Shyness And Dignity (11 page)

This troubled Elias Rukla. Not that she looked hatefully at him, but her complaisance afterwards. Why did she not acknowledge her contempt for him, a man who was not equal to providing her with a new kitchen, now that the old one was so worn and old-fashioned? She was entitled to demand it of him, and although he had to tell her they could not afford it, he perfectly understood, even so, that she was entitled to despise him for it. If you marry a woman like Eva Linde, it brings certain obligations, which he had failed to fulfil by having to say no to her extremely commonplace dreams. He could say, of course, that she should have known what she was doing when she married an ordinary senior master with a limited income, and so he was safe when he said that a new kitchen at this point was out of the question, but at the same time he ought to have warned her, telling her that a woman like her could never have her wishes and dreams fulfilled by a rather threadbare secondary school teacher, something that, if he had told her, would have made her burst into unrestrained silvery laughter. She knew what she was doing. But had she for that reason written off her own worth as the woman whom Elias Rukla valued so highly? Precisely by showing her contempt when he had to admit that he could not afford to satisfy an extremely ordinary wish of hers, she showed, indeed accentuated, her value, placing her at the level where Elias Rukla himself thought she should be. So Elias Rukla had no problem accepting her contempt. What he
had
a problem accepting was her attempt to conceal it by glossing over it afterwards. Her deliberate complaisance afterwards. What brought it on? Why did she not dare maintain her contempt? Because she had signed away all right to it? That was quite obvious, but what did it mean? That she had signed away the right to make demands on him altogether, in her heart? And what, in turn, did that mean? Elias did not know, but he felt profound despair at her false complaisance after such outbursts and, as a matter of fact, found it difficult to respond to her invitation and come to her at night, which was, after all, as she had unequivocally signalled to him, what would please her most of all, and which he, for that very reason, could not refuse but, on the contrary, had to force himself to prepare for, as the great and, on the whole, quite undeserved honour which in that way fell to his lot, and which made it possible to describe Elias Rukla in these years as, if not a contented or happy man, at all events a lucky one.

Little Camilla, Johan Corneliussen’s daughter, had moved into the newly purchased four-room apartment in Jacob Aalls gate along with Eva Linde. She became Elias Rukla’s stepdaughter. She lived there, together with them, from the age of six to nineteen. One can safely say that Elias Rukla had never got to know any other person as well as Camilla Corneliussen. He followed her growing up near at hand, as an always-present stepfather. Elias and Eva Linde never had a child together, so Camilla was the only child he would ever watch growing up. About Camilla he could say that she did not need to worry about having secrets from him, at least as far as
her
nature was concerned, for he knew her inside out. He had seen her express herself freely and uninhibitedly as a child and adolescent and turn, with much hullabaloo, into the young lady she was today. Through her he experienced a child’s fear of not being like everyone else, down to the minutest detail. He understood that this apprehension was even greater than the dread of being locked up in a dark room, which also was great and fundamental. And he came to understand the fear a little child can have that her shoe buckles, which she herself thinks are very pretty, do not look in the least like the buckles other children have on their shoes, that it can be a real torture to a little child’s soul, and for a long time, and this gave him a good deal to think about. How will she be able to develop into an independent person under such conditions? he had often to ask himself during Camilla’s adolescence. And it did not improve matters, quite the contrary, that the little child was at the same time extremely open and trusting with those around her, both with Elias and her mother, and even with those same children she was so afraid of not resembling to a T. What disasters, real and imagined, must this not lead to! And, sure enough, Elias witnessed all of little Camilla’s disasters and breakdowns near at hand. When her mother’s patience was exhausted, Elias stepped in, trying to soothe, encourage and comfort. And when Camilla entered her teens, he had to assume the role of mediator and reconciler between mother and daughter. He had a tendency to side with Camilla, for he thought that Eva Linde sometimes did not quite manage to distinguish
between
being Camilla’s mother and educator and being her mother and owner. For that matter, it had started right after they got together. Camilla had then been given her own room, which she kept in all the years she lived with them, though its appearance changed quite radically as time went on, and Elias felt that neither of them had the right to go in there unannounced. He was of the opinion that a child was entitled to have its own room and to be left alone there, without fear of being disturbed by grown-ups. Eva did not agree with that, and over the years they had a number of arguments about this, but though Elias was inclined to give in to Eva on other matters concerning Camilla – after all, she was her daughter – he did not do so in this regard. But Camilla often sought his company. He had felt terribly sorry for the little girl when, at six years of age, she came padding after her mother, a teddy bear under her arm, in order to settle in his place. He had a feeling that she had been deprived of something in her life, and that the sense of loss left by what she had been deprived of, a father, was irremediable. And he did not himself want to remedy it, not even if he had been able to. He was Camilla’s stepfather, taking the place of her father, but he could not replace that father, because he was not her father; her father was called Johan Corneliussen and lived in New York. Elias Rukla was her mother’s friend and new husband, and in that capacity he was to take her father’s place with Camilla. He did not for a moment wish to deprive Camilla of the sense of loss left by her father; that he had no right to do. Therefore he was always slightly
