Unformed Landscape (15 page)

“I don’t know what Thomas has been saying,” she said. Then Thomas’s father talked for a long time. She listened, two or three times she said something. It’s his own fault. No. Yes. There are some things… I don’t want anything. He should just leave me alone.

“I don’t care if he wants a divorce or not,” she said. “He’s not my husband anymore. Doesn’t matter what it says on the piece of paper.”

Her mother stood next to her. Her alarmed expression made Kathrine furious. When she hung up, her mother started to cry.

“Stop that! You should be happy it’s all over.”

“But what will people say? Not yet thirty, and twice divorced.”

“He doesn’t want to get divorced. We don’t do divorce, his father said. We.” Kathrine laughed aloud.

“But think of Randy,” said her mother.

“I am thinking of Randy. And I’m not having him going up there anymore.”

“They want to have a birthday party for him.”

During that week, Kathrine and Morten didn’t meet, but Morten sent Kathrine an e-mail every couple of hours or so. He must have gotten hold of a French dictionary from somewhere, because he was writing things she didn’t understand that still made her laugh. In the evenings, they talked endlessly on the telephone.

“Was your grandmother really French?” Kathrine asked once.

“She was a Sami. So was my grandfather. My father still lived in a tent. He used to tell me about it a lot. How cold it was. When they built the house, he was five. And when they moved in, Father said, now we’re in Paradise. In the summer they went up in the mountains with the reindeer.”

“My father was a Sami as well,” said Kathrine. “Why didn’t you ever mention it?”

“My father had a cassette with songs. And if someone couldn’t sleep, he put it on. Voi, voi, voi…”

“Stop it,” she said. “Why didn’t you ever say?”

“What does it matter. Do you want me to go around in a red hat?”

The next day, Kathrine asked her boss about getting transferred, and Morten called all his friends in Tromso, to ask about work. On Saturday, he took the Hurtig Line boat. Kathrine came along to the harbor. Morten was the only passenger to join the boat.

“Finnmark Radio,” he said, “well, we’ll see. They’re not really looking for anyone. On the other hand, they liked my show. We’ll see.”

“When are you coming back?”

“When I’ve found a job. Shall I call you when I’m in Tromso?”

The next day, it was the service for Alexander. Kathrine went to church for the first time since her father’s death. The evening before, she had met the woman who had been the last person to see Alexander alive. Kathrine had asked her if she was coming, but the woman said, better not.

Her mother was coming along, even though she had never met Alexander.

“He was a fisherman,” she said, and Kathrine said, “We don’t know he’s dead.”

They took Randy with them. He sat between them, and was very quiet. The reverend talked about Jonah and the great fish.

“For thou cast me into the deep,” he said, “in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about; all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul; the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever; yet thou hast brought up my life from corruption.”

Kathrine looked at Alexander’s wife and his two daughters, who were sitting in the front row between Ian and Svanhild. Presumably, they didn’t understand a word. The girls shifted about. They had thin braids, tied with colored ribbons, and they wore clothes that looked as if their mother might have sewn them herself.

Then the organ played, and the preacher said, “Overnight we are created, and overnight we are unmade again.”

Kathrine couldn’t remember what the minister had spoken about at her father’s funeral. She had felt paralyzed the whole time, and had only been able to cry when they were back at home. “In the night Alexander Sukhanik left our village, and he has not been seen since,” said the minister. “We do not know where he is. But wherever he is,
he is with God, and God is with him. Because no sheep is ever lost from His flock.”

Kathrine didn’t believe what the minister was saying, and yet his words were comforting to her. Perhaps it was enough if he believed it, or Alexander’s wife believed it, or Ian or Svanhild. Perhaps it was enough if the minister just spoke the words. Perhaps it was enough that they were all assembled here, that they were thinking of Alexander, that they would remember him later, and this day and this hour.

After the service, the minister and Alexander’s wife and Ian stood by the door, and everyone went past them, and shook the minister’s hand and the wife’s. Kathrine thought of saying something, but in the end she didn’t, and she just shook hands with the woman.

