But now – he had been cured, believed himself to have been cured, ages ago of such stupid ideas. The Jonas who stood in that small corner tower in Belém had long since dismissed any possibility of suffering the same fate as Melankton; of setting the highest goals for oneself, of meaning to do something that no one else had ever done, only to have to settle for less. Right now, though, he had only one thought in his head, the one which has, down through the ages, formed a common bond between most men: a constantly churning ‘cunt, cunt’. He had had a hard-on for some time. Marie felt it, but did not turn round, still seemed totally absorbed in scanning the bend of the river and the sea below. And then, with one foot – he had to admire her technique – she flipped shut the two narrow, red flaps which served as a door, while at the same time lifting up her skirt, positively offering herself to him, and not only that – offering the confirmation of a possibility to which he had closed his eyes for far too long: he could bring his grand and noble project to fruition while at the same time satisfying his basest desires. The enticing backside before him could be viewed as a globe, and the crack in it as a strait into which he could sail. All at once she seemed more impatient than him, as if she did not wish to give him time to think; she started fumbling for the zip on his fly, an unmistakable sign which gave him the courage to carry out this operation himself, to take out his swollen member, pull down her panties and then, almost without having to push at all, let his erect penis be piloted into her, up inside her, by the slippery fluids which were already present in abundance. And he knew, although he would not admit it to himself, that he had reached his goal, that this had always been his goal. This was why he had left Oslo so quickly, barely stopping to pack, when he heard that she was here. Margrete had been furious, it had not fitted in with her work schedule at all, but he had not listened to her, simply had to jump on a plane, knew it was his only chance. He found out which hotel she was staying at and on the very first morning he stationed himself a little way off, to watch the entrance. He hardly recognised her, though, when she came swinging through the door in her almost frivolously girlish outfit. He had lost sight of her down in the maze-like gridwork of Baixa when she walked out of a stationer’s in the Rua do Ouro, but had spotted her again, thank heavens, outside the café on the Rossio. He may, for one resolute moment, have thought that he could actually manage to talk her round, but deep down he had always known that it would end here, with him driving into her from behind like a – yes, exactly what they called women who slept their way to the top in NRK: a telly tart.
He heard the waves breaking against the bank behind the tower, heard seagulls crying. He saw himself from the outside, saw himself standing there like a panting rhino, a primeval, galloping beast. He stared at the shining sea. Discovered nothing. Only that intense light. I was dazzled, he told himself, as if memorising something to use later in his defence, an answer to the question as to why he did it. And all the time she just stood there, seemingly unfazed, gazing out across the Tagus and the countryside on either side of the river, and perhaps it was the fact that he could not see the look on her face, had no way of knowing what she was thinking, which worked him up to such pitch that he knew he was going to come at any minute, that for once he would not be able to control himself and that this was the aim: not to control oneself, but simply to succumb to a fateful moment of ecstasy in which all else was forgotten; surrender to the madness, a madness much worse than banging one’s head off a wall, because there can be seconds when your life is turned upside down, when you do something that can never be altered, something which will have the greatest conceivable consequences. And behind this thought again he knew that he would never be able to blame it on a fit of madness, because underneath the frenzied, and to some extent, false excitement, lay a cynical, crystal-clear and quite deliberate plan.
He climaxed, so violently that it seemed to come all the way from his toes, but as he came, in a complete daze and yet one hundred per cent aware of what he was doing, she pulled away from him, held onto his penis with one hand and let his semen spill into the other. Afterwards his thoughts would keep returning to this action; he could not help marvelling at how, by some instinct, she had had the presence of mind, or sensitivity of muscle to detect the final engorgement preceding his first convulsions, and had managed to draw away in time. And he never forgot how, in full view of him, she slung the semen she had caught in the palm of her hand out over the river, in a sowing action, and how, still bent over her, he was sure he saw the drops of sperm fall through the air, glittering, truly sparkling in the light before striking the water far below, like a shower of pearls. He thought: that’s a life being tossed out there, the life I really ought to have chosen.
