‘Must be depressing for him.’
‘Say that again. He’s worried it could be the same in Karasjok as here. Our one and only hope is this yoik artist. If he won’t play, we really are washed up.’
‘A lot of money down the drain. Mostly Uncle Sam’s money, isn’t it?’
Stenberg glanced sideways. ‘Tell you in London, did they?’
‘I was told there was some governmental support. The Pentagon and/or NATO interested in whatever the professor’s researches turn up?’
‘Yeah, that’s — about it… And you see, the Norwegians were treating it very low-key. Nothing they couldn’t handle domestically, etcetera. The Tromsø bomb changed their minds to the extent they decided to send an observer along — picking her, one might guess, because nobody would ever believe someone who looks like she does could be any kind of spook.’
‘Sophie — a spook?’
‘Nah…’ Stenbetg grinned at the ceiling. ‘Any kind of official, say. They have this sensitivity over their relationships with the Sami people, the last thing they’d want is to be accused of — you now, spying on them? No Oslo official would be likely to get much change out of ’em anyway. Hence the hopes that have been placed in us — in Carl, I should say — with Sophie’s little ears tuned in, and naturally very welcome… But the crazy thing is Washington not catching on, like Carl and me, to this thing about Samis not reading, hence not taking Carl as persona grata. They had him figured for about the one guy who’d be certain of a welcome, and with ideal cover.
‘Was it the Pentagon’s idea that you should come with him?’
‘Me?’ Another sideways glance, but sharper. ‘Christ, the Pentagon never heard of me!’
A thought hit him at that moment. He muttered, turning to the door, ‘I’ll let Sophie know we’re pulling out. She’ll want to pack.
‘Hell, yes, I should’ve thought of that.’ Stenberg was on his back, eyes shut. ‘Give her a call, why don’t you?’
A call — telephone — as opposed to a tap on her door…
He’d stopped on his way across the room. Caution reasserting itself as he heard again the tone of finality in that ‘Good night, Ollie’… Looking round at the telephone, which was between the two beds, and admitting to himself that caution hadn’t exactly reigned supreme, that if she hadn’t turned him off like that he most likely wouldn’t have been here now.
He turned, moved towards the telephone. ‘Hope she’s not in dreamland yet.’
4
Karasjok had its river too. Approaching from the west, as they drove into the municipality they could see its broad surface of snow on ice looping away to the right and, at a distance, squeezing itself under a modern suspension bridge.
‘Take the left fork, Ollie.’
‘Aye aye.’
Trying to sound cheerful to offset Carl Sutherland’s gloom. The professor had hardly spoken all the way from Kautokeino, except to repeat a few times that he was sure Isak would cooperate with him. It was obvious to the others that he was far from certain, whistling in the dark.
The turisthotell was long, low and timber-built, with an extra roofing now of snow. Ollie turned the VW into the parking area and backed up close to the hotel’s front door, where a wall of scraped-up snow stood shoulder-high. Switching off the motor, he glanced back at the professor. ‘Carl, I wish you all the luck you didn’t have in Kauto.’
‘Thanks, Ollie. I wish myself the same. Otherwise we’re through.’
Inside, the architecture was impressive, a dramatic design in heavy timber. There were four rooms reserved for them too, which made for another good impression, and although it was now early afternoon lunch was still being served. Sutherland told them, ‘I’ll pass, on that. You three go ahead. I’m just a little anxious to sort this out with Isak.’ He added, ‘If he’s here, even.’
‘Sure you don’t want me along?’
‘Thanks, Gus, but this better be solo. If you don’t mind.’
‘Well, you know the guy.’
‘Right.’ He explained, on the way to their rooms, ‘No offence, Gus, I’m not suggesting you’d blow it, only that I believe chances are better if I keep it on a quiet, strictly personal level. I don’t want to stampede him, and the personal relationship I have with him is about the only thing we have going for us now. OK?’
Sophie said when they were lunching — it was buffet-style, and better than any meal they’d had up to this point — ‘He may be disappointed, you know. If the feeling here is like it was in Kautokeino, Isak is the last person who’d want to make himself unpopular with his Sami friends and admirers.’
