by Ian Hamilton
Ava drove from Hirtshals to Aalborg with the window still down. She was getting wet, but it was preferable to the stench. The flight from Aalborg left at three, and that gave her just over two hours to kill. She checked back in to the Hvide Hus, only too happy to pay the full day’s rate for a chance to shower.
The first thing she did in the room was strip off all her clothes. She found two plastic laundry bags in the closet, packed her clothing and running shoes into one, and then double wrapped it in the second bag.
Then she stepped into the shower and scrubbed and rescrubbed every pore of her body. She washed her hair three times. She stepped out of the shower and towelled herself off, then put on her blue-and-white pinstriped shirt and her cotton Brooks Brothers slacks. She finished off the look with her new cufflinks and her gold crucifix and applied a generous spray of Annick Goutal perfume. The laundry bag sat on the bed. She sniffed. No urine smell. She packed it into her carry-on.
The same woman who had rented her the car that morning was at the booth when Ava took it back. She took the keys, noted the mileage, and passed Ava her credit card slip to sign, all without saying a word.
The flight from Aalborg was supposed to take just less than an hour, but it left late and she had to run to catch the Atlantic Airways flight in Copenhagen. That flight was scheduled to last two and a half hours, and because the fare difference between business class and economy was so large, Ava had booked economy. About ten minutes after takeoff she realized she had made a mistake. For the next two hours the liquor trolley made steady trips up and down the aisle. Passengers were buying doubles of everything. Ava had never seen anything like it.
“This is their last chance,” the man in the seat next to her said. “The islands are dry. Liquor can’t be bought anywhere there, not even in hotels. And Customs is very strict about people bringing in alcohol. So this is their last chance to load up.”
“Thank God it isn’t a longer flight,” Ava said.
“Oh, it could be.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Vagar Airport gets a lot of mist and quite often the plane can’t land. They usually divert us to Reykjavik.”
“Iceland?”
“It isn’t so bad, though the people there are more depressed than ever since the country went bankrupt.”
“How are the Faeroe Islands?”
“People there are always depressed, or maybe I should say morose, regardless of what’s going on. It’s definitely a place where the glass is permanently half empty.”
“You are Faeroese?”
“No,” he said, extending a hand. “My name is Lars. I work for the Danish government. We still heavily subsidize the islands, and I fly there every month or so to make sure the money is being spent as it should be.”
“I’m Ava.”
“What on earth is taking you there?”
“A painter, an artist.”
“In the past you would see the occasional Japanese person there; they came to buy fish. There isn’t much fish left, so no more Japanese. You will be an exotic sight. You can expect to be stared at.”
“I’m Chinese, not Japanese.”
“Still, a very unusual sight in the Faeroes. The population is about ninety-four percent Faeroese — old Viking — and the rest a mixture of Danes, Norwegians, and Icelanders. There are only about forty thousand people. They’re outnumbered by sheep more than two to one.”
“I don’t have a hotel yet. Will that be a problem?”
“It shouldn’t be. Torshavn has lots of them, and at this time of year there aren’t many tourists.”
“The artist lives in a village near there, Tjorn.”
“I know the place. Quite picturesque. The Russian trawlers use it as a base. There’s a hotel there, actually, sort of a fisherman’s hotel. It’s not bad.”
“How about the weather? I didn’t bring a jacket — none that I can wear anyway.”
“It will be cool and most probably wet. It rains about 260 days a year. You can buy a locally handmade sweater at the airport; that should do you.”
“No snow?”
“Surprisingly, very rarely. The North Atlantic Current flows right around the Faeroes and gives it moderate temperatures. Nothing warm, mind you, but you know, ten degrees in the summer, two degrees in the winter, that type of thing.”
It was pitch black outside as they banked and started their descent into Vagar Airport. When Ava finally saw lights, they shone through a window that was streaked with rain.
For an airport so small there was a large contingent of customs officers standing behind a long wooden table. She soon saw why. They went through nearly every carry-on bag and patted down many of the passengers. Bottles of alcohol of all sizes began to cover the table. By the time she got to an officer there was enough to start a small liquor store.
Behind her was a row of wheelchairs occupied solely by men who looked too drunk to walk. As the chair behind her rolled, she could hear the clinking of bottles.
Lars walked with her into the terminal. He pointed out the sweater shop and a tourist information booth. “It’s about a one-hour ride by car into Torshavn since they built the tunnel under the sea from Vagar to Streymoy. Before that it was a couple of hours by ferry. We can share a cab if you want,” he said.
“Let me get my hotel sorted first. Would you mind waiting?”
The woman at the booth seemed startled when Ava approached her, and even more so when Ava asked about the hotel in Tjorn. “Are you sure you want to stay there?” she asked.
“Is it clean?”
“Of course.”
“Are there rooms available?”
“I’ll call,” the woman said.
The conversation was entirely in what Ava assumed was Faeroese. When it was done, the woman gave her a little smile and said, “Yes, there is a room, and it’s one with a bathroom.”