reserved
with her. When she came to him trustingly, wanting him to fulfil all her expectations, he had to take care to maintain a certain distance from her. In the same way, he found himself in a distant relationship with Eva’s parents, the retired colonel and his wife. Their purpose in coming to see the married couple Rukla/Linde was, after all, to have contact with their grandchild, Camilla Corneliussen. In such circumstances Elias Rukla was an intruder, and accordingly kept in the background as far as possible when they visited the colonel and his wife or were visited by them, as, for example, at Christmas, and he had the impression that Eva’s parents looked upon him as a man who, for the time being, was taking care of their daughter, even after they were quietly married, something that, per se, seemed natural to Elias Rukla. But in such circumstances, especially on Christmas Eves with the colonel’s family in Lillehammer, which Elias Rukla did not exactly look forward to, he was always a bit apprehensive that Camilla would come over to him, as she often did at home, and sit on his lap, and when she did, he tried to coax her away as quickly as possible by some diversionary manoeuvre or other, not least because under the Christmas tree there lay a big package from Johan Corneliussen.

Because one year after they had begun living together, Johan Corneliussen had manifested himself. He wrote a letter to his daughter. Camilla had then just started school, and her mother took the letter to her room and read it to her there. Elias never learned what it said. He insisted, though, that Camilla answer it, which Eva did not want.
But
Elias forced it through, and he sat for long periods with little Camilla composing a letter to her father, the way she herself would have written it if she had learned the art of writing letters. That she had not done, however; she could only write capital letters and had difficulty putting them together into words, which had a tendency to exceed the space of her sheet of paper when they were to make a whole sentence. So Elias had to help her, both with getting out of her the sentences she wished to write to her father and, later, with getting them down on paper in such a way that there was enough room for them. When this was done, at last, there remained the laborious task of preparing the envelope, on which Camilla would write her father’s name and address. Eva, as indicated, refused to have anything to do with this letter-writing, and Elias could not bring himself to write Johan Corneliussen’s name and address on an envelope which contained a letter to him from his daughter. So the only solution was that Camilla had to do it. But it took time to put the rather extensive address of Johan Corneliussen, written in a child’s handwriting, in place on the rather small surface that an envelope provides, and it can at least be said that Camilla learned to discipline her childish capital letters in a manner that was unusual among children her age. Afterwards, more letters arrived, and the same procedure was repeated, until Camilla had become big enough both to be able to read her father’s letters and to answer them on her own. She would sit undisturbed in her room writing letters to a father she barely knew, but who would haunt her entire life like a loss that nothing could soothe, Elias
Rukla
thought. When she was fourteen, she was invited to New York to visit her father and her half-siblings, born to Johan Corneliussen in his third marriage. Eva Linde protested strongly against her daughter going, but again Elias managed to persuade her. But when they stood on the roof at the Gardermoen Airport and saw Camilla pad out to the large jumbo jet that was to carry her to New York, Elias Rukla felt fear take hold of him. What if she never came back, what if she writes to tell us that from now on she wants to stay with her father! He had already noticed that she now and then wrote her name as Camilla Cornelius, from her father’s new name, which was John Cornelius, though not on anything official; but it said Camilla Cornelius on her pencil case, and she would scribble Camilla Cornelius on slips of paper strewn about everywhere, half in jest, but also to try out another identity, one that was more directly linked to her American father than Camilla Corneliussen, a name that Johan Corneliussen himself had dropped, and now Camilla, too, would drop Corneliussen and follow him as a Cornelius – at least she was trying it out, scrawling it down time and again, as he had noticed. Still, he insisted, and forced through, that she would go to New York that summer. He could not help it. With what right was he to prevent Johan Corneliussen from seeing his daughter again after eight years of being separated from her? With what right was he to prevent his stepdaughter from seeing her father again, after a whole lifetime, which after all it was to her? But fear took hold of him. Eva will not ever forgive me for this, he thought, and why should she? Johan
Corneliussen
has done nothing to earn this, he thought, and it would be bloody unfair to Eva. He cannot do this to us, he thought. But all summer he was afraid that this was exactly what Johan Corneliussen could do. Elias Rukla knew Johan Corneliussen’s exuberant personality, and what fourteen-year-old girl could resist this father when he displayed himself in his dazzling new surroundings? Poor Camilla, he thought, it is asking too much of you to be strong enough to resist. But Johan Corneliussen cannot do it, he thought. If he wants to, though, he will do it, leaving us behind, to sit here alone, for which I cannot ever be forgiven. What power that man has over us, he exclaimed, and for the first time he felt resentment against Johan Corneliussen and his entire person. But the summer went by. And Camilla came back again, to them, to stay with them in Jacob Aalls gate for the remainder of her growing-up years. At nineteen, after getting her final graduating exams, she left her childhood home to begin her professional education.

