Eventually the totem pole is positioned just as I want it. It’s wedged into place and I’ve filled the hole around the wedges with small stones, earth and peat. It towers up in the air, spreading colour and the spirit of Doppler around the forest.
It looks really good, in fact, even though I say so myself. I have now settled my differences with my father, I feel. Now he can rest in peace, as they say. And I can have peace of mind because I know that he is resting in peace. Someone has remembered him. One of those closest to him has remembered him and crafted a work of art in his honour. Surely that must warm the cockles of the old rascal’s heart. The man who managed to live his whole life without revealing his true identity. I’ve honoured him and can now set my sights on new horizons. I gather my closest companions around me, Gregus and Bongo that is, and tell them that the time has come to move on. The current state of affairs in the forest is no longer of such a character that we can flourish here, I say. We need air in which to breathe and space in which to formulate grand ideas. The world awaits, I say. We are about to embark on a journey and may be gone for some time. I don’t quite know where all this comes from, but I feel it’s urgent, so I just come out with it, even though I hadn’t really envisaged doing anything once the totem pole was finished. On the contrary, I had intended to do less than any human before me had done. I was going to close in on the magical zero. But now here I am with my two disciples, for I sense that I’ve begun to consider them as disciples, holding out the prospect of a journey that might well be protracted. Are you prepared for such a journey? I ask them. Gregus nods and Bongo looks at me in the same inscrutable way he always does, but of course I know him inside out and I’m sure that he, like any other teenager, is ready for anything that is fun.
But it’s not certain that it will be such fun, I say. We’ll see. But not everything can be fun in any case. It’s amazing that I’m saying this. It’s as if someone else is talking through me. And sometimes you have to do things even though they aren’t fun, I say. You have to venture out farther on the branch on which you’re sitting, and once in a while you also have to saw it off.
Otherwise you’re just a little shitty pants, says Gregus.
Absolutely, I say. Otherwise you’re just a little shitty pants.
But where are we going? Gregus asks.
We’re going from forest to forest, I say. We’ll go into the middle of this forest and eventually maybe come out on the other side. And into the next one. And we can keep on doing that until we know we’ve had enough. But I doubt whether we’ll have had enough after the first one.
There are always more forests.
I tell them that now we should all piss on the totem pole and after that get ourselves ready so we can quietly dismantle the tent during the night and be over the hills and far away before the others wake up in the morning.
We all piss and allow our streams to cross in honour of our father and grandfather, who will stand here for a thousand years.
The countdown has begun.
As we pack, the brotherhood festival is getting into full swing. They’re singing and hollering out there and it’s obvious that Düsseldorf and Roger have provided alcohol for the festival. This is hardly what the reactionary had in mind, but why not, I think, as I work the tent pegs loose. Alcohol will probably loosen them up a bit and they might well get to know each other better that way than they otherwise would have done. As spirits in the neighbouring camp get higher, I realise that there is no longer any rush to take down the tent. They have already reached a point where their awareness of the outside world is so minimal that I can operate without fear of being disturbed.
I make a sled from two birch trees that Bongo can tow. Onto this I load the tent, tools and actually most of my worldly goods in the forest. I take the axes along with me. The farmer will have to get himself some new ones. Maybe there aren’t many axes where we’re going.
I pack all night, while Bongo and Gregus sleep side by side.
Early the next morning I stroll over to the festival-goers to say goodbye. The Christian has been asleep in a strange, drunken position, and the representatives of the two other world religions are in the process of squeezing toothpaste under his foreskin. They are roaring with laughter and having the time of their lives. The reactionary is sitting by a fire telling the Aftenposten journalist, who if possible is drunker than any of the others, that he wished his wife’s breasts were more like boats. The journalist can barely hold the pen he is taking notes with. What do you mean by that? he asks. Boat-like, says the reactionary. More like boats. Düsseldorf and Roger are the most experienced drinkers and are therefore the most active at this point. I shake them by the hand and say that I’m pleased to have met them but now I’m setting out on a journey which might be lengthy. Take care of yourselves, I wish them. You, too, they say, whereafter they settle back down in the heather and carry on with a conversation the subject of which is unknown to me. As is the case with most other conversations on this earth. There are very few I take part in myself. I have no idea what all the other billions of conversations are about. And a good job, too.
