The herders were careful to avoid sudden movements and to keep the dogs from barking, for any of those disruptions could set the reindeer in panic. If they did, they could scatter in all directions, and it would take days to collect them again.
Hour after hour of continuous gentle urging caused the dispersed deer to slowly edge together. At the end of the long and exhausting day, the circle was still wide and porous, but the herd at last looked like a single mass. In order to prevent the deer from scattering again, the herders lit bonfires around the periphery and kept watch with the dogs against predators. Leaving a few sturdy souls on guard, the others returned to their goahtis for a few hours’ sleep, and on the second day, the circling began in earnest.
Alof drove the deer inward now, by harnessing one of the sled härks and skiing along the flank of the herd dragging a line of clattering wooden objects.
Finally, the herd formed a vague teardrop shape, its narrow end pointing toward the corral. Now, even the children of the village came out to join the labor, waving and shouting encouragement.
They opened the gate wide, and the first several reindeer hurtled in. Driven by momentum, they continued to gallop in a circle along the fence line. More poured in behind them, sustaining the flow, until hundreds of deer were captured and the corral roiled in a gray-brown gyroscope of antlers.
Someone shouted the command, and dozens of hands shoved the gate closed.
Kirsten skied to the corral fence and leaned against it, enchanted by the sight. The hooves of the swirling mass of animals had stirred up powdered snow and dust. Together with the steam of their own breath, they produced a cloud that engulfed them in an otherworldly haze. The steaming sphere seemed a symbol of the thousand-year-long equilibrium between the Sami and the arctic.
The deer were allowed to circle until they tired and it was safe to go among them without being trampled. Tuovo and two of his sons entered first, followed quickly by the other families, all wielding coils of rope.
“This is the skillful part,” Maarit remarked. “You see right away who the experts are.” Just then lassos shot out left and right, slender, quivering serpents that fell on passing antlers.
“How do they know which deer belong to them?” Kirsten asked.
“Some do, some don’t. The ones who’ve done it for years can spot the earmarks of their own animals, even in the mist. Then they have only a few seconds to toss their lassos over them as they trot past.”
In front of them, Alof swung his rope high over the head of one of the large males and brought it to a halt. It bucked and twisted, almost yanking him off his feet. Maarit ran to help him, and together they tugged it from the herd toward the fence and into the family pen.
By then, Gaiju had caught one as well, and Kirsten lunged toward the beast to shove him along from the rear. After that success, she became cocky, and as Alof’s next lasso landed, she took the rope from his hand. “I’ve got him,” she called out, and moments later she was yanked off her feet and dragged facedown through the snow. As the lasso slipped from her hands, she heard someone above her laughing.
Struggling to her knees, she saw it was one of the Tuovo men—Miko, the oldest son. He patted her shoulder. “Good try,” he said, and marched away.
The separation took the rest of the day and the next two as well, and when the main corral was empty of reindeer and the family pens all full, the next stage began.
“Give me a hand here,” Alof ordered Kirsten, seizing one of the calves and pressing it to the ground. The patch of green paint on its side that indicated it was his property had almost worn away.
Alof lifted the female calf and dropped it on its side. “Hold her legs so she doesn’t hurt herself.” Kirsten obeyed and watched as he threw one leg over the calf’s neck to immobilize her and, with a deft movement, snatched a clipper from his belt and cut two quick slices in the animal’s ear. A moment later the deer was on her feet again, shaking her head as if in annoyance, and Alof was reaching for the next one.
Marking the calves, of which there were only about twenty, was easy, and Kirsten was feeling rather proud of herself. But some minutes later, Alof and Gaiju together wrestled the first sarv to the ground for a less amusing side of the herding.
Maarit had already explained that the males were good for replenishing the herd but useless as pack or sled animals. They had to be castrated or slaughtered in mid-winter, before the next mating season, when the hormones racing through them would make their meat inedible.
She watched, horrified, as Alof used a large pair of metal tongs to crush the area just above the testicles. The poor beast was obviously in shock and pain, and she winced as he let out a hoarse shriek. But the crushing of the ducts lasted only a second, and the newly castrated animal was allowed to stagger to his feet again.
