“You really know the deer. Have you always lived with them?”
“No. Not at all. Before the war, I was a student in Trondheim. Medicine. I was doing a sort of apprenticeship at the hospital. But when the Germans came, well, everything changed, so for now, I’m up here full time.”
“I’m sure your grandparents are happy to have you. And your parents?”
“No parents. Both gone.” Maarit glanced away.
“Sorry if I’m prying.”
“No. It’s all right. My father was Norwegian.”
“Was? Sorry,” she repeated. “That’s probably prying, too.”
“He was killed at Narvik.”
“Oh, I’m…She was about to say “sorry” but realized she’d said it already twice. “That’s why you left your studies?”
“That and the fact that the quisling Nazis in Trondheim didn’t like having a Sami, even a half Sami, taking a place of a Norwegian. We’re inferior, you see, like Jews.”
“Ah, of course. That nonsense was in the air when I was studying in Oslo. Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, Sami. Anyone not Aryan.” She thought for another moment. “So your mother is Sami.”
“Was. But again, it’s a long story. Just like yours.”
“Oh. I was prying. I apologize. But a non-personal question: what do the Sami think of the Germans and the war?”
“Most of them…us…are basically just waiting for it to be over. If the Germans left the Sami alone, we’d have no interest, but they come up here and shoot our reindeer to feed their troops. And sometimes kidnap our men to serve as guides in the north.”
“Can’t you appeal to your own government to stop that?”
“Our government is completely under the authority of Reichskommissar Josef Terboven, and he hates us.”
“Isn’t there anything people can do? Sabotage? Resistance?”
“Resistance is not in the Sami mindset. They’re as political as the reindeer or the forest. Outside forces will be the ones to fight, and win, the war.”
The sun emerged at the horizon as if in a sudden leap, illuminating the snow-covered landscape in blinding yellow-orange light. Kirsten squinted into it, imagining its warmth on her face and feeling a wave of optimism. Something about early morning light went right to the soul. “I guess that’s where I come in. Or came in, but I failed. Yet I’m sorry to involve you, and endanger you, without your agreement.”
Maarit continued to ski wordlessly beside the sled, each of her exhalations visible, like those of the reindeer. But when a distant shout drew her attention, she said, “I’ll come back later,” and rushed on ahead.
Kirsten’s sled deer plodded onward, following those in front, and soon she passed Maarit and Jova tugging small bushes from the ground. Presumably for firewood, though Gaiju was cutting longer stems. To build another sled, perhaps?
A short while later, Maarit caught up with her and loaded the wood into the foot of the sled. “Hope you don’t mind the crowding. But this will cook our dinner tonight.” Kirsten drew up her knees, which caused a sudden pain in her ankle but no sensation in either of her feet. Alarm shot through her. She had frostbite.
The sled jerked forward and moved on, hour after hour. She must have dozed off, for when she awoke again it was dark, and something prickled her face. It was snowing.
What had awakened her was the sled stopping, and when she drew herself up on her elbows she saw why. Atop a small rise was a mound. She would have assumed it was a snow-covered rock but for the door on one side. Directly behind it, another smaller structure, also covered with snow, was visible, and behind that, a sort of platform on stilts. Beyond those, some dozen similar “hills” of various sizes dotted the landscape, one or two of them emitting a thin stream of smoke from their peaks. Apparently, they had arrived.
Maarit suddenly appeared with her skis over her shoulder. “Udsek. Our winter home.” She swept her hand in an arc. “We even have an outhouse and storage facilities. No more traveling now for the next few months.” She laid her skis on the ground, unharnessed the draft reindeer, and brushed snow from her mittens.
“Let’s see if our baby is doing any better,” she said, lifting the calf out of the sled and setting it on the ground. It stood bleating for a moment, then lurched awkwardly toward its waiting mother.
“So far, so good,” Maarit said, then turned toward Kirsten. “How are you feeling?”
“No different, actually. I’m afraid I’m still pretty useless.”
“We’ll get you inside in a minute.” She waved over Gaiju to help her lift Kirsten out of the sled. They repeated the same technique they’d used hours before and helped her again to a standing position. Using Maarit as a crutch as before, Kirsten got as far as the entrance of the hut.
“You go inside first,” Maarit instructed her, and Kirsten staggered painfully through the entrance. Once inside, she dropped to the floor and glanced around.
She knew from school days that the structure was called a goahti. It was surprisingly roomy, four times the size of the lavvu, and she could already see the functional layout. Behind the central hearth, at the back of the hut, Jova sat in what was presumably the kitchen. Flanked by sacks of utensils and cardboard boxes, she had just lit a fire in the hearth and hung a cauldron filled with snow on a chain directly over it.
She waved Kirsten over to the left side of the fire, where several deerskins were laid over a bedding of twigs. Insulation, Kirsten thought, and slid closer. Maarit sat down beside her.
“I’ve seen pictures of these places from the outside, but never inside. I’m amazed at how comfortable they are. If you have enough food and firewood, you can last the winter here.”
“The Sami have, for thousands of years.”
Kirsten swept her gaze around the interior walls, long wooden poles rising side by side to a smoke hole at the top. She could make out the rows of bark that encircled them on the outside and knew that outside of those was a layer of sod. Jova’s kindling had caught, and a fire burned now, sending up smoke through the hole overhead. A rifle leaned against the rear wall, an old model from the First World War. For hunting, she supposed.
Alof stepped through the doorway and took his place next to Jova, and Gauji followed him in, dragging his two poles. The three of them occupied the space on the right side of the fire pit. The other “sitting room,” she concluded. Maarit removed her cap, and long, light-brown hair tumbled out.
They all unwound strips of woven “puttees” from their ankles and tugged off their curved reindeer-hide shoes, scraped out the grass inside, and hung the wads here and there to dry. Unnervingