But neither of the two women ever lost her grounding in reality. They never lost their sense of the basics, which means knowing that it’s the human hand that draws. That is the basis for everything, and Merete Sæthre and Merete Holtan always took their sketchpads with them. They primarily drew objects. Pots, plates, glasses, which had to do with the profession they had chosen and from which they made their living. Yes, they were meticulous about drawing their own products after taking them from the kilns. Surely it’s unnecessary to explain that these ceramic pieces became the basis for their drawings or sketches. But the two women also took their sketchpads along when they went out in nature, or were among other people. One of the places they liked to frequent best was the old stadium right near the teachers college, or the University College of Southeast Norway in Not­odden, as it would soon be named. Their walks to the stadium took the form of family outings. The lawyer, Nils Hartvigsen, and Singer would often accompany their wives, and little Isabella often went along too, and the lawyer’s wife, Merete Holtan, was pregnant, so she carried her own little child in her womb. They would sit down on the old decaying wooden bleachers, and the women would get out their sketchpads. Then they would draw hammer throwers, because this stadium had been turned into Norway’s only hammer-thrower stadium. Hammer throwing is a traditional Olympic sport that unfortunately struggles with big problems; such a major sport has to be characterized as dying, or at least threatened with extinction. This is because hammer-throwing competitions in our audience-friendly time are regarded as potentially dangerous because a single athlete once lost control of his hammer, which ended up in the bleachers. And as the name indicates: we’re talking about a hammer. That’s why the hammer-throwing competitions take place today before virtually empty bleachers, because they start and even finish before the actual track-and-field meet begins. And the hammer throwers perform in a cage, though it’s open in the direction that they throw, and this is done to underscore the safety of the spectators, even though they haven’t yet arrived, but if anyone should be present solely to watch the hammer-throwing competition, then these cages in which the athletes perform are in use for their protection.

  So hammer-throwing competitions did still exist, and it was still possible, for the most enthusiastic of the sport’s supporters, to witness them in person, and it was still an Olympic sport, after all, it was even quite popular in Eastern Europe. In Norway there was also a tradition for this sport, which demonstrates great strength, though it had now ended up so far down in the doldrums that it was doubtful it would ever become popular again. Because it’s not enough to be allotted a few hours in advance of a track-and-field meet every once in a while, for an athlete to be dubbed in the traditional way, as in the past, the Norwegian national champion, and preferably also club champion of this noble sport — you also have to be able to train. You can’t become an athlete in a sport without training in that selfsame sport. And it wasn’t that easy. Because who wants a hammer thrower, even in a cage, to be given free rein inside a sports arena, which, in democratic fashion, is filled with other athletes, both children and youths, as well as active adults and old people who are running, jumping, and playing soccer, joyfully expressing themselves, while at any moment a hammer weighing seven kilos might strike them in the head? Nobody. Except in Not­odden. Not­odden had extended a welcoming hand to the devotees of this mightiest of all masculine track-and-field sports. The town had placed an entire stadium at their disposal. The only one in Norway. Not­odden was itself in the doldrums at that time, as it tried to make the difficult transition from an industrial community to a more modern town; not because the modern was considered preferable but because it was a necessity, since the industry was going to be shut down, no matter what. Perhaps as a protest against this, but a protest that at the same time acknowledged this as a necessity, a hand was extended to Norway’s hammer throwers, inviting them to Not­odden, where they could train and even hold their competitions. Not only that, they were offered admittance to the Not­odden Teachers College, or the University College of Southeast Norway in Not­odden, in either the athletics department or the carpentry department. Actually, in any department at all, although it was thought that the athletics department, and especially the carpentry department, where students were trained as vocational teachers, would be particularly suited to hammer throwers. But in that respect the town was mistaken, because seven of the ten hammer throwers still left in Norway chose the computer and telecommunications department, while only two chose the carpentry department, and the tenth hammer thrower wanted to be an economist after his athletic career was over. Ten new people arrived in Not­odden and would be paying for lodging, food, clothing, entertainment, etc., and along with that, salaries would be earned for teachers at the university college as well as the students themselves. Every little bit helps. A hammer-thrower milieu also enhances spending of a few kroner, while at the same time creating an image. An image of Not­odden, in Not­odden. At the Not­odden hammer-thrower stadium, young men train in the most strenuous of all track-and-field sports, a traditional event from the twentieth century, involving muscles and technique. Long before Hydro’s museum of industry rose from Hydro’s shut-down factory area near the shores of Lake Heddal, ten muscular athletes were hard at work in the heights above the town, in their hammer-thrower cage. We remind you that the symbol on Not­odden’s coat of arms and seal is a spark. The sight of these hammer throwers attracted the interested gaze of the ceramicists at Merete & Merete. They couldn’t get enough of this sight, which they tried to put down on paper. When they suspected that their interest in hammer throwers might be misunderstood and seem overzealous, they brought along their husbands, and occasionally Merete Sæthre’s little daughter as well. The two women would sit on the lowest decaying bleacher with their sketchpads on their laps, trying to capture the hammer throwers’ movements: the rotation, which was probably not easy to accomplish in reality and certainly not on paper. Often the two husbands would take seats behind them, sitting erect and staring at the hammer throwers as long as Isabella wasn’t fussing, but that didn’t last long. Then Singer, at least, would have to get up and try to entertain Merete’s daughter in some way, often by taking her the long way around to the nearest ice-cream stand, and on those occasions Attorney Hartvigsen would frequently go with them, because by then the hammer throwers had noticed that the husbands were there too, that this was a family outing, and so it didn’t really matter if they were gone for a while. At least it made no difference to the women, who barely noticed that the men had been gone by the time they came back. They were eagerly immersed in their creative endeavor, trying to capture the movements of the hammer throwers on paper. This was their hobby. They studied the hammer throwers’ feet firmly planted on the ground as they rotated the hammer; the hammer throwers’ hip movements as they rotated their bodies; the elasticity of their muscles; the hammer throwers’ outstretched hands as they released the hammer and it flew off. And the athletes bellowed. Because hammer throwers bellow as they release the rotating hammer, which flies through the air in an arc and lands in the gravel, making an ugly wound, about sixty meters away (if it’s an acceptable training throw made by quite a good Norwegian hammer thrower). A terrible bellow issues from the throat of the man in the cage. A primal bellow, uttered in complete freedom, as part of a public sports event.

