Shyness And Dignity

by Dag Solstad

  He entered the staff room. He had only this double class on Monday (being on a reduced schedule as the head teacher of Norwegian at the school), so his work for today was now over. He attempted a condescending smile, at life and at his own role in it, but could not bring it off. Phew, he thought, there are any number of execrable things one has to put up with in this world, God knows, trying in this way to push aside the morning’s unpleasant experiences before walking through the door to where his colleagues were relaxing before their next classes. He chatted with a couple of colleagues about this and that, while noticing that the effects of yesterday’s aquavit had not yet completely loosened their hold on his body and brain, and he caught himself wanting to have a beer, but for that, of course, it was far too early. He felt he had succeeded in calming down, and therefore he decided to leave the school for today, having nothing to do there any more, because he could make preparations for the day tomorrow much better at home, in his own apartment. When he reached the front door he discovered it had started to rain. Not much, just a light drizzle, but enough to make him ask himself whether he should open his umbrella, he would not get very wet during that short walk home if he didn’t. But since he had taken the umbrella with him in the morning, he decided to use it anyway. He opened it, but it didn’t work. He had pressed the button that would cause the umbrella to open automatically, but nothing happened. He pressed the button once more, harder, but nothing happened. Not that, too, he thought, indignant. He gave it a third try, but with no success. Then he tried to force the umbrella open with his hands, but that didn’t help either; the umbrella resisted, so that he just barely managed to make it spread out, and even that cost him a great effort. Then he couldn’t contain himself. He was standing in the school yard at Fagerborg Secondary School, in the break, trying to open his umbrella. But he could not do it. Hundreds of pupils at the school were standing round about, and some of them must have noticed him. Enough! He walked rapidly up to the water fountain and banged the umbrella against it in a wild fury. He struck and struck the umbrella against the fountain, felt how the metal in the shaft was beginning to give and that the ribs were breaking. Delighted, he struck and struck. Through a sort of haze he saw the pupils approaching, slowly and in profound silence, as if they were stealing towards him, and now they were standing around him in a semicircle, but at a respectful distance. He was beating the increasingly limp, cracking umbrella against the fountain in a savage fury. When he noticed that the ribs were beginning to loosen, he threw the umbrella on the ground and started jumping on it, before using his heel to try and crush the umbrella with it. Then he picked up the umbrella again and banged it once more against the fountain – the ribs were now broken and uncontrollably twisted, winding in all directions, some of them cutting into his hand and leaving little scratches in the skin where he could see the blood begin to trickle out. He was surrounded by pupils all around, lurking pupils, quiet, their eyes staring. They were staring open-mouthed, standing motionless around him, but always at a respectful distance. Several of them had lunch boxes in their hands, for it was the middle of the noon break. He could make out, as through a haze, the faces of the nearest ones and, strange to say, quite clearly. A tall blonde girl was looking at him in amazement, he noticed, as were a couple of boys from the graduating class, and their faces, which looked ridiculously astonished, made him even more furious. He stared at the tall blonde. Damn twat! he yelled. Eat your food! Fat snout! And in the same instant he grabbed the umbrella, black and smashed up, and went for them full tilt. When he reached them, they drew to one side, very quickly, allowing him to lurch along between them and continue on, through the empty, wet school yard and out of it and down Fagerborggate – free, finally free, away from them! He walked hurriedly, at a violently agitated pace that accorded with his agitated condition, and in this state of mind he now began to wail as it dawned on him what he had done.

