Free Borderliners by Peter Høeg Page B

who
preyed on the chicks.
    You wound up
understanding none of it.

Behind the podium, and therefore above and behind Biehl when he was
speaking, hung a large painting of Delling, the god who unlocks the gates of morning. A young man
opens a great gate, and out across the podium and into the hall springs a white horse, Skinfaxi—the steed of Light. The
painting also shows a black horse, Hrimfaxi—Night—moving out of the picture.
    Biehl explained all of this. It was a metaphor, both of
assembly and of
enlightenment and knowledge.
    The man, Delling, in the picture was slightly built, like
a child. Actually, he
looked just like August. Not to make a big thing of it—there was no way it could be a
painting of him; after all, it was from the last century. It is just that, after we became
separated, it struck
me that it looked like him.
    So: the door is opened and
knowledge washes over you, like sun light. That was the explanation that was given. Meaning that en lightenment is
something that already exists. The only achievement necessary from your side is that of being open to it.
    At Biehl's Academy, natural science was seen as the supreme branch of learning. The same was true of
the Royal Orphanage, and, in fact, as far back as Himmelbjerg House, mathematical giftedness was considered the highest level
of intelligence.
    Biehl himself had an M.Sc. in
biology. Fredhøj taught mathe matics and physics.
    It was not that the other subjects were not worthwhile.
Biehl also taught
history and mythology.
    But natural science
ranked above all.
    This had to do with the fact that it was not subject to human uncertainty.
    The other subjects—even written
and oral interpretation, for which there were strict rules—even these were subject to a degree

     
     

of uncertainty. Even
Diderichsen's grammatical tables did not hold good
100 percent of the time.
    But with the periodic table there were no exceptions.
Step by step you ascended, from the simplest base elements to the precious and
complex and rare. Like climbing a stairway; each step corresponded to an established increase in the
atomic weight, and another element.
    It was never said in so many words. But you could not help thinking that it
resembled the evolution of the species. The ascent from simple, primitive organisms to the complex
and highly developed.
    It was never said in so many
words. But that is how things were arranged on the charts. An outline of the
evolutionary process resembled the periodic table. At the bottom: oxygen,
hydrogen, and amoebas.
At the top: gold and mankind. And between them ran the links, like steps on a stairway.
    Alongside and up through this
stairway flowed time. The final elements
in the periodic table were to be found only in the labo ratory, produced by man. Whom it had taken evolution
all this time to produce.
    As
a rule, in physics and mathematics, you were working with things far removed from yourself. Because they were very big or very
small. Like atomic
weights or the great astronomical discov eries. Now and again, though,
science could get very close to you. As with the covert Darwinism, and the golden mean of violence, and the
law concerning the guiding importance of the beginning.
    Regarding the great scientific discoveries, Fredhøj had
told us that these
had been made by great mathematics and physics geniuses who had not yet turned thirty. It
was something he returned to again and again. His favorite example was Einstein, who was twenty-five when he published
his special theory of relativity; when he had his annus mirabilis in 1905. Fredhøj said , if you are to achieve anything in your life, you have to do it before
you turn thirty.
    When he said that you could not help but think of his
own son, Axel. That if he was to have any chance
of achieving anything, then

he had better get a move on. Since he was already thirteen
and had, as yet, not
really said anything.
    Time
and numbers.
    Katarina wrote to me about them.
She wrote about the