Reluctant though he was, Jonas had to tear himself away from the smells of bonfire and perfume and coffee and home baking. He sped to his entry and leapt onto his bike the way he had seen the cowboys leaping onto their horses at the Westerns they showed at Grorud cinema. Jonas took Hagelundveien, cutting through Nybygga, thinking about the knife being raffled right at that very moment, wondering whether he might win it, a dream of a knife, with a handle shaped like the head of a fish and a sheath like the body of a rainbow trout, and meanwhile Nefertiti was sitting outside the forest ranger’s little cottage, a stone’s throw or two away from Bergensveien, along with Colonel Eriksen the elk hound, and nobody could know what she was thinking, not even me, and meanwhile, up on Hukenveien, an unknown, unsuspecting driver was climbing into the cab of a Scania-Vabis LS 71 Regent, and meanwhile Jonas was pedalling up the steep hill past the corner shop, thinking about the toy revolver that was being raffled right at that very moment on the green next to the Midsummer bonfire, a new sort, an ‘Apache’ it was called, that had just come on to the market, a long, slender Colt which, although he could not have said why, easily knocked all his other toys into a cocked hat, so that suddenly they were no fun to play with, they seemed so babyish, the heads of Indian chiefs stamped into plastic handles, imitation mother-of-pearl, while this was black and gleaming and relentlessly authentic, with just one silver star right in the centre, and meanwhile Nefertiti was sitting outside the forest ranger’s little cottage on the edge of the forest, under the sheer face of Ravnkollen, scratching Colonel Eriksen’s thick coat, and no one could know what she was thinking, not even me, and meanwhile an unknown driver was starting the six-cylinder diesel engine of his Scania-Vabis Regent, with its terrible 150 horse power, and meanwhile Jonas had cycled as far as Trondheimsveien, thinking about the Matchbox car that was being raffled right at that very moment, a miraculous copy in miniature of a Cadillac, with tail fins and a caravan with a door that could open, a toy that could transform any place on Earth into a little bit of California, and meanwhile Nefertiti was getting to her feet and saying goodbye to Colonel Eriksen, and the dog stood there with his tongue lolling, feeling uneasy as if it had caught wind of an elk, and no one could know what she was thinking, not even me, and meanwhile an unknown driver was setting out along Hukenveien in his seventeen-ton Scania-Vabis, and meanwhile Jonas was wheeling round the junction with Trondheimsveien, thinking about the Lego set that was being raffled right at that very moment, a fire station with two fantastic towers and loads of see-through bricks and garage doors that flipped up, as well as a leaflet giving step-by-step instructions for how to build it, the sort of intricate challenge that was just crying out for him to get his hands on it, and meanwhile Nefertiti was climbing on to her Diamant three-speed and pedalling slowly up Bergensveien, one hand holding her chromatic mouth organ to her lips, and no one could know what she was thinking, not even me, and meanwhile the unknown driver was easing up on the pneumatic brakes of his Scania-Vabis Regent and letting his seventeen-ton truck coast down the top end of Bergensveien, because there was no one on the road.
Is this the most crucial story in Jonas Wergeland’s life?
Are there some stories that are more crucial than others?
As Jonas turned into the straight stretch on Bergensveien, almost on a level with Tango-Thorvaldsen’s shoe shop, he saw Nefertiti, her plaits dangling down beneath her cap, the back of her white blouse, way up ahead, almost at the spot where she would veer left across the road to turn into the Solhaug estate, just before the exit from the bend, at the point where Bergensveien disappeared behind the hill, where all manner of awful things could be hiding, and Jonas shouted as loud as he could, but Nefertiti did not hear, she cycled on, as if in her sleep, playing her mouth organ, and all of a sudden Jonas realized he was shivering, even though it was a warm evening, and he knew that something was about to happen, he had known it from the minute she gave him her crystal prism, the one he had in his pocket, the one he would carry with him wherever he went for years and years, but right at that moment it was of no use; he shouted, he yelled, but she made no response, and suddenly Jonas knew that he would not win the knife or the gun or the car or the fire station, that instead he was going to lose something indispensable that day, that the Lego world of his childhood was about to be brutally smashed to pieces, so he cycled like a soul possessed, close to tears, as if he could still prevent it from happening, but it was as if his wheels were spinning in mid-air, he was not closing on her and by now Nefertiti had reached the crossroads and Jonas could actually feel the ground shaking, as though a minor earthquake was about to hit, and he called out, screaming her name, but she did not hear, she had one hand on the handlebars, the mouth organ in the other; Jonas strained to hear what it was she was playing, as if this were the key, to a riddle that he had to solve in order to avert disaster, but he caught only snatches of a stanza, and just then he saw the truck rounding the bend, a mighty diesel roar, a horror on six wheels, just as she started across the road, from right to left, slowly, so interminably slowly, and then, now, she turned, to face him, not the truck, as if only now had his shouts got through to her, and she looked at him, he was fifty metres away from her, but he saw her eyes quite clearly, blue as the sky on the lightest day of the year, with the longest eyelashes in the world.
Nefertiti did not only turn as she was crossing the road, she also braked just as the truck came into view, going way too fast, almost as if it were attacking, as if it had been there all their lives, ready and waiting, not to materialize until then, letting off an almighty fart as the driver eased up on the brakes coming out of the bend and, for reasons Jonas would never understand, he had a picture of the truck as a gigantic bull elk with its antlers lowered, a creature that nothing, not even a silver bullet, could stop, and he saw the truck, or rather, he did not see the truck, all he saw was the Michelin man on the roof of the cab, or rather, not just one, but two Michelin men, and he saw the indicator lights on the sides, the pale-grey cab with its red radiator trim, armoured with engine covers that opened out like butterfly wings. Pin-ups stuck onto cardboard on the radiator grille, the two extra lights on the bumper, the indicator rods, the huge wheels, above all else the enormous wheels; for a second the whole colossal truck seemed to be nothing but six gigantic wheels bowling towards one fragile girl; not only did Jonas see that, clear as crystal, he also saw the old, white wooden house on the right-hand side of the road, and behind it the vast granite face of Ravnkollen where they sometimes lay with torches in the autumn, signalling with flashes of red and green when cars were coming; and to the left of the road he saw the gable end of the nearest block of flats, and the window of Fru Sivertsen’s flat, which he had once smashed during a fierce rock fight, and beyond it, Egiltomta, with its little cliff and their favourite ledge, right next to the tiny pine tree that stuck straight out of the cliff face, with roots that could transform rock to water; all of this ran through his mind and he saw it all, clearly, with exaggerated clarity, as if the actual reality of the moment of impact had been carved up and laid out before him in all its individual parts, like being presented with a huge spread and allowed to take his pick, but more than anything else it was the tiny conifer straight out of the mountain of his childhood he remembered, clung to, because he had already seen it once before, there too in a situation where life was moving too fast or, if one prefers a more conventional scenario: a little conifer that he would see again, later, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, halfway up a basalt cliff during a heart-stopping trip down the rapids of the Zambezi, in the heart of darkest Africa.