  Gradually the two women became more and more preoccupied with drawing that bellow, that face, and the open mouth as the men emitted it. The massive rotation ending in that bellow, which fascinated them beyond measure. But no matter how much they tried, they never succeeded in capturing the bellow on paper, and after a while Singer began to suspect that it wasn’t really all that important to them, that it was mostly an excuse for hearing and seeing what was going on. But he didn’t voice his suspicion, nor did the lawyer, who no doubt harbored the same suspicion. In this way, the two men who accompanied their creative wives on their outings to Not­odden’s hammer-thrower stadium drew closer. Perhaps it would be an exaggeration to say that a friendship developed between them, it depends on how you define friendship, but there’s reason to believe that Singer and Attorney Hartvigsen drew closer than many others who call themselves friends. The lawyer still had his head full of new plans, which he described to Singer as they sat behind their wives on the decaying wooden bleachers where the women were capturing the actions of the hammer throwers on paper. Or while they were walking or jogging through the area. Part of the new plans had to do with further developing the company of Merete & Merete, in which both men were involved, after all. Both men drove station wagons; the lawyer had a Volvo station wagon, while Singer had a Lada. Two types of cars with differing status, you might say, yet both were station wagons, for the simple reason that both vehicles were suited to the ceramic needs of their wives. They required station wagons to transport all the basic materials that with time would become ceramic vases, pots, and mugs.

  Things had gone well here in Not­odden for Attorney Hartvigsen, a young lawyer with his own practice. He had bought an old mansion with a view of the narrow, peculiar, and idyllic Tinnfoss canal, a house that had previously been the residence of an operations manager for Tinnfoss Paper Factory, long since closed down. Singer and Merete Sæthre had no plans of their own to move out of their small rowhouse apartment, or for that matter to replace their Lada station wagon, and perhaps that made Attorney Hartvigsen feel a little uncomfortable, because he was constantly pointing out that the former residence of the operations manager was mortgaged to the hilt. For that reason he might assume a rather worried expression whenever he and Singer met up at the Not­odden hammer-thrower stadium. But that didn’t prevent him from coming up with new plans. He was thinking that the entire old paper factory, with its rubble and debris, should become an art center in which the ceramics workshop of Merete & Merete, with its shop and gallery space, would be the crown jewel, so to speak, as he explained to Singer. Which meant the workshop needed to be moved over there, and as soon as possible, before anyone else had the same idea and took possession of the best buildings. Singer envisioned himself as the eternal assistant to the carpentry-skilled Hartvigsen, and he couldn’t help uttering a little sigh.

