Not Dark Yet

by Berit Ellingsen

  Several hours by train through mountains and valleys covered in red and orange oak, ash, aspen, birch, beech, and rowan, interspersed with green from fir, spruce, juniper, and yew, took him to the coast. On that part of the continent the forest reached almost down to the ocean and just a narrow band of pebble beaches and round-backed islets, many only visible at low tide, kept the sea from the land.

  As most other small towns along the coast, it was a holiday resort, and like most such places it went into hibernation in late autumn. Visiting such places out of season was unsettling and alienating, like staying in a large office after everyone else has left. The physical objects, the streets and buildings and shops and piers, were still there, in the same location as they would be in the summer, with even some of the carts that sold hot dogs and ice cream and candy floss, and some of the booths that offered t-shirts and postcards and model ships in the high season, were still open, but the lack of people, the surplus of public space, and the gray light of autumn, made everything look run down and lonely.

  Large tracts of the seaside walk were covered in scaffolding and put in dry dock by temporary wooden walls. There, the water had been bilged back into the ocean by peristaltic pipes and compressors, although the enclosures were wet and slowly refilling. Plastic signs bearing the town’s crest explained that the seaside walk was in the process of being elevated and strengthened to be able to withstand the increased erosion of the higher sea level and more frequent winter storms. The text further apologized for the unsightly conditions and claimed that the process would be complete by a date several years into the future.

  He nevertheless enjoyed the stroll along the sea, the hiss of the white waves against the stone, the constant wind from the ocean, and the dim, heavy sky. The gale nipped at his mountain jacket and he was glad he was carrying his thirty-liter backpack, since it helped keep the wind out. The rain tasted salty from the spray of the waves and he had to stop for a moment to take his leather gloves out of the backpack and pull them on.

  On his way along the frothing seaside, he passed a wall so thick with layer upon layer of glued-on posters and flyers the surface seemed almost like papier mache. The announcements advertised the previous summer’s performances by various bands, stand-up comedians, tattoo masters, circus acts, fortune tellers, and magicians. He passed his eyes over the rotting, water-peeled sheets to find the most overdone and improbable of them. But then one of the posters presented a familiar name, an address in the town center, and a time just a few hours into the future. Blood shot into his head and he suddenly felt warm. The still-intact paper and the not-yet-faded print hinted that the ad was relatively recent. He gaped, looked again, then took out his phone and photographed the address on the flyer. With his heart beating hard, he continued to the doctor’s office.

  In a corner of the waiting room stood a small spruce, its flat, shiny needles revealing its plastic nature, decorated with small electrical lights and glittering red tinsel. Lengths of artificial mistletoe garlanded the walls of the room. He smirked a little at the festive display, December being several months away. But here, summer probably started right after Easter and lasted till the autumn holidays. No wonder they wanted Christmas to arrive as quickly as possible.

  “You’re going for a pilot’s license, then?” the doctor, a brown-haired woman just a few years older than him, said as she fastened a blood pressure cuff around his arm.

  “Yes, starting this spring,” he lied. Trying out for the astronaut selection wasn’t something he wished to share, especially not to a stranger.

  “That’s rare,” the doctor said. “I mostly see requests for diving licenses, you know with the tourists and all, but the tests are nearly identical.”

  He nodded. “I’m tempted to get that license too,” he said for the sake of small talk.

  The doctor performed all the necessary tests, for blood pressure, heart status, lung function, hearing, ear-nose-throat, visual acuity, and color blindness. He had emailed the form in advance and the doctor promised to fill it out, sign it, and send it back to him within a week.

  When he left the doctor’s office it had grown almost dark. The rain had ceased, giving way to a rushing wind. At the edge of the horizon, between the black ocean and the pewter sky, a slice of orange burned, like the last embers of a fire. The drawstrings on his jacket whipped in the gale and even inside the gloves his fingers began to feel cold and stiff. He pulled out the schedule he’d picked up at the train station, the paper dog-eared and damp from his pocket. The next train left at six, the last one at nine. It was nearly five o’clock. He decided to attend the meeting advertised by the poster.

  Hoping to get away from the worst of the wind, he continued one street inland from the pier, looking for a restaurant or cafe that served dinner early. A little further he saw a flimsy glass front with letters in gold foil announcing that the food served there was eastern, and hurried inside.

  Although the place was clearly for take-outs, two small tables with round stools tucked beneath them flanked the door. He nodded at the man behind the counter, who addressed him in an eastern language he didn’t understand.

  “Sorry,” he said in the language of the coastal country they were in. “Are you still serving lunch?”

  “Lunch, dinner, whatever you need,” the man said, in their common language.

  “May I eat here?”

  “Of course,” the man said. “What do you wish to order?”

  He took in the lit posters behind the cook which displayed the variety of dishes the small restaurant offered, and ordered a dinner plate of beef and broccoli with rice. He sat down by the window, pulled the backpack off, removed his jacket, and draped it over the other stool so it would dry a little. The room was chilly and humid, and the air itself felt greasy, dense with the smell of food and cooking oil, which only made him hungrier. He hadn’t eaten anything before he left the cabin in the morning. Outside in the gray dusk the streetlamps blinked on one by one, first hesitantly, then burning steadily, and scraps of paper rolled past in the gale.

