Naïve Super (11 page)

I’d be fooling no-one but myself by leaving it at home.

The hammer-and-peg has to come.

If the city is as big as I think it is, I’ll very likely need to let off steam.

Besides, it’ll look good in the X-ray machine at the airport.

I grant the customs people the experience.

Now I’m packing.

Underwear. Socks. T-shirts. Tooth brush. Pair of shorts.

Camera.

Hammer-and-peg.

The airport shuttle is leaving in a little while. Lise and I are lying on the grass in the Royal Park. We’re eating pancakes that Lise has made. I’m asking Lise if she thinks it’ll all be fine in the end. That depends what I mean by the end, she says. If I mean the very end, it’s not likely that it will be fine. It is naturally a question of faith, Lise says. Some think they’ll be living several lifetimes or that they’ll go somewhere good after death. If what I mean is eventually, in a while, that things will straighten out with time, the likelihood is greater. It also depends what I mean by fine.

She asks me where I’m trying to go with this.

I tell her I don’t know. I tell her that, what I probably want to know, is whether things will sort themselves out. I don’t want all that much. But I want to be fine. I want to live a simple life with many good moments and a lot of fun.

Lise believes that it ought definitely to be within my reach. I say there’s not much that can be fun as long as I don’t feel existence has meaning.

Can’t you just not worry about meaning? Lise asks.

I tell her no. I can’t.

What about friendship, Lise says. Us, for example, isn’t there meaning in us?

Yes, I say.

There you go, she says.

As the airport shuttle arrives, I take a picture of Lise with her instant camera. I ask her if she’ll wait for me.

She laughs and kisses me, and says I must send her some postcards.

I ask her if one a day will be too much, but she doesn’t think so. But she’d like me to write them in fun places. Preferably on top of high buildings.

I wave goodbye to Lise from the back seat of the bus. Just when I lose sight of her, her face starts to appear on the Polaroid picture. Now I can still see her after all.

From the airport I phone my parents to say I’m going travelling. When Mum hears I’m going to America, she limits herself to saying that it sounds exciting. Have a good trip, she says.

Dad goes a bit further. He says that if I give him about an hour, he’ll have time to write a manifesto for me to hand out on the street when I get to New York. It’ll be a manifesto where he denounces everything America stands for, their stupidity, their sick dreams, their foreign policy, and cultural imperialism. Just a small A4 sheet of paper. He suspects most Americans have no idea about the way in which he and other European intellectuals perceive America.

Dad wants to give them something to think about. A lesson.

I tell him my plane is leaving in fifteen minutes. We’ll have to do the manifesto next time.

I’m on the plane now. I am on my way out into the world. I’m watching a movie that is so bad I feel sorry for everybody involved, and I am thinking about the airline employee whose job it is to select the in-flight movies. I wonder if he is just unlucky, or if he’s stupid, and whether or not he has a girlfriend.

In the window seat to my left sits a German lady who keeps handing me cartons of juice. The next time she offers me one, I’m going to say no thank you.

I’m reading in Paul’s book again. I like it a little more now that I’ve written to him. I feel we’ve established a close relationship. That we are in mutual confidence. Paul and I. Maybe he’s writing me a reply this very moment. Maybe he’s telling me not to worry and that everything will be fine.

He writes that the earth floats freely in space. It rotates and moves. Very fast. We use the sun to keep track of how much the earth rotates. Somebody has decided that the time is twelve o’clock at midday everywhere on earth. Therefore, the time is different in many other places from what it is in Norway. The earth is divided into 24 time zones. We pretend the time is the same everywhere within these zones. If we didn’t, we’d have to set our watches four minutes forward if we travelled a hundred kilometres east. That means the time at my parents’ cabin would always be four minutes more than the time at home.

As I read, it strikes me that the time in New York is not the same as the time in Norway. It’s six hours less. In a way I earn six hours by going to New York. It’s a satisfying thought. I’ll try to spend those hours doing something pleasant. On the other hand, I lose about one three-billionth of a second every hour I spend at an altitude of ten thousand metres. The trip takes eight hours. I will lose one twenty-four-billionth of a second. It’s not a lot. I allow myself to ignore it.

Now the German lady is asking if I’d like another carton of juice. I say no thanks and put my hand to my stomach to show her I’m neither hungry nor thirsty. She puts the carton of juice on the floor and puts one of those masks over her eyes to make it dark. She’s going to try to sleep.

I get up to go to the lavatory. There’s an Italian queuing in front of me. I’ve noticed him earlier. He is here with two friends. They’re all dressed in suits and they keep walking back and forth. I feel they are up to something fishy. That they don’t wish me well.

I am not afraid of flying. At least not the technical side of it. But I’m frightened of people. They get up to so much funny business.

There’s something suspicious about these Italians. I fear they’re planning a hijacking. The way they smile at each other is ominous. It’s a bit like they share a gruesome secret. I know there exists a kind of explosive that can’t be traced by metal detectors. For all I know they could have their pockets full of explosives. And they most probably have some unreasonable demand. I feel convinced that if they’re going to harm a passenger to show that they’re serious, they will choose me. It would be typical. Maybe they’ll throw me out over the Atlantic. I feel like asking the stewardess to sing me a song, but don’t dare to. I restrain myself and ask for a gin and tonic.

Now Paul writes that the earth is an atypical place in the universe. Most other places find themselves in a dismal vacuum or encapsulated in gases. And the temperatures are often absurd. We couldn’t have lived a whole lot of other places.

