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 13.
Father Gotvin's First Journey (continued)
We had wine and cheese and bread while talking quietly. She told me about herself cadidly and solemnly. There had been three men in her life but the relationships had been utter misunderstandings. She had certain demands but some of these demands could not be expressed verbally. However, she could feel; she knew when something was right or wrong; she felt that what had just happened was right but what was to happen next? Her intuition was strong. She had to take some chances despite not knowing me at all and despite how quickly this had developed. She too was surprised and she was only twenty-eight. I nodded in agreement, but where was my God? Gone – he was not with us then and there. I could feel only her presence and the inexpressible joy of being a man. I munched on some cheese and followed the movements of her lips. She had opened up to me. I too was open and could speak without embarrassment. There had not been any other women in my life. She had gathered as much and appreciated it but how come I had made such a skillful performance? "Skillful"? I giggled and looked down. I didn't want to understand what she had meant nor could I give her an answer. Our soft, almost whispering, voices and the cicadas melded in the balmy darkness under the jasmine bushes, beyond time.
"Why did you really come here?"
"To confirm that I don't believe in miracles."
"Don't you believe in Mary's appearance?"
"No, do you?"
"No, but are you a believer?"
"Yes, I am a believer. I am a minister, as you know."
"Do you believe in me?"
"Yes, I believe in you, Lucienne."
"But I am not a Catholic woman. I would be a whore if I were."
"You are an honest person."
"In your eyes I'm an infidel, a lost soul."
"Don't talk like that. What do you believe?"
"In what I see in you. In your inquisitive nature. In truth."
"Truth is God. I am merely his instrument."
"But you still seek to understand."
I held back for a moment. Being this close to her made clear, rational arguments impossible. For my Christian point of view, my reservation with respect to Catholic miracles – God was not present except as a notion and for this I was sorry. Yes, I was still seeking and she must know what for, surely? The way we were looking at each other, the depth of our gazes, our hands intertwined, all the smells…
"Will you promise me something?" she asked.
"Promise?"
"Yes. Promise me that you will believe in me."
""Of course I'll believe in you."
She looked down. There was something she wanted to say, something she didn't say. She looked solemn and squeezed my hand as if her life depended on it. I knew it had something to do with the promise I had given her but she had said as much as she was going to and I felt no urgent need to know. She started to talk about her profession, about archaeology. Her specialty was settlements – remnants, traces of a time far, far from our own. She was a paleoarchaeologist which meant that she concentrated on settlements and cultures from before the last ice age, a period fifty to a hundred thousand years back in time – the Quarternary Period. Could it be possible? I listened with interest as she explained that, at the time, our ancestors the Neanderthals were still around and that they were not all that different from us. As a matter of fact, the brain volume of homo sapiens neanderthalis was actually larger than ours and one must assume that they had formed communities and settlement structures from which one might still find traces. This was her speciality; a largely unexplored branch of archaeology and one that she was rarely given the opportunity to pursue. But theories too were important and the theories seemed to indicate that the Neanderthals had been particularly numerous in Northern Europe, especially in Scandinavia. Consequently there might well be remnants, although much had been destroyed by the glaciers. It made me happy to hear this. Maybe it might attract her to my own area; perhaps she would be able to find traces of them in the mountains around Vanndal? I did not tell her this, of course. I listened and nodded. What were my own particular professional areas? Christ's suffering on the Cross and the daily suffering facing all of us, spiritual guidance, marriage counseling, weddings and burials – these were my areas. This she knew, of course, but did I sense something in her eyes, something impish? Something teasing when I talked about this? I bit the tip of her finger softly and she threw herself around my neck. Again we held each other tightly and she laid down on her back, pulling me with her. My desire, my inscrutable lust sent hot pulses through my body as I felt her soft, moist womanhood receive me, and again we were one rhythm, one body. How long could it last? Long, long, long.
Again we lay silently.
It was night.
We were lying on the Fields of Stars, watching a sky of stars.
Tomorrow I would leave.
Today. It was almost dawn.
"You have to go?"
I nodded.
"I'll go also. We're going on an excursion to the caves at Mondonedo. I and my seven students. Can't you come with us?"
"No," I said quietly.
"No," she rejoined.
"You cannot call or write to me."
I startled, froze, for a moment. It was as though everything collapsed around me. The night turned cold and painful, but then she was there in front of me on her knees. She put her arms around my neck while tilting her head and smiling mischievously.
"You cannot contact me until you have solved the riddle."
"The riddle?" Then I remembered.
"You must find out, you understand?"
"No," I replied. "I don't understand."
"You will understand. That is one of my demands."
"Absolutely?"
"Absolutely."
"And if I'm not able to?"
"Then I shall cry. Cry so long and loud that you'll hear me and then you'll be able to."
I laughed – relieved – and kissed her gently. We got up and packed our things together, walked up to the pool, and got dressed. She locked the place up. I got into her uncle's car, a red Fiesta, and she drove slowly through empty streets very slowly. She too knew that a goodbye remained to be said, a goodbye that neither of us wanted, that neither of us knew what it might entail. That's how it was, but had not these hours forged a bond, a tie, a connection too strong to ever break? That's how I felt. Still, I felt like crying because I didn't know and she didn't know. Slowly she pulled up to Hotel Gabriel and stopped. We turned to each other and just looked without touching.
"Gotvin."
"Lucienne."
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