Doppler (14 page)

You’re lucky, I say.

And thanks to this meaningless conversation I go around singing the I Can Fly song from the Peter Pan film for days. As I paint I hum the tune and sing the chorus, and I do it hundreds of times and in the end I feel genuinely sorry that I can’t fly.

The totem pole is finished.

In the final stages I use the confiscated head lamp and work around the clock. The very last thing I do is to paint a large sexual organ on my father. I give him the Doppler family hallmark. After that I take a few steps back and can see that the result is fantastic. It has become a totem pole the like of which the world has never seen. It is deeply meaningful and personal, and it’s colourful, if not garish. It’s uplifting. And I, Doppler, I made it. With my own hands. I have honoured my father in a way he would never have imagined possible, and I have felt close to him.

As soon as it’s finished I set about digging a hole in the ground. I choose a spot down by the pissing place. From there, as I’ve already mentioned, you can see large tracts of Oslo, and a bit of piss won’t do any harm, I think. On the contrary. It is, as I see it, recognition of the fact that my father took pictures of toilets in his later years. Granted, he never pissed here. But he definitely would have done if he’d had the chance. Pissing against the totem pole will be like consecrating the family bonds, I think. Doppler piss is as thick as blood, more or less, and it binds us together. Later generations of Dopplers will make pilgrimages to this place to pay their respects to earlier Dopplers by pissing on the family totem pole.

But half a metre down I hit bedrock. There’s so much bedrock in this bloody country of ours that I can’t even be bothered to make jokes about it. Suffice it to say there’s enough bedrock for everyone and this virtually encyclopaedic
fact blows my schedule to smithereens.
I had envisaged that Gregus and Bongo and I would be miles away by the middle of May, and my brother-in-law would have had to return empty-handed when he came to fetch me, but now I’m not so sure any more. Maybe I’ll have to stay here and fight. In that case I’ll have to let fly with an arrow just as I did with the reactionary. That would serve him right, that’s for sure, but it would jeopardise my escape plans and I’d prefer not to do that.

For two weeks I have a bonfire going constantly in the hole and pour water down to get the rock to crack. Bonfire after bonfire. I spend the days chopping wood and carrying water. Gregus helps me, but the others booze and are a dead loss. Fair enough. I’ve no intention of trying to making them see the error of their ways. If they want to drink, that’s their business. I’ve been alive long enough to know that there are umpteen reasons for drinking yourself silly and everyone has to do what they think best. The reactionary doesn’t drink. Let that be said. He’s working hammer and tongs in the forest somewhere. He’s taking the brotherhood festival seriously. No doubt about that. He’s making benches and tables and a small stage where I presume he’s going to stand and talk about peace on earth and reconciliation between peoples of the world.

It’s difficult to say where one bonfire ends and a new one begins, but after forty or fifty of them I’ve made a hole of a metre or so down into the rock, and after just as many more fires I’m getting close to two metres. That’s good. But it’s May now, indeed it’s almost the middle of May. The snow has gone and the forest is dry. White and blue anemones are flowering everywhere and a new generation of moose is on its way all over the forest. You’re not the youngest any more, I say to Bongo, and you may think that obliges you to grow up fast, but you shouldn’t think like that. I think you should hold on to your youthful freedom and independence. Do crazy things. Have a party. Be a stirrer and raise hell. This is me Doppler saying this, I say. And Doppler was possibly one of the most conformist yuppies in the country at one time. Now he’s retired and works more on a free-lance basis. As a consultant, you might say. To himself and to those who care to listen. There are not so many of them, it seems.

We can’t lift the totem pole. Even with the reactionary lending a reluctant hand we don’t stand a chance. The damned thing weighs too much. Bongo and I managed to drag it through the snow, but four men, a child and a moose can’t lift it into the hole.

How many people do you think will be coming to the brotherhood festival? I ask the reactionary.

Thirty or forty maybe, he says.

Would you mind if I used them? I ask.

I suppose not, he says. It might bring them together.

Exactly, I say. You can’t beat symbolically-laden hard graft for uniting people.

