Just as well he doesn’t expect an answer.
‘You must admit,’ he explains, unprompted by me, ‘that tectonics is the branch of geology par excellence with scope for mental constructs of genius. Is there anything more challenging than drawing inferences about the interior structure of the Alps or the composition of the Scandinavian Shield from a handful of observations and measurements?’
We have not reached the bottom of the stairs, but he halts anyway.
‘In a place like Holland you never have solid rock underfoot! When you arrive in Holland what is the first thing you see? The control tower at the airport with a sign saying: Aerodrome level thirteen feet below sea level. What a welcome!’
Laughing, he completes his descent, but once more pauses in the hall.
‘You would think the floods of 1953 had taught them a lesson. Other people would have left, they would have moved beyond the reach of the sea! But not the Dutch! Where could they go, anyway?
‘Sir, I will say this: if an entire population specialises itself, generation upon generation, in surviving in a country that is strictly speaking the domain of fish, then those people will end up inventing a special philosophy of their own, in which the human dimension is totally lacking! A philosophy based exclusively on self-preservation. A world view that amounts to keeping dry and making sure there’s nothing fishy going on! How can such a philosophy be universally valid? Where does that leave the big questions?’
Interjections come to mind: what good did universally valid philosophies ever do anyone? What are the big questions anyway? Isn’t survival a big question in a world fraught with danger? But the prospect of having to say all this in German is too daunting,
The clock in the vestibule indicates five past midday and the porter is nowhere to be seen.
Nummedal goes over to the reception desk, rests his hand on the top and sidles towards a cupboard, which he opens.
He takes out a walking stick and a hat. The stick is white with a red band beneath the handle.
Blind boss of a blind porter.
3
Out in the street I feel like a dutiful grandson accompanying his half-blind grandfather on a stroll because it’s such a sunny day.
But it is he who draws me to the restaurant.
It’s a large, posh restaurant. Or was. Now there are pink plastic chairs and small tables without tablecloths. The walls are panelled with hardboard in pastel shades, teak-finish chipboard and formica with perforations.
There are no waiters to be seen, just girls collecting dirty dishes.
Background music: ‘Skating in Central Park’ from the Modern Jazz Quartet.
I steer Nummedal carefully between the tables and chairs to the long counter.
I take two teakwood trays and place them end to end on the nickel-plated bars along the front of the counter. Nummedal is by my side, his white stick hanging on his arm. The stick swings in front of my face with each wave of Nummedal’s arm to attract the attention of the staff behind the counter. A whole row of scrubbed blondes wearing green linen tiaras.
Nummedal and I are in a queue of hungry customers, all of whom slide their teak trays along as they load them with dishes from the counter. But Nummedal is so agitated that he forgets to move on, causing a pile-up behind him. He makes a baying sound from time to time. Frøken!
Frøken!
Not one Frøken takes any notice. The Frøkens are busy replenishing the servings on the counter. Frøken hors d’oeuvre pretends not to hear, Frøken bread rolls ditto, Frøken soup isn’t listening, nor is Frøken meats.
What does Nummedal want, anyway?
Why does he need assistance? Why can’t he take his pick from what’s available? And if he can’t see properly, why doesn’t he tell me what to get for him?
My poor senile grandfather making a fuss over nothing. Nummedal … his name reminds me of the old Dutch word for ‘nothing’. Could that be what his name means?
Now and then I give his tray a nudge with the side of mine. We are reaching the desserts and still haven’t picked anything to eat. We’ll have to go back to the end of the queue if we’re not careful, and shuffle past the counter all over again. I haven’t dared to put anything on my tray, not even a glass, knife, fork or paper napkin.
At one point Nummedal refuses to budge at all, causing a gap in the line. Shall I help myself to a portion of pineapple and whipped cream, just for something to do? The people ahead of Nummedal have already gone past the cash register. I look round anxiously in case we’re causing a disturbance among the hungry patrons. No lamentations from them, not even a sigh. Dapper Vikings! Noble race of unhurried giants! Nummedal is still baying.
