Novel 11, Book 18

by Dag Solstad

  Bjørn Hansen was moved. He immediately sat down at his desk and wrote back. Of course Peter could stay with him, nothing would give him more pleasure. He had space enough, so he didn’t have to look around for lodgings, unless he preferred to live elsewhere than with his father; if so, he would not be hurt, because he knew that many young men did.

  Afterwards – because the letter was a bit short, he thought – he added a few lines about his everyday life as town treasurer at Kongsberg. He explained how the hard times had led to an increased workload for him, as people who had lived beyond their means during the good times were unable to meet their obligations when the turnaround came, with the result that the number of bankruptcies had greatly increased, which was regrettable, of course, but something he could do nothing about. Still, don’t imagine it’s pleasant for me to put my name to a document that takes away the homes of ordinary people who can no longer meet their obligations, he wrote. To tell the truth, it breaks my heart; but my face reveals none of that, because my feelings cannot help those involved anyway.

  After adding a few words to the effect that he looked forward to seeing Peter here at Kongsberg, he signed the letter Your father, put it in an envelope and sealed it. He looked about him in the flat. There was space enough for more than one person. It consisted of four rooms. A large living room, which served as parlour and dining room and had a broad sliding door onto a friendly balcony with evening sunlight. He had a kitchen with all modern facilities, except for a microwave, which was only good for preparing junk food anyway. In addition there were two large bedrooms, one of which Bjørn Hansen had furnished as a library, where he was now writing to his son. To keep the flat clean, he had employed a young girl, who was in her next-to-last year in secondary school. She was the daughter of Mrs Johansen at the Treasury and was called Mari Ann. Strictly speaking, he could very well have kept the flat tidy by himself. But Mrs Johansen had complained that the pressure on young people was so strong today, they must have both this and that, expensive sports equipment as well as brand-name clothing, so that most of them had a part-time job besides going to school, except for her own Mari Ann, which caused her daughter to feel like an outsider, and consequently Bjørn Hansen, Mrs Johansen’s boss, had proposed that her daughter could earn some extra cash cleaning his flat.

  And so Mari Ann came and cleaned for him. She was given a set of keys and let herself in whenever it suited her. It didn’t matter to him when she came, as long as she came once a week and did the work he paid her to do. Sometimes she was there in the afternoon when he let himself into the flat. She would stand bent over her bucket. It gave off a smell of green soap. She was dressed in tight blue jeans. Entering the living room, he saw her stand there, bent over, wringing out her rag. Absorbed by her work, she presented a round, girlish bottom. She was quite unaffected by his entering the room and observing her. ‘Hey,’ she just said, without looking up. Bjørn Hansen couldn’t help smiling (rather sadly?) at this youthful unconcern and naivety, unconcern at any rate about his gaze, which, incidentally, he quickly turned away. At first she was extremely dutiful and thorough, and consequently the job took her a long time. But then she began to rush through her work. One day he had complained about it. He pointed out that the corners, where the dust collects, had not been washed thoroughly enough. Not under the sofa either. Then she blushed. She turned crimson, and the colour spread across her cheeks to her very earlobes. It was a strange sight and Bjørn Hansen had become confused. At the same time he was worried that she would tell her mother, and he had no idea how to tackle that. So he said that he had not meant to be nit-picking and difficult, but he really did think a flat wasn’t clean unless the whole floor had been washed – so come on, he would help her move the sofa. They moved it together, but the redness did not go away from her earlobes. He did not think, however, that she had said anything at home about it; at any rate, Mrs Johansen showed no telltale signs in the office.

  Bjørn had by this time lived by himself for four years. In this flat. Now he would have to make some changes. First of all, his son would have to be given the library as his room. This meant that the books must be moved into the living room, and he would have to find a place there for reading. Anyway, some of the bookshelves could remain, for Peter’s books. Also, he had to buy a bed, or perhaps preferably a sofa bed, turning the room into a kind of sitting room, where his son could receive visitors. No, that could be misunderstood. His son should, of course, receive his visitors in the large living room, for then he could go to his bedroom, where he would fit up a reading nook and arrange a little library in miniature, yes, that was how it must be done. Though his son ought to have a sofa bed all the same – after all, he could receive his friends in the living room even if he had a sofa bed, hell yes, a bed would make it feel too bedroomish. And then he had to consider buying a microwave in spite of everything. True, he maintained that you couldn’t possibly prepare really good food in a microwave, but for a busy young student who was likely to want a bite of something in a hurry, it was probably an excellent arrangement, he thought.