  When the food arrived it turned out to be surprisingly good, the beef cut into tender pieces that had been marinated and fried well, the onion and broccoli glazed and still firm, the rice not too hard and not too soft, just as he preferred it, and sauteed in a dark, strong broth. Crystals of artificial food flavoring crunched between the grains of rice. He knew it wasn’t just salt, but since he hadn’t had eastern food in a long time, he ate it anyway. He also received a glass of water that tasted of the air in the restaurant, and a cup of sweet, honey-colored tea. He consumed all of the food and when he was done he felt sated, yet not too full.

  “Good?” the cook asked. He nodded and pulled out a paper napkin from the steel dispenser on the table and patted his lips.

  The cook nodded back at him, then returned to filling an order that was called in by phone.

  He checked his messages and email, sent a short text to Beanie wondering how she and the cats were doing. Could he ask how she was treating his apartment or would that sound like he didn’t trust her? He’d made her promise not to smoke inside, but he assumed that when she had people over, there was smoking in the apartment, at least on the veranda. He imagined a tray bristling with cigarette butts and ashes, overflowing from rain and weeping stinking water on the concrete.

  The cook pointed a remote at a small black screen above the other table and switched to the news: more protests and rallies against public budget cuts, lowered quality of healthcare, dwindling pension funds, increased unemployment. Four vessels filled with migrants had been intercepted at the southern coast of the continent and escorted back to international waters. What would happen with those ships? Would they try again and sink in the attempt as countless others had done before them? Yet another increase in the price of power, gasoline, air travel, and meat. Water shortage and unrest on the eastern continent, forest fires and dust storms on the western continent, drought and famine on the southern continent, while in the
polar regions the seabed and the tundra were releasing gases that would increase the global temperature even further. In space, a satellite that was still in use had collided with the remnants of a deactivated satellite, or perhaps it had been blown to pieces in a military test, greatly increasing the amount of space debris in orbit and making space launches even more risky.

  16

  FIVE-FORTY. IT WAS TIME TO GO. HE PUT ON HIS jacket, shouldered the backpack, and approached the counter. The cook held out a small payment terminal to him.

  “Thank you,” he said when the payment had gone through.

  “My pleasure,” the cook said. “Receipt?”

  He shook his head. “No need.”

  “Stay warm,” the cook said, “it’s a cold night.”

  “Thanks,” he said, “I will.”

  The air was cold, yet it lacked real teeth and felt more like late September than mid-November, except for the early twilight. The darkness of winter was intruding upon an autumn that seemed to have no plans of leaving.

  The wind pushed him one more street away from the pier, and further along the sea, to a brown-painted door wedged between the unlit displays of a surf shop (surfboards, shorts, and shirts with flower prints in primary colors) and a pharmacy (sun tan lotions, hair care products with sun protection factor, sunglasses, and band-aids). He expected the door to be locked, but it slid open without a sound and led up a narrow, worn flight of stairs to a corridor. There, about ten people in rain coats and fleece jackets were standing in the warmth and humidity caused by wet clothes and poor ventilation. None of the people were familiar to him, so he squeezed past them without worrying about being recognized. Further down the hallway one vending machine offered coffee, espresso, latte, and chocolate milk, while another had bottles of mineral water, soda, chocolate bars, small bags of chips, and mixtures of nuts. Past the snack dispensers were several open doors and another small crowd clearly waiting for the lectures to start. He pretended to study the food and drinks in the vending machines, while he glanced at the small crowd. Some were catching up with each other and exchanging personal news as they dispersed into the meeting rooms, others were standing alone in the corridor, reading the notice boards or newspapers they had brought, or their phones. More people arrived from the stairs and greeted the others, a few with breath that smelled of liquor and food.

  When most of the crowd had vanished into the first room and he heard a voice urging people to find seats, he chose a drink from the vending machine, a lemon-flavored soda he hadn’t had in years. After the salty dinner something sweet would be nice. The bottle fell from its perch behind the plastic and down into the bottom with a thud. He unscrewed the lid slowly to allow the excess carbon dioxide to escape and avoid drawing attention to himself during the talk, and took a sip of the overly sweet liquid. Then he entered the small lecture hall and sat down in the back. From the low dais at the head of the room Narayan was introducing the speaker of the evening.

