Armand V

by Dag Solstad

  There was a strict and formal set of rules to which he had to adhere. But this wasn’t difficult, because it came naturally to an experienced ambassador. He knew which invitations he had to accept and which ones he could accept; he knew to which events he could send the embassy counselor or first secretary, and which invitations he ought to politely decline. The same held for the invitations he himself sent out. What separated a good ambassador from a not-so-good ambassador, so to speak, was the degree to which an ambassador was able to behave informally within the formal framework, and thereby establish informal contacts that might prove useful for the small country he served. These informal contacts might be people who were able to provide useful information about what was really going on in the country, situations about which the official, public sources failed to give enough information; it could also mean people who had good financial connections, which he could then pass on to Norwegian businesspeople who were interested in dealing with or within the country, and Hungary fell into the latter case. It’s no exaggeration to say that Armand was a master at establishing these sorts of contacts. For this reason he could allow himself to adopt a rather bold manner with regard to the Norwegian foreign ministry. He did this because he assumed it enhanced his reputation within the ministry. He assumed that his bold way of behaving helped to divert attention from what might have been perceived as more suspect qualities that he possessed, whatever they might be.

  He liked looking at himself and his environs from the outside. Both openly, during an event, when all the celebrities were present, as he said, but also when he was alone. He couldn’t even count how many nights he would retreat to his private quarters, drop his diplomatic attire in a heap on the bedroom floor, and then climb into bed, pulling the covers up to his ears and retracing everything that had happened over the course of the evening as he chuckled somewhat maliciously, sometimes laughing till he gasped, until the next day dawned, and he fell asleep, exhausted from laughing at someone else’s expense. This was his great strength, and he knew it. The ministry knew it too, though in a different way. Even though he kept these nighttime laughing sessions secret from everyone, his colleagues in the top echelons of the foreign ministry knew that Armand V. harbored thoughts and ideas behind his mask that were not the same as the ones he so loyally expressed; they may have even suspected that he in some way or other laughed himself silly when he was in his own bed, thinking about his life and career.

  Had he ever had a secret desire to upset the game? Had he dreamt of the moment when he could cast aside the mask and show his true face? No. If he’d had such a wish, he wouldn’t have dared make a career within the foreign service. He wore a mask, but he’d never felt an urge to cast it aside, in one dreadful moment, so as to show his true face. Could this be called Armand’s unswerving loyalty? It’s possible, thought Armand, yes, that’s entirely possible. That’s why they trust me.

  As an example of Armand’s style within the Norwegian foreign service, it might be mentioned that he could easily say to the foreign minister, if at the time the minister happened to be a social democrat: It’s clear that the Cold War was expensive; it was a war, after all. But we can no longer afford to continue paying these costs. There’s no reason to continue paying war costs in a time of peace. I’m thinking about all these welfare benefits, pensions, health-care benefits, unemployment benefits, lengthy vacations, and sky-high salaries. They have to be cut back because they’re superfluous. Previously they were necessary, they were what we used to fight the enemy. And they were effective. The enemy had to wall up all of East Berlin so that people wouldn’t come fleeing to us. But now people will have to make do with Freedom.

  And what did the social democratic foreign minister reply to this? That’s not known, but he probably considered his answer carefully, because he knew that the unswervingly loyal Ambassador V. wore a mask, and that in private he might not mean a word of what he was now saying in his official capacity.

  The foreign minister was younger than Armand. Armand had spent more than thirty years in the foreign service, and in that sense he was a veteran. He carried his age well. He had now been back in Norway for a year; he was at the disposition of the ministry, as it stated in the King’s report in Council when his appointment ended as ambassador in Budapest. This meant an advisory capacity and shorter special assignments. In the meantime, he was waiting for the ambassador posting in Paris, or if need be in Brussels, to become available. That would be his crowning achievement, and at the same time, most likely represent his last assignment as Norway’s envoy to a foreign nation. Occasionally it occurred to him how astonishing it was that he’d done so well, all things considered. Yet it seemed to him equally astonishing that he’d never really expected this to happen thirty years ago; back then he’d suspected that at some time in the future, he would end up in such a situation that it would prove impossible for him to continue. But they trust me, he thought, they really do. And it’s because they know that I live in a linguistic prison which I can’t possibly escape.

  Did Armand live in a linguistic prison? The answer, of course, is: yes, though it has to be added: it was of his own choosing. Armand would have agreed with such a statement. For him, it had been worth the price. Besides, what was so extraordinary about the fact that Armand had spent thirty years in a linguistic prison? It would have to be that his linguistic prison was a gilded cage, and thus quite conspicuous. But didn’t most people within our victorious culture, who were of Armand’s caliber and had similar backgrounds to his, live in a linguistic prison? The difference was that Armand V. knew he lived in a linguistic prison, and he knew he could do nothing else but live in it. The difference was that Armand V. knew this was also something known (about him) by anyone who had ever had control over his career. And it also meant that there were a number of opportunities he hadn’t taken. To that he merely shrugged.

