The Ringmaster's Daughter

to speak it to now. But ? and now I raised a forefinger to

  show that there was something important I'd left out ? the

  woman in the house had an old crystal ball hidden away in a

  cupboard in the bedroom. Once, many years before, she'd

  made her living as a fortune-teller in a large amusement park

  at Lund. Now she got out the crystal ball and foretold that

  one day Poppy would become a famous tight-rope walker.

  So, she began to train her to balance on everything from

  planks and ropes to buckets and tubs, and one day she was

  ready to show her skills to a real ringmaster. This was thirteen

  years after Poppy had first knocked on her door. The old

  woman had read in the newspaper that a famous foreign

  circus had arrived in Stockholm, and one day the pair of

  them travelled to the city to try their luck. It was the same

  circus from far away that had come to Stockholm thirteen

  years earlier, but Panina Manina no longer had the faintest

  recollection of ever being part of a circus. The foreign

  ringmaster was impressed by the Swedish girl's abilities and

  so she became part of the circus. Neither Panina Manina nor

  the ringmaster had any idea she was really his daughter.

  Maria was giving me a quizzical look. She had always

  been especially interested in how I ended my stories. Per-

  haps she was particularly concerned this time as there was a

  pair of small ears between us.

  Now, I went on, blood is thicker than water, as the saying

  goes, and maybe that was why the ringmaster and Panina

  Manina hit it off right from the start. At all events, Panina

  Manina made up her mind to travel back with the circus to

  the faraway land, where she soon became a famous tight-

  rope dancer. One evening when she was performing on her

  tight-rope high above the ring, she threw a quick glance

  down at the ringmaster who was standing in front of the big

  circus orchestra with a whip in his hands, and there and then

  she realised that the ringmaster was really her father, so she

  hadn't quite forgotten him after all. Such insights are often

  called 'moments of truth', I explained. In her confusion,

  Panina Manina lost her balance and fell, smack-bang-

  wallop, right down into the ring. When the ringmaster

  came rushing up to see if she'd hurt herself, she stretched up

  her arms to him and with a loud, heart-rending wail cried

  out: 'Daddy! Daddy!'

  Poppet peered up at me in astonishment and laughed, but

  I didn't think she'd understood much of what I'd been

  saying. Not so Maria. She glared at me furiously. It was

  obvious she hadn't liked the final line of the fairy tale.

  The sun was about to set on our little family reunion. We

  packed up our things and walked to the tram. For a time the

  little girl skipped along the path in front of us. 'Daddy,

  daddy!' she muttered. Then Maria took my hand and

  squeezed it. I noticed her eyes were full of tears. When we

  got down into the city again, we went our separate ways.

  That was the last time I saw Maria and the child. I've never

  heard from them since.

  Writers' Aid

  Twenty-six years later, I sit before a large double window

  looking down at the coast and out across the ocean. The sun

  is low in the sky, and a gossamer of gold leaf has settled over

  the bay. A boat carrying a handful of tourists is heading for

  the breakwater. They've been to inspect the emerald-green

  cave a few miles down the coast.

  As for me, I've been for a long stroll through the many

  lemon groves and on up the Valley of the Mills high above

  the town. The people here are friendly and kind. A woman

  dressed in black leant out of a window and offered me a glass

  of lemon liqueur.

  I'm on my guard. Up in the valley I didn't meet a soul,

  but whether because of that or despite it, I still didn't feel

  safe. Several times I stopped and looked behind me. If any-

  one has followed me from Bologna, this narrow valley

  bottom with all its old, derelict paper-mills would be the

  perfect place to finish me off.

  For safety's sake I keep the door of my room locked. If

  anyone got in they could easily push me out of a window.

  The sills are low, it's a long way down to the old coast road

  and the traffic is heavy. It might look like suicide or an

  accident.

  There aren't many guests here. Besides me, only three

  couples and a German of about my own age went down to

  dinner. Presumably it will get busier in a few days' time,

  over the Easter weekend.