Afterwards – he did not remember much of what happened afterwards – she had turned and looked at him. She put a semen-drenched finger to the scar on his forehead, the wound from that time when he had been thinking too much during a skipping game, as if wondering what it was, or as if she were saying: Now you’re marked for life. And he could not help thinking that what he considered the badge of his nobility, the proof that it was possible to think parallel thoughts, was now smeared with semen. Then she had quickly tidied herself up, opened the door of the tower and smiled – a smile that was neither accusing nor rueful; a smile which said that she would neither belittle nor make too much of what had happened. And, whether because of that smile or what, he saw that this, this act, even though it was not all that immoral, and even though it was the sort of thing that millions of people did every day without blinking and without it having any serious repercussions – that in his, Jonas Wergeland’s, case this was the one thing in life he should not have done. He knew that from the instant his semen touched the palm of her hand, or from the second the drops of sperm hit the water below, his life was spilt, ruined, as strangely and inexorably as tearing a tendon – only a tiny tendon but still enough to make one collapse in absolute agony. I’m going to fertilise the whole world, he thought, but I am dead.
They walked down the stairs and took a taxi into town, drove past the vast Comércio Square down on the waterfront, before ending up at a small restaurant, a tasca, in Alfama, not far from the cathedral. He remembered very little of that meal. The food was probably excellent. The wine too. He stared at a building on the other side of the street, faced with glazed tiles so begrimed that the pattern on them could only just be made out, like another world, behind the dirt. He sat as if in a trance. Remembered only that she appeared to be having a nice time, that she revealed a charming – surprisingly charming – side of herself, that there was a smell of grilled sardines, that darkness fell outside, that the tile-covered building front took on a deeper and deeper glow; lots of small, identical tiles combining to produce a mesmerising effect, rather the way kiss upon kiss can do. He had a vague idea that they had talked about many things, that someone had sung, possibly the proprietrix, and that she, Marie, had suddenly got up and said she had to go. But before she left, this he remembered quite clearly, she had leaned over him and whispered in his ear, as if it were a big secret, that he shouldn’t worry any more about his series, it would be okay. ‘We’ll figure something out,’ she whispered, as if she really cared. ‘We might be able to dip into the DG’s kitty.’ Then she made her way out, waving to their hosts, flashing him a smile, one of those rare smiles that sticks in the memory. ‘See you in Oslo,’ she said from the door. ‘And go easy on those Brazilian soap operas. Take a ride on a tram-car instead.’
He completed his television series. And it was good – some said brilliant. A substantial additional injection of funds made it possible for the remaining programmes to be made. He would be hailed as an artist who did not prostitute himself – this was the very word used in several reviews. He had read them and hung his head. But still he could not rid himself of the thought that Marie H. had done it out of genuine sympathy for his project. That the incident at the Belém Tower was neither here nor there as far she was concerned.
> He was left sitting dejectedly in a tasca in Alfama, staring at the fish bones on his plate with no memory of having eaten fish. There was just one thought racing around his head: of Margrete. Daniel had been right. The soul did lie in the seed. To anyone else this would have been a mere bagatelle. Only he perceived the true gravity of it. Because he was married to an extraordinary woman, there was no telling how she would react to a ‘bagatelle’. At some point she would ask him what he had done in Lisbon. She would spot right away, however well he washed himself, that he had come back with a smear of semen on his forehead. He knew even then, as he sat in that tasca in Alfama, that one day he would stand over Margrete’s dead body and ask himself why she had done it. And he knew that he would be forced to answer: Because I didn’t think about her here in Lisbon. Or rather: for the first time, with this act, he had given open expression to his lack of empathy, his unforgivable blindness. He knew what Margrete was like, that he ought to have considered the labyrinthine turnings of her mind, but he pretended not to know.
He had been confronted with his exceptional blindness back in the summer he spent with Bo Wang Lee. He was never quite sure when he discovered it – the truth about Bo, that is. Or whether he had actually known right from the start, but had simply chosen to ignore it. Bo was more than he seemed. More than a Chinese even.
