Jastrau’s downfall is partly a reaction against the speed and organization of modern life; an existence dominated increasingly by the demands of the workplace. (The Austrian feminist Rosa Mayreder called offices “coffins of masculinity.”) Everything around Jastrau thrums with purpose and direction. Standing on a busy street corner in Copenhagen during morning rush hour, he sees only “a curtain with pictures of buildings, shops, show windows, pavements, pedestrians, and bicyclists—a curtain drawn in front of reality.” Curtains, masks, facades—what hope is there of finding the infinite in such a controlled and regulated society? Jastrau’s decision to go to the dogs is, at least, a decision he arrives at himself. Everything else in his life has already been decided for him, from the reviews he’s allowed to publish to the furniture in his apartment. Drinking is a choice, his choice, an act of pure, free will. “Did he want to go to the dogs?” Jastrau thinks. “He wanted—yes, he had to. The thought gave him a wholesome feeling—a sense of liberation. Then he could reveal himself as the person he was, get on intimate terms with himself.”
And yet, and yet. . . . At the novel’s end, does Jastrau find the infinite? Is he free, liberated from the grasp of modern society, or simply enslaved to one of its many vices? Alas, no answer is forthcoming. Havoc’s ending is one of the most contested and controversial conclusions to a novel in Danish literary history, argued over by generations of readers and critics. (In 2000, the late Klaus Rifbjerg, that grand old man of Danish letters, decided to take matters into his own hands and published an alternate ending to the novel.) Does Jastrau end up like the eternal Kjær, a permanent lodger at the hotel above the Bar des Artistes? Or does he seize the opportunity offered to him by a colleague and go to Berlin to work as a secretary for a respected economist? Or can we imagine him returning to poetry, or even politics, and living up to the expectations of his longed-for youth?
The reader will ultimately have to decide for herself where Jastrau does or does not end up. But as we finally lose sight of him—pale, pudgy, sweating, and smarting in the gleam of the low afternoon sun—we may well recognize ourselves in his desperate search for intimacy. In an age when you are never truly disconnected from your employer, when even the heavy red portieres blocking out the daylight do not prevent you from being online and available, when the standards for human companionship are decided by social networking companies—do we not recognize in Jastrau’s misguided search for meaning something of our own predicament?
Jastrau . . . inhaled deep draughts of this fragrance of human proximity and felt happy. A woman’s fingers ran up his thigh as if playing a piano. Oh, there was no emptiness here. A woman’s silk-covered breast brushed against his nose and pressed against his eye, shutting off his vision. Oh, the fullness, the exuberance of it! Fullness, abundance—that was all that was eternal. That and the proximity of human beings. Closeness to human beings. The only thing worth living for.
—MORTEN HØI JENSEN
HAVOC
Beware of the soul and cultivate it not,
for doing so can be a form of vice.
PART ONE
Caught Between Doctrines
1
THE TELEPHONE rang again.
Ole Jastrau, who was stretched out on the couch reading, laid the book aside without closing it. Out of indolence he did not put it on the table, but on top of a stack of uncut review copies, the smooth, new backs of which towered up from the floor like the wall of a new building. It was the spring literary crop waiting to be criticized in Dagbladet. He never put review copies on the table; the only things that belonged there were the shiny, black telephone and the crude, swarthy, Negro fetish.
He lay back on the couch again, adjusted his facial expression to soften his Mongoloid features and make himself look a bit more pleasant, and finally reached for the telephone with a feeling of abhorrence.
“Ole Jastrau speaking,” he said, reclining comfortably on his back. It was a pleasant way to talk over the phone. One could imagine himself floating horizontally through space. “What’s that? The society for what—? Oh, you want me to make a speech? About what? But I don’t have a thing on my mind worth talking about—not a thing, I assure you, Herr Raben.”
