The Elder Man

by Katherine Wyvern

  “Yeah,” said Armin, deciding that he would throw himself on his sword once and for all and be done with it. “I had a lot of trouble getting it published, too. Nobody wanted it. Was rejected by about twenty different magazines and newspapers before someone took it. But I persisted. I did go to a lot of trouble to ruin my career.”

  “Well,” said Van equably. “Go big or go home, right?”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “So what’s the big conspiracy? I am curious now.”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “You bet. You can’t let me hanging now. I’m dying to hear it.”

  “Mmm” said Armin, still suspicious. But then he thought, Go big or go home, right? He gave a dry desperate bark of a laugh and took a deep breath in.

  “Well, it’s like this. So. I don’t know if you heard, but about a year ago, they announced the discovery of a huge, huge impact crater under the Greenland ice.”

  “Uh-huh?” said Van.

  “Yeah. But the thing is, somebody knew about that crater long before the official announcement. Listen to me.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “In the early sixties, the Americans began a secret operation called Project Iceworm. It was to be a system of tunnels, thousands of kilometers long, used to deploy up to six hundred nuclear missiles that would be able to reach the Soviet Union in case of nuclear war. This remained very hush-hush until 1997. The missiles’ location would be under the cover of Greenland's ice sheet. That was the theory. But they didn’t know if they could make it work under the ice, so they began a highly publicized project, known as Camp Century, to experiment with ice tunneling. It was launched a couple hundred kilometers from the American Thule Air Base in 1960. And ta-dah, guess what? It didn’t work. Unsteady conditions within the ice sheet caused the project to be cancelled in 1966. Interesting bit, though. The official goal was to dig thousands of kilometers of tunnels. But, say, to get to that crater, they only would have needed to tunnel about three hundred.”

  “So, what are you suggesting?” asked Van, who was frowning with concentration.

  “I am suggesting that they knew the crater was there and that there was something in that crater that they thought was of enormous importance. And they set up a huge operation to cover up their movements as they got there. And as soon as they got there, they shut everything down and cancelled the cover project.”

  “Mh,” said Van. “Something like what?”

  Armin hesitated. This was the bit that had gotten him in a load of trouble. “Something like, say a gateway, a door, an entrance? There’s all manner of strange phenomena reported from the old days. Oh, you can go crazy with theories, the hollow earthers are all over it. But Fridtjof Nansen, the polar explorer, not a crazy New Age nutter, you know, reported some really strange things. Lights and warm north winds in winter, you name it. It’s all in his books.”

  “A gateway? In Greenland?” said Van thoughtfully.

  “Yeah. Well, that’s my idea, at least.”

  “And the Americans tunneled into it? That’s just like them. Americans rush in where angels fear to tread. I almost had a stroke when I learned they landed on the moon. If that wasn’t a crazy stunt I don’t know what is. I don’t mind a little playful blasphemy, but that’s just reckless. I never met a moon goddess that didn’t have a perfectly vicious temper on her. I would not mess with any of them for the world.”

  Armin squinted at Van, trying to figure out if he was joking. He had never known anyone that could deliver stuff like that with such a deadpan face.

  He was stiff with tension all over, telling all this to Van, and he didn’t know if Van was taking him seriously or not.

  But at least he was listening. He wasn’t laughing at him. Or calling him crazy. At least not yet.

  “Well, anyway, did they get into this gate of yours, you think?”

  “I don’t know. But a lot, I mean a lot, tons, of radioactive stuff was moved away from Greenland to the US after a B-52 carrying four thermonuclear bombs crashed less than ten miles from Thule Air Base. In 1968. A, shall I say, convenient accident, if they wanted to get sensitive artifacts out of Greenland with the blessing of the Danes, no? I mean, come on, what are the chances that the damn thing would crash there, of all places? Only one year after Camp Century was shut down? The Danish government positively requested them to remove all contaminated material. Officially it was all shipped to South Carolina in sealed boxes and tanks.”

  “Mh,” said Van, rubbing his chin, which made the sound of a hard brush. “Fascinating.”