The middle of May comes and goes. I sit all day with my bow drawn, listening for my brother-in-law’s fleet footfalls, but he fails to appear, and the only reason he fails to appear must be that the birth is overdue. That’s perfect. The forces of nature are on my side, but I don’t attribute that to fate. It’s sheer good luck. Chance is my friend today, and I use the opportunity to enjoy a small glass with Düsseldorf and Roger. At night I sleep with my bow and arrow under my pillow, but fortunately I see nothing of my brother-in-law, neither in my dreams nor in so-called reality.

Next morning the brotherhood festival begins. The reactionary has adorned himself in something as unreactionary as a workman’s smock. Maybe he feels it makes it easier for him to step into a different sphere, a more elevated spirituality, I don’t know, he’s standing there anyway, ready to receive good people from all the religions of the world, but they’re not exactly arriving in droves. Four or five hours after the festival should have started he’s forced to acknowledge that there are only four takers for the festival. A Muslim has turned up, as well as a Jew, a Christian and a journalist from the evening edition of
Aftenposten
. All four of them are sitting on a log waiting for the reactionary to say something. At long last, he steps forward and declares the festival open. He is unable to conceal his disappointment, but nonetheless reels off some fairly credible phrases about each individual, in such troubled times as ours, having to look inside ourselves to examine how deep our tolerance runs etc. We must understand one another, and the key to understanding lies in knowing one another. Quite simply, we need to learn more about each other. We need to know what others think and believe and fear, but also more commonplace things, such as what time they get up in the morning, and what they have for dinner. Everything is useful. In truth we can never learn too much about each other. And these two days are to be spent doing just that. We will exchange information about everything under the sun. The three believers nod and the journalist takes notes.

The first exercise is to let yourself fall backwards hoping and trusting that the others will catch hold of you. There are so few of us that this presents some problems. The burly Muslim hits the ground a couple of times, but is soon up on his feet, insisting that it’s his own fault. All the rest of us land safely in others’ outstretched arms. Actually, it gives me a certain amount of pleasure. I fall back, lose control and for a split second find myself between heaven and earth, and then instead of hitting the ground with a bang I am caught by the soft and tender arms of my fellow man.

The next item on the programme is to form pairs and blindfold one of the partners and then guide him around the vicinity. The blind partner has to learn to rely on the sighted person. It’s a great little exercise from which we all learn something, even though Bongo, who I team up with, once again demonstrates to all and sundry that he’s a bit slower on the uptake than the rest of us when it comes to getting the gist of a very clear message. As we pass the Jew and the
Aftenposten
journalist, I notice that the latter is crying while walking along blindfolded. It must be a bit too much for him, I suppose. He’s used to verbal flights of fancy and here it’s suddenly physicality that’s in the ascendancy, and there’s intimacy and other unfamiliar things. It can soon become too much. And of course the wily old foxes on the editorial staff may have made sure they wriggled out of an assignment like this, and instead conspired to send the young trainee with the frayed nerves.

The third exercise is, after some coercion from me, to raise the totem pole. Everything is prepared beforehand, and with a concerted effort we force the totem pole into place. It’s child’s play, or as good as. The monster is carried to the hole and is then slowly shoved and pulled up into an upright position with the aid of an ingenious system of ropes. After that, the festival continues without me.

As Gregus and I hammer wedges into the ground around the totem pole, I can hear that the brotherhood process in the forest is becoming more intense. There’s some sort of group work going on. The reactionary’s irritated voice rings out from time to time, but I don’t feel it has anything to do with me. A festival like this is a praiseworthy initiative, no doubt about that, and the idea is spot on: nations and religions of the world need a helping hand if we’re to get out of the pickle we’re in. Nobody will be happier than me if they succeed. But I have to admit that I don’t have any confidence in it happening. I think we’ve missed the boat. I believe that those of us who are alive today are destined to die out and will be replaced by a new species of humans. Who will start with a clean sheet and fewer aggressive traits. A more good-natured species of humans. A variant which has the ability to be more liberal.

Eventually the totem pole is positioned just as I want it. It’s wedged into place and I’ve filled the hole around the wedges with small stones, earth and peat. It towers up in the air, spreading colour and the spirit of Doppler around the forest.

