The pastor, p.14
The Pastor, page 14
Significant formal elements, rhythm, tone, figures, and tropes. I could see all that. I was standing looking at it, but I couldn’t find my way in.
A tear dripped onto my hand.
What was it I wanted that was too much for me? This abyss, this void in me that couldn’t be filled. What was it? What was I doing here? What would I have done somewhere else? Why wasn’t there anyone to hold on to me?
They stood in front of me with their arms at their sides, like puppet figures revolving on a little merry-go-round, gently turning. Kristiane, Nanna, and now the geologist. He was there too. Sailing slowly by, right in front of me, right next to me. But it was no use.
It wasn’t enough.
Why did it have to be that way?
Why was everything so loose and disconnected? The ground on which I stood, that I believed in, had become displaced, its plates were shifting, and I fell through the gap in between.
Down I fell, and there was nothing there.
I headed on. It was like driving through a monochrome photograph, great white formations of snow, the thin black scribble of trees. I drove another four hours without stop, following the line of the river, the landscape flattening out. There were no more cafés, no more clusters of private homes, gas stations and retail outlets, only at first a scattering of houses, with cars and snowmobiles parked outside, then trees and endless snow.
Eventually, as I approached the town, the forest abruptly stopped. There were bushes and scrub here and there, but apart from that the landscape was wide open and bare, a great, uninterrupted, snow-covered plain, the town tucked into a lazy bend.
* * *
—
I turned off at the sign for the folk high school where the seminar was to be held, driving slowly down the track the snow-plough had cleared to the huddle of low buildings with their brown wooden cladding.
We are without flesh; the flesh is killed; be those of the flesh delivered to Hell. We are saintly and just, that we condemn to Hell; we die no more, for we are already dead. We care not for priests of the flesh. We are before Christ, we are God, a holy fire burns within us; you have the Devil. Without us, no one shall go to Heaven.
Her voice was so bright, the voice of Kristiane’s daughter. When she spoke, it was as if her breath came only from the uppermost part of her chest, and her voice was a whisper almost. Soft and quiet. As if she too were without flesh.
Kristiane had been angry with her daughter the last time they’d seen each other. They’d argued, Kristiane told me, though about what she didn’t say, only that enough was enough. It had got to the point where something had to give. She wasn’t going to accept her daughter behaving like a kid anymore. She’s twenty years old, she said. Isn’t it about time she grew up?
I parked the car next to the ones that had already arrived. I didn’t know any of the people who were going to be there. My senior, the parish priest who I assisted, had attended a couple of other seminars that had been held during the course of the year, while I’d stayed behind. I noticed some figures moving behind the glass pane of a door. The snow was so white outside.
* * *
—
Now I was there, where the rebellion had occurred a hundred and fifty years before. I surveyed the landscape, turning full circle to orient myself. Driving up from Germany, I’d imagined that I would come here as soon as I settled in, but it was a long drive and for some reason I hadn’t. But now I was here! It was flat and open, white and expansive, and still.
After I had administered some few words of comfort and encouragement, the churchwarden and his son rowed me to the site of the church, a journey of 1 Norwegian mile. The time was already approaching 7 of evening when at some distance from land I began to hear a clamor of voices, and the closer I came, the more dreadful became to me the whooping and shrieking and cursing I heard, which noises all were followed by the most terrible wailing. These mad individuals stood then outside the Merchant’s Residence. The churchwarden and son declared themselves fearful to step ashore and come into contact with them. However, it became so dark that we could not be seen, and their screeching prevented them from hearing the sound of our oars. When eventually I came upon the Merchant, they had abandoned him and moved on.
I got my things out of the car and crossed the compacted snow of the circular open area outside the main building. I pulled the door open, immediately hearing a babble of voices, chatter, laughter, cries, and exclamations. A group of men were standing in a huddle, all corduroy trousers and wool sweaters, shirts and tweed jackets, bobbing grey-white heads, among them a few younger ones, chestnut brown, a red-haired man raising his voice above the rest, stretching onto his toes and shrieking out a laugh: “And he just put it in the back of the net, it went through his hands, through his hands, he had it in both hands, but the shot was so hard it went straight through him!”
His dialect was from the southwest somewhere. They were all jabbering away, I couldn’t hear half of what they were saying, but it seemed like they were talking about a football match everyone had obviously watched.
The noise reverberated in my head. I went over to the big windows on the other side of the room and looked out. They needed cleaning. I wondered if there was a place somewhere inside all the babble, at the very center perhaps, where everything was perfectly still.
The rest of the school appeared to be empty. Maybe it was the holidays, or maybe the students were off on a field trip. The snow outside the windows was untrodden. I looked at the grey-blue linoleum on the floor, the window frames where the paint was flaking away. Everything seemed uncared for, and the thought occurred to me that perhaps the place had closed down and was no longer a school at all, just some abandoned buildings, silent corridors, classrooms left unused.
