Novel 11, Book 18 Read online

  He had moved to Kongsberg. And, on a whim, he had applied for the position of town treasurer and got it. In reality, he merely shrugged. Why in the world should he be town treasurer? A treasurer, of all things? Some whim that was, he thought, astounded. But Turid walked through the rooms of the Lammers villa singing, ‘My husband is town treasurer! My husband is town treasurer! I’m living with the treasurer! I’m living with the treasurer!’ Bjørn Hansen gazed at her in admiration. He couldn’t help laughing.

  There was an audacious element in Turid Lammers’s gaiety that fascinated him. Thus encouraged, he went to his daily task, albeit with a shrug. Was he thinking that this job might be a professional dead end, to put it mildly? Well, he knew that, but simply gave a shrug. It was more important for him to find a job at Kongsberg, because he was beginning to get tired of commuting (it was also a strain on their relationship). He wouldn’t have minded continuing in the ministry, but not if he lived at Kongsberg. And now he was living at Kongsberg, that was a fact.

  Bjørn Hansen had grown up in a town by the Oslo Fjord, the son of parents of limited means. He was a poor boy. Nevertheless it seemed natural to him to go to college, on account of his ready wits. He received his maturity certificate at the age of nineteen and, after sixteen months of military service, he had to make up his mind what he wanted to do with his life. Bjørn Hansen decided to go to Oslo to study. In reality, he was mostly interested in art and literature, philosophy and the meaning of life, but he chose to study economics. Chiefly because he had always been good at arithmetic and mathematics, but also because he had a vague feeling that he had to rise and get on in life, so as not to end up in the same poverty as his parents; at any rate, he wanted to get away from their bitter toil, and while he did not equate art and literature, philosophy and the meaning of life with bitter toil, they had, quite simply, an aura of luxury about them. Art and literature were not proper subjects to him, they were interests one could cultivate in one’s spare time, not means whereby to acquire a position, which he, with a genuinely unassuming matter-of-factness, saw as the end of academic study. Hence economics. But there were two ways of studying economics – you could become a Bachelor of Commerce (in Bergen) or a political economist (in Oslo). For Bjørn Hansen it had to be political economy. The study of business administration led to employment by private corporations, to the no doubt exciting jungle there, but this was so remote from Bjørn Hansen’s own point of departure, his moral and social intelligence, etc., that he did not even consider it. Due to some form of social consciousness, he chose political economy and, consequently, a career in public administration. So he decided to become a servant of the State, for lack of other alternatives.

  When he met Turid Lammers, he had been employed in the ministry for six years (Bjørn Hansen always said, ‘I was employed in the ministry,’ but never said which one in all the eighteen years that had now gone by since he arrived at Kongsberg), and if someone asked him in which ministry, he replied, ‘Er, some ministry, I no longer remember exactly which,’ and couldn’t be made to say anything more, even though everyone knew that he was lying and had been about to be promoted. He wouldn’t have minded that, viewing it as quite natural, and could easily imagine being assistant or deputy secretary. He felt quite happy in the ministry; he found it exciting to work out budget estimates, and he was not insensitive to the fact that the estimates they were working out, in different variants, would have a practical bearing on the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of Norwegians, a thought which in no way was conducive to losing interest in one’s work. It was a sensible kind of work Bjørn Hansen was performing, and he could easily imagine continuing with it. But when Turid encouraged him, merrily, to apply for the position of town treasurer in Kongsberg, he had no problem with bidding farewell to his career in the ministry and he had never missed it during the eighteen years that had passed.

  Did he become treasurer for Turid’s sake? He would not have done it without her encouragement, at any rate. Without her merriment at the thought that her partner would be the town’s treasurer. It was quite mad, Turid’s eyes sparkled, and he thought, ‘I’ll do it! Hell, yes, I’ll do it!’ and instantly felt a wild satisfaction at the thought that he would actually do it. It was the final break with everything that had gone before. It bound him at last to Turid Lammers. To this town. To their relationship here in this large, dilapidated Lammers villa. To the adventure, which had already acquired so many absurd features, and which he was as fascinated by as ever.

