by Dag Solstad
“The voice is important, Paul,” said Jan. “If you’re really going to enter into a relationship, you’ll be hearing that voice for the rest of your life, in all sorts of situations, also when times are hard. Because life will have many hard times to offer; we might forget about that now, when life seems as easy as it does, when everything seems to open before us,” said Jan. So Jan Brosten did not call attention to himself, he didn’t put himself out there. Only a few times did Paul ever see him get involved, slightly, ever so slightly, with a member of the opposite sex, until he met the one whom he would end up marrying. Once Paul was on the tram on his way back from Frognerseteren on a wintry Sunday afternoon. In the middle of the tram crowded with Sunday tourists going home, he saw Jan twining fingers with a girl he’d spent a lot of time talking to the night before; he’d also skied next to her almost all day long on that Sunday.
And Per Arne Pedersen, was he “desperately searching for happiness” before he met the girl he was now going steady with? Yes, Pedersen had put himself out there, that was definitely true, with all the solidity that a future biology teacher in secondary school could offer, and he’d found success very quickly, maybe because he also liked to compete in that way; by then he’d achieved an air of narcissistic authority, which had greatly appealed to the ladies, astonishing though this was to those who knew Pedersen only from Frederikke and Blindern. And now he had a steady girlfriend whom he mostly saw only on weekends. Here, at the OSAA cabin. They would spend the night in a separate room, or else they would share a room with another couple in a similar situation. The others, those who didn’t have steady dates, slept on the floor in front of the fireplace in sleeping bags arranged haphazardly, both the men and the women. So it had to be to those gentlemen on the floor, in their sleeping bags, that you’d have to turn in order to find someone who was “desperately searching for happiness.” Andersen, for example. Andersen who, at the OSAA cabin, was the embodiment of helpfulness. He was the one who chopped wood, carried wood, lit the fire, waxed the ladies’ skis, or advised them on how to wax their skis; he walked around grinning, that ungainly person, who had an indefinable touch of Andersen-ness about him, and many of the young females clearly didn’t really know what to make of him. Was he “desperately searching for happiness?”
No, he was perfectly calm. There was something utterly “typical Andersen” about him. He was waiting, patiently, like the others. In an erotic atmosphere in which all the insidiousness of existence was completely lacking except internally, and kept well hidden among a few individuals who were present. It was the eternal game that was unfolding in that totally distinctive and Norwegian setting. A timbered cabin in Nordmarka. Outside, the soughing of the dense spruce trees in the nighttime wind. Inside, healthy Norwegian students of both sexes. On the lookout for a mate for life. Nothing less. This lent the whole scene a serious note, and caused it to be mistakenly characterized as “a desperate search for happiness.” Because they were all waiting for destiny to strike them, or smile on them. Waiting for something to happen. Each was waiting to find his life partner. Was she here? Tonight? Was Andersen waiting for his life partner? Was she here? Would she really be here? Could that really be true? If so, she would have to give him a sign, a gesture, hold out her hand toward him, Andersen, in such a way that he could understand and begin to hope: a glance, a gesture, a sudden candor, or an attention-grabbing modesty in a lowered gaze, directed toward him, in this case Andersen, who is here, fully present in his Andersen-form, which she as yet does not know, so that as yet it arouses no response from her. His Andersen-ness, which she hasn’t yet seen or associated with anything, arouses no response. On any given evening Andersen may have looked for many such signs, from so many different girls, but perhaps he found none that gave him anything more than false hopes, like in the morning, when they were heading out for the daylong skiing expedition, which had little likelihood of providing more than a minor disappointment, a crushed hope, a glance that wasn’t interested, merely scrutinizing and then politely rejecting; that’s what you’d see when the day brightened, when you had to wax your own skis and the eternal game continued, now under changed external circumstances, signifying that there was nothing special about the fact that Andersen was waxing her skis, of course he should be free to wax her skis, but don’t think that’s anything important, that’s what her cold shoulder would be saying.