  The German sent me expectant glances. Perhaps he

  wished to make contact as we were the only two on our

  own. I wondered if I'd seen him before. I speak fluent

  German.

  Before I went to bed later that evening, I took care to

  lock my door. I avoided the bar. I have my own supply of

  alcohol in my room. There's already one empty bottle in the

  corner. Should I feel lonely, I've always got Metre Man to

  talk to. He has a tendency to pop up as soon as I feel in need

  of company. I've been here four nights.

  The Spider has been caught in his own web. First he spins

  a trap of finely woven silk. Then he loses his footing and gets

  stuck to his own web.

  *

  It strikes me now, as I write, that Maria betrayed me utterly.

  In a way she excelled me in cynicism. She must have known

  that I'd never be able to love another woman and she also

  made sure there was no going back. She'd placed something

  between us.

  It's the first time I've thought of Maria in this way. It

  surprises me. As if only now I've begun to pull myself

  together after my mother's death. Father died a year ago. I

  believe I was very fond of my mother.

  I continue to live with the feeling that there is something

  important I've forgotten. It's as if all my life I've tried hard

  not to remember something that happened when I was very

  young. But it's still not completely buried, it goes on

  swimming about in the murky depths beneath the thin ice

  I've been dancing on. I no sooner relax and try to get hold of

  the thing I'm trying to forget, than a good idea materialises

  and I begin spinning a new story.

  My own consciousness causes me anxiety more and more

  often. It's like a phantom I can't control.

  It was all that imagination of mine that frightened Maria,

  too. She was fascinated, but frightened.

  *

  When Maria had left, the world was my oyster, there was a

  feeling of freedom about it. It was a long time before I

  re-established my contacts with girls and I'd given up my

  studies because I felt far too adult to be a student. Never,

  since my mother died, had the world seemed so wide open.

  I often thought about the young writer who'd stood

  me a bottle of wine and paid a hundred kroner for the

  book synopsis. I had dozens of similar pieces at home. His

  novel was published a couple of years later and got good

 
reviews.

  I hung about a bit in Club 7, or in the arty Casino bar, or

  the Tostrupkjelleren which was the journalists' watering

  hole, as well as that huge painters' studio-cum-restaurant,

  Kunstnernes Hus. It was easy to get talking to people. Soon I

  knew everyone in town who was worth talking to. The

  problem was that at that early stage I was perennially short of

  money.

  I was considered a bright young spark teeming with ideas,

  and that was no more than the truth. The people I talked to

  were always older than me. Many of them were dreamers

  and idlers, and most had artistic ambitions, or at least artistic

  pretensions. To me they seemed narrow-minded. A few had

  published an anthology of poems or a novel, others said

  they 'wrote' or that they 'wanted to write'. If they didn't

  say this they felt they lacked legitimacy. These were the

  people amongst whom I conducted my earliest trans-

  actions.

  When anyone I was drinking with said that they 'wrote'

  or 'wanted to write', I would sometimes ask what they

  wanted to write about. In most cases they couldn't say. I

  found this puzzling. Even then ? and increasingly since ?

  I found something comic about the way society spawns

  people who are both able and willing writers, but who have

  nothing to offer. Why do people want to 'write' when they

  openly and honestly admit that they have nothing to impart?

  Couldn't they do something else? What is this desire to do

  things without being active? In my case the situation has

  always been the reverse. I've always been gravid, but have

  never had any wish to produce offspring. The last is meant

  literally, too. The episode with Maria was about something

  quite different. She was the one I needed.