I can now make out a second word: gravlachs!
*
The girl in charge of the pineapple and whipped cream has heard it too. She leans forward to Nummedal, shakes her head, draws herself up again and calls back to the girls we have already gone past.
The word has also been heard on the customer side of the counter. Everyone starts looking for gravlachs. They’re still in the throes of selecting, inspecting and sniffing when the word gravlachs returns to the whipped-cream Frøken after passing from tiara to tiara. It is now presented in the negative.
Nummedal exclaims loudly, thankful that his question has been understood, apologetic about placing an impossible order.
‘No gravlachs in this place!’ he declares in English.
‘I understand. It’s not important.’
Next he apologises for not having spoken to me in German, and repeats: ‘Kein gravlachs hier!’
‘Ich verstehe, ich verstehe,’ I say.
Quickly I seize a bowl of pudding and set it on my tray. Arriving at the cash register I see mugs of hot coffee. Nummedal has left his tray behind, he has taken the coffees and is now paying for both of us, without checking his change.
A man leaves the queue and approaches me. His head is square and his spectacles are perfectly round. He points to the furled geological map tucked under my arm. He smiles and makes a little bow.
‘I understand you are a stranger here … This is a very bad restaurant, you know, where they don’t have gravlachs. In Oslo one can never find what a foreign visitor wants! I am ashamed of my native city. You must be accustomed to so much better in London. But you have a map, I see? Is it of the city? May I take a look?’
Balancing the tray on my left hand, I reach for the map with my right and pass it to him. He’s going to have to wait in line again, just because he wanted to help.
He unrolls the map.
‘There is only one restaurant where you can get gravlachs. I will point it out to you.’
‘Won’t that be too difficult on this map?’
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him it’s a geological survey. What will he think when he sees all that red, green and yellow, with the city itself no bigger than a potato sliced in half?
His finger is poised to trace the direction. The map springs back, I want to be of assistance, the tray balancing on my hand teeters.
It teeters in his direction. The coffee spills over him in a tidal wave, the pudding clings in evil little clots to his suit, the bowl shatters on the floor, but I manage to keep the tray from falling. He holds the map aloft with outstretched arms. I look round to see where Nummedal has got to. He’s seated at one of the tables, stirring his coffee.
‘No harm done! No harm done!’ cries the man who wanted to help, waving the bone-dry, unsullied map.
I take the map from him. Pushing me out of the way, two waitresses set about wiping him down with a sponge and a towel.
More helpful Norwegians gather round.
One of them has fetched a pudding for me, another coffee, and a third brings a salad with pinkish slivers of fish.
‘Lachs, lachs!’ he singsongs. ‘Lachs, lachs! But no gravlachs! Too bad!’
I ask how much I owe them, looking from one to the next, get no reply. I try again, but stammer so badly that their pity on
ly increases. Can’t speak a single foreign language, they reckon. Came all the way from God knows where to eat gravlachs.
Hoping and praying they won’t come after me, I turn my back on them and take the loaded tray to the table occupied by Nummedal.
A Frøken kneels on the floor to mop up the spilled pudding.
Nummedal says: ‘Haben Sie die Karte?
I spread the map on the table, taking deep breaths in anticipation of the next ordeal.
Nummedal pushes his spectacles up on his forehead, fumbles under his clothes and draws out a magnifying glass on the end of a black cord. He holds the glass just above the map, as though searching for a flea. He cranes his neck as far as it will go. His head looks ready to come loose and roll over the table. Muttering, he slides the magnifying glass with one hand while trying to point with the other. The map curls up maddeningly. I make myself useful by securing the corners with the ashtray, one of the mugs and my two dishes. But I’m not listening.
Had I been taught by private tutors all my life, I would be illiterate today. Never have I been able to concentrate when people start explaining things to me on a one-to-one basis.