  He walked down Fagerborggate, which he had done so often, but this time he did not turn right at Jacob Aalls gate, as he always used to do, but continued on down the winding Fredensborggate, until it joined Pilestredet, and went on down Pilestredet, along Stensparken, down Norabakken towards Bislett, and although he chose this way instinctively, yet it was a clear expression of his misery, because the way he now walked did not lead home, like the road that automatically guided his steps into Jacob Aalls gate, but away, to the city centre, into the tumult down there, where he could disappear, he perhaps thought, vaguely, walking with jittery steps. But one thing was clear to him, namely, that this was the end of a twenty-five years’ occupation as an official educator in the Norwegian school system. This was his ultimate downfall. He knew that now he was leaving the Fagerborg school behind him for good and that he would never teach again. He had fallen, and so irredeemably that he did not even wish to rise again, not even if they pulled him up. To go back was impossible, regardless of whether the principal and his colleagues would attempt to trivialise the incident, as a collapse that could have happened to anyone. It had not happened to just anyone, it had happened to him. Had his colleagues observed the scene? The mere thought made him go rigid. For a moment he stood completely still. Good God, he exclaimed aloud, it cannot be true! But it could be true. He knew from experience that teachers sitting convivially in the staff room were, extremely alert to any impropriety taking place in the school yard, for even if they did not watch but sat and talked among themselves, they listened all the time, and if suddenly there was total silence out there instead of the steady buzz and occasional shrill voices calling, not the usual thing, laughter and such, but absolute silence, at least one of them would get up and walk over to the window to see what it could be, and then one more would come, and then a third, until the entire faculty were posted at the windows, staring out at the school yard, and there they had seen … No, no, he interrupted himself, there is no point even thinking about it. It’s the end. In any case, I have to get rid of that ill-fated umbrella, he thought, looking around in a tizzy for a rubbish bin where he could leave it. But they had not heard what he had yelled, he thought, in a moment of lightheartedness, though he dared say it would not be long before they learned about it, he added sombrely to himself. But this is a disaster, he thought in near wonder. It’s a real misfortune, there is no other name for it, he went on, preoccupied. What a mess I’ve got myself into! he burst out furiously. I must be a real idiot. But he came by no extenuating circumstances by calling himself an idiot, for however idiotic it was it was irrevocable. It’s the worst thing that could ever have happened, he exclaimed, as if he could not believe his own words for a moment. What shall become of me? he exclaimed desperately to himself. And what is going to happen to her who is my wife? Yes, how can I break it to her? That the ground has suddenly been ripped away from under our feet, and that it’s all my fault. What are we going to live on, in other words? he thought. And the shame of it! he added. No, life will not ever be the same, he reflected. All jittery, he walked down the quiet Fagerborggate and the equally quiet Pilestredet; there was a small rain falling, he noticed that his spectacles were getting misted and that his hair had got wet. The asphalt was black with moisture and the leaves were brown and wet, lying bunched-up along the asphalt and on the bonnets of the cars parked on this quiet residential street. The sky was a uniform grey, and sort of muzzy, now that the rain was finally falling. However, all he noticed as he passed Stensparken was a silent drizzle only, against his hair and on his spectacles. At the bottom of Norabakken he discovered a rubbish bin where at last he managed to dispose of that ill-fated umbrella, and he perceived with surprise that his body felt it as a relief to be rid of it, as if whether he was still carrying this ragged object should make any difference. He looked at his hands, from where the blood was still trickling out, and he wiped it off. Reaching Bislett, he stopped at the traffic circle there. Where should he go? He would go through the Homansbyen neighbourhood, along the lovely Josefinegate, and up to the traffic light at the Bogstadveien, where he cou