  I kept a diary at the time. But it was not for public

  consumption, merely a few jottings I made for my own

  benefit, a kind of musing. In it I wrote:

  I shall never write a novel. I wouldn't be able to concentrate on

  one story. If I began to spin a fable, it would immediately suck in

  four or eight others. Then there would be a veritable cacophony to

  hold in check, with dense layers of frame stories and a myriad of

  interpolated histories with several narrators on different narrative

  levels, or what some people call Chinese Boxes. Because I'm unable

  to stop thinking, I can't prevent myself from spawning ideas. It's

  something almost organic, something that comes and goes of its own

  accord. I'm drowning in my own fecundity, I'm constantly at

  bursting point. New notions bleed unendingly from my brain.

  Perhaps that's why I've taken a liking to bar stools. There I can

  relieve myself.

  And so a symbiosis grew up. I found it easy to hatch out

  new ideas and associations. It was much harder not to. But it

  wasn't like this for the people who wanted to 'write'. Many

  of them could go for months or years without finding a

  single original idea to write about. I was surrounded by

  people who had an enormous desire to express themselves,

  but the desire was greater than the expression, the need

  bigger than the message. I saw an almost limitless market for

  my services. But how was the business to be organised?

  On the very day Maria left for Stockholm, I went into town

  with some of my work. It was a collection of twenty

  aphorisms. I wanted to test the market, and I wanted to try

  out my own sales pitch. My idea was to trade the aphorisms

  one by one: a beer for each, for example. I have to admit the

  aphorisms were good, very good indeed. So I was willing to

  swap an exceptionally elegant aphorism for half a litre of

  beer ? and thereafter evermore to forget that I had penned

  it. It was largely a question of finding the right person, and

  that was dependent on my ability to strike up a discreet

  conversation. Now I had a pressing motive: I'd used up my

  last few kroner on Maria and had no money to go out

  drinking.

  Late that afternoon I bumped into an author in front of

  the National Theatre, whom for these purposes I shall call

  Johannes, and who was some fifteen years older than me.

  We'd spoken on many previous occasions and I knew he

  regarded me as a genius. I think he'd already realised that

  his writing could benefit from a chat with me. He'd once

  asked me when I intended to make my debut. He asked

  this in a voice that would have been better suited to an

  enquiry about my sexual debut. 'Never,' I'd replied. I told

  him I'd never make my literary debut. This made a deep

  impression on him. Few people said such things in those

  days.

  I asked Johannes if I could buy him a drink. I didn't

  mention that I had no money. If it all went wrong, I would

  have to leave the discovery for when the bill arrived. No

  one had ever caught me in a lie. But I was pretty confident

  things would work out. Although it hadn't been my

  intention, I made up my mind to offer him the entire

  collection of aphorisms because the notion that Maria was

  gone had again washed over me and I couldn't chance not

  having enough to drink that evening. From Johannes' point

  of view the aphorisms could prove to be worth a fortune. If

  he used them properly and eked them out with material of

  his own, they'd give him a new identity. He had published

  two novels in six years and neither was particularly good. In

  the early seventies it was rare for a novel to contain twenty

  aphorisms.

  We went down to the Casino. Luckily it wasn't very full,

  but those present were actors or authors - topped up with

  regulars who aspired to be actors or authors. We found a

  quiet corner.

  After a while I repeated one of the aphorisms from

  memory. 'Who wrote that?' Johannes asked. I pointed to

  myself. Then I gave him another one. 'Fabulous,' he said. I

  reeled off yet another. 'But I thought you said you didn't

  write?' he queried. I shook my head. I told him I'd said that

  I'd never make my debut. I explained that I didn't want to

  be an author. Now it was his turn to shake his head. Within

  those four walls the statement 'I don't want to be an author'

  had probably never been uttered before.

  Every clique and sub-culture has its own set of self-

  evident assumptions. The circle Johannes moved in didn't

  contain anyone who said he didn't want to be an author;

  eventually, and only after many years, one might conceiv-

  ably acknowledge it as something one couldn't achieve. It's

  not the same everywhere. There are still rural enclaves in

  odd backwaters of the world in which the opposite assertion

  would sound just as demented. Doubtless there are still some

  farmers who would be incensed if the heir apparent came in

  from the outlying fields or the hay-making one day and

  announced that he wanted to be a writer.

