by Dag Solstad
For that reason he didn’t feel groggy with sleep at any time the next day; not at breakfast, while waxing his skis, or on the long expedition that the young students took through Nordmarka, or on the equally long, if not longer, return to the cabin, through the wintry white world. Nor while they were packing and cleaning up, or while skiing back to the tram stop at Frognerseteren, or on the tram ride back down to the Oslo basin in the afternoon. At Majorstua he said goodbye to the others. Some were going to a restaurant to eat dinner together. But not Paul Buer, because he was meeting Armand.
Paul and Armand had kept in touch, but they seldom saw each other. Yet a few days ago, Armand had phoned and suggested they see a movie together on Sunday. At the Gimle theater. A film by the French director Godard. They were supposed to meet outside the Gimle just before seven o’clock. Paul arrived late because he’d made a quick stop at his dorm in Sogn to drop off his skis and change his clothes, but Armand had already bought two tickets. They went inside the theater. The lights went out at once, and the film started. It was a strange one. Afterward, as they walked from the theater to a restaurant called the Krølle on Uranienborgveien, a good distance away, but neither of them knew of any place closer where they could get a beer, Armand asked Paul what he thought of the movie.
“Hmm, well, there was some action here and there, maybe even too much, because it was kind of confusing. But that’s better than those movies with no action at all. Remember that one with the geometric park and the castle where they put on Rosmersholm? There was no action at all in that one,” he added.
Armand laughed. “Rosmer, not Rosmersholm. So you still remember Last Year at Marienbad? See that? It’s not so easy to stop thinking about epoch-making art. The same holds for this one. I thought it was great. I’ve seen it a total of three times.”
“Uh-huh, it was kind of strange, the guy who painted his face blue before he fired off the charge. I guess we were supposed to laugh, right?” said Paul a bit cautiously.
“You can laugh whenever you like,” replied Armand.
They were now sitting in the Krølle, and each had a beer. Paul wondered whether he should tell Armand about the big decision he’d made. He really wanted to, because if he did, he would be presenting himself to his old childhood friend as a completely new and changed person. But the decision was still too new, he didn’t feel ready to tell anyone else yet. He’d talked to Jan Brosten several times over the course of the day during the ski expedition in Nordmarka, but he hadn’t mentioned his decision to him either. So even though he now felt a great urge to tell Armand — and specifically him because they’d known each other for so long, from when they were kids and through their school years, they had gone to secondary school together and stayed friends through thick and thin, and then gone to Oslo to attend the university — Paul still hesitated. Instead, he talked about the weekend trips to the OSAA cabin. Way up in Nordmarka. He described the setting, what they did there, etc., etc., and not hiding the fact that lots of ladies were present.
“Sometimes I wonder, most recently I wondered late last night, whether all of us there are desperately searching for happiness. Do you think that’s what we’re doing, Armand?”
Armand looked up from his beer glass and smiled. “Yes, I really think you are. There can be no doubt about it,” he said, laughing. “But I am too,” he added. “Desperately searching for happiness,” he said with a sigh.
