Beyond Sleep

by Willem Frederik Hermans

  ‘That’s it, then,’ I say. ‘Once you’ve got a man and a woman the rest is history.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure. One of Ymir’s feet had intercourse with the other, and Bor was the result. Bor, remember, the one who fathered three sons with Bestla the female giant: Odin, Vili and Ve.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Mikkelsen says, ‘all those myths may be ridiculous, but that doesn’t mean to say that there wasn’t a god who created the universe. God is a great mathematician, Einstein said so himself.’

  ‘Einstein said: a mathematician, Snorre Sturlason said: sweaty feet. This just goes to prove that people can only talk about things they have personal knowledge of. Explaining the origin of matter is something not even a dervish would have the nerve to attempt. What doesn’t take any nerve is making up stories about what some god or other did with the stuff once it existed.’

  Arne says:

  ‘Some of those stories aren’t as far-fetched as you think. Try substituting Niflheim with Scandinavia eight thousand years ago, and Muspelheim with the Mediterranean world, from where word of Vesuvius or Etna could have spread northwards. Looking at it that way, mythology isn’t all that different from geology.’

  ‘Hear that, Mikkelsen? Good point!’ Qvigstad says. ‘All those folk tales of yours can, if push comes to shove, be justified on rational grounds.’

  ‘I am not talking about seven centuries ago, when Snorre Sturlason wrote all that stuff down, not about eight thousand years ago either. I am talking about the beginning. No-one can stop me believing there was a god at the start of it all.’

  ‘Why a god? Why complicate things with a being no-one has ever laid eyes on? God’s just a word, it means nothing.’

  ‘It means: he who created everything.’

  ‘Do me a favour! It’s so much simpler to assume that man created everything, if only because we know what the word “ man” stands for. That still leaves us with the question of who created man, but that doesn’t matter, because the question of who created god remains unanswered: even the greatest theologians don’t know. So it’s simpler and less bogus if we skip the whole god routine and say that everything is man-made. Proof of this will come in due course. The signs are hopeful: all mythologies, after all, operate between two opposite poles. One is the beginning, the creation, and the other is total ruin: Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods, the Apocalypse. Well, the end of the world is at our fingertips as we speak. So why not creation, too? Einstein seeing God as a maths teacher! Think of it! God as an omniscient mathematician, physicist, chemist, biologist! Hardly anyone seems to have noticed how appalling the implications are. Because what kind of god would this be? A god who one day thinks up a set of complicated problems, much as a schoolmaster. The sum of these problems is the cosmos. Into this cosmos he introduces a being called man, who is ignorant. Then he settles down at his lectern to see how his pupils progress. Well! They refuse point-blank to do any homework! They go to bed with each other without realising that children will be the result, they club each other to death and eat each other up. It takes them thousands of years to come up with a language, and several more to develop a script. Then God becomes wary, and quickly brings out a book containing all the wrong answers. He sits back and watches as a generation is devastated by infectious diseases, for which the subsequent generation discovers a remedy. Ether had been in existence for three centuries before its anaesthetic properties were discovered – something God omitted to reveal in his Bible. Moreover, until then, if your leg got blown off in battle, the stump would be dipped in boiling oil. God sniffed up the stink of burning flesh without batting an eyelid. He didn’t care when a few million old women were burnt at the stake as witches, he just smiled. He let cholera, typhoid and the plague wipe out entire cities before permitting the microscope to be invented and consequently the germs of disease to be unmasked. In short, man is der ewig Betrogene des Universums, as they say in German. The eternal loser in the Universe! It’s a favourite expression of mine. Not a day goes by without me thinking of it. Because at that school run by the creator even the best pupils fail their exams. God gives very low marks. A weird notion of God, that is. A notion we can clearly do without. God may have had some meaning for primitive peoples who believed things would always remain the same. But for us, who are continually changing the world, each new discovery offers further proof of our creative potential. The sun is a huge thermonuclear reactor and the brain a computer miniaturised to the extreme. What will this add up to in the long run? To the conclusion that we ourselves are the creators of the universe.’

  ‘But then it is strange that not one of those creators left behind an autobiography, no?’ Mikkelsen says.

  ‘Even if it isn’t historically accurate we’ll be able to prove it eventually, and that’s what counts. Dinosaurs didn’t write autobiographies either, but we have geologists to tell us how they lived. There may have been races of humans in the past who were technologically more advanced than we are – but our descendants will catch up with them in a few million years. You mark my words! Rocks, organisms, the sun, all man-made in gigantic laboratories.’

  ‘So where did the laboratories come from?’

  ‘I know it’s hard to prove I’m right, but it’s even harder to prove I’m wrong. Look. Time is not a constraint. It may not be billions of years since it happened, but billions raised to the billionth power. As long ago as you like. It is impossible to conceive of time having a starting point. Claims to the contrary are by definition nonsensical. If infinite numbers can go on for ever, so can time. Everything could have happened before, and I mean literally everything. All this stuff I’ve been saying about men making things in lab oratories is nothing compared to all the other things that must have been going on without our knowing anything about it, at least not yet.’

