Prost Gotvin - Part 19

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 18.

Father Gotvin's First Journey (continued)

I wiped the sweat from my forehead and breathed a sigh of relief. Bull's eye! I had caught the mother grayling on the first throw. Thank you God for lighting my path. I was going on a plane with Mr. Hansson the glazier? That's what it seemed like. He was an uncommonly nice-sounding fellow. He'd written a book? I had to get a copy of it immediately. I froze. Was this the book she had been reading on the train? Right across from me? It was possible. I half ran through the streets of the idyllic little Danish hamlet; a bookstore – I had to find a bookstore immediately, but there was no bookstore. The closest I came was the souvenir kiosk at the entrance of the fortress. I ran there, tried to calm down and strode inside where I asked the attendant woman. Was she acquainted with a book by Preben Hansson? She looked at me brusquely, nodded slowly, and told me, leaving no doubt, that that was not the sort of books they carried there. Besides, she had heard that it was out of print. But could she at least tell me its title? Again she nodded brusquely, "Nonetheless, they were there" – this was the title of the book, but as she had abundantly made clear, this was not the kind of establishment that dealt with that sort of literature. It made me wonder, but I wasn't about to question her further. I thanked her and sauntered away from the kiosk in deep though. "That sort of literature"? I must admit that my curiosity only increased as I strolled up and down an alley hedged with poplars right outside the legendary Viking fortress ruins. And the title of the book – "Nonetheless, they were there" – peculiar title. What was there? The Viking fortress, probably. But not according to Lucienne. If the Viking fortresses were "the wrong tree", why was I here at all? I felt increasingly confused, but not at all discouraged. I was going to meet Preben Hansson, the Mr. Hansson, no doubt about that. The author of a book that the stern lady in the kiosk felt above carrying. Could it be an obscene book? There was always the possibility.

I walked up to the entrance.
There were a lot of visitors.
I bought a ticket.

The are was large and I immediately realized that few of the circles would be visible from the ground. The inner circle was in reality a large rampart and the stones – the odd little rowboat-like shapes – were not as prominent when ambling around them. I was standing on one of them. I squatted, stroked it – "Who put you here?" I thought. What did they look like? I sat down on the grass, wafted a few flies away. Summer in Denmark and summer in Norway. My very first trip abroad drew towards its close. It had not at all turned out the way I had expected. The Gotvin Soleng returning to Vanndal was not quite the Gotvin Soleng who had left. What had changed? Besides meeting her and becoming a man? Wasn't I feeling more free? But of what did this freedom consist? This I did not fathom. My God was the same, my faith remained unscathed - didn't it?

A cold puff of air blew along my spine.
I turned around.
No one there.
I had committed a sin.
I had been in jail.
I had struck a stranger's head.
I had committed adultery.

"I had committed adultery" – this sentence struck me with all its force. Suddenly the sentence had a terrible chasm, I could see it now whereas I hadn't before. I had been blinded, blinded by her. I had done something a good Christian, least of all a minister, should never do. Gotvin the pure had set out from Vanndal; Gotvin the filthy and sinful would return. That's how it was and, on top of that, I had the nerve to walk around feeling free?! I had become a frivolous, irresponsible sophist who was trying to twist and corrupt the words of the Bible, of my Heavenly Father, and I was in the process of falling. Falling down into a heathen gnosis or perhaps into Judaistic hedonism. I had committed adultery, there in Spain, on a patch of grass by the municipal baths in Santiago de Compostela; I had succumbed to the sins of the flesh. So hardened had my heart become that it had taken me until now to realize this, but unlike St. Augustine, there was no Simplicianus there for me. Who was there to provide for my pitiable soul? Who was my spiritual advisor? Magnus Storakbråten? Hardly. The bishop? Could she understand what had compelled me to go? My fall from grace? I was having doubts again –all this uncertainty! I pounded my fist in the grassy ground. It smarted and I was bleeding. I must have hit something sharp. A shard of glass? I dug down into the grass while sucking the blood from my hand. A hard, pointed object. I held it up, blinked and stared at it. It was green with tarnish, but I immediately saw what is was: a bronze arrowhead. Bronze? But the Vikings' era wasn't the Bronze Age. They had used weapons made of iron, but there could be no doubt that what I as holding in my hadn was an ancient bronze arrowhead. What should I do with it? Hand it over to one fo the guards, fo course. I put it in my pocket. This unexpected interruption into my thoughts about my iniquity, my fall from grace, my sincere feelings of guilt and remorse made the worst melancholy subside. Granted, I had committed adultery, but it had been a mild form of adultery. Yes, my Dear Heavenly father, might I not say that in the particular case, this incident of very mild adultery was even necessary? Could You agree to that? Perhaps this arrowhead was a message from You, a piece of noble metal given to me as a sign of forgiveness or sanction. The exceptionally mild form of adultery I had engaged in that night under that jasmine bushes had done me a world of good, Dear Father. Reconciled with these thoughts I again made peace with myself sitting on the grass in the middle of a Viking fortress. Still, a voice deep within me was still murmuring something about copulating for hours on end with a woman who was, essentially, a total stranger and it could hardly be labeled as mild adultery, but this was not the voice of my God.

I had forgotten about the miracles.
My failure in the library.
The investigations that were turning me into an infidel.
An infidel according to the Catholics.
This touchstone of faith had still not been gauged.
Not weighed in the balances.
Not been designated a place among the Lutheran tenets.

Of course, thinking back I realize that the first few days following my departure from Santiago de Compostela were filled with thoughts of her and that all other impressions became insignificant scrims. That's how it had to be. Therefore these things w3er for the time being pushed to the back of my consciousness but they were destined to resurface in full force. But there in the heart of Trelleborg I was busy solving a riddle and the certainty that once the riddle was solved, the certainty that this was the key to hearing her voice again, smell her, and meet her spurred me on in a euphoric high which only for brief moments like the one I had experienced just before I found the arrowhead. I got up from the grass and walked one full circle on the rampart. It was getting late in the afternoon. I had a thousand kroner in my wallet – one thousand crisp kroner which, to be sure, belonged to Margit Nederstuen and which very soon would have to be repaid, but portions of which I nevertheless had every intention of squandering on a luscious Danish dinner. I had glanced at the menu at the inn: herring in cream sauce, shoulder of pork and hamburger, crayfish casserole, hand or pork and eel – I could take my pick. This was my vacation, after all, my only vacation this summer. My swimming trunks, orange with vertical stripes had cost half of what Margit had lent me. I still had not used them – would I ever get a chance to use them? But weren't they too big for me? I might give them away to someone who'd make better use of them, that's what I'd do. I walked back to the inn and took a seat in the dining room which was a cozy room with 4-5 tables with white tablecloths and candles. I ordered the herring in cream sauce from the plump waitress. She flashed me a friendly smile and thanked me. I said a simple prayer, ate my meal with great relish, and grew blissfully tired. At nine, after two cups of coffee with cream, my eyelids started to droop and I went to bed. I closed my eyes and fell asleep in the garden under the jasmine bushes.