ld either continue on Josefinegate to the Uranienborg Church and Briskeby, or he could walk down Bogstadveien to Lorry (a beer, he thought, a beer would taste very good) and then down Wergelandsveien, past the Artists’ House and the house of the Association of Secondary School Teachers (no, no, not that) to the city centre, or through Slottsparken, the palace park, which is never as majestic as right now, when the leaves have fallen and the trees stand there with their naked branches silhouetted against the soggy sky, and with a strange greying light between the lowest branches and the ground – a thrilling sight. He could see himself wandering along the paths of Slottsparken down to the capital’s main street, Karl Johan, or he could walk up Bogstadveien to Majorstua and the well-known restaurant the Valkyrie (Valka, he thought, but then I will have made a long detour, and it will look ridiculous, even if no-one knows, when I walk through the door). Or he could continue on down Pilestredet and end up in those swarming streets in the heart of the city. But that I wouldn’t have believed if I had stood here for the first time in my life and had never been to Oslo before, he thought as he looked down Pilestredet. For it looked as though to continue down Pilestredet would land him in a dangerous blind alley which led in the end to dreary warehouses, a dumping ground for tyres and rusty jalopies down in the boggy area by the harbour, because what he saw from where he was standing was, on the left, a depressing factory building, a former brewery, and on the right a row of apartment block facades of the most seedy and run-down sort, and, furthermore, as Pilestredet was very narrow, it did not seem particularly reassuring to go on down, by contrast to walking up Thereses gate, which is a lively street, full of charm. Seen from here, from the viewpoint of someone who has gone astray, it would be natural to walk up Thereses gate, because, lured by the audacious liveliness of this street, you would think that Thereses gate was located in the densest downtown area, and you would look up the steeply climbing Thereses gate and think that, at the top of the street, the city centre would open up, with magnificent avenues, the Palace and the Parliament, the National Theatre and the Opera, a real capital for an enviable people of the wealthy Occident that has lived in affluence for almost a hundred years by now, so that when the blue tram comes up Pilestredet, enters the traffic circle at Bislett and begins slowly moving up Thereses gate, one tends to think that it comes from the bleak Oslo outskirts and is on its way to the glittering centre, whereas in reality it is the direct opposite – well, Adamstua is not exactly a bleak fringe, but it is the frontier of the central city, for beyond Adamstua rural life begins, with villas and sentimental row houses, he thought, before he suddenly became furious with himself. Was this the right moment to stand here fantasising, rather than figuring out how to let your wife know about it, he thought sarcastically, or how you can while away the time for the next fifteen years, until you will receive your first retirement cheque, he thought, in the same sarcastic way. Yes, where was he to go? Past Bislett and on, and then up Dalsbergstien to St Hanshaugen and the famous brown restaurant, the Schrøder. (A beer, he thought, and I haven’t been to the Schrøder for a long time.) He was about to cross the street, first over to the Bislett Baths and then along Bislett, when he was suddenly struck by sheer aesthetic pleasure at the sight of the Bislett Stadium on the other side of the street. It’s a really handsome stadium, he thought. Art Deco. An ornament to the city. Small to be the principal stadium of a European capital, but what pleasing dimensions. And how about those remarkable acoustics, with echoes from the concrete walls when the roars of enthusiasm strike them and ricochet back, he thought, before again going rigid at the thought of what he had done. Yes, what shall we live on? he asked himself in despair. What is going to happen to her? I’m afraid she will stick at nothing and humiliate both herself and me. I will not be able to take it, he thought darkly. But if this is true, and unfortunately it is, then it is all over, he exclaimed inwardly, shaking his head so forcefully in despair at himself that the passersby gave him inquisitive glances. Standing there by the traffic circle at Bislett, as uncertain as ever which direction to take, he looked in perplexity at his hands, which were still blood-stained, and got out his handkerchief, holding it over the deepish cut that was still bleeding.

  So it is his wife Elias Rukla is worried about, now that he has got himself into this painful position, which means that he must say goodbye to his entire social existence; it was impossible to conceive of any other conclusion to the avalanche that had overwhelmed him, and even if he could, it would not have changed anything, since he would simply have shrugged his shoulders at every other proposed solution and uttered a stubborn ‘no’. Her name is Eva Linde, and when Elias Rukla met her she was decidedly attractive, as she also was when he married her eight years later. That eight years went by from when he met her until she became his wife was due to the fact that, in the meantime, she had been married to his best friend. That was how he met her. As Johan Corneliussen’s woman. This was at the end of the 1960s, and they were all three in their twenties, with Elias Rukla approaching thirty, the two other, the sweethearts, coming up for twenty-four.