  Mikkelsen says: ‘But if that is how you see it, there must be people living on other planets, in other galaxies even.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t there be?’

  ‘Well, if such people existed, or still exist, they would have made far more progress in space travel than we have.’

  ‘Yes. So what?’

  ‘Don’t you think it a bit strange, then, that no geological stratum predating the Tertiary has been found to contain a trace of human existence, not a single arrowhead, not an axe, never mind a rocket fuselage or a transistor belonging to a UFO commander?’

  ‘Aren’t you listening? I’m talking about everything being made by man – radiolariae, brachiopods, archeopteryx, tree ferns, the lot.’

  ‘But they are almost identical to the plants we have nowadays, and we know for a fact that we did not make them.’

  Qvigstad draws his heels under himself, holds out his arms and stands up in one fluid movement.

  ‘Siamese twins,’ he says, ‘have babies with two navels. Did you know that?’

  Arne and I break into laughter. Mikkelsen gives a look as if he is filing this away in his mind along with all the other wisdom he has been hearing.

  27

  Curious as to why all Arne’s possessions look so shabby, I asked him last night if he gets on well with his father.

  My question puzzled him:

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘My father died when I was seven.’

  ‘You hardly knew him, then.’

  ‘No, but I suppose I loved him dearly. Sometimes I think I’m still trying to get into his good books.’

  ‘Who knows.’

  ‘I don’t believe in life after death, but sometimes I feel as if I’m doing things in the subconscious hope that my father is looking on. Perhaps it’s just that I don’t care to admit I’m doing them with an eye to my mother, who’s still alive.’

  ‘You are very introspective,’ he said.

  ‘But it’s so simple. If I hadn’t known who my father was, if I’d been a foundling, I might have done exactly the same things I’m doing now, but I’d believe my motives were completely different. So you are on good terms with your father, are you?’


  ‘Too good maybe. My father is rather a rich man, you see. He has always been very successful. I am his only son. That complicates things. ‘Night.’

  *

  A sunny morning. Each one of us sets off on his own. My skin is smooth, dry and brown – whether tanned or impregnated with grime and mosquito oil is hard to say. None of us has bothered to wash, let alone shave. Heating water is too much trouble and a cold shave too painful, especially with all those mosquito bites. Not shaving makes the cheeks itchy, but the stubble serves as protection.

  I even tried going without my head-net for a bit: less stuffy. Mikkelsen and Qvigstad aren’t wearing head-nets. No doubt Qvigstad’s thick beard is better protection against insects than mine, and Mikkelsen himself is probably too repellent to attract them.

  I have been roaming around all day without coming across one iota of support for my sensational hypothesis. The notes I have made until now don’t add up to more than half a page.

  At six, on my way back to the tents, I catch sight of Arne. With much ado, he is preparing to take a photograph of a sizeable outcrop of glacial rock, for which purpose he has climbed onto another outcrop with a sheer drop of several metres on one side.

  Arne is doing some kind of gymnastics. Flexing his knees, moving his head forwards and backwards with the Leica pressed to his eye. I charge up the side of his outcrop and join him at the top. Pressing the shutter, he mutters:

  ‘Perhaps …’

  ‘Why do you say “ perhaps” every time you take a picture?’

  ‘My photographs don’t usually turn out very well.’

  ‘You can’t be serious! Anyone can use a camera nowadays. Plenty of teach-yourself books.’

  ‘It isn’t that. Look, the lens is loose in the collar – that’s the problem.’

  ‘Buy a new camera. Ask your father to get you one.’

  ‘Oh, him. Every time I see him he asks sarcastically whether I’ve taken any pictures lately. The moment I show them to him he offers me a new Leica.’

  ‘Well then.’

  ‘I don’t dare.’

  ‘What’s daring got to do with it? What’s so bad about your father buying you a new camera?’

  ‘I’d feel I’m not worthy of it.’

  ‘But you’d be using the camera for work, not amusement.’

  ‘Makes no difference. Anything new, anything costing money makes me uncomfortable. As if I don’t really deserve it. I’ve always had that feeling. People think I’m tightfisted sometimes. If I were I’d be saving money, and I’m not. Remember we were talking about your father last night?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘In my case it’s got nothing to do with my father – feeling unworthy, I mean. It’s just another example of taking things into account which I don’t believe in.’

  ‘What don’t you believe in?’

  Arne rubs his neck and pats his hair with his free hand; he’s holding the Leica with the other.

  ‘I know it’s none of my business,’ I mumble awkwardly. ‘I hope you don’t mind my asking.’

  ‘No, I don’t mind, I even told someone on a train once, and I had never met that person before. I believe, or rather I seem to believe – because I don’t – that denying myself things will bring me some wonderful reward one day.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as making a major discovery.’

  ‘And you reckon a faulty camera will help?’

  Arne laughs as he puts his camera back into the battered case. I am not telling him anything he hasn’t heard before from all and sundry, including himself. But he is not about to give up just yet; maybe he wants to see if he can argue me into a corner.

  ‘Columbus discovered America with a rowing boat,’ he says.

  ‘There were no better ships in those days.’

  ‘But he got there in the end.’