  “It is, isn’t it? And there’s… all manner of weird shit going on around there, you know? Like, take sharks, for example.”

  “Sharks?” asked Van, taken aback, as if he’d never heard the word before.

  “Yeah, sharks. You know, sharks, big damn fierce fish with jaws and teeth?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what a shark is. Don’t know anything about them though. I only do land animals. Birds, too, but only if they are sort of … low-slung, like domestic ducks. What about these sharks, then?”

  “Well, the Greenland shark can live extremely long, longer in fact than any other vertebrate is known to do, and by a large margin. Scientists are very interested in this phenomenon, and you can be sure the same is true for transhumanists. Why? I mean, why? Why there, of all places? One scenario could be that whatever is at the bottom of that impact crater has been leaking something into the sea, prolonging the lifespan of the Greenland shark. It could be natural—like minerals or some primitive extra-terrestrial life forms. Or it could be artificial, say ET-nanobots or some kind of electromagnetic field...”

  “Uh,” said Van. “ET-Nanobots?” He scrunched up his forehead like a man with a terrible migraine. “Well… But why just sharks, then? Why not, say, the Eskimos or penguins or polar bears?”

  Armin was stumped. Then he frowned. “There’s no penguins in Greenland.”

  “Oh? Is that the South Pole then?”

  “Yeah, that’d be the South Pole.”

  “Uh. Still.”

  “Listen, man, I don’t know why. Maybe sharks are special.”

  “Oh, they are. Do you know that they never pee? Or maybe they pee through their skin. Or they recycle pee in some way. I am not sure which, honestly. But it’s got something to do with pee.”

  Armin opened his mouth to reply and then shook his head. “You are so full of shit, man,” he said and laughed. “I don’t even know—just shut up, will you? You know nothing about sharks, you said so yourself. And you are obsessed with pee. You aren’t into golden showers and shit like that, are you?”

  Van held up his hands in a pacifying gesture. “Fair enough. You are right. I shut up. Please go on. No golden showers, I promise. Although…”

  Armin glared at him though narrowed eyes.

  Van hung his head and shut up.

  “Well, I don’t know, but maybe there is actually some kind of entrance to another world or realm or dimension, not like, necessarily, the hollow earth. But something. I don’t know if it is your Underworld or Otherworld. Perhaps it is more like a wormhole or stargate that only works under specific circumstances? There would be myths and rumors that people disappeared or saw other lands, but when somebody comes to look for it, it’s all gone. Could be, the kraken is real for all I know and has come through some kind of portal at times. Strayed onto this side. And I keep thinking, what if the impact crater was caused by something aimed exactly to destroy such a portal?”

  “Ah, that would be your typical sky god. From Zeus to Thor to Indra to Latobius and Perun, there’s not one of them that’s any better than the others. Ah, they’d go, look, a gateway! Where does it go? What does it do? I don’t understand how it works, therefore, I don’t like it. And, kaboom, lightning strike from above, lay the whole place waste, kill everyone, let Hades sort them out, end of the story. Fucking assholes. Never could stand them. Arrogant domineering bastards, the lot of them.”

&
nbsp; “Look, I am being serious here, okay?”

  “Yeah, sorry,” said Van, looking guilty. “I didn’t mean to make fun, honest to God.” He held up his right palm again.

  “So?” asked Armin.

  “So what?” asked Van.

  “Do you think I am crazy? Everybody does. My mother and aunt said that I need help. That’s why they sent me here, basically.”

  Van laughed at that. “Well, that may not pan out the way they planned it. No, I don’t think you are especially crazy. I don’t know about these ET-nanobots, to be honest. But a gateway? Fascinating. And in Greenland, of all places. It would make sense actually. You made me curious to go and give a look to this thing.”

  “Er… it’s all covered with ice, you know? That’s kinda the point.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it. Still, with the ice caps melting at this rate,” said Van ironically, “give it a few years, and it will most likely all come up and out. Then you can tell them all, I told you so.” He shot Armin an affectionate smile.

