But was that really what happened? Her mother told the story over and over. How the Mehamn harbormaster had called them to him, and given them something to eat, and put them on another ship the next morning. The local paper had run a report, two young stowaways. Her mother had cut out the article and saved it with the family photographs. Now you’ve been in the newspaper, she had said.
And what about Helge and the baby? Once the baby was there, there was no point in asking herself how it could have come to that. What was done was done. That was what her father had always said to her mother, what’s done is done. When he had to sell his boat, either because the fishing grounds were almost fished out, or the price of fish was going down, or because he was ill or not a good fisherman, who could say. When he went to work in the fish factory, not difficult work, but he was already sick. And when Kathrine went to visit him in the factory, she was about fourteen, and asked him, isn’t it boring to do the same thing all day long, he would say what’s done is done. As if it didn’t matter that he had once owned a boat. But it wasn’t true. In the village, nothing was ever done.
Kathrine had sworn to herself that she would never work in the fish factory. That was later, when she was hardly speaking to her father, when he was drinking, drinking more and more. Never the fish factory.
She sat in the German fortifications with Morten. It was cold, they were sitting there in wintertime, and they both swore, never the fish factory. They made plans, travel plans, plans for a life. Their plans were more real than their life. Morten went away. He went to Tromso to work, he went round the world. Two years later, he was back, it was as though he’d never left. He took a job in the fish factory, a desk job, that was something else. And later on, he got a job with the council, he was responsible for the village’s home page, and the little radio station that transmitted for an hour or two each day. News, weather reports, the hour for the migrant workers, the phone-in. We congratulate Peder Pedersen on his sixtieth birthday. The male voice choir from Berlevag will now sing. And Kathrine went to work for the customs. Training in Tromso, three stints of three months, the best time of her life.
I could get myself transferred, thought Kathrine. Start a new life. She could have gotten herself transferred, but she never did. And somehow the time had passed, she had hardly been aware of it. One village or another. Earlier, there had at least been a cinema. Now there were just bingo evenings.
Slowly the lights of the village slipped by. The night wasn’t cold, but there was a stiff wind. Even so, Kathrine went outside, once the village could no longer be seen from the panorama deck. The further the ship steamed on its course, the larger the village seemed to become. Then it slowly disappeared behind a spit of land, and there was only the orange reflection of its lights visible in the clouds. It got lighter, and for a little while it almost looked as though an artificial sun were rising behind the rocks. The sea swell got stronger, and as Kathrine went inside, she saw a couple of seabirds flying low over the water into the beam of the searchlights and then straight back into the dark again. Snowy rocks glimmered on either side of the fjord. And then the ship was out on the open sea.
When the Polarlys docked in Hammerfest the next day, there was already the first hint of light in the sky. The layover was an hour and a half, and Kathrine left the ship to become a member of the Polar Bear Club. She had twice been to Hammerfest before, once with her father and once with Thomas, and each time she had wanted to join, but first her father, and then Thomas had said that was just nonsense and a waste of money. In the clubhouse, she paid her subscription, and was given a postcard, and a polar bear brooch in mother-of-pearl. Elvis had once wanted to join the Polar Bear Club, but they hadn’t taken him. You had to apply in person. Elvis Rex. Kathrine had had to laugh, each time she saw the sign in the CD shop in Tromso. She went back on board, and for a while she felt happy and cheerful.
The next morning, she inspected the bridge, along with three German couples. A steward had asked her at lunch the previous day whether she would like to have a look at the bridge and the engine room. The usual program. He had asked how far she was traveling, and Kathrine had said as far as Bergen. Four days yet, said the steward, good, welcome on board the Polarlys.
The bridge didn’t really interest Kathrine, but she felt lonely on the ship. The captain wore a fine uniform. He had a short reddish beard and lots of burst blood vessels on his cheeks, but he gave Kathrine a friendly smile. He didn’t talk much, and when one of the Germans, an old man in a sailor’s peaked cap, started talking in English about his war experiences, and how they had used the fjords to hide their submarines, he talked still less. The Germans had big binoculars, and after a while they started talking among themselves in German, and Kathrine didn’t understand what they were saying. She stood next to the captain, and from time to time he would hold the back of his hand against the horizon, and gesture, and say, seals, or rocks, or Risoyhamn at last. When Kathrine was the last person to leave the bridge, the captain shook hands with her and said she was welcome back at any time.
The Polarlys made two stops in the Lofotens. They crossed the Arctic Circle on schedule the next morning.
The captain refused to believe Kathrine when she said she had never been south of the Arctic Circle before. She had climbed up to the bridge again. They hadn’t had any money, she said, her father had worked in the fish factory, and if they went on holiday at all, they didn’t go any further than Kiruna. That was where her parents came from. The captain asked her if she was a Sami. Half, she said, through my father. She had attended the customs school in Tromso, and at twenty she had had a baby, and that meant holidays were out of the question. She was pleased she had been allowed to complete the course. Once, a couple of years ago, she had booked a week on Majorca, but then the boy had been ill, and she hadn’t gone. She still had to pay for it, though.
“If the child had died,” the man at the travel agent’s said, “… It’s funny. I’ve been watching the borders for years. But I’ve hardly ever been on the other side. Sweden, Finland, yes, but that’s all… never even been to Murmansk. I had a friend from there, but I never visited him. A sea captain, like you.”
“Things don’t look any different on the other side,” said the captain, and Kathrine said she knew. Then the captain asked her to have a coffee with him. They went down to the dining room together, which was almost deserted at that hour. A steward was just setting the tables for lunch.
The captain said Kathrine’s crossing the Arctic Circle for the first time was something to celebrate. “Welcome to the world,” he said, and she laughed. When he asked her where she was going, and whether she was on holiday, she said she didn’t know, and no, she was just leaving.
“My honeymoon,” she said, and laughed. She took photographs of the captain, and he laughed as well, and wanted to take one of her, but she refused. The captain’s name was Harald, and he lived in Bergen.
“If you want,” he offered, “you can stay with me for a few days.”
Harald lived in a small wooden house painted yellow. His wife had gone to Oslo for a few days with a friend. Harald wanted Kathrine to sleep in their bed. He said he’d be happy with the nursery, he didn’t mind. But she refused. He showed her the nursery, and said that his son, whose name was also Harald, had died three years ago in a sports accident. Kathrine was surprised by the term sports accident, and asked him what had happened.