Doppler (8 page)

As day breaks I ask him what he had his eye on in this house.

You’ve got a Primare stereo set, he says.

True, I say.

Primare are good, he says. Swedish hi-fi at its best.

And you’d been thinking of nicking the lot? I ask.

I had, he says. The car’s parked around the corner and I’d been thinking of transporting it in two or three trips.

Speakers as well?

Yes, he says. Audiovektor are good kit, too. Danish quality. There are a lot of Scandinavian hi-fi products in this area. That means money. You can just imagine what it costs to produce that kind of quality in our part of the world with our wage levels. It’s obvious it’s going to be expensive. But it has to be good. For you people it’s not enough to listen to Bach or whatever the hell it is you listen to on equipment from Asia. That’s just not good enough. You want that bit extra. And that costs thousands.

Which particular bit are you after? I ask.

That would have to be the combined CD and DVD player, he says.

Take it, I say. In a way I’ve ruined your night. You’ve lost earnings because of me. So you can just take it.

No, he says. That’s too much. I don’t want to.

Yes, you do, I say. Just take it. My wife listens to the radio a lot, so I’m a bit reluctant to part with that, and the radio won’t work without the amplifier of course, and it would be daft without the speakers, but you can have the CD/ DVD player. And I would appreciate it if you would take my son’s DVD collection while you’re at it. He has the full range including Bob the Builder, Pingu, the Teletubbies, Thomas the Tank Engine and more. I’ll guarantee any modern child would be thrilled to have it. Have you got kids yourself?

I’ve got two, Roger says proudly and tells me their names and shows me photos he keeps in his wallet.

Good for you, I say, wondering where the box for the CD/DVD player and the warranty are.

I give Roger instructions on how to find my tent and he promises to visit me up there, and when he leaves I stand on the terrace and wave to the taxi as it disappears from view.

Straight afterwards Gregus wakes up and comes downstairs to watch a film as he often does in the morning before going to nursery school.

Sorry, Gregus, I say. There’s no film today. During the night a thief came and stole the DVD player and all your films.

Of course, he begins to cry and insists on us phoning the police. Without a moment’s hesitation I grab the phone and pretend I’m making a dramatic call to the police and in the conversation let drop that they haven’t caught him yet, but they have a full-scale search on. After putting down the phone I tell him I think this thief was quite a kind thief. A bit like the robbers in Cardamom Town. Basically good at heart. Let him keep the DVD player, I say. He needed it more than we did. And you can start saving up for a new one, I say. Anyway, you would soon have grown out of the films you had. Chin up. Look upon this as an opportunity, as a new beginning. As a Norwegian poet once said: It’s the dream. Slipping into an unfamiliar bay in the early morning. That’s what we’re doing now, Gregus, I say. That’s what we’re doing today.

I deliver Gregus and the fruit to the nursery and then jog up to the forest to show Bongo I’m still alive. He’s lying outside the tent, wet and cold, and I invoke higher powers and say it will never happen again, but Bongo is disappointed and fed up and remains aloof and dismissive until I have rubbed his fur for an hour in front of the fire and hummed snatches of old songs from our rich folk music heritage. Then we both fall asleep and when we awake it’s already afternoon and we have to run to get to the nursery before it closes. I have neither the time nor the heart to tether Bongo at the edge of the forest, so he comes along. The nursery person rolls her eyes as I apologise for being late, but I quickly gather up Gregus’s things and extricate myself from the situation without any further conflict and with some elegance, I think. This is Bongo, I say to Gregus after we have put a bit of distance between ourselves and the nursery. True he’s a moose, but nonetheless he’s a good friend of mine and therefore of yours too, I explain. It doesn’t take Gregus and Bongo long to get to know each other. Mentally they are the same age and they chase each other in and out of the trees as we head up the mountainside. When Gregus is tired he’s allowed to sit on Bongo’s back while I walk ahead holding Bongo by a rope. From a distance we probably look like a slice of bible history. Joseph, a strange donkey and a tiny, child-like Maria.