Independence Day is already well under way when at long last we’re ready to leave. We can hear the drone of various brass bands coming from down amongst the people. Let them, if that’s what they want, I think as I fasten the sled around Bongo’s neck. Then my brother-in-law appears. He would, wouldn’t he. He glides up to me in that irritating, fleet-footed manner of his, rifle over shoulder. He’s come prepared to shoot me. Christ. I run in amongst the trees and fumble about trying to place an arrow on the bowstring. Stop! I hear my brother-in-law shout, whereupon I let fly an arrow in the direction the sound came from. I run this way and that, zigzagging, but my brother-in-law is fresh after a good night’s sleep and he soon collars me. He wastes no time and summarily shoots me in the leg with a tranquiliser dart. I can see the dart lodged in my calf. It looks just like all the other darts of this type I’ve seen on TV when zoologists have to anaesthetise animals on the African steppes or wolves in the Norwegian-Swedish borderland. All of a sudden my body feels heavy and I sink gently into the heather. It’s a fantastically beautiful day, I have time to reflect. The birch trees are a mass of green with their newly sprung buds and it’s Independence Day in the forest. Everything is pure. Everything is Norwegian.
I am semi-conscious in an odd, uncomfortable way as my brother-in-law carries me in a fireman’s grip down to the Rikshospital. Gregus and Bongo tag along behind. The streets are full of festively dressed people everywhere. I detest 17th May, I think in a sedated sort of way. I have never quite realised before how much I detest this day, but now I do. I detest this way of celebrating all things Norwegian. And I detest all those national costumes. Each one uglier than the next. And just when I think I’ve seen the ugliest of the lot, bugger me if somebody doesn’t come along in an even uglier one.
My brother-in-law carries me straight into the Rikshospital. Into the lift. And up. And into a room where my wife is lying with a little boy on her stomach. My boy. Or ours, as they say nowadays. As of course they should. Bonny boy, I say, and hold him for a bit. On somewhat shaky legs I carry him over to the window and quietly whisper in his ear that I’m going with his brother on a journey that might be protracted, but I’ll see him again some time. In a few years maybe. And that he should take care of himself in the meantime. Don’t toe the line, I say. It’s okay to pretend to be listening to what your mother says, but do the opposite. If you always do the opposite, things will turn out fine. Promise me that. Do whatever you want, but keep away from conformity.
While my wife is talking to Gregus and Nora, who has also arrived, I feel my strength returning, as well as a good deal of aggression, and I force my brother-in-law down onto the floor and tie him to the sink with a sheet. You’re not so tough any more now, are you, I say. You’re tied to the sink. You’re not going anywhere. What do you think of that, eh? He strains at the sheet like a taunted beast of prey. And I’m not t
he kind of person to allow himself to be shot with a tranquiliser dart so you can examine him or have him do your will. I’m not going to let anyone examine me, and I won’t be subjected to anyone else’s will. Understand?
He nods.
And if you ever shoot me again, that’ll be the last thing you do.
He nods again.
I pat the little one and tell my wife it’s great to see him. Was the birth okay? I ask.
It was fine, she says. The best so far. I was thinking of calling him Bjørnstjerne, after Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, the Nobel prizewinner, she says. I mean, since he was born today, you know.
I just knew it, I think, putting on a forced warm smile. My wife’s oh so nice conformity knows no bounds. It’s disgusting that we’re going to fill this little lad with so much Norwegianness on the very first day of his life, but, when you think of it, most of what we do is disgusting, so I’m not going to let it bother me for now.
By the way, I want to have even more children, says my wife.
Steady on, I say. Maybe we can have more children some time, but I still have unfinished business in the forest. Both in this forest and in others, and I have to travel the world a bit and won’t be back for a good while. And nor will Gregus.
My wife eyes Gregus, who nods.
We’re going on a journey, I say. And we might be gone a long time.
Where are you going? My wife asks.
From forest to forest, I say. In a way, it’s a calling. Things are happening out there and we’re needed.
My wife looks at me in wonderment.
It’s something we have to do, I say. Something important.
Can you be more specific? my wife asks.
No, I say. I can be less specific. But not more. All I know is that we have to get moving because the forest is calling us.
Calling you? says my wife.
That’s exactly what it’s doing, I say. For there are other lives than the life we’ve lived for many years now, I say. There are other things besides Smart Club and children’s birthdays and dinner with so-called friends and our repulsively Norwegian notion of social cosiness, which allows us to be both the most affable and the most self-centered nation in the world.
What other life? asks my wife.
That’s what I have to find out about, I say. And when I find the answer, I’ll tell you.
Is this what you want, Gregus? My wife asks.
Gregus nods.
Do as you wish, my wife says. I don’t understand one iota of it, but if you’re called, then you’re called. That much I do understand.
It occurs to me that it must be the painkillers she was given for the birth that have made her tolerant and magnanimous, and we use the chance to make our escape.
