Professor Andersen's Night (3 page)

‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’ he thought, directed to the people whose house he was now hastening towards. ‘The young woman will never stand in the window again. Maybe I have been hoping for two days that she will stand in the window again, but she isn’t going to. She is dead. She is murdered. The curtains are drawn. And when they get drawn back, it will be the murderer who is standing in the window, peering out. It’s impossible for me to play a part in his capture. I can’t commit such an offence against a man who has murdered,’ he thought, horrified at what he was actually thinking, but at the same time longing to talk about it to a friend, so he hurried up Maridalsveien. Yes, he almost ran
through
the snowy weather and the winter darkness and the city’s lights, for an opportunity to share his opinion on the irreversible thing that had happened.

He was out of breath when he rang the doorbell at the Halvorsens’. Bernt opened it. ‘Heavens, are you here already?’ he exclaimed. ‘Yes, wasn’t it at seven o’clock then?’ answered Professor Andersen innocently. ‘Yes, but it’s a quarter to six now,’ said Bernt, and he laughed. ‘Oh, damn, I must have got the time wrong,’ muttered Professor Andersen. Bernt opened the door wide, and Professor Andersen shuffled in, crestfallen. This wasn’t how he had imagined it. He had thought that when Bernt Halvorsen looked surprised and said that he had come far too early, that he would, of course, have answered: ‘Yes, I know that, but I have something important to talk to you about.’ Why had he not said that?

Maybe because it struck him as being a little impetuous. He had, after all, enough time before the other guests arrived to talk to Bernt about this. He would try to bring the conversation round to it in a
natural
way. But that proved to be impossible. He couldn’t bring himself to talk about it, even though he and Bernt had ended up sitting in the living room with a drink each (as he had imagined in advance), while Nina was out in the kitchen making food, now and then asking her husband to come and help with something or other. Each time Bernt went into the kitchen, Professor Andersen had an abundance of time to consider how he might ease the conversation round to the subject he was dying to tell a friend in confidence, either by summoning up his courage and coming straight to the point, or by finding a lead which would allow Professor Andersen to drop an opportune remark lightly and easily, even though it was dreadful. But when Bernt Halvorsen returned to the living room, that remark did not present itself. The time was getting on for 7 p.m., and the other guests would soon be arriving. Professor Andersen expected the doorbell to ring. The doorbell might just as well ring. Because he understood. He knew now; he wasn’t able to confide in his good friend Bernt Halvorsen, not about this. About a lot of other things, but for some reason or other not about this.

The other guests arrived. They were all acquaintances of Professor Andersen. There was the actor Jan Brynhildsen, who had become a marvellous interpreter of comic roles at the National Theatre, and his second wife, the somewhat faded air hostess Judith Berg, and there was the senior psychologist Per Ekeberg and his partner Trine Napstad, the top civil-service administrator in the Ministry of Culture. All the guests were in their fifties like their hosts Nina and Bernt Halvorsen, and had known each other for years. Professor Andersen was glad Nina and Bernt hadn’t invited an additional female guest, who would have been his table companion, as he thought it much easier to relate to social occasions without having imposed on him the duty of entertaining a single woman, who, in advance, one had to assume, had looked forward to an eventful evening, and whose expectations he therefore would have had to do his utmost not to disappoint. He felt much freer as a single guest without a single woman accompanying him at the table, it also made him wittier, because then he
could
throw himself into the role of being an affable participant in the party as a whole, instead of having to be a tense, though gallant, cavalier.

They sat down at the dinner table. The seating arrangement had been fixed elegantly and with an experienced hand so that their being an odd number went unnoticed, but gave them an added sense of well being, since Nina, their hostess, had two companions at the table, Jan Brynhildsen, sitting on her left, and Per Ekeberg on her right, both of whom could then cheerfully compete to win her favour and attention, while Bernt, their host, had one female companion, Judith Berg, on his left, who for her part could enjoy this, while at the same time she had Per Ekeberg on her left. Trine Napstad could likewise enjoy having Professor Andersen as a table companion, but she also had Jan Brynhildsen, the comedy actor with leading roles at the National Theatre, on her right side, and he could converse with her if, or rather when, their hostess Nina was deep in conversation with Per Ekeberg sitting on her right, and in that way was able to
relieve
Professor Andersen, who then could take the opportunity to exchange a few words with his old friend Bernt Halvorsen, the host, whom he had sitting on his left, or just to stare vacantly into space, if the latter was deep in conversation with Judith Berg, his table companion. In this manner the conversation could flow easily from one to the other, with plenty of opportunity for all of them to get involved in one single topic, if most found it sufficiently interesting, because the responsibility of having a fixed female table companion hadn’t been laid on anyone, apart from Bernt, but since he was the only one, a clear responsibility rested on him to ensure that the whole table was engaged in conversation, and preferably the same one at that, and thus it was evident yet again that on social occasions it is an advantage, and not a drawback, to have an odd number, thought Professor Andersen, and therefore it is so peculiar that those who take it upon themselves to invite people to a party worry time and again very much about inviting couples; remarkable, thought Professor Andersen, who could scarcely recall the last time he had been at a successful dinner party with an even number seated round the table.

