The Land of Dreams (Minnesota Trilogy)

by Vidar Sundstøl

  “A mixture of permanent residents and early tourists, I would guess,” said Redmeyer. “I honestly don’t know who any of these people were.”

  Nyland suddenly wished Lance Hansen were there. He could have undoubtedly told them who these people were.

  “Except for one,” Redmeyer went on. “Look over here . . . ”

  Nyland turned around and saw the name Sparky was pointing at:

  Peder Rødmyr 1896.

  “My great-great-grandfather,” he said. “So now you can see where my family’s name comes from.”

  “Oh. So Rødmyr became Redmeyer?”

  “Yes.”

  “That means you really are Norwegian.”

  “Sure. Didn’t you know that?” Redmeyer looked at Nyland in surprise.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Well, of course I’m Norwegian!”

  “Where in Norway did old Rødmyr come from?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe somewhere on the west coast. The most important thing is not where he came from, but the fact that he came here.”

  Nyland straightened up and took a couple of steps away, on the lookout for more names. They weren’t that difficult to find. Some had dates, some did not. He walked around, stopping here and there to read a name:

  Emil Mogren 23-4 1904

  J. E. Parker Toledo Ohio 1900

  Hilda Brekken 14-6 1901

  John Hector 98

  Thormod Olson 1895

  Fanny Barber

  Ben Aakre 1899

  “Vanished, like ghosts,” said Sparky Redmeyer behind him.

  “Like smoke,” said Eirik Nyland. He turned around and there, standing on the bare rock above him, was Lance Hansen, looking down at them.

  “Hi, Lance,” said Nyland.

  Lance touched his finger to the visor of his Minnesota Vikings cap. He wore sunglasses, a blue short-sleeved shirt, and light summer trousers.

  Redmeyer was already on his way up to greet him. Nyland followed close behind.

  The three of them stood there, looking around uncertainly, as if none of them had expected to run into each other.

  “What’s happening out there?” Nyland finally asked. He pointed toward the breakwater, where a few youths were sitting. They seemed to be enjoying the sunset over the lake. But near the lighthouse, at the very end of the breakwater, some birds were making a commotion. Not seagulls this time—these birds were smaller and darker. They had a peculiar way of flying, with their wings held out stiffly and slightly bent.

  Redmeyer looked at Nyland. “What do you mean?” he asked. “The birds.” He pointed again. “Don’t you see them?”

  Redmeyer pulled his sunglasses down and peered over the rims, shading his eyes with one hand. He stared hard at the breakwater. “No,” he said. “No, I don’t see any birds.”

  “Well, I can see them,” said Lance Hansen. “In fact, I noticed them a while back. I was watching them as you were kneeling down and reading names and dates. I think they’re a type of wading bird.”

  “Are they eating? What are they doing?” Nyland wondered.

  Hansen shrugged.

  “Would you like to join us out at Artists’ Point to watch the fireworks?” asked Redmeyer.

  “I don’t know . . . ,” said Lance hesitantly. “How about if we agree to meet again in ten or fifteen minutes? There’s something I have to do first.”

  “Okay,” said Redmeyer.

  “So we’ll see you out on the promontory?” said Nyland.

  Lance nodded.

  LANCE HANSEN DIDN’T LOOK BACK, just walked at a slow pace toward the glowing sunset. A quarter of the sun’s disk had already disappeared. The sun was slowly sinking into the ridge above town. Kitchi-Gami was colored golden, pink, silvery-white, sulfur-yellow, as well as a number of hues for which no words existed.

  The breakwater stretched out straight as an arrow toward the sunset and all the colors. He could still make out a vague figure beyond the foundation of the lighthouse. Even the white tower rising above the figure had almost disappeared in the light. It was this figure that had made him start to walk forward. He didn’t know why, but there was something about it that he had to find out. When he met Redmeyer and Nyland, he was certain that they’d notice it, especially when Nyland began talking about the birds out there. But strangely enough, they hadn’t seen it.