Gregus is a woodsman like his father. It’s innate. The hunter-gatherer instincts are deeply rooted in his genes as they are in mine. We grill meat on a spit and relax, resting against Bongo’s flanks, but as the hour of children’s TV approaches I notice that his body begins to twitch. He hasn’t got a watch and he can’t tell the time anyway, but still the impulse is there, it’s physical and tangible. He knows that there’s something going on, but is unable to express it in words. I say nothing, and children’s TV comes and goes without Gregus knowing what has come and gone. Gradually his unease passes and he runs off to play with Bongo outside the tent. He collects fir cones in the dark and I can hear from their conversation that he feels they’re collecting cones together, even though Bongo is not able to collect anything at all. As bedtime approaches we play a round of animal lotto. Of course Bongo loses again, and for a moment I consider letting Gregus win, but it crosses my mind that victory can easily lead to the kind of one-upmanship all those nice people suffer from, so in the end it is me who wins and what’s more I rub it in by making it quite clear that it was me who won and not him. Then he falls asleep in my sleeping bag beside the fire. I sit for a while and look at him in the light from the flames, thinking with pleasure that I definitely like him. I like my son and enjoy his company.

The next morning I hear sounds outside the tent. I take Bongo with me and go out and see a right-wing voter dressed in weekend breeches with a dog. He eyes the tent with annoyance.

You know you can’t have a tent up for more than three nights in the same place, he says. I know, I say.

I suspect this tent has been up for much longer, he says.

Maybe, I say. And while we’re at it I would prefer it if you didn’t walk by here again.

You have no right to stop me, he says.

Of course not, I say. I’d just like to make the point that I would appreciate it if you took another route next time you went out walking.

We’ll see about that, he says.

Who is it, Daddy? Gregus shouts from the tent.

Just a reactionary, I say. Go back to sleep.

I’m quite sure that I’ll pass this way again, the man says. And I’ve made a note of today’s date.

And what date is it? I ask.

The thirteenth of December, he says.

And spontaneously I begin to sing. Years of school parties have left such a deep mark inside me that as soon as the date is mentioned I begin to sing.

Night goes with silent steps, I sing quietly, Round house and cottage. Over the earth that the sun forgot, I continue as I am joined by Gregus’s voice from the other side of the tent, Dark shadows linger, Then on our threshold stands, we sing with increasing passion, Whiteclad with candles in her hair, Saaaaantaalucia, Santa Lucia! We sing all the verses, and as the song fades away the reactionary says he’s going to ring Løvenskiold if the tent’s still here in two days’ time.

Clearly the Christmas message of love doesn’t have much effect on you, I say.

He doesn’t answer.

And I suppose Løvenskiold is a friend of yours, I say.

Yes, fancy that, says the reactionary.

But who owns the air we breathe and the trees in the forest? I ask. Who owns the water in the stream and the song of the birds? Shouldn’t I as a citizen of this country have a right to linger in the forest if I so wish?

Not in this forest, says the reactionary.

You’re a true guardian of the status quo, I say, whereas I’m an enemy of the people. You want to conserve tradition while I want to break it down. You want everything to stay as it is while I want it to change. You have a dog and I have a moose. You want to buy, I want to barter. There you have some of the differences between us in a nutshell, I say. And you can come here with your dog and kick up a stink, but you should know that I don’t like your way of thinking, I don’t like your clothes, I don’t like your dog and least of all that self-satisfied smirk on your face. It’s a smirk that only immense material security and prolonged right-wing voting can produce. And I not only don’t like it, I can’t stand it, and now you can clear off, I say.

He goes. But he turns a couple of times and makes it clear to me that this is not the last word and he’s going to check if the tent is still here in a couple of days. Oooh, I’m so scared, I jeer in a childish voice. And it strikes me that six months ago a threat from such a smart reactionary type would have made me profoundly re-think whether in fact I was at fault, but now, in this new silvan life of mine, it makes no difference to me, one way or the other. I feel unassailable. The reactionary and his crowd might constitute the cream of the legislative and executive power structure in this country, but he can’t touch me. Because I have taken the step of moving into the forest and here other rules apply. Out here, it is not Oslo or Norway any more; it’s the forest. And it’s a separate country with separate little laws of logic, and the reactionary and his cronies can govern the rest of the country and sell each other cars and boats and properties and help each other with legal hair-splitting in rows with neighbours, they can shoot each other’s moose quotas, award prizes to each other’s dogs and employ each other’s children as trainees and assistant directors after they’ve studied and travelled abroad, but out here in the forest they have no influence. The forest is not impressed by them. It treats them no differently from anyone else. Out here they can’t touch me.