Ever seen the heart of an animal cut open while still alive? The malevolent pulsating within the splayed monstrosity?
That’s how it is for me when I have to listen to someone explaining something – a sense of time being pumped through empty space. Almost suffocating, I gasp: Yes, yes. Sitting still is an enormous effort, as exhausting as a three-day hike.
*
Nummedal is showering me with information I didn’t ask for. I need his aerial photographs, not his vanity. Beads of sweat trickle down my breastbone, which begins to itch; my eyes goggle out of my head. I see and hear all, but don’t register.
May queens appear behind the counter wearing burning candles in their hair.
With open-heart cleavage, the Frøken mops up the mess I made on the floor. Her honey hills, her beehives.
I curl my lips away from my teeth and slowly open and close my jaws.
Nummedal has found some detail on the map which he considers of paramount importance to me.
He puts down his magnifying glass, takes off his spectacles, pulls a white handkerchief from his trousers and begins to polish each of the four lenses in turn. In the meantime he preambles:
‘In fact the Oslo district extends from Langsundsfjord in the south, which you can’t see here, up to Lake Mjøsa in the north …
‘Tectonics …
‘Deposit of the Lower Palaeozoic … Drammen … Caledonides … Archean substratum … two synclinals … litho-tectonic structure … shale …’
I make noises, bend over the map so closely that I can distinguish neither dots nor lines, say:
‘Yes, yes!’
And exclaim:
‘Of course!’
But I’m close to exploding with despair at not even catching enough of Nummedal’s exposé to be able, later on, when he points everything out to me in the field, to tell him how right he is.
Then at least he might form a more favourable impression of me than of my mentor Sibbelee … and give me the aerial photographs, which is all I want from him.
‘Are you really going to show me all that? Won’t it be too much trouble?’
‘Being in Oslo and not even taking a look around the Oslo district! Out of the question.’
‘I am very grateful for your …’
‘Ja ja, schön! That is what all you young people say! Shall we go now? I have finished my coffee.’
But I haven’t. Out of feigned respect I haven’t touched my food. I stuff my mouth full of salmon and pass Nummedal his white stick. He walks off, unsurprisingly leaving the map behind for me to carry.
At the exit the man who wanted to help comes up to me again.
‘Gravlachs!’ he cries. ‘There is only one restaurant where you can get it, but it is closed in June. No gravlachs in the whole city! I do apologise. You are not used to this in London. Or are you from New York? This is typically Norwegian! They never get anything right here! This would never have happened in Paris. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. No alcohol in restaurants. No striptease either! Good luck to you, sir!’
4
The asphalt rises and falls. There are few cars about and the pavements of Oslo are lined with grassy ramps.
A white, columned palace in the distance where the king resides.
Down a flight of steps. Underground station. Electric train.
One of the oldest electric railways in the world, supposedly, with carriages made of vertical oak planks, varnished and meticulously secured with brass screws.
Nummedal and I sit facing each other at a small window. The tunnel is quite short, and soon we are riding in the open. The track is carved out of rock. The train gives a high-pitched hum in the bends as it snakes upwards.
The city lies below.
Nummedal has stopped talking, and I rack my brains for something to say.
Everything that comes to mind is unspeakable: … how is it possible that you, all of eighty-four years old, can still be lording it over a university lab … what a diehard you must be … entitled to your pension for at least ten years if not twenty … assuming the retirement age in Norway is sixty-five, although it might be sixty given that the socialists have been in power for such a long time … but he chose to remain at his post, loyal and irreplaceable … rules have no doubt been bent to make this possible … the incomparable Nummedal! … I wonder how long he has been practically blind? … Honorary doctorates in Ireland, Kentucky, New Zealand, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Tilburg. Praiseworthy, indefatigable in old age … enviably so … or such a harridan of a wife at home that heaven and earth must be moved to spare him the blessings of otium cum dignitate in her company … or else some sourpuss housekeeper …
I consider his clothing … old, but neat. Old people wear out faster than their clothes. Why is that? He has on a type of ankle-boots you’d be hard pressed to find in the shops nowadays. Sturdily re-soled. A fastidious type.
