Prost Gotvins Geometri

This is Prost Gotvins geometri by Gert Nygårdshaug. The translation was done by Roy Johansen. Nygårdshaug is a Norwegian author and the text has not yet been published in English. Roy is a friend of mine who recently moved back to his native Norway. He translated a good part of the novel before leaving and I'm trying to convince him to finish it.



Father Gotvin's First Journey

The train ride from Madrid had been hot and strenuous, and even I, who had always enjoyed train rides, felt a certain discomfort by having been squeezed into a corner of a compartment intended for six, but which had, until the train reach Zamora, accommodated nine people. I was elated to see that no less than seven people left the compartment when the train stopped, including the four men wearing Spanish army uniforms who, through their drunkenness and foul language, had not missed any opportunity to embarrass and disgust their co-travelers, myself included. This all but emptied the compartment and I wasted no time taking a seat by the window.

This is where I would spend the rest of the ride.
Enjoy nature and the unfamiliar scenery.
All the way to Santiago de Compostela.
My journey's destination.

To be quite frank: I had, from the very beginning of my trip, from the minute I boarded the train at Vanndal train station, felt a certain unease, not anxiety, but rather a shivering internal commotion over what I was about to embark on, and which now, as I was approaching my journey's destination, had by no means subsided, I tried to calm myself by explaining this unease through my lack of traveling experience. This was in fact my very first trip abroad. Although I had reached the age of thirty-two, my studies, my vocation, and my office had, until now, kept me in my native country and native township. I had never felt any urge to travel. Where would I go? I enjoyed my daily duties as vicar of Vanndal Parish. So the unease, the shivering internal commotion, could be explained quite easily.

Could it?
Wasn't there something else?
The apprehension tied to my destination, the miracle of Santiago de Compostela?

Why should I, a Protestant, well and safely anchored in the Evangelical-Lutheran doctrine, seek out a sanctum in a foreign country, and a Catholic sanctum at that, where a miracle was supposed to have taken place? I was not, as the train started moving again from Zamora, able to explain this. Nonetheless, Compostela, Spain was my first travel destination abroad; this was fact, an undeniable reality founded on an irrational determination that was just, all of a sudden, there.

I tried to concentrate on nature, the exotic scenery gliding by, the fields with their vines in tidy rows, did they make good wine here? I highly appreciated good wine in modest amounts. Through the years, many people have made the comment that this proclivity is coded in my name, Gotvin, which of course it isn't. My parents knew better. Besides, my father knew only one form of alcohol, moonshine, a type of drink he never abused. O ke[pt my eyes fixed on the scenery, the mountains to the south, reddish brown mountains, and did not notice the woman who had entered the compartment and taken a seat almost directly opposite me. She had come in quietly, without a suitcase. I beheld the mountains; could it be the Sierra de la Culebra? The Snake Mountains? I had studied the maps thoroughly and what little Spanish I had memorized before my trip helped with the simpler words and expressions. Besides, I had a picket dictionary. It had to be the Sierra de la Culebra. What would walking in these mountains be like? Snakes?

I sensed the smell.
Turned around slowly and saw the woman.
She wasn't old – around twenty-five?
She was reading in a book.

I wasn't just the smell, although this was what first made me aware that another person had entered the compartment. The smell was mild, not overwhelming – lavender? Then I found myself having closed my eyes just to sense the smell. How could someone smell like this? In this heat? Was it perfume? Of course it was perfume. I opened my eyes, but was careful not to look in her direction for, as I mentioned, it wasn't just the smell. Again I let myself be transported into the scenery floating by, slowly. The train ran along at a comfortably leisurely speed. A gray river. Which one could it be? I recalled the map. Rio Aliste. Might there be trout there? Possibly, but probably no grayling. The unease, the internal shivering was gone. For the first time on this trip I felt totally relaxed. Was it the smell of lavender? This cheerful thought made me smile, but out of the corner of my eye I could sense that the woman, the girl lifted her eyes from her book and looked at me. I half closed my eyes and let her look at me.

She was looking at me.
A long time.

Then she moved to sit right across from me. She put the book she was reading open on the small table graciously provided for window-seat passengers. She put the book there and continued reading. This was of course the only reason she had moved. Holding the book had made her hands tired and she could more comfortably read by putting the book on the table next to my magazine, the popular scientific magazine I had bought at the newsstand at Oslo's Central Station, and which I until now had hardly glanced at. The scenery outside the train window had been more interesting. Nature had always been one of my great interests. God's creation held many enigmas and humankind was not granted the knowledge of them all.

Now I reached for the magazine again.
Calmly and without trembling, I lifted it from the table.
Opened a page at random and started reading.
She was reading.
Her smell. Her feet. Her legs.

I was reading. Avidly I concentrated on an article about a strange creature living in South America, a reptile called a basilisk, but which was also know as the Jesus lizard. As a theologian, I couldn't help chucking softly over the story and the name the critter had been given. The lizard had the remarkable ability to walk on water, as it were, and this is why they called it the Jesus lizard. I read the article thoroughly and with great interest but held the magazine low enough for it not to cover by eyes. I read that the basilisk was about twenty inches long, that I weighed between three and four ounces, that it ran across the water at a speed of over six feet per second, and that this is fast enough for air bubbles to be sucked in under the animal's feet when they m ake contact with the water surface. They form air cushions that prevent its feet from sinking into the water. That's how it was, that's why it was called the Jesus lizard. And, if I wanted to do the same trick, I would, with my 175 pounds, have to run across the water at 70 miles per hour and exert 15 times the muscle power a running man normally does, which meant that Jesus' feat on the Sea of Galilee still remains a divine miracle.

A divine miracle.
The magazine in my hands shivered a trifle.
I gently lowered it to the table.
She was gazing into the air.
At a point behind and above my head.

I was unable to continue reading now. Her book still lay open, page 118. I turned toward the window: green pastures, olive trees, endless rows of vines, whitewashed houses, cattle – were there donkeys? I had never seen real-life donkeys, this was interesting. I squinted and stared out the window. We were the only ones in the compartment now. Did my foot touch hers? Or had we been in this position since she moved? Was it her foot that had moved? I did not understand these thoughts. Why had the inner shivering stopped? Why didn't the unfamiliar scenery interest me any longer? How far were we from Santiago de Compostela? Two hours?

I noticed that she was looking at me.
That her eyes were large and brown.
That her skin was smooth and golden.

I twisted my body to my left, stretched toward the corner of the compartment where my jacket hung, and determinedly pulled a book from the inside pocket, prayer book that accompanies me everywhere. I glanced at her briefly, smiled, and sat back down in exactly the same position except with my feet pulled far back, to put them at a safe distance from hers. I opened the book, leafed back and forth absentmindedly and finally found Matthew 10:42: "And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward." Precisely. That's how it was. We were in danger of searching too distantly for opportunities to act in charity. Reaching for the edelweiss, we trample the daisies.

Reaching for the edelweiss.
Again I felt the unease.
Did I trample the daisies?