Jag har gett mig själv en tidig julklapp eftersom jag varit sjuk: den helt F A N T A S T I S K A boken ”Den belägrade staden : Mattias Fagerholm”, med texter av Kristina Mezei, Erik Thelaus, Kristjan Saag och Thomas Millroth. Jag kapitulerar totalt inför detta. Motiven genomsyras av människans förluster och undergång, giganteras kamp och nederlag, slumpens arkitektur… som framkallar ett nästan odrägligt lugn hos mig. Det är inte så mycket landskapsmåleri som det är avbildningar av någonting som är omöjligt att fotografera, och mycket svårt att skriva om.

Boken innehåller bl.a. motiv som tillkom under hans resa till Antarktis 2002, efter att Svenska Polarforskningssekretariatet erbjöd honom deltagande i en forskningsexpedition. Jag har en vän som åkt på en liknande resa tillsammans med Mattias Klum och detta kan vara en av mitt livs största avundsjuk(or?) – därom tvistar de lärde! Så även Jenny Diski, vilket hon inledningsvis skriver om i tillika fantastiska romanen ”Skating To Antarctica” – mödorna innan hon faktiskt tar sig ombord och iväg.

 Still, the thought was there. Antarctica. And along with it a desire as commanding as any sexual compulsion that Antarctica was what I wanted, and that therefore I had to have it. I have not always longed to go to Antarctica, or even ever wanted to especially, but the thought was as powerful as if it had been a lifelong dream. Perhaps it’s possible to have lifelong dreams in retrospect.

 Like a sexual compulsion, the Antarctic dream was inconvenient; it would involve doing something, taking time out of the regularity of life in the study, travelling — and I dislike the idea of travel. I reasoned with myself: throughout the history of the world very, very few people have been to Antarctica; there was no reason why I, just because I fancied it, should be among them. Statistics are designed to keep you safe. It wouldn’t be an outrage if I didn’t go to Antarctica, almost everybody didn’t. Nothing bad would happen if I reached the end of my life without having been there. But I was, none the less, outraged at the idea of not going. Irrationally but unmanageably outraged. This is very important to me, I replied to my reasoning self, but I was unable to explain why. As I said, much like a sexual compulsion.

 The Arctic would have been easier, but I had no desire to head north. I wanted white and ice for as far as the eye could see, and I wanted it in the one place in the world that was uninhabited (never mind the penguins, seals and base camp personnel for the time being). I wanted a place where Sister Winniki couldn’t exist. I wanted my white bedroom extended beyond reason. That was Antarctica, and only Antarctica.

It turned out not to be so easy to go to Antarctica. There isn’t anywhere exactly to go. But like thoughts that pop into your head, classified advertisements make themselves known when you’ve got something on your mind. `Antarctica — the cruise of a lifetime,’ it said. I sent off for the brochure. In the meantime, I called the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge.

 `How can I get to Antarctica?’ I asked.

 `Are you a scientist?’

 `No, I’m a writer.’

 It sounded feeble next to the echo of `scientist’. The woman at the BAS clearly agreed.

 `You can’t go if you’re not a scientist engaged in specific research.’ Was she a relative of Sister Winniki?

 `Why not?’

 `Because the British Antarctic Survey is set up to protect the environment for serious scientific purposes.’

 `What about serious writing purposes?’

 She said she could arrange for me to interview people who had spent time on British Antarctic bases.

 `Have you considered having a writer in residence?’ I wondered.

 To say she put the phone down wouldn’t be quite true, but the conversation terminated.

 I phoned around a little to people who might know, or people who might know people who might know. It became clear that the BAS was the key, and the only key, to getting on to the white continent and that my chances of persuading them were virtually nil. There were a very few places on their ships each year for the press, but when I phoned them back about it they told me those places were booked for two or three years ahead, mostly by BBC Television — a rather more respectable, and better resourced organization than I was ever going to appear. I could, if I wished, write in and apply for a place, but the likelihood of getting there seemed further away in time and probability than Antarctica was in space.

 The possibility of a summer spent living in a camp on the boundless expanse of ice began to recede. The scientists, it seemed, had wrapped up an entire continent for their own and only their own purposes. No one could go without their say-so, because their objectives were pure, and being pure they were entrusted with the last pure place on earth. The rest of us are frivolous despoilers who need to be controlled. A poet or a painter who wants to experience the emptiness and grandeur of the continent which, by treaty, belonged to no one and therefore I suppose to the poet and painter as much as anyone else, would not be able to go without massive financial resources of the kind poets and painters are not known to attract unless they’re long dead. A pity. Antarctica is in the control of the scientists as Mecca is under the authority of the mullahs. Neither religion nor science has an unblemished record of spreading peace and harmony within their spheres of influence. A pity for poets; a nuisance for me.

 I am not averse to disappointment. It has its own special pleasures. Disappointment is the hidden agenda within fantasy, a nugget for the aficionado who might trick up the bland negativity of the word by sliding alphabetically towards disjunction and disparity. If you could have what you dream about, if I could have Antarctica all white and solitary and boundless, there would finally be no excuse. Imagine, you are exactly where you want to be — and now what? Yes white, yes solitary, yes boundless, but will it, in its icy, empty, immense reality, do? In my head, it does fine, why seek out the final disappointment which the earlier, smaller disappointment only seeks to prevent? The point of desire is desire itself, the essential pleasure in expectation is expectation. The idea that gratification is a completion of the wish is fallacious. It is only our dim literal-mindedness that makes us believe that we should try to achieve what we wish for. Disappointment stands between the two like a guardian angel. The fissure between what I want and what I can have is my friend, my best friend in all likelihood, and I know it. Disappointment is a safety net, to be relished in a secret knowing way by the disappointed. Give thanks for the BAS and all the other preventers of fantasy come true.

 The brochure arrived and I reset my daydreams.

Jenny Diski, ”Skating To Antarctica – A Journey To The End Of The World” (1997), läs det första kapitlet i NY Times.

Se fler av Fagerholms bilder ur bokens olika sviter:

Den belägrade staden

Bitterfeld

Det ofullbordade

Harbour

Antarctica

Besökarna

Vinterstig

Treptower Park