‘I met a Norwegian student in Amsterdam called Arne Jordal, who told me about Finnmark. We decided to take a trip there together this summer. He has been there before, so he can show me the ropes. We’ll keep each other company, but we’re researching different subjects.’
‘Good, good. There is someone else who will be in Finnmark this summer, a petrologist by the name of Qvigstad. He works at the Geological Survey.’
‘Yes, I know. Arne Jordal wrote to me that Qvigstad would be coming along. They both studied under Professor Nummedal.’
He nods, and I grin, because at least he’s heard of the expedition I’m joining. No fear of him taking me for some impostor, then.
We arrive in another section of the building, which is for the most part finished: concealed neon striplights in the ceiling, rosewood panelling, parquet floor. Oftedahl opens a door.
The room is unfurnished and still smells of new wood and paint. There’s a telephone in the middle of the floor. Oftedahl strides towards it, crouches down, lifts the receiver, dials a number. I wander off to the glass curtain wall, on which someone has painted two large Os with whitewash, and beneath: Jane Mansfield
A white ship steams across the fjord. White steamer, blue water, blue sky, slopes with black fir trees like wet raven’s feathers stuck in the ground. The white steamer has a yellow-banded smokestack.
Behind me I hear Oftedahl saying something in Norwegian, pausing, saying some more, pausing again.
‘Mange takk.’
He replaces the receiver. I turn round to face him.
We leave the room together. I hope his telephone conversation in Norwegian was about the aerial photographs, expect him to broach the subject at any moment, but he keeps silent as I accompany him down the corridors, to what purpose I don’t really know.
‘Your new institute is wonderfully situated. The view is terrific.’
‘This sort of view is fairly common in Norway. Do you know Professor Nummedal well?’
‘I only met him yesterday, I had a letter of introduction from my professor in Amsterdam.’
‘I see. Nummedal is a nationalist, a chauvinist, you know. You don’t speak Norwegian, so you wouldn’t have noticed, but he speaks Nynorsk. He comes from the Bergen area.’
Oftedahl laughs, a bit like the way people in Holland laugh whenever partisans of Frisian have their say.
Yet more concrete stairs.
‘Nynorsk,’ Oftedahl says, ‘is one Norwegian language. There are two, and that with a population of under four million. As if two languages weren’t enough, there is a campaign underway to promote the use of Samnorsk as a third.’
I have lost track of which level we are on now. My shoes are covered in white dust. The windows are still missing up here, and I shiver in the cold air. We step over loose planks and beams, avoiding puddles of rainwater.
‘Direktør Hvalbiff and Nummedal do not see eye to eye. It is probably just as well Hvalbiff is not here to receive you. Because if he were here I doubt he would have given you the photographs you want, even if he knew where to find them.’
Once more we arrive at a section of the building that is finished. The doors to the offices are open. Some desks are already occupied by secretaries. A grey lady comes towards us, as if summoned by Oftedahl.
They talk. She must have been the person on the other end of the telephone earlier. Oftedahl steps aside and introduces me to her.
‘We are very sorry,’ he says slowly, ‘but we are in the middle of organising our archives. I do not know my way around yet, and besides not all the material has been moved here.’
I feel my cheeks flush with joy. Aha! A glimmer of hope! So not everything has been moved yet, but my photographs are bound to be here already. I can’t imagine Nummedal sending me all the way to Trondheim for nothing. Of course he must have telephoned. Hvalbiff just wasn’t there to receive the call, and thank goodness for that, if he hates Nummedal so much. On the other hand, there could be any number of people already working in these wonderful premises. How can Oftedahl, head of a different department altogether, know whether anyone took a call from Oslo yesterday?
The three of us proceed down a corridor. Scatterings of chairs, ranks of steel filing cabinets. Towers of crates which we have to squeeze past. The grey lady ushers us into a room furnished with two desks and littered with boxes.
She takes a box from the top of a pile and opens it.
The photographs are stored upright.
‘Go on, take one.’
I try to do so. But the box is so tightly packed with them that I can hardly get my fingers in. When I get hold of one at last I cause a tear in the corner as I pull it out. Flustered and stammering, I study the photograph feeling as if I’m committing an indiscretion.
Sure enough, it is an aerial photograph. I recognise the ocean, with a snippet of coastline, a serrated stripe in the lower right. There’s a little clock to be seen in the upper right, indicating seven past three. In the upper left an altitude meter the same size as the clock indicates the height at which the photograph was taken. Impossible to decipher without a magnifying glass. There is also a number in the margin. I turn it over to look on the back. Stamped: Ministry of Defence. Nothing about the location.
‘Isn’t there a list corresponding with the numbers?’ I ask.
In the meantime I inspect the label on the box. Just as I feared: only numbers, no names.
Oftedahl says:
‘A list corresponding with the numbers? That will be an entire card index, I expect.’
‘Quite possible,’ the grey lady says. ‘This has never been my department. I didn’t notice any filing systems when I unpacked the cases. And Frøken [unintelligible], who is in charge of this, is in Oslo.’
‘Ah, problem solved,’ Oftedahl says. ‘I suggest you give Frøken [unintelligible] a ring in Oslo, ask her to take a look in the catalogue so she can give you the numbers of the Finnmark photographs, then you will know which box they are in.’
Starting back to the corridor, he says something in Norwegian, then motions me to accompany him.
He draws me into another room on the same floor. Inside, on an oak table, stands an old-fashioned display case, likewise made of oak, containing a large scientific instrument with elaborate brass fittings.
‘Do you know what this is?’ Oftedahl says, as if he’s forgotten completely what I’m here for. Instead, he launches into an enlightenment session for my benefit.
‘The great Heiskanen! I know geophysics is not your speciality, but I am sure you know of him.’
*
Only now do I notice the Rotary cogwheel on the lapel of Oftedahl’s jacket, and then, on his right hand, a wedding ring as well as a signet ring set with a stone the same colour as his bow tie.
‘It was with this gravimeter,’ he says, ‘that the great Heiskanen conducted his fundamental research into the isostatic uplift of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet. The great Heiskanen! Surely you’ve heard of him? Ah, geophysics is up and coming! Gravimetry, seismology, magnetic field measurements! In a word, geophysics is the earth science of the future! As for geology, it is, in a sense, becoming outdated. As there are dead languages, there are sciences that will one day become dead sciences. You know, once the basic principles had been discovered, there were not that many more discoveries to be made. It became an applied science, a bag of tricks enabling us to find out, or rather to guess, what the invisible substratum looks like. But along with the new geophysical techniques we have developed a sort of radar, as it were, which allows us to see right through the strata of the earth’s crust. So why go to all that trouble with tents, hammers, maps and notebooks? An interesting life, yes, but less so for someone who knows he is wasting his time, who is aware that far better methods exist. When it comes down to it, the traditional geologist is little more than a glorified bookkeeper. Compared to a modern geophysicist he is just about as up-to-date as a bookkeeper using pen and ink instead of a computer! Without geophysics the supplies of oil and natural gas would long have run out. Or, on a simpler level, consider how aerial photography has revolutionised our knowledge of this planet! Not only can you see everything a hundred times better on an aerial survey, you can see a hundred times more than someone standing on the ground in the middle of the bushes or up to their knees in mud. Ah, here’s Frøken [unintelligible],’ he says, and switches to Norwegian.