  When Kaye entered from a doorway behind Narayan and took the microphone from the graduate student, he slid further down his seat to hide behind the rest of the audience. He searched Kaye’s face and hands for scars from the owl, but from where he sat he couldn’t see any. Even though Kaye turned out to be an experienced lecturer with a clear voice and diction, speaking not too slowly and not too quickly, he was too distracted to catch all of it. Kaye talked about commercial fish species no longer breeding enough to be harvested, how fish farming required fish as feed itself and was no substitute for wild varieties, how scientists had known about the overfishing for decades and tried to limit them, but had been ignored and silenced by the authorities and fishing companies, how few species were still present along the coast, and how fishing towns and communities all over the continent and on the other landmasses were vanishing due to lack of work and job opportunities. How the government had green-lighted drilling for oil and gas by global companies near the spawning grounds of protected and commercial fish species, how the protests from the local communities and environmental organizations had had miniscule effect on these decisions. How it was time to do something about the mess, not just sit on their asses and cry over it.

  At the end of the lecture the audience was applauding and yelling; he wasn’t certain what about, but he didn’t want to be the only person in the room not clapping and smiling, so he cheered too.

  17

  THE MEETING ENDED WITH AN ANNOUNCEMENT about the next lecture, at the same hour and weekday some weeks into the future. He wasn’t certain if he wished to travel several hours for another glimpse of Kaye, but at least now he knew the assistant professor was seemingly in good health. When the audience stood and started trickling toward the door, he pulled on his moist jacket and backpack and moved quickly to exit before the main cluster of people. He reached the hallway without anyone calling after him, hurried down the stairs and out into the night.

  With the spectacle of the forested foothills and steep gorges hidden inside the night, the journey back to the mountains was long and tedious. Now the glass surfaces only reflected what went on inside the compartment, like the exclusively internal images of the sleeping mind.

  Finding himself alone in the compartment he called Michael, who answered almost immediately.

  “How are things in the mountains?” Michael said.

  “They’re good,” he smiled. “Quiet, but rainy. How are things at home?”

  “Fine, fine,” Michael said. “Windy. Had a big storm earlier this week, with thunder and lightning. Lots of trees fell down, power lines and roads blocked, roofs ruined. The wind and the tide took half the beach in the bay, they had to cover the sand with branches from old pines to prevent more from washing away. It was a proper fall storm, only not much colder than in the summer. Did you see it on the news?”

  “I missed that,” he said, feeling a pang of guilt. “How are your parents? No one injured, I hope.”

  “No, no worries, everyone’s all right, just more difficult to move around in the city than usual. But the streets are being cleaned up quickly. Wait, is that a train I’m hearing in the background? Are you on your way home?”

  At the joy in Michael’s voice, his heart jumped and the regret for not having caught a train that continued further down the coast and back to the city seared him. “Sorry,” he said and smiled into the phone. “I’m returning to the cabin. Just seen a doctor on the coast.”

  “A doctor?” Michael said. “Are you sick?”

  “No, I’m fine. I was just getting a pilot license for the astronaut test.”

  “Astronaut test?” Michael laughed. “Are you going to the moon?”

  “You know, for the astronaut training program. It’s been in the news lots of times.”

  “Oh, that,” Michael said. “Did you apply for it? How did it go?”

  “I passed the first round,” he said, and realized that Michael was the first person he had told this to. “They want to do a second series of tests. That’s what the pilot license is for.”

  “Congratulations!” Michael said. “That’s fantastic! Do you know how many rounds of tests there will be?”

  “No,” he said. “But the next time I think they’ll wish to meet us in person. And there will probably be more medical tests, if my impression from the articles about the selection process is correct.”

  “Don’t you dare come home for testing without stopping by,” Michael said.

  He smiled. “I promise.”

  “You are coming home for Christmas, aren’t you?” Michael said.

  “Yes, of course,” he said, although it was the first time he had thought of Christmas since he arrived in the mountains. “We’ll celebrate together, as always. How’s Beanie, by the way? Is the building still standing? Not a smoking hole where the apartment used to be, or the pool leaking out the window?”

  “No,” Michael laughed. “Everything’s still there, don’t worry. Beanie loves the cats and they adore her. And she keeps the apartment surprisingly
tidy, considering she lives there.”

  He laughed.

  “I suspect she thinks you might suddenly come home for a surprise visit and doesn’t want to be caught.”

  He laughed again. “Sometimes fear is the best taskmaster,” he said.

  Michael chuckled, then paused. “We miss you,” Michael said. “Your brother says your father sounds ready to disown you if you don’t come home soon.”

  “I don’t understand the fuss,” he said. “Father left his country when he was much younger than I am now. I’m still on the same continent as you, just a few hours away by train.”

  “Yes...” Michael said. “He’s just concerned. I am too, I mean, all of us are. My parents, and Beanie too.”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “I’m not going crazy, I haven’t sold all my belongings. The neighbors just started a farming project sponsored by the ministry for agriculture. They might have a crop this spring already. I want to see how it develops.”

  “They’re farming in the mountains?” Michael said.

  “Yes, it’s that warm now,” he said. “Look, all of this is just temporary. Don’t worry.”

  “I know,” Michael said. “I know.”

  He needed a moment to compose himself before making the next call. That’s what he disliked the most about phone conversations. They tended to derail, and without the direct interaction of facial expressions and body language, it was difficult to get back on track once that happened. He sighed, then tapped the number of his younger brother.