Shyness And Dignity (12 page)

to
you, indeed, all that gives you the strength to live and endure, well, that gives a kind of meaning to your life, something that transcends your own rather fortuitous lot, one might say. When the heralds of democracy roar, triumphantly bawling out their vulgar victories day after day so that it really makes you suffer, as in my own case, you still have to accept it; I will not let anything else be said about me, he thought. Then he went on sitting there quietly, deeply absorbed in thought and staring into vacancy for a long while. But it’s really terrible, he added, suddenly getting up to go to bed. And I have no-one to talk to any more, he sighed. Eva, of course, but that was not what I had in mind.

What he had in mind was that other conversation, the running conversation, which had always meant so much to Elias Rukla. It is possible that some men have such a relationship with their wife, or the woman in their life, that the running conversation can be had with her, but for Elias Rukla that had never seemed natural; his connection with her who was his wife was quite different and did not at all correspond to Elias Rukla’s need for a running conversation, nor, on second thoughts, could he see that the married couples he knew behaved in any other way than he and Eva in this matter, though he had to admit that he was possibly making this judgment all too superficially. To Elias Rukla, participating in a conversation had always seemed animating. There were few things that could rouse him more than to have been present at a conversation or discussion, both as it occurred and afterwards when he went home, or had
come
home and was reflecting on what had been said, sort of developing the argument further and, not least, improving on his own remarks, which were usually few and not always equally good when they were uttered. But this polishing of one’s own remarks afterwards was part of it – yes, indeed, it was part of a rich life, Elias Rukla thought, his reflective voice laced with fervour. But, first and foremost, it was the conversation itself that was animating, whether it was carried on as a conversation between two friends, say, at some late hour of the night, or around a table with several participants, some of whom naturally dominated the discussion, while the others stayed more in the background, such as Elias Rukla, but always took a lively interest in what was being said, all but stirred to their depths. Even if you would sit all evening without saying a word, you had been ardently involved, waiting eagerly for the next argument from one of the dominant participants and repeating the words to yourself once they had been spoken, appraisingly, uh-huh, or hmm, or I’ll be damned, and without getting an inferiority complex because you had a tendency to agree with the last speaker, the last honourable speaker, and then changed your opinion when the next person said something, for that’s the way it is, Elias Rukla thought, fired up as he recalled these conversations he had so often been part of. But now and then it happened that Elias Rukla, too, had arrived at a clear idea, or at any rate something that could become a clear idea, which he was itching to bring up, while at the same time wondering if he dared to, because it could well happen that what
now
seemed so clear to his mind would appear rather stupid when he gave vent to his opinions in the form of a sentence or a remark, as had often happened and could easily happen again, except that, before Elias Rukla made up his mind, the conversation had taken a new turn and Elias Rukla’s idea was no longer of any interest, because it would have had the effect of a straggler in the ongoing conversation – it’s important to take the floor at the right moment, Elias Rukla had often concluded when he came home, or was on his way home. Oh, how he longed for evenings like that, evenings he had so often experienced before and that stood out so luminously in his memory. It was one of the privileges of freedom to have been permitted to be part of this. But Elias Rukla no longer carried on such conversations, either with one individual, like a staunch friend, or around a table with several others. He no longer had anything to say, nor did it look as though anyone else in his circle of acquaintance, or cultural stratum, had anything to say. They did not seem to be interested in carrying on a conversation any more. In having a real talk, stretching oneself towards an understanding together, whether personal or social, if only for the sake of a brief flash of momentary insight. For his part, Elias Rukla had to admit that he was no longer capable of it, he could simply no longer talk. He did not even know how to start a conversation of the sort he had often taken part in before, but yearned to bring it about once more. The few times he had been on the point of starting such a conversation, either in the staff room at the Fagerborg Secondary School or in society, he had not
been