He stared up at the white square of the ceiling. It was as blank as his own outlook on life. Only the reflection of a lampshade agitated by a slight draft drifted aimlessly about with the spectral movements of a jellyfish—or of a human mind. How big and empty the ceiling was! “Philosophy? Ha ha! What are you driving at? Oh, Lebensan-schau-ung!” He tossed both legs in the air in an outburst of hilarity.
“Look what Father’s doing!” The shrill, boyish voice filled the room, and a little round head with blond curls peeked over the edge of the table. A clear bubble hung from one nostril. “Look what Father’s doing with his legs!” In the enthusiasm of the moment the bubble burst.
“Quiet, Oluf! Quiet! No, I’m afraid not, Herr Raben. To tell you the truth, I don’t have the time—damned if I do! Am I going over to the paper tomorrow night to listen to the election results? All we could do over there would be to laugh at ourselves. My God, we Radicals will be swamped! Yes, you can depend on that. Go out and vote? Who, me? No thanks, I can’t be bothered.”
Just then the front doorbell rang.
“Now there’s somebody at the door, so I’ll have to hang up. I’ll say good-bye now.” He put back the receiver. “Oh, go plumb to hell!”
“Prum to—ho ho—prum to!” echoed Oluf, teasingly. Oluf had trouble with his “l”s. He stuck out his round, sweater-clad belly. “Ho ho!”
The caller rang again, a tentative, cautious ring this time.
“Stay here, Oluf,” Jastrau said, and went out into the hallway.
Through the frosted glass panes of the hallway door he could barely discern a figure standing far back and to the right. Another beggar, no doubt. He wondered when Johanne was coming back anyway, so he would not have to run to the door every time the bell rang. And besides, he must remember to look after the stove. If only Oluf did not run against it and burn himself. But now, the beggar. Jastrau opened the door with the feeling that he also was vulnerable to attack from the rear—the stove, the fire that might go out, Oluf, who might fall and hurt himself.
A man with a face as red as a lobster. He stood far away from the door, hunched up, meek and cringing. And what was the matter with his eyes? They looked as if every single eyelash had been yanked out one at a time. The raw flesh lay in direct contact with the eyeballs. A blinding shock—as if the corner of a handkerchief had suddenly been flicked into Jastrau’s eye.
“No—no, excuse me—we don’t give to strangers at the door here,” he said in a sudden transition from embarrassment to savagery. He slammed the door shut so hard that the panes rattled.
He heard the man shuffle off down the stairs. But the recollection of that lobster-red beggar face was too much for him; it was as if something clammy had suddenly been flung into his face. That crafty, yet imploring look! Those eyelids bereft of skin and the red face! Would the picture stay with him for years and years? Would he remember it as a hideous sort of sunset?
He fumbled with a crooked forefinger in a vest pocket. It was a brass coin that he came up with, a two-krone piece. It was stupid sentimentality to give so much to someone who came to your door, but Jastrau flung the door open again and ran two flights down the narrow stairway that was as dreary as if it had been at the back of the house. He had to get that apparition—that hallucination—out of his mind.
“Wait a minute! You there!”
The lobster-red face turned and looked up. The beggar stood a few steps below him. The eyes blinked.
“Here, take this.”
Jastrau gave him the coin, then instantly wheeled about, feeling that he had paid for the right to turn his back on the man. Slowly he started back up the stairs.
But there was that staircase window again. He stopped. The pane had been smashed. What with the housing shortage, the landlord certainly w
as not going to spend the few øre it would cost to replace it. But there was a trace of mildness in the cold air that came drifting in. A touch of spring. As a matter of fact, were the trees not about ready to burst into leaf? It was more than he could bear to look down into that airshaft of a courtyard with its bicycle shed and uncovered rubbish cans. Yes, a cool, fresh breeze. And a person had to appreciate spring while he had the chance.
But the stove!
No sooner did this thought occur to him than the telephone rang again in the apartment. He could hear it through the open hallway door from where he stood on the stairway. No, he could not stand still for so much as a second to enjoy a bit of fresh air and a moment of peace, or to relish the breath of spring while the opportunity was his.