It was the year 1989. Elias Rukla was a quiet-mannered Norwegian secondary school teacher who had not distinguished himself in any way whatsoever in his life, which did not bother him, since he had never imagined he would distinguish himself in any way. He was an average, socially oriented Norwegian citizen who read his newspapers, watched TV, read his books and had his thoughts, and went to his job at Fagerborg Secondary School every day. The only sensational aspect of his life
seemed
to be that he had acquired such an attractive wife at thirty-six years of age, thirteen years ago. That was clear to him from the many surprised glances that brushed his face when he appeared with Eva Linde and could introduce her as his wife. Incidentally, her beauty was now greatly faded. She had spread out a good deal, and she had lost her charm. Elias Rukla did not much mind. True, his heart would sink when looking at photographs of Eva thirteen years ago and comparing them with the woman in her mid-forties he was married to, who shared the same identity but little else. A sensitive awareness of life’s transitoriness, apropos of Eva’s lost charm. Sadness. And the loss of the surprised glances, which he had to admit he missed, because everyone regrets having his own lustre wear off, and that was, of course, what happened when Eva lost her lustre, for then it was he, above all, who lost it, vis-à-vis the others. These are things that count, Elias Rukla thought, when he sat in the living room by himself in the evening, with his beer and his aquavit. He would sit thus quite often. As the years passed, his inclination to overindulge in drink had increased. Now he would sit up in the evenings after Eva had gone to bed. It had become a habit which had a calming effect on him; he needed a bit of time to himself, with his aquavit and his beer. For something had happened to him which he had difficulty understanding, as well as resigning himself to. It was a slowly growing sense of having been socially put out of the running. He was greatly troubled by it, and he thought it was quite extraordinary that it should be this way. But it was as
though
little of what was offered him as a socially conscious individual was still of sufficient interest to him. Neither TV nor the papers managed to stimulate him any longer. He had difficulty giving a rational answer to why they didn’t. Anyway, they didn’t. Time and again he told himself, It isn’t that bad, after all. The newspapers have both news and culture pages, so what am I moaning about? And was it so much better before? No, it was not. People have always complained about the newspapers, and not least about TV, me too. But when, the next morning, he opened another paper, he had the same feeling of having been left out. What should have interested him, the day’s news and the culture pages, was not able to engage him sufficiently, and he just leafed through the paper, often with an irritated gesture. The same with the TV. When he sat down to follow a TV debate, it was the same way. What the debaters said barely interested him, even if, to start with, Elias Rukla was interested in the topic that was to be debated, so interested every once in a while, in fact, that he was looking forward to the debate. The sole benefit he reaped came from studying the rhetorical skills of the participants, their semantic tricks and carefully selected costumes, and then ‘unmasking’ them, but not even that afforded him the least pleasure, especially when he reflected that this was the only benefit he had derived. Hence, disappointment. The debaters did not address themselves to him at all, but to others who were obviously a far more important audience to be reached than him. But was that really something to moan about, namely, that he no longer
received
any pleasure from newspapers and TV? For Elias Rukla it was, because it influenced his daily mood, indeed, his fundamental mood as a socially conscious individual, and to an alarming degree. That what the papers played up as unique, sensational, important or noteworthy met with no sympathy from him but, on the contrary, the direct opposite, so that he either found it totally indifferent, totally alien, or even revoltingly stupid, made him, after being repeated day after day, month after month, year after year, quite simply feel very sad. And when supplemented by the fact that what he, Elias Rukla, was interested in was not to be found in the paper at all or – and this was almost worse – was hidden away in a brief notice, it made him feel like an outlived and decrepit human being. He felt as if he were no longer capable of keeping track of his own time, and no-one has ever felt like that without experiencing grief, perhaps also anger. He looked at pictures of individuals who were supposed to be famous and who had recently done something or other, but what they were famous for said nothing to him and did not impress him in the least, and the particular feat they had just performed appeared rather insignificant to him, while what meant something to him had to be searched for, like something hidden away, at best. It was the papers’ hierarchical system that revolted him and made him feel regret. It was that those who set the tone in society judged and reflected reality in a manner that felt like a degradation of everything he stood for, shutting him out every day and forcing him to admit that, for him, the newspapers and TV signified a