It looks really good, in fact, even though I say so myself. I have now settled my differences with my father, I feel. Now he can rest in peace, as they say. And I can have peace of mind because I know that he is resting in peace. Someone has remembered him. One of those closest to him has remembered him and crafted a work of art in his honour. Surely that must warm the cockles of the old rascal’s heart. The man who managed to live his whole life without revealing his true identity. I’ve honoured him and can now set my sights on new horizons. I gather my closest companions around me, Gregus and Bongo that is, and tell them that the time has come to move on. The current state of affairs in the forest is no longer of such a character that we can flourish here, I say. We need air in which to breathe and space in which to formulate grand ideas. The world awaits, I say. We are about to embark on a journey and may be gone for some time. I don’t quite know where all this comes from, but I feel it’s urgent, so I just come out with it, even though I hadn’t really envisaged doing anything once the totem pole was finished. On the contrary, I had intended to do less than any human before me had done. I was going to close in on the magical zero. But now here I am with my two disciples, for I sense that I’ve begun to consider them as disciples, holding out the prospect of a journey that might well be protracted. Are you prepared for such a journey? I ask them. Gregus nods and Bongo looks at me in the same inscrutable way he always does, but of course I know him inside out and I’m sure that he, like any other teenager, is ready for anything that is fun.

But it’s not certain that it will be such fun, I say. We’ll see. But not everything can be fun in any case. It’s amazing that I’m saying this. It’s as if someone else is talking through me. And sometimes you have to do things even though they aren’t fun, I say. You have to venture out farther on the branch on which you’re sitting, and once in a while you also have to saw it off.

Otherwise you’re just a little shitty pants, says Gregus.

Absolutely, I say. Otherwise you’re just a little shitty pants.

But where are we going? Gregus asks.

We’re going from forest to forest, I say. We’ll go into the middle of this forest and eventually maybe come out on the other side. And into the next one. And we can keep on doing that until we know we’ve had enough. But I doubt whether we’ll have had enough after the first one.

There are always more forests.

I tell them that now we should all piss on the totem pole and after that get ourselves ready so we can quietly dismantle the tent during the night and be over the hills and far away before the others wake up in the morning.

We all piss and allow our streams to cross in honour of our father and grandfather, who will stand here for a thousand years.

The countdown has begun.

As we pack, the brotherhood festival is getting into full swing. They’re singing and hollering out there and it’s obvious that Düsseldorf and Roger have provided alcohol for the festival. This is hardly what the reactionary had in mind, but why not, I think, as I work the tent pegs loose. Alcohol will probably loosen them up a bit and they might well get to know each other better that way than they otherwise would have done. As spirits in the neighbouring camp get higher, I realise that there is no longer any rush to take down the tent. They have already reached a point where their awareness of the outside world is so minimal that I can operate without fear of being disturbed.

I make a sled from two birch trees that Bongo can tow. Onto this I load the tent, tools and actually most of my worldly goods in the forest. I take the axes along with me. The farmer will have to get himself some new ones. Maybe there aren’t many axes where we’re going.

I pack all night, while Bongo and Gregus sleep side by side.

Early the next morning I stroll over to the festival-goers to say goodbye. The Christian has been asleep in a strange, drunken position, and the representatives of the two other world religions are in the process of squeezing toothpaste under his foreskin. They are roaring with laughter and having the time of their lives. The reactionary is sitting by a fire telling the
Aftenposten
journalist, who if possible is drunker than any of the others, that he wished his wife’s breasts were more like boats. The journalist can barely hold the pen he is taking notes with. What do you mean by that? he asks. Boat-like, says the reactionary. More like boats. Düsseldorf and Roger are the most experienced drinkers and are therefore the most active at this point. I shake them by the hand and say that I’m pleased to have met them but now I’m setting out on a journey which might be lengthy. Take care of yourselves, I wish them. You, too, they say, whereafter they settle back down in the heather and carry on with a conversation the subject of which is unknown to me. As is the case with most other conversations on this earth. There are very few I take part in myself. I have no idea what all the other billions of conversations are about. And a good job, too.