Armand V
Page 1
ARMAND V.
also by dag solstad
•
T. Singer
ARMAND V.
* * *
1. This footnote, the very first, suffers from having a displaced time perspective. It originates from a specific event that has to do with Armand’s youth; however, it does not deal with Armand’s youth but with his son’s youth, as viewed by Armand, a man in his sixties. This footnote is a commentary on something that took place in a completely different time, and at a completely different place, and with characters who are altogether different, such as Armand, or those who aren’t even included here in this text at this time (such as Armand’s son, who wasn’t born yet); this was a time almost twenty years before Armand would meet the woman who’d later become his son’s mother, and yet the son is a central figure in this footnote, in this scene that illuminates his father’s youth.
1B. One morning not so long ago Armand awoke and decided that he had to visit his son, whom he had not seen in well over half a year. He was wide awake when he made this decision, but immediately prior, he had been wrapped in a doze, from which this clear thought had sprung. Half a year ago, when it was winter in Oslo, his son had lived with him for a while because Armand was about to go on a lengthy trip abroad, and it had seemed fitting that his son, who lived in a little room half an hour’s walk from Armand’s apartment, should move in and look after this spacious apartment, while he, the father, was away. The son moved in with him three or four days before his departure, and lay sleeping in the guest room when Armand left the apartment on a dark winter morning to begin his extended trip abroad by taking a taxi out to Oslo International Airport, which was located at Gardermoen in the Norwegian interior, not far from Lake Mjøsa. From there he took an early morning flight to a city in central Europe, where he immediately commenced the business which was the purpose of his trip abroad. For week after week he flitted around Europe, by plane or train, until he eventually arrived in one of the absolute largest European metropolises, the last stop on his long foreign sojourn, where he had booked a hotel room for five days. However, he left this city the very next morning, because an appointment he was supposed to have that day had been canceled, and since he had also begun to suffer from what was for him a surprising but acute sense of boredom from traveling abroad, especially staying in this metropolis, which he had found so pleasant to visit previously, and which he had looked forward to seeing again with his own eyes, wanting to wander through the streets that were so enticing, he decided, at the instant the cancellation of the appointment was confirmed and he had hung up the phone, to pack his bags, take the elevator down to the lobby, pay the bill for his stay, and then take a taxi out to the airport, where at the Scandinavian Airlines counter he could exchange his ticket for the next flight to Oslo; there were seats available, because the business that had prompted this trip abroad was such that he had been issued tickets which could easily be altered. He arrived home the same day, his plane having landed at Gardermoen in the late afternoon.
At 6:30 in the evening he unlocked the door to his apartment. It was still wintertime, and snow was coming down. Wet snow, which had settled white on the shoulders of his coat, and which would soon melt as he stood there in the entryway about to hang up his coat on a hook. He heard voices in the apartment, not only his son’s, but also a woman’s. He set down his bags and took a few steps forward, toward the door that stood half-open into the living room. But then he stopped short. Through the half-open door he saw a terrible scene. A young man, wearing only underpants, was kneeling before a young, fully dressed woman. A young humiliation. His own son was being debased by a young woman, a girl. The girl tossed her head, and her hair swung softly around her; she gave him such a look of contempt, while his son trembled in his abject state. Armand tiptoed in shock into his own bedroom across the hall and closed the door carefully behind him so as not to make the slightest sound. Once inside he stood there ramrod straight in his winter coat, which he had not yet bothered to take off, and with the snow melting on the shoulders. He was rigid with horror.
He remained standing like that until he eventually heard the young woman come out in the hall with hurried footsteps, pausing a moment, probably to put on her coat, before the front door slammed after her, but he also waited until he ascertained that his son, as expected, hadn’t left the apartment with her, but was still there. Because after a long while he heard hesitant, indistinct footsteps out in the hall, back and forth, until they faded away again, but without any door being closed and locked; on the contrary, his son must have moved in the other direction, his footsteps indistinct, toward the kitchen, and when Armand realized this, he remained standing as if petrified, his back still ramrod straight, wearing his winter coat in his own bedroom, behind his closed door. He was shaken. Such humiliation. His half-naked son on his knees in front of a woman, debased. It was impossible to erase. Forever. The image was bloody and true. He didn’t know what to do about it. Bloody. True. The blood flowed, in the worst way imaginable, the worst conceivable, it was as if he waded in it where he stood. He had to get away. His son’s indistinct footsteps returned, now he was going into the living room. As long as his son was in the living room, Armand could not sneak out to the hall, drag his suitcases into the stairwell, and disappear. He sat down on the edge of the bed, still wearing his winter coat. He had to escape from this situation, but how? He got up, went over to the door, and listened. Not a sound. Where was his son? Was he still in the living room? He’d be able to hear Armand if he went out in the hall and left the apartment. And his suitcases would still be there after he left. Had his son already seen them? If so, why hadn’t he checked to see if his father was in the bedroom? The humiliating scene was awash in blood. He had to stay here until he heard his son’s footsteps again, and he listened again and again to where they took him, until he was utterly certain that they took him, his son, out to the kitchen, and he, Armand, could slip away unnoticed. Finally this happened, and the father, who had long since removed his heavy winter shoes, picked them up and quickly sneaked into the hall, over to the front door, opened it, and then closed it silently, carefully turning the key in the Yale lock.