  Some kids were sitting on the breakwater, not far from him. Lance was going to have to walk past behind them. He hoped he didn’t know any of the teenagers. But it was possible. Maybe a son or daughter of one of his friends. They were sitting in a row, like birds in the setting sun. Five of them.

  He could still see the figure at the very end of the breakwater. It looked like a seated person. A torso. Or could it be a big black sack? No, it was a person.

  He had almost reached the teenagers now. One of them, a boy, cast a quick glance at Lance, then turned away to look at the water again. Lance walked behind them. Three boys and two girls. Fifteen or sixteen, he thought. One of the girls leaned back and looked up just as he walked past. He tried to give her a friendly smile, but she looked away, as if he had frightened her.

  After passing the teenagers, he glanced quickly over his shoulder and noted that Redmeyer and Nyland were on their way toward the promontory.

  The breakwater stretching out in front of him was completely swathed in light, all the way out to the lighthouse. But no one was sitting there anymore. The dark figure seemed almost to have dematerialized. The only way anyone could have slipped away was by walking past Lance, and no one had done that. The breakwater was only about six feet wide. Of course nobody could have passed by without him noticing. Yet he still turned around to look in the opposite direction, but he saw only the five teenagers, sitting there just as they had before. One of them, a boy, was now staring at Lance. The kids then put their heads together to say something, but he couldn’t hear what they said.

  What the heck, he thought, and started walking again. He didn’t know what else to do. It seemed pointless to turn around and go back.

  When he was almost up to the lighthouse, a flock of small wading birds rose up from the back of the tower, where they’d been sitting on the pavement. Since they were almost a cement gray themselves, Lance hadn’t noticed them. They took off from the spot where the dark figure had been sitting. Now the birds were restlessly swooping around over the water in the harbor.

  Lance went between the white-painted steel posts that supported the lighthouse, passed the steps leading up to the hatchway in the floor, and came out on the other side of the tower. There the breakwater continued on for a few more yards before abruptly ending.

  He walked all the way out to the edge and looked down, but there was nothing to see. When he raised his head again, he saw a canoe in the water, about sixty-five feet away. He noticed at once that it was a birchbark canoe. The inner side of the bark gives canoes like that a lovely yellowish color. This one seemed relatively new. Lance knew birchbark canoes were still being made in places such as Grand Portage. But they were sold for high prices as far as he knew. He’d never seen anyone paddle one before.

  A man was kneeling in the back of the canoe. He was using a short, old-fashioned oar, which also looked new and beautiful. The man wore a dark jacket and a big round hat. His clothes looked old and tattered. He was paddling with slow, steady strokes, making the canoe glide lightly and quickly through the water.

  Lance had an urge to call out to the man. It wasn’t unusual to shout and wave to somebody in a boat. And this was a very special kind of boat. He was just about to raise his hand when the man stopped paddling and turned to look toward Lance standing on the breakwater. His face was filthy, in a shiny sort of way, as if he’d spent a long time sitting in front of a bonfire. And now Lance recognized him. This was the man he’d seen walking along Highway 61 the day he drove to Two Harbors to
visit Andy and Tammy.

  The man continued to glide away in the canoe as he held the paddle just above the water. His speed decreased, and soon the canoe was almost motionless. But it was still moving just a little, carried forward by the current or the wind. The bow began to point straight at Lance.

  He waited for the man to say something. Surely he had stopped because he meant to speak.

  Lance thought his jacket looked like he’d found it in the attic of a house that had been unoccupied since before World War II. Discovered in the attic and then put to use, without giving it so much as a good brushing. At one time it had apparently been black, maybe a suit jacket, but now it was so worn it seemed almost gray. And then there was the man’s hat with the wide, round brim that drooped a bit, as if it had been in the water for a long time and lost some of its original shape. The man in the canoe was truly a pitiful sight. And yet Lance felt nailed to the spot by the man’s eyes. Because he wasn’t merely looking at Lance, he had fixed his eyes on him. Lance felt his legs turn heavy and stiff while his heart hammered unpleasantly. He didn’t know what there was about this man—all he knew was that he’d never experienced this feeling before. Never. To feel someone looking at him this way. A man like this.

