Prost Gotvins Geometri – Part 4

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 3.

Father Gotvin's First Journey (continued)

It was almost eight in the evening, it was the middle of June. A soft, warm breeze greeted me as I stepped off the train at this unfamiliar place, still feeling pretty dizzy and still with this enigmatic drawing in my hand. I had draped my jacket casually over my shoulder and in my left hadn I carried the small suitcase that held the bare necessities for my trip. I remained standing on the platform with my head lifeted toward the mild breeze. In the middle of this busy beehive where a plethora of languages contributed to the buzzing, stood I, Gotvin Seleng from Vanndal. Father Gotvin, as my friends called me, although “Father” is a Catholic appellation and not used in the Lutheran Church. This “Father” thing had stuck with me ever since my childhood when I, already at a tender age, started to officiate eclectic ceremonies, as it were. “Here comes Father,” they said when I as a ten-year old arrived at soccer practice. But I thought it was a nice moniker, although some of my minister colleagues had suggested I discourage the practice among my friends. The idea, however remotely academic, of being mistaken for a Catholic was no laughing matter for sober Lutherans.

My very first trip abroad.
I lifted my face to the wind.
My lips whispered a short prayer.
A ‘thank you’ to the Lord.

I was hungry. I hurried along the platform, in through a door, the main railway station, sought out the clerk, one who might direct me to a moderately priced accommodation for my three-day stay here. I found him and spoke English with the polite man. Hotel Gabriel he wrote on a slip of paper. That was where I would be staying, inexpensively and comfortably, he assured me. A taxi would be best, he opined. I thanked him, walked out on the street, and found one.

A few minutes later I enjoyed the pleasure of entering a clean, nice room and a bible on the nightstand. A room to be mine alone these three days. I gently stroked the bed pillow, put my suitcase on a stand next to the bed, and kneeled with my hand folded on the Spanish bible on the nightstand. ”But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot,” I whispered, ”and she returned unto him into th ark. Then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.” Is the story of this dove also mine? I thought, have I come to the ark? But what do I carry? Nothing, not even a green olive leaf. God’s window will always remain open, God’s hand is reaching out. Even the soul who hath naught to offer Him can find shelter and rest under God’s roof.

I had found shelter and rest under God’s roof.
Ever since my confirmation I had been a firm believer.
All the years of my adult life I have been His servant.
The congregation in Vanndal was small.
Hardly ten people regularly came to services.
The parish’s population was over five thousand.
Where did all the doves fly?

I rose from my prayer and my thoughts. I stroked the bed pillow again, on it was a sheet of paper that until an hour ago had been part of a book I didn’t know in the hands of a woman I didn’t know. She had torn out and drawn on the last, blank page, this drawing she had given to me, a casual traveler – a pilgrim? Peculiar patterns, geometric structures, and by the figures her beautiful handwriting: ”Trelleborg”, “Eskeholm”, “Fyrkat”, and ”Aggersborg”. Down at the bottom of the page was a name: “Preben Hansson”. I understood nothing. Denmark? A reference to something Danish, but what were the geometric figures supposed to represent? I felt the unease again, the murmur under my breastbone; was it hunger? I had to get something to eat, a good supper, Spanish, and a small bottle of wine? I left the sheet of paper where it lay, on the pillow, but before I left, I bent down and smelled, put my nose right on the paper.

Lavender.

I found a restaurant almost directly across the street, El toro, typically Spanish, and I ordered duck in orange sauce and a half-bottle of the local red wine, plus a large glass of water. The unease was there while I was eating, the food filled me up, and the slight intoxication from the wine settled my thoughts, but only for a moment because truth was knocking, inexorably. I could not flee now, when, finally, I had reached my destination.

A miracle has occurred here in Santiago de Compostela.
Last year, September.
A great miracle.
Great enough to make the local newspaper in Vanndal.
A miracle on the square in front of the cathedral.
A Catholic miracle.

One joining the line of hundreds of other Catholic miracles, how could such miracles possibly be? I remember thinking when I first read about it. Read about the fiery orb appearing in the sky one bright morning, slowly descending, descending, descending until it was hovering above the square directly in front of the main portal of the cathedral, where it remained suspended above the heads of the pilgrims who, trembling with fear, threw themselves on the ground praying. But they could not help seeing that there, from the center of the fiery wreath emerged the Virgin Mary, her hands lifted, and she showered benedictions over the pilgrims and a delegation of Japanese business men, who were not pilgrims at all, but who weren’t able to find shelter from the holy downpour. However, the benedictions had not been of any help since the Japanese later expressed doubts whether it indeed was the Virgin May they had seen emerging from the luminous circles. But what else could it possibly be? To this they could not find an answer, but the others, the pilgrims, were thoroughly convinced. Four hundred and thirty three had without a doubt seen the Virgin Mary, Jesus’ mother. Something, however, happened that put a temporary damper on the general elation over the Holy Virgin’s visitation: when the brilliant wreath of light reverted to a fiery orb, faded, and became one with the sky again, two small children also vanished. They had been with their mothers and fathers, on the cathedral square and, as the glowing ball disappeared, so, inexplicably, did they. A girl, Celestie, of six from Belgium and a boy, Thomasi, of eight from Verona in Italy and no one has seen the children since. The Pope later received the parents in the Vatican where it was explained to them that Celestie and Thomasi had followed the Heavenly Mother home to heaven and that they would both be canonized as saints, and, the Pope explained further, one has for centuries expected a miracle like this to happen in Santiago de Compostela where the disciple James the Elder lay buried. Now that the miracle had finally taken place, everybody rejoiced except the delegation of Japanese businessmen plus three or four other non-believers who had happened to behold the wondrous events, for these three or four could not remember having seen the Virgin Mary, but something entirely different altogether.

The news of the miracle in Compostela reached Vanndal.
I pondered this in surprise.