But he would not be a slave to that telephone! He, who needed peace and quiet so he could read, and write his reviews. He must have quiet. So, take it easy, don’t go so fast, he told himself. Forcing himself to be calm, he walked slowly back up the stairs.
“Father! The phone is ringing!” Oluf had seated himself on the floor between the yellow sofa and the rococo chair with the yellow oval back. Only his head with its curly hair was visible, sticking out like a chrysanthemum. He seemed intensely preoccupied. The curls concealed some forbidden object.
“Father! The phone is ringing!” he repeated, perhaps to divert attention from himself.
“I know it, damn it!” Jastrau whispered, smiling blandly. He did not like to swear too loudly when the boy was present. But that fire! With slow, deliberate steps, as if to torment the telephone, he walked toward the big green porcelain stove.
The fire was still burning, thank the Lord! But when was Johanne coming back? She had told him that she was only going out to buy a pair of shoes. The ashes! He opened the stove door and shook the grate so that the glowing embers rained down into the ashpan.
The phone rang again. This time it sounded louder.
“Father! The phone is ringing!” There was a note of gloating in the boy’s voice. No, it was impossible to escape one’s fate. There lay the stack of review copies—waiting, waiting.
As if he despaired of ever finding tranquility, he went over to the telephone and sullenly grabbed the receiver. He stood near the window and stared hopelessly over at the imitation Romanesque windows of his fifth-floor neighbor across the street. The white curtains were always tightly drawn.
“Ole Jastrau speaking. Oh, it’s you. Fine. How are you? Well yes, thanks. I wouldn’t mind that at all if I can find the time. Yes, of course. Let me see now. A week from Thursday, eight o’clock. Tuxedo? Oh, white tie. Full war-paint, eh? Wait a minute, let me write this down.” He reached for a pad and wrote, “Eyvind Krog, Thursday 24th, 8 p.m.”
“Yes, of course. Lazy? Do you think so? Well, these book reviews take a lot of time. Yes, one gets balmy from reading everybody else’s crazy ideas. Sure—all ideas are crazy, damn it!”
How that Krog could talk! Jastrau stood gazing absentmindedly over at the window across the street. Only once had he seen a woman there pull the curtains aside. A face as white as the curtains, and a big dark mouth with tightly-drawn lips. A plaster mask in the forenoon light. Then she had seen him and had irritably drawn the curtains again.
“No, Eyvind, there’s no damn time to write poetry—”
Then Eyvind Krog went on with his chatter. For a long, long time. Jastrau’s ear began to hurt from pressing the receiver against it, and he got a cramp in his hand. How this fellow Krog could rattle on! All right, just keep looking at the roof of the building across the street. The chimneys up there, standing under the open sky like cairns on a lonely plain. He hardly ever saw anyone go in there.
“No, look now, you’re all wrong. You can’t write poetry when you’re pressed for time. You have to loaf around awhile before you write it, and you have to know that you’ll be able to loaf again after you’ve written it. Laziness? No, that’s not what I mean. Cosmic idleness—that’s what one has to have time for. Otherwise you don’t get any verses out of me. No, I only get that feeling after a whiskey and soda, but when I drink I can’t write. A binge is a poem that won’t be put down on paper. A King George the Fourth or a Doctor’s Special. I get thirsty just thinking about it. What? Oh—John Haig! Ha ha—now you’re talking! You can be sure I’ll toss off some big ones. Yes, some cosmic highballs—that’s a good expression you coined there. Einstein highballs—how do you like that? Yes, damn it all, let’s live in the fourth dimension. I’ll be there. Say hello to your wife. Good-bye. Ha ha ha!”
As soon as he replaced the receiver the genial telephone smile faded from his face and a final “ha” fluttered aimlessly through the room like a withered leaf. Wearily he leaned his hand against the window sash, and the afternoon light fell on his pudgy face. It was not yet a face that had gone to pieces, but it was tired, washed out, and a bit vapid. His lower lip protruded at times as if he had no control over it.