‘Wouldn’t want to be seen fraternising, you mean.’
‘That’s what I would expect. He’s not a strong character, he’s — well, in my opinion he’s a poseur, a nothing.’
They were leaving a lot of gear locked in the van. Arctic clothing, skis, etcetera. It seemed pointless to unload it all when it was as likely as not that Sutherland would come back in deep depression and abort the whole thing.
Ollie said, ‘I suppose we’d drive back up to Alta.’
The VW would have to be returned to the garage where they’d hired it, and the shotgun sold back to sports shop. In any case the only way out of Karasjok was by road; the airfield here, as at Kautokeino, was only military.
‘Stroll around the metropolis, anyone? Sophie, show us the sights?’
‘If you like.’ She glanced at Stenberg. ‘You like?’
Gus feigned astonishment. ‘Including me in this?’
Sophie shook her head. ‘Dum…’
*
Carl had expected Isak to be at his snow-scooter place, but he’d found it empty and locked up. Not abandoned, there were several Yamahas on display in the showroom, but that glass entrance and also the doors from the yard into the workshop were locked. So he had an even longer walk then to Isak’s house, which was on the southeastern edge of town, near the Sami high school. He was fearful that he might draw a blank there too, that the yoik artist might be away on literary, yoiking or snow-scooter business. Oslo, Tromsø, any place… It was a twenty-minute plod to the house and he was sweating inside his thermal underwear by the time he walked up the path to the front door. Scrubby birch, and long, snow-decorated grass; at one side the wreck of an old snow-scooter buried under snow looked like some futuristic sculpture.
The curtain had moved, in the front window. It was one of those peculiarly Finnmark curtains, a surrounding frieze as if they’d stuck material over the window and then cut a square out of the centre, not very evenly… The door was now opening, though. It was a girl, a rather pretty Sami kid, he guessed about sixteen: she’d opened the door just far enough for her small, heart-shaped face to be framed in the gap. Dark eyes examining him. He said in slow Lappish — wondering if maybe she wasn’t a pure-blood Sami as he’d first thought: ‘I am Professor Sutherland, from the United States. I’m looking for my friend Isak. I wrote him a letter saying I was coming.’
She’d let the door open wider now. She had to be more than sixteen, he thought. She raised one hand, thumb projecting: ‘At the works. Where he sells scooters. Know where?’
‘Where I just came from.’ He smiled. ‘All locked up.’
‘Oh.’ Returning his smile, and becoming prettier still: ‘Sorry. I just remembered. They’re at the river, speed-testing, he had a customer to meet there.’
‘You say on the river?’
‘They have speed trials on the ice. You’ll find him on the bridge.’
‘Oh, that bridge, sure…’ Carl nodded, while the layout of Karasjok’s streets and the river’s course returned to memory. He’d got it, knew which way to go. ‘Thanks. Thank you very much.’ He switched into Norwegian, which came more easily. ‘Just in case I miss him, would you tell him I’m hoping to see him as soon as possible? I’m at the turisthotell — Carl Sutherland — would you give him that message, please?’
She nodded. Smile still there, warm eyes on his. Maybe she lik
ed older men, he thought. Then: Down, boy…
He wondered who she was. Isak cradle-snatching? Carl wished he was twenty years younger. Or ten, even… It was another long trudge now, back the whole distance that he‘d come, right up to the road junction and then left, that long straight road to the corner where the shoe-shop was, and left past the new church. Should have taken a taxi in the first place… Anxiety over the outcome of this crucial meeting with Isak was now mixed with a certain prurient interest in that Sami kid. There really had been a good strong hint of a come-on, in all that smiling warmth, he thought. But Jesus, wouldn’t that have been a sure-fire way of blowing any chances he might have with Isak?