  And so he wandered about in the flat, planning the changes that were forced upon him because his son was coming to stay. He was excited. This would turn his whole existence upside down. He actually had a son who was coming to live with him. It was an undeserved joy and he understood that he ought to appreciate it. He tore down the bookshelves in his cherished library, except for one which he thought would suit Peter’s books to perfection. Started rigging them up in the living room. He also made a reading nook in his own bedroom, with a bookcase along one wall and a good easy chair to sit in. The son’s room was now completely crammed with books, in piles on the floor. Before putting them in place, in the living room and in his own bedroom, he took a stroll about town to look for a good sofa bed. And a microwave. When he returned he put the books on the shelves. In a few days the sofa bed arrived. Bjørn Hansen walked about in the flat, wondering if he had forgotten anything, something that a young student must have in his bedroom, which might also become his study. ‘Finally something to look forward to!’ he exclaimed. ‘Yes, I must say! This I hadn’t expected. To think that he is going to live here, if only for a few weeks! How wonderful that he intends to become an optician! And also that he was admitted! My whole existence will be turned upside down!’

  He was going to be reunited with his son. It was Peter who had not stayed in touch. But he was also the one who now took the initiative to restore contact. Bjørn knew it could be difficult. Six years had passed since he last saw Peter and then his son was a child, now he was an adult. He didn’t even know what he looked like. Perhaps he had not wanted to break contact with his father when he was fourteen. Though he had found an excuse not to visit every summer. Maybe he had hoped that his father would beg him to come on bended knee. That, however, Bjørn had not done, because losing contact was part of the price he had paid for abandoning his little son of two, and his mother. That’s why he simply put up with hearing this son, on turning fourteen, telling his father that he had altogether different plans for the summer than visiting him, and that this is repeated when the son turns fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen . . . As the time of Peter’s arrival approached, Bjørn realised more and more clearly how uncertain and scared he felt about this meeting. He observed it in the way he talked to others about his son’s coming. To Berit and Herman Busk, for example. He spoke about Peter like an altogether ordinary father. He would remark, casually, that it would not be easy having a young man in the house, and he expressed a paternal concern as to whether the study of optics was ‘good enough’. It was as if he were practising to take on a role he had not even considered for eighteen years, and which he now tried to make everyone believe was made for him. But he gave himself away to the eighteen-year-old Mari Ann, who cleaned his flat. Because of the changes he had made in the flat, he told her he expected his son in the autumn. Then she suddenly became interested and asked, quite naturally in fact, if he had a photo of h
im. But he didn’t! The most recent photograph he had of his son showed Peter on a summer’s day the year he turned eleven. Mari Ann stared, open-mouthed. Afterwards Bjørn Hansen could see to his annoyance that she had tried to hide what she really thought about a fifty-year-old man who seemed to care so little about his son. The girl clearly felt fully justified in her moral condemnation, which was not lessened by her attempt to act as if nothing were the matter, having initially gaped in wonder, because she did not dare to show openly what she thought of him. After all, he was the one who gave her pocket money and, moreover, he was old and a sort of pillar of society. And he was her mother’s boss.

  Actually, he had felt no need for having photos of Peter as he grew up. If he had got some, it would have been nice, but not having any did not make him feel deprived. He did not feel a tremendous urge to know how his son looked on his eighteenth birthday, the day he received his matriculation certificate, or the day he left for his military service. He had a son, that was enough for him, and he felt little need to speculate on how he looked. He saw no reason for having a familial relationship with his son, because they did not belong to the same family, nor had they ever done so except for a brief spell. But Peter was his son. He was proud to have a son, but under the circumstances he felt no need for that son to have a face that he might contemplate in a photograph. And he wouldn’t have an eighteen-year-old girl staring at him as if he were some kind of monster because of it.

