‘If that’s how you see it, why bother to ask him for those photos in the first place?’
‘Why not? Surely Nummedal wouldn’t be so mean-spirited as to deliberately stand in the way of my research?’
‘Perhaps … He probably saw you as a supporter of the meteorite hypothesis right from the start.’
‘But I’m going all the way there to do proper research! If Nummedal turns out to be right, I wouldn’t go and claim that he’s not, now would I?’
‘I’d be careful if I were you. It’s Sibbelee you’re writing your thesis for, not Nummedal. Sibbelee will be none too pleased if you don’t come up with some shred of evidence for his theory.’
Arne strips down to his underwear and crawls into his sleeping bag.
‘Most of the holes have never been explored,’he mutters. ‘So you never know.’
I too get into my sleeping bag, and follow his example of using his rucksack for a pillow. Provided you position it so the buckles don’t get in the way, a rucksack makes a fine pillow.
I shut my eyes, but keeping them shut takes an effort. The light of the midnight sun shines crimson through my lids. A last glance at my watch. One o’clock. The fjelljo shears its hedge, the cuckoo proclaims its triumph.
17
I yawn. I am tired, but unable to sleep. My down sleeping bag is much too hot, even though I have left the zipper undone.
Arne’s asleep and snoring.
I am wide awake. And, yet, lying on the wooden floor without a mattress isn’t as uncomfortable as I had feared. The trick is to maintain a position for as long as possible, it’s just the shifting around that hurts.
The sweat pours from my limbs. I crawl out of the sleeping bag, whereupon scores of mosquitoes settle on my bare shins. I sit there with drawn-up knees, rubbing my legs, staring into space.
At the far end of the porch are two broken wicker chairs, one on top of the other, next to a sewing machine on an ornate cast-iron base. This is as good a time as any to ponder how they make those wooden covers that protect sewing machines from dust. An oak panel curved cylindrically against the grain. Extraordinary that the wood doesn’t split or crack. Indestructible. Great craftsmanship.
The top half of the door to the rest of the house is glazed, and curtained off on the inside. I haven’t set eyes on the occupants. Odd, considering they are putting me up. If you can call this putting up.
When I sit up straight my nose is level with the window ledge. The panes are stippled with thousands of mosquitoes: cobwebby legs, slimy bodies. I stare at them while I scratch one mosquito bite at length, then press a sharp thumbnail into it crosswise. Itching submerged by pain.
No harm in another cigarette. I pull my jacket towards me, fumble in the pockets and come across my mother’s letter. If I read it now I can write her back saying: I read your letter by the light of the midnight sun.
By the light of that heavenly body I read:
As we won’t be able to send you any post for weeks and won’t be hearing from you for a long time, which I’m dreading, I thought I might as well write to you now.
I’m so proud you got that grant, Alfred, and I’m sure you’ll come up with a brilliant thesis. If only your father had lived to see this!
In his day it wasn’t nearly as easy to obtain funds for research abroad.
Thinking of you, I’m often reminded of the career your father might have had if he hadn’t died so young. To me it’s like a vindication against Fate: that you will carry on where he left off. Oh goodness, I remember so clearly that when it happened you were going through a phase of asking everybody if they could get you a ‘meteor’. We had no idea where you picked up that word, but you knew exactly what it meant! That’s when Daddy knew you had a talent for science. It’s such a comfort to me to think that when he passed away, he did so fully confident of your talents, dearest Alfred. I’m so glad you have always set yourself the highest standards, because that’s the only way to achieve anything. The more you look the more people you’ll find who haven’t stayed the course for one reason or another.
(Ignore these blotches — [arrow] — just a few tears shed by yours truly.)
Did I ever tell you about that time your father put an advertisement in the newspaper for a meteoric stone? For weeks he’d been racking his brains to find some way of getting hold of one. He was set on giving you a meteoric stone for your seventh birthday, but as you know he was no longer with us when the day arrived.
It’s amazing, but now that you have done so well in your studies I have to admit that, sometimes at least, things do turn out the way one had always hoped they would. Shame is that things don’t take a turn for the better until after they have taken a turn for the worse.
I’ll stop wittering on now, I promise.
. . . .
There is a postscript from Eva at the bottom:
Mum stop wittering on? That’ll be the day. You know, Alfred, if only she could let go a bit more she wouldn’t be so nervous.
… Your loving sister
Let go a bit more!
It’s a miracle she didn’t say let go of what! And it’s not true that my mother witters on. I’d sooner call her uncommunicative. Widowed mothers who talk about the past all the time can’t keep secrets from their grown-up sons. As for my father putting a wanted ad in the paper for a meteoric stone to give me on my seventh birthday — this is the first I’ve heard of it. The same goes for my wish to possess one: I haven’t the dimmest memory of any such thing. A meteor ite! Imagine wishing that at six years of age. And still wishing it! If my father had lived I might never have wanted flute lessons. Not that I got my way. She probably refused me out of a sense of fear. Fear that I’d grow up to be a flautist instead of taking on my father’s career and carrying on where he left off.
Three o’clock. I fold up the letter, blowing away some mosquitoes, squashing others. I crawl back into my sleeping bag, pull it tight around my neck. I am drenched in sweat, but set on keeping absolutely still. I am so hot I feel as if I have a raging fever. Maybe the heat has a narcotic effect. Time stops, and the next thing I know my head is thumping.
The ache is so bad that I heave myself into an upright position. My watch tells me it is a quarter to twelve, and Arne has gone. The sun lances into the porch, trapping the heat inside. There’s a fetid smell of sweat and mould. Feeling bruised and battered, I reach for my socks and shoes. Arne’s vacant sleeping bag gives shape to his absence.
My left eyelid, inflamed by a mosquito bite, will only open halfway. I lace up my shoes, get up and step outside.
The flap of the green tent is now open. On the ground nearby lie clothes, also sleeping bags turned inside out, but Qvigstad is nowhere to be seen.
Not one sleeping bag — two.
I just stand there. Light a cigarette, scratch my left arm with my right hand and my right arm with my left hand. Small black gadflies alight on my skin soundlessly and painlessly, but still leave fat drops of blood behind when I brush them off, even if I haven’t killed them. The blood is my own.
‘Alfred!’
Arne emerges from behind the house with two other people, one of whom is Qvigstad, although I barely recognise him. Qvigstad waves at me with his free hand; he is holding a long fishing rod with the other. The third figure is also equipped with a casting rod.
Qvigstad stops two metres short of me and makes a little bow.