But, like Asterix, sometimes one had to journey out – out of the provinces, to the Rome of one’s day. And because of his special requirements, Jonas Wergeland was never in any doubt as to what was the Rome of his day: London. Jonas’s favourite Asterix story was, as it happens, Asterix in Britain. Generally speaking, Jonas felt he had a lot of ties with the British metropolis, from the music of LPs such as Rubber Soul, recorded at Abbey Road, to the exterior scenes from films like Blow-Up, which had got into his blood.
Jonas booked into a hotel in Harrington Road in South Kensington, only a stone’s throw from the tube station. The hotel is under new ownership now, and has a new name. Nonetheless, they ought to hang a plaque on the wall outside, because it was here that Jonas Wergeland laid the foundations of his illustrious career. It was in this part of the city, too, that he would have two encounters which would totally floor him, the one physically, the other mentally.
Jonas Wergeland never took an academic degree in Norway, but if his uncompleted studies in astrophysics and architecture could be said to count as a foundation course of sorts, then his major course of study was conducted in London. Jonas always maintained that he left Norway to study at Britain’s foremost university. And by Britain’s foremost university he meant neither Oxford nor Cambridge, but British Television. Jonas Wergeland travelled to London quite simply to watch television. So he had only two requirements in choosing a hotel: the television in his room and the accompanying remote control had to be in good working order, and the bed had to meet a satisfactory standard. I should perhaps also say that this was in the days before satellite dishes made it possible for NRK – or anyone else, for that matter – to receive virtually any channel you could wish for. Although Jonas would probably have gone anyway: he preferred to conduct these studies in secret.
Having got himself installed, he strolled eagerly down to Exhibition Road and a shop selling art materials. Here he purchased a large notebook with blank pages and marbled covers together with a couple of good pens. For once, Jonas Wergeland was planning to write, and to his mind this was such a momentous decision that he thought of his new acquisition as a copybook, much like the ones in which he had written his first ‘a’s, or ‘H’s, ladders up which to climb. In a newsagent’s next to the tube station he bought the TV Times and the Radio Times, which between them provided information on the week’s programmes on all four channels. And the rest, you might say, is history. Jonas pulled out a pen, opened the notebook at the first blank page, switched on the TV and settled back on the bed, and there he stayed. In one month he got through four thick notebooks with different coloured marbled covers, filling them with terse notes in tiny writing, as well as lots of little diagrams and sketches. In later years he would refer to these four volumes as ‘the golden notebook’.
It’s odd really. Norway’s most influential television personality of all time was for a long while very sceptical of television. A scepticism which quickened one late August afternoon towards the end of the sixties when he and a couple of chums went home with one of their classmates to complete a tricky homework exercise set by Mr Dehli. Instead, they all ended up with their eyes glued to the television screen. And what were they watching, these otherwise so rebellious, angry young men, who should perhaps have been more concerned with what was going on in the newly invaded Czechoslovakia? They sat totally transfixed, watching the wedding of the Crown Prince of Norway to Miss Sonja Haraldsen. They were dazzled by how brilliantly NRK controlled the eighteen cameras in operation for the occasion: five inside the cathedral and thirteen along the procession route. Norway had taken the definitive step into the television age and the era of the mass media, a time when the world once more became flat and small, a time when people seemed to imagine that a screen could represent reality.
Jonas Wergeland’s negative attitude towards television changed, however, over the next decade, thanks in large part to the passion for films which he indulged along with Leonard. He also understood that he would have to take television seriously for the simple fact that people around him would spend something like ten years of their waking lives as Homo zappiens, stuck in front of the TV screen. And that this box would therefore act as the fount from which they would obtain almost all of their knowledge, their humour and their moral values. People would no longer read, they would watch. Jonas Wergeland was one of the first to comprehend that the NRK building in Marienlyst far outweighed the Parliament when it came to influencing people, to shaping the attitudes and opinions of the Norwegian people.
Nevertheless, he continued to be extremely selective in his viewing, and his scepticism remained intact. What bothered him most was that, as a medium, television did not exploit its own inherent potential to the full. On top of which, he had observed that television almost always rendered intelligent individuals dumb. Or perhaps he should have said ‘flat’. He first witnessed a demonstration of this on an Open to Question programme in which the Aurlandsdalen question came up for discussion and one of Norway’s most knowledgeable botanists was laughed out of court, made to look like a complete fool and treated as such by the programme’s chairman – the first, by the way, in a long succession of television presenters who would be applauded and admired for making fun of clever people.
