Haugesund News
Friday morning, August 27, 2010
On the morning four days before the light went out, the journalist Viljar Ravn Gudmundsson stood proudly in the conference room, enjoying the atmosphere around him. Big smiles, hungry eyes, and arrogant laughter filled the room. This was how things should be.
“My God, Viljar! I don’t know what you’re giving your sources, but I want some of it. We’re talking the Minister of Transport here. Pinned bare-assed to the wall with a nail gun. I’d gladly give half my liver to get my name on a story like that.”
Although the arts reporter Henrik Thomsen was three heads taller than his colleague, his height did not noticeably add to his intelligence. Viljar looked up at him and could see remnants of caked sugar in his ample mustache.
“Believe me, Thomsen, you wouldn’t have survived. There’s a reason that you review concerts while I hunt predators in the corridors of power.”
Viljar moved away from the burly man and stood at the outer edge of the room. Let the light shine on him. He deserved it. This was his hour. The moment when everyone’s eyes were directed at him in respect and admiration. What he had done was unique in the 115-year history of the newspaper. To the other journalists and editors, the article represented months of ambitious investigative journalism. If that wasn’t the whole truth, Viljar didn’t care. This was his specialty. If the article came after a hundred hours of overtime or fell into his hands like a feather from the sky, it was all the same to him. He was sitting on a scoop, and he had the power of words.
What he wrote was the truth. That was how it was in Haugesund. Again and again, he had knocked the abusers of power down from their pedestals. As far as Haugesund News was concerned, a granite obelisk dedicated to Viljar Ravn Gudmundsson could be raised on the site of the paper’s new office building, currently under construction.
The story he had presented to the news editors that morning had all the necessary elements for nationwide saturation coverage. That condition arises when all the major news organizations cover the same dramatic event at the same time, and the coverage is so extensive that it overshadows everything else in the media. Politics, abuse of power, celebrities, crime, and sex. All this in one and the same story, and it was little Haugesund News that was sitting on it. They had Viljar Ravn Gudmundsson, which gave them enough credibility to be heard in the national press.
At the age of thirty-seven, Viljar had long since acquired a reputation as one of the country’s most trustworthy voices in the media. Job offers from the major media houses landed regularly in his in-box, but he ignored them. He was a weekend dad, and couldn’t bear the thought of commuting to Oslo during the week. His twelve-year-old son, Alexander, lived here in Haugesund, and no job in the world could make him sacrifice the times they had together. Besides, there was no escaping the fact that Viljar liked to be comfortable. At the regional newspaper, he had freedom. He came and went as he pleased. He wrote the stories that suited him best, and said no to assignments he considered pointless. He played by his own rules, a free soul in a free landscape. He dictated the agenda. He was the house anarchist, following his own impulses to the great despair, and delight, of Editor-in-chief Johan Øveraas.
When the story about Hermann Eliassen, the Minister of Transport and Communications, showed up a few days earlier, Viljar had long been telling his superiors that he was working on a gigantic story of unbelievable dimensions. Nonsense, of course. In reality he’d spent most of his workdays planning a weekend in London with Alexander. Fortunately, the departure had worked out to be on the very day he’d been able to present the Minister of Transport’s head on a platter for the editors.
“People … Listen to me for just a moment!”
Editor-in-chief Johan Øveraas guided Viljar firmly up to a corner of the room where the other journalists could gather around. Then he took firm hold on his own hips, and Viljar observed with fascination that the editor’s hands actually disappeared into his love handles.
“This story will hit the media elite in Oslo like a pint of Guinness in a bubbling champagne party. This story will be a damned wet blanket on Hermann Eliassen’s chorus of admirers. We in the local press who know the guy have waited a long time to see him dangling. Bloody well done, Viljar.”
The applause rang out in the small space, and Viljar Ravn Gudmundsson took plenty of time to enjoy the moment.
This was his story. He was invincible in this power play. The truth was his steadfast squire, and no one could poke holes in this story.
Outside, the wind was rustling the old oak trees next to Lillesund School. Exhausted leaves clung tightly to the sap of summer a little while longer. Unlike the journalists inside, the trees knew that everything comes to an end. The wind will strip the trees bare in violent gusts, spitting out the withered jewelry at a final resting place.
Seventeen-year-old Jonas and his lover were on a farmyard a dozen kilometers farther south. Without knowing it, through their impassioned looks and caresses, they had sealed not only their own fate, but Viljar Ravn Gudmundsson’s too, the man who at that very moment was receiving a final pat on the back from his editor.
“Incredibly well done, Viljar. Go to London. Turn off your cell phone. Have a good time with your son. You deserve this. We’ll take the story from here. In four days you’ll be back. I can promise you a strong tailwind on the return trip, because here it will be very windy.”
Viljar smiled slyly as he packed the most important things into his duffel bag. He looked through the photo material that would be used in the story on Eliassen one last time, and sent it on to the desk. The editor was still standing beside him when he was finished.
Viljar looked up at Øveraas with the customary mischievous gleam in his eye. “Windy? Isn’t it always windy here in Haugesund?”
Copyright © 2016 by Geir Tangen
Translation copyright © 2018 by Paul Norlen