Maybe we couldn’t have lived in many other times either, he writes. It’s a very hard train of thought to follow. I am trying to understand it. About ten percent of all the people who have ever lived on earth are alive now. We know that. If we assume that human beings will continue to exist, for thousands or millions of years, that means those of us living now are special, because we are alive at an early stage. Those who come after us will be more typical, because, in a relative sense, it’ll be more common to live then than it is to live now. But we have no reason to believe those of us living now are special. And if we’re typical, that means few will live after us, and that humankind thereby is approaching the end of its existence.

Paul makes a thought experiment which is interesting, but which makes me sweat. He’s asking me to picture two urns containing names written on pieces of paper. In the first urn there are ten pieces of paper and in the other one, a thousand. And my name is on one piece of paper and one only. Where do I think the piece of paper with my name on it is most likely to be? Naturally, that’s impossible to know. One can really only guess, but as far as probability goes, the chance is fifty times greater that my name will be in the urn with a thousand pieces of paper in it, Paul writes.

Next, the pieces of paper are removed from the urns, and on the third piece of paper in the urn holding ten, is my name. The fact that my name is drawn this early is more probable in an urn with ten pieces of paper than in an urn with a thousand pieces of paper.

If this is made to count for everybody who will ever live, Paul claims to be able to calculate that there is a 2/3 chance the total number is limited and that we’re approaching the end. Paul admits these are just speculations, but I still feel an incredibly urgent need to hammer.

The hammer-and-peg is in the compartment above me. It’s very close, but all my fellow passengers seem to be sleeping. I don’t dare to. The Italians are sleeping, too. Or pretending to.

Now it’s getting worse. Paul is starting to draw in biological factors. It borders on the unbearable. He says the human being exists due to an unknown number of improbable coincidences that have occurred through history. The larger the number of improbabilities, the nearer we are to the end. If the number is just one or two, humankind’s total cycle of existence will correspond quite accurately to the life span of the sun. But if the number is higher, and most biologists believe it is, our remaining time on earth is far shorter.

We can make a formula, based on basic probability calculus, to calculate how long we can expect to survive. If an n amount of improbable steps were involved in the development of homo sapiens of today, and the total life of the sun is eight billion years, we can expect to be eradicated, in one way or another, in eight thousand years.

I hope my brother will be there to meet me at the airport when we touch down. I don’t want to be alone.

I think everything is the Empire State Building. I’ve been thinking that way all day. But my brother says we haven’t seen it yet. I’m thinking it again now.

This is New York. I’m letting myself be overwhelmed. It is strange being here. I’ve been hearing about this city and seeing it on film for as long as I can remember. Now I feel sure for the first time that it exists. Everybody has arrived here. Norwegians have arrived here. Poor. With dreams. You can make it here. Anyone can make it here. Still. I could also make it here. Make money.

Americans seem to live according to the simple theory that two is better than one, three is better than two, etc. For example, they believe two hundred dollars is better than one hundred. It’s a cute theory.

Now I think I’m seeing the Empire State Building again. My brother is shaking his head. I’m absorbing an incredible amount of impressions as we walk in these streets. How many impressions can I handle in one day?

The sensory impulses are queuing up. Some of them will naturally pass me by. The brain just can’t keep up with the eyes. Or the ears. Or the nose. But I seem to be ranking some of the impressions as more valuable than others. I have no idea how this classification happens. But it’s happening.

I have decided to make a note of the essentials. What is left after sifting it all out. What I remember when night comes and I am about to go to sleep.

I think I’m more concerned with things that are very big and things that are very small than with all the stuff in between. This becomes apparent after only a few hours in New York. Most things are very big here. The houses, for example. The skyscrapers. They’re everywhere. And they’re big. I have a suspicion that it is partly about prestige. First, one guy built a house that was fairly tall, then his friend built one that was taller. And then everybody went hey guys, let’s build some goddamn houses, and let’s make them tall. Never mind what’s in them, let’s build them tall. Let’s build them fucking tall.

There is every reason to believe the theory which says that two is better than one also says that big is better than small and that tall is better than short. It is, in many ways, a charming thought.

Hardly any of the houses reveal anything about what’s inside. It could be anything. It probably is, too. I’ve had the feeling several times during the course of today that the houses aren’t being used for anything. That they’re just standing there.

My brother is reading out of a guide book that there are one million offices in this part of town. He says there are offices in all the buildings I believe aren’t being used for anything. I tell him he can’t be sure.

The cars are big. The trucks are enormous. They look like they’ve been designed to kill people.

Many of the people are also big. Fat. Their trainers are all squashed on one side and worn thin because they weigh so much.

This is what I so far think is big and long and tall:

This is what I think is small:

I am tired, but don’t want to sleep. I’m spending my six hours walking around in the streets with my brother. It’s intense. I’m beyond tired, and things keep happening all the time. It’s a bit like having a temperature. The sounds are getting distorted.

My brother and I have had a trying debate. At first, everything was fine. He came to meet me at the airport and we gave each other a hug. We put my luggage in his apartment and talked for a while. My brother was wondering how I was doing. I told him about my thoughts and worries and about my little activities. The only thing he wanted to hear about was Lise.

He thought the rest of it was rubbish. And he has said he doesn’t want to hear a word about time zones, or about time intervals shorter than a second or longer than a light year. And not about space. I may think whatever I want, but I am to keep it to myself. I think he is extremely harsh. He’s saying that he had a suspicion I was thinking about things like that. The point of inviting me to New York was to get my thoughts going in other directions.