  He was a knowledgeable man, he was a connoisseur of European literature, film, music, and art from the past to the present day. He had never been stationed anywhere, during all those years, without becoming familiar with the country’s literature, film, music, and art; this was equally true of countries outside our cultural circle. He was familiar with the theaters, national art galleries, museums, opera houses, and newspapers in all the capital cities where he’d been stationed. As the ambassador of a small country, he’d had time for all this. What did it mean that in this situation he had found himself for over thirty years in a linguistic prison? It meant that his thoughts were free, but the language was a prison. That he was free when he read his books, but a linguistic prisoner when he carried out the duties of his prominent position.

  So you’d think that Armand would have felt moved whenever, on rare occasions, he heard shouts from down on the streets, loud shouts of opinions similar to those he himself felt inclined to express, the measured outbursts of demonstrators, slogans that reverberated through the streets and reached him where he stood behind the bars of language, recognizing this language, which was his, after all, from deep inside him. But no. Armand rejected those who shouted. He rejected the demonstrators. Even when they spoke reflexively in newspaper editorials. They didn’t know what they were talking about, he thought then, they don’t know anything.

  What is it they didn’t know? What was it Armand knew? What is it Armand had experienced? The fact that no one can escape power? That no one can escape reality? Most likely. It’s hard to imagine he thinks anything else when, on rare occasions, he hears demonstrators shouting his own, innermost words down on the streets, or reads them in newspaper editorials. You might say that his own words are much too far away from him, and that it’s those selfsame experiences he has had that distance him from his own words.

  This was when Armand was back home in Norway, when he stood at the window of his office on Victoria Terrace and heard shouts from down on the street. Yet even as he rejected these shouts from below, he looked with great confidence to art. He was drawn to
art. It was from there that relief would come. It was from there that the words would come. Only art was free. Armand had great faith in the possibilities of art, even though he often felt disappointed at the results produced. He looked almost with envy at the artists. Those who, like him, had their reasons. But unlike him, they were lucky to have possibilities for unfettered expression. They had a rare opportunity, which no one else had. Then why did they so seldom seize that opportunity? They have no idea how lucky they are, thought Armand, they have no idea what an opportunity they have. Because if they did know, they would have seized the chance. I chose my life, long ago, and I know what I’ve missed out on. Everything, the artists can allow themselves, and yet they only apparently allow themselves; they pretend to do this, yet they almost never actually do it; and since they almost never do it, you can’t label it a sin. But if anything can be called a sin, that has to be it, Armand thought sadly. Think what a relief it would be for someone like me, he added. To see it in black and white, he repeated.

  * * *

  18. In all secrecy, and at any rate without connection to the text above, or far away, Armand had sought out the twin sister, while wearing a gold ring on his finger (Yours, N). This time she received him warmly, telling him that she had no idea what to say. After that, Armand frequently returned, and they would sit and talk about all sorts of things until there finally formed a connection, a reason.

  * * *

  19. Something told her that there was something wrong. Something told her that she’d been betrayed by the man who said he hadn’t betrayed her. Something told her that even if he didn’t believe he’d betrayed her, he had in fact betrayed her. Even though she didn’t find anything when she went through his pockets, she was still convinced that something lay hidden there, something she should have seen but didn’t see, no matter how hard she tried. It’s probably much closer than I could ever imagine, she thought. So close that for the life of me I can’t see it.

  * * *

  20. What could she know? Nothing with regard to what Armand feared she might know. She felt insulted, but that couldn’t be it. She felt ignored, but isn’t everyone ignored by those who are closest to them? Even when she truly felt she was closest, and didn’t merely imagine she was. Had she begun to suspect that she was not, in fact, closest to him? But who then would it be? That was not something she could know, unless someone who was close to Armand revealed the truth, but he couldn’t believe that would happen. Yet she felt betrayed, even though she couldn’t point to any reason for this feeling. That was enough. She ripped the veil aside, showed her face, and left.

  * * *

  21. Armand meticulously studied her expressions. He understood that she was looking for some sign that he had betrayed her, but he knew she wouldn’t find any, unless she planted it there herself. He was afraid she might do that, because she had begun to set traps for him. She tried to put words in his mouth. She often asked him about some meaningless thing and then took note if he diverged in his explanation from what he’d previously said about that same thing. Her irritation grew beyond measure, because she couldn’t pin anything on him, and he realized that in the end there was nothing she could do but plant something on him, a handwritten note with an unambiguous message, and that it was only a matter of time before this would happen, and what would he say then? It would be best to confess, he thought. Once and for all. Since there’s something standing between us anyway.

