice cream with a strawberry topping, with a coloured lid that you could remove and fix onto the base of the tub like a stem, making a little goblet, a wonder of wonders, a grail that Jonas and Nefertiti showed off triumphantly, together with the dry ice, which they threw into the stream and which only served to underline the magical nature of the entire episode with its smoke and mysterious bubbling.

For a long time after that, Jonas was convinced that life was an adventure, one that would go on forever, behind one adventure another one would always be lurking, but could that be true here, too, he thought, as a girl with the longest eyelashes in the world and a head as fragile as terracotta, flew through the air, already dead, and hit the tarmac at his feet with a horrid soft thud, while the last note from the mouth organ hung over the landscape, hung on and on, seeming to take up residence in the granite face of Ravnkollen, and Jonas stood there, unable to tear his eyes away from Nefertiti’s bike, lying in the ditch with the front wheel spinning round and round.

The unknown driver was climbing out of his cab, and people were running down the road from Solhaug. But before anyone could reach them, before he himself collapsed in a fit of anguished weeping, on the longest, lightest day of the year Jonas walked over to the girl lying lifeless, seemingly without a scratch, on the tarmac before him, only a few drops of blood trickling from her ear to betray that something fatal had occurred. Jonas bent down, wanting to remember her face, to stick it up in the place of honour in his memory, and as he did so he saw a tiny beetle crawl out of the pocket of her white blouse, across her heart; a beetle with red wings, he thought to himself, making one last effort before total and utter collapse, before the beetle flew off.