“My husband was a fisherman as well,” said Kathrine’s mother. Ian whispered something into the ear of Alexander’s wife, and she nodded and smiled.

After a week, Morten still wasn’t back. On Sunday it was Randy’s birthday. Kathrine hadn’t finally had the heart to put a stop to the party at Thomas’s parents. She took Randy there. She stopped at the garden gate. Behave nicely, she said, don’t eat too much, and say thank you for your presents. She watched Randy running across the big garden, and she thought he’s small for his age, but he’ll grow. As she was on the point of going, Thomas’s father stepped out of the house.

“Kathrine,” he called out, “we have one or two things to settle.”

Kathrine hesitated. Then she thought, I’m not going to run away a second time, and she went up to the house. Randy had slipped past Thomas’s father, and had disappeared inside. From the passage, Kathrine could see into the living room, where Thomas and his family and a dozen or so of Randy’s classmates were all sitting. Over the door was a banner, with “Happy Birthday” written on it in bright colors. The living room looked cozy. It was decorated with paper chains, and there were presents lying on the table, along with big dishes and bowls full of cakes and sweets. Randy was very excited. He had his hands clasped in front of his chest, and he was shaking them this way and that. He turned round to look at Kathrine. She nodded to him. The guests sang Happy Birthday.

“We’ll go in the study, shall we?” said Thomas’s father.

They sat opposite each other. Thomas’s father lit himself a cigar, rather fussily. It’s you who want something from me, thought Kathrine, not I from you. Nothing can happen to me. I’ll just sit through this, whatever it is, and then I’ll go, and I’ll never come again.

Thomas’s father told her not to be stupid. Thomas was a good man, and he meant well by her. He had spent weeks getting the apartment ready. He had ordered furniture all the way from Oslo. She must see how lovely everything was. Would she like to see it? And for Randy too. His room
had been turned into a little boy’s paradise. Thomas had bought a computer for the kid. It was important that kids learned early on how to work on computers, because that was the future.

“The future is in the children,” said Thomas’s father. And when she spoke about Thomas’s lies, he said, “You must look to the future. Don’t always look back. We’ve all made our mistakes.”

The letter? A piece of nonsense. Thomas’s father apologized for it. Thomas had insisted she had done it with other men. Excuse the expression, he said, how could we know… That he was lying? That he wasn’t telling the truth. It must be in her to forgive a man.

“You who put your faith in Him will understand the Truth,” said Thomas’s father, “and the faithful in love will live with Him.”

“I don’t want to forgive him,” said Kathrine, “and I don’t love him.”

Thomas’s father said that could surely change. He and his wife had some difficult times behind them. Enduring love was the invention of romantic novelists. Marriage was an institution, it was what society was founded on, its smallest cell. And she should think of Randy.

“Thomas is ready to adopt him. Randy would be our only grandchild. The way things are looking with Veronica and Einar, he might well remain so. Think of what possibilities would be open to him. It’s not just the house. I’m going to be quite open with you. My fortune is much
greater than just this house. We have papers, secure investments. And on my wife’s side, a lot of land. All that will belong to Thomas and Veronica, and then one day to Randy. Don’t be silly. What more can you want from us?”

“No,” said Kathrine, getting up. “I can’t ask for any more.”

As she stepped out of the study, she saw Randy kneeling on the floor in a pile of presents and brightly colored wrapping paper. He was just opening a present. He looked serious and intent. Kathrine went into the living room. The grown-up conversations all stopped, but the children went on talking and playing on the floor with those things that Randy had already unwrapped. Kathrine looked over at Thomas. He slowly got to his feet, beckoned to her to sit in one of the armchairs, and smiled solicitously. Kathrine went to Randy and said, Come on. Randy looked up at her. She held out her hand. I haven’t finished unwrapping everything, he said. Come on, said Kathrine. Tears were running down her cheeks.

“Come on,” she said softly, “we’re going now.”

Randy didn’t want to go. No, he shouted, and then he started crying and screaming. Some of the other children started crying too, and Kathrine snatched Randy up, pulled his jacket off the hook in the hallway, and left the house. Only when they were out in the garden did she set Randy down, put on his jacket, and take his hand.