It may have started with the little electronic organ in one of the rooms in Bo’s aunt’s flat. Bo said his aunt was keeping it for her boyfriend, who also worked with the Norwegian American Line. Bo had been given strict instructions not to touch it, but he thought he could at least demonstrate the hypnotically pulsating rhythm box. Simply by pressing a few buttons Bo conjured up the sensuous rhythms of the rumba, the samba, the cha-cha-cha. Jonas thought it was pretty smart. But it was more than smart to Bo, he turned up the sound and began to dance, and Jonas saw, to his amazement, horror almost, that Bo knew the basic steps, and not only that: something weird had happened to his body, there was something a little too graceful and supple – voluptuous – about it as he swayed around the floor with an invisible Latin American partner, sending Jonas a strangely enigmatic, zig-zag smile, as if he were feeling both proud and a bit sheepish.
Even more thought-provoking, though, was what happened when Jonas showed Bo one of Daniel’s ballpoint pens, purchased in Strömstad. On it was a lady in a black bathing-suit and when you turned the pen upside down the bathing-suit slid off. Jonas thought it was kind of sexy. But when he looked at Bo, expecting to be complimented on the stripper in his pen, he saw that Bo was not the least bit impressed. If anything, he looked as if he was disappointed that Jonas should fall for something so appallingly cheap and vulgar.
There had been more of such incidents, but they had been evenly dispersed and only later was Jonas able to view them all together as one long clue to something he should have noticed right away. If, that is, he had not, in fact, seen it but – busy as they were with their games – had chosen not to see it.
Tucked away in one of the many cardboard boxes which testified to the fact that Bo and his mother were nomads, residing only temporarily in the flat at Solhaug, was a calligraphy set. Often when Jonas rang Bo’s doorbell in the morning his friend would be sitting writing with elegant pens and real ink which contrasted sharply with the rude pen which Jonas had shown him. Jonas simply did not get it – a boy who just sat there writing. Who liked to write. Not only liked it – Bo loved it, Jonas could tell from the rapt expression look on his face. Bo’s father, the archaeologist who was so interested in China and the Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, had taught him some of the Chinese characters which he knew. One day when Jonas arrived earlier than usual, Bo went straight back to a large, white sheet of paper and carried on writing, or drawing I suppose one should say, with a brush and ink as black as his Prince Valiant hair. Jonas stood and watched. They had arranged to go fishing up at Breisjøen – ‘to catch the biggest swordfish in the world,’ as Bo said – but Jonas could not bring himself to disturb his friend, so absorbed was he, sitting at his aunt’s desk writing, or drawing. The sheet of paper bristled with weird brushstrokes; Jonas thought it looked like an octopus, with tentacles going all ways. ‘What’s that?’ he whispered, afraid of breaking Bo’s concentration. ‘The Chinese sign for friendship,’ Bo said. ‘These four strokes in the middle, like four chambers, stand for “heart”.’
Jonas thought it looked difficult. As difficult as true friendship, Bo said. Writing and reality went hand in hand.
Bo picked up a new sheet of paper, wrote the word again. Slowly but surely, better than his previous attempt. This time the character looked more like a woman doing a pirouette with arms outstretched. Jonas stood looking over Bo’s shoulder, watching as the brush was drawn, moist and black, over the white paper, seeing the lovely, damp pattern which took shape. He marvelled at the movements, it was like a dance, except that it was executed with a brush. ‘Why are you doing it again?’ Jonas asked. Bo looked more like a Chinese than ever before. ‘Because I’m practising friendship, or something that’s more than friendship,’ Bo said and suddenly glanced up at him with a penetrating look in his eye that Jonas had never seen before. ‘Here, you can have it,’ he said and handed the paper to Jonas.