It did, however, take Jonas some time to find the common denominator in his favourite programmes, productions which made an indelible impression on him, almost in spite of himself: all were British. Over the years Jonas would come to have something approaching a love affair with the BBC, as well as ITV – the collective name for such independent television companies as Granada, Anglia, Thames and Yorkshire Television. Jonas’s heart instinctively lifted whenever one of their logos appeared on the screen: Thames Television’s reflected image of St Paul’s Cathedral, Anglia’s revolving knight.
So what did Jonas watch? First and foremost, through NRK’s Television Theatre he was introduced to examples of superb British television drama, plays by such strong and controversial figures as Peter Watkins and Ken Loach and lengthy, top-quality series like The Brontes of Haworth and David Copperfield. NRK’s own clued-up drama department had screened marathon productions such as The Forsyte Saga, Upstairs, Downstairs, The Onedin Line and I, Claudius – every one of them so good as to be unforgettable. And thanks to the NRK documentary department – or the Swedish channels, for those who could receive them – the people of Norway were able to enjoy mammoth ventures along the lines of Life on Earth and Civilization, in which the programmes’ respective presenters, David Attenborough and Kenneth Clark, popped up here, there and everywhere as if it were the most natural thing in the world, to inform, to enlighten viewers on the mysteries of Nature and mankind’s tortuous cultural development. Jonas realised early on that some of these television programmes would leave their mark on an entire generation, not only in Norway, but throughout the world; that they would be employed as rock-solid points of reference in life.
All credit to NRK. Other than Denmark, Norway was the only country in the seventies to import more programmes from Great Britain than from the United States. Not much is known about Jonas Wergeland’s political views, beyond his adherence to an obdurate Outside Left line, but it is safe to say that he regarded the Americanisation of Europe with something resembling serious concern. It was one thing to be dependent on the United States where matters of security policy were concerned, quite another to be reliant on the US when it came to making sense of the world. There was, for some years, an ongoing debate as to whether America should be allowed to deploy missiles in Norway, but what everyone forgot was that it had already deployed something far more important there: its television programmes. So when Jonas Wergeland elected to go to England to gain inspiration for television projects – and not to America, as so many other people in Norwegian broadcasting did – this was as much a conscious decision as choosing a European film-maker as role model.
Nothing but the best would do. London was, for Jonas Wergeland, what Rome had been for He
nrik Ibsen. He found a new aim in life, a standard to live up to. He had his eyes opened to true excellence – a crucial lesson for someone from a country where every mediocre variety-show crooner was hailed as the new Caruso. Jonas also formed a firm belief – one to which he would hold even when many, later, would call him naive: the belief that television could have a democratising effect, that at certain happy moments television could actually rouse people, encourage them to think big. In short, it was in London, through the studies he conducted in a hotel room in the early eighties, that Jonas Wergeland became convinced that it paid to go for quality, even in a commercial context, and that quality did not necessarily preclude entertainment.
So it was no great achievement to simply lie on a bed and watch TV for a whole month at a stretch, jotting down the odd note now and again, more or less sketching out an idea; in fact it was a pleasure. Jonas felt sure that he could train himself to be a TV wizard merely by lying back and moving nothing but his fingertips. People today often complain that they get up from the television with a feeling of emptiness. When Jonas Wergeland got up off that bed in London after staring at the screen for four solid weeks, he did so as a cultivated man. He did not even feel bad about the fact that he had not visited any of the countless museums and galleries around his hotel as he had planned.
The fact is, you see, that Jonas was a bit of an art lover. As a small boy he had often attended exhibitions with his maternal grandmother. Not only did he love looking at the pictures, he delighted just as much in the things Jørgine was liable to say about them, comments which made passers-by turn their heads and stare, dumbfounded, at the elderly lady with the cigar stump wedged in the corner of her mouth. He particularly remembered their wanderings through the National Gallery, best of all their visits to the red room where the light streamed down over magnificent canvases by the so-called National Romantics – not least among them Johann Christian Dahl. Granny could spend half an hour just gazing at the massive painting from Stalheim in Sogn, telling Jonas about how it was painted and what it depicted, and look at those teeny-weeny figures on the road and the goats in the foreground and oh, isn’t that sweet, that horse there has a foal, d’you see? As a grown man, whenever Jonas came across that picture in one of its countless reproductions it was not only his grandmother he thought of – J.C. Dahl’s painting also brought with it another, even stronger memory, one bound up with the Byrds’ exquisitely wistful, biblically-inspired song ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’.