  He had often thought about his son over the years. Not night and day. Nor had he ever lain awake wondering how he was getting on. He had assumed that Peter would lead his own life, without him, growing from a child to a man without having him nearby, as a corrective. He liked the thought of his son running about in Narvik and growing up. When Peter still visited in the summertime, he looked forward to it, and he spent a fortnight with him, which was rich in high points; but when the fortnight came to an end, it was only with sadness, rather than sorrow, that he drove him to Fornebu and took him to the plane that was to take him back to his home in Narvik. Indeed, to tell the truth, he felt a kind of relief that it was over, that it had gone well, and that he could now resume his customary life. Still, it was these fourteen summer days each year, from the time when Peter was a little boy, that connected him directly to his son. He knew very well that Peter was now a young man, far removed from the little Peter of his boyhood days, and it was likely to make the young man embarrassed if reminded of them. It was not Peter but memories that Bjørn Hansen had preserved, all but palpably. Such as twitches in the small boy’s hand at the sight of a big stray dog right in front of them, which he feels because he is holding Peter’s hand. The boy who stops short, clutching his father’s hand to hold him back. The boy’s fear before a big stray dog, combined with his realisation that he must learn to control this or at least not betray it, acting like his father, who says there is no danger, come on! Bjørn felt glad that this tug on his hand was intact inside him. Yes, Bjørn Hansen thought, luckily it was. But how would that help when he met the young stranger who was on his way to Kongsberg to study optics and who was to live, at least for the time being, with him? This twenty-year-old with a face he had never seen before? Who would suddenly appear. Here. To live with his father.

  And so, there he stands one morning at the end of August. At Kongsberg Railway Station. Waiting for the train. Waiting for his unknown son. Being early, he was waiting on the platform. Suddenly he caught sight of Dr Schiøtz, who was also waiting for the train. For some preparations for the hospital. Bjørn Hansen found it rather strange that Dr Schiøtz picked up the preparations himself, but assumed that he did so because he wanted some fresh air. Bjørn Hansen told him that he was waiting for his son, who was about to begin studying optics at Kongsberg Engineering College. ‘Your son? I didn’t know you had a son. How nice,’ said the doctor, making Bjørn Hansen wonder whether there was a trace of irony in his voice. But there was no time to think about that, because now the train from Oslo could be seen on the attractively curved railway track. The long train glided slowly into the station and stopped. It was the South Country Express, which halted briefly at Kongsberg before going farther inland, down through Telemark, before it finally reached the coast at the southernmost point of Norway, Kristiansand. Bjørn Hansen craned his neck, for now the passengers were getting off and making their way among those who were waiting to get on.

  Bjørn Hansen was struck by the fact that most of those who got off the South Country Express today were young people, especially young men. All with luggage. It was obviously because a new academic year was at hand, and the students were now arriving at Kongsberg after a well-earned holiday, or for the first time. But for Bjørn Hansen this was an unforeseen obstacle, because how could he locate his son among this multitude of young men, all of whom were students! As he watched them coming down the platform towards him, he suddenly felt an intense fear that he would greet the wrong one by mistake. Pick out the wrong son. In the presence of Dr Schiøtz. It would have laid him low, as the saying goes, as if lightning were suddenly to strike from a clear sky and hit him, on purpose. ‘There he is,’ he heard Dr Schiøtz say. ‘Your spitting image.’

  It was Peter. In the row of young men who were just now coming towards him and Dr Schiøtz he was the only one who moved with a purpose, lugging two heavy suitcases as he steered straight at Bjørn. Of course! Peter recognised him, he hadn’t changed that much over the years. He noticed his son’s purposeful steps and his eyes fixed on him, then walked forward to put some distance between himself and Dr Schiøtz when he welcomed his son. As he took these steps, Peter stopped, put down his luggage and smiled. Bjørn Hansen gave a start. It was a younger version of himself. What a naked face, he thought. My own flesh and blood. Such a naked face! It’s almost obscene.

  By now Bjørn Hansen had reached him. They were facing each other. He resolutely held out his hand. He wanted to shake his son’s hand. This because he was afraid that Peter had put down his suitcases so that he would to have his arms free to embrace his father, something that Bjørn Hansen wished to avoid. His son had popped up so suddenly! It would be too intimate to embrace. So he held out his hand. Peter shook it. ‘Welcome!’ the father said. ‘Hello!’ said the son, smiling.