* * *
—
We were given the keys to our rooms. I looped my arms through the straps of my backpack and put it on. The sleeping quarters were in some other buildings. Paths had been cleared through the snow to lead us there. A short flight of stairs, parallel to the face of each rectangular building, led to the door. The exteriors were clad with the already familiar brown-stained planks. I found my building, went up the stairs, and let myself in. There was a small bathroom on the right, and a little kitchenette with a table and chairs straight ahead. From there, four doors led off to the bedrooms. Mine was first on the left. Inside was a sink, a sofa bed that had been made up ready, a desk, a chair, a lamp.
I sat down on the bed and looked out the window. It was too high up. All I saw was sky, white sky.
The white mask with the hooked nose of the witch. A kind witch, but is she really kind? Kristiane is behind the mask in the darkened performance space, sneaking about, darting here and there on tiptoes. No, it was me who wore the witch’s mask, and I was standing in the sanctuary before the altar, in my cassock, the witch’s mask covering my face. I saw the white hair of Kristiane’s daughter. She shrank back, slumped, only then it was Lillen standing there, in the great murk of the performance space, standing there in her nightdress with her hair sticking up, her white cheeks, she’d been having a bad dream. But it wasn’t a nightdress at all, it was the stole Kristiane had given me, only in miniature, and now she was coming towards me. She came right up to me and was about to say something, only her mouth was gone, it wasn’t there anymore where it was supposed to be. But her eyes sparkled, unknowing of what had happened to her mouth, as if they couldn’t feel it.
* * *
—
I stood in the doorway of the dining hall, looking in at those who had already found a place at the tables. It was getting dark outside.
I looked at the two women who were standing over by the swing doors that led into the kitchen. They were talking as they scanned the dishes of reindeer meat and potatoes. One of them went back out through the doors and returned with a bowl of lingonberries which she put out on the buffet table.
Groups of men sat together at the long tables, facing each other, chatting animatedly. I noticed the man with the red hair and went over to his group, placing my hand tentatively on the back of an empty chair and asking if it was all right for me to sit there. They stopped talking and looked up at me.
Hi, one of them said, smiling and getting to his feet, putting his hand out, smiling the whole time.
You’ll be the better half at Kjøllefjord, I suppose?
Sorry?
Married to the pastor at Kjøllefjord? he clarified, still smiling.
No, I said.
I told him who I was and where I was from.
I only came last spring.
The others at the table rose too and introduced themselves in turn, saying their names and where they were from. I visualized various places on a map, longitudes and latitudes, islands and fjords, lines projecting into the middle of the vast administrative region, the roads they’d taken to get there.
After that, there was a lull. Some others came and joined us. No one had gone to the buffet yet.
You all seemed so excited before, I said. Can I ask what you were talking about? They glanced at each other, and eventually the man with the red hair said it was just a problem of exegesis.
Interesting, I said, sensing a smile on my face, and leaned forward. Would you care to elaborate?
He narrowed his eyes, as if not quite knowing whether he should go on, whether I would understand.
There’s a word in the Greek version of the OT that has a different meaning from the Hebraic, which skews the whole foundation of the verse.
What verse is that? I asked. What’s the word?
But before he could reply we were interrupted.
Hello, a woman’s voice said behind me. The others at the table all looked at me, making it obvious that it was me who was being addressed. I twisted round on my chair, looked up, and returned the greeting. She was a bit younger than me, wearing a black dress set off by an orange necklace, a pair of black-framed glasses. She said her name.
I’m married to Hans-Petter, she said.
The pastor at Kjøllefjord, I said.
She nodded.
I noticed on the list of participants that we’re the only women here, she said.
Someone stood up and clapped his hands together. As he began to speak, she bent down and whispered in my ear: Do you fancy going for a walk afterwards? I looked up at her and smiled while listening to what he said.
* * *
—
We said grace and started on the food. The woman had now sat down at the end of the table to talk to me, meaning I had to keep turning away from the others to answer her. They were discussing an article a professor from the theological faculty had written, and I tried to follow what they were saying while she went on about her work. She was a teacher, apparently. Someone said something about deviations in ritual as I watched her mouth. I could see she’d been wearing red lipstick.
Afterwards, the seminar began. I sat in a corner at the back. We were in a classroom, and the tables had been arranged in a horseshoe set-up. I felt like I could fall asleep. I wasn’t sure if it was the air in the room, the stuffy air that seems to be so characteristic of all schools, as if the walls had been daubed with some kind of sleeping agent, or whether it was some lingering boredom of old, not in the walls, but in me. We sat with our handouts in front of us, a glass of water, a Bible, a pen. The theme for this first session was “Where is the Church headed?” There was a round of introductions, then someone kicked off with a talk.
There’d been an opening event for the doctoral program one evening in the main aula, an imposing structure built in the 1930s. I’d sat at the front, looking up at the mayor who was giving a speech, his heavy chain of office hanging from his neck, the insignia resting on his large stomach.
