The man on the ground is grunting and writhing about, shaking. Jonas believes he sees his face change, at least seven times, as if it belongs to different people and not only people but animals too, wild beasts. The missionary bends over him and grips his head tightly, almost tearing at him. To Jonas, it looks like a battle in which one of the combatants is invisible. That said, though, it was a nice, clean fight, and for the record let me just say that it bore little similarity to the commercialised versions one is presented with in films, in which little girls speak with harsh male voices and heads spin round and round. In short, Jonas was observing an individual in obvious torment and a man who was endeavouring to do something about this torment. And did so. All at once, after a violent shudder, the young man relaxes, and a smile spreads across his lips. He stands up, raises his arms as if in thanks to heaven, before dropping onto his knees in the grass, with his elbows on a bench and his eyes shut, while the elders stand around him praising the Lord.
Jonas left the tent, filled with the same blend of exultation and sadness as when he had to leave the copious market in Strömstad. He caught up with the others among the pine trees on their way to the boat. They were still laughing, slapping their thighs, roaring their heads off, had to keep stopping to stand doubled up with laughter. Jonas walked along quietly at the tail end. He was thinking, no, not just thinking: pondering. And what he was pondering upon, more than anything else, was whether such spirits always had to be evil. To tell the truth, this evening marked a turning point for Jonas’s notion of what it means to be a human being, although this perception still lay far out on the fringes of, or possibly beyond, language, rather like speaking in tongues. Looked at in this light, Jonas Wergeland was also saved at that meeting. He sauntered down to the rowboat, feeling strangely relieved. Who’s to say there’s only one of me, he thought, knowing what this meant: that other avenues were open to him, possibly even other lives.
So Jonas did not wish, like the young man in the tent on Nedgården, to rid himself of these possible spirits; he wanted to cherish them, get to know them. He hoped he had at least seven spirits within him, like Mary Magdalene. Maybe even a wild beast. He could do with it: he whom everybody said was such a good boy. Several times that summer his mother would surprise Jonas when he was sitting talking to himself, using different voices. And this boy who, for years, had been such a fussy eater, suddenly started tucking in at mealtimes. Not only that, but he varied his diet, helped himself for the first time — oh, wonder of wonders — to boiled vegetables and didn’t even gag. So, whichever way you look at it, this was the summer when Jonas turned from a fairly puny little kid into a lad who rapidly shot up, bursting with health. And not only that: from that summer onwards Jonas Wergeland was possessed. He was on the trail of his true self. Or rather: his true selves.
~ ~ ~
I — the Professor — remarked on one word that cropped up in every newspaper article on Jonas Wergeland: demonic. This was after the whole thing blew up anew, again when no one was prepared for it, as if it were all part of a carefully planned two-stage rocket launch. It would be wrong to call it a bombshell. To the general public, despite a certain shock factor, it was more in the nature of a spectacular fireworks display.
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one, during the first phase of the case, to be titillated by a couple of unexplained details. Why had Margrete Boeck not put up any resistance — especially when one considers her, albeit latent, self-defence skills? It could of course be, as one theory had it, that she had been taken totally by surprise. But couldn’t the caller be someone she knew, who banged her head against the wall, knocking her senseless before she realized what said caller was up to?
Then there was the information the police eventually released regarding the murder weapon, the mysterious Luger. There were no fingerprints on the pistol, but the newspapers cited a number of theories as to its origins and ownership. This aspect gave rise to numerous in-depth reports on neo-Nazi organizations, including interviews with militant leaders and revelations concerning arms training and mail order companies. It became disturbingly apparent that even in Norway there were people who held secret meetings at which they reverently watched old documentaries about the Führer and gave the ‘Heil Hitler’ salute, while at the same time guarding items of Nazi memorabilia from the war as if they were holy relics. But everyone, even the right-wing extremists who had launched a menacingly worded attack on Jonas Wergeland’s final programme — the one on immigrants, a programme which, not surprisingly, was shown again immediately after the killing — denied having anything to do with this brutal crime.
Then came the silence, or lassitude: a kind of collective mental state like the way you feel on getting up, stiff and slightly dazed, to switch off the television late on a Saturday evening. The public could not know it, but it was at this point that Jonas Wergeland’s brother, Reverend Daniel W. Hansen, contacted the police — ‘after lengthy and painful consideration’ — having also seen the picture of the Luger in the paper. At police headquarters he had no difficulty in picking out the murder weapon from a selection of pistols and thereafter gave the name of the Luger’s probable owner. Reverend Hansen was, by all accounts devastated. But as he had said on arriving at the police station: ‘Here I stand, I can do no other.’
From that moment on the entire media picture — a picture which can safely be filed under the heading of New Expressionism — was dominated by one news story: Jonas Wergeland had been arrested, charged with the murder of his wife. The press promptly resorted to such phrases as ‘Norway’s crime of the century’. At any rate it was the perfect event for a well-developed information society. For a couple of days the country was in the grip of something approaching mass hysteria. The reaction to Wergeland’s arrest even exceeded all the commotion surrounding the death of the old king the year before, certainly in terms of column inches and television coverage. Reports on the Evening News showed people weeping openly in the street and taking photographs or shooting video film outside Villa Wergeland in Grorud, as if this were Hollywood. Some fans even went so far as to light candles outside the fence. A number of newspapers gave readers their own page in which to express their thoughts and feelings. An entire nation appeared to be ripe for counselling.
Everyone attempted yet again to get in touch with the person at the centre of it all. An interview, just a couple of quotes even, would have been the scoop of the year. But Jonas Wergeland had been remanded in custody, barred from receiving mail or visitors; and when this ban was lifted he would not speak to anyone apart from close family. His mother came to see him, and his little brother, known as Buddha. Indeed Buddha visited Oslo District Prison as often as was practically possible and was soon well acquainted with everyone there. Nonetheless, and even though the prison staff felt bad about it, they had to confiscate several of the odd presents he wanted to give Jonas. On one occasion he brought a kite. ‘What’s your big brother going to do with that?’ they asked. ‘I thought he could fly it from his cell window to drive out evil spirits,’ said Buddha.