Some fifteen sarvs were neutered in this way, and though Kirsten cringed at each one, she had to acknowledge that as long as she ate reindeer meat, she had to accept the necessary brutality. That realization was brought home the following day during the slaughter.
“We choose the härks, mostly, especially the ones who’ve gotten fat,” Maarit pointed out as Alof lassoed the first sacrifice.
Kirsten watched nervously as Alof dragged the härk to the corner of the pen. As it bucked, lifting its rear hooves into the air, Maarit looped a rope around one of them and held it off the ground. Gaiju stepped in and seized the deer’s antlers, then turned them sharply to the side. With only three legs to stand on, the creature fell to the ground, and Gaiju sat on him.
The animal was allowed to calm down for a moment, until he stopped thrashing. Then Gaiju drew a knife from his belt and thrust it deeply into the base of the deer’s skull. The deer’s sudden collapse suggested that the blow had severed its spinal cord, cutting off sensation. A second later, Gaiju raised one of its front legs and plunged the knife again, into its heart. With a final twitch, the reindeer gave up its life. The entire slaughter had lasted less than a minute.
More shocking, in fact, was the sight of its butchering, though that too was executed quickly. Alof made a long cut along the deer’s belly to remove the viscera. He flung them to the side, where they lay in a pile, steaming in the winter air.
The first slaughter was the beginning of an assembly-line process, during which one of the boys dragged each dressed carcass out of the pen for skinning, while Gaiju lassoed the second deer to go.
By the third deer, Kirsten had recovered from the shock enough to take over the task of tying up the rear hoof, allowing the others to deal with the bloodier work. Mercifully, Alof had decided that six deer would be sufficient to provide meat for the family for the remainder of the winter, so the entire process took less than two hours. But the grounds of both the corral and all the family pens were now a morass of melted snow and blood.
Exhausted and gory, Kirsten staggered to the fence of the main corral just as someone opened the gates to all the pens. Tuova led one of the härks wearing a bell to the gate to draw the captured animals out, but the newly ear-marked and castrated reindeer were slow to grasp that they were free. A few trotted after the härk, then a few more, and finally the collective heard bustled toward the opening and streamed back up to their grazing grounds as if nothing had happened.
* * *
Though Kirsten still winced inwardly at the thought of the innocent creature that had trotted across the Hardangervidda only to be slaughtered, she did enjoy the meal of fresh reindeer meat. Afterward, Maarit and the men left to meet with the other herders for cleanup chores. Only Jova remained, wiping out the eating bowls with snow.
Familiar now with the taciturn Sami, Kirsten picked her teeth with a sliver of wood, prepared for a long, comfortable silence. Jova’s sudden question came as a surprise.
“What have you done to my granddaughter?”
Taken aback, Kirsten was at first defensive. “Do you mean that I convinced her to join a military mission? That was her own decision. I believe she did it, in part, for
you.”
Jova gazed at her across the fire, deep sorrow in her eyes. “I know that. Remember, I was the one who shot those soldiers for the deaths of my daughter and my grandson. All that’s left to me is Maarit, but now you’ve taken the Sami out of her. She was a good herder and was soon to marry, bring more children into the family. Now all she talks about is being with you.”
Kirsten began to grasp the tug-of-war between her and Jova. One of them would lose Maarit. “Please believe me. I don’t want to take her away from her family or her people. If she wants to marry, she can still do that.”
Jova’s large, soft brown eyes remained fixed on her, drawing her in. “I know she will choose you. And when she leaves us, I want her to be happy. Please do not be careless with her.”
Kirsten felt a twinge of guilt. Maarit wasn’t “hers” to begin with, let alone to take care of, and all she’d done thus far was endanger her. How could it be otherwise? She wanted to make some sort of pledge to Jova, but their plans seemed to change from day to day, and anything she could say would be false.
Maarit’s head appearing in the opening of the goahti door interrupted the morbid conversation. “Hey, come outside. The lights are quite nice tonight.”