But before that, a long night spent in the sleeping bag on the floor here in the OSAA cabin. Because of the skiing planned for the next day, they would all go to bed shortly after midnight. Those who had steady dates disappeared into their own rooms, and those without steady dates got out their sleeping bags and unrolled them. An eventful evening was over! They crawled inside their sleeping bags, but nobody could sleep. They lay there, thinking and speculating, and wondering about their prospects for the following day and which signs from the evening might possibly be interpreted as hopes for the morning and the long ski expedition, filled with possible developments that might ensue. But then the silence was broken. A man’s voice broke through, uttering a salient remark that had just occurred to him and that someone lying there in a sleeping bag on the floor might appreciate, a remark that might, as she lay there in the dark, stir a sense of admiration for the one who had spoken. This remark was then instantly countered with another, and then a third, as someone told a joke he should have told long ago, before a fourth person, in the dark, decided to praise to the skies the present day and age. The fourth male voice inquired enthusiastically whether they had noticed the moon’s hazy passage across the celestial vault that night. And whether they, like him, had felt a pride and a quivering sense of anticipation at the thought that the day was fast approaching when a spacecraft would land on the moon, and the first human would climb out, wearing a remarkable spacesuit, and hesitantly plant the first human foot on that strange orb, and from there, in a state of near weightlessness, peer into space, and way far away, in the dark sky, see our own planet making its hazy passage across the celestial vault. He also asked us to think further, and not least about the starry expanse above us that night. To think about the miracle that soon we ourselves would be out there, among the stars, in a spaceship on our way to the planet Mars. In twenty years, before we turned fifty, we’d be there, on the planet Mars, and we’d finally find out whether there was other life in our solar system. This would happen in our lifetime, he solemnly pronounced in the dark where the students of both sexes lay in sleeping bags, listening. A fifth person was so strongly affected by all this that he began to speak in order to change the subject to something else entirely, mentioning the microscopic universe here on earth. He talked about the computer-created brain, which would provoke a revolution surpassing everything else. About space travel and stellar research. He predicted that the human brain was capable of constructing a robot brain that could think independently, all on its own, and surpass the most brilliant of human brains, what we call human genius, and actually put it in its place. He even took the liberty of being specific enough to predict that in twenty years, this type of computer would be capable of beating the world champion in chess, and winning not just once, not just twice, not just five or even six out of ten games, but all ten games, delivering such a devastating defeat that humanity would have to pronounce a computer as the new world champion in chess; that’s what the fifth male proclaimed there in the dark, speaking in a sonorous voice. But then they heard a sixth voice, and it was Jan Brosten. He said this might well be possible, but it all depended on who was the reigning world chess champion at the time. Some individuals became the world champion because they played in a supremely methodical way, which made their game systematically superior. If the computer faced that type of world champion, the machine might well win, and no doubt, sooner or later, a computer would be developed which such a world champion would never be able to beat. Yet there was another type of chess player, and some individuals of this type also became world champions. They were the int
uitive players. Faced with such a world champion, the victory would never be a sure thing. An intuitive world champion in chess would never be the predicted loser, even when playing the most advanced of computers. That’s what Jan Brosten said from deep inside his sleeping bag. The others waited in suspense to hear what the fifth male voice would reply, but when he eventually did respond it was to agree with Jan Brosten. This led to a brief pause for quiet contemplation, during which everyone silently expressed tremendous gratitude for the intuitive intelligence of human beings, which meant that under no circumstances was defeat a foregone conclusion; but then an enthusiastic seventh male voice burst out of the darkness to add his praise for the present day and age. The seventh voice spoke with elation, almost feverishly, about what he called the Norwegian oil venture. He based his remarks on the vast, valuable resources that lay hidden in the sea off Norway’s weather-beaten coast, resources which modern technology most likely would now be able to raise to the light of day as fuel for the real world, with its infinite number of spinning wheels. In other words, he was talking about the search for oil, which at that time had started on Norway’s continental shelf, and about the future. The person speaking asked the others to picture for themselves the great miracle occurring in the North Sea at that very moment, even on that very night. The search for commercially exploitable deposits of black gold would change Norway. He asked all of them to picture the castle in the air that had taken the form of gigantic drilling platforms out there in the North Sea.
Though they might not use these exact words, the students nevertheless shared his poetic fervor as they added their tributes to their own day and age with all its enormous possibilities. Lying in their separate sleeping bags in the dark, they fantasized out loud, and others hearing their words would add their own comments. But there was something peculiar about this poetic fervor from these young men, who were all students of science. Actually, there should be nothing strange about like-minded students with a certain knowledge of mathematics and physics admiring and praising technological achievements made in our day and age, along with others they know would occur in the future. This was an invocation. And they knew what they were invoking, they were very familiar with such things, but why invoke them? And why here? They would never have talked this way at Frederikke or Blindern. Of course they admired their own day and age, and they also found it exciting to be living in an era that offered such enormous opportunities and allowed for such formidable changes in the way human beings would live and think, but they preferred to keep a safe distance. They didn’t want to be in the middle of the upheaval, with its dynamic exertion of power, but preferred instead to read about it in the newspapers, or see images of it unfolding on TV, so they could then nod, impressed and approving. Fully understanding. For this they had adopted a specific type of language at Frederikke and Blindern, a language they spoke daily. But out here, in the OSAA cabin in Nordmarka, their voices radiated a manly and poetic fervor when they flung their words into the dark. Because here they were flinging their words toward the opposite sex, the girls who lay quietly in their sleeping bags in the same room. The ones they were trying to seduce. Not with themselves but with the era to which they belonged. The age of oil. They were seducing with the age of oil, which at that time took up very little room in the general consciousness of these members of the opposite sex. It was these young men’s own secure crook of the arm describing the oil venture, which they understood, and they were among the first. The space age. The space age and a life partner. Their children would grow up in the midst of the space age. The information age. Computers.
Listen here, woman, an ordinary person will rejoice at the emergence of the information age. We do too. Students in the mid-twentieth century. Hear our manly voices on this night before the skiing expedition tomorrow through the white landscape! My dear, the ordinary person lying here awake and contemplative can offer an extraordinary future, if you don’t turn up your nose. This withdrawn and taciturn student here, my dear, invites you on an exciting journey through life, venturing into the unknown.