Why do you live in this tent? Gregus asks as we’re eating breakfast by the fire.

Not quite sure, I say. But I felt I had to get away. I needed to be on my own for a bit. It’s been such a long time since I was.

You moved when Grandad died, he says.

That’s true, I say. He was my Daddy in the same way that I’m your Daddy and I didn’t like him dying. I was upset.

Daddies mustn’t die, Gregus says.

You’re right, I say.

Nor Mummies, he says.

Agreed, I say.

But do you sort of dream when you’re dead, he asks.

Afraid not, I say. No dreams. You simply don’t exist any more.

Does it hurt?

No, I say. You don’t feel anything. All animals and people and plants die when they get old. It’s no big deal.

Will you and Mummy die? he asks.

Yes, we will, I say.

Will I go on living after you’re dead? he asks.

Yes, I say.

You know, he says. I hope I die at the same time as you.

That’s good that you feel like that, I say, but I think you’ll see it differently when you grow up. We can come back to this later.

The lack of stimulation out here has a positive effect on Gregus. We sit by the fire for long periods and just chat and do nothing in particular. We can hear the faint drone from the town and the occasional whistle of a train. It sounds a little like the Canadian trains I’ve seen on TV. They’re really long over there, I know, and the whistle-blasts sound portentous as they cover hundreds of miles through wasteland, from coast to coast. After a while we go out and try to teach Bongo to fetch sticks we throw, but he can’t see the point, and to tell the truth neither can I, so we go back to the tent and continue to do nothing until we get bored. It’s embedded in our DNA that we constantly have to be doing things. Finding things to do. As long as you’re active that’s fine, in a way, however mindless the activity. We want to avoid boredom at all costs, but I’ve started to notice that I like being bored. Boredom is underrated. I tell Gregus that my plan is to bore myself to happiness. I have no doubt that there is something that approximates satisfaction beyond boredom, but of course I do not expect Gregus to feel the same, so after a few more hours spent listlessly dozing and grilling meat we go out to find ourselves raw materials to make bows and arrows. The season is perhaps not the most suitable, but I’ve heard that ash is the best wood for a bow, so I chop down two branches of what I believe is ash but may well be a different tree, and since Gregus’s patience will not allow us to let the wood dry out for a year, which is the ideal, we get cracking and remove the bark and carve grooves in the ends and make strings by plaiting sinews from Bongo’s mother. I make arrows, too. Good ones with a point. And then we shoot wildly all around us. And upwards. That’s what we both like best, we discover. We fire as high as we can and take care that we don’t get any arrows in our heads when they return to the ground. It’s wonderful when the arrows thwack a deep hole into the ground a few metres away. We pass the hours in this way until Gregus’s body senses it’s time for children’s TV and twitches. Look, Daddy, he says, my arm’s twitching. So it is, I say. Why do you think that is? Don’t know, he says. Well, I certainly don’t know, I say.

We fire off a few more arrows, but I can see that Gregus has completely lost his enthusiasm. His eyes are glassy and distant. He is struggling and I feel sorry for him.

It’s children’s TV, I say. That’s why your arm’s twitching. Your body’s trying to tell you to turn on the television. I could feel there was something, Gregus says. But where’s the TV? I don’t have a TV, I explain. It’s not normal to have a TV in the forest. But then can we go somewhere where there is a TV? Gregus asks. No, I say. You’ll have to do without while you’re here with me. I want to see children’s TV, he says. No chance, I say. But I want to, he repeats, and I can see that he’s on the point of losing control, so without any further ado I swing him onto Bongo’s back and we charge down to Düsseldorf’s house.

Düsseldorf is sitting over a model as usual, probably oblivious to the fact that we are seconds away from children’s TV swooping in over our long and narrow country. I bang on his back door, explain the situation and ask if we can come in for three quarters of an hour to watch TV. Düsseldorf says that’s fine. Bongo and Gregus step carefully over the model of the war-ravaged Belgian town and curl up on the sofa as the animated children’s TV jingle rolls over the screen. Gregus hums along. I take a seat at the table with Düsseldorf. He’s still building his German Steyr Type 1500A/A1 and making the figure that will represent his father.