Prost Gotvins Geometri – Part 12

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 11.

Father Gotvin's First Journey (continued)

An arm in the water was waving, a face, a smile, a naked body - naked! I dropped my shoes and the bag, I have since wondered how this could possibly have taken place but the facts remain: I dropped my shoes and the bad, tore off my shirt pants, socks, and briefs. My body as white as the marble tiles, I stood at the side of the pool for a second before diving in with an almost perfect dive. While underwater, I opened my mouth; it was freshwater. I let go of all caution about unwanted intestinal bacteria and drank four or five big mouthfuls of the water. Still under the water, I sawn and then let myself sink calmly to the bottom. Pressure against my eardrums, the insides of my eyelids pricking – how long could I stay under water? I had no plans of surfacing. I caught a glimpse of a tanned body above and to my left. My chest and temples were pounding while a flash of thought cut through my brain: This is freedom, Gotvin Soleng! And with no clue about what was about to happen, I swam up , broke the surface gasping, and sneezed violently four times drowning out Mozart. She was at the side of the pool four yards from me. I met her eyes and she laughed.

"I thought you would drown."
"Right. No. Oh, well," I bleated.
"You look like a swan, a white male swan the you’re huddling up."
"I really didn’t mean to shout your name!"
"But you did shout?"
"Yes, I don’t understand what came over me."
"It was good that you shouted."

Suddenly I felt calm and understood that I was nto about to be confronted with shame or embarrassment. I saw her face smile, her eyes holding no reproach nor ulterior motives. I saw this woman, her breasts, her naked body semi-concealed in the water and heard a prayer pushing its way from deep inside of me; a prayer more sincerely real and strong than I could remember having felt in a long, long time: "Lord, my dear God, how beautiful she is, never take me away from this woman!!" This utopian prayer rose toward the glass ceiling and heaven along with the certainty that I would leave the town tomorrow. I would go home, home to my parish in Vanndal but she was so enchanting. She was no whore – whores did not having around summer-closed municipal baths. She was playing with the water surface and her palm sent a splash of water at my face. I winked the water away and smiled. Was I as white as a swan? Yes, I had not sunned for at least seven years, not that I had anything against it. An occasion simply hadn’t offered itself. She was tanned, delightfully tanned. We were just looking at each other. She with her back against the side of the pool and I a few feet out in the deep end treading water as well as I could while using my arms in relaxed movements to stay afloat. I was floating! The duality of this common verb dawned on me and I smiled again encountering her smile.

”One of my students told me," she said.
"Told you?"
"That you had been up a tree shouting my name, causing the police to come and get you."
"Really?" I replied and took a few strokes out away from the side.
”Several of my students were in the park,” she continued.
"I see." I was treading water again.
”It was beautiful. A young minister from Norway sitting in a tree shouting my name all across town.”
”You have a beautiful name."
”But no one has thought it beautiful enough to shout it out from treetops before.”
"I’m sure a lot of men have shouted your name from treetops, you just haven’t heard," I protested.
"But this time it was a very handsome man who did it.”
This left me in want of an answer. I let myself sink into the water but came back up at once.
"You’re pulling my leg," I dismissed.
"I saw it on the train, I saw what you call a soul.”
"Is that why you moved?"
She nodded. "I never do things like that.”
"Soul." The word sounded inexplicably unfamiliar to me now.
"That’s why I gave you a riddle."
"Of which I understand absolutely nothing."
Then you must solve it and give me the answer."
"I don’t think I’ll be able to do that. Viking fortresses are not my forte."
"”You’re, uh, well, barking up the wrong tree!"
I blushed a deep crimson.

Suddenly she laughed out loud and threw herself headlong into the water. Immediately I let myself sink all the way to the bottom. There I turned my head and glanced upwards and saw her body above me, aimed for her foot. Slowly my hand approached it. My lungs were desperate fro air but I wanted to stay down here. Then she started coming down toward me. With weightless movements and in slow motion, she was all the way down by my side. Her face drew closer to mine. One second? One minute? Our faces were close – what did we see? We embraced then she swam to the side doing the breaststroke. She grabbed a towel, dried herself, and then put on the floral dress – and only the dress – and waved.

"Come," she said.

She ran through the open glass wall and onto the lawn in between the cypresses. What was I supposed to do? Follow her? I was gasping, trying to control my breathing after the long stay underwater. Of course, why was I hesitating? I pulled myself out of the water and shook myself off like a dog. Handsome? Did she really find me handsome? No one had ever told me anything like that before: none of the women I had studied with at the School of Theology, nor any of the unmarried female ministers I had met; nor was I particularly handsome, for that matter – that’s something every mirror I had ever encountered could confirm, but she had said so. I ran over to my clothes, pulled on my slacks and nothing more. I fumbled with important buttons as I treaded out onto the grass. Barefoot on Spanish grass, Gotvin Soleng! Again with an exultation of freedom washed over me, but where had she gone? I was standing in the low evening sun looking around. A beautiful garden with cypresses, hibiscus, bougainvillea – all foreign, sweet fragrances. The garden was enclosed within a dense perimeter of deciduous trees. On the lawn and by the bushes were beautiful sculptures. Copies of Greek sculptures? I recognized Plato, Aristotle, and Sophocles and the historians Herodotus and Diodorus? I listened but heard only Mozart from the poolside and the faint humming of cars. Should I shout for her? Had she just left? Was this it? An unfathomable disappointment had started to build in me when I heard a teasing voice:

"Aren’t you coming?"