Prost Gotvins Geometri – Part 2

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 has translated a good part of the novel and I'm trying to convince him to finish it.

Here’s Part 1.

Father Gotvin's First Journey (continued)

She looked at the prayer book in my hands. I closed my eyes and found the right thoughts, not thoughts of worldly love, of lust, but thoughts of God’s chamber, the infinite space where the fire of True Love was burning. By staying close to this fire our lives could burn for all those living on the plain, for the daisies – our words would be the fire. They would have the power to light many a heart on the road to Emmaus, so that we together might board Elijah’s chariot of fire. And wasn’t it true that had we only a little more celestial fire, celestial love, we would also have more power on earth? I let my thoughts flow in free association over the quote from St. Matthew in a stream of pleasant thoughts and images. Images that could be used in future sermons for my congregation in Vanndal but suddenly they were interrupted.

Her foot.
The tip of her shoe was again touching the calf of my leg.
Discreetly, I peeked down and saw her smooth, golden skin.
My eyes stuck there.

I cleared my throat and it sounded extremely loud in the compartment that had been quiet for over an hour. Indeed, thinking back, I remembered my hawking as downright vulgar, but how could clearing ones throat possibly sound vulgar? No one but God knows the thoughts behind such a sound. Had he heard it? If he had, would he still want me as His servant? My thoughts right afterwards were a jumble and the sound seemed to echo from the walls for minutes. But the red tip of her shoe was again touching the calf of my leg, pressing firmly against a point right above the top of my sock, against the meaty part of the back of my calf, to be precise. The tip of her shoe seemed to stick there; it was glued to my leg regardless of the at times rocking motions of the train.

She had a beautiful neck.
A well-developed bosom.
Floral-print dress.
Edelweiss? Hardly.

I have never been unaffected by female grace. Many are the times I have felt my blood effervesce, but my shyness toward the opposite sex has bothered me ever since adolescence, thy explaining why there was still no vicar’s wife in my life. But the absence of one has never been prominent in my mind. I was certain that when the Lord determined the time to be right for that sort of thing, he would also grant me a woman to share my bed with. Although, to be quite honest, I had lately started to doubt whether this indeed was the sort of things that one might reasonably expect to find on the Lord’s schedule, for wasn’t the time right soon? I decidedly thoughts so, although, as I mentioned, it had not weighed heavily on my mind. Besides, and I mean no disrespect, the selection of young, unmarried women with a certain spiritual inclination in the Vanndal area was not overwhelming. This, of course, did not excuse my status of bachelor. The fact was that I, in awkward but lucent moments of self-insight, realized that my relationship vis-à-vis the opposite sex, or lack thereof, was caused by extreme shyness. Especially when fishing grayling from the river next to my farm at home, I saw this fact vividly. Standing on a rock in the middle of the river with my fly rod, it happened three times, no less, that passing youths had shouted “vicar fag” at me. Which was thoroughly unfair, but was that the reason I had made up my mind to go on this journey? To rid myself of my shyness? Not likely. Not to Santiago de Compostela, to the miracle and the cathedral to get rid of my shyness? Was this trip an escape or a yearning? And why was I sitting on this train soon to arrive at Orense in northern Spain right across from a very beautiful Spanish girl? And felt no trace of unease but with my shyness a watchful beast under my breastbone? Was she also going to Santiago? Was she a pilgrim?

I kept leafing through my prayer book.
I noticed that she scrutinized me with curiosity.
Weren’t foreigners fairly common down here?

Tens of thousands of people went on pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela every year. To this town where the bones of the fisherman/apostle James were found in the ninth century. Santiago was the Spanish name for James. Compostela was from Latin, campus stellae, the fields of stars. Was she going to kiss the holy reliquary? Fields of stars, the sheer poetry of the name allured those who knew their Latin. It made a couple of the members of Vanndal Church Council think of compost - fertilizer – which wasn’t quite as poetic. The train rattled on along a steep hillside. Far down in the valley I could see the river, still brown.

”I beg your pardon – what are you reading?”

The question made me jump. She had put one of her hands across her own book and was looking at me with large, brown eyes. Not gravely. There was something merry, something playful about her face. She spoke English but I noticed her Spanish accent. I jumped and dropped my prayer book on the table. No one had yet talked to me during the entire trip.

I cleared my throat again, softly.
Met her eyes.
”Some Christian texts,” I replied.
”Christian? Are you a believer?”
”I am a minister,” I replied. “Protestant. From Norway.”
”Minister? From Norway?”

This information seemed to disappoint her. Than and there I as compelled to interpret it that way because three things happened at the same time: The pressure from her red shoe on my leg disappeared unquestionably and abruptly; her gaze became remote; and she concentrated once more on the book she was reading. I tried to catch the title but that was impossible since the cover and spine were facing the table. On the other hand, I caught her face. Yes “caught” is appropriate because I audaciously dared to look at her. I examine her entire face, from her forehead via the bridge of her nose, cheeks, earlobes, chin, lips, on to her neck and the low cut of her dress, her bosom calmly rising and sinking. This is the perfect woman, I thought, completely without any felling of shyness and apprehension. She must have known that I was staring at her so intensely, relentlessly. How dare I? But she continued reading. We had passed the hamlets of Ginzo and Sadianes. Soon we would come to the larger town of Orense where the train would stop. Would she get off there?

”What is your name?” I asked suddenly. My tongue did.
She did not move her eyes from her book but replied: “Lucienne Lopez.”
”Beautiful name.”
”Gracias.”