  But to Turid’s (and, for that matter, his own) amazement, he had from the very first moment set about his work with great seriousness – well, almost fervour. Partly because, from the start, he felt the hostility in the treasurer’s office from the two employees who had been passed over. To tell the truth, he felt as if he had behaved rather shabbily towards them. It was really their job, after all, they should have competed for it, and the one who didn’t get it would forever have borne a grudge against the other and plotted against him intensely, on the quiet, using every low trick imaginable, instead of, as now, joining forces as allies, as time went by even as close friends, and directing all of their ill will towards him, the new treasurer. Having all but strolled into this leadership position (he had sixteen subordinates), he found himself with something to sharpen his wits on. Intrigue and knavery. The amount of mischief a roughly fifty-year-old employee in a treasury office can dream up when he feels he has been played for a fool and prevented from attaining his natural peak as town treasurer, is quite indescribable. And when, as in this case, there were two of a kind – birds of a feather, as they say – the atmosphere at the treasury could at times be more than strained. Instead of being laden with dust, which people usually associate with offices where dry, creaky bureaucrats spend their days, the corners were alive with a festering glow. But this atmosphere hardened him, well, matured him, if not as a human being, at least as a treasurer, and that was, after all, what mattered in this instance.

  Another reason why Bjørn Hansen invested his position as treasurer at Kongsberg with a seriousness just short of fervour from the very first day, was that this was his work. He had applied for a position and got it. It was not his mission in life, but his job. In Bjørn Hansen’s view, work was a necessary evil. As mentioned already, he chose his field of study on the basis of which necessary evil he wanted to qualify himself for. When the job was done, one could devote oneself to life’s true meaning, which for Bjørn Hansen was clearly a woman. Living with a woman, Turid Lammers. But first one is obliged to participate in the communal public enterprise that is called work, in order for the wheels to keep turning, society to function, in short, so that there will be steak at the butcher’s, schools for children and young people, clothes to put on, light switches in the halls, running water in the taps, radios, on which someone has undertaken to speak, others to make, still others to transport to the store, which someone has decided to open, and when the radio breaks down someone has taken on the task to repair it, allowing the wheels to turn; and when the snow falls on Kongsberg, the excavators are wolfing down the compact banks of snow to allow new snow to pile up, forming fresh banks at the edges of the road, in order for the wheels to continue turning. In the middle of all this, Bjørn Hansen had assumed the task of managing the office that collected the resources necessary for operating the municipality and the State. He had become the State’s unrelenting tax collector in this provincial town. A stern servant of the State.

  Kongsberg is situated in the middle of Norway by the river Lågen, which runs in a lovely arc through the town and separates Old Kongsberg from New Kongsberg. A handsome bridge connected the two old towns, which were decorated with realistic sculptures in praise of work, like mining and rafting. The modern centre strongly resembled all other Norwegian towns, its main streets lined with shops where you could buy, in abundance, what modern civilisation had to offer, from knitting needles to the latest computer models. This was the bustling part of town. The old centre
housed most of the city administration, surrounded by decayed wooden buildings from the old days – this was in the early 1970s. A magnificent church on a hill. A venerable police station in an old patrician villa. A dismal prison, along with the rest situated around the church square. Also the fire station, not to forget the Town Hall with its varied functions.

  The town was built up around the silver-mining industry. The kingdom of Denmark-Norway’s only silver mines were located here, and so, in the sixteen hundreds, Christian IV laid the foundation of the town. Thousands of workers and German mining experts, along with Danish officials, lived here. It was nicely situated, surrounded by hills that were green from spring to autumn and white in the winter. The river was blue from spring to autumn and white with ice in the winter. Here lay the Kongsberg Arms Factory and the Royal Mint – which was still producing Norwegian coins – together with other enterprises. There were shops, tradesmen, dentists, attorneys, physicians, functionaries, shop girls, office girls, teachers, municipal employees – and workers. And all of them had to pay taxes.

