I look out over the lake and recognise the far-off shore where we pitched our tents before. No Mikkelsen and Qvigstad.
Here, where I am standing now, is where we saw the immense herd of rumbling reindeer. The person herding them must have been here too, at some stage. But there is no sign of either now.
There is no doubt about it: in my current state of destitution the most sensible thing to do is to get back to civilisation. What will come of my scientific research? I didn’t even get hold of the aerial photographs. Mikkelsen has them. He can see what I can’t. If I ran into him now I’d kill him. But I don’t run into him.
Compass lost, camera broken. Bleeding and bruised, feverish from lack of sleep, empty stomach. My mind is a blank. I don’t even know the time.
The best thing now would be to head back to Skoganvarre, twenty-five kilometres away. But of course I can’t do that, because of Arne. He could go on looking for me for weeks. And I’m pretty sure he’s still waiting for me at the ravine.
Fantasising about ways of letting Arne know I’m heading back to Skoganvarre (walkie-talkie, carrier pigeon, sighting some Lapp I could ask to pass the message on to Arne, seaplane, helicopter – which I could hail, but there haven’t been any flying overhead), I plod on towards the shore of Lake Lievnasjaurre. I sit down and peer at my map through my magnifying glass. At least I know exactly where I am now. Here, right near me, the water discharges from the lake into the Lievnasjokka. This is the stream we crossed in our socks. If I keep to it, along the right bank, then the fourth tributary will be the Rivo-elv. And if I continue down the Rivo-elv valley, I’ll arrive at the ravine. It’s a long way round, but my best bet if I want to avoid all risk of getting lost again. How far? About twelve kilometres, I think. I can easily get there by tomorrow evening.
In the meantime I have finished the last of the knäckebröd. I light a cigarette and spend the next twenty minutes staring at the ripples. Then I take the fishing net out of my rucksack, untangle it and carry it to the water’s edge. I might be lucky, who knows? Now I have to unroll the net as I walk along the bank in search of a spot where it can cut off a small bay. But it keeps snagging, so I have to keep stopping to loosen the meshes from leaves and twigs. This is no good. Better to wade. I take off my shoes and my trousers. Having done that, I feel an irresistible desire to undress completely, despite the mosquitoes settling on my legs. My clothes smell foul as I pull them over my head. My trunk is streaked with tidemarks of sweat and pimpled with dried blood covering the bites of carnivorous flies. My right leg is swollen and has turned a purply blue all the way up to and over the knee. The sight of my own decrepitude disgusts me, and on an impulse I plunge my hand into the depths of my rucksack and bring out my soap to brandish it in the midnight sun. Oh, I know everything that I am and own appears incongruous in this setting. Yet the bar of soap in my hand bears a marked resemblance to the stones on the ground. A smooth green stone, a bezoar, an amulet. Clutching it as if it has magic powers, I stumble towards the water’s edge, suffering hellish pain to the soles of my lacerated feet. Then I bend down, soap myself all over, wade into the lake up to my knees, drop forward and swim. Dirt and soapsuds instantly vanish. In water as pure as this, the traces are diluted a million times.
Floating in the blissful embrace of water is effortless, painless, even better than sleeping. A completely new sensation after these long weeks of forcing my attentions on the earth’s crust only to be rebuffed by fists of rock: the boulders on which I lay, the precipices I teetered along, the stones that tripped me up. Through filaments of copper I swim towards the sun, while birds circle overhead in apparent welcome. There is no sound but the flurry of wings and the water rippling around my arms.
37
The mosquitoes have taken due account of my ablutions, which has made me even more enticing to them than before. They mass together around my head-net, which I have taken care to tie firmly under my chin before lying down.
Several hours must have gone by, because the sun is in the south. I do believe I’ve been asleep. I’d still be asleep if I weren’t so hungry. My hand slides under my shirt and slaps flies on my bare skin. The hand comes away with fresh blood on the fingertips.
