by Peter Geye
But she’s not there, either, and Greta rumbles back to the great room and checks beneath the comforter she laid out on the chair. No, Liv and Axel are both gone. She feels along the wall for his leash, but the only thing hanging there is her own jacket. She puts it on in a frenzy and slides her stocking feet into her shoes and pulls the door open and strains to see footprints in the snow. But it’s dark and the snow blown smooth. She screams her daughter’s name yet can hardly even hear it herself. Not above the wind shrieking off the lake. Running straight into it and the darkness, all she can see is her daughter lost in the immensity of the night, in the blackness of the storm out on the cruel ice.
At the shoreline, she pauses to holler for both Liv and Axel, cupping her hands around her mouth and screaming until her throat hurts and then bursting into sobs. Since her eyes are gaining on the night, she scans the snow on the ice for any sign of their tracks, but this snow might as well be the dust on the moon.
Just as she’s about to head for the woods behind the house, Axel comes gamboling out of the pitch-black darkness, his leash trailing his long tail. He stops the second he sees her and sits immediately, like he’s been caught misbehaving.
She drops to her knees and grabs his ears and shouts, “Where’s Liv?”
Axel squirms free and tilts his chin into the night and lets out a howl unlike any she’s ever heard from him, one very much like those of the wolves she often hears at night. He howls again and then stands and shakes the snow from his coat. Greta jumps up and starts after him out onto the lake, still hollering. Pleading with the night.
And at last there’s a light, faint but true and unmistakable. It stops her where she stands, then she turns and sees, from thirty paces away, that it’s coming from the lamp on her desk through the fish house window. This confuses and disorients her, as sudden light often can, and for a second she thinks to go toward it. Back to the house. But then she remembers and turns toward the lake.
Liv’s tripping through the snow there, the hood on her jacket pulled up. She’s wearing a scarf and even has her snow pants on. Greta rushes to her and unwraps the scarf from Liv’s chin, and what she sees in the faltering light from the fish house across the yard is her daughter’s smile. What she hears is Liv’s laughter, and her voice explaining below the wind that Axel had to go out and she knew she could take him out. That she was brave enough to do it.
Greta pulls Liv close and kisses her cold cheek, and together they turn and are blown back to the fish house holding hands, the light from the window summoning them home.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This novel features the historical figures of Fridtjof Nansen and Otto Sverdrup, whose first voyage aboard the Fram, which began in 1893, plays a small part in the story. With one exception, I have attempted to be faithful to true events, most of which I’ve gleaned from Nansen’s own book, Farthest North, and Roland Huntford’s essential biography of him.
When Nansen returned to the Norwegian mainland with Frederik Johansen in the late summer of 1896, having been farther north than any man in history, they landed first in Vardø aboard a vessel called Windward. The following day, they sailed on to Hammerfest, where they were given their heroes’ welcome and where Nansen saw his wife, Eva, after a nearly three-year separation. While there, the Nansens stayed aboard a yacht called Otaria, which was anchored in Hammerfest harbor. All of this is true to the best of my knowledge.
The fictional liberty I’ve taken comes in the story of Nansen and Johansen reuniting with Otto Sverdrup, who captained the Fram and was the leader of the expedition while Nansen and Johansen made their run for the North Pole. In fact this reunion occurred in Tromsø, whereas in this novel it happens in Hammerfest. Though the time line reflects the historical record, and though my imagining of their personalities was based on extensive research, as characters in this book they are purely fictional.
Three other historical figures are mentioned in this novel: Christian Skredsvig, Adolf Lindstrøm, and Svend Foyn. Their lives have been fictionalized as well. The real-life vessels I’ve included are the Fram, Gjøa, Otaria, and Lofoten, which Otto Sverdrup himself captained in the summer of 1897 for the steamship company Vesteraalen, which owned it.
With respect to Norwegian place names and words, I have employed—for simplicity’s sake—the spellings and diacritics of contemporary usage.
One final note: Though there are graves in the Hammerfest cemetery with the surname Eide inscribed on them, they’re not related to the Eide family of this novel, which is wholly fictional.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THANKS:
First, to Jesseca Salky, for her tirelessness and excellent counsel, and to Rachel Altemose.
To Gary Fisketjon, friend and magic man, you’ve charmed every one of these pages.
To the crew at Knopf: Sarah New, Suzanne Smith, Jason Gobble, John Gall, Pei Koay, Kathleen Fridella, Susan Brown, Zachary Lutz, Emily Wilkerson, Kathy Hourigan, and Sonny Mehta. And especially to Tim O’Connell and Anna Kaufman for stepping in when the going got tough.
To Matt Batt, Steph Opitz Lanford, and Chris Cander, fair readers all.
To Beckett and Augie, for letting me turn the playroom into an office.
To Finn, Cormac, Eisa, you guys inspire and amaze me.
And to Emily, whose love not only made writing this book possible, but helped make it better too. You are the whole wide sea, every drop of it.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born and raised in Minneapolis, Peter Geye lives there with his family. His previous novels are Safe from the Sea, The Lighthouse Road, and Wintering.
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