able to because he had felt it would somehow have appeared ‘artificial’. It would have seemed ‘affected’, well, ‘unnatural’, even ‘pompous’, and Elias Rukla was fairly certain that many others felt the same way, and so the ‘artificial’ aspect had caused conversation in his social set to cease of itself. In reality, it was puzzling that it should be like that. For example, in the staff room at the Fagerborg school there were gathered every day forty to fifty people who, together, were the mainstay of the general knowledge of our time in history, religion, botany, biology, French, German, English, American language and literature, even Spanish, in addition to the Scandinavian languages and literatures, of course, physiology, physics, mathematics, chemistry, art history, economics, political history, sociology, besides physical improvement through athletics and nutrition, and even though none of those who were here were champions in their fields, capable of coming up with new ideas in their disciplines, nevertheless they had sufficient knowledge to keep abreast of and understand new developments in their area of expertise, in any case if one took the large view and was not too critical of the
actual
competence of individual teachers, and no matter what, the amount of knowledge possessed by any individual within his or her discipline was great enough for the authorities to have chosen them all to instruct the coming generation in their fields, and what struck Elias Rukla in that connection as extremely remarkable was the shallow impact left by this stock of knowledge, well, by this high cultural level, on the personality of the individual
teacher
. Contrary to one’s expectations, it looked as if the teachers felt compelled to deny, at all costs, that they found themselves at this high cultural level, which they then could, as a matter of course, use as their point of departure when they voiced an opinion. Instead, they presented themselves as slaves of indebtedness. That was what they talked about, that was the focus of their conversation. Every morning forty to fifty slaves of indebtedness settled down with their lunch packets in the staff room at Fagerborg Secondary School. They chatted about this and that. About the size of their student loans p.t. and p.a., about the size and rate of interest of their housing loans p.t. and p.a., and about the size and terms of repayment of their car loans p.t. and p.a. Not all were p.t. slaves of indebtedness, it was the younger ones who were most deeply in debt; the others, such as individuals of Elias Rukla’s age and upwards, were former slaves of indebtedness. In the staff room, face to face with his colleagues, Elias Rukla was first and foremost a freed slave of indebtedness and, to spite his face, expressed himself safely in accordance with that when he said something; that is to say, when he heard a younger colleague state that the rate of interest on student loans was now down to 8 per cent, he could inform him that it was exactly as high, or low, a rate of interest as when he, Elias Rukla, began to pay off his student loan in the year of grace 1970, and he could also tell this same younger colleague about the deep financial dread he had felt shoot through him the first time the rate of interest on his housing loan rose above 10 per cent, in 1982. That’s the
way
it was in the staff room, all talking about their own lives as former or present slaves of indebtedness; that was the favourite topic in the lunch break, and if Elias Rukla met any of them when he socialised, with the wives starchily rigged out and the men dressed in comfortable, modern going-out clothes, it was, worse luck, also in their common capacity as slaves of indebtedness, you bet. There, too. Always in their capacity as slaves of indebtedness, conspicuously so, Elias Rukla thought. Not that he could not understand it – the salary of a senior master was not high, but, on the other hand, these miserably paid colleagues of his also represented something else, a high level of culture, which they did their best to hide so as not to contribute to exposing the ‘artificial’ aspect of their lives and preferences, not only out of respect for themselves but also for those others who found themselves at the same level. And so, two persons who both exist at a high cultural level would forthwith introduce themselves to one another as slaves of indebtedness and launch into a conversation with this as a starting point, both in the slaves’ own venue, the staff room, and when they met in society. It was as though they were able to see themselves as socially conscious individuals, that is, as persons who could talk together about something they had in common and was essential to all who participated in the conversation, only by starting with themselves as slaves of indebtedness. Given their level of culture, they were haunted by a justified fear that, in a social sense, they would appear somewhat ‘artificial’, even ‘unnatural’, but as slaves of indebtedness
they
experienced a virtually dramatic social existence that was well worth commenting and dwelling on both for themselves and others. True, being enslaved by debt you were a loser, a not entirely successful person, but it linked you to social life as a completely modern individual. On the premise of being a slave of indebtedness, you could also throw yourself on the newspapers and the TV programmes and enjoy commenting on what was said there, which, after all, was an expression of the style-setting trends, and as a slave of indebtedness it was not
that
difficult to share the values and preferences, even the attitude towards life, that were expressed there. And Elias Rukla had nothing to say, but he too talked and talked about nothing. Like the rest. Often with a critical and ironic distance to it all, but always about nothing. Elias Rukla remembered that when he had read
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
