Not Dark Yet

by Berit Ellingsen

  In the beam from his headlamp the path from the train platform to the cabin shone like exposed bone and the scent from the heather and bilberry was fragrant and strong. The wind was low and humid and there were no moon and no stars in the sky. He wondered what it felt like to shoot through that darkness for months, without being able to go outside, or take a breath of fresh air, or be with friends and family, of not seeing the places he loved or doing the things he usually did. But then the images of another place blossomed up in his mind. A mountain, the remnants of an enormous volcano, so huge its summit curved beyond the horizon, forever out of sight, halfway to the stars. A canyon so large it could hold three of the deepest gorges on Earth inside itself and still have room for more. Endless plains traced with the marks of long-forgotten rivers and deltas, superimposed by craters and calderas. An anaerobic, freezing wind blowing red. Going there, seeing those sights, landscapes that no human being had ever witnessed before, would be more than worth the danger, boredom, and loneliness of the journey.

  In the shrub around him insects hummed and from overhead came the clicks and ticks of hunting bats. He remembered Kaye telling him that a bat, when petted, would purr loudly, like a cat.

  18

  THE TRUCKS AND TRACTORS AND CARS AND PEOPLE arrived while the sky was still orange and the dawn clouds heavy along the horizon. He sat up on the mattress, pulled out of sleep by the noise and light. The convection from the tripartite window chilled him and he was sweaty and cold at the same time, as if he’d spent the night outdoors. He yawned and rubbed his face. He smelled of sleep and unkempt hair. If Michael had been there, he would have made drowsy waking-up noises, muttered to him in a morning-hoarse voice.

  The neighbors heaved large sacks from the trucks to the ground, gathered around the bags, and began filling the seed drills attached to three tractors. With the seeds loaded, the tractors started moving. One of them drove southwest, another chugged north, and the last continued west for a short distance before they changed gears and spat thick smoke from the chimneys. The vehicles entered the newly fertilized soil, sank a little into it, before they continued slowly along the plowed furrows.

  From the cabin he couldn’t spot any trails of pale grains on the ground; the seed drills probably placed and covered the seeds as they advanced. The nearest tractor continued down the field. A flock of seagulls, far from the coast, bobbed up and down in the air, and sparrows, blackbirds, starlings, even a few ravens and lapwings, alit when the tractor had passed, trying to catch the seeds that had not been covered and the worms and bugs that had been churned up from the soil.

  Someone banged on the door. He pulled the sleeping bag around him.

  “Come in!” he said and turned toward the kitchen.

  Eloise stood in the doorway, knee-high rubber boots soiled to the rim, the front of her green oilskin jacket spattered with mud, her cheeks red and her eyes shining like the sun in spring.

  “We’re starting,” she beamed. “Finally we’re off!”

  “Want some tea?” he said.

  She shook her head, too busy to stop. “Imagine, in just a few months all this will be covered by grain, ready to be harvested, to fill our stores, and to be packaged for export. And then, after the first harvest, we will be able to sow again almost immediately and have a second crop over the summer. This really is the future!”

  He took the cup of water he always kept next to the mattress at night and toasted her. “To the future!” he said.

  She looked at him and his naked chest, grew a little flustered, and folded her arms. “Not up yet?” she said.

  “Not yet,” he said, grinning.

  She leveled her eyes at him, making no signs of leaving.

  He gazed up at her. “The sowing is very noisy,” he said. “How long will you be at it?”

  She scoffed, turned, and slammed the door behind her.

  Later in the day he received an email that the manual treadmill he ordered had arrived at the post office. He got up, washed, shaved, dressed, and ate, and emptied the large backpack. Then he walked for an hour and a half to the post office in the center of town, tied the cardboard box with the treadmill to his backpack with lengths of twine he pulled off a cone at the packing desk and cut with a flourish of the scissors that hung there. He also purchased freeze-dried camping food: beef stew, lamb stew, vegetable stew, cod terrine, pasta in tomato sauce, ground beef in chili sauce, chicken in curry, tomato soup, pea soup, and oatmeal, and met no one he knew.