I reckon he designed his glasses himself. Had them made in the instrument workshop of the university, of course. I feel a sudden rush of pity … I’d like to say to him with tears in my eyes: Listen here, Nummedal, Ørnulf. I know what you think, but you’re mistaken. There is no hereafter presided over by some little old man even older than you, with all the honorary doctorates and all the same principles, albeit on a more exalted level. Once you take the big step into the utter darkness that might fall any moment – a stroke, for instance, causing a flash flood in your decrepit brain – there won’t be a little old man saying: Hello, Ørnulf, it has been my pleasure to see how you got on over the years, how you stuck to the university instead of taking things easy at home, how you received a pre-announced visitor from abroad with a mixture of arrogance, irony and bonhomie. And how you took him to the mountains to show him you’re not past it yet, so he can tell the folks back home: Nummedal’s still going strong. Tough as old boots. Could still teach every young man a thing or two!
He swings one leg over the other. His liver-spotted hands rest on the handle of his white stick, swaying from side to side with the cadence of the train.
‘Judging by the time,’ the geologist-cum-Adenauer-lookalike says, ‘we should soon be going past an area where the Silurian is clearly exposed. Keep your eyes peeled. You can’t miss it if you’ re careful. Look, over there.’
He points to the wooden slats between the windows, but I can distinguish the Silurian rock anyway.
My thoughts begin to drift again. What do I want? I want him to give me the aerial photographs … How am I to get through to this very old man, who’s long past caring what anyone might have to say and who feels no compunction at putting people in an impossible position, assuming he still knows what he’s doing?
Perhaps it’s Sibbelee who is most to blame. Sibbelee should have presented my case differently. Should have said … well, what? He should have asked for the photographs to be sent to
Holland! But Sibbelee was not to know precisely which aerial photographs exist of the terrain I am planning to write my thesis on. Besides, wasn’t it a mark of courtesy on my part to collect them in person?
Suddenly it hits me where I went wrong!
I should have fallen to my knees upon entering Nummedal’s study. Humble, but eloquent! Help me, I should have cried, sate me with knowledge! I shall write ten scientific articles and make sure your name occurs a hundred times in each! I shall mention your name in everything I publish to the end of my days, even if the subject has nothing whatsoever to do with you or your invaluable research. I have friends on advisory committees for honours lists … honorary doctorates … obituaries …
Obituaries??
But it’s too late now anyway … I have let the perfect opportunity for attack pass, and now I am under siege. Cowering on the defensive, stuck fast like a warped axle in a damaged hub.
In a fix I can’t squirm out of.
5
Nummedal is an excellent walker.
Out here, in the bright sunshine, his eyesight seems a lot better, too.
We climb higher and higher, and Nummedal takes every available short cut between hairpin bends, striking up footpaths sloping at close on thirty degrees. His pace is steady, his breathing unlaboured, and he holds forth on geological subjects as he climbs.
At appropriate moments I respond with affirmative grunts. I can tell from his intonation when is a good time to come out with an ‘of course’, ‘quite so’, ‘of course not’, or even the occasional ‘ha ha!’.
I am still carrying the rolled-up map. Each of my arms aches in turn, after ever shorter intervals, as I have to keep the arm securing the map from pressing against my side to avoid creasing it. Now and then I hold it at one end between thumb and forefinger, but when I do that I can’t let my arm hang down because the map would trail on the ground. I lag behind Nummedal and hold the map to my eye like a spyglass. Have to stop myself using it as a trumpet. Oh God! What misery, I would wail.
The mountainside is interrupted by a small plateau. Here a tall ski tower has been erected, from which a wooden slide protrudes like a tongue made of logs. We go inside, climb up countless steps, and arrive at last on a platform with parents and children leaning over the parapet admiring the views.
Beyond Sleep Page 2