“Thank you, sir,” Nina smiled sweetly, not even granting Christa a look to acknowledge her presence. “I could do with a bit of a break after all the research I did for today’s class…you know, that ended up not being used after all.”
“No, I agree,” he said. “You take the rest of the day and then you can use that lecture for tomorrow. Will that sit well with you?”
“Aye, that sounds reasonable. I just hope the class is more energetic tomorrow,” she remarked. “Good day.”
With a general greeting Nina excused herself and left in her wake the flabbergasted Christa Smith and the inquisitive Daniel Patterson. A smile broadened on Nina’s mouth with every step she took farther away from them. She could virtually feel Christa’s eyes burning into her back. When she had turned the corner at the end of the hallway and skipped down the steps onto the small stone pathway toward her cottage, Nina uttered a little laugh at her small victory. If she was going to be antagonized while teaching at St. Vincent’s, she may as well make it worth Christa’s while.
Traversing the triangular botanical garden stretch, she once again approached the ancient stone fountain that looked like a human form at night. Only this time Nina decided to stop and study the structure, hoping that a familiarity with it would lessen the grotesque impact of it on her.
Behind her, in the protective shade of the high old trees, another human-looking figure approached.
10
Sam woke up feeling like a cadaver, post-autopsy. His blurry vision gradually became clearer only to reveal that the walls and ceiling around him were not that of his lodge. In fact, he’d only just realized that he hadn’t checked into any lodges when he heard the distant gibber-jabber of the Joensens, the hosts of the party the night before. They were in the kitchen, engaged in loud conversation.
“Oh yah,” he groaned softly as he tried to sit up from the couch he was lying on. The windows were wide open, curtains flanking the frame. The sharp cloudy daylight stung his eyes. “For fuck’s sake,” he whispered, surveying the room through slit lids. Sam’s head was pounding, but he got up as quickly as he could. Like a strike of a match the blond woman from the night before appeared in his recollection and Sam remembered what he’d stayed a bit longer for. He had to find out more about her.
“He’s up!” Heri shouted to the other men still there. From what Sam had gathered, they’d all just keeled over one by one the night before, just as he had. “How did you sleep, pal? My mother threw a blanket over you, otherwise you would have frozen to death.”
“Tell her thanks,” Sam grunted, petting his brow with a flattened palm to give it some heat for the pulsing hell in his skull.
“Tell her yourself. Mom, this is Sam Cleave, a journalist from Scotland here…” Heri did not want to open the Grind can again, “…on vacation.”
Sam gave him a thankful nod as he put out his hand to the small lady behind Heri. But when she stepped in front of her son, Sam was visibly taken aback by her unnaturally youthful appearance.
“Hello Sam,” she smiled in a heavy accent. “My English is not as good as my son’s, but welcome to the Faroes and to my home. Please excuse my sons and their friends when they get too crazy. It is a herid…herita…they get it from their forefathers.”
“Hereditary, Mama,” her son grinned and hugged her. “And Scots are as bad as we are. Most of the northern parts of Sam’s country are infested with people who come from the same roots as us anyway.”
The approving roar from the other men sounded again. Sam had to laugh. It was as if they roared happily whenever something cool was said about them, even if they should happen to be on the other side of the archipelago, it seemed.
“Nevertheless, behave in front of guests, alright?” she reminded her son. “I am just going to take this basket to Hilde at the shop. Behave!”
With her last command she winked at Sam and exited the room.
“Women,” Heri said, just as he always did when he felt awkward at their reprimands or outbursts.
“Aye,” Sam smiled, although he was positively itching to ask Heri why they all looked half their ages. Granted, most of the men he’d met looked relatively normal for their age, but a lot of the others just defied the science of aging.
“Heri, you know that journalists are naturally curious about all kinds of things, right?” he eased into the subject.
“Yes, nobody knows that better than us here on the islands. Why?” Heri answered.
“I’m curious…” Sam winced at the looming conversational embarrassment.
“You’re wondering why my mother looks like she could have been a child bride?” the local laughed.