They had rakfisk as a starter and the main course was grouse. Beer and a chaser of aquavit were served with the rakfisk; a Spanish red wine, a good Rioja, with the grouse. Before the starter was served, Nina their hostess complained of an irresolvable problem which they had encountered while drawing up the menu. Rakfisk as a starter, and grouse afterwards, they go together, not least if one considers that both the rakfisk and the grouse come from the same geographical area, Valdres. But as for the beverages, beer and a chaser of aquavit first, followed by red wine – Nina didn’t think that was an ideal combination, but what else could they have done? Thought of a different starter before the grouse? No, she didn’t want to do that, she said, when one has rakfisk in one’s larder from Valdres, and grouse from the same area, both of them obtained in a personal way, considering that Bernt had shot the grouse, right there in Valdres, and the rakfisk was procured by one of their close acquaintances in Valdres, so it had to be
done
like this, ‘And so you will just have to put up with drinking beer and a chaser with the rakfisk now, and going over to red wine later,’ said Nina decidedly.

They ate rakfisk. They skolled with beer and aquavit. Professor Andersen was at a Christmas dinner party at his good friends’ Nina and Bernt Halvorsen. Bernt he had known ever since his youth, and they had grown up together in a town somewhere near the Oslo Fjord. They had come to Oslo to study at the same time, Bernt medicine and he the arts and humanities, and they had remained close throughout their student days, despite belonging to different faculties. After a while Bernt found his Nina, who also studied medicine, and Professor Andersen had got to know her too. He had found a wife who also studied the arts and humanities, and from the end of their student days the two newly married couples had spent much time together. They had continued to see each other often, with intervals when one or other of the couples had been living outside Oslo – Nina and Bernt because they worked at a hospital out of town, he because he was
abroad
, either on a research grant or as a Norwegian visiting professor in Strasbourg, right up until he got divorced ten years ago, and then he had continued to see Nina and Bernt on his own. Both he and Bernt had been successful in life, he had secured a post at the university early on, had done a PhD and become a professor while still relatively young, at the same time as Bernt had made a career for himself in the hospital sector, where as a young man he had become a consultant, a position he held today at Ullevål Hospital.

The other guests were Nina and Bernt’s friends, but for that reason they had also become close acquaintances of Professor Andersen. Per Ekeberg he remembered well, as a psychology student from the early Sixties, and also Trine Napstad he remembered from the dozy reading rooms at Blindern, where she, like him, had studied the arts and humanities. Small and animated, she had talked non-stop in a far-too-loud, piercing voice the moment she escaped the silence of the reading room. That had grated on his nerves somewhat, he remembered,
even
though he had thought she was attractive enough. When he had met her again, at Nina and Bernt’s, as Per Ekeberg’s new partner, and thus, in reality, his second wife, he on occasion found himself wondering about Per Ekeberg’s first wife, since Per had settled down, found solace, with this woman on his journey through life, which also for him, Per Ekeberg, has an unavoidable conclusion, as we all know, and which, at least for brief periods of time, cannot fail to cause us concern. Per Ekeberg was a senior psychologist. It was a title he took with him when he moved from the public sector into private enterprise to be a director in the Norwegian branch of an international advertising agency. He appeared to be just as content in the private sector as he had been in the public one, and in addition he earned a lot more money, and it’s possible he also set greater store by the creative side of his new profession, which, among other things, was such that he didn’t need to call himself Director, but could continue to present himself as senior psychologist, which undoubtedly seemed more intriguing when the title was used in an advertising context.

