Brevik threw his hands in the air. ‘You see. Fallow ground.’

‘But,’ I said, and now I was on the point of standing up as well, ‘in my philosophy of life I’d guess that I’m closer to Jesus’s teachings, not to mention Francis of Assisi’s, than many self-professed Christians I know. I would still subscribe to today Christianity’s social message and commitment. Many of the people working in the Salvation Army are literally my colleagues. God’s private investigators on earth, as you might put it. I have a more problematic relationship with the Christian faith.’

‘But—’

‘But,’ I interrupted, ‘we’re living in a time that positively demands a wakening. You said that yourself. The new millennium. A change of century is an important turning point in human history, and a lot will happen this decade before it’s with us. Such turning points create fear. Suddenly you’re standing there naked as a new and unknown millennium unfolds in front of you. And when humans feel fear they search for a security outside themselves. Some of them call this security God. And it helps.’

‘So you don’t believe in God, Veum?’

I shrugged. ‘I can’t say I believe and I can’t say I don’t. I’ve always allowed myself to belong to the sceptics on this earth. But I believe in faith itself. I believe in a human need to have something to believe in, something beyond yourself, something before and after death. And the need for rituals. Even I’m moved when I experience the church’s ceremonies: christenings, weddings and funerals. Also I’m gripped when the congregation’s singing echoes around the vaults.’299

‘That’s mere sentimentality. What about the big – the so-called big – questions in our lives? How did life start? What is the meaning of life? Where do we go afterwards?’

‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,’ I mumbled in a low voice. Aloud, I said: ‘That’s what I’m saying. Everyone, all over the world, has always felt a need to have precisely these questions answered. And they’ve given these answers names. Here they’re called God and Jesus. In other religions they have other names. I can’t see that one religion is necessarily truer than another or that a particular people should be God’s chosen ones. If God really created us, then he created us all and he created us equal. That’s the same need and the same answers. It’s only the languages that are different. But I will concede that the mystery of our origins exists. There is a beginning, there are roots, we here, down below, can barely guess at. But I can’t tell you if that beginning is called God or Allah or anything else. For that matter, it could equally well be Erich von Däniken’s visitors from outer space.’

He smiled wryly. ‘So for you Jesus wandered the earth in vain?’

‘Actually I was saying the opposite. And where do we get our calendar from? As I happened to grow up in a Christian culture it’s obvious that my relationship to religion is bound up with Christianity, with all its myths, legends and great stories – from Adam and Eve to Jesus and John the Baptist. Whether you believe in divine power at all or not, you can’t escape the fact that that’s the imagery you grew up with. In the wake of Noah’s ark and the shadow of the Tower of Babel. You can still learn important things from the Sermon on the Mount. And whether He was God’s son or only a man with an utterly incredible impact, Jesus of Nazareth still has a message and a programme it’s worth 300listening to down here. So I wouldn’t say he wandered the earth for nothing.’