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21

I went to my office, took all the advertising brochures from my post box and saw that no one had left me a message on the answerphone.

I dialled Jakob’s home number. No one answered.

Then I got in my car, crossed Pudde fjord, turned north and parked down from the white wooden church that would have been at home in a rural parish and not in what was more or less a city. Around the church lay small timber houses that belonged to another time and another district. For some reason that was how it had always been. Laksevåg would never quite be Bergen. Actually its rightful location would be somewhere in Rogaland.

Behind the church autumn had spread its matt, wet veil over the extensive, green lawns up to Damsgård Manor, the white baroque building that was now being totally restored. It reigned like a palace over Laksevåg’s otherwise proletarian urban development.

I got out of the car. Even outside the church I could hear the roar of the organ.

Above the main entrance there was a wooden sculpture of Saint Paul and a reference to Romans 1:16 written underneath. In the portal itself there was a gilt angel’s head that was reminiscent of the baptism angel in Nordnes’ Nykirken.

I tried the door. It was locked.

I went through a gate to the right of the church and tried a side door. It was open.156

I entered a room with several doors. A staircase led up to the belfry, a door to the porch and one to the nave. I chose the last.

When you enter a church, you are filled with a feeling of solemnity, whether you are a believer or not. If you are wearing a hat, you remove it. You walk carefully across the floor and if you have to say something, you whisper. Even in Protestant churches, which are cool and bare, purged of saints’ images and without the mysterious twilight you find in Catholic churches, you find yourself looking upwards at the ceiling vault and whatever might be above. Gripped by this same solemnity I stood still just inside the door.

It was a warm and intimate interior. The walls were constructed with brown timber and led up to a blue ceiling dotted with yellow stars, almost like a child’s drawing.

I walked across the floor. Along both nave walls hung three signs, shaped like shields, bearing the words FAITH, HOPE and LOVE to the left and STRENGTH, REPOSE and LIFE to the right.

The entrance to the chancel was watched over by a wooden angel with an electric torchlight in her hand, and from the ceiling Jesus hung from the cross with two women at his feet. The walls at the side of the altar were covered with paintings: to the left a landscape that had to be the Garden of Eden painted in a naïve style, and to the right people kneeling by a river.

Behind the altar three stained-glass windows faced Damsgård Manor. The one on the left depicted an angel with a harp. Beneath the picture it said: THIS IS THE DAY THE LORD HAS CREATED. In the picture to the right was an angel holding a zither and underneath it said: LET US REJOICE AND EXULT IN IT. Between them was the picture of a strong male figure with a Bible in his hand. He might have been God, Jesus, Peter or Paul. The figure symbolised the Word.157