If he were to choose, then he had greater respect for Jan Brynhildsen and Judith Berg than Per Ekeberg and Trine Napstad. Jan Brynhildsen had, as a newly divorced 45-year-old (after being married to a female colleague who at that time was far more successful than he was), fallen head over heels in love with an air hostess. A rather weary-looking beauty in her forties, who was a single mother with a teenage daughter from a short-lived affair with an Italian business magnate. Jan Brynhildsen was at the time a typical second-rate actor and his falling in love with a faded air hostess undeniably had a strong element of comedy to it, of the more malicious kind that Professor Andersen, for his part, couldn’t claim to be entirely innocent of being partial to. But in this amorous project Professor Andersen had been Jan Brynhildsen’s secret admirer. He had looked up to him, and inwardly urged him on, Jan Brynhildsen, the walk-on actor at the National Theatre, to follow the convictions of his heart. ‘The person who is unable to be fascinated by his youthful dream of the Air Hostess has
lost
the ability to love,’ he inwardly urged, ‘even if she, Judith Berg, doesn’t resemble the dream of the Air Hostess, but is a tired, middle-aged woman with a bad back and swollen feet and bitter wrinkles round her painted mouth, she nevertheless represents the Air Hostess, for whom we just have to fall, Jan Brynhildsen and I,’ thought Professor Andersen, then as now. ‘Jan Brynhildsen is ingenuous in his love, and for that I admire him, and he will surely be rewarded,’ Professor Andersen had thought. And he had been rewarded. On stage. On the main stage at the National Theatre. That was where he now had his success. First in small roles, which all of a sudden were played with a comic talent that aroused interest among theatregoers. Very minor roles from the pens of great playwrights often have great comic potential which is seldom exploited, either because minor roles are played by minor actors or, if they are given to good actors, they can easily overshadow major roles and more important scenic events, and thus damage the dramatic unity of the piece. But Jan
Brynhildsen
succeeded, and that was because he didn’t play the comic parts like a great actor, but like a minor one. He stood there in his minor role, completely devoid of dreams and ambitions. He didn’t try to show the comic nature inherent in the character by stealing the scene. He stood there on the fringe, playing the minor role as a minor actor, but with luminous, raw, indeed hoarse, comedy, which many in the audience experienced as a magic moment of silence and laughter. Soon he was getting larger comic roles, and now he was one of the theatre’s leading comic talents, who came to mind for a main part every time the theatre was to stage Molière, Holberg or a light comedy by Shakespeare. But although he gave a good performance in these classic comic roles – not least by continuing to preserve the minor actor in the garb of the leading role – it was the sweet (in the original meaning of the word) element of the character that was really touching, and one ought to be touched when seeing a comedy performed, but it was nevertheless Professor Andersen’s opinion that it was in the minor parts that
Jan
Brynhildsen had carried out remarkable feats, and there were many people who were of the same opinion, even if this wasn’t expressed publicly or privately by Professor Andersen, because he didn’t want to hurt Jan Brynhildsen, even though Jan Brynhildsen himself wouldn’t have heard what he said.

They ate rakfisk. Drank beer with a chaser. Skolled and laughed, and chatted cheerfully. They all belonged to the same generation, and they were linked to each other by strong ties, even Professor Andersen, who, tonight in particular, struggled with a disturbing feeling that he had now parted from them for good. He still felt bowled over at being unable to confide in his friend Bernt, their host, when he had come to this dinner party an hour and a quarter early for the sole purpose of doing so. He now sensed that he was not just about to be, but already was tangled up in something which had consequences he couldn’t imagine, and which were such that they threatened for one thing to leave him friendless, since it was now impossible for him to deny that
the
strong urge he had felt to confide in a friend, frankly, baring his soul, in reality couldn’t be fulfilled when standing face to face with Bernt. This distracted Professor Andersen somewhat, and in this distracted frame of mind it would have been easy for him not to take part in this dinner group and to regard it from the position of an outsider, as if it were a remote event which didn’t concern him, with gestures and rituals performed by strangers who didn’t concern him, but that wasn’t the outcome. Whether he wanted to or not, he belonged in the company of these successful intellectuals in their fifties in the capital of Norway towards the end of the twentieth century. They were linked to each other by such strong ties that, for instance, Professor Andersen, who wasn’t a close friend of either Per Ekeberg or Trine Napstad, knew both of them from the university at Blindern in the Sixties, and that at a time when Per Ekeberg and Trine Napstad hadn’t the foggiest notion of each other’s existence, though she, Trine Napstad, easily remembered Per Ekeberg’s first wife, who had been
a
childhood friend of Nina Halvorsen, at the time when her name was Nina Hellberg, which was still her name when Trine Napstad came to know her. Thus one could look back to the early Sixties, and the random, but strong and active, ties created at the university, where all of them had studied (apart from Judith Berg, who was at the time unattainable, an Air Hostess), and each in some way had become a radical student. None of them, apart from Jan Brynhildsen, had ever ended up on the far left, the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists, the Maoists, in the legendary – or notorious, if you prefer – Marxist-Leninist Workers Front known as AKP (M-L); they were, in fact, slightly too old for the likes of that, and too set in their ways when it came to the fore, but they had been anti-NATO and voted against the Common Market, relatively early in the Sixties, and early in the Seventies, and Per Ekeberg had demonstrated against apartheid at Madserud during a tennis tournament between Norway and South Africa, and had been carted off by the police, and Nina and Bernt had been anti-nuclear demonstrators and worn Ban the Bomb buttons on their duffle coats. The nuclear badge, as Andersen, still an undergraduate, had called it, alluding to the swimming badge so popular in their schooldays. ‘I see you’ve earned your nuclear badge,’ he would say, but neither Nina nor Bernt had laughed, for some things were too serious to make jokes about, and thus he had been left standing there with his silly joke, feeling silly himself as well when the others didn’t laugh, for he was radical, too, in his way. However, as an undergraduate, Andersen’s radicalism was mainly expressed through his interest in and his support of people who attacked either in speech or in writing the empirical school of thought, which was then the prevailing approach within philosophy and the social sciences, not to mention his preoccupation with all kinds of avant-garde trends in art and literature.