  ‘That was a one-off. There’s no point in discovering America twice over. Your countryman Thor Heyerdahl sailed to Hawaii on a raft, but Hawaii had been discovered ages ago.’

  ‘He wanted to prove you could get there on a raft.’

  ‘And I suppose you want to prove you can use your old Leica to …’

  ‘I know what you’re getting at. But I could never stand setting out with a brand new tent, top-of-the-range instruments, the most expensive camera, the lot, and having nothing to show for it at the end.’

  Was it to change the subject that I stepped into the void? What is happening to me?

  The world flashes past, I let out a scream as I plummet down, feet first. The pain in my skull is so bad that I don’t dare open my eyes. I am sprawled at the base of the rock. I can sense grit under the palms of my hands, but can’t see anything. Arne stands over me, seizes me under my arms and drags me upright. I try taking a step forward, but my right leg won’t move. There’s blood running down into my right eye. Pushing Arne away with my left hand, I hear myself protesting:

  ‘I’m all right! I’m all right!’

  But he won’t let go. The world floats back into my mind as seen through the bottom of a beer glass. When I wipe my eye my hand comes away covered in blood, and there’s also blood on my right trouser leg. How did it get there?

  I am lying by a large fire, stripped to my underpants; Mikkelsen is busy frying half a dozen trout. Now and then the smoke billows over me.

  The wind is variable.

  My left hand keeps brushing up and down my left leg to chase the mosquitoes away. My right leg has been cleaned and bandaged. There’s a gash from knee to ankle. A big wad of cotton wool taped to my forehead shades my eyes from the sun.

  I smoke a cigarette, but the taste is vile – it always is in the vicinity of sizzling margarine. My leather compass case has become scratched in the fall. My precious compass! I snap it open and peer in the little mirror. It looks as if there’s a snowball with a core of ice lodged in my forehead. My beard, too, catches my attention. It’s a shade lighter than the hair on my head, something I wasn’t aware of before. Funny how much there is to discover about a face you’ve known for so many years. For the first time I realise the potential for camouflage offered by a man’s beard.

  ‘Satisfied with your beard, are you?’

  Qvigstad comes over to sit with me. I snap the compass shut and put it back in its case.

  ‘Shaving,’ muses Qvigstad. ‘Can’t imagine why they invented it. For thousands of years men have been obliged to go around like defoliated trees summer and winter – why? Nobody knows. On the other hand, you’d think great men with beards like Moses, Socrates or Marx must have had their reasons for disguising their faces.’

  He puts a cigarette between his lips and holds out his hand. I pass him my matches.

  ‘Thanks. Heard this one yet? Two colonials are called up for medical examination. The doctor notices that one of them has a tattoo on his shrunken dong – some word, apparently, of which he can only make out the first and last letters, an s and an e. What does it say? he asks. Well, Doctor, on lonely nights in the jungle you can sometimes read it quite clearly, and then it says Simone. Simone? Yes. You see, doctor, it’s my wife’s name, and her name alone is enough to lead me not into temptation. Right. Then the doctor turns to the other colonial and discovers a similar tattoo with an s and an e. Another Simone? No, Doctor. What then? Well, Doctor, it says souvenir d’ une nuit chaude passé e en Afrique Occidentale Franç aise.’

  Spreading his arms wide, crucifix-style, Qvigstad roars:

  ‘Soooo long! Dirty bugger, eh?’

  Afterwards we all eat knäckebröd, fried fish and cheese. Arne brews coffee and Mikkelsen produces a bottle of brandy, which we use to lace the coffee.

  Arne has washed the blood off the leg of my trousers. He passes them to me, saying:

  ‘You could have been dead.’

  I could have been dead. But I am not. I survived. I am not even seriously injured.

  Thinking of my father, I pull the trousers up over my aching knees, squashing insects in the pro
cess.

  What exactly caused his death when he fell? Did he land on his head? Or was he hit by a stone that rolled down after him? Why didn’t he get away with a knee injury? If he had, I might never have come to Finnmark. I might have become a flautist.

  I am not superstitious, but why should all these notions be entering my head just now? Why do I have this sense of having gained a reprieve, temporarily at least? My fall is a replica of the fall that killed my father. The same evil spirit that pushed him off the precipice has been urging me to undertake the same kinds of adventures as my father, so I’ll die the same kind of death. But it hasn’t worked. I’ve paid my dues. I’ve survived. I’m not dead, and my injuries are minor. I’ve put the evil spirit in its place, it won’t bother me again.

  If I’m not superstitious, why is it these ideas keep floating into my mind?

  I slip my belt through the loops on my trousers and reattach the compass case. It still looks seldom used, and yet I’ve had it for years. It looks new, and the knock it took a while back has left an equally new-looking mark on the leather. It doesn’t signal wear; on the contrary, the case looks newer than ever.

  At what point does damage stop and wear begin?

  ‘Alfred, look! Over there!’

  Arne, Qvigstad and Mikkelsen are standing shoulder to shoulder, staring intently at the far side of the lake. Mikkelsen is holding a pair of binoculars. I stand up, stare, see nothing, then suddenly realise what they’re looking at.