by Dag Solstad
Bjørn Hansen had a son in the house. The son had come and had put up at his place. He had unpacked his things. He had been out to inspect the college that was to be his admission ticket to adulthood with all its imperatives and obligations, which are the very bedrock upon which we construct the reality we like to call life. On the threshold of life. His first day. And then his good genius, Algot, hadn’t shown up. In spite of the fact that they had an agreement. When a twenty-year-old tells his father that we live in a tough world, what does it mean? When he also glorifies a poster advertising a red sports car as if it were high art? It was evening in Kongsberg. Evening in the treasurer’s living room. An evening in August. Dark and mild. The door to the balcony was ajar, so that the cool breeze could be felt in the room, but just barely. So, Peter has decided to study optics because he has a friend who will do so, the father thought. Otherwise he would never have done it. Well, life is full of fortuitous circumstances, of course, and our choices, not least where study is concerned, may depend on the oddest things. But it is the friend who has chosen for him. That’s it. It doesn’t have to mean an awful lot, but I’m worried about him, Bjørn Hansen thought. Especially since – but here his thoughts stopped short, because he happened to think of his son’s much too loud voice, which had irritated and troubled him all along, and that he found both profoundly unjust and frightening.
Peter had stepped out on the balcony. He was getting a breath of fresh air. Bjørn Hansen followed and stood beside his son. A soft August evening, dark. Dark sky. Dark air. Dark because of the steep hills that surrounded Kongsberg. In between the hills, the town was illuminated by a scattering of dim lights. Down here, out there. Dim lights from the shop windows and the streetlamps. From the service station below them, slightly to the left, with its enormous lifeless sheet of asphalt, came a dim light, likewise from a lone window in the Gyldenløve Hotel, the fourth floor. The platform of the railway station, with no trains, was dimly lit, and a dim light from a streetlamp hovered over a lone taxi parked by the rank outside the station. Barely a sound came from the town itself, straight ahead of them and below. But a steady hum could still be heard. It came from far away, at the outer edge of the area visible from the balcony, on both sides. On the left were the cars on the main road to Oslo, on the right the cars on the way to Geilo and Bergen. These two main roads went in a circle around Kongsberg, along with a third main road, the road to Notodden and over Haukelifjell to the West Country, but that one did not come within sight or sound of the two men standing on the balcony. But the two main roads that did, if only for a short distance, were brightly illuminated, much more so than the city streets, whose dim, scattered illumination was intensified by the strong floodlights shining above the roadway along which the cars, with their small moving yellow lights and their steady hum, were driving. From the town directly opposite and below them, in the middle of which they actually found themselves, came scarcely a sound. Now and then a car door being slammed, followed by an engine being turned on and revved up. A sudden laugh, interrupted. A car driving slowly along the street, two blocks off, and a streak of light just before it reaches the corner, which they can see from their vantage point on the balcony. Then footsteps on the asphalt directly below. And Lågen, the small bend of it to their right, just before the brightly illuminated main road to Geilo and Bergen, was completely still, a mere dark hole as seen from the balcony. ‘Look!’ Peter said and pointed. He pointed at a neon sign on the other side of the railway station, the sign which said that this was where city, the supermarket, was located. But it was not the supermarket that interested Peter, but the sign. That red neon sign. city. ‘We’re in city,’ he said, enraptured, but still with a residue of preachiness in his voice. In the middle of city. ‘Look!’ he said again, pointing. This time at another bright sign, also in red neon. It hung at the top of a tall mast, almost at the level of the balcony they were standing on. toyota, it shined. ‘Fantastic!’ Peter said. ‘This is powerful. I feel I’ll be happy here, my blood is fired up,’ he declared. ‘And tomorrow Algot will come.’
He abruptly tore himself away from the sight of Kongsberg by night and went back to the living room. The father thought his son had been inspired to plunge into the disco world, which in Kongsberg, too, thrived in basements where violent, pounding music and super-fast flashing lights produced a youthful enthusiasm, but, being played in basements, behind strictly guarded doors, such as, among other places, deep underground at the Grand Hotel, that music had not betrayed itself to the two standing on a third-floor balcony in this modern block of flats in the middle of Kongsberg, but it existed, and Bjørn Hansen thought that it had now enticed Peter. But no. His son wanted to go to bed. He had to get up early tomorrow. He liked to get a good night’s sleep. The city and its loud rhythms would have to wait. Until he and Algot would go there together. The son went to the bathroom, to get ready for the night. Or as his father thought, ‘To make his toilet for the night,’ for he could not help noticing the huge toilet bag that Peter had brought with him. What did he have in that damn bag? He decided, however, that regardless of how intrigued he might be by his son’s doings, he would never look into this bag, because he had convinced himself that it contained secrets he was reluctant to be initiated into. But his son certainly did not try to keep it secret. He could have kept the bag in his room, but instead he placed it on the glass shelf in the bathroom. And there it still was when at long last he came out of the bathroom. Wearing a bathrobe, he quietly ambled to his room and closed the door behind him, after first saying a brief goodnight. A gentleman, Bjørn Hansen thought, my son is a modern young gentleman. Well, well. He’s here now in any case. As a guest in my existence, he thought.