  Elias Rukla had made the acquaintance of Johan Corneliussen in the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Oslo, Blindern – in 1966, it must have been. He happened to be there to fulfil the requirements for his university degree in language and literature, while at the same time preparing his thesis in Norwegian literature; by that time he had completed two minors, in Norwegian and history respectively, and he was still wavering between history and Norwegian as his major subject, continuing to do so even after he had begun to prepare his thesis in Norwegian, and therefore it suited him to choose elementary level philosophy as the third subject he needed in any case at that point. At the institute he met Johan Corneliussen, who was already then firmly set on taking a PhD in philosophy, and for some reason they became good friends, so good, in fact, that during certain periods they were practically inseparable, as they say, and, as far as friendships between students go, often quite correctly. They were extremely different, both in temperament and, not least, as far as sociability or social gifts were concerned, so their friendship might have struck others as rather peculiar, if it had not been for the fact that close friendships between young people of the same gender do tend to be peculiar.

  Elias Rukla first noticed Johan Corneliussen at a lecture in a course on Wittgenstein which the two of them, both the elementary student and the PhD candidate, attended, something that ought to have made Elias Rukla understand that he had probably bitten off more than he could chew. Near the end of the lecture, Johan Corneliussen had posed a question, and the lecturer, a noted Wittgenstein disciple, had taken it very seriously. To Elias Rukla the question had appeared quite ordinary, having to do with a distinction between two concepts which, to him, had seemed quite simple, but the lecturer looked greatly taken aback and stood absolutely still for at least two minutes before he turned to the student who had asked the question and talked directly to him, both for the rest of the hour and longer, until a new group of students streamed into the seminar room for another lecture. This made Elias Rukla conclude that the student questioner was not just anybody, which proved to be the case. It was whispered at the Institute of Philosophy that he had a great future ahead of him. The publication of his PhD dissertation on Immanuel Kant would be a real event. Later, Elias Rukla often saw him strolling through the corridors on the ninth floor of Niels Treschow’s House at Blindern, where the Institute of Philosophy was located, and he would think, There goes a man my own age who will perhaps some day be known as a great philosopher. One day he saw him engaged in discussion in the middle of a flock of students. Elias Rukla noticed how he was basking in the lustre of his fellow students, not least the females among them. They paid attention to his arguments, and they obviously liked to be close to him and listen to what he said. Not only what he said, but also the voice in which he said it. They were in the middle of a discussion, and Elias Rukla noticed that when Johan Corneliussen had finished speaking and another
student had the floor, either to add to what Johan Corneliussen had said or to contradict him, they were still looking at Johan Corneliussen. They were waiting for him to answer, looking forward to it with expectation, in fact, especially the female students. And it looked as though he enjoyed it, Elias Rukla thought, and to his amazement he noticed that he had not meant it to be a disparaging observation. He liked the self-satisfied and happy air of Johan Corneliussen as he stood there at the centre of a group of debating students. There was a sense of openness and vitality about it. Elias Rukla was sitting on a bench by himself, well outside the circle of the eagerly debating students, so he could not hear what it was all about, only that they were discussing, and he caught himself wishing he’d been part of this circle, however unnatural that seemed to him, since, after all, he was only a beginner in the subject, with nothing to contribute, and though he could have joined the circle as an interested listener, he felt that even that would appear obtrusive. But when a bit later, after the group had broken up, Johan Corneliussen walked past together with two other students, he caught himself envying them, because already now it seemed to Elias Rukla that to be on speaking terms with Johan Corneliussen would enrich one’s life. So when Elias Rukla a few days later was again sitting on this bench as Johan Corneliussen came down the corridor by himself and then flopped down on the same bench, Elias Rukla grew rigid with shyness. May I cadge a smoke from you? Johan Corneliussen asked. Elias Rukla nodded and handed him his tobacco pouch. Johan Corneliussen rolled a cigarette from Elias Rukla’s pouch and handed it back to him with a friendly nod. Then they went on sitting next to one another, Johan Corneliussen smoking. Neither of them said anything. Finally Elias asked, Why are you studying philosophy?