‘Lachs, lachs!’ he singsongs. ‘Lachs, lachs! But no gravlachs! Too bad!’
I ask how much I owe them, looking from one to the next, get no reply. I try again, but stammer so badly that their pity only increases. Can’t speak a single foreign language, they reckon. Came all the way from God knows where to eat gravlachs.
Hoping and praying they won’t come after me, I turn my back on them and take the loaded tray to the table occupied by Nummedal.
A Frøken kneels on the floor to mop up the spilled pudding.
Nummedal says: ‘Haben Sie die Karte?
I spread the map on the table, taking deep breaths in anticipation of the next ordeal.
Nummedal pushes his spectacles up on his forehead, fumbles under his clothes and draws out a magnifying glass on the end of a black cord. He holds the glass just above the map, as though searching for a flea. He cranes his neck as far as it will go. His head looks ready to come loose and roll over the table. Muttering, he slides the magnifying glass with one hand while trying to point with the other. The map curls up maddeningly. I make myself useful by securing the corners with the ashtray, one of the mugs and my two dishes. But I’m not listening.
Had I been taught by private tutors all my life, I would be illiterate today. Never have I been able to concentrate when people start explaining things to me on a one-to-one basis.
Ever seen the heart of an animal cut open while still alive? The malevolent pulsating within the splayed monstrosity?
That’s how it is for me when I have to listen to someone explaining something — a sense of time being pumped through empty space. Almost suffocating, I gasp: Yes, yes. Sitting still is an enormous effort, as exhausting as a three-day hike.
*
Nummedal is showering me with information I didn’t ask for. I need his aerial photographs, not his vanity. Beads of sweat trickle down my breastbone, which begins to itch; my eyes goggle out of my head. I see and hear all, but don’t register.
May queens appear behind the counter wearing burning candles in their hair.
With open-heart cleavage, the Frøken mops up the mess I made on the floor. Her honey hills, her beehives.
I curl my lips away from my teeth and slowly open and close my jaws.
Nummedal has found some detail on the map which he considers of paramount importance to me.
He puts down his magnifying glass, takes off his spectacles, pulls a white handkerchief from his trousers and begins to polish each of the four lenses in turn. In the meantime he preambles:
‘In fact the Oslo district extends from Langsundsfjord in the south, which you can’t see here, up to Lake Mjøsa in the north …
‘Tectonics …
‘Deposit of the Lower Palaeozoic … Drammen … Caledonides … Archean substratum … two synclinals … litho-tectonic structure … shale …’
I make noises, bend over the map so closely that I can distinguish neither dots nor lines, say:
‘Yes, yes!’
And exclaim:
‘Of course!’
But I’m close to exploding with despair at not even catching enough of Nummedal’s exposé to be able, later on, when he points everything out to me in the field, to tell him how right he is.
Then at least he might form a more favourable impression of me than of my mentor Sibbelee … and give me the aerial photographs, which is all I want from him.
‘Are you really going to show me all that? Won’t it be too much trouble?’
‘Being in Oslo and not even taking a look around the Oslo district! Out of the question.’
‘I am very grateful for your …’
‘Ja ja, schön! That is what all you young people say! Shall we go now? I have finished my coffee.’
But I haven’t. Out of feigned respect I haven’t touched my food. I stuff my mouth full of salmon and pass Nummedal his white stick. He walks off, unsurprisingly leaving the map behind for me to carry.
At the exit the man who wanted to help comes up to me again.
‘Gravlachs!’ he cries. ‘There is only one restaurant where you can get it, but it is closed in June. No gravlachs in the whole city! I do apologise. You are not used to this in London. Or are you from New York? This is typically Norwegian! They never get anything right here! This would never have happened in Paris. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. No alcohol in restaurants. No striptease either! Good luck to you, sir!’
4
The asphalt rises and falls. There are few cars about and the pavements of Oslo are lined with grassy ramps.
A white, columned palace in the distance where the king resides.
Down a flight of steps. Underground station. Electric train.
One of the oldest electric railways in the world, supposedly, with carriages made of vertical oak planks, varnished and meticulously secured with brass screws.
Nummedal and I sit facing each other at a small window. The tunnel is quite short, and soon we are riding in the open. The track is carved out of rock. The train gives a high-pitched hum in the bends as it snakes upwards.
The city lies below.
Nummedal has stopped talking, and I rack my brains for something to say.
Everything that comes to mind is unspeakable: … how is it possible that you, all of eighty-four years old, can still be lording it over a university lab … what a diehard you must be … entitled to your pension for at least ten years if not twenty … assuming the retirement age in Norway is sixty-five, although it might be sixty given that the socialists have been in power for such a long time … but he chose to remain at his post, loyal and irreplaceable … rules have no doubt been bent to make this possible … the incomparable Nummedal! … I wonder how long he has been practically blind? … Honorary doctorates in Ireland, Kentucky, New Zealand, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Tilburg. Praiseworthy, indefatigable in old age … enviably so … or such a harridan of a wife at home that heaven and earth must be moved to spare him the blessings of otium cum dignitate in her company … or else some sourpuss housekeeper …
I consider his clothing … old, but neat. Old people wear out faster than their clothes. Why is that? He has on a type of ankle-boots you’d be hard pressed to find in the shops nowadays. Sturdily re-soled. A fastidious type.
I reckon he designed his glasses himself. Had them made in the instrument workshop of the university, of course. I feel a sudden rush of pity … I’d like to say to him with tears in my eyes: Listen here, Nummedal, Ørnulf. I know what you think, but you’re mistaken. There is no hereafter presided over by some little old man even older than you, with all the honorary doctorates and all the same principles, albeit on a more exalted level. Once you take the big step into the utter darkness that might fall any moment — a stroke, for instance, causing a flash flood in your decrepit brain — there won’t be a little old man saying: Hello, Ørnulf, it has been my pleasure to see how you got on over the years, how you stuck to the university instead of taking things easy at home, how you received a pre-announced visitor from abroad with a mixture of arrogance, irony and bonhomie. And how you took him to the mountains to show him you’re not past it yet, so he can tell the folks back home: Nummedal’s still going strong. Tough as old boots. Could still teach every young man a thing or two!
He swings one leg over the other. His liver-spotted hands rest on the handle of his white stick, swaying from side to side with the cadence of the train.
‘Judging by the time,’ the geologist-cum-Adenauer-lookalike says, ‘we should soon be going past an area where the Silurian is clearly exposed. Keep your eyes peeled. You can’t miss it if you’ re careful. Look, over there.’
He points to the wooden slats between the windows, but I can distinguish the Silurian rock anyway.