daily
encounter with a never-ending personal defeat. Don’t you ever get enough! he occasionally had to exclaim to himself. Can’t you spare us! he entreated to himself, though knowing full well that it was a matter of free choice whether to read the paper and watch TV, but it was not that simple. For as a socially conscious individual he needed to engage with the world, understand it, be interested in it, participate with fervour and zeal in what society at large, through newspapers and TV, was occupied with, communicate, as it was called, except that it had become impossible for him to do so. I’ll just give one example, he said to himself, as he paced the floor at night, up and down, in the living room of his home at Jacob Aalls gate, after Eva had gone to bed. In 1970 I attended a literary seminar in Finland, and then I became acquainted with the writings of Penti Saarikoski, which I later became deeply absorbed by. And I was not the only one who had a high opinion of him; he was generally acknowledged as one of Scandinavia’s greatest contemporary authors. But when Penti Saarikoski died, only in his early forties, there appeared not a single word about him in the Norwegian papers. That Elias Rukla was aware of it at all was due to his overhearing a casual remark half a year later. But when a Swedish TV entertainer died not long afterwards, it was not only reported in the Norwegian dailies but given extensive front-page coverage. Not to mention the time when a Norwegian newscaster died. Then the papers declared a state of national mourning. Not even faced with death do they pause to reflect any longer. To collect their wits, show a bit of humility, pose
a
couple of the questions every human being
must
pose, unless you decide at the start to say to hell with the whole kit and caboodle, Elias Rukla said to himself, alone with his social suffering this evening, which now is turning into night. When a newscaster dies it is a private matter: her death is her family’s grief, with which they should be left alone; it is of no public interest, for no newscaster, not even for TV, leaves behind anything of such great value, measured by the value of other human beings, that her demise transcends the parameters of the private sphere and turns into a national concern. But the newspapers did turn it into a national concern. It makes me vomit, Elias Rukla thought. How can this have happened? What has actually happened? Yes, what is going on? I do know what is going on, of course, Elias Rukla interjected to himself. Think of Hokksund. How many people at Hokksund care that Penti Saarikoski has died in his early forties? Twenty? But how many in Hokksund knew the TV newscaster, and even knew beforehand that she was ill? Four thousand? Five thousand? The answer is self-evident. But not the question. The fundamental question. And since the fundamental question is not posed, the unbearable answer is self-evident and inevitable. That’s the way it is, he said out loud. Why can the fundamental question no longer be posed? Oh, I decline to answer that, he exclaimed, because everyone knows. Must I say it? No, I decline, he repeated obstinately. Instead he thought about his own life and work. If there was someone who had
proven
his loyalty to this society, it was he. For seven years he had devoted his life to study so as to prepare
himself
to be a public educator of Norwegian youth. Afterwards he had for nearly twenty-five years had as his daily task to convey the nation’s self-understanding and fundamental values to the coming generation. He had done it all voluntarily, with open eyes; yes, it was his own decision, having chosen freely among many other possibilities that had been at his disposal, like becoming a lawyer, an engineer, economist, or doctor, etc., etc., but he had chosen to study philology in order to become one of the nation’s loyal educators, carrying forward the foundation which all of society was built on, and had to be built on, in his view, a choice made without much pondering, to be sure, because it had been so self-evident. For twenty-five years he had faithfully endeavoured to fulfil his life’s work as an ordinary and unassuming senior master, on a rather meagre salary. On the face of it a somewhat grey existence, as the monthly pay cheque clearly underscored. But that he had known beforehand, so he could not complain now that he had not become as well-to-do as a lawyer. His choice had been made on the premise that it would give him an inner satisfaction to have his day’s work as a teacher in secondary school and that this satisfaction would produce an inner light which made the greyness of his outward appearance fairly unimportant, an assumption that showed a confidence in Norwegian society and its foundation that he had to characterise as touching, even beautiful, he thought, and which had been shared by surprisingly many young students in his own 1960s, as well as both before and after that decade – well, this touching confidence had, as a
