by Olivier Truc
What had he been thinking about again? Mattis and the drum. Poor Mattis. He raised his glass and drank a silent toast. What did I know about Mattis, really? His father? Never knew him. A shaman? Not my world.
He, Klemet, had been raised a Laestadian. The real hard-core. The ones who drank only cognac when they were half dead already. He filled his glass. Another toast.
“To the Laestadians!”
He drained it in a single gulp. He was feeling great now. Just that nice sensation of being slightly drunk. He was glad he knew his limits. Saw so many drunks on his patrols. Hated seeing other men get themselves into that state. The women even more. And the men, too. Undignified. He never understood why people had such a hard time knowing when to stop.
But what had he been thinking about? Laestadians, Laestadians. The Lutherans’ crack squad. He’d had his fill of Laestadians. Must have been the only one in his family who didn’t go to the big annual gathering in Lumijoki. The only one not to follow the precepts. His family took it all very seriously, of course. His great-grandfather had even been baptized by Lars Levi Laestadius himself. In person. That was enough to mark an entire family for generations! No alcohol. No dancing, no sex before marriage, no sport at school, no TV. No wonder they’d called him Chubby-chops. Watching the others dance. Snatching a quick kiss under the Midsummer pole. Here’s to the Laestadians!
Klemet heard a knock at the door. He checked his watch, but it wasn’t on his wrist. He got to his feet, found himself holding onto the table. Uh-oh. He chuckled. Good thing I know when I’ve had enough. He headed slowly toward the door, calling out that he was coming. No idea what time it was. Never mind. Couldn’t be too late. Didn’t feel tired. Yeah, those Laestadians. And their drum. Funny business. He opened the door. A pretty young blonde stood right there on the doorstep. Not only that, but she was smiling at him.
“I’m sorry to bother you, Klemet. I went to the tent, but you weren’t there. I’ve been looking at Henri Mons’s photographs and I think I may have found something…Klemet? Are you OK?”
“Yeah, hi…Nina!”
Klemet clung to the doorframe with one hand, bent forward and kissed Nina full on the mouth. A second later, he felt a sharp, stinging slap in exchange. The second after that, he found himself focusing on her retreating back.
30
Thursday, January 20
Sunrise: 9:47 a.m.; sunset: 1:14 p.m.
3 hours 27 minutes of sunlight
8:15 a.m., Central Sápmi
Aslak put more logs on the fire, rekindling the flames and lighting up the interior of the tent. His wife was still sleeping. It was good when she slept. She seemed not to suffer. Sleep was good for her. But she slept very little. She woke often. Often, she woke shrieking.
Aslak warmed his usual breakfast of reindeer-blood broth. Some years back, Mattis—when he was still in his right mind, not terrified of his own shadow—had invited him over to drink coffee and eat bread. Aslak hadn’t liked either. Fortunately, the reindeer provided for all his needs. As they always had. He had been born during a migration, a long time ago, it felt. He had suckled at his mother’s breast in forty degrees of frost, but his mother had died after the birth and he had been raised on melted reindeer fat. The reindeer was a good animal if you knew how to take care of it. It fed people and clothed them. Skilled craftsmen knew how to turn its antlers into caskets, or knife handles, or jewelry. Aslak knew. And he knew how to work silver, the Sami nomads’ precious metal, the metal handed down from generation to generation, from migration to migration. He knew all these things. And he knew that after him, it would all be lost.
He looked at his wife. They had met when she was a young woman. She had not suffered then. Not as she did now. Not as she had for so long. But she was in the grip of evil. And with evil came misery.
Aslak ate slowly. Soon he would have to go back out to see to the reindeer. He was ruled by the law of the pasture. The reindeer followed the pasture, and the herder followed the reindeer. That was how it was. Sometimes, he would be gone for days. He was not worried about his wife. She would not starve. There was always enough for her. She could not live like others, but she knew how to survive.
She was still asleep when Aslak heard a snowmobile approaching. The radio had not announced any visitors. Aslak finished collecting his things. He was ready for his reindeer. The tent flap lifted and a man stepped inside. He kneeled down, facing Aslak, and smiled.