by Kundera, he had been disappointed. Not by the book, which was excellent, even a masterpiece, but by the title. The title was wrong. The book was not about the unbearable lightness of being, but about something else. For the unbearable lightness of being is not an existential condition of human life as such but a social condition of that life for certain strata of the Western world in the latter half of the twentieth century. The unbearable lightness of being is something which affects brooding people, hungry for knowledge, at Fagerborg Secondary School in the Norwegian capital in the last two decades of our century. And that deprives one of the ability to say anything. To others. To speak. Conversation had come to a standstill. People belonging
to
Elias Rukla’s social stratum no longer talked together. Or only briefly and superficially. They practically shrugged at one another. Maybe
to
one another as well, in a sort of ironic mutual understanding. Because the public space required for a conversation is occupied. There they are otherwise engaged, as the saying goes. Being an outsider and having to proclaim that the public space is occupied, you become ‘artificial’. In ‘unnatural’ amazement you have to state that such a space no longer exists. No longer exists, no longer exists. No longer exists, so that a cultured senior master like Elias Rukla could suddenly hear himself exclaim, Well, if Kaci Kullman Five hasn’t gone and got diabetes! I wonder if it can be combined with being a top politician. Why did he say it? Aloud, in the staff room, so that all his colleagues could hear it. Were they open-mouthed with astonishment? No, they were not. On the contrary, they nodded meaningfully. They, too, were wondering. Whether Kaci Kullman Five would manage. To combine. Being a top politician and having diabetes. It certainly was not easy. Oh, how Elias Rukla would at times pine for someone to talk to. Oh, how he longed for someone to break out of this and
say
something, if nothing else than a reference to the fact that life has other things to offer. He was really looking for someone to allude to that, if only in a kind of code – yes, if only someone or other, during one of those quick exchanges in the staff room, would suddenly point his index finger at the heavens and in that way signal that there existed a long religious tradition, based on Christianity, in our part of the world,
and
that consequently one often pointed straight up like that, towards the heavens, where according to tradition God and his angels, well, the blessed ones too, were supposed to be, for then Elias Rukla would have thrown his arms around his neck, regardless of how ironic such an index finger would have appeared, both to the one who performed this act and to the others. For Elias Rukla it would have been a sign, replete with seriousness, even if just then it had been dressed up in the conventional language of irony. Oh, he was truly underfed; he felt that his brain was overheated, as if his brain membrane were afflicted with a latent spiritual inflammation which might break out at any moment and that, therefore, he no longer could be considered quite sane, as though he were expecting an attack, as though he had a violent, liberating round of vomiting directly ahead of him, in the immediate future, a round that never came. He searched for something in his colleagues that could express this
something else
, something that made an overture possible; he searched high and low in every word they spoke, with the best will in the world to put the most favourable construction on everything and rush to the rescue of the individual in question as soon as the possibly cryptic words had been spoken, in order to show him his gratitude, and then begin to speak himself, most likely a mere hoarse whisper in the first round, he assumed. And it did happen, once. Suddenly it had happened! One of his colleagues came into the staff room just before the bell rang for the first class and said, I’m somewhat of a Hans Castorp today, I should probably have stayed under the
eiderdown
. A jolt shot through Elias Rukla. Had he heard correctly? Was the name of Hans Castorp mentioned, and in this free and easy way, in passing? Hans Castorp, the main character in Thomas Mann’s novel
The Magic Mountain
, referred to by a senior master at Fagerborg Secondary School, and not by a German teacher, but actually by someone who taught mathematics! Yes, it was true, and to Elias Rukla this was a shining moment. Here it must be interjected that it was not the first time, of course, that names of authors or fictional characters were mentioned among his colleagues at Fagerborg Secondary School. This happened quite frequently – Ibsen, Duun, Kielland, and so on – but in that case in a pedagogical context, regarding problems that had to do with teaching. Or someone had been to the National Theatre and seen an Ibsen play, and then, of course, Ibsen’s name came up, and often also the most important characters in the play, besides the names of the actors that appeared in the roles in question. But in that case it was more in the nature of a ritual: a colleague had had a delightful evening at the theatre and mentioned it in the staff room, and maybe another colleague had been at the same theatre a few days earlier and seen the same piece, and the latter might then also mention it, if he had not done so previously, and you might even hear a certain disagreement being expressed concerning whether So-and-so’s interpretation of the role of Hedda Gabler, or Miss Wangel, was convincing or not. They were brief exchanges, expresssed in the same way as comments on whether Jahn Otto Johansen’s