  At that instant the man lowered the short, old-fashioned oar into the water and began paddling again. He paddled without a sound, which was something only a truly experienced canoeist could do.

  Lance watched him go. That broad, stooped back. A few tufts of dark hair visible between his hat and the collar of his jacket. Only now, when the man was no longer staring at him, did Lance realize he was an Ojibwe. And it wasn’t because of the fine birchbark canoe or the skill with which he maneuvered it, but because he had an Ojibwe face. Only now did that occur to him. It was the face of a full-blooded Ojibwe.

  Of course there were Ojibwe up here, just as there were birch-bark canoes. Yet there was something unreal about this whole scene. As if it were a clip from an old documentary film about the Ojibwe Indians of Minnesota. He’d seen films like that, both in school and while working for the U.S. Forest Service. Black-and-white movies of unkempt Ojibwe wearing discarded clothing from white homes. From the worst period of all, around the beginning of the twentieth century, when they looked like a population of vagrants, bums, down-and-outs. The Indian in the canoe looked as if he’d stepped right out of one of those old films.

  Lance stayed where he was, watching the canoe glide farther and farther out into the lake. The man had already put a considerable distance between himself and the breakwater. The sun had now almost completely disappeared. Sections of the surface had begun to darken, turning purple. Lance lost sight of the canoe as it crossed the border of one of these patches. He stood there on the breakwater, waiting for the boat to reappear, but that didn’t happen.

  When he turned to go back to shore, he saw that the five teenagers were no longer sitting there. He was alone on the breakwater. At that moment he heard a shrieking sound, and the first rocket exploded in a shower of green stars above the lake.

  20

  “I KNOW WHAT KIND OF RELATIONSHIP YOU AND GEORG HAD,” said Eirik Nyland calmly. He was standing at the window, looking out. They were on the second floor of the Best Western Motel in Duluth. Outside was a parking lot that was almost full. It was Saturday, July 5.

  “No, I don’t think you do,” said Bjørn Hauglie behind him. “It was a friendship that . . . ” His voice broke before he could finish what he wanted to say.

  “The two of you were lovers, weren’t you?”

  “What are you saying?” Hauglie sounded shocked.

  “Do you think you’re dealing with one of the teachers at your high school back home in Hordaland?” said Nyland, keeping his voice calm. “Or that I’m as naive as your family?”

  Empty Coke cans that they’d just finished off stood on the little table between the two chairs in the room. The remains of two pieces of cake were also on the table. Nyland had told Hauglie that he’d gone into town to buy these items. In reality, he’d merely gone down to the lobby, where Bob Lecuyer was waiting with the cakes and sodas. It was at Lecuyer’s request that Nyland was interviewing Hauglie alone. “I’m sure he’s longing to speak Norwegian with someone. So you already have an advantage,” Bob had said.

  They had started off talking about inconsequential matters. The consulate in Minneapolis. This hotel room, which Hauglie wouldn’t have to pay for, of course. His desire to fly home as soon as possible. Did he really have to stay here until the case was solved? What if it was never solved? Nyland had smiled and assured him that they were not going to detain him in Duluth forever. But after a while the detective stood up and went over to the window. He stood there for a long time, with his back to the room. And then he suddenly said that he knew what kind of relationship the two young men had shared.

  Now he was standing in front of Hauglie, who was sitting on the chair, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt.

  “The last time we talked, you lied to me. Now you need to tell the truth, no matter what it may be, or I’ll make sure that you have much more serious problems than finding a cheap flight home. I can promise you that. You and Georg Lofthus were lovers. You can start there.”

  “My friend is dead,” said Hauglie, a look of disbelief still on his face. “My best friend, and you . . . ”

  “I’ve been in contact with Linda,” said Nyland.

