I automatically pricked up my ears at any mention of the phenomenon. I cherished words such as ‘spirited’ and ‘inspirit’. I understood that life and spirit were inextricably bound up with one another. Always, without thinking about it, I would say inspire rather than inhale. I felt the same about breathing as other people did about the heart or the pulse. Even as a small child I would find myself taking big, deep breaths, in and out, as if performing an exercise of some sort; as if I instinctively knew that I had not mastered this vital function, nay, this art. Whenever I saw pictures of the lungs they reminded me of sails, two spinnakers designed to speed us along. I would eventually come to have great respect for the wise men of other cultures who called attention to the link between breathing and thinking, between breathing and our potential for reaching unknown areas of the mind.
One thing became clear to me very early on: in order to unfold as a person, I had to have spirit. Once, when I was in elementary school, I went into town with my father. We were strolling along the dockside at Pipervika — we had just bought a bag of shrimps from one of the boats tied up there — when we were witness to a demonstration down by Hønnørbrygga of a new type of life-raft. At first I could make nothing of it. The raft was just a small white egg, a glass-fibre pod with two halves to it. But when the container was thrown into the water and a man tugged on a cord a raft proceeded to swell out of the egg, truly to unfold, black and orange, like a brightly hued bird emerging from a conjuror’s hand. It must have been very closely packed, because it was big. Our curiosity aroused, we moved closer and heard a man saying that there was a gas cylinder inside the pod. The cord was attached to a trigger which punctured a membrane inside the cylinder, thus releasing air into the raft and inflating it. ‘Do we have a cylinder like that inside us,’ I asked my father. I think there was a hopeful note in my voice.
In ancient languages such as Hebrew and Greek, the word for spirit and wind is the same. I have the feeling that this may explain my weakness for the organ, an instrument which so perfectly combines these two words, converting wind into spirit. My father often said to me: ‘Playing the organ, Jonas, that’s truly inspired work.’
Not until long after my father’s funeral did my mother tell us what she had done when she got the urn back from the crematorium. She took some of the ashes and put them into five separate, airtight envelopes which she addressed to five organists in different parts of Norway, all of them good colleagues and friends of Haakon Hansen who had agreed to carry out the Grorud organist’s wishes and his plan. These five went to their respective organs and poured the ashes down into one of the large pipes producing the deepest pedal notes, and at a prearranged moment they began, simultaneously, to play the same Bach prelude. ‘That was your father’s real funeral,’ my mother told me. I saw it more as a resurrection. He had been assured of a kind of eternal life. The thought appealed to me: my father lying there in different parts of Norway, vibrating in the air from his favourite chords, hovering on that exquisite music. As spirit.
The aim was not, of course, to become spirit. The aim was to become more of a person. I often thought of that incident when I saved a little child from drowning and how, afterwards, completely disillusioned, I had felt that my mission in life had been accomplished, that my life had, as it were, been fulfilled. It took a while for me to realise that this, all the practising, had simply been a preparation, training for a more difficult task: that of being filled with spirit. In order to expand and grow. All of the diving, those many minutes under water, had simply been an excuse for learning to control my respiration. My diving was a testimony to my powerful lust for life.
I had this same feeling as I swam down into the depths of Svarttjern, frantically diving after Margrete’s gold bracelet. My ability to hold my breath was finally to come into its own. This was what I had been training for. I had been training to win Margrete. I had been training to save my own life.
Every time I surfaced her eyes met mine, questioningly. Even from a distance I saw those eyes only as pupils — like deep, black pools. I had the feeling that I was as much diving in them, after the gold in them; that this was also my first attempt to get to the bottom of her. Of Margrete’s ‘Persian beauty’. She sat perfectly still, said not a word, and yet, with her eyes she was saying: How long can you hold your breath for me?
I took a rest then dived again, determined to beat every record going. I slipped down into the darkness, pinched my nose and blew through my mouth, equalising the pressure. Five metres down the water was noticeably cooler. I could not see a thing. But it was as if I was being given a warning: this is what life with her will be like, a long dive into the darkness, hunting for gold.
I noticed that my thoughts ran along different lines when I was underwater. It may have had something to do with the pressure, the buoyancy, the lack of oxygen. I acquired second sight. Down in the darkness I saw images from a whole future drift past my eyes, as if the water was developing fluid. I saw a golden elephant, a long-playing record, a dangerous swim, two adults in soft spring rain, a doctor’s white coat, a flat full of things from all over the world, a woman banging her head against a wall, a child, a television studio. And finally I saw a gun.
I had to hunt for the bracelet with the hand that was not holding my nose. I felt about in the most likely spot, directly below the knoll she had jumped off several times. Despite the darkness I swam with my eyes open, as if I thought it must be possible to discern a smouldering glimmer of gold. A glimmer of love, I thought feverishly. I could not see a thing. I was reduced to groping with my fingers. My lungs were starting to ache. My ears hurt. I thought of van Gogh. I thought I saw tropical fish glide by, like the ones in the television Interlude. I would not be able to take it much longer. A shiver ran through me. What if she had taken off the bracelet on purpose? What if she had wanted to test the boys, find out which of them was most deserving of her. Which one was worthy. Was she liable to do something like that? Would she be willing to sacrifice her mother’s expensive bracelet even if she received no answer.
I ran my hands over the bottom, centimetre by centimetre. I thought of the tales from the Arabian Nights which Rakel had read aloud to Daniel and I when we were small, particularly of those stories in which a character came across a ring embedded in the ground; and when he lifted the ring he raised a trapdoor, revealing stairs leading down into another world. Was it something like this I was searching for, without knowing it?
I have asked myself: what is the greatest driving force in my life? I think I know. It is the desire to work in depth. To invent something simple which would, nevertheless, have major consequences. Something along the lines of the wheel, the rudder, the stirrup. A new alphabet. To work at the most fundamental level. Like a power station deep inside a mountain. Lighting up cities far away. Being a spring which suddenly wells up and renders a desert fertile. Or being someone who shakes things up. Shakes up the classifications. Shakes the foundations. Like Samson toppling those pillars and bringing a whole heathen temple tumbling down. Being someone who splits open the shell we have built up around mankind.