Jesus! Dead-on! Sam thought, and then replied with, “Not a child bride, necessarily…why, do you people do that here?”
Everyone in the kitchen bellowed with laughter, but they refrained from either confirming or denying the question. All they did was stuff a plate of rye bread and omelet in Sam’s hands, telling him to sit down and relax.
“Seriously though,” Sam said slowly, checking the reaction of his host and his friends to keep tabs on just how inappropriate his prying was. “It’s uncanny how young some people here look for their age. Man, just tell me, because if you have a pool around here that keeps you all young I would love to have a dip!”
Heri’s friends and brothers just chuckled and spoke in their native tongue, ignoring the honest curiosity of the tourist; everyone, except Heri. He gave Sam a long look of consideration while Sam could see that his wheels were turning.
Aye, you want me to know. You want to tell me. So come on, m’boy, tell Uncle Sam what makes you all look so young. Come on! Sam was thinking as he ate, watching the smart man work his brain to accommodate the curiosity of the foreigner.
Luckily for Sam, the other fishermen exited the back door of the house and stepped into the sharp, white light that had been knackering Sam’s senses, exacerbating his hangover. Now that he was alone with his new friend he hoped to find out more about the interesting back stories he had heard about regarding the lost Allied gun pits and radio contact stations.
“Why do you think youth is better, Sam?” Heri asked him. It was a question Sam hadn’t been expecting, and certainly not one he had an answer for.
“I didn’t say I did. I just thought it wouldn’t hurt getting some reversal if I could, you know?” Sam replied, hoping that his loose answer would cover more ground.
“Imagine if people didn’t grow old at the rate they were supposed to,” Heri said. “Just forget about the perks of an extended life force for a second, and imagine what would happen if we had to find a Fountain of Youth.”
Sam nodded as he ate, but when he looked up and met Heri’s eyes, he realized the man expected an actual answer. Now he was forced to confront a usually rhetorical question.
It’s too fucking early for anything this deep, Sam thought, still working on countering the alcoholic influence on his thoughts. Yet his host expected an answer. “We’d all be as good looking as you and your mum? We’d get laid a whole lot more for a whole lot longer?”
Heri lifted his hand and sank his shaking head. “Sam, I’m serious. Think about it. If nobody died, or if people lived longer at the current rate of procreation, it would take us less than half a century to be out of food, water, and space. I mean, God, the state of the world right now is catastrophic because there are simply too many humans on this planet for the environment to sustain us all.”
“I understand exactly what you’re saying,” Sam agreed, finally sincere. “But perhaps if science could hone the regenerative factors of youth, don’t you think it could aid in the cures of age-specific diseases like Alzheimer’s or the likelihood of strokes? Osteoporosis? Arthritic inflammation and stiff joints? Look, I’m not saying that there should be an elixir for staying pretty, Heri. The thought of such a possibility just speaks to the scientific edge in me.”
Heri peered at Sam and cleared his throat. “Something you don’t know about me, is that I’m a textbo
ok scientist too, Sam. And I have a great affinity for physics. But believe me when I assure you this: such a discovery would rapidly evolve into a greed-driven pursuit for beauty, abused for vanity instead of scientific progress or medical solutions. You know this! I know you do. You’ve seen how the whaling here got out of hand when ill-researched speculation fueled the self-righteous to attack what they could not explain, or control!”
“Yes, I know,” Sam replied as he finished his omelet. “I saw that and I, more than anyone, know that the media is the brain of the ignorant. Lazy minds eat up information presented by the media without ever questioning the parts they omit, the parts that can drastically throw a three-sixty on the truth.”
“Exactly. If such a thing existed, why would we ever tell you?” Johild snapped at Sam, jolting his heart to jump at her voice.
The Bitch is back, Sam heard his inner bastard announce, but he did not show it. Much as she was abrasive and unpleasant, Sam couldn’t deny her beauty and the fact that he enjoyed looking at her. Heri sighed at her mean opening line, but Sam remained docile. “Good morning.”