Aslak did not return his smile. He looked at the man for a long while, his jaw clenched. And he saw that evil had come again.
* * *
8:30 a.m., Suohpatjavri, Kautokeino
Klemet Nango woke in a pitiful state, having fallen asleep on his sitting-room sofa. He emerged from the shower, watched the TV news, drank a stronger coffee than usual and collected the Finnmark Dagblad from his mailbox. He didn’t have a headache, the advantage of good-quality cognac. But he felt idiotic. Despicable. He couldn’t believe he had tried to kiss his colleague. The very last thing he should have done, of course, though it had crossed his mind a few days before, in the Reindeer Police chalet.
Now he would have to carry on working with Nina, try to look her in the eye. Would she report the incident? If it reached the Sheriff—or, worse still, Brattsen—his life wouldn’t be worth living. He wouldn’t be thrown off the force, but he might find himself transferred to a small station in some godforsaken hole. Back to the hellish, solitary patrols of all the bars in all the villages along the coast. He tried to remember everything that had happened the previous evening. A thought struck him, and he forgot all about feeling guilty.
Mattis and the drum. Nils Ante. He had to speak to his uncle. Nils was an old man now, but he was the only person Klemet could think of who might be able to answer his questions. What about Nina? He should take her with him, of course. But he couldn’t face her just yet. She’d get over it, he knew that. Scandinavians were used to office parties. Colleagues getting intimate for an evening over too many drinks. Everyone suffering collective amnesia the following morning. The great unwritten rule. Nordic people were pragmatists, he thought. It had its advantages, he had to admit. Still, he decided to leave it a few hours before contacting Nina. He would go to Juhl’s with her. But it was quite normal to visit family on his own. Yes, that’s what he would do. He didn’t want to let her know straightaway. He didn’t want to have to apologize.
He called the station and told the secretary to leave a message on Nina’s desk: he had to check something and would be back in the afternoon.
Twenty minutes later he came in sight of his uncle’s house. By Nordic standards, Nils Ante was something of an eccentric. “Not a joiner,” one might say. A marginal outsider. Someone different, in short. Unclassifiable. And unsettling, therefore, in a society that was the world champion of classification. For Klemet, Uncle Nils Ante had always represented the spirit of freedom denied by his own Laestadian upbringing. He had opened the doors to an extraordinary world. Klemet had lacked the wild spark needed to break away from his roots, but Uncle Nils Ante had planted a seed. A seed that flowered from time to time. Unconsciously, the idea for the lavvu had come from him. Klemet’s decision to join the police force could be seen as a victory for his upbringing. An assertion of strict values—though the Laestadians thought the law of the land was far too permissive and lax. But Uncle Nils Ante had breathed something of his spirit over Klemet’s cradle.
His uncle lived in a simple house, about six miles from Kautokeino on the south road. It had been painted yellow, a long time ago. The hamlet (population: nine) was called Suohpatjavri. Apart from the house, Nils Ante owned a barn painted Falun red, a toolshed, and a fourth structure—a traditional conical tent supported on birch logs covered in moss and earth, with a heavy door, padlocked shut. No smoke rose from it.
Nils Ante lived alone, and this, too, singled him out from his Laestadian relatives and their large families. Klemet wondered why his parents had allowed him to spend so much time with this r
ebellious character. They must have regretted it, he thought, seeing as he had never managed to follow the Scriptures and start a family.
The snow was pure white, undisturbed, reaching the windowsills in places. Small electric candles burned in each window. An old Chevrolet station wagon stood in the yard in front of the main house—another whim of his uncle’s that had set him apart from the rest of the family. Klemet smiled at the sight of the car he had repaired so many times over the past twenty years. He hadn’t been able to do anything about the rust—bodywork wasn’t his thing. But the engine kept on going. Like his uncle.
Klemet sounded his horn twice. Nils Ante was getting old. He didn’t like to be taken by surprise, and the telephone wasn’t his style. No one came to open the door. He sounded the horn again, in vain. Nils Ante’s advancing age had left him hard of hearing, too.