On our way out we say a quick goodbye to Bjørnstjerne, my wife and her brother, who is still bound to the sink in a way which is unfathomable to him. When we are about to take our leave of Nora she solemnly shakes my hand and mumbles something in what I assume must be Elvish. Presumably she’s so far into Tolkien’s world that she instinctively begins to think on a grand scale when people set out on long journeys. My Elvish isn’t up to much, but I suspect that she’s showering us with good wishes, and hopes that we’ll finally manage to throw the perfidious ring, or whatever it is we’re battling with, into some volcano.
We find Bongo grazing behind the hospital, and side by side the three of us wade across the stream leading to Lake Sognvann and allow ourselves to be swallowed up by the forest. We walk northwards for the first few hours after which we turn and proceed in a more easterly direction. We walk along in silence. Stopping occasionally to share a bit of Düsseldorf’s Toblerone, of which there are still two or three kilos left and which, incidentally, is the only thing we have resembling food. Towards evening Gregus falls asleep and is allowed to rest on Bongo’s sled, and as we move farther into the forest I breathe more easily. Out here, there aren’t any national costumes, nor is there an Independence Day. There’s only forest. As there was only forest the day I fell off my bike; as there was until the reactionary turned up with all that messy soul-searching of his, and those Løvenskiold threats. Fuck Løvenskiold, by the way. In a few hours we’ll be out of his jurisdiction. He can keep his rotten forest. Where we’re going he won’t be able to lay his hands on us however hard he tries. We’re going to bigger forests than he has ever heard of. And the best thing of all is, I’m alone again. With two disciples, it has to be said, but alone nevertheless. Always alone. Like moose. Like my father.
I think about two things as I walk along.
The first is about my not liking people. I still don’t. But I’ve begun to see that I need to be sufficiently open-minded to admit that this is based on my knowledge of those around me, people in Norway, that is, or Norwegians as they’re also called. I’ve drawn my fairly dramatic conclusions on the basis of them. And of course that won’t do. I have to meet others. I have to open my mind to the fact that somewhere out there it might be possible to find intelligent life that stands for something else. I will wander on until I meet this other form of life. Or until I have established with incontrovertible evidence that it doesn’t exist.
The other thing I think about is that this is a military campaign. We’re going on a military campaign. It’s no good fooling around in the secure Norwegian forest any more. I’ve had closure with my father and now I have to raise my sights, it’s onwards and upwards unless I want to drown in my own emptiness. Outside this country lies a whole world I don’t know. And it needs help. It needs the help of a hunter-gatherer like me, like Chopper Doppler, not to mince my words. And a moose like Bongo. And maybe also a young lad like Gregus. Living in Norway doesn’t give you a true picture of things, I think. Norway has a thousand billion kroner in the bank. It sounds like a make-believe figure. Like a figure you would pluck from the air to exemplify an enormous amount of something. But the figure is real. Norway is good for a thousand billion kroner. Oil has given us this money. Every time conflicts around the world push the price of oil up, we’re raking the money in. And there are so few of us. And who owns the oil at the bottom of the sea and the hydro-electric power in the rivers? one might wonder, while we’re on the subject. And how can we buy or sell anything at all? For Norway is an insignificant suburb in the real world. And we’re in the process of distancing ourselves farther and farther from it. And these thoughts are smart, I muse, but what the hell. So be it, if they also serve a purpose.
Our little procession is on its way out of Norway to the rest of the world. We’re going east. We’re going to hunt and gather our way to other people. Whom I may or may not like any better than those who live here. We shall see.
This is a military campaign. We are soldiers and we’re going to fight to the last man.
Against smartness. Against stupidity.
Because it’s war out there.
It’s war.
To be continued
(Inshallah)
About the Author
Erlend Loe was born in 1969 in Trondheim, Norway. He studied folklore, film studies, and literature before working as a newspaper critic, in a psychiatric hospital, and as a schoolteacher. He is the author of six novels and four children’s books, which have been translated and published in twenty-one countries. He lives in Norway.
About the Publisher
House of Anansi Press was founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish Canadian-authored books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press immediately gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, George Grant, and Northrop Frye. Since then, Anansi’s commitment to finding, publishing and promoting challenging, excellent writing has won it tremendous acclaim and solid staying power. Today Anansi is Canada’s pre-eminent independent press, and home to nationally and internationally bestselling and acclaimed authors such as Gil Adamson, Margaret Atwood,
Ken Babstock, Peter Behrens, Rawi Hage, Misha Glenny, Jim Harrison, A. L. Kennedy, Pasha Malla, Lisa Moore, A. F. Moritz, Eric Siblin, Karen Solie, and Ronald Wright. Anansi is also proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Massey Lectures. In 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Anansi was honoured by the Canadian Booksellers Association as “Publisher of the Year.”
Erlend Loe, Doppler
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