Reprieved, Kirsten slid her feet into her boots and bent through the doorway. “Ooh, you’re right,” she murmured, gazing upward. She stared, hypnotized, as curtains of neon chartreuse undulated slowly across the night sky, like gently fluttering drapery. A strip of bright red quivered along one edge, and flashes of blue and purple flickered and faded along the other.
They stood side by side, brushing shoulders. “Like a vast cloak, and on the far end, just out of sight, is a goddess,” Kirsten remarked.
“Now you see where Sami religion comes from.” Maarit slid her arm along Kirsten’s back. Through the layers of Kirsten’s coat and sweater, her touch was barely perceptible, but it was nonetheless like an electric shock. She stood, immobile, willing the arm to stay, and it did.
She pressed close to Maarit. “Sometimes I don’t know whether to sorrow for the world or rejoice. The war, the men we shoved into the lake, and the slaughter today leave me despondent. And then I stand here with you and see such magnificent splendor. I can’t quite get my mind around it.”
“I know what you mean. The lights are always sort of miraculous.”
Kirsten laid her head on Maarit’s shoulder. “I’ve seen the northern lights in Rjukan and once in Oslo, but up here, they seem to belong to you.”
“That’s a sweet thing to say.”
“I mean it. Everything you’ve given me here makes me feel richer.”
Maarit hesitated before replying. “Strange. For me, it’s almost the opposite. You draw me away from this.” She extended a hand to suggest the entire landscape.
Kirsten felt as if she’d been struck. It was what Jova feared. “I don’t want to ever take you away from the Sami.”
“I don’t mean it as simply as that. But you must know, you’ve changed me. Before you, I cared about everything equally—my family, the herd, the Sami. Everything was the same color, and I gave it all the same loyalty. Then you arrived with all your complexities, other colors, ideas, responsibilities.”
“You mean, I brought the war. Those two soldiers came because they’d seen us in Rjukan, and we were in Rjukan because of me.”
“No. The war was already here. You just reminded me that we have to fight it. You pulled me out of the grayness I was in. I think about your courage, and you make me courageous, too. I think about how weak you were when we found you and how you dragged yourself back, then joined a nearly impossible mission. I think about your mind, your conscience, and…even your body, which I’ve never seen.” She paused again and took a breath. “And I think all the time about what you said when we slept in Birgit’s storeroom, that you wanted to take a bath so you could make love to me.”
Maarit’s hand was still on her back, and now the conversation was about love. “You never said what you thought that night.”
“I think…I wouldn’t know what to do.”
“You don’t have to know what to do. Things happen by themselves if you let them.” Kirsten pivoted around until they were face-to-face. The night was clear, and the shimmering light of the aurora borealis cast a faint green on the snow, as if touching it with celestial color.
Maarit’s arm had slipped away, but Kirsten now grasped her around her heavily padded waist and pulled her close. She waited for Maarit’s smile, then pressed her lips on it, warming a small place on their cold faces.
Scarcely had the joy of their kiss begun to stir her when something thudded in the distance. Maarit broke away. “What’s that sound?” She glanced toward the south.
Kirsten listened and could make out only a dull rumbling far away. Was it thunder? Impossible. The night sky was crystal clear. “Could it be artillery?”
“No. Too difficult to bring the cannons up here.”
“It’s bombardment, then.”
“By the Germans or the Allies?” Maarit asked, stepping out of the embrace. “Though it makes no difference, I suppose? It’s still Norwegians being killed.”
“I have to go back to Rjukan,” Kirsten announced. “If there was ever a sign that I needed to report for duty, that was it. I’m leaving tomorrow, by first light. I have a compass, and I’ve made the trek twice now. I’m sure I can find my way.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m going with you.”
* * *
Maarit took on the disagreeable task of informing her family that she was leaving again, while Kirsten busied herself taking all British markings off her winter coat and avoided eye contact with Jova. Leaving Udsek for the war was the very opposite of taking care of someone.