Algot did not come. Bjørn Hansen saw his young son go to his first day of instruction excited, a bit nervous, with newly purchased books in a bag, ballpoints, paper for note-taking, ring binders. On the threshold of life, ready to absorb knowledge. In a new T-shirt inscribed bik bok. But when he returned in the evening he was down in the dumps, though he tried to hide it. That Bjørn Hansen could see. His son let himself in and was heading at full speed for his room when he stopped, duty-bound, to exchange a few words with his father, who knew that it had been his first day at college. ‘We are forty,’ he said. ‘In the class. Carefully filtered out,’ he added. ‘From all over the Nordic countries, even one from Iceland. One staff member is a professor from England. He doesn’t live here but flies over once a week to teach us. NIT in Trondheim will send an expert from its Lighting Engineering Lab as soon as the need arises. I must say the set-up is professional.’ He was talking apropos of nothing, over the head of his father and with his face partly turned away. Then he said he had to study and hurried to his room, where he spent several hours. Late in the evening he came out in his dressing gown and went to the bathroom. He stayed a long time in there, then shuffled quietly out and went to his room. ‘Algot didn’t come,’ he said as he opened the door. ‘But he’ll probably turn up tomorrow,’ he added.
He didn’t. Peter came home in the early afternoon, when his father was having dinner; he asked if Peter would like to share his meal with him, but he shook his head. He was not hungry. On the other hand, he was indignant. ‘Algot won’t be coming,’ he said. ‘And the college doesn’t give a damn. They’re simply leaving his place open. Because they haven’t had any message from him.’ – ‘But then he’s likely to come, don’t you think?’ Bjørn Hansen said, ‘he’s just been delayed for a few days.’ – ‘No,’ Peter said, ‘for Algot is in London, I’ve found out.’
The last words were uttered with a gloating expression on his face, which Bjørn Hansen did not think suited his son. For Peter had put things straight. What the college had not managed, young Korpi Hansen had undertaken to clear up. When Peter had entered the classroom for the first period, he had taken his stand and surveyed the scene. He was expecting to catch sight of Algot, who then would have winked at him or revealed himself in some other way: ‘Well, here I am, on t
he second day of instruction! That’s not half bad, eh?’ But Algot was not there. Peter looked around the room, silently counting everyone present, himself included. Thirty-nine. There should have been forty. Then he sat down and followed the first period, in physiology, though he had found it hard to concentrate. As soon as the break came, he had run up to the office. They recognised him from yesterday. He again asked if it was really true that they had not heard from Algot Blom. They replied, with a resigned air, that they had not. ‘But he hasn’t come!’ Peter erupted. – ‘Well, no, but we haven’t received any message.’ – ‘Is that quite certain?’ Peter asked. ‘Couldn’t you check once more?’ he said. But the office girl refused. Then Peter became indignant, but fortunately he controlled himself. He simply turned sharply about and swept out. Not to go to his next class, which had already begun, by the way, but to the Wire Service Office. There he had opened the Oslo telephone book at B and searched the pages (with furious, agitated fingers, his father thought) until he found Algot Blom’s private address, which Peter had assumed must be that of his parents. He had entered a phone box and punched in the number. No answer. Next he had looked up the number of the main store of the Algot Blom firm, had entered the box, had once again called the number. He had asked to speak to the manager. The manager, however, was occupied just then, and the voice on the line, a man’s, asked what it was about. ‘It concerns Algot Blom, Jr,’ Peter said. ‘I’m a close friend of his. Do you know how I can get in touch with him? I mean, do you know where he is just now?’ – ‘Junior?’ the voice said. ‘Junior went to London the day before yesterday.’ – ‘And when will he be back?’ – ‘For Christmas,’ the voice replied. ‘As far as I know. When they get their Christmas holiday.’ – ‘Ah, yes,’ Peter said. ‘So he chose to study optometry in London, after all.’ – ‘Precisely,’ said the voice. ‘Only the best is good enough, you know.’ Peter put down the receiver.
Afterwards he regretted having hung up so quickly. He could have asked for Algot’s address and telephone number. But he had become so confused. However, since he had passed himself off as Algot’s friend, which he was of course, he could not let it appear he had no idea that he had gone to London to study optometry. He had said nothing to Peter about that. ‘We’ll meet at Kongsberg in the autumn,’ he had said. But instead he had opted for the more famous optometry course at City University in London. Peter had at once gone back to the office. He did not say that Algot was in London, but only asked them again whether they would consider checking if Algot Blom, Jr, had left a message that would explain the fact that he had failed to show up, now that instruction in the optometry programme had begun. But the office girl would not. Nor would her superior, a man who turned up just as Peter was repeating his question. Well, he insisted that they check into it. They might have overlooked something. Had Algot written and renounced his place, perhaps? If so, there was a vacancy. Didn’t they understand? That if Algot Blom had written to renounce his place on the course, someone else could now have it, and wouldn’t it mean a lot to someone who was now without a place suddenly to be informed that, if you wish, you can come right away, there is a vacancy on the optometry course at Kongsberg. Peter had insisted. But to no avail. They couldn’t be bothered to look into it any further. Finally Peter had to give up. He was, after all, a new student and reluctant to call attention to himself as a troublemaker. But there was a limit to how much he could take.