I get up, take my magnifying glass and try lighting a cigarette with it. Grey smoke billows from the tobacco, soon I can see it glowing too. The sun is brighter than it has been for weeks, and I feel my confidence mounting. I will find Arne at the ravine and, who knows, I may even find a meteor crater on the way. Go back to Skoganvarre? What for? Go back to Amsterdam? What would I tell Sibbelee? And what would I tell myself? Going back now would mean throwing away all the experience I have gained so far.
I lace up my shoes and walk to the lakeside. A duck and her five young have alighted on the water. Would there be a fish in the net? I go to the shrub where I fastened one of the lines and run my eyes over the row of corks floating on the surface. It looks as if there’s an extra cork at one end, but when I jerk the line I hear the flapping of wings. One of the young ducks has got its feet caught in the net. I untie the line and take it along the bank to the shrub where I attached the other line. Cautiously I begin to draw in the net. What a catch! I pull the net towards me as gently as I can, folding the sections zigzag fashion as they emerge from the water. The creature is so panicked I’m afraid it will break its legs trying to escape. Enter Alfred, ravenous, self-styled poultryman. Promptly wrings the creature’s neck. First time in his life he has killed anything this size. Twists the head round a couple of times, like winding up clockwork. Plucks the feathers off the small corpse, cuts it open. Entrails spill out: dark yellow, liver-brown and a lot of red. Hardly anything in nature is red, except blood and guts.
But before the young duck comes within my reach there is a violent tug on the net and a frenzy of thrashing. A trout! I free its gills from the nylon mesh, stamp on its head with my heel, then draw the net further in until the young duck is close enough to seize. Well, hello, my little friend! I have to sit down to disentangle its scaly feet from the net. Then I put it on a cushion of moss about a metre from the water’s edge, where it remains, motionless.
Just before I finish hauling in the rest of the net the water starts heaving and boiling again: another trout.
The duck stays put on its cushion of moss, wings slightly raised, panting with fright, but apparently unharmed.
I make a pile of twigs close by.
I clean my two fishes, cut them up, stuff the pieces down the neck of the coffee kettle, fill it with water, scrape a bit of salt off the petrified lump with my penknife, set fire to the twigs.
The young duck observes everything I am doing, because it happens to be sitting with one eye facing in my direction. No, I wouldn’t say it is keeping me company, although I do talk to it kindly from time to time. I wish I had a crust of bread for you, but I count myself lucky to have caught those fish. The young duck’s bill curving up at the corners is even more comical than the adult version. Its eyes are of the kind that see, not look. It cheers me up with its company, at no effort on its part.
Mmm! This is very good! Barely pausing to pluck fish bones from my lips, I fill my stomach with the tenderest, noblest fish ever caught! I also drink the remaining fish stock with its nutritious spots of grease floating on the surface.
The young duck has closed its bill. It shakes its head, twists round to preen the feathers on its back, then waddles off towards the water. Without visible exertion, blown along like a toy sailing boat, it heads straight back to its mother and siblings.
38
The terrain around here is so uneven that it is difficult to gauge the average distance covered by one step. Holes, bosses, brief stretches that are fairly level followed by a rise and then a dip and so forth. No two paces are of equal length.
I have unrolled the measuring tape and laid it on the ground with a stone weighing it down at each end. I try working out how many normal steps correspond to two metres. Three and a half. I pick up the measuring tape, let
it spring back into its case and stuff it in my trouser pocket. Holding the map with both hands, I go and stand where the lake feeds into the Lievnasjokka. From here it is roughly five kilometres to the Rivo-elv, which according to the map is the fourth tributary on the right. Five kilometres, that’s two thousand five hundred times two metres, which is … which is eight thousand, seven hundred and fifty paces. Approximately. Could be a margin of five hundred or a thousand each way.