“I’ll take it.”
“They’re holding it.”
“They don’t even have my name.”
“They don’t need it. I told them who you are.”
“But you don’t — ” Ava began, before realizing what the woman meant. “Thank you.”
She went back to Lars. “I’m staying in Tjorn.”
“Then you should catch your own taxi. It will cost you about 180 krona.”
“What is that in U.S. dollars?”
“About forty, but most of the drivers won’t take U.S. dollars. There’s a bank machine over there if you need it.”
“Thanks for all the help.”
“If you’re in Torshavn for dinner or something, give me a call. I’m staying at the Town House Hotel and I’m always glad to have company.”
She waved goodbye and wandered over to the gift shop. When Lars mentioned sweaters, she had imagined bulky knits in greys, blacks, and browns. But in the far corner she saw an explosion of colour and the name steinum above a rack that held some of the most exquisite knitwear Ava had ever seen. The sweaters were a riot of blues, reds, and yellows, with strange geometric shapes running around the edges. They were like pieces of art, no two the same. She checked the label: handknit, faeroe islands.
She had a hard time deciding which one to buy, so she bought two.
“These are beautiful,” she said to the cashier.
“Johanna av Steinum — she is Faeroese.”
Ava pulled on the most colourful one, the fit tight, slimming. I’m like a Fauvist painting come alive, she thought.
(16)
The hotel was a long, low building of only two storeys that sat at the base of a mountain, looking out directly onto the harbour. Tjorn was small. The main street, or what Ava assumed was the main street, ran for only about two hundred metres, separating the harbour from the town. The majority of the residents seemed to live above the harbour, their house lights beaming from the mountain side. She saw a number of fishing boats tied up at the wharf, and at least one of them was Russian, judging by its Cyrillic name.
She was met at
the hotel door by a woman in denim shirt and jeans who looked like a slightly older version of Mimi. “I have been waiting for you. My name is Nina,” the woman said in English.
“I’m Ava.”
She led Ava to the lobby desk. She passed her a registry form and a key attached to a wooden stick. “I held the room with the bathroom for you.”
“ The room?”
“Yes, only one room has its own bathroom; the others share. The Russians landed half an hour ago and the captain wanted your room, but I held it for you.”
“Thank you,” Ava said. She was beginning to think that Torshavn might have been the better option. “Will my cellphone work here?”
“If you have Bluetooth it should.”
“How about the Internet?”
“Not from your room, but you can always use my desktop if you need it.”
“How about food?”
“The restaurant is still open. We serve for another hour.”
Ava filled in the form and gave the woman her passport and credit card. “What kind of food do you have?” she asked.
“Sheep,” the woman said.
“Lamb?”
“No, sheep.”
“That’s all you have?”
“We have run out of everything else.”
Ava had eaten on the plane, not much, but enough to keep her going until morning. “I’m not really hungry, thank you anyway.”
“If you do not mind me asking, what brings you here? We don’t get many visitors who are not fishermen. We certainly do not get attractive young women, and Asian at that,” the woman said with a quick smile.
Is she flirting with me? Ava thought. “I’m here to see an artist.”
“Jan Sorensen?”
“Why, yes.”
“That was an easy guess. He is the only artist we have,” the woman said. “Does he know you are coming?”
“No.”
The woman looked pained.
“Is that a problem?”
“He is a funny kind of man. Keeps to himself, doesn’t mingle, doesn’t even hardly talk. Some of us think it is because he is a Dane and thinks he is too good for us. Others think he is just a bit mad.”
“What do you think?”
“I lean towards mad.”
“He’s married, right?”
“Helga, a down-to-earth Faeroese girl. They have seven kids. She runs the house, runs the kids, and runs him, I think.”
“Where do they live?”
She jerked her head to the right. “Up the hill, on the street that runs along the right side of the hotel.”
“Does it have a number?”
“It has a purple door.”
Ava checked her watch; it was almost ten o’clock.
“They will still be up, if that is what you are thinking. People here eat late and sleep late.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Her room was on the main floor, just three doors away from the lobby. She unpacked her carry-on, shoving the laundry bag into the closet. She thought about having her clothes washed but didn’t think she’d be in Tjorn long enough to get them back in time.
She walked back into the lobby and peered into the restaurant. There were three clusters of men eating what she assumed was sheep and drinking from bottles of what looked like vodka. She imagined they had brought the liquor from the boat. They looked at her with more interest than she liked, and she quickly backed away from the door and headed outside.
It was still drizzling, enough to dampen her hair but not enough to make her really wet. What the hell, she thought, and started up the street.
Sorensen’s house was the fourth on the left. It was a two-storey brick structure, square, solid, with a window on either side of the purple door and three windows in a row above it. The downstairs windows were lit, the occupants shielded by the same type of lace curtains she had seen in Denmark.
The door had a large brass knocker. Ava swung it three times and then waited. The door opened a crack. A pair of bright blue eyes stared at her. A woman’s eyes.