  When he arrived at the cabin it had already grown dark, but the distant, shivering beams and the low, steady noise from at least two engines indicated that the neighbors were still at work. Would they carry on all night as they had done during plowing? Above the cabin’s deck the sky was a black dome, pierced with stars.

  Inside, he put the backpack down and untied the rectangular box fastened to it. He opened the container with the old, but still-sharp boxcutter from the kitchen drawer, and assembled the small steel construction with the simple tools that were included in the package. He had chosen a manual treadmill for easier transport, assembly, and storage. At day he could move the treadmill out on the deck and run even if it turned too muddy to jog along the fields, or if snow and ice arrived. Should he have another white-out, a manual treadmill would be safer than a motorized one.

  He placed the mill by the panorama window so he could run and imagine being outside. Then he put on his trainers to test the acquisition. The oblong rubber surface had a pleasant give and moved comfortably along with his steps. He ran for almost an hour while he watched the tractors progress slowly from north to south and then back again along the plowed furrows, casting about headlights that were quickly consumed by the night. After the run he went to sleep on the mattress and dreamed that seagulls, sparrows, and blackbirds landed on him while stalks of ripe wheat grew forth from his flesh.

  With the three seed drills and tractors the sowing took only a few days. Then the fields were still dark, but full of hidden, secret life, which would germinate over the winter and become sustenance, income, and a bulwark against starvation. What countless people in the world must be desiring. Seed banks and grain stores had been mentioned more and more frequently in the news. The word “stockpiling” hadn’t come up yet, but he assumed that by now most countries were saving what they could, as well as recalculating their annual yields given the new numbers for yearly average precipitation and temperature. Many nations had started rationing water to ensure that the industry had what it needed. On the internet were rumors that some countries were pumping water that had already been used once by industrial facilities into the public water network, still full of heavy metals and other toxic compounds.

  It was at least clear that the food prices had increased alarmingly and that an international race to purchase arable land and sources for water had been going on for quite some time. He assumed that corporations and individuals who could afford it would not only stockpile, but create gated enclaves, like revelers in the stories about the plague, to ensure access to the most vital resources. He also wondered whether his own move from the city to the cabin, and the neighbors’ tilling and seeding, could also be regarded as such. But he thought not. It was safeguarding the future, taking active measures. Neither he nor the farmers were keeping anyone out or preventing them from leaving.

  At first he enjoyed the idea of the seeds growing in the dark soil all around the cabin and turning the ancient nutrients of the earth and air into food. He dreamed of golden fields and the wind whispering in the grain, but when he realized that the first green stalks might soon peek like stubble through the substrate, he thought he hadn’t searched far enough to secure a home in the wilderness. Nevertheless, with the sowing done, the cabin was just as isolated and the nights and days as silent as before. No road had been built, nor had any of the neighbors erected new buildings or created any constructions that imposed on his land. Worse yet, he had willingly accepted the tilling and sowing and signed the farmers’ pro
ject. As when the plans had first been presented to him, he couldn’t see any drawbacks, only advantages. The project would bring food, security, and possibly a steady income. But he disliked looking at the now-cultivated land so much that he turned the sofa, the mattress, and the treadmill away from the panorama view and toward the deck and the forest and the sky that was visible through the window in the kitchen and front door.

  To further distract himself from the new and unsympathetic landscape, and although he usually feigned disinterest in the culture of his father’s country, he ordered pale sand for the hearth especially selected and sieved by traditional craftsmen near the city of his grandparents. The sand originated from a beach where a historical battle had taken place and was flown to his country of residence. When the bag of ridiculously expensive sand arrived, he immediately walked over to Eloise and Mark’s to borrow a shovel, and emptied the hearth of the old and dark sand. Then he hiked through the heather to the post office, carried the new sand home, and poured it slowly into the square pit in the floor.