Klemet forged a path through the thick, uncleared snow. He stamped his feet, opened the door and went inside. He removed his boots and explored the house, going from room to room. There was no one on the ground floor, but two coffee cups stood on the kitchen table. Yet Klemet hadn’t seen another vehicle outside. He called his uncle’s name and decided to look upstairs. At last he heard voices, speaking a language he didn’t understand. Strange. Cautiously, he moved towards the room the voices were coming from and pushed open the door. Nils Ante was sitting with his back to it, rocking back and forth in front of a computer, beating time, wearing a set of outsize headphones. He was listening to music. Someone was sitting to his right. A woman. She was talking and wearing headphones, too. The computer screen was filled with the image of another woman, gesturing animatedly.
Klemet had expected anything but this at the house of his uncle, whom he had thought at death’s door. Neither of the two had heard him enter. Klemet cleared his throat, not wanting to give the old man a heart attack. The woman turned around first. She was young, and not in the least alarmed. She tapped Nils Ante on the shoulder. Nils looked toward her. Finally he turned around. At the sight of Klemet, his face lit up with a broad smile. He took off the headphones and hurried to clasp his nephew in a warm bear hug.
“Miss Chang, would you mind telling your grandmother you will call her back later? I’d like to introduce you to my favorite nephew.”
Nils Ante positioned himself in front of the camera and waved to the grandmother, signing off with words Klemet did not understand. The woman answered, smiling. The Skype connection was cut, and Nils Ante made the introductions.
“Klemet, this is Miss Chang. Miss Chang is the extraordinary individual who has saved my life by preventing me from becoming a doddery old fool. You know me, Klemet. You know how far I had slid down the slippery slope.”
“Don’t exaggerate, Uncle, you were still––”
“Oh, enough of your false politeness, Klemet. It’s true. But this delightful young lady is a rare pearl. She has energy enough for two, fortunately. Miss Chang is Chinese, as you can see. She came here last year with a group of farmworkers from the Three Gorges, berry-picking. They indebted themselves to get to Norway, and of course she was hoodwinked. You know how the berry pickers are exploited. There was a solidarity concert for them. I saw her and, well, here she is. We had a fine time securing a residence permit, but we got there in the end.”
Nils Ante kissed the young woman, who must have been about fifty years his junior. She stroked his hair tenderly.
“Miss Chang has no family apart from her elderly grandmother in China. She has a very up-to-date neighbor, fortunately, who has been able to install a small, inexpensive, uncomplicated computer, with Skype.”
Miss Chang held out a hand to Klemet. “It was my grandmother who see you come in behind us, on the camera,” she said laughing, in near-faultless Norwegian.
“What were you doing with the headphones?” Klemet asked his uncle.
“I was on Spotify. Little Miss Chang-Chang showed me. Checking out the competition.” He winked. “Some of the young joïkers today aren’t bad. And you know I’ve an ear for it.” He pointed to the shelves lining the room, loaded with hundreds of cassettes. Recordings of traditional joïks.
Nils Ante adopted a stern expression. “But what brings you here, Klemet? Spotted the vultures circling, did you? Worthless nephew!”
“You don’t seem to be in any need of me to take care of you,” said Klemet, looking at the young Chinese woman nestled close to his uncle, stroking his chest. “Can I ask you something?”
“Let’s go and get some coffee. Miss Chang, send your grandmother a kiss when you call her back, and tell her I have almost finished her joïk.”
He took Klemet back downstairs.
“Extraordinary girl,” he said, making coffee. “Well, Klemet, you’ve got plenty to occupy you at the moment!”
“That’s really why I came to see you. I’m worried about the business with the drum. We’re trying to see if there’s a link between Mattis’s death and the theft. But we don’t know much about the artifact itself. I thought maybe––”
“Well, let’s get one thing crystal clear, right now. Drums really aren’t my thing. I’m a singer, a poet, whatever, but I want nothing to do with religion—even our own ancient religion.”