Inaccurate as my estimate may be, counting my steps will help me decide whether I have reached the Rivo-elv or not. I don’t know by which criteria my map was drawn, but the chances of one or more tributaries not having been included are considerable. So are the chances of the fourth tributary I come across not being the right one. What if I take the wrong valley! The idea makes me want to howl with terror. Because how will I ever find Arne then? Here I am, spending all my precious time trying to find my way instead of concentrating on my research, and in the end I suppose I’ll be grateful to be back in the civilised world having escaped death by starvation. And I will have achieved nothing. I will have survived, that’s all.
I tear a page out of my notebook, fold it in four, clutch it in my left hand, take a pencil in my right and begin walking.
Counting aloud, I make my way through the Lievnasjokka valley. This is the where we saw the herd of reindeer moving down towards the water. I notice their droppings here and there. They could almost be taken for meteorites.
Metereorites! Won’t find any of those this close to the water, where the ground is spongy and thickly overgrown.
So as not to miss the least opportunity, I move further up along the side of the valley, where the ground looks dry and stony and there is less vegetation. But the stones turn out to be rubble that has rolled down from the top.
Seventy. Eighty-seven, eighty-eight. Stumbling on a thufur and taking two or three steps in panicky succession – how many paces would that add up to?
I take a guess, just to give myself something to do.
Each time I reach a hundred I put a vertical mark on the paper I’m holding in my left hand. And start again. My mouth is getting parched from talking – does counting aloud rate as talking? The scrap of paper is becoming damp with sweat. While I am counting I am keeping my eyes peeled for remarkable stones, and at the same time I haven’t lost hope of meeting up with Qvigstad and Mikkelsen. I keep hoping, against my better judgment. Because Arne told me they would be going to Skoganvarre by way of Vuorje, and I am heading south-east. Almost diametrically the opposite direction!
One thousand seven hundred and fifty. I have just crossed the first tributary. Which seems right. One thousand seven hundred and fifty paces works out at one kilometre. According to the map this watercourse comes to an end a little less than one kilometre from Lake Lievnasjaurre. Well I never! It all seems to work out remarkably well! I didn’t know I had it in me. I might even get quite good at this kind of thing – finding my way across Norway without so much as a compass. To celebrate my success, I sit down for a rest and take out a cigarette. I have eight left. It’s turned misty again and the sun is as pale as the moon. I light my cigarette with one of my last five matches. Not to worry, Arne has plenty. Another nine kilometres – oh all right then, ten. Four to the Rivo-elv, and five or six to the ravine. The map is very vague. You can’t tell exactly where the ravine begins. Not that I know exactly where Arne is either. Ten kilo metres, that’s an hour and three quarters on a footpath in Holland. How much is it here? Five hours? Four maybe, because I don’t have to cross mountains. Arne won’t be surprised. He’s been expecting me to turn up for days. He won’t hold it against me, and he’s not the type to bear grudges. Nor will he belittle me. I feel small enough as it is.
To think that Nansen was roughly my age when he crossed Greenland on foot from east to west, three thousand kilometres over ice at fifteen degrees below zero. Entirely alone. No sahib-venerating Sherpas for him!
I wonder what sort of life I should have had to render me capable of such feats of achievement. To begin with, my father should not have got killed when I was seven years old. But if that hadn’t happened I might not have studied geology, I might not have gone to university at all. I might have become a flautist. A great flautist? Not necessarily. Regret? No. I am long past regretting. Playing the flute would not have vindicated my father’s death, it would not have given me a chance to go right where he went wrong.
I stand up. Better get cracking. At least I can still walk, I’m still on my feet. Even if I do get lost, make a complete fool of myself, bungle everything, I’ll still be hanging on and that’s the only thing that matters.
That is all that matters. Until now there hasn’t been a challenge I have not risen to. Everything is going to be fine, success is round the corner. I will discover a meteor crater in due course, and may even return with some meteoric stones. I can see myself showing them to Sibbelee. ‘Ah well,’ he says with his most condescending smile. ‘Of course men like Nummedal made a valuable contribution to science in their day. But when they grow old they become resistant to new ideas. It seems to me that the best time for Nummedal to have resigned would have been forty years ago, when he was at the height of his fame.’ We laugh heartily. I place the precious meteorites on his desk one by one. Next I’m facing five professors in academic robes across a green baize table. I’m wearing my tailcoat and my head is bowed, not out of deference but to decipher the PhD certificate lying on the table, upside down from where I am standing. A huge, handsomely calligraphed document bearing a red seal the size of a fried egg. Cum laude.