Oh yes, they presented one invitation after another. They offered the modernity they had already fundamentally rejected, at least as lodestars for their own lives. The boring math teachers of the future shone as if they were its vital oil executives, with the whole world as their field of action because they were bathed in a desire to find a potential life partner. They were fully engaged in justifying themselves, and their own entrance into adult life. They lay there in their sleeping bags, understanding their own day and age as they listened and waited for a sign from a potential life partner, who also lay there in the dark and listened, presumably with admiration for everything that was being said. That was why the male students were aroused whenever a female voice occasionally broke in, not to participate in the discussion or to add her praise, but instead to offer a slightly impertinent remark. This impertinent comment intoxicated them all, egging them on in their nocturnal praise of the age in which they were living.
Paul Buer was also there. He lay in his sleeping bag, listening somewhat distractedly and drowsily to everything being said. Actually, he was lost in his own thoughts, preoccupied with a sudden idea that had occurred to him, surprising him and making him happy. But he was also listening to the words the other students were flinging into the dark. He listened to the tributes to the Space Age. To the computers created by human brains that would soon put humans in their place. Although not in areas involving intuitive intelligence, where under no circumstances could humans be considered the guaranteed losers. He listened to the voice talking about the oil venture in the North Sea. He listened and listened, and not without pleasure. But did he really hear what they were saying? Did that voice — and by the way, it was Ingebrigtsen who was speaking — imply that they were supposed to imagine what was going on in the North Sea? That couldn’t be right. And suddenly Paul heard, to his surprise, his own voice resounding in the room, and he heard himself say that it wasn’t in the North Sea that oil might eventually be found, but rather under the North Sea, beneath the bottom of the North Sea. That’s where the oil was, hopefully in commercially exploitable quantities. So it’s under the North Sea, not in the sea, Paul Buer triumphantly announced in the dark of night to those students, of both sexes, lying in their sleeping bags. A silence ensued after he spoke, followed by an annoyed outburst from others in their sleeping bags. Not only from Ingebrigtsen; many other voices also exclaimed that there was no use getting hung up on such trivial matters. What a pedant they had among them! What a nitpicker, they cried into the dark as they tossed and turned in their sleeping bags (thought Paul). But then Jan Brosten’s voice broke in to support his friend Paul Buer. Jan said that it was true enough that the search for oil was taking place within a specific geographic area in the North Sea, but what they were looking for was actually under the North Sea. When talking about the search for oil in the North Sea, you consequently had to talk about the search in a geographical sense. If you said that the search for oil is taking place under the North Sea, you’d be saying where it was occurring from a geographical perspective and you’d also be making a concrete comment about the nature of the search. This was therefore a better means of expression, because it also enriched the imagination in a true way. There was no oil in the North Sea, damn it; everyone in this room knew that, even the guy who said there was.
After this, the conversation faded. No one made any attempt to revive it, because it was late at night, and the next day awaited them. Sleep made its way among the ranks of students of both sexes, and soon they were all sound asleep. Except for Paul Buer. Paul couldn’t sleep. Not because he was the one who had punctured the enthusiastic homage to the present day and age and turned several of the male students against him; he felt a hint of regret, but no more than that. No, he lay there thinking about something else entirely. He was wide awake after making his own big decision. At the age of twenty-three, he had decided what he wanted to be. He had de
cided to make use of his science studies to become a meteorologist. I’m going to be a meteorologist, he thought, solemnly, as he savored these words, which he’d never voiced before. He felt a great sense of satisfaction in his whole body. He didn’t think: I can become a meteorologist, or I wonder whether I will become a meteorologist; instead he thought, spontaneously and with a strong certainty in his body: I’m going to be a meteorologist. Me. A meteorologist.
Paul Buer had made up his mind. Lying in his sleeping bag on the floor of the OSAA cabin, surrounded by sleeping students of both sexes, he was wide awake and trembling with joy at finally having made his big decision. He would become a meteorologist. He had long realized that he wanted to do something useful, this was a life-affirming requirement that would govern his life, and now he finally knew in what way he would be a useful citizen of society. In his capacity as a meteorologist. As someone who could, based on countless observations, figure out what the weather would be, even before it became what was forecast, and in that way he would contribute to one of humanity’s genuine triumphs: control of the violent and insane forces of nature by making use of the laws to which they are subject, in spite of everything, and surprisingly enough. In this way it was possible to get a jump on the forces of nature, avoiding them, finding safety, and then waiting. This was no small decision for a young man of twenty-three. He’d been weighing the matter for months. Cautiously he had hinted at it to Jan, who had supported him, but he’d still had his doubts. The consequences of making such a choice were enormous. When you decided to become something, that was what you became forever, there was no way back, no possibility of changing your mind, at least not in a practical sense, unless you were willing to admit defeat, acknowledging that you just weren’t good enough after all. Paul Buer had now decided that he was good enough. It was joy that kept him awake all night, almost until dawn.