“I know, I know. Keep your hair on,” said Klemet. “And that’s why you’re the only person in the family I can stand to be with.”
He took fifteen minutes or so to summarize the situation. Nils Ante knew almost everyone concerned. Klemet gave him all the information Nina had collected in France, too, trying to leave nothing out. When he had finished, he took a long drink of coffee and waited.
“Listen, Klemet. About Mattis’s murder. I hope you find the culprit. I didn’t know Mattis well, though I knew his father. An extraordinary man. But too absorbed in his mission to be a good poet. He had a screw loose.”
“What mission?”
“He saw himself as a kind of minister. He must have caught it from the pastors he fought against all his life. Because the Sami aren’t given to preaching, as you know. Not when it comes to shamanism, anyway.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard all that already. The great, respected shaman, his unworthy son who couldn’t match his father’s legacy, and all the rest of it. But I––”
“Let me finish, Klemet. I’m intrigued by something else you said. The curse that you say Niils the guide talked about.”
“The curse associated with the gold seam?”
“Yes, of course, the gold seam. Klemet, you’re repeating what I say, like an old woman. There are stories told in the vidda. Ancient stories.”
“Sure. I haven’t come to hear all the old legends again, Uncle. I’m not seven years old anymore.”
“Enough of your insolence! You enjoyed my stories back then.”
“And I’ll listen to them again with great pleasure another day. But right now, I’m working a police inquiry. I need clues. And leads. Proof. Not some legend that’s been doing the rounds of the vidda for centuries.”
“Fair enough. But you must accept, like it or not, that Sami culture has been written down only for the past half century or so. Before that, everything was passed on by storytelling and joïks.”
Klemet fell silent. If his uncle got onto the subject of joïks they would be there all morning, and a long morning at that. Suddenly, Nils Ante began a chant. Klemet forgot his impatience. The song filled his consciousness. He felt all his old childhood emotions flooding back. His uncle had a remarkable talent. His chanting could transport you beyond the mountains, to the very heart of the wild dance of the Northern Lights. What was most fascinating, thought Klemet, was that even non-Sami who had no understanding of the language were enchanted by the music of his joïks.
Nils Ante’s song told of a cursed house, a malevolent stranger who cast a dark spell on its inhabitants, all of whom were struck dumb. Klemet was seized by a strange idea. He looked at his uncle, rapt and absorbed in his song, and wondered whether Nils Ante could read his nephew’s mind. The joïk awoke memories of sc
hool, where his own language had been forbidden. The inquiry into the murder and the theft of the drum seemed a long way away. But the vision that sprang to mind from his distant youth left him troubled. He listened to his uncle’s guttural singing, and the shadowy silhouette of Aslak rose before his eyes.
31
Thursday, January 20
8:20 a.m., Central Sápmi
Racagnal shifted the weight from his knees, sitting himself down opposite Aslak without waiting to be asked. He maintained his smile, frozen now in a sinister rictus. Aslak observed the change at work in the stranger’s face, saw the attempt to appear friendly. But the stranger couldn’t fool him. Aslak knew the face of evil. He looked at his wife sleeping, savoring the few moments of peace afforded to her each day. The stranger’s arrival had not woken her. Aslak breathed deeply, calmly. He waited, jaw clenched, his eyes fixed on the new arrival.
“My name is André. I’m a geologist. The people I work with here tell me you are the best guide in the region. I need your help. For just a few days. You will be well paid.”
The stranger spoke in odd-sounding Swedish. He affected his amiable expression again, but Aslak saw the true face behind the façade. Aslak knew how to read such things. The stranger opened a large bag. He took out some smoked salmon and black bread, pushing them toward Aslak, inviting him to help himself. Aslak ignored the bread but cut a piece of salmon, which he ate in silence. The stranger helped himself in turn, and cut a thick slice of black bread. He remained silent, too, and seemed to be in no hurry. His expression took on a new intensity when he noticed a movement behind Aslak. His wife had just turned over, presenting her sleeping face to the glow of the fire. Aslak looked at the stranger, and the stranger looked from his wife, back to Aslak.