“Are you still fishing for a story?” she asked sarcastically as she emptied the bag she had with her, unpacking some vegetables and ræstkjøt, dried and cured meat Sam would soon become quite addicted to.
“I’m just on vacation, lassie,” he elected to rear his head a bit. “The only reason I have my Nifty 50 with me is for hot Scandinavian women and stunning landscapes.”
“Which hot women?” she asked while Heri held his tongue to relish the tragic sexual tension between his cousin and the tourist.
“That selkie on Mikladalur has had all my lens time so far,” Sam joked harshly.
“A statue,” Johild scoffed. “Cold, lifeless women. Is that what appeals to you, Sam Cleave?”
“Aye,” he cheered, “and they’re still warmer than you are.”
Heri choked on his tea, making sure his cousin did not see him shaking with laughter.
“And at least the landscapes here have curves a man’s eye can follow for hours,” he continued for good measure. He had had it with the pretty woman’s rude approach to him for absolutely no reason. “So don’t flatter yourself that I’m here to report on the bloody beaches or entertain the assumptions of women who don’t know me.”
Johild was speechless, which was probably a good thing. Had she uttered what she was thinking, her father would probably have been disappointed. She dropped the rest of the food on the cupboard top and walked into the house.
“You just made an enemy for life there, pal,” Heri remarked indifferently, adding hot water to his cup.
“Hope she’s patient. There’s a bit of a queue,” Sam shrugged. “Doing what I do, you learn to burn bridges without much sense of loss. It’s a pity, but that’s the way it is.”
Heri smiled. “You know, Sam, I believe I know now why I relate to you so easily. You’re one of very few foreigners I don’t think of as an idiotic rambler coming to spew judgment at us. You understand the misunderstood, my friend.”
Sam gave it some thought and found that the local’s point of view made a lot of sense. “I believe I do, aye.”
“You understand the misunderstood, because I suppose we have to admit that you are as misunderstood as we are. Most people think of journalists as vultures of ill fortune, or as attention whores who feed on tragedy,” Heri explained. “But you, specifically, are not like that. When people hear that I come from the Faroe Islands they immediately hate me for killing innocent whales in bloody victory and drunken evil…but none of that is remotely correct. When people hear you are a journalist, they instantly brand you as a dirty carrier of twisted media bullshit out to make us look bad. In essence, you and I, we’re one and the same in such issues.”
“Maybe there’s no fountain of youth here to keep you good looking, my friend,” Sam chuckled, “but there must be a mead horn of wisdom around here.”
“Now you’re talking,” Heri laughed. “But I’ll not dismiss the lame references to my looks coming from you. I’ll take those compliments too, thank you very much!”
11
Over the rolling ebb and flow of smooth, green grasslands, crowned by low-hanging clouds and dark gray skies, the journalist and the local fish farmer drove. It was late in the morning when they reached the first of the destinations on Sam’s itinerary – Akraberg.
“Pillboxes?” Heri asked the visiting journalist.
“Aye,” Sam said as they walked up to the former British station bunkers. “That’s what they called these bunkers during World War II.” He lifted his camera and froze in position before clicking off a few frames. Heri chewed on some of Johild’s ræstur fiskur while watching Sam move from side to side to cover different angles.
“Can I go inside or is it restricted?” Sam hollered from some obscure corner he was moving in behind. Heri nodded to him that it was okay to go in. Sam took pictures of the interior of the small bunkers and felt his skin crawl with awe. Through the moss-covered, crumbling, cement window, he could see his friend’s long blond hair lash in the strong breeze, like a flag from a pole. He was still curious as to the age of the man, although he did notice small creases around Heri’s eyes and on his forehead, which meant that he was not a boy anymore.
Inside the discolored and eroded walls Sam could feel a distinct presence. Not a firm believer in ghosts, he shrugged it off, but he could not deny that the age and authenticity of the structures impressed and influenced his demeanor. He could feel the company of the British soldiers in there with him, even with only the moaning gusts calling by the position of the corners and air holes.