You’d have to be crazy…
He was plodding south towards the suspension bridge, still a couple of hundred yards to go, when he heard the racket of a snow-scooter screaming down the river at full throttle. He‘d been hearing it off and on for some minutes past, he realised, without noticing. Thinking about Isak’s little piece of home comfort, of course. But now he could see two figures on the bridge — one short and thick, identifiable as Isak, the other a much bigger man. They were out in the middle, leaning over to look down as the scooter or another one flashed past below them, doing about a hundred and fifty, Carl guessed, judging by that explosion of engine-power. He waited until is ears had stopped ringing, then shouted Isak‘s name through cupped, gloved hands.
No use. Too far, and a car was rumbling across the bridge. And more scooter noise, maybe the first one coming back. Isak was facing this way for a moment: Carl shouted, waving, and this time caught his attention. The big man swung round too. He was dressed roughly, more or less like a Sami herdsman — except no Sami was ever that size… He and Isak faced each Other, talking: then he was striding away towards the southern bank, the old wooden church beyond him in the distant, snowy background.
Isak came to meet him. Short, with a clipping, ape-like walk … His greeting was warm enough — limp handshake, as always — but his small, dark eyes were shifty. It didn’t bode well, and made Sutherland nervous, because if this guy wouldn’t help, nobody would… He began in Lappish, ‘Delighted to see you! And thank you so much for the kind things you said about my book…’ He switched to Norwegian. ‘You got my letter, Isak, I hope. And you can spare me a little of your time?’ He pointed back the way he’d come. ‘I was at your house, and before that at the snøscootere—’
‘So it was Inga who told you where I’d be.’
‘A young girl, sure.’
‘My niece. A little beauty, isn’t she?’
‘She is — most attractive.’ He didn’t know whether to believe the ‘niece’ bit; Isak’s smile could have been an expression of avuncular pride or it could have been a leer. Carl asked him urgently, ‘Can we get together, do some talking as we did before? My aim is to update that book of mine. They want to reprint, mainly for academic purposes, and since nothing is static—’
‘Your book does a service to my people, in bringing our situation to world attention.’
‘That was my primary aim, in writing it.’ They were walking north, back the way Sutherland had come. ‘But the scene here has changed, is changing, right? One hears of attitudes hardening, social polarisation, even talk of violent solutions… I need your help, Isak. Up in Alta I was talking to former acquaintances, Sami folk whom I’d met on my last trip, and none of them had the least idea of the origins or basis of this spirit of unrest. Of course they’re all deeply concerned about it, and particularly about that terrible air crash — bomb, if it was a bomb — but they were also disturbed at the official reactions to that crime, what seems to be an automatic, unreasoning assumption that the culprit is a Sami.’
‘Another has been arrested, now.’
‘So I heard. But hear this now. Yesterday I was in Kautokeino, and I found myself up against a wall of silence, even — believe me, Isak — overt hostility! What have I ever done that makes me those people’s enemy?’
‘They are — ignorant, I suppose.’ Isak gestured contemptuously. ‘Kautokeino people — well…’ He smiled, pushing that gloved hand back into a pocket of his reindeer-hide coat. His hat was also made of deerskin. ‘But — well, feelings are running high, and you’re right, it’s very bad, very unfortunate…’ He shook his head, sighing. ‘Much as I would like to help you…’
He hadn’t completed that sentence. Silent now, with his head down, eyes on his boots scuffing the hard-packed snow. Sutherland felt panic, the imminence of failure: he went on, talking fast, not wanting to allow the little man time in which to refuse to help, ‘I’d like to record your own feelings, your gut-reactions to whatever it is that’s been going so wrong. I’m not here as some kind of investigator prying into other people’s business, not would I pre-judge any of the issues. For instance I’m well aware that if there was a bomb on that aircraft it could just as likely have been a non-Sami who planted it; I know perfectly well that such an action isn‘t in the Sami character at all. All I’m asking for, Isak, is — well, for you to as it were review the present situation, how things have changed socially and/or politically since I was last here, and how any identifiable problems might be resolved. And your view of the future, where we’re likely to go from here… Isak, I hope this may not be too much to ask of you?’