Why had Krog asked him about his poems?
His face became inscrutable. His features were those of a person who might develop into either a sage or an alcoholic. It was this ambiguity that gave his face its Mongoloid characteristics.
His foot brushed against the pile of review copies. He could not afford to waste time. But first he would have to light a pipe. Oh yes, he was also supposed to phone that publisher, and then there was the number that Johanne had written down on the pad. That number. Who could that be?
“The man!” exclaimed Oluf from behind the rococo chair. It sounded as if he was striking a piece of wood against the leg of the sofa.
Jastrau looked quickly over at the table. The Negro fetish was gone. That youngster simply could not leave it where it belonged. There were all sorts of other knickknacks on the tabletop, but the boy never touched any of them. The moment he turned his back, however, Oluf made off with “the man.”
“Oluf! Put ‘the man’ back right away!”
The room became very quiet. He saw a pair of angry eyes peering at him from under the arm of the chair.
“Did you hear me?”
Oluf came slowly out of hiding, crept forward on all fours with the fetish in his paws, and stood up with difficulty. His lower lip was distorted.
“That’s the boy!” said his father.
Oluf reached up and put the Negro fetish back. But as soon as he had restored it to its place he toddled off into the next room, opened the door to the little corridor that led from the dining room to the distant kitchen, and disappeared.
It was an episode that had been repeated many times. His father followed him, smiling. Sure enough—there stood the child at the farthest end of the apartment, his arms leaning against the kitchen door and his face hidden in them while he cried softly but bitterly. A small boy with curly hair hanging down over his neck like a wig and little trousers that stretched tightly about his knees, crying in a controlled manner, yet violently enough so that the latch on the door vibrated.
“Now, Oluf!”
“Go ’way! Oyuf wants to cry ayone!”
The father had to laugh. It was the easiest thing to do. Nevertheless, a sense of impotence gripped him as he stood there. Already he felt himself being shoved aside by this three-year-old personality. He had a feeling of apprehension, a foreboding . . . But no, it was better to laugh.
Then the confounded doorbell again. What was his life anyway—a farce? Must he be constantly disrupted by those two eternally ringing bells—the telephone and the front door? A man without peace in his own apartment. What was a home? A waiting room! A telephone exchange! A dooryard to hell!
It was probably another beggar.
He went out to the hallway door again. On the other side of the frosted panes were two figures, but they stood so close to the door that they merged into a single dark object with gray indistinct outlines. He opened the door.
“Hello, Ole!”
Surprised, Jastrau screwed up his eyes because it was lighter out on the stairway than in his hallway. But he did not r
ecognize either of the callers.
“Hello,” he said hesitantly.
The nearer man, the one who had greeted him, wore a soiled cap. A pair of large dark sunglasses hid his features, and a neat light-colored topcoat with raglan sleeves added a confusing note. His lips were tightly compressed as if he were sucking them in, but soon they relaxed and the mouth became larger. He had obviously been putting on an act.
“Don’t you know me?” he asked in a sonorous, deep, well-modulated, ingratiating voice.
Jastrau glanced fleetingly at the other man. He was tall and stood stooped forward. A cap, misshapen by having been constantly pulled down over the forehead, gave evidence of a sloping, pointed skull. The man wore no overcoat, although it was still cold. He kept his hands in his pockets and hunched up his shoulders like a waterfront hoodlum.
No, Jastrau did not know him either. He could not really get a clear picture of him. All he noticed was a pair of glazed eyes staring at him.
“Well, hello. What is it you want?” Jastrau said falteringly to the one with the sunglasses.
The man compressed his lips once more and changed his expression. It was as if he had slipped on a mask. Then he laughed, and with a sweeping, theatrical gesture removed the sunglasses. A pair of dark gypsy eyes came into view, and with the outburst of laughter the lips resumed their natural appearance.
Havoc Page 2