  Bjørn Hansen made himself at home in the town in a surprisingly short time. Even as treasurer. Shortly he had acquired a nodding acquaintance with a number of people he met in the street on his way from the Lammers villa to the Town Hall, where the Treasury was located. He passed this way twice a day, first in the morning, to the office, then in the afternoon, from the office. He spent most of his working hours in the office, interrupted by meetings at the alderman’s, where he presented economic reports on the tax revenues to date, while showing how they tallied with the prognoses made in the budget. It was a pleasant life – the job entailed responsibility but was not stressful. It was, on the whole, a set of routines, and if you knew them, everything ran more or less by itself. Not once did he take work home with him. He felt he was met with friendliness everywhere. Few appeared to think of him as an awe-inspiring government authority who ruthlessly cracked down on failure to pay tax arrears and on deficient payment of value-added tax. Few appeared to think of the fact that, when he wrote his name, his signature, on an official sheet of paper, it meant that the government was now demanding its due and would brook no argument. Armed with a sheet of paper with Bjørn Hansen, Treasurer on it, his subordinates marched off, rang the bells of private homes, entered courteously and, without listening to any protests, took away TV sets, pieces of furniture and paintings as government security against unpaid tax. He even had businesses and industrial concerns declared bankrupt, with all the consequences this had not only for the unfortunate owners, but even more, it turned out, for those who had worked by the sweat of their brows in these businesses and concerns. Yet when he walked through the streets, people greeted him like a friend, and he returned their greetings in a friendly manner. Despite rumours of internal conflicts in the Treasury, where he, an outsider, was opposed by two venerable and loyal Kongsberg drudges, the new treasurer had a nodding acquaintance with a considerable number of people. It was partly due to the fact that in his line of work he came into contact with many of the town’s inhabitants, not least businessmen and people who held public office, but the main reason was that most of those he greeted were members of the same society as he himself, namely, the Kongsberg Theatre Society.

  Yes, he had become a member of the Kongsberg Theatre Society, even an enthusiastic member. It was Turid Lammers who had got him involved. She had acted in amateur theatre in her early youth and, having now returned to her roots, she wasted no time in joining the Kongsberg Theatre Society, of which many of the friends from her youth were still members. During the years she had been away Turid Lammers had done things and improved herself. She had studied theatre, both in Norway and in France, and now taught drama at the Kongsberg Secondary School, in addition to the more common subjects of English and French. She was an asset from day one and had been accepted with open arms; it was not long before she suggested that Bjørn Hansen should join them. He hesitated, telling her that he was not an actor, but she replied that there were so many other things he could do; it was first and foremost a question of being part of a milieu. But Bjørn Hansen thought that if he were not an actor he would be somehow second-rate in that milieu, and he did not want that. Turid protested loudly, saying she was convinced that he could become a good actor, he simply hadn’t tried. Besides, they were all equals in the Kongsberg Theatre Society, that was a principle; the main roles were given out by turns, so that everyone got involved; and, of course, there were also so many other things that had to be done to put on a whole evening’s entertainment. The upshot was that Bjørn joined the Society, accompanied his partner to rehearsals, took out membership, and found himself an insider.

  The Kongsberg Theatre Society put on one production a year. They played it six times in late autumn at the Kongsberg Cinema, after having been in preparation since Christmas the previous year. Bjørn Hansen’s first job was as a sort of odd-job-man-cum-stagehand. He ran errands, took care of applications, helped organise the ticket sales, served as cashier, helped to prepare the budget, and talked up the coming performance at the Treasury and the Town Hall, and during the performance he could be found behind the scenes busily moving scenery and changing the sets while the curtain was down, and everyone in the auditorium could hear the shuffling of heavy furniture being dragged across the stage, and a loud thud as an armchair was put down by a perspiring Bjørn Hansen. Who, in the next moment, when the curtain went up again, found himself backstage, anxiously waiting to see how the next scene would go, whether the public would be drawn in, whether the singing dentist, Herman Busk, would transcend himself this evening as he nervously took his last steps towards the footlights, past Bjørn Hansen, who, deeply moved, whispered ‘Good luck’, barely audible to anybody but himself.