matter
of fact, been general among talented young people throughout our nation’s history, he thought, with some surprise, because he had never thought of it in that way before. Consequently, he felt deeply hurt that the papers and the TV no longer addressed themselves to him and those like him. It was as though the shapers of public opinion were not paying attention to him at all any more. On the contrary, they seemed to make a point of looking straight past him, almost as if it gave them a special pleasure to do so. He had become nothing to them, and Elias Rukla found that to be deeply wounding. Damn it all, he thought, I am, after all, an average, socially conscious individual, with a good education and a tolerably sound judgment. I am widely read, too. So why have I become so uninteresting to those who set the tone that they cannot even bring themselves to greet me any longer? Yes, that’s how it felt to Elias Rukla. To put it quite simply, the newspapers wounded his vanity, because when he read them he understood how foolish it had been of him, with his possibilities, to become a secondary school teacher. It would never have happened today, he thought, as he had clearly told Camilla, his stepdaughter, last year. In any case, do not become a secondary school teacher, he had said, do not shut yourself up in a school. If you absolutely must, let it be solely because you cannot take the trouble to become anything else. I mean this in all seriousness, he had told his stepdaughter before she moved away from home. He felt defeated. Everything he stood for had been removed from everyday public discourse. Night after night, after Eva had gone to bed, he
paced
the floor of his apartment in Jacob Aalls gate, thinking about this. Had a few shots of aquavit, which he washed down with beer, taking great care not to have too much, for he did not want to show up at school with a hangover, though it happened now and then that he had too much all the same. Oh dear, he thought then, as he was about to turn in, realising it had been too much despite everything. He would get quite stirred up at times by such thoughts. The worst of it was that he felt he no longer had anything to say. Except to himself. An era had come to an end, and here he sat talking to himself. An era had come to an end, and Elias Rukla as a socially conscious individual along with it, because he had, after all, put himself at the disposal of that very era, as a public educator. He felt but little desire to be the educator of a new epoch, nor did he have the qualifications for it, to put it mildly. It’s that simple, he exclaimed. That’s the way it is, hell, yes. Decline on all sides. Just turn around, he exclaimed. Damn it all, you can’t even talk any longer. When was the last time you had a conversation with someone? It must have been years ago, he decided after a moment’s reflection. To find what means something to you, you have to grope your way through a mess of business interests, he added. You can be struck dumb by less. But they call this mess democracy. And if I call it a mess, they come and tell me that I have contempt for the people, he thought indignantly. And perhaps they are right, he reflected. Maybe I no longer believe in democracy. Oh, Elias, cut it out, will you? Now you’re drunk, he said sternly to himself, and to be on the safe side
he
said it aloud, to hear whether he spoke with a slight snuffle, which he discovered to his relief that he did. But it was repeated. Time after time Elias Rukla caught himself late in the evening, after midnight, having such thoughts, and it made him feel depressed every time. That too! The fact that he was no longer even a democrat in his heart! What was the next thing going to be! Was it because he had been defeated? That the cause of his social suffering was the democratisation of culture and even of life itself? But he was against it, after all! He felt revolted by it! If so, if in fact the manifestations of democracy revolted him, why should he be a supporter of democracy? You are drunk, Elias, he again heard him saying to himself, go to bed, the night is wearing on. But he did not go to bed. He went on thinking, as deeply as possible. He tried to console himself with the thought of how common it was that a defeated, nearly annihilated minority found it difficult to acclaim those who defeated them, and the weapons that were used to vanquish them so utterly. But that duty was incumbent on him, insofar as it was the people’s voice and people’s right to express themselves which had defeated him. I refuse to consider myself undemocratic, he thought obstinately. That I will not put up with. And so, when the chips are down, I must say, though not without a sense of repugnance, that if you wish to show your belief in democracy, you also have to do so when you are in the minority, convinced both intellectually and, not least, in your innermost self, that the majority, in the name of democracy, is crushing everything that you stand for and that means something