* * *
8. Here I must point out that N, who appears at this stage in the novel, and who plays the role of an utterly decisive woman in Armand’s life, is not included here, in the footnotes, at the same time. Here we find her twin sister. Her twin sister with whom Armand had a strange Easter escapade, and who he later sometimes claims is the mother of his daughter, whom N bore him. Here in the footnotes N is almost erased from his circle of friends, and Armand’s desire — here we are talking about the twin sister, and even though N’s voice is almost identical to her twin sister’s (they’re almost impossible to distinguish except by those who are very close to the two of them, and even in that case it would only be a hint, a qualified guess, that he, she, or they could tell the voices apart, a mere possibility) it’s the twin sister’s voice we hear now — and Armand’s delight at hearing the sound from her vocal cords is not delight at hearing the sound from N’s vocal cords, but hearing the sound from the twin sister’s vocal cords. And yet, even though N is absent from this footnote, here, at this point in time, her shadow looms over it, or rather, over the twin sister, without the twin sister’s shadow looming over, or anywhere near N, in the novel over there, at this point in time. There it is N who is clear, as clear as can be, considering the literary circumstances, while here N is invisible. The only mention of N here is in the previous footnote, in Paul Buer’s version of his university years, where Armand was a secondary character, and where Paul Buer expressed his puzzled amazement over the fact that every time he visited Armand at the Frederikke student cafeteria in Blindern, he was always surrounded by beautiful women. There is reason to assume that what Paul Buer observed was Armand surrounded by N and her twin sister, and possibly a few of their friends who might alternate but were always beautiful. N was studying French, and her twin sister art history, precisely during that semester, which must have been the spring semester of 1967, while during the fall semester of 1967 it was the opposite, N was studying art history and her twin sister French, and their various girlfriends were almost as beautiful as they were, so that Armand at that time was always surrounded at the table by a bevy of beautiful female students — the twin sisters and their friends — and since there were two of them, they had many friends. (I should probably mention that there were also young men in this group.)
One morning, two weeks before Easter, one of the twins came alone to the table where Armand was sitting and took a seat. A half hour later one of her, or N’s, girlfriends arrived and sat down, but during the brief half hour that they’d been alone, the twin sister had given Armand an invitation. The result of this was that ten days later Armand was sitting in the night train to Bergen, traveling over the mountains of Vestland, or Western Norway, as he spent a sleepless night in one of the cars that was not a sleeping car, but was equipped with those adjustable seats that allow a person to drowse but never really sleep. Early in the morning he arrived in Bergen and walked through the empty streets down to Vågen harbor, where he boarded a ferry to one of the towns north of there, situated all the way out by the ocean, where the waves of the Atlantic roll in toward the Norwegian coast. The ferry ride took all day, and it was dark by the time he reached the little coastal town where the twin sister had grown up. He went ashore and wandered through the deserted streets that were meagerly illuminated by streetlights and the glow from shop windows, as he searched for a small one-and-a-half-story house that was supposed to be at the end of a cul-de-sac whose name he had jotted down in his notebook. The town was strangely windswept, and smelled of wind and the sea. The harbor lay protected behind a breakwater. There was a church spire. A mechanic’s workshop. Screeching gulls and the smell of fish guts. A market square, police station, and fire station. All of it facing the ocean. As Armand searched for the house at the end of a specific cul-de-sac it occurs to me that I’ve been here before. During the whole trip, from the moment Armand took his seat on the night train to Bergen, I had an inkling of where this journey would lead, a hunch that evolved into certainty when he boarded the ferry and began the trip across the waters of the Vestland archipelago. It’s true that I have never actually seen the islands with my own eyes, but I have a clear image of them in my mind’s eye, even of the town where Armand went ashore after spending the whole day on this little ferry with all the stops it made. The whole town, including the trip there, seemed to be clipped from an interrupted dream I’d had, and after a few days I recalled where this déjà vu was from. It wasn’t from a dream, but from my own literary landscape. Once, many years ago, one of my protagonists was
supposed to vanish from his own novel and end up in this town. He was supposed to go underground, disappear, and reemerge in this town with a new identity. Unfortunately I never finished this conceit because the novel ended before I got that far. It was completed in the sense that I had nothing more to add to what I’d already put down on the page in black and white, so this idea of a new identity in the unfamiliar little coastal town in Vestland must have either been realized somehow in the novel, or when it came right down to it, could not be inserted into it. But now this town has popped up again, twenty years later, in a different novel, recounting an episode that supposedly took place around 1970, that is, over thirty-five years ago. I have to ask: Why does this town pop up now, fifteen years before it appeared in my literary landscape for the first time? There is no parallel between the young Armand V. of around 1970 and the protagonist from the novel I wrote fifteen years later. Armand did not pop up here in order to switch identities; on the contrary he received an ambiguous invitation, which might involve one of the great adventures of his young life. He did not know this little coastal town in Vestland, he had traveled here in response to a challenge, and in all haste. Maybe he’d had other plans for Easter that he’d canceled, or avoided, in favor of this journey.