  * * *

  22. Armand regarded himself as an enlightened individual. He acknowledged his cynicism, thinking that without it he wouldn’t be able to orient himself in life. He also thought that if it could be said that he, Armand, was not striving to live a noble life, then he didn’t deserve to live at all. But he failed to understand that this contradicted the cynicism he enjoyed spreading around, which was what made him so well suited to a diplomatic life. And yet he became a victim of love. He believed in love and despaired at the notion that it might fade. He was young back then, yet well past thirty, and if we picture the despair of this almost thirty-five-year-old embassy secretary at the notion that love might fade, it seems a romantic gesture that’s remarkable, although most people will recognize in themselves this inner gesture, because so many share this fixation on the circumstances of erotic love in our time. For Armand, his fear that love might fade meant that he preferred a relationship marked by distrust and a hatred that might violently flare at any moment. The former was inexpressibly sad; the latter was a response to this, and a terrible thing.

  * * *

  23. Where did this devotion to love as a phenomenon come from? Is it a remnant of puberty that no one wants to forget, no matter how painful it may be, wanting to remember it instead as a reminder to be ready and prepared for a repetition? One more time! One more time! How much is biology, and how much is cultural learning? Couldn’t you settle for eroticism, the fact that two people meet, for just one more time! and then they go their separate ways, back to their own meandering lives which, seen from the perspective of age, in spite of everything, when you look back, is the essence of a person’s life, the very symbol, even though it was two people who encountered each other. And don’t seek back to a twin sister’s twin sister, who may be the heart of sweetness but not its source. The source is concealed behind layer upon layer of repetition, but for Armand it stopped with the twin sister, something that is revealed as a secret, since the twin sister exists only in these lines.

  * * *

  24. About N and Armand up there. They’re married now, of course. They’re married through an endless series of book pages; and if these pages had been written down, you could have turned one after the other and read about their marriage until it ended. I see that it has ended now. It happened in Cairo, where Armand was first secretary at the Norwegian embassy. N went back home to Norway, taking along their daughter. That little child has to recover from all this, he has to forget her. As of today, he has not seen N again.

  * * *

  25. It was with a certain uneasiness that Armand now thought back on his marriage to N. This uneasiness is not because of the secret twin sister; rather, it has to do with his falling in love with and marrying N, an experience he chooses to view in isolation. Those were crucial years. Making big decisions that would mark him for life. When he now thought back, he couldn’t understand how it had even been possible for him to make those choices, smiling so easily, feeling as carefree as he had. The game of chance. Carefree youth. Carefree male youth. He set out with no thought of consequences and laid siege to her. The young Armand succeeded in affecting the young woman who would become his wife such that she opened her mind to this idea of the woman toward which Armand’s infatuation was directed, and somewhat reluctantly she began to impersonate her in order to find out who she was and what sort of emotions were being directed toward her, until she actually began to believe in them herself. She wanted to be that woman, and she fell in love. She became desired, and blind. She greedily allowed herself to be wrapped in the essence of love and reciprocated. In a state of mutual intoxication they met in a higher sphere and worshipped every movement that each directed toward the other. They were so high up, high up in the spheric realm, that they noticed only the other’s image of themselves. But it was Armand who had set this all in motion and who now had to steer and encourage her at these dangerous heights where nothing could satisfy her any longer except for his infatuated image of her, which she had now made her own and which he had to affirm again and again. Thinking about this foreplay before his marriage now made Armand uneasy, now that he was an aging man so many years later. Because the whole thing had been so coincidental, and when it came right down to it, all his flirtations were merely something he had invented. He had been so in love with her, but that was merely something he had invented. Even back then he’d known this was the case. Is this true for everybody? the young Armand had wondered, or am I all alone in this? If that’s the case, then who am I?

  * * *

  26.
After the antagonistic split with N, he was left with the twin sister. The game was over. The twin sister became the wise White Lady. She settled high in the mountains, and Armand would often visit. He took long walks with the twin sister, who ran a bed-and-breakfast.

  * * *

  27. Armand V.’s degree was in history, and occasionally he missed being a practicing historian. Strangely enough, this yearning would come over him particularly when he was sent to one of our stations abroad, because then he wouldn’t have much time to devote to his studies of history. Then you might see him, on one of his rare free evenings, sitting in his office with the reading lamp turned on, immersed in big historical tomes. The places might change — it could be Amman, Belgrade, Mexico City, Madrid, Budapest, etc. — but everywhere the scene was the same: our man poring over hefty historical tomes and dreaming that he’d be able to write a historical dissertation on the topic he was studying. But that never happened. This was one of the unfulfilled aspects of Armand’s life, and sometimes it nagged at him; but if it had nagged enough, then he might have done something about it, meaning he could have returned to his original field of study and adopted a professional career. He was fully aware of this, so the resignation he felt in terms of this impossible intention was genuine enough. This was felt sometime in 1993 or 1994 when he was busily engaged in making plans for a radical revision of Aschehoug’s History of the World.