Then Armand went to a restaurant and ate a decent dinner, with a good bottle of red wine, followed by coffee and cognac. A little after midnight he let himself back into the apartment, which was completely dark. His son had either gone to bed or gone out. Armand hung up his winter coat, changed his shoes, took his suitcases into the bedroom, and unpacked, putting his clothes away in drawers and on shelves, as well as setting all his papers, etc., on a table. Then he went into the bathroom and got ready for bed.
In the morning he met his son, who had just gotten up and who was, or acted like he was, surprised to see him back home. Armand explained that he had returned the night before because an appointment had been canceled. His son nodded, saying that it was time he moved back to his own place. His father summoned all his inner strength, his utmost internal reserves, to say in a calm voice that there was no hurry, but his son shrugged and said that he’d had the apartment at his disposal for over a month now, and it was high time he returned to his normal routines. He went into the bedroom he’d been using, and in an amazingly short time he packed and came out with his two bags and said goodbye to his father.
After that Armand didn’t see his son for well over six months, until one morning he woke up and decided that today he would visit him. But the sight he had witnessed in the living room had not faded from his mind. It was just as clear, or unclear, as the day he saw it. He was unable to reconstruct the scene in detail, since he hadn’t seen it clearly. He had seen the young woman, the girl, who had debased his half-naked son. He had not seen anything more, or he was unable to sa
y he had. If he tried, he froze up and turned mute. He wasn’t even able to describe the way in which she had debased his son, except that he was half-naked and kneeling in front of her, wearing only his underpants, while she was fully dressed. Armand tried to shake off the scene by not thinking about his son over the following weeks and months, except in brief, nagging moments, which in itself was not so remarkable, since his son had long since turned twenty years old and had to be regarded as independent both financially and otherwise. And so he hadn’t worried that his son did not contact him.
Now it was obvious to Armand that he wanted to visit his son today. Before noon he left his apartment to take the half-hour walk to where his son lived in a rented room in an apartment building from the 1930s above the Majorstua district, in the direction of Fagerborg. Actually he had something else to do that morning, but he phoned and postponed his plans till the next day. Although, he thought, I should have done the opposite and kept my original appointments, visiting my son tomorrow instead, or early this evening. His son was a student, and he was more likely to find him home in the late afternoon or early evening than in the morning when students were often in the university’s reading rooms or attending seminars. If he’s not at home in his room then he’s not, but I’d better try to visit him now that I’ve already postponed today’s appointments, Armand thought. He’d left his apartment in Skillebekk and walked up Frederik Stangs Gate toward Bygdøy Allé and on toward Frognerveien, which he crossed to continue up toward Briskeby; then turning up to Majorstua and Bogstadveien, where he crossed before he came to the building where his son rented a room in the apartment of an elderly woman. She rented out two rooms because she had only a meager pension, and in one lived his son; Armand didn’t think he had anything in particular to do with the young man who rented the other room, also a student. But he could be mistaken, because he based his assumptions only on the fact that his son hadn’t mentioned this other student when he had visited his father or had dinner with him at a restaurant, and on the fact that he never saw the student or heard him mentioned when he, Armand, visited his son in his room. Armand had reached the end of Løvenskiolds Gate, up in Briskeby, where the fire station loomed at the top of the hill and where the former transformer station, which had been converted to a restaurant, especially popular among successful young people, was situated on the left-hand side of the street. He then realized that he’d been rather optimistic when he assumed that it was only half an hour’s walk from his apartment in Skillebekk to his son’s room, because now he’d already been walking for twenty minutes and he’d only reached the halfway point. It takes at least forty minutes, he thought, not thirty as he’d assumed. That was because he’d usually driven over there on his previous visits, and the times he’d walked there he had started from a completely different location than his apartment. Well, well, Armand thought as he started walking up Industrigata, though without picking up his pace, because his pace was brisk enough as it was. I’ll get there when I get there, he thought, what makes me think there’s any hurry, he might not even be home, in fact it’s not certain he’ll be there at all. Armand was quite a fit man in his sixties, slim, as he had been his whole life, and he walked with a firm stride up Industrigata. It was a day during the transition between summer and fall, a late-summer day with delicate but clear glimpses of early autumn, such as in the rustling of the leaves. If anyone had asked him he would have confirmed that he thought he’d had a good life till now, and he wouldn’t have said so just because he realized it would be extraordinarily unfair to claim the opposite, taking into account the circumstances and the outer signs of success so strongly evident in his appearance. But just as resolutely he attempted to quell a powerful internal scream, seeking to dull the memory, the sight, that had prompted it. That’s what he had seen. It was this vision, which had caught up with him, now in the image of his own son. Seeing his son in such a state. Anyone who had seen his own son in that state would have acknowledged this vision. Even though he didn’t recognize himself in his son’s figure, except as unidentifiable remnants of something, and barely even that, nevertheless he knew that this was a repeated vision of something he had so inadvertently witnessed on that evening six months before.
