While I pay the woman for my food and lodging, he says:
‘She is only thirty-nine and expecting her fifteenth child. Many children, Lapps like many children. See how the house is furnished? As if they are still living in a tent: everything is kept on the floor.’
He presses a glass tube of aspirin into my hand and lends me a pair of rubber boots. How I wish I’d had them from the start!
He has been on the phone to arrange for a Lapp with a motor-powered canoe to take me down the Karasjokka to Karasjok.
From here it’s a twelve-kilometre walk to the river. It will be easy to find. I say goodbye to the woman and the man and set off.
After a few paces he calls out and comes after me:
‘Are you sure you’re up to it? Walking to the river, I mean?’
‘Yes, yes, I can manage.’
‘Do the boots fit all right?’
‘Yes, they’re excellent.’
‘I hope so. Because of course you could stay here if you prefer, then I’ll ask them to send a Weasel from Karasjok to collect you.’
‘Thanks, but no. I’m fine. Thank you very much!’
I have no problem finding the way to the river. There’s a proper road, albeit knee-deep in black mud and puddles, but evidently wide enough for a Weasel, because the tracks of caterpillar tyres are still visible in places.
All of a sudden everything is much more normaclass="underline" the road, the clumps of trees — I am now a hundred metres below the treeline. I won’t get above it any more, because it’s downhill all the way to the Karasjokka valley. The bend in the river where the canoe will be waiting is only a hundred and sixty metres above sea level.
This is not an expedition any more. This is a walk in the woods.
Suddenly, a harsh yellow glow lights up the cloud bank to my left, followed by a boom like a jet breaking the sound barrier. The glow fades, leaving the sky as grey as before, but the boom is followed by a prolonged rumble as if there’s a goods train crossing a viaduct nearby.
I stop to listen, and remain standing quite still until after the din has subsided and there’s nothing to be seen or heard save great flocks of screeching birds winging into the distance.
When they drop out of sight I turn off the road and climb to the top of a rise. But I can’t see anything because of the trees, and there’s no trace of fire or smoke.
*
Arriving at the river, I come upon a small house. There is little else, only green marshy plants and the canoe with the outboard motor close by, its prow hauled up on the bank. The Lapp appears at my side. He speaks a few words of German and offers to carry my rucksack to the canoe. I ask him if he heard that booming noise a while ago.
Yes, he heard it, and he also saw the yellow glow in the sky.
What did he think it was? A plane crash? Did he hear the roar of engines before it happened? I didn’t.
No, nor did he.
The Karasjokka is very wide. Is this a river? More like a huge body of shallow water, barely navigable by canoe, with branching streams and gravelly sandbanks which are too low to qualify as islands.
I sit in the canoe, facing backwards. Not a building in sight, nor any other craft.
The river meanders across the plain, and we must meander within the meanders. The wooden hull scrapes over the bottom with a hollow, growling sound. From time to time, when the motor fails to propel us forwards, the Lapp motions me to stand up and rock the boat to dislodge it.
Karasjok. Timber houses on the waterfront. The Lapp steers the boat onto the bank near a steel arch bridge. We both step ashore.
A herd of brown cows troop across the steel bridge, baulking and jostling. Not far from the bridge rises a reddish-brown timber structure, all of three storeys high, with a pitched roof. Out in front there is a tall flagpole flying the Norwegian flag. This is the state-run hotel.
The Lapp takes me to a small shop where I buy myself a shirt and a pair of rubber boots. I take off the biologist’s boots, give them to the Lapp to be returned to the owner at the first opportunity, and pull on the new ones.
At the hotel I take a hot bath, shave off my beard and climb into a bed with clean sheets.
Next morning someone from the police comes to see me. He asks how long I had been separated from Arne when I found his body. I tell him exactly what happened and show him Arne’s notebook. He reads the page with my name on it with interest, nods, hands the notebook back to me and asks whether I want to see Arne.
Together we walk to the clinic where his body has been taken.
A doctor receives me, after which the policeman leaves.
‘Are you a relative?’ the doctor asks.
‘No, a friend.’
‘Are you acquainted with his family?’
‘No, never met them.’
‘Would you like to see him?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I don’t advise it, sir, I really don’t advise it.’
‘Then I’ll be off.’
‘No, don’t go yet. Why are you having such difficulty walking?’
The doctor examines my legs, then rings for a male nurse. He cleans my wounds, ties a neat bandage round my knee and sticks plasters on the cuts.
Half an hour later I am on a bus. It begins by going north to Russenes, then turns west to join the coastal road to Alta, after which it continues southwards.
The bus halts for a good half hour at Russenes, because it’s a port of call for the North Cape ferries.
At the stop I see a girl in a headscarf and long trousers, with a small cardboard suitcase on the ground at her feet. I hobble around her. Her right trouser leg has been mended on the knee, and her eyebrows are unevenly plucked. She returns my look, but that may be simply out of pity for my limp.
When the bus starts up again I wait for her to get on first so that I can occupy the seat beside her.
‘Are you going to Alta?’ I ask.
‘No, further than that.’
‘Did you come from the North Cape?’
‘No.’
‘So what brought you here?’
‘I live in Honningvå g.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘On the same island as the North Cape.’
‘That’s very far north.’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘So your winters are very dark.’
‘It’s dark all winter.’
‘So what do you do to pass the time? Go to parties?’
‘No. I do my lessons.’
I have no doubt she does, because her English is excellent, but I put the question anyway:
‘Are you still at school then?
‘Of course.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Fifteen.’
‘Fifteen? You’re joking. Nineteen.’
‘No, fifteen,’ she says, glancing away.
I wish I hadn’t asked! She’ll think I look down on her, which will make her even less willing to talk to me. It’s a while before I dare to break the silence.
‘I’m from Holland.’
‘Oh.’
‘I was in Finnmark for a long time.’
‘What were you doing? Fishing?’
‘No. Studying soil conditions.’
‘Are you a student?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was it interesting?’
‘So so.’
She puts out her hand and points at the compass case hanging from my belt.
‘What have you got in there? A gun?’
‘No, nothing.’
I open the case, show her it’s empty and say:
‘It’s my compass case. I dropped the compass into a fissure between some rocks. Stupid of me.’
‘Shame. Such nice leather. It looks quite new.’
‘Would you like to have it?’
‘Of course not!’
‘It’s no good to me any more.’
‘You could buy a new compass.’
‘You can have it as a souvenir.’