  Like a vampire finally in possession of soil from his ancestral lands to rest in, he spread the sand out in the hearth with his palms. When that was done he spent half the night picking up the pale and fine grains, and letting them fall through his hands, again and again.

  19

  THE WEEKS PASSED QUICKLY INTO THE DARKEST days of winter. The temperature sank, but only to that of a mid-autumn. He reserved a train ticket home for Christmas, with an open return back to the mountains. Kaye’s next lecture was only a few days away. Now that he knew Kaye was alive, he hadn’t planned on attending the meeting, but as the date approached, he realized that he had no reason not to go and knew that if he didn’t he would regret it. The last time he had managed to avoid being spotted by Kaye or anyone else who might have recognized him. If he was careful about how and when he arrived and left, there was no reason in the world he shouldn’t remain unseen.

  He checked the schedule online and memorized the times when the trains went back to the mountains, and ordered a ticket. When that was done he felt elated, but also guilty, since Michael would no doubt be hurt if he knew. He spent the rest of the evening buying Christmas gifts online for Michael (photography and cook books, jazz and classical music, a return trip from the city to the cabin by train), Beanie (high-end earphones, five rolls of hard-to-find analog film, a spacious memory card for her digital camera), Katsuhiro (a computer role-playing game, science-fiction films, hair and skin care products), and his parents (matching bathrobes, a stone garden lantern from his father’s country). He ordered everything gift-wrapped, attached with notes, and mailed to the post office nearest to the honeycomb towers so he wouldn’t have to carry them in his backpack home.

  Since he had no doctor’s appointment this time, he caught a late train to the coast. When he arrived it was almost dark, a heavy, mist-filled dusk shrouding the town and the sea. Along the pier the ocean was a charcoal plain under a sky the same color, but quiet and still, not perturbed like on his last visit. Not even the cries of seagulls broke the hush. It reminded him of the descriptions of the land of the dead in classical literature; an ashen, cold, and silent world where the dead wandered restlessly, yearning for their former lives, under a sky where neither the sun nor the stars ever rose. Those descriptions had seemed more peaceful and less terrible than the images of the afterlife which the continent’s dominant religion offered: burning in lakes of fire while being tortured by malevolent supernatural beings. But now he felt less certain. Perhaps eternal agony was preferable to eternal longing.

  Darkness fell quickly. The resort town seemed almost abandoned, and more shops were closed or boarded up than last time. As he crossed the city center and entered the streets that led inland, he saw only a handful of moving cars. Not until he reached the brown-painted door between the surf store and the pharmacy where a handful of people stood smoking and chatting did he see anyone else. He stopped a few meters upwind from the group and checked his mail and messages on the phone. When the smokers dropped their cigarettes and filed inside, holding the door open for one another, he followed them into the threadbare corridor and up the stairs. Once again he had timed his arrival well, and while the crowd was about to sit down and hang their jackets on the backs of their chairs, he slid into a seat behind them. Right in front of him was a tall man in a red jacket and a woman with a hairy knit beret. If he leaned back in the chair, he’d be almost impossible to see from the front.

  This time the introductory speaker wasn’t Narayan, but a woman with blond hair he recognized as one of Kaye’s senior PhD students. Were these lectures some form of graduate teaching? Or had Kaye moved his entire group to the coast to conduct marine research? But the graduate student presented no local projects or experiments of her own, only the reports and numbers of other scientists, research institutions, and international organizations, on climate change and global warming. How much the temperature was increasing, the speed at which it was happening, how fast the polar regions were melting, how quickly the sea was rising, how much the heightened levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased the acidity in the oceans and the thawing of the tundra, how the new temperatures led to droughts, forest fires, crop failures. How the elevated ocean levels made low-lying cities and countries prone to flooding, storms, loss of drinking water, and arable land, how food production was dramatically decreasing all over the world, and how, in just a few years only the truly rich would be able to afford to eat food that was clean and healthy, while starvation, malnutrition, and lack of water would become the norm for most of the planet’s billions, even on the western and northern continent. The student then showed what the rainier summers and the milder winters in the north and the hotter summers and the drier winters in the south would mean for the countries on the continent. It was no longer a question of if or when, the changes were not about to happen, they had long since started, and already the effects of human-made climate change were being felt harshly all over the planet.