Outside the stone and mortar structures were overgrown by weeds and virtually eaten by the foliage that had been hugging its sides for all these years. The sea air filled Sam’s nostrils as he crouched down for a good upward angle on the water-stained ceiling of the bunker. He could hear the sound of voices for a moment, an unexpected sound that startled him. Sam retreated against the wall of the pillbox he was in, camera at the ready for anything unusual to make its appearance. Again, he heard the rising and falling of voices in argument, but there was nothing in plain sight in front of him.
Then it dawned on him. The voices came from outside: one male and one female. Carefully Sam peeked around the edge of the window hole.
“Oh, great,” he moaned. It was the ever-bitchy Johild accosting her cousin again, probably about Sam’s presence there. He hadn’t yet had time to investigate her, which frustrated him even more every time she showed up. “May as well take the opportunity,” he whispered to himself as he took aim with his long lens.
Sam could not deny the photogenic prowess of the angry beauty and he wished he could only have one normal conversation with her without being hauled over hot coals for being an outsider. After he took enough shots of the two locals he exited the pillbox nonchalantly and strolled towards the two arguing in what seemed completely unintelligible gibberish.
“Hey, can you two fight in English, please?” Sam jested. “I can’t eavesdrop like this.”
They both stared at Sam with straight faces, not amused. He threw up his open hands in a gesture of surrender. “Alright, so the Scandinavians have a different sense of humor. Noted.”
“What are you looking for, Mr. Cleave?” Johild came right out. “Why are you really here? You said you were doing an exposé on the Grind, but then you start lurking around the historical sites, taking account of every single location.”
“Johild, control yourself,” Heri reprimanded, stepping forward just enough to wedge in between the two.
“No, Heri! I don’t trust this guy. Do you know who Sam Cleave is? Do you know what he usually gets involved with?” she fumed. “Espionage, subterfuge during sensitive political events, unearthing all kinds of Nazi catalysts and re-implementing their faculties for modern day warlords to use.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Sam shook his head as he stepped closer to her, forcing Heri to hold his breath and protec
tively put out his hands to both parties. “Where do you get this from, Johild? I’m no Nazi propagator, neither am I some bloody spy or whatever you think you know about me. If you have a problem with me, fine. But if you think I’m going to take your verbal abuse because of some fabricated ideas you have about me, think again!”
“Fabricated? Your own woman lost her life because of your recklessness in busting an arms ring!” she retorted.
“It was her story! I only went with her for…” he stopped, sobered and upset.
“For what? For what, Sam?” she insisted, poking at the tragedy Sam was still haunted by.
Heri looked in Sam’s eyes and gently pushed his cousin away from the journalist.
“Protection,” Sam admitted. “I didn’t want her to investigate on her own, to go to the rendezvous point by herself. What happened was not because of my recklessness. She was about to get her big break.”
“Enough,” Heri said. “Both of you. Enough. My God, why can’t we just talk this out? Play open cards, for fuck’s sake. If there is some miscommunication, badly reported reputation, whatever, we are grown people. Put it on the table and get this shit out of the way because it’s causing me way too much trouble.”
With the commotion the three acquired some unexpected company. Johild’s father and two other men came over the mounds surrounding the bunkers. The old man exclaimed, “What the hell is going on here? Good God, we can hear you screaming at each other all the way from Sumba!”
“It’s been sorted out, Uncle Gunnar,” Heri said, giving a look of warning at Johild. In turn, her light blue eyes pierced Sam’s dark pools where his furnace was still burning with anger.
“Doesn’t smell like it’s sorted out,” the old man remarked as he approached. “What are you doing here, Scotsman?”
“Just taking pictures of historical sites,” Sam replied. “Besides, I don’t have to report to any of you why I’m taking pictures while I’m on vacation, do I? I’m getting sick of this. Look, I get it that you are paranoid about journalists reporting on the whale issue, but for Christ’s sake, I’m taking pictures of British barracks and radio stations that I discovered while I was here. If you have something to hide, don’t make it my problem, please. Just leave me the hell alone.”
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