Armand walked around in this unfamiliar little town by the Atlantic, searching for a little one-and-a-half-story house that was supposed to be at the end of a cul-de-sac whose name he had written in his notebook. The town was almost deserted, but some young people were hanging out at a hotdog stand, as they did in every isolated small town in Norway, at least in 1970. He could have asked them for directions but didn’t, because he didn’t want to draw attention, even though he hadn’t been instructed not to do so. He continued searching on his own, walking up one street and down another, seeking out short cul-de-sacs, which he then explored until he came to their farthest point, where there was often a house; but not until the fifth try did he find the right cul-de-sac, and since this house was also one-and-a-half-story, and small, he went up the stone steps and rang the bell. The door was opened by a man about Armand’s own age, who let him in. Inside the house a woman with a baby awaited him; this was obviously a young couple with a baby who would let him stay the night in anticipation of the twin sister’s arrival. He was shown to his own room, a small one that could be locked from the inside. The couple served him dinner and wine and asked him how the trip had been. Later that evening another couple showed up with a guitar, more wine was set on the table, and the two young men played guitar, the two young women sang, and Armand joined in on the chorus. But the twin sister did not show up.
The next day Armand did not go out, but stayed inside with a book he had brought along in case he had time to study. His hosts kept to themselves. The weather was splendid, springtime with an intense blue sky, and the young couple went for a long walk with the baby buggy. Armand opened a window in the living room and watched them cross the little cul-de-sac that opened onto one of the town’s main streets. He noticed that there was a cold wind outside, colder than it seemed when he had opened the window and looked out, so he shut it again. When his hosts returned, they made lunch, and Armand ate with them. In the afternoon Armand took a nap in the little guest room, which could be locked from the inside, though he found no reason to do that. In the evening the young couple who had visited the day before returned, so Armand emerged from his room and joined them. Soon the twin sister also showed up. She went straight over to Armand, who got up, and they stood facing each other like that; she leaned close and offered him her lips, and he kissed her, long and lingering, surrounded by the homeowners and their friends. Despite the fact that he had come to this little coastal town without expectations, what happened came as quite a surprise to him, because even though he’d known her for a year by this time, they had never behaved like this with each other before.
The twin sister didn’t stay long. She pulled Armand into the little guest room and said that he had to be patient. The trip that her parents had planned had been postponed because her father had been involved in some important business matter. But they would be leaving soon, on their long-awaited Easter holiday to far-off Italy. Traveling by air from Bergen. She said nothing about whether N would be going with them, but he knew that she was. N herself had told him as much, even saying that her twin sister would be coming too. So Armand assumed that N was already at her parents’ house in this little coastal town, but the twin sister didn’t mention her by name. But because of this, Armand didn’t leave the house at all until the twin sister finally came to get him four days later.
By this time it was Maundy Thursday, and her parents (along with N) had left for Bergen that same morning to catch the plane to Italy. As they walked along the cul-de-sac, and then entered one of the town’s main streets, he was blinded by the bright springtime sun; he felt the wind stinging his face and tearing at his clothes as he allowed himself to be led by the twin sister to her house, which she now had all to herself. It was located in the middle of town, a large, two-story single-family house. It stood in a large yard, which seemed rather bare at this time of year, but it wasn’t hard to imagine the yard in full bloom in the summertime when it would undoubtedly be luxuriant. From N he’d heard that her (and her twin sister’s) father was one of the most powerful and wealthiest men in the little coastal town, so he was not the least surprised when the twin sister opened the gate and began walking up the drive to what could easily be described as a noble manor house, based on a general notion of how a noble manor house in a coastal Vestland town of minor size should look. The so-called impressive front entry, with its slate steps, solid oak door, and a small porch framed by heavy columns, was no less than what you’d expect to find at the entrance to a noble manor house in a windblown town in Vestland.