Peter related this incident in an extremely detailed and pedantic manner, making sure that not a single move he had made in his efforts to tidy things up was omitted. He was furious. With the school management, not with Algot, who was simply missing. Gone, leaving an empty place behind him, which the school would not do a damn thing to fill. Bjørn Hansen felt uncomfortable. He did not like the story Peter told, he did not like the way it was told, and he did not like what it told him about his own son and about his future prospects. He was especially worried about the latter. What would happen to his son now? The very reason why he came to Kongsberg to study optometry had disappeared. He now found himself at Kongsberg on false premises.
But Peter began his studies as if nothing serious had occurred. From now on he did not mention Algot any more. Algot was an empty place in his consciousness and he was looking to the future. Not many days passed before Bjørn Hansen regarded his son as a young man hanging on for dear life. ‘He hangs on for dear life.’ He had not liked Peter in Peter’s own story. Although he tried to look on his son with all possible sympathy, he was not able to. Odd formulations constantly popped into his head, and they got stuck. Such as, ‘Peter eats my food, he’s very welcome.’
Why did he think this way? About his own son? ‘Peter eats my food, he’s very welcome.’ The background to this thought was as follows: Bjørn Hansen and his son lived together in a four-room flat in the centre of Kongsberg. Peter was a student at Kongsberg Engineering College and lived with his father instead of moving to a furnished room. Bjørn Hansen continued to live his regular life just as before. Peter had his own life. They saw one another only in the morning, just barely, and in the evening when Peter returned. When Peter was home he mostly stayed in his room. If he came out into the living room, it was to watch TV, which he asked, every time, whether it was all right to turn on. Breakfast, however, they had together, or at least at the same time. If Peter got up first, he went, after visiting the bathroom, into the kitchen, prepared breakfast for himself by the breadboard and put on the coffee, which was ready when his father came out to have breakfast. Sometimes they would eat at the same table, but it happened just as often that the son took his chunks of bread and a cup of coffee into his room so as to prepare himself for the day’s lectures at his leisure, as he said. If the father got up first, he made coffee and sat eating at the breakfast table when his son came out and made his breakfast, before he either sat down at the table or disappeared into his own room again. But they shared the food, for Bjørn Hansen had said that it was impractical for them to buy a loaf of bread each, a bottle of milk each, etc., etc., perhaps even to use two coffee pots, as long as they happened to live in the same flat and used the same fridge and stove, to which Peter had made no objection. They had dinner separately, as it would be impractical for Peter to show up at a set hour. Besides, he obviously wanted to spend as much time as possible with his fellow students, not least eat with them – that’s how you get acquainted, after all. And so Peter often ate out, in the college canteen. But it also happened that he came home in the evening without having had time to eat, as he said, and then he took a chunk of bread from the kitchen, something that happened more and more often. For that reason Bjørn Hansen began to make a double portion of his own dinner, so that his son could have the leftovers from his father’s dinner when he came home. As time went by, Peter always did that, and only picked up a roll or a Danish for himself, or quite simply just a cup of coffee, when he went to the canteen for dinner with the other students. But on Sundays Peter had to manage by himself. Then Bjørn Hansen dined either with Berit and Herman Busk or at the Grand Hotel, and Peter would as a rule fry a chop, as his father could tell by the smell when he came home.
This was the way they handled the food. Nothing special or sensational about it, in a situation where a father has a son who is a student living with him. It was natural to do it that way, natural that Bjørn Hansen bought cooked meats, milk, etc., and that he prepared double portions when he made dinner, in case his son had not had dinner when he came home after a long day of lectures and study. Just as natural as his father having breakfast in the kitchen while Peter often ate in his room, so that he could prepare himself for the day’s programme at his leisure, and Bjørn having dinner when he was through with his working day, his son when he was through with his. All of this, in fact, betokened a good, natural relationship between father and son. The contrary would have been unnatural. That the son sat down at his father’s table in spite of the fact that he really ought to have reviewed some lecture notes from yesterda
y, which he needed today, or that he came home for dinner at five o’clock every day. Then one might start wondering about the son. Or about the father, if he had proposed that they should share the household expenses, including the warmed-up dinners. Still, before long the father thought, ‘Peter eats my food, he’s very welcome.’ Was it because deep down he was offended by Peter never suggesting they should share their household expenses? No, then Bjørn Hansen would have been offended. Was it because Peter took all of this for granted: a free room, free meals, free use of the flat’s common areas? No, for Peter did not take it for granted. On the contrary, there was something about the way in which he acted towards Bjørn Hansen in such situations that hinted at duplicity, a guarded attitude.