  “Linda?”

  “She gave me her version of the story.”

  Suddenly there was nothing left of Hauglie’s attempt at pretense. His expression had changed from feigned bewilderment to something that seemed genuine. He looked away.

  “Linda . . . ,” he repeated.

  “That’s right. Linda. What do you think of her?” Nyland pulled the other chair out a bit and sat down. His knees were almost touching Hauglie’s. He leaned forward. “A nice girl?”

  “Why did you talk to Linda?”

  “She was Georg’s fiancée, after all. They were going to get married, right?”

  Bjørn Hauglie nodded.

  “Naturally we had to talk to her,” Nyland went on.

  “So what did she say?” Hauglie’s voice had faded until it was barely a whisper.

  “What do you think she said?”

  He merely shook his head.

  “She said that she had started to wonder whether you and Georg were homosexual. That was the word she used. Homosexual.” He saw how the young man shrank back, as if he’d been punched in the face.

  “She said that?”

  Nyland nodded.

  “That damn . . . that fucking . . . that . . . ”

  Suddenly he slammed his fist on the table. One of the Coke cans fell to the floor. Nyland calmly leaned down to pick it up. He set it back on the table. He was prepared for this type of reaction. It was exactly where he wanted him. Hauglie was sitting there, gripping the armrests of his chair. For a moment Nyland wondered if the young man was going to throw up.

  “Linda Nørstevik is a whore,” said Hauglie. He was straining to keep his voice calm. “That’s a nasty thing to say, but it’s the truth. A slut who has offered herself to anybody and everybody, for as long as I can remember.”

  “But what about the fact that Georg loved her?”

  “Loved her? You think Georg loved Linda? Are you crazy, man?”

  “But they were engaged to be married. Of course he loved her. She was the one he loved.”

  “What do you know about love?” said Hauglie.

  “I know at least that you and Georg were lovers. We found your semen in his stomach. Or maybe he swallowed it by accident?”

  The young man turned bright red. Then he covered his face with his hands and bent forward. He remained sitting like that, with his face hidden in his hands.

  “Take it easy,” Nyland said at last. “Personally, I think you and Georg Lofthus had every right to be together. And in whatever way
you liked.”

  Hauglie slowly sat up. He let his hands fall. When his face came into view again, it had changed color, taking on a grayish pallor. He looked at Nyland. “Right?” he repeated. “No one has the right to defy God’s word. A person can’t alter the meaning of the Word just in order to give free rein to his own . . . his repulsive . . . his—”

  “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with thanksgiving,” Nyland said, interrupting him. “Do you remember that Bible quote?”

  “Paul’s first letter to Timothy. Chapter four, verse four. It’s a sort of motto in Georg’s family. Why are you asking about that?”

  “We found his Bible. And the citation is inscribed on the first page, along with a greeting from his grandparents. A confirmation gift.”

  “Oh. Well, that sounds right.”

  “Don’t you think there’s something a bit grotesque about it now? In light of . . . the relationship the two of you had? The way everything ended, I mean?”

  Hauglie shook his head. He seemed totally perplexed.

  “Okay, then, let’s be a little more specific,” said Nyland. “You had sex, and Georg said it was the last time. Right? He talked about Linda again. That he was actually going to get married very soon. To that slut Linda Nørstevik. In a way, I can understand why you did what you did. Or rather, I understand your rage. There’s no doubt that you were badly treated.”

  “What exactly are you getting at?” said Hauglie.

  “The truth,” said Nyland. “And part of the truth is that you had sex with Georg Lofthus a few hours before he was killed. Lofthus was about to be married to the young woman who you just called a whore and a slut. So far there are no indications that there was a third individual at the scene of the crime. Don’t you see where this is going?”

  “But there’s something I’ve remembered since the last time we talked. Something that I didn’t mention before.”

  “I’m sure there is,” said Nyland sarcastically.

  “I think I said that we didn’t hear or see any other people near the campsite . . . ”