“Those are bad people,” she said. “We’re never coming here again, do you understand?”

Randy was still whimpering, but he walked home with Kathrine.

Morten came back from Tromso two days later. The thing with the job at Radio Finnmark hadn’t worked. He had gone round to some other employers, and finally got a job at an Internet company. A good job, he said, they would like me to start right away, but I can’t start before the beginning of April. What about you? Next June, said Kathrine. A colleague is taking maternity leave, and I’m keeping her job warm. After that, we’ll see.

“I’ll get a room,” said Morten, “and when you come, we’ll look for an apartment together.”

Kathrine had gone round to Morten’s for the first time since getting back from her journey. They had cooked a meal together, and eaten and washed up. Afterward they sat at the kitchen table, and worked out how much rent they could afford, and they looked at ads in the papers that Morten had brought back from Tromso with him.

“Two children’s rooms,” said Morten. “What do you think?”

K
athrine was sitting in the fishermen’s refuge. She had finished her lunch. Her colleagues had gone back to work, but she was still sitting there, as though waiting for something. She looked out and saw the village, as though for the very first time. Morten walked by outside. She waved to him, but he wasn’t looking, and didn’t see her.

That evening, Kathrine was back in the fishermen’s refuge. She was looking out the window. In the parking lot outside, there were some cars with their engines running, with pale young men sitting in them, sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs. She knew most of them but only by sight. They were too young, their parents too old. There were families in the village who never met.

In a red Volvo sat a man and a woman. The woman was talking and waving her hands about, the man was looking down, he was smoking a cigarette and listening to her. After a while he got out of the car, threw away the cigarette, and walked off. The woman in the Volvo punched the steering wheel with her fist, and then she drove off.

In the hall, one of the Russian seamen who was staying there was telephoning. He was speaking English. Kathrine could understand what he was saying. She smiled.

From the television room, she could hear an announcer reading out the lottery numbers. Five, eleven, thirteen, thirty-one… Kathrine wondered what Svanhild would do if she won the lottery. She herself had never played, she had no idea what she would do with the money. Perhaps go on a trip. Helge had used to play, Thomas too, even Morten occasionally.

April, May, June, Kathrine counted them off. Helge, Thomas, Christian, Morten. Three thousand kronor in her bank account, a few books, a few clothes, a few bits of kitchen equipment. A laptop. A kid.

Randy was eight now. Kathrine was twenty-eight. She had lived here for twenty-one years, almost a quarter of a century. She was afraid to leave the village. But Morten would help her. He had lived in Tromso once before. They would look for an apartment together, buy furniture, maybe a car sometime. They would go out to restaurants and films together.

Kathrine got coffee from the sideboard, left five kronor next to the till, and sat down at the window again. Goodbye, said the Russian seaman in the hall, three, four times, before hanging up. A door slammed shut, the television was switched off, and nothing was audible beyond the humming of the fridge and the quiet ticking of the wall clock. Svanhild stood by the door, turned off the light, and then on again. She apologized. I didn’t see you. That’s OK, said Kathrine. She finished her coffee, it was only lukewarm now, and she said good night, and went.

She walked through the village, and then along the road that led to the airport. She counted her steps up to a hundred, ten times, and then she gave up. Beyond the old airfield were the huts, the hut where Thomas had sat waiting for whatever he was waiting for. Kathrine wondered what would have happened if she had gone in to him. Maybe he had been waiting for her.

Now, at night, the distances seemed shorter than they did by day. The snow was light, it was as though the earth was glowing under the dark sky. Kathrine thought about Randy’s pinkish night-light. The bright spot in the dark room.

The air was very clear and cold. Clouds came up and moved over. Then she could see the stars again. And then Kathrine saw the Northern Lights. Like a fine curtain right across the whole horizon. Kathrine waited, watched as the wide veil grew narrower and glowed more strongly. Suddenly
it was just a thin strip, a quivering green line, a snake twisting wildly in the sky.