He sighed. Preliminary to refusal, Sutherland thought despairingly. But then: ‘Maybe. Maybe in very general terms. But I’d need to think, to—’
‘Isak, this is absolutely wonderful! I’m deeply appreciative of your willingness to help. You’re the only person I can rely on absolutely, there’s simply no one I could turn to with such confidence… Look, tell you what — come to the hotel this evening, have a meal? Just social, a nice relaxed evening?’
Isak threw him a sideways glance. His breath jetted like steam from a kettle. He said slyly, ‘You’re a party of four, I’m told.’
*
Sutherland explained, ‘He’d checked with them here, because in my letter I wasn’t able to say exactly when I’d be arriving. They told him I’d asked for four rooms. So, I had to come up with an instant explanation for this — er — entourage.’
Gus was to be himself, no lies were needed. Ollie had been hired as a general assistant; he was an expert skier and had been on two ski-trekking expeditions in the Arctic before this. Sophie was a freelance reader and translator based in Oslo, and the Norwegian publishers had engaged her, since she spoke Lappish well, to smooth the professor’s path for him.
Ollie asked, ‘Isak’s definitely going to help you, is he?’
‘As good as said he would, yeah. Wanted time to think, though. Think out what to say or not say, I guess. That’s when I asked him to come for supper.‘ Carl looked at Sophie. ‘Let’s be nice to him, huh?’
*
The three men were on their second drinks when Isak arrived. The small bar was full, the crowd including Lapps as well as Norwegians, and there was no sign of the bad feeling that had been so plain in Kautokeino. Isak had stopped in the entrance: short-legged, wide-bodied, with lank black hair hanging over his ears and small, dark eyes shifting around, other Lapps spotting him and nudging each other — Look who’s here…
After he’d been given a glass of whisky and there’d been some exchanges in Lappish and Norwegian with the Americans, he asked Ollie, ‘You don’t speak our languages?’
‘I can say I regret I do not speak Norwegian.’ He asked Stenberg, ‘Would you apologise for me, please?’
Sophie had her dislike of their guest well hidden when she drifted in and joined them. The conversation washed over Ollie’s head but he was given translations from time to time, and at first it was all about yoik. She’d complimented him on his artistry, apparently. Isak spoke bitterly of the long span of years during which yoik had been outlawed, banned by the priests, who’d declared it to be the voice of the devil speaking through the souls of men. The priests had also destroyed the Samis’ most sacred objects of worship and of ritual significance. They’d bur
nt all the shaman drums that they’d been able to lay their hands on, for instance.
‘What’s shaman?’
‘Sacred.’ Gus added, ‘As in witchdoctor.’ He’d changed the subject: ‘I was saying, Ollie, you never see a cop, do you? I mean in the streets. Not a single one this afternoon — right? And in Kauto yesterday, did you see any? Well, I did see one politi car in Alta—’
‘Alta.’ Isak had caught that word, and broke in to say there’d been a newsflash to the effect that the Sami whom Alta police had been holding had been released without having been charged. People were saying that the politi were floundering, could only arrest one innocent citizen after another, not giving a damn so long as it was a member of the Sami race… And there was worse news now — far worse, profoundly disturbing…
Translations came in snatches, Gus and Sophie sharing the chore. At this point Isak was admitting that it was more rumour than hard news; but it was all over town although nobody could tell where it had started. Of course, the long-haul Finnish buses passed through Karasjok, coming up from the border at Karigasniemi; there’d been one through today, and its driver or passengers might have sown the seed… Small, sly eyes rested on Sophie. Sutherland frowning, fondling his ginger beard while he listened to the drone of Norwegian. Getting to the point at last, Isak told them that in southern Lappland three soldiers of the Finnish Army had been found stabbed to death on an ancient place of worship.
Sutherland asked what kind of lunatic could have done such a thing. And what for? To blacken the image of the Sami people?
Most of whatever Ollie missed during the course of the dinner-party was covered in a post-mortem review later, after Isak had shambled away into the snow. His answer to that question had been ‘All one can say is there are dark forces at work — powerful, secret forces…’ He’d muttered this, an added, ‘But it’s no time or place to speak of such things. Tomorrow, professor, we might meet alone and talk?’ Sutherland really came alive at this: ‘Right, Isak! Where, and what time?’
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