So Jonas was prepared, and yet not, when they were playing up at Badedammen one day, just before Bo was due to go back to America. The day was sultry; they got caught in a sudden hail shower. ‘Somebody’s getting married in heaven,’ Bo cried delightedly and did a pirouette with arms outstretched. Jonas knew where they could take shelter, he ran ahead to a small tunnel through which the stream from Steinbruvannet was channelled underneath the road and down to Badedammen. They could barely stand upright in the square concrete pipe, but at least they didn’t get their feet wet – the stream only ran down the very centre of the pipe. They were in a secret chamber.
Outside the hail hammered down. Jonas listened to the lovely, pattering sound mingling with the purling of the stream. Big, white pearls sprayed down and bounced away. Within a couple of minutes the stream was almost white. ‘A farewell present from me,’ Bo said with a smile, fiddling with the chain around his neck.
Jonas was not sure whether it was this hail shower which caused some sort of membrane to burst. At any rate this was when it happened. A moment which branded itself into him. The hail abruptly stopped and the sun came out, bathing everything in a golden light. They heard the loud drone of an engine. Across the patch of sky visible from the tunnel mouth glided a light plane, white with red stripes, like a giant butterfly. At that same moment Jonas became aware that something was happening to Bo. Jonas stood there and watched a person unfold. Bo turned slowly to face him and was someone else. One turn and everything had changed. He was she. And she put her arms around him and hugged him, embraced him in the true sense of the word, wrapped her arms around him, and Jonas felt embarrassed and pleased and confused and happy all at once, as if lots of conflicting emotions were being juggled about inside him and kept in the air at the same time.
‘I’ll never forget you,’ Bo said, she said, close against him and smelling of marshmallows.
Jonas felt a lump in his throat and a pressure behind his eyes, but he bit his lip, swallowed again and again.
‘I love you,’ she said, in such a way and such a tone that ever afterwards, when Jonas heard those words uttered, in a song, in a film, or even in a soap opera, he would remember that moment.
Jonas was lost for words. Outside the hailstones were melting in the sun, sparkling like tiny crystals. He wanted to stay there holding, being held by, this girl for the rest of his life. He wanted her to juggle him into a unified whole. And when she finally let go of him, and he let go of her, he knew that from then on he would always be looking for a girl like Bo. And maybe that was why he had to wait so long. Because girls like Bo, who practised writing the sign for love while pretending that it was the sign for friendship, did not exactly grow on trees. Who knows, Jonas thought, they could be as rare on Earth as Vegans.
One day towards the close of the millennium, while Jonas Wergeland was still in prison, Kamala Varma walked into the office of her talented and experienced agent in Holland Park Avenue in London and laid the manuscript of her new novel on his desk. ‘You won’t regret having put your faith in me,’ she said.
As the book’s title – The Tree of Love – suggested, it was a love story. Kamala Varma had been writing for a long time; as she said later in interviews, she had always written. She enjoyed great international respect as a social-anthropologist, but she had also published a couple of novels which had been well received in the English-speaking world; for, although she was a Norwegian citizen and had even written a controversial biographical novel in almost flawless Norwegian – and that despite the Hindi of her childhood – English was her natural first language. But nothing in these earlier works of fiction could have prepared anyone, not even her clever agent, for the impact of the story she had now delivered.
The British publishers knew a good thing when they saw it; they could tell right away that this was something special. Bidding for the rights was unusually fast and furious and the publisher who won the auction – to everyone’s satisfaction the same house which had published her previous books – had not thrown away its money. Unlike Harald Hardråde, Kamala Varma really did conquer England and thereafter the rest of the world. When the novel came out it was instantly welcomed by ecstatic, nigh on infatuated reviewers and readers who had apparently been waiting for, not to say yearning for, such a story for decades. Within just two years The Tree of Love had been translated into over forty languages. Suddenly everybody wanted a piece of Kamala Varma: the press, television, this body and that, and all of them at the same time. She was interviewed everywhere, she was invited to appear everywhere, she was discussed everywhere. There was a period when her name cropped up in every corner of the information society, from Hammerfest to Santiago de Chile.
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