But inside! Magnificent rooms filled with gold, silver, and paintings. Carpets on the floor and some on the walls. Wainscoting. Heavy furniture that must have been shipped on vessels that could hardly have had room for any other cargo than these massive pieces. The dining room. Smoking salon. Billiard room. Conservatory. Library. Music room. A single elegant ballroom, with rococo chairs lining the walls. Objets d’art. Antiquities. Venetian glass. Bohemian crystal chandeliers in every room, sometimes several. Heavy drapery. Damask tablecloths. Exquisite flower arrangements. Tapestries. A wine cellar.
The young Armand V. was overwhelmed. Inconceivable wealth was proclaimed by these rooms. The twin sisters’ father must be filthy rich! And all this was only on the first floor. On the second floor were the family’s private bedrooms. Armand hardly dared believe his own eyes, not least because he couldn’t comprehend how this villa, which didn’t look particularly huge from the outside, could contain so many magnificent rooms, and be so capacious; it must be physically impossible, but after the twin sister had led him from one room to another, he had to admit that this was truly what he was now seeing with his own eyes.
But that was later. At first Armand got only a brief glimpse of all these riches because the twin sister led him up to the second floor to her own rooms, the ones she’d had when she was a little girl, which were just the way she’d left them when she went to Oslo to study, and this was where she stayed whenever she came home for brief vacations. There was a sitting room — big, light, and airy — with a door leading to a balcony, and another door standing ajar that led into her bedroom, which was the same size as, no, bigger, than a normal-sized bedroom. For the time being Armand did not go through the half-open door. In the sitting room, the twin sister sat down in an easy chair that was part of a grand sofa group, inviting Armand to take a seat in a matching chair. She gave him a quizzical look and a flirtatious smile. Armand saw that he would have to take the initiative. He stood up and went over to her.
Then he picked her up and carried her through the half-open door and into her bedroom, laying her down on the bed and sating his desire. Only afterward was he able to look around the room. On his knees he straightened up
, looming over the languorous, naked twin sister stretched out on the bed with her eyes closed as he observed the setting for the lovemaking that had just occurred. A big room with feminine wallpaper and curtains, with a half-open door to the twin sister’s private sitting room. A large dressing table with a huge mirror dominated the room, and two cozy easy chairs with a side table between them stood along one wall. There was also a bookcase and a music table over there, and against the opposite wall was the twin sister’s bed, on which Armand was kneeling for the first time. It was rather narrow and seemed somewhat lost in that huge bedroom. If it had been a double bed, or at least a grand lit, then it would have taken its natural place in the center of the room, but now it was the bed of a lost young girl that stood there against the wall. A lone young girl’s bed amidst all this luxury. Not without charm, but perhaps more a symbol of expected chastity. Along the same wall as the bed was a closed door, and Armand wondered where it led. He would soon find out, because now the twin sister opened her eyes and got out of bed, walking over to open the door, and he saw her go into a bathroom before she shut the door. When she came back out she lay down on the bed again, and Armand crept down next to her. A little later Armand got up and opened the same door and went into the bathroom. Naturally it was very elegant and neat, but what aroused his interest most was that in addition to the door that opened onto the twin sister’s bedroom, there was another door, exactly the same, located on the opposite wall. He tried the handle to see if it was locked, but it wasn’t, so he pressed down on the handle slowly and cautiously opened the door. He was looking into an almost identical bedroom to the twin sister’s, though decorated in different colors, but this room also had a half-open door to a spacious sitting room, and Armand realized that he had opened the bathroom door into N’s chambers, so he quickly closed it again. Now he was in a bathroom with two closed doors on opposite walls. There was no third door opening onto a hallway. Armand realized that the two sisters shared a bathroom, which could only be accessed by passing first through one of the sisters’ private rooms. He opened the door and was back in the twin sister’s large bedroom with her narrow, young girl’s bed. They lay there for a long time, both overwhelmed by what had happened, after wishing for it for several weeks.