I’d sat there looking at him, the insignia rising and falling as he spoke. I watched the way his entire mouth, the fullness of his lips, was brought into play as he uttered the German words, and I felt as if I could be almost anywhere in the world. It seemed not to matter in the slightest that I, as opposed to anyone else, was there, in that particular place. I knew why I was, in the rational sense. I’d gone there to study, to pursue academic inquiry within the particular tradition of the Faculty of Theology there. I was there to be a part of that. Yet somehow it felt as if it were all just thoughts, words. I couldn’t relate to it.
Afterwards there were canapés and sparkling wine in the long hall leading off. There were benches along the walls, with tortuous legs and upholstery in red velvet. Great paintings hung in gilded frames, portraits of men in uniform or religious vestments. I wandered about the room with my wine, studying them. After a while, I left, walking home in the dark to my room. It was before I knew anybody there, long before I knew who Kristiane was.
I looked at the others, my eyes following the curve of the horseshoe. They were all men, concentrating on the man who was talking in front of the blackboard.
It wasn’t until I’d rung the bell at Kristiane’s place and she came to the door, not speaking at first, but standing there looking at me, that it dawned on me how everything hung together, that there’d been a reason all along. It had come to me then, as she stood and stared at me. That the reason I’d gone to Germany wasn’t to read academic theory, but to ring the doorbell of that particular door. I’d gone all that way so that Kristiane would come and open the door for me.
* * *
—
That first evening of the seminar was given over to visions, which was what the geologist had talked about too, a vision project he’d called it. There were various contributions and talks about different ways to go, in order to stimulate ideas and spark inspiration, it said in the program.
And was that what she’d been hoping, taking me with her in the van from the convent that day, that she could escape being on her own? That I could open her door, in a sense? Do we really think like that, or do we simply do, do, and do, allowing everything to turn out as it wants? But she wanted something from me, and I from her. She needed me for something, without perhaps knowing what. She certainly didn’t need me pushing her even further away, as I’d ended up doing. I pushed her away. To bring her closer? But of course that wasn’t the way it turned out.
A man from some evangelical center over on the west coast gave a talk about a bible that had been published in the United States, in which they’d tried to remove every difficult word, every hint of contradiction or shadow of ambiguity.
It had been a huge success.
He’d spoken with zest, his face round and smiling. He talked about how the much bigger centers in the towns down south were now holding several services a day, tailored to suit different demographics, either evangelical Low Church or more ritual-based High Church.
And they’re packing them in, he said, they can’t keep them away. Young people, he said, in particular those between eighteen and twenty-five, turning up in droves. They all want to meet Jesus, he said. And we mustn’t stand in their way. We must open our doors, and open them wide. That was our job, he said. No one else is going to come and do it, it is up to us. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations. The opportunity is there, he said. Let’s grasp it. Let us open this holy community that all may find joy in it. This message of charity, the blessing of grace.
I couldn’t handle it.
I gathered my things and got to my feet, sent him a nod of apology and left the room.
I couldn’t handle it, after all. I’d thought I’d be able, that I could sit there and let it all wash over me and not take it in, not let it get to me.
But all of a sudden I’d felt like I was going to explode just listening to it. As if what he’d been saying struck a nerve in me that I couldn’t control, and sparked a fire.
I went down the quiet corridor, pushed open the door and stepped outside. I stood for a moment, breathing deeply in and out, as if to get rid of all the air I’d brought with me from inside.
It was cold there too, a different kind of cold than I was used to from the town where I lived, where the fjord seemed to make the air that much damper. I clutched my coat together at my chest, and followed the path through the snow, to the stairs outside my dorm. It was dark now. The key hung from a string with a wooden wedge on the end. My fingers were almost too cold to unlock the door.
There was a smell of something burnt in my room, the dust from the electric heater. I got the bottle of whisky from out of my backpack and took the glass from the shelf above the sink. The cushions from the sofa bed had been piled on the floor. The fabric was coarse wool, dark blue.
The blessing of grace.
I pushed the desk over into the corner by the window, leaned a cushion against the wall and placed another on top of the desk. I climbed up and sat down on it. Now I could see out. I filled the glass halfway up and drank as I looked out at what little I could see in the darkness, branches of trees, snow, a section of the building to the rear. I poured some more. Behind that building was a snow-covered plain. I knew that, but I couldn’t see it.
Why had I left the room? Why couldn’t I just have stood up, voiced my opinion, overturned the tables if the urge struck me, discussed the matter?
If this was a flame in me, why was I hiding it away, instead of lighting a torch for the illumination of those men in the room?
But what burned inside me was not the desperate blaze I’d known before, but a flickering flame of despair. During the year that had gone, it was as if the fire in me had dwindled, I’d barely felt anything burning at all. Instead, I’d felt so weary and empty, as I’d done at the window of that motel in the German ferry port on my way north, the great darkness of the sea before me.
