Seeing the way she stuck out her tongue just a little before putting her lips to the head of his penis, Jonas could not help thinking of their confirmation, the sight of her at the altar rail in exactly the same position, on her knees, her eyes half-closed, how lovely she had looked. She wasn’t religious, he was pretty sure about that, and yet she had an air of expectancy about her, as if she knew that this was a solemn moment, that it was right, no matter what, that it had to do with life, rites of passage, a leap marked by something symbolic; now her hands were round his hips, in a room pungent with sweat, and her lips and tongue were doing things he had never imagined possible, things for which even his sister’s anatomy lessons had in no way prepared him, and he felt his body swelling as her tongue fluttered around the ridge of his glans, how his muscles suddenly bore witness to resources of energy unknown to him, and when he came, when the semen spurted out in great warm jets over her lips, and she even opened her mouth to swallow some of it, as if it really were a blessing or at any rate a fortifying drink of some sort, he could not stop himself from thinking of how she had opened her mouth in just that way, with her tongue protruding slightly, to receive the wafer from between the vicar’s fingers; and even when his conscience instinctively started sending out blasphemy signals and quashing this comparison, he realized that this, what she was now doing to him, what she was now giving him, ought also to be seen as a sacrament, and I — even I — would be the last to object to that.
Their game did not stop there, however; they switched places as if intent on taking their confirmation classes a stage further or, better, taking up a matter they had not previously touched upon. Now it was Jonas’s turn to kneel in worship, he ran his fingers over Nina H.’s long, muscular legs, remembering that that was the first thing he had noticed about her, her thighs, showing under skin-tight jeans, because she was a runner; Jonas had even stood watching in admiration sometimes when she was practising tempo runs on the curves, contemplating her marvellous stride, the look on her face which intimated that it might not be the idea of competing which drew women to take part in athletics but the mystical element; at any rate it was an aesthetic delight to see those long legs propelling her body forward so swiftly, the very lift of the knee, the springiness, the flexing of the tendons, while at the same time he felt there was something erotic about the sight, an idea which is not so far out when you think that the Chinese, for example, when they wish to declare their love, say ‘I have seen a woman’s foot.’ Nina H. had long been a member of the distinguished 1,00 °Club, and her room at home was bedecked with silver, so I assume that most Norwegians, at least, will know exactly whose legs Jonas Wergeland was now crouched between, legs which it would later be said ought to be insured with Lloyds, and will recall her triumphs in the 100 metres hurdles, not least the race she ran and the gold medal she won at the European Championships in the mid-seventies, the most beautiful race ever run on European soil, as one ecstatic journalist described it. And now here he was, Jonas Wergeland, on his knees in a changing room redolent of countless boys and their united efforts and dreams of gold, his face pressed between those legs which would at a later date be regarded as nigh on public property and his tongue buried deep in certain far more private and unknown parts of her anatomy. The fissure between the labia majora and minora has been compared, not without some justification — at any rate if one thinks of the opening up of new possibilities — to the physicists’ fission of the atom, and Jonas truly did have a sense of something explosive inside him, an urge, an appetite, which had been totally missing from his sister’s pragmatic demonstration and which gave him the chance to try out a skill which also vouchsafed a glimpse into the heart of creation, deep-red secrets. Rakel had at least explained to them that not all women’s genitals were the same shape or size — far from it — and as far as Jonas could tell, Nina H. had, according to his own terminology, a splendid example of a gazelle yoni, as seemed only natural, considering her particular discipline; a tight vagina which clamped itself around his finger like a suckling mouth, a soft vice, as if her vagina, too, had benefited from all the training to which she had subjected her body. This was Jonas’s main impression, kneeling there between Nina H.’s perfect legs, surrounded by a scent reminiscent of damp sawdust, that this thing, this place which his tongue was exploring was, first and foremost, a muscle; or rather, not a muscle, but a source of potential energy which, if he tapped into it, would boost his own body’s performance, like a pole when you made a jump. And as if to assure himself of a share in this flood of vitality, he flicked his tongue still harder, until Nina H. raised her arms, grasped the hooks above her head, pulled herself up and hung, almost suspended in mid-air, while she came and came and came again, her athletic body writhing as if she were doing a split jump, with a smile on her face and her eyes closed, so that Jonas looking up, saw her for the first time, with her arms raised above her head and that smile of relief, as he was to see her time and again on television in later years, when she broke through the tape, almost always coming first.
So Jonas Wergeland knew it was little coincidence that he should now find himself here on the field, only a week after the occurrence in the changing-room, simply bursting with energy. It was his turn to jump. No one could have guessed that they were about to witness something quite exceptional; in Norway sensational moments in athletics tend to be very few and far between. Not that I mean to make fun of Norwegian pole-vaulting, but I need only remind you of Audun Boysen and a Norwegian record in the 800 metres which was to remain unbeaten for half a generation, and that a Norwegian is likely to win an Olympic gold in athletics only once every 40 to 50 years.
So it was not as if anyone were expecting anything, nor was Jonas himself really prepared for what was about to happen, mainly because he still favoured the scissors technique, a bit more old-fashioned than the dive-straddle but far less dangerous when you are having to land on all manner of rock-hard mats, so Jonas concentrated on his ritual — in the high jump the ritual is half the point, or half the fun, even on the sports field down by the stream at Solhaug they had performed the craziest rituals prior to jumping, and it was most important that one followed the same procedure every time, as in church, so Jonas slowly removed his track-suit, jogged back and forth, stretched a bit, checked that the bar was sitting properly, flexed, checked his start mark, did a trial run-up, gave his limbs a shake, loosening up, flexed again, did a couple of high-kicks, knowing that he was annoying the life out of the other competitors, particularly the guy who was going to win if Jonas knocked down the bar, since he had already jumped successfully at a lower height, the jammy bugger, so Jonas had to clear it, he might not even believe he could do it, but there was something about his body, an unaccountable litheness, the itch to jump. He stood still, glanced over at Grorud Church, the tall spire, retreated into himself, shutting out his surroundings, shutting out the sounds, shutting out even Nina H., who was over there by the curve in the track, leaning on the fence and watching; he knew that this was it, this was the decisive jump — no, not a jump, but a leap. Jonas took the measure of the run with his eye, several times, swore at that bar to stay put, measured the run again and again brushed back his hair, brushed back his hair once more, heard some guy sighing with exasperation and yet did not hear him, broke into a trot, took a few short strides then picked up speed, more speed, full speed, heading towards the bar from the right side, taking long strides now, knew he was looking good, knew he was looking fantastic; standing outside of himself, looking on, even while he was running, relishing the image of himself; he was on the move and standing outside of himself at one and the same time, running in an arc towards the bar, sensing that this would give him greater momentum, jumped like a tangent striking out from a semicircle and there, right there, in that tenth of a second when he came down with everything he had on his left foot — he always planted with his left foot, for the simple reason that most people planted with the right, and he was Jonas Wergeland who would take a different approach to most other people whenever he could — just as he brought that foot down, abruptly compressing himself, as a writer will do in a fine poem, he heard a cry break through his film of concentration, ‘Come on, Jonas!!’, and instinctively he turned to see who was shouting, almost losing his balance, almost going over on to his back, so that his body actually twisted and he flew over the bar left shoulder first and, as if that were not enough, he flew over the bar back first, or at least that was how it seemed to the spectators who were all set to burst out laughing, except that their laughter was nipped in the bud as they saw Jonas Wergeland jumping over, way over, 1.60 to become area champion, a feat which prompted Nina H. to call out again, exultantly, as if she were lying beside him on the pile of foam-rubber mats: ‘Fantastic, Jonas!’