  “You really think it is possible?”

  “Me? I sure do. All kinds of crazy shit are possible. You wouldn’t believe the half of it. Anyway. Greenland. I’ll keep that in mind. As I said. Never been there. Scandinavia, yes. There was a chick there when I was really young. Hel. We had some interests in common, you could say, but ultimately we didn’t really click. Weird family too. Her father … or maybe it was her mother, oh, I don’t remember. And her brothers, ew, as I said, weird family. Anyway. I’ll look into this gateway of yours. You intrigue me.”

  “I can send you a copy of my article with all the dates, numbers, maps, and things,” said Armin cautiously, wondering if he was pushing his luck. “It’s got solar eclipses in it, too, and Nazi occultism and stuff.”

  “Sounds like a treat,” said Van, grinning.

  “I’ll send it then. If you are really interested. If you think you can open an email.”

  “Sure thing. Do it.”

  Armin let out a long throbbing, liberating sigh. Was it possible that Van would not laugh him out of his life for this, like everybody else had done? He looked at the older man with a mixture of wonder, disbelief, adoration. Then he frowned.

  “A chick you say? A Scandinavian chick?”

  “Eh? Oh yes. Haven’t heard from her in ages though.”

  “So you are not, like, er, strictly gay.”

  “Nope. More like … open-minded.”

  “Uh.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “No, I just wondered is all. I am very happy that you are open-minded. And lucky too, I guess.”

  Van smiled at him and was going to say something, but a crash of heavy feet came down the path right then. It was P’tit Paul with the morning’s fresh croissants and bread and milk and all the breakfast things in a big wheelbarrow.

  “Hola, les mecs! Salut!” he hollered, skidding down the last bend of the path.

  The day had started, and that quiet conspiratorial interlude was over. It already seemed almost like a dream, a time out of time in a different world.

  That afternoon they completed more arches on the north side of the building and laid a heavy wooden lintel over the doorway. This was constituted by three huge chestnut logs cut to size and shaped, which had to be lifted up by main force. Van, Armin, and Frederic did it, all three together, although Armin had half a suspicion that Van could easily have lifted one of them on his own. Even so, Armin felt an oddly proprietorial pride as he gazed at the completed doorway.

  “Wow,” he said. “If someone had told me a month ago that I would be building a mud house today, I’d have laughed until I died. I didn’t think anyone could teach me this. I am like the biggest klutz on earth.”

  “Of course you can build a mud house. You all can. I didn’t teach you anything. I just let you learn. Learn again. You already knew everything you needed to know.”

  Monica gave him a thoughtful look. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Exactly what I said.”

  “Well, er,” said Armin, “that sounds like…”

  “A load of mystical bullshit?” asked Van, grinning.

  “Well, er, I don’t mean to offend, dude, but basically, well, yes.” Armin glanced at Van wondering if he would bristle at that, but he just smiled on, totally unruffled. Armin wondered if it was at all possible to piss him off. He was the calmest, most easygoing person he had ever met. But he had a suspicion that that there was also something terrifyingly strong under that calm.

  “You know how to build a mud house,” Van said, distracting Armin from his reverie. “It’s in your genes. Like a beaver knows how to make a dam of sticks, and a badger knows how to dig a burrow, and a wren how to make a nest of moss. Every human civilization on earth built with mud at one point or other. Why do you think children make mud pies?”

  Because they are disgusting little blighters, Armin wanted to say, but he didn’t.

  “Because it’s fun!” piped up Maja. “Filthy fun!”

  Van nodded approvingly, then looked at his other pupils with those deep brown eyes. “You live in a wonderfully advanced world where everyone tells you are not qualified to build a house. You come to regard the mere idea with fear. Fear of the codes, fear of what the neighbors will say. Fear that you may not do well enough, not be able to build the things you see in magazines and movies, Pinterest and the fancy TV programs. Yet the most illiterate, uncultured, uneducated villager in the most primitive stretches of the Third World can build beautiful, durable, energy-efficient clay structures without a second thought. How is that?”