Jonas remembered seeing Leonard’s back as he walked off towards the antique sculptures, disappearing into the maze of grubby plaster copies, while Jonas himself followed the sound of the strings and soon found himself in the gallery containing the masterpieces of the National Romantic period, among them ‘From Stalheim’. But he did not look at Dahl’s painting, commanding though it was; he looked at her, Sarah B., he stared at her, at her face, her lips, the fingers moving with virtuoso precision over the violin’s finger board. She must have sensed his gaze because she turned, sent him a startled glance, then her lips flashed him a quick smile. He could not take his eyes off her, the lovely blue dress, her chignoned hair, her throat, her hands, but most of all her fingers. It was there, in those first few seconds that everything happened; this was the high point, not what would occur in the weeks thereafter. Because he knew how it would go. She would note his interest and when they had finished playing she would come over to him and say: ‘I didn’t know you were into paintings, are you into music too?’ And he would know that this was an invitation, an opening, a fork in the road.
With his eyes riveted on her he listened to the music, heard how the orchestra threw itself into the lively second movement, a waltz, and he knew that he would not speak to her in the schoolyard on Monday, but that they would look at one another differently during break, and that he would walk up to her on Friday, just before they went home and ask if she would like to go to the Film Club with him the following day. And she would say that she would call him. He stood in the National Gallery, in the shadow of J.C. Dahl’s painting from Stalheim, one of the icons of his childhood, listening to a rousing waltz – so infectious that he almost felt like taking a twirl around the floor – and foresaw that he would go crazy, waiting for Sarah to call.
Jonas would have the house to himself that Saturday and he would spend the whole day waiting. The waiting would drive him round the bend, and he would realise that he was in love, so much in love that he had to think of something, which is to say: without being aware of it he would think of something, a ploy which would convince her that he was special, that he appreciated music, and not just any old music. When the phone rang he needed to have something really unusual playing on the stereo in the background, so she could hear that he liked this music, which in turn would persuade her that he was the boy for her.
He would know exactly what to play. The reason Jonas knew about Rickenbacker guitars was that, for reasons only his body understood, he had chosen The Byrds as his favourite group. And if there was one thing which epitomised the sound of this – sadly, and undeservedly, somewhat forgotten – American group, it was a twelve-string Rickenbacker. So Jonas would get out all of his Byrds’ records and have a good think, because it was, of course, absolutely vital that he pick the right song; and after long and agonising consideration he would finally decide upon bass player Chris Hillman’s simple, but catchy ‘Have You Seen Her Face’ from the consistently excellent album Younger Than Yesterday. In choosing this track he would in fact be saying: See, you caught my eye! See, I’m an outsider too, I don’t play the same crap as everybody else!
Jonas stood in the red room in the National Gallery and observed how the light fell on Sarah’s chignoned hair, how her fingers danced over the violin strings, and he thought of that Saturday when he would start to play the carefully selected Byrds’ track. And he would play it again and again because she could call at any minute; he would commence playing it at nine in the morning, and by the time ten o’clock came, still with no phone call from her, he would have played it almost twenty times. He would know that it was crazy, sheer stupidity, and yet at the same time not know it, he would continue to ensure that the strains of ‘Have You Seen Her Face’ filled the living room, again and again, with him caterwauling along to it, adding his own frantic tones to the harmonies; he could not stop playing it, because she had to hear that he was listening, just by chance really, to this song when she called; in other words: that he had the most discriminating taste in music and definitely merited her keen interest. Eleven o’clock would come and go and the same Byrds’ track would be sounding from the stereo for something like the fiftieth time – and then, just as he was contemplating giving up, or had decided to play ‘Have You Seen Her Face’ just one last time, more as a dirge this time, she would call, and even then, at this moment of triumph, he would not be able to help thinking, far at the back of his mind, that the fulfilment of this most heartfelt wish also came as something of a letdown. And without any indication that she could hear a tune distinguished by the sound of a twelve-string Rickenbacker playing loudly, remarkably loudly, in the background, Sarah would arrange to meet him outside the Saga cinema later that day, but still he would be positive that she had been in two minds right up to the second when he picked up the phone, that it was only because he had been playing that song that she had consented to go out with him.