He was approaching the building where his son rented his room from the elderly woman. The closer he got, the more impatient he became to see his son again face-to-face, though he still thought it was highly unlikely that he would be home at this time of day. He stood at the street door and sought out the landlady’s doorbell. He rang the specified number of times to signal a visitor for his son. Two short rings. Visitors to the widow had to press the doorbell for one long ring, and if that didn’t work, pause and try again. The signal for visitors to the other lodger was three short rings. Armand pushed the bell for two short rings, and he actually got a response when the street door buzzed and he pushed it open. The apartment was on the third floor, and when he got up there he rang two more times at the apartment door. He heard footsteps in the entry hall, and the door opened. There stood his son. He was dressed in a military uniform and greeted his father with an embarrassed smile.
1C. His son must have had the embarrassed smile because he hadn’t told his father that he was no longer a student, but was now a soldier. He invited Armand into his room, and there he spent a long time apologizing. It had come upon him so suddenly, and there were so many things that had to be arranged.
“Yes, I don’t doubt that for a moment,” said his father, “because not only did you forget to inform me, but you obviously haven’t had time to give notice to your landlady either, or did you intend to keep the room?”
His son said that’s exactly what he was now wondering. He’d actually intended to give it up, that was what he’d considered doing during this leave, which was also his first, and his father had been fortunate to catch him now, because he was just here to pack before he returned to base. But then he’d changed his mind. Because otherwise where would he live during his leaves?
“With your mother,” replied his father, “or with me.”
“I certainly don’t want to stay in my old room at Mom’s place,” said the son.
His father could have said: “What about with me then?” but he just couldn’t. Instead he sighed and said that he would pay the rent for his poor soldier of a son. By this time he’d been sitting in his son’s room on a kitchen chair watching him finish packing for his return to the base. It’s not true that he’d suspected everything would be fine. But he hadn’t expected this, and he had no idea what to make of it.
* * *
2. Oslo also had a lot more to offer even in the 1960s, especially for an ambitious young man. Naturally the text now makes quite an amusing point here, drawing a circle from the Humanities building at the university at Blindern and the building of the Norwegian Broadcasting System in Marienlyst, marked with the southern point of the compass (called the Point of Hope), and then continuing to a point on the radius precisely at the Blindernveien stop on the Sognsvann tram line, moving on in a straight line through the circle, then down again to Gyldendal Norsk Publishers, in order to demarcate the geometrical pattern for the ambitious young students of today. But Armand’s life was so much more. It included excursions to a different Oslo, that strange capital with its distinctive, completely anonymous (now vanished) neighborhoods. One of them he used to visit several times a week, when he had left the reading room at Blindern early in the evening and hurried down Kirkeveien to grab a beer downtown, which began out by Majorstua. There was often a whole flock of students rushing down Kirkeveien, storming at last into one of the many cafés located around the central tram stop at Majorstua (where trams from the whole city started and terminated). At ground level was the Majorstua Building with its subway station. Viewed from the hazy distance of memory this flock of students rushing down Kirkeveien reminded him of free birds on a wild flight toward a longed-for warmer country.
But this was not Majorstua and
its central tram stop, with all the brown-painted cafés back then that were the essence of the other Oslo, the vanished and anonymous Oslo. This was a stretch of road that the flock of students used to hurry along, oblivious of their surroundings, and now forty years later it stuck in Armand’s mind as the most peculiar big-city street he knew, and his heart beat faster thinking of the joy he’d felt, together with his fellow students, when they rushed along a big-city street like Kirkeveien, which it undoubtedly was for him, the kid fresh from the provinces. That big-city feeling on this anonymous stretch of road between Suhms Gate and the central interchange at Majorstua was exclusively due to the car traffic and the street lighting that hung on wires over the street. Besides being a big-city street, Kirkeveien is also one of the main arteries leading into Oslo and heavily traveled. The big-city feeling is entirely due to the noise of the passing cars; the steady rhythm would be abruptly broken off, back then as now, whenever he had to stop at a crosswalk as the light was flashing red, and this red flashing could be seen from far off, like an eye. Back then, a construction site on both sides of Kirkeveien between Suhms Gate and Majorstua was anonymous and might seem abandoned. The sidewalks on both sides would be almost deserted except for small flocks of students hurrying down toward Majorstua every now and then.
Later in life, after Armand had long since taken his exams and left the university, he would often come driving up or down Kirkeveien in his car. It may have been in the seventies, eighties, nineties, or at the start of the present century, no matter whether he was living in Norway (in Oslo) or was stationed abroad. Mostly after he was once again living at home, and he always had his own car parked outside. On occasion, like every other driver in the city, he would come driving up or down Kirkeveien. He would again pass that long-gone stretch between Suhms Gate and the Majorstua intersection, but he never paid it any mind, never even glanced at the apartment buildings lining both sides of the road. He naturally concentrated on the traffic light at the intersection of Suhms Gate, and whether he would make it through before it changed from green to red.