  Yes, one little sigh in an otherwise happy time. But this would soon change. Soon that little sigh over the fact that Singer was condemned to act as the eternal assistant for the energetic and carpentry-skilled lawyer would seem like a breath of fresh air from a happier past. Only a few months after the scene just described, we find Singer has lapsed into broodings from which he will never emerge. It happened gradually, but eventually it became all too noticeable. And it was something that the relationship between Singer and Merete Sæthre could not withstand. We have to be able to make this statement without discussing any question of guilt, or any other pertinent topics that the two of them had plenty of time to consider, though fortunately in private. Here we will make do with stating that after two years their relationship had noticeably deteriorated. Let’s say that they had a two-year grace period, two years in a bubble state together. But as we’ve seen in Singer’s case, being in this relationship was not without ulterior motives, peripheral motives that clung to this individual and caused him — under cover of finding himself in a relationship, in a marriage, actually — to live out entirely different schemes and assumptions than those that were exposed to the light of day. Most likely we have to assume that the same was true of Merete Sæthre. If pointing this out means initiating a discussion about the question of guilt and deception, then any relationship between two people, which is established on the open assumption that it’s a love relationship, must be based on guilt and deception. For that reason, anyone who has ever loved has also felt subject to deception. Even when you glorify and are glorified in return, you still live an unglorified inner life lying in bed next to the one you love, who sleeps so soundly, often sweetly, as Singer would have claimed.

  So who is she, this Merete Sæthre, who has lain down to sleep next to the brooding Singer night after night? We know very little about her, nor will we find out much more. She is not the main character in this novel; it’s doubtful that she could have been the main character in any novel of a certain quality. It’s possible that a number of female readers will protest, finding what little we’ve learned about her to reveal a courageous, strong, and exciting woman. Someone even possessed of a sense of humor. That’s no doubt true, but the fact that you’re a strong, courageous, and exciting woman with a sense of humor does not, unfortunately, make you a character in a novel. In this novel she is subordinate to Singer, playing the role of a minor character, and that’s not Singer’s choice but the choice of the author who is writing this book. For Singer, in real life, Merete Sæthre was at that time a main character, but that’s not what she is in this fictionalized description of what — it has to be underscored — is the only extant description of Singer’s life, and most likely also the only possible description. Because it has to be admitted that at this point in the story it may seem mysterious that Singer could be the main character in any novel at all, regardless of quality, but here it can be divulged that it’s precisely this mysteriousness that is the topic of the novel, and attempts will be made to turn this into reality. As a way to turn it into reality, it might be tempting to defer to Merete Sæthre and ask her about her view of the change that occurred in Singer over the course of a couple of years. We have to assume that what she tells us are things that she has, on numerous occasions, also mentioned to Singer himself.

  He has grown distant, Merete Sæthre would say. She has tried again and again to make contact with him, but he doesn’t seem to respond. If she were asked about his brooding, she would say that it wasn’t really that important, she accepts that he is a brooder by nature, even though at the time she met him she called it being thoughtful, which is what she believed him to be, but he actually was a brooder, and that’s something quite different, because he gave off a stifling air of despair, and it’s no good living around something like that. Because even when he wasn’t brooding but spending time with her and Isabella, taking part in ordinary daily activities, he behaved like a shadow to the extent that he was even a shadow of himself. He was always friendly and tried to do his best for them, but he did it with so little joy. As if there were no longer any joy left inside him. She pointed out, or would have pointed out, that he had lost all cheerfulness in his soul. Because previously he did have a cheerfulness in his soul, she noticed it the very first time they met, in so many little things, the way he did something, often with some reluctance, as if he didn’t have complete faith in what he was doing, but he did it all the same and with a slight laugh, like the time she made him get his driver’s license. But now he did everything with a distant air of routine. He does things, even with great thoroughness, and he often asks whether he should do such and such, but he does them only for the sake of doing them. He doesn’t really care one way or the other whether he does these things or not. And it’s not that he would prefer to do something else. Or that he would like to do nothing at all. He wouldn’t have preferred to refrain from doing what he does, yet he takes no real interest in doing it, even though he asks whether he should do it or not.

  It seems likely that in this context Merete would start talking about his averted face, even though it’s no secret that Singer always averted his face. When Merete, and Isabella, came home for dinner one day when Singer had worked the morning shift at the library and so was responsible for doing the cooking, they found him standing in the kitchen with an apron tied around his waist, stirring the pots, setting the table, then telling them that dinner was ready, and asking them in an amiable and interested manner how their day had gone, but then he didn’t listen to what they said, he didn’t listen! That’s what we can imagine her exclaiming. And he stood there with his gaze averted as she, or Isabella, began to describe how their day had gone, and then she might have shouted: “Look at me!” and then he would turn and look at her in astonishment, and at that instant she could see a trace of merriment in his eyes. But was it only a mask? Which he swiftly assumed before turning toward her? Perhaps because she had shouted so loudly, and in that way awakened him, so that he abruptly woke up and thought, good lord, I’d better put on my merry mask right now or else I’ll be in trouble! Was that possibly how it was? Can we picture Merete Sæthre brooding when we bring up the matter of her husband’s distant attitude? At the very least it would have made her suspicious about almost every word and gesture he might offer that wasn’t connected to this distant attitude (these joyless routine movements), but to the other person, to the Singer she knew from before. For instance, one evening she picked him up at the library after he’d worked the afternoon shift, and in the car he said: “Oh, I have such a craving for spaghetti with pesto. Could we make that for dinner?”