She stood off to the side the next morning as Maarit embraced her grandparents, and they set off. For a day and a half, they skied south past Mår and Grytefjord, then curved west toward Rjukan. They traveled with large backpacks containing equipment for the two nights out on the snow and were adept by now. Though they arrived early in the evening, the arctic sun had long set as they worked their way down into the valley and through the streets of the town.
Birgit opened the door to the storeroom, obviously surprised to see them. “I thought you two would be long gone. Come in quickly.”
They both stood their skis upright against the wall, stepped inside, and dropped their packs and heavy outer clothing onto the floor. “What happened two days ago? We heard what sounded like bombardment.”
At that moment, Kirsten perceived another figure in the storeroom, a tall man with bristly gray hair and a beard that covered both chin and neck. “Oh, sorry,” she said. “We’ve interrupted something.”
“This is our radio man. In the organization, he’s called Odin.”
He held out his hand to greet them.
As Kirsten took it, she realized with a shock that he was one of the two men she’d seen in Birgit’s café the day she and Maarit had arrived. One of the card players, who had seemed utterly indifferent to them.
“Radio man. I’ll be damned. Well, it’s our good fortune, since we need to report in to Tronstad. I’m sure he’s already heard from Skinnarland that our operation was a success. I just want to tell him that we’re still here and await further orders. You can sign it Chemist and Reindeer.”
Odin crossed his arms and stared down at them. “I’ll send it, but you should know that whatever you did in Vemork wasn’t enough. Word came from our people up at the plant that the Germans simply rebuilt the installation and resumed production.”
“What the hell?” Maarit said what both of them were thinking. “All that labor for nothing?”
Odin sniffed, indicating his disdain for their whole operation. “Worse than that. We’re assuming that’s the reason for the bombardment two days ago. By the Allies.”
Kirsten’s voice weakened. “Did they accomplish anything?”
“Accomplish? It was a stinking disaster,” Odin all but snarle
d. “The bombers must have been targeting the plant, but the whole mountainside was fogged in, and they let loose bombs everywhere. The top floors took a few hits, but the production in the basement was untouched.”
“Christ,” Kirsten muttered. “So no damage to the electrolysis plant?”
“No, but they did knock out the suspension bridge. And your genius pilots managed to destroy some of the pipes carrying water down the mountainside. If the sluice gates hadn’t closed automatically, the water would have flooded the whole shelf that holds the plant, and dozens of Norwegians would have been killed.”
“Oh, hell.” She swore again, at a loss for anything better.
“And there’s more.” Odin scratched the back of his neck, obviously wanting to get a lot of anger off his chest. “They hit our nitrate plant and filled the air with poison for a whole day.”
“Any fatalities?” she asked, almost timidly. The raid had nothing to do with her, of course, but she understood that, to the local people, she represented the British.
Birgit replied, and this time her constant frown seemed justified. “About twenty, including everyone in a new air-raid shelter we’d just built. We’ve radioed protest to the Norwegian government in London.”
“Dear God,” Kirsten murmured. “I hope it has some effect. Unfortunately, no matter what mistakes SOE makes, I’m still under orders from them. Both of us are.”
“Yeah, we know,” Odin said coolly, pulling on his parka. “I’ll send your message tonight and come back to you with their reply. Just stay out of sight.” With that, he stepped outside, and Birgit locked the door behind him.
Without further discussion, Birgit crossed the room toward the door to the café. “It’s been a long, hard day for all of us. You know where the blankets are. Make camp with them, and I’ll bring you what’s left from today’s kitchen.” Birgit had never been welcoming, but now her tone was icy. If the Norwegian resistance felt any sense of solidarity, it was clear they were at its periphery.
Kirsten and Maarit rolled out their own deerskins onto the concrete floor and laid the cushions and blankets over them. By the time they’d prepared their usual nest, Birgit returned with bowls that smelled of beans in gravy, setting them on the table beside the stove. “I’ll wake you tomorrow at first light,” she said over her shoulder and closed the door behind her without waiting for a reply.
To Sleep With Reindeer Page 14