  The information made his stomach turn and his heart beat heavily. He remembered warnings in the past of how bad the future would become if the emissions of greenhouse gases were not ceased or the use of fossil fuels not exchanged for renewable energy sources. That had not happened, they had been allowed to continue more or less like before, and so the troubling, uncertain future had become the volatile, menacing present.

  Finally, Kaye himself appeared on the dais and took the microphone. More slides and graphs, what the climate and environmental changes would mean for the country, this particular stretch of coast, and the local community. And lastly, what the community could do, which political representatives to write to, what companies to protest against, which rallies to join, and petitions to sign, what a grassroots movement could do, and was allowed to do.

  Kaye made it sound like it did matter, that it would actually help. He felt like joining those petitions, writing those politicians, returning to these meetings. When the lecture was over, he was so caught up in the buzz and the chatter of the crowd that when he finally rose to leave, the aisle was thronged with people and the doorway blocked. He cursed inside for having lost his presence of mind and not left earlier. He quickly put on his jacket and folded the collar up. It was an average mountain jacket from a very common brand. He had seen at least one other like it in the crowd, so theoretically he should not be noticed. But the queue moved slower than passengers exiting a plane, the audience busy hailing each other and chatting amicably, discussing the lecture and recent local events. He had forgotten to take the slow trickle of familiarity into account.

  He was nearly jumping with impatience when someone called his name from behind and moved toward him with quick steps. There was no point in trying to pretend that he hadn’t heard it, and the crowd was moving so slowly there was no chance to slip out the door and get away. Forcing himself to relax, telling himself he already had the back story he needed, he turned.

  “What a pleasure to see you here,�
�� Kaye said, beaming. Faint vertical scars were visible just beneath his hairline.

  “Kaye,” he said, “that was one hell of a presentation.”

  Kaye laughed and patted his shoulder. “Thank you, my friend,” he said. “Environmental protection has always been a passion of mine. These days it’s no longer about conservation, but of survival.”

  He suddenly remembered one of the awards and certifications that had been on display in Kaye’s house. “Now I understand why the faculty named you best lecturer of the year,” he said, smiling. But instead of the immediate and distracting shine the flattery was meant to produce, there was a brief sting, a visible guardedness in Kaye’s eyes.

  “Thank you,” Kaye said and returned the smile, a little too late to look unforced. “But what are you doing in this part of the world? Don’t tell me you’re here on vacation, this time of year?”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m here for a doctor’s appointment. I live up at the moor now.”

  “You’ve given up the city?” Kaye chuckled. “I always figured you for an urbanite.”

  He smiled again. “I got mixed up with an agricultural project and some crazy farmers.”

  “So you’re a farmer now?” Kaye said and laughed.

  “It seems so,” he lied.

  “Now I’m curious, what’s this project about?”

  “Winter wheat,” he said.

  “Winter wheat? In the mountains?”

  He nodded.

  “You know, they used to get most of their money from logging.”

  “Seems they want to expand their business,” he said. “It’s become mild enough to grow other crops.”

  Kaye’s smile faded. “See how far it’s been allowed to develop? And the worst thing isn’t that it’s our fault, our capitalism, our consumption, and our unwillingness to stop it that’s made it so. The worst thing is that we saw it coming decades ago and we barely did anything, because of our self-interest and refusal to change. We had every chance, all the possibility in the world to stop it in time, and we didn’t take it. Future generations are going to view us as the ancestors who permanently ruined the environment.”