The police were not giving away much. They had a few vague eyewitness accounts from neighbours and some other tips, but all of it conflicting. They issued no descriptions of people whom they wished to question in connection with their enquiries, no Identikit pictures. The police were, however, operating on the theory that Jonas Wergeland’s wife had probably been taken by surprise — word leaked out that the killer or killers had battered her head against the wall before shooting her. It was rumoured that the police were pursuing a line of enquiry that led back to Margrete Boeck’s past, in another country no less. They concentrated on the murder weapon, issued pictures and descriptions of it. Then things died down. Jonas Wergeland was discharged from hospital but refused to speak to anyone. Weeks went by without any sensational developments in the case, and when there’s nothing new to report, interest tends to wane — such is the implacable law of the media.
So much for the event itself. Jonas Wergeland’s tragedy, his destiny, one might say. Because the whole sequence was not altogether unlike a Greek drama. I suppose even back then I had in mind a story in which hubris played a large part, in which dark powers were underestimated. So when the publishers approached me I jumped at the chance. I did not have to think too long before signing on the dotted line.
I decided to follow my usual procedure: one year for the groundwork, followed by another year for the actual writing. That ought to be enough, I felt, it certainly had been in the past, to produce studies of lives which, in the grand scheme of things, will surely prove to be of more consequence than Jonas Wergeland’s. I started gathering material, conducted interviews, travelled, read, sorted and sifted and wrote notes. In any case, I knew right from the start what my aim ought to be: to shed light on the mysterious creative process behind Jonas Wergeland’s television programmes. If I could understand that, I might also be able to understand this other thing. I sketched out a framework, came up with a couple of intuitive hypotheses — things seemed to be shaping up nicely.
I live, as I suppose most people know from various newspaper and magazine articles, in the Oslo suburb of Snarøya, on one of the highest points in the area. My study is in a sort of turret at the top of the house. The house itself was modelled on Fridtjof Nansen’s mansion at Polhøgda, not that far away. From my desk I can watch the planes landing and taking off at Fornebu Airport, on the south-western section of the runway, as well as the boats sailing up and down the coastline of the Nesodden peninsula. It’s an inspiring vista: it makes me feel as though I am at a junction, that I am sitting in a control tower from which I have a complete overview. At times I can almost believe that all this activity around me is generated by my writing.
This illusion was soon shattered. The first sign that the biography of Jonas Wergeland was going to be different manifested itself in a pressing need to devote an extra year to the collection of material. And when I did finally set to work up here — after, that is, having gone through the phase in which I commit key points from my notes to memory, almost letting my brain soak up all my lines of argument — I saw that none of my hypotheses held water. And what was worse: that I could not come up with any new ones.
I sat in my turret, feeling hamstrung, or rather, that I had bitten off more than I could chew, staring at the stacks of papers and books round about me, the notice boards covered in cryptic notes and maps of Cape Town and Jaipur; the best encyclopaedia on the market lay next to a commemorative history of the Grorud Ironmongers, works on everything from woodcarving and organ music to Duke Ellington and the moons of Pluto. Chapters had been studiously plotted out on index cards that were then neatly filed in boxes and ring binders in a particular order, all of it adhering to a detailed chronological framework. Drawers and filing cabinets were brimming over with cuttings, copies of articles, transcripts, photographs, letters. The place was littered with audiocassettes and videotapes containing recordings of interviews and film footage. I sat in the turret and tried to take in all of this contradictory, unrelated, bewildering data. I soon realized that it would take me years merely to read such a volume of material. How to select those details that were significant? How to build a life out of all those boxes and binders bulging with television reviews, items on local history, snippets about women friends and the unreliable recollections of old friends? And above alclass="underline" how was I to link together this mass of bits and pieces? When I eventually sat down to write, determined to make a start somewhere at least, I found myself absolutely and utterly stuck, my fingers refused, quite literally, to strike the keys.
I was at my wit’s end. I sat in a room packed with information. Around me loomed all sorts of fancy equipment: fax machines, photocopiers, video players, printers and, not least, computers, providing access to diverse networks — what I lacked, though, was the mental software necessary in order for the combination of data and hardware to produce some result. What should I include and what should I leave out? I could write a score of pages simply on Jonas Wergeland’s penchant for tweed jackets. At one point I felt tempted to do more research, take a trip to Tokyo, for example, see whether I could discover any clues to what had actually happened there — maybe that would break the block, endow me with a flash of crystal-clear insight — but I knew I would only be running away, putting things off. I could not afford to shilly-shally like this. The publishers were on my back. The press had got wind of the project, and the biography was already being described as a really juicy exposé. Everyone was waiting.
I had been suffering for some weeks from this attack of writer’s block when help arrived. It was a Sunday evening, with a thick fog outside. I had just lit a fire, wondering, as I did so, at an unusual and fierce burst of dog barking, when the doorbell rang. This marked the start of the strangest week of my life. On the doorstep, seeming almost to have materialized out of the fog, stood an enigmatic individual swathed in a black cloak, a figure that conveyed an instant sense of authority and dignity. ‘I have come to your rescue, Professor,’ this person announced bluntly and walked straight in before I could say a word. ‘I assume your study is up in the turret.’ The figure proceeded resolutely up the spiral staircase. I had no choice but to follow.
After removing the cloak with a flourish that put me in mind of a bullfighter, the stranger promptly sat down in the best chair in the study and ran an eye over all the clutter, all of that ridiculous, and so far useless, equipment. ‘Could I ask you, please, to dim the lights?’ this person said, almost as if disgusted by the shambolic scene, by the desk buried under papers and books — this sea of details, so impenetrable that I referred to it as ‘my dark sources’. I could see that the stranger was impatient, that this person, no matter how odd it may sound, gave the impression of having eaten too much, of being full to bursting. ‘I know you are working on a biography of Jonas Wergeland,’ the stranger said. ‘I also know that you have got bogged down. So I am going to help you. I am used to chaos.’ This person pulled the chair closer to the fire. ‘I am not blessed with omniscience — but I know a great deal. I hold, among other things, the key to the riddle of Jonas Wergeland. Or, not to beat about the bush, I carry, if I may make so bold as to say, the whole of his story in my head.’ It may have been because I was confused, but I thought I detected a slight accent, as if Norwegian was not my visitor’s mother tongue.