  “I don’t know,” said Armin. Most of the others shook their head, and Frederic and Mark opened their mouths to reply, but Van cut them off.

  “I do. Let go of this image you have of yourselves as civilized and educated humans. Think of yourselves as birds or badgers or beavers. Let yourselves remember that you have always been part of a natural process. Remember that, and you can do anything.”

  Later, while they took a little pause in the heat, sitting in the shade of the summer kitchen, sipping cool drinks fished out from the bottom of the pond, Armin realized for the first time that he didn’t know what exactly they were building. He imagined it was something that had been discussed on Monday, while he was trundling down from Normandy by train.

  “It’s going to be the new open-air kitchen,” said Van, when he asked. “A massive solid wall to the south and open arches to the north for light. With wide doors east and west for ventilation and ease of access. And a grass roof on top, eventually. Most passive solar buildings are designed to trap the sun’s warmth to minimize heating costs. But we’re going to use this kitchen in summer here, and summers grow hotter and hotter. So this is designed to keep the heat of the sun out. I worry for P’tit Paul, you know. It’s an experiment. But I think it will work.”

  “So this will be a real building, not a… well, a temporary workshop thing?”

  “Of course it’s a real building. You must give your pupils credit that they can make something worthwhile with what you teach them. You’d be a piss-poor teacher otherwise,” said Van.

  “And what will happen to this kitchen?” he asked.

  “I am not sure yet. I might repurpose it somehow or just demolish it.”

  “Demolish it?” said Maja horrified. “But … but… the dragons!”

  It did seem a terrible pity indeed. Although it was not as heavily ornamented as Van’s house, the kitchen had some beautiful sculptures over doors and windows, and the bread oven was a glorious thing, sculpted in the shape of a dragon coiled over a mound, maybe a treasure barrow of sorts. The long, long tail spiraled up along the chimney and disappeared through the roof. The open jaws of the dragon would be full of flame when the oven was lit.

  “You can’t demolish this! You just can’t!” agreed Sofia.

  “I tell you what, I’ll take this dragon apart and use the same clay. That way it will still be the same dragon, right? Just a little different
.”

  “Can you do that?” asked Mark, surprised.

  “Oh dear, yes, of course you can. Cob is not geologically dead, like concrete. You can break it up, soak it, and start again, as good as new. Half of the clay we used for the south wall of the new kitchen comes from an old building I knocked down last year. Hell, you can leave cob out in the rain and sow seeds in it, and they will flourish. Cob is made of the stuff of life, and it can never die. It is just transmuted and renewed. Always the same, always a little different.”

  “That is very spiritual thinking for a builder,” said Rebekka, smiling.

  “Of course it is. And why should builders not think spiritually? Why should not cooks and gardeners, and indeed”—he nodded to Ella—“romance writers think spiritually? Our homes, our food, love, sex, desire, they are the foundations and the cornerstones of our lives. Far more essential and universal than any religion. Why do we think of these things as merely material, unworthy of our finest thoughts? Why should we not cook meals that uplift our spirit as well as filling our stomach? Why should we not write about sex and lovemaking lyrically and profoundly? Hell, why do people constantly assume that sex is not lyrical and profound?”

  “Van,” said Allie in a shocked stage whisper.

  “What?”

  Allie nodded meaningfully toward the young Danish girls.

  “So what?” said Van. “Am I being vulgar? Am I embarrassing someone? I thought that this century had finally spawned emancipated, open-minded, and liberated women!”

  Allie sank her face in her hands, giggling and shaking her head at the same time. “But—children,” she gasped between giggles.

  Van shushed her with a wave of his hand, but he did change tack, to her obvious relief. Armin was part sorry, part amused. They may not be together, but that poor man sure is on a short leash.

  “Why should we not build soulful homes?” he said. “Houses that are an extension and an expression of our individual and unique consciousness? Why should we go on and on building modular, interchangeable, glorified boxes, just to shelter a mass of useless, meaningless, and polluting belongings? Why should not we weave our houses with and into the earth’s life and our own life?”