The score on the scrap of paper in my left hand is three rows of five tally marks and a final row of four. Ninety-five marks! Nine thousand five hundred paces. Multiply by two and divide by three and a half and I’ll have the distance in metres: roughly five thousand. I was right! I can stop counting now. I’ve crossed three tributaries already, and the one I’m reaching now, the fourth, flows down into a deep valley. This must be the Rivo-elv. There’s no need, really, to keep to the water in this case. I couldn’t possibly get lost now, so I might as well take a short cut up the side.
Having climbed sixty metres, I’m on a crest from which I can see both the Lievnasjokka and the Rivo-elv. Foaming currents interspersed with shallow rapids.
I try to imagine what the valley of the Rivo-elv will look like further along, where it narrows into the ravine where I’ll find Arne. But how am I to find him? I must now take a crucial decision: keep to the river or walk along the top of the left flank of the valley. Which is best? Taking the high route means I may not see Arne if he’s down in the valley or on the opposite side of the river. And vice versa: keeping to the river means I have a good view of the slopes, but then he may have pitched his tent in a spot you can’t see from the bottom of the valley. But he wouldn’t do a stupid thing like that. He’ll be doing everything he possibly can to make it easy for me to find him. Of course he will. And as it’s so much easier for me to walk along the river, and as Arne will realise this, that’s what I decide to do.
The valley grows deeper and narrower, the sides get steeper, too steep for plants to spread their roots. Some of the rock strata protrude like book shelves. They are lined with snow, which won’t melt all summer. Snow. Speckled with black. But also red snow. I gather a handful and study it through my magnifying glass, but it melts before I get the chance to see the microbes that stain it red. They probably wouldn’t be visible anyway. Shouldn’t be wasting my time. If I keep up a steady pace I may come upon Arne within the next hour or two. Two hours – an irrelevant measure of time if you don’t have a watch. Before nightfall – equally irrelevant in a place where it never gets dark. As soon as possible, then.
What will I say when we meet? ‘Doctor Livingstone, I presume,’ of course.
Doctor Livingstone, I presume! Laughing comes easily on an empty stomach. And it isn’t even funny, because it was Qvigstad who made the joke in the first place, and I haven’t found him either.
‘My compass indicated a different direction from yours. I’m sorry. You were right.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Lost.’
‘That beautiful compass? Pity.’
‘Good riddance, I’d say.’
‘You must have misread it.’
‘Don’t worry. I have only your compass to go by now. Mine was given to me by my God-fearing sister. A typical present from her! I wonder where she got all those funny ideas from. My father was not a believer, my mother isn’t one, and I’m not either. But she has taken it upon herself to point us in the right direction!’
‘Where to?’
‘Don’t ask me! To the North Pole, like a compass, who knows? A bit cold, but then she makes up for it by being crazy about Negro spirituals.’
‘Ha, ha, ha.’
Treading with care, I walk on, keeping as close as I can to the side of the valley so as to avoid the marsh. Three enormously fat Negresses, each weighing at least 200 kilos, clap their hands, sway from side to side, stamp their high-heeled shoes and scream hallelujah. I’m seized with pity for the Negroes, who even at the best of times are likely to be pictured in stupid, ridiculous or vulgar poses: yelling and screaming, leaping about, rolling their eyes, setting the place on fire, sweating profusely as they play their trumpets, clobbering each other in boxing rings, demanding equal rights under the guidance of a reverend minister of the very religion that oppresses them. On television or in the news papers you never see a black scientist in a laboratory, or a black astronaut, or a Negro reading from his poetry – and yet they exist.
Beyond Sleep Page 21