Jonas stood in the National Gallery listening to a string orchestra, noticing how the instruments gleamed like freshly varnished boats, and he thought of how they would see one another several Saturdays in succession. She would go to the Film Club with him and afterwards they would stroll down to Karl Johans gate and say goodbye at the corner of Universitetsgaten, where their ways parted. And it would be on one such Saturday, in late April, when Leonard had gone off home, leaving Jonas alone with Sarah, that she would place her fingers lightly on the back of his neck and draw him towards her and they would kiss for the first time, right there on the corner, in the mi
ddle of Karl Johans gate, in the middle of the main thoroughfare in Oslo. Not counting the kiss from Margrete in elementary school, this would be the first serious kiss of Jonas Wergeland’s life and yet again he would discover that there was something unique about these first experiences with girls, for while one’s first oysters, for instance, or first sip of wine seldom tasted good, Jonas would feel that this kiss, the touch of her lips, exceeded all expectations – which is saying a lot, when one considers his gift for simulation; it would be like experiencing a twelve-string kiss after dreaming of a six-stringer. It would, therefore, be only right and proper that this should take place on Karl Johan, the most public spot in the whole of Norway; and Jonas would be quite giddy with pleasure, the very fact of blatantly kissing in the middle of the main street on a Saturday afternoon, kissing for all to see, rendering it all the more exciting, causing a delicious tingling sensation to ripple from his lips into every muscle and joint in his body, until it seemed to him that he had actually keeled over and was hovering, flat on his back, the way conjurers could make people hang in mid-air, while at the same time standing in the middle of Karl Johan, kissing.
Jonas stood in the National Gallery’s red room, next to J.C. Dahl’s huge painting from Stalheim, that sweeping vista, and thought of how they would kiss and kiss, greedily, avidly; how Sarah would stand with those longed-for fingers of hers on the nape of his neck before running them through the hair at the back of his head as if she had found some invisible strings on which she could play; and they would stand there intertwined, intent on losing themselves in one another, and he would note the way her nostrils vibrated when she kissed him, just as they did when she was playing the violin, and his tongue would meet hers and he would think to himself that he would never break contact with it, that nothing could drag him away from that mouth, not even the sight of a neighbour, such a notorious gossip as Mrs Five-Times Nielsen; and they would stand there, kissing unrestrainedly, and the days would pass, and the outdoor cafés would open, offering prawn smørbrød and foaming glasses of beer, and the long children’s parade would pass them by on May 17th, shouting and cheering and waving flags in their faces; but they would carry on kissing, totally engrossed, while summer came in with blaring brass in the small circular bandstand directly opposite and people popped into Studenten for fragrant ice-cream cones; they would stand with their lips pressed together while pigeons landed and shat on the statue of Henrik Wergeland in Studenterlunden and young men came out of Cammermeyer’s bookshop carrying copies of Line by Axel Jensen; they would kiss and kiss even while Spanish-speaking tourists unfolded maps round about them and different flags were raised on the poles along Karl Johan as heads of state from various countries saw fit to visit the city, and the weeks would pass and they would kiss, feverishly, oblivious to the fact that school had started and schoolchildren were pouring out of Norlis’ bookshop armed with new sets of compasses and rulers, and focused-looking law students were once again strolling into lectures in the old University banqueting hall; they would kiss while tempting posters advertising the season’s programme were hung up outside the National Theatre and even when autumn drew on and the leaves fell off the lime trees still they would stand there kissing, observed on the last Friday of the month by cabinet ministers driving, discreetly, impotently, past them and up to the Palace in black limousines; they would kiss, shamelessly, insatiably, while people walked by on their way to see American films at Palassteatret, they would kiss, stand there embracing, mouth to mouth, only snatching a breath every now and again, much in the way that whales occasionally rise to the surface, while the Town Hall bells marked each hour with a different folk tune they would remain in this haze, kissing despite the fact that it began to snow, kissing all the harder in fact, to keep warm; and they would stand there, lost to the world, as Christmas approached, with festive decorations in the street and people going into the record shop to buy Bach’s Christmas Oratorio as a present for especially dear friends, and they would kiss as the New Year fireworks banged and crackled above their heads, they would kiss, unfazed by the decidedly merry diners emerging from Restaurant Blom, reeking of brandy and trying vainly to hail cabs, and they would kiss as folk trudged past with skis over their shoulders, off to catch the tram to Frognerseter, they would go on kissing until spring came, with birds singing and newly-sprung, heart-shaped leaves on the lime trees and ejaculating fountains in Studenterlund, Jonas would stand there for an eternity, kissing Sarah, and perhaps for that very reason this kiss would be as much of a revelation as if she had removed her mask at the very end of an exhausting masquerade and when it was gone so too would the thrill, though Jonas could not have said why or how – if, that is, it was not that the thrill lay in the mask and not in the face, and all at once Jonas realised that he was kissing an illusion, depths which again turned out to be flatness; in any case, Jonas would have to tear himself free and with the kiss thus over he would say a cheerful, but uneasy goodbye.
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