  They looked at one another. Apart from the fact that he was a younger version of himself, Peter Korpi Hansen did in no way stand out from the other students who had got off the train here in Kongsberg; indeed, had he not directed his steps so purposefully towards Bjørn Hansen and instead hurried past like the others, Bjørn Hansen might not have singled him out as the son he was there to meet. He was dressed in a T-shirt under a light jacket of some thin synthetic material, which gave him a slightly casual and carefree air. The T-shirt had some letters printed on it, which was probably the case with all T-shirts nowadays. Peter’s shirt read, voice of europe. Oddly enough, Bjørn Hansen knew that this was the brand name of a new Norwegian textile manufacturer of fashionable garments for young people, and he knew this because, as treasurer, he was often the State or municipal representative on estate boards, after bankruptcies; in Kongsberg, too, there had been a number of bankruptcies among fashionable shops during the last year, so he knew Voice of Europe, because the firm had filed its claims with the bankrupt party in Kongsberg, and Bjørn Hansen’s task was to see to it that the State secured its rightful due, nearly always concerning non-payment of VAT, which had to be collected before the private creditors took their cut; thus viewed, he was actually a competitor of the firm that his son so naively advertised on his chest, something Peter, naturally, couldn’t know, he thought with a small inward smile. He observed his modern young son, who for the rest was dressed in grey summer slacks of a soft, slightly downy stuff, which gave every impression of being pleasant to wear, as even such an untrained eye as Bjørn Hansen had in this branch of business could see. Peter’s feet sported heavy, complacent track shoes.

  The young man made a tremendous impression on Bjørn Hansen. Because he was his
son. Peter’s youthfulness struck him so strongly he could scarcely breathe. Youth and all its glories! Prizes to be plucked, a life to be lived, all of this so self-importantly represented in his own son’s get-up. Bjørn Hansen knew, of course, that his son came across as something of a stereotype. All young men dressed like this nowadays. Youths like Peter Korpi Hansen were ten a penny. All of them radiated the same intoxicating nonchalance, self-indulgence and idleness. Nevertheless it was strange to encounter it in his own son. He had a son who belonged to the youth culture. That son, in all his youthfulness, had adapted to the demands of his own generation.

  The young man at once began to tell him about his long journey. He had been travelling for more than forty-eight hours by bus and train. Straight through most of Norway. Recumbent in a reclining chair at night, feeling the characteristic nocturnal rhythm of the train. Passing through changing landscapes during the day. Mountains and hillsides. Lakes and small villages. But none of this occupied him now. Travelling was obviously no great experience. He spoke in a loud voice, in a rather preachy manner, his father thought. Peter informed him that he had been the object of an insult. He did not say ‘insult’, but used another, more youthful word. They had tried to dump on him, it must have been. It had happened on the last lap of his journey, from Oslo to Kongsberg. Someone had taken his seat. His reserved seat. His father bent over the suitcases and said, ‘Well, let’s go then.’ He took them both and Peter did not protest. That seemed, in and of itself, to be a bit strange, but he took it to mean that his son thought he would only be carrying the suitcases to his car, just in front of the station. But when he said, ‘I didn’t take the car, because it’s right nearby,’ his son made no move to relieve him of one of the suitcases, leaving him to carry them both – they were not as heavy as he had imagined, by the way – while Peter went on and on about the insult he had suffered. Well, yeah, when he boarded the train in Oslo, at the carriage indicated, and went to the assigned seat, a lady was sitting there. To be on the safe side, he checked his ticket again before speaking up, informing her that this seat was taken. But the lady said it was not. He showed her his ticket, but she held her own. The train started moving and Peter just stood there, without a seat. The lady refused to budge; she said the reserved seats were marked on the back. There was no such mark on the back of this seat, consequently the seat was not reserved, and so she was entitled to sit there, because she got there first. Peter decided not to temper justice with mercy. He stood bolt upright before the lady occupying his seat, waiting for the conductor. Eventually, when the train was entering Drammen Station, the conductor arrived. Peter handed him the ticket and pointed at his reservation. The conductor looked at it and said, sure, that was correct. But why couldn’t he take another seat, since there were several empty ones? Peter had looked at the conductor in amazement. Did he hear correctly? Yes, he heard correctly. All he had to do was take another seat. After all, there were plenty of vacant seats. ‘But this is my seat. This is the one I’ve paid for!’ The conductor looked at him, annoyed. ‘Listen, this is nothing to make a fuss about. Sit down, or you can remain standing. You’ll be there in just half an hour. Do what you like.’ And with that he had left. The lady who had taken Peter’s seat tossed her head. But Peter had remained standing. All the way to Kongsberg. Without sitting down. Right next to his seat. The conductor had come through that long, narrow carriage once again and Peter had just stood there. The conductor had hurried past without saying a word. The lady had smiled at the conductor, and Peter had seen the conductor return her smile. But he had remained standing.