“Hello, my name is Ava Lee. I apologize for dropping in on you like this, but I’m here to speak to Mr. Sorensen about his work. I was given this address by his brother, Ronny, who said it would be all right for me to come.”
The door opened enough for Ava to see who was behind it. This had to be Helga. About five feet tall and almost as broad. She was wearing a floral-patterned muumuu over bare legs and feet that were in sheepskin slippers. Her face was framed by a mass of frizzy light brown hair and her skin was pale and fleshy, with deep wrinkles etched at the corners of eyes that were alert, watchful. “We weren’t expecting anyone.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I would have written but I didn’t have that much time, and I didn’t know how else to contact you.”
“What do you want?”
“As I said, I want to chat with Mr. Sorensen about his work, perhaps buy some pieces. I have a client who has several of his paintings and he’s expressed an interest in buying more.”
“What work?”
“The beach scenes.”
“He doesn’t do those anymore.”
“Then maybe I could see what he has been working on.”
Helga turned her head to look back into the house but didn’t speak.
“We’d pay cash,” Ava said.
“Come in,” Helga said.
From the entrance Ava could see a dining room on the left, its long, empty table surrounded by twelve chairs, the walls covered in paintings. On the right was the living room, which had a wood-slat couch, two chairs, and a coffee table that was as bare as the one in the dining room. Everything was in perfect order, made all the more perfect by the aroma of fresh baking.
“Jan is upstairs; I’ll get him. You can sit there and wait,” she said, motioning to the living room.
More paintings hung there, most of them of the Tjorn harbour and all of which featured a bald man and a woman with bright red nipples. When Jan Sorensen walked into the room, she knew who the bald man was, and she imagined that Helga must have remarkable nipples.
He was only about five foot six and he was fat and soft, not a man used to manual labour or physical exertion of any kind. His eyes were as blue as Helga’s, his skin as fair, and the same lines were etched beside his eyes. They could have been twins if she were taller.
“There was a dealer here from Copenhagen about six months ago. He tried to steal my paintings for next to nothing. Are you with him?” he said aggressively.
Ava stood and offered her hand. “My name is Ava Lee, and I have nothing to do with a dealer in Copenhagen.”
“Then who do you work for?”
So much for easing into this, she thought. “I work for a Chinese collector.”
Sorensen looked baffled. “Chinese? I’ve never sold to any Chinese.”
“They were purchased indirectly.”
He looked at his wife. “I told you that agent was screwing us over.”
“Can I sit?” Ava asked.
“Please,” Helga said. “Can I get you anything? I just baked some muffins, and we have coffee and tea.”
“Coffee would be fine.”
“We only have instant.”
“Perfect,” Ava said.
She sat on one of the chairs and Sorensen sat on the couch facing her. He looked as if he wanted to ask her something, and she prepared herself. But he held back until his wife came back, with one cup of coffee. That’s interesting, Ava thought.
“What paintings did your client buy?” he asked as the cup was placed on the table in front of Ava.
“Some Skagen beach scenes,” she said.
“How much did he pay?”
“It varied.”
“How much?”
Ava couldn’t see how to avoid giving him a number. “On average, about five thousand,” she said.
“Kroner?”
“U.S. dollars.”
“That fucker!” he yelled, leaping to his feet.<
br />
Helga tugged at his arm, and for a second Ava was reminded of May Ling Wong trying to calm her husband. There was a strange kind of symmetry.
“He has never paid me more than five thousand kroner — that’s about a thousand dollars!” he said to his wife.
“I know, Jan, I know. Now sit down; you don’t want to scare this young woman.”
He collapsed onto the couch.
Ava looked at the paintings on the wall. How was she going to get from them to Fauvist art? Her decision to walk up the hill had been taken too lightly, she now thought. She normally liked to prepare for meetings, imagining different scenarios and how they would play out. This was all too ad hoc. And now she was stuck.
“Can I speak frankly?” she said, talking to Helga more than her husband.
“Of course,” the woman said.
“I’m going to buy some of Mr. Sorensen’s paintings — the ones hanging here on the wall, if you’ll sell them to me — but they aren’t the real reason I came to see you.”
They both looked at her, faces blank.
“What I really want to know is if Mr. Sorensen has ever dabbled in Fauvist art?”
She had seen photos of cattle getting hit between the eyes with a stun gun. Their reaction wasn’t any different.
Jan slumped back on the couch, his anger replaced by something else. Resignation? Fear? His wife gathered herself more quickly, a determined look settling across her face. “We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Helga said.
“I didn’t come here to cause any harm to you, your husband, or your family,” Ava said quickly. “I’m not the police and I don’t work for any legal authority. I’m just trying to help a client solve a riddle.”
“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” she repeated.
“About five years ago, someone sent a money transfer to your husband for twenty thousand dollars. I believe that money was payment for producing paintings in the style of various Fauvist artists, which were sold as genuine works for considerable amounts of money. Now, I don’t know if the money you received was a down payment or if there were additional payments, but I do know for certain that the payment was made. I have the bank records.”