  Nowadays most secondary school pupils say they want to

  be famous, and they mean it too. Just twenty years ago such

 
a statement would have been seen as quite brazen. Cultural

  norms can be turned upside down within a single gener-

  ation. In the fifties and sixties you couldn't go round with

  impunity saying you wanted to be famous when you grew

  up. You were grateful to become a doctor or a policeman.

  If you did aspire to fame, you'd have to explain exactly

  what you wanted to be famous for: the contribution had

  to precede the fame. This doesn't happen now. First you

  decide to be famous, then as an afterthought, how you'll

  achieve it. Whether you deserve the fame or not is a virtual

  irrelevancy. At worst, you make your way as a bastard on a

  TV docusoap, or, descending into the ultimate slime, break

  the law in some sensational way. But I've pre-empted

  this development; it's as if I've known that one day

  being famous would become vulgar. I've always eschewed

  vulgarity.

  'You're quite a character, Petter,' Johannes said.

  I placed the twenty aphorisms before him, and Johannes

  drank them in. He exuded envy.

  'You wrote these yourself?' he asked. 'You didn't get

  them from someone else?'

  I shrugged demonstratively. The very idea of taking stuff

  that others had written and passing it offas my own was such

  an anathema that I found it hard to hide my disgust. I didn't

  even lay claim to the things I had written.

  I'd got him interested, that was obvious, but I still had

  some complex manoeuvring to do. I had decided to do the

  deal properly and there is always something special about the

  first time. I was aware that I was in the process of establishing

  a permanent business. I was being put to the test - this was

  to be my living. If I failed now, it would be more difficult

  next time.

  I told him that, under certain conditions, he could have

  the twenty aphorisms to use as his own. He gawped: 'Are

  you mad, Petter?'

  I gave him a quick lecture. I made him understand once

  and for all that I was serious about not becoming a writer.

  He grasped that I was the victim of some rare kind of

  bashfulness. I told him I couldn't bear the thought of living

  in the public gaze, that I felt happier in the wings, that I

  would never exchange my anonymity for money. I went on

  to predicate this on a more contemporary political ideal as

  well. 'I've come to the conclusion that it isn't right to stand

  out,' I said. 'Why should an articulate elite raise their heads

  above the masses? Isn't it better for everyone to have a

  collective working spirit?' I spoke of the rank and file and of

  the grass roots, and maybe I used the term 'on the shop

  floor', which was then a very resonant expression, a really

  forceful idiom. I also mentioned medieval artistic anonym-

  ity. 'Nobody knows who wrote some of the old Norse

  myths,' I said. 'And in the end, Johannes, does it really

  matter?'

  He shook his head. Johannes was a Marxist-Leninist.

  Then I quickly added that the path I'd chosen for myself

  was strictly a personal position. I said I'd read both his novels

  and that obviously I could see the value of someone be-

  coming the mouthpiece of the people, only that it wasn't

  me.

  It had begun to dawn on Johannes that he might soon be

  standing out in the street in possession of those twenty

  aphorisms. But there was still a lot to arrange, and I tackled

  the pecuniary side first. I told him I was hard up and that I

  was willing to sell the aphorisms for fifty kroner apiece, but

  that he could buy all twenty for eight hundred. At first I

  thought I'd pitched it too high. Eight hundred kroner was

  a lot of money in those days, both for students and authors.

  But Johannes didn't look as if he was going to back out.

  After all, they were twenty uncommonly pithy aphorisms ?

  I'd spent a whole morning working them up. I said that

  naturally he was free to choose the ones he liked best and

  pay for them individually, but on the other hand it really

  did seem a shame to split them up. I'd had Johannes

  specially in mind and didn't like the thought of relinquish-

  ing my copyright in things I'd written to more than one

  person.

  'Super,' said Johannes. 'I'll buy the lot.'