  Yes, he was drawn into it. He liked the milieu that came with putting on amateur productions. He got to know people. Turid and he had acquired a shared leisure interest, which almost became a passion. Turid became a leading light in the Theatre Society – being a drama teacher, she was, after all, almost a professional. She loved to appear on stage and knew how to hold an audience in the hollow of her hand; Bjørn Hansen would stand in the wings and observe how the citizens of Kongsberg allowed themselves to be thoroughly charmed by his partner, the woman for whose sake he found himself here, and he felt very proud. He observed her when she returned to the stage after having conquered her public, her whole body trembling and her face having a dreamy, inward expression. ‘Superb,’ he whispered, causing her to give a start before hurrying on to the dressing room and preparation for her next appearance. Turid Lammers’s return to her native town, Kongsberg, had certainly benefited the Kongsberg Theatre Society. Indeed, she became its central player. She knew how everything worked, both front- and back-stage. But she was no prima donna. In fact, she never took the lead, leaving that to others. She chose to shine in minor roles, albeit central minor roles, but they were not main roles. The others always encouraged her to take the lead, but she refused. It wouldn’t be right, she said. But offstage the main role was hers, her ideas concerning costumes always prevailed. Choice of material became, in the final analysis, her choice. If the suggested stage director was not to the liking of Turid Lammers, he simply did not get to be director. The Lammers villa became a natural centre for the Society’s preparations: here costumes were sewn, ideas conceived, parties hosted. Here the friends of the Kongsberg Theatre Society came and went pretty much as they pleased, at any hour of the day or night. Here came Jan Grotmol, an Adonis employed by the railways. Here came Brian Smith, an engineer at the Kongsberg Arms Factory and a guaranteed success with his deep bass voice and his broken Norwegian. And Mrs Smith, who spoke only English but was educated as a needlework teacher (lace). Here came Dr Schiøtz from the hospital and Sandsbråten, the old postmaster. Here came the beautiful women to whom Turid Lammers granted the main roles, to their everlasting gratitude. Here came Herman Busk, the dentist, who happened to become Bjørn Hansen’s best friend, as well as
elderly shop assistants, young students, gardeners, dairymen and, not least, numerous teachers of all ages and both genders, from all of the schools in the Kongsberg district, along with representatives of the health service. And two labourers.

  The atmosphere was one of enthusiasm, though it did have a tendency towards arrogance. The friends of the Kongsberg Theatre Society looked upon themselves as creative spirits and considered their hobby as a vocation, because in their view everyone possessed an animating power that was frequently suppressed or tamed, but which could unfold freely in the theatre, through acting things out, through play. Man as player, or homo ludens, as they said, was their ideal, which it became Bjørn Hansen’s fate in life to represent as well. For he had already become one of them, not only in his capacity as Turid Lammers’s companion, but also because he fully shared their fascination with standing behind the curtain before the performance and peeking into the auditorium through a narrow opening in it in order to see the public flowing to their seats in this illuminated cinema in anticipation of the curtain rising. The Society played either farces or operettas; there was controversy among its members every year whether they should perform straight farces (especially comedies of mistaken identity, where success was assured) or whether they should risk taking on an operetta, which was more ambitious, and usually an operetta or a musical came out the winner. My Fair Lady. Summer in Tyrol. Oklahoma. Bør Børson. This was in the 1970s. Bjørn Hansen debuted in Oklahoma, as a walk-on. A member of the chorus, he danced around in a cowboy outfit, having learned a few simple steps, and sang with what little voice he had. It worked out nicely. Later he participated every year and could honestly say that few Norwegians had sung the refrain of more operetta tunes in public than he. Although he had never before stood on a stage, it worked out nicely. It was fairly bewildering, but Turid Lammers said she was not surprised, adding that, if they had not been living together as man and wife, she would have nominated him for a really big role next year.