Free Professor Andersen's Night by Dag Solstad

reported missing, for instance, who could be connected to what he had witnessed. He went outside and strolled around the streets of Trondheim. The man’s name was Henrik Nordstrøm. He had found that out before deciding to go to Trondheim. He had gone across the street and stopped in front of the main door of the building, and had found out which nameplate and doorbell must belong to the apartment where he had seen the murderer’s face the evening before. As ever when he visited Trondheim, he went into the late-twelfth-century cathedral, the only thing from the Norwegian Middle Ages that bears witness to a sophisticated culture. He also popped into Erichsen’s coffee shop and had a cup of coffee and a piece of cake; that, too, was a habit of his. While he was walking around the streets, he suddenly bumped into his colleague’s ex-wife, with whom he had to pass the time of day, as it was too late to pretend he hadn’t noticed her. He didn’t mention that he was going to meet her ex-husband the next day. When he came back to the Britannia, a man who had been sitting in the foyer got to his feet and came towards him. It was his colleague. He would really like to meet him at once, today, he said, since he didn’t have anything special on. That pleased Professor Andersen and he invited his colleague up to his room.
    He told his colleague to take a seat in an armchair, while he fetched a bottle of whisky, which he had wisely just bought at the Wine Monopoly in Kjøpmannsgata in Trondheim. He got hold of ice cubes and Farris mineral water from the mini-bar, while he went on about how one had to be careful that it was blue Farris one had, and not yellow. Once, it was at Hoyer’s Hotel in Skien, he had just taken Farris without thinking any more about it, and his whisky had a taste of lemon. ‘Bloody hell! And the worst of it was,’ said Professor Andersen as he put two empty glasses, blue Farris and a glass of ice cubes on the table, ‘there was just yellow Farris in the mini-bar. What a hotel!’ ‘That’s so the guests don’t sit in their rooms drinking whisky, but go down to the bar and buy it there,’ said his colleague. ‘Yes, of course, but still, it’s not particularly agreeable.’ They both poured themselves a whisky and skolled their unexpected encounter. When Professor Andersen saw that his colleague was sitting there, dying to know what on earth had brought him to Trondheim in the Christmas period, he decided to come straight to the point. ‘Have you ever thought,’ he said, ‘how short a historical memory we have? Can you remember your own grandparents?’ ‘Yes, of course,’ said his colleague, surprised, ‘I remember them well.’ ‘I do, too,’ said Professor Andersen, ‘even though both my grandparents were dead when I was born. But I’ve heard so much about them that for that reason I can say, historically speaking, that I know them. But what about your great-grandparents?’ His colleague went quiet; he was thinking about it. ‘You know, I don’t know much about them.’ ‘You do have
eight
great-grandparents,’ said Professor Andersen with emphasis on the words. ‘And there is probably barely a hundred years between the birth of the eldest of them and you. And already they’re no longer part of your consciousness. Indeed, even worse, they’ve never existed in your consciousness.’ His colleague looked rather taken aback. ‘It isn’t as bad as all that,’ he said, after he had thought about it. ‘I do know something. I’ve even seen one of them in a photograph. He was a shoemaker in Fredrikstad.’ ‘And where is that photograph now?’ ‘Ah, I don’t know that.’ ‘And you call that knowing something about your great-grandparents?’ His colleague looked a little taken aback again. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s peculiar, and I’ve never even thought about it before.’ ‘It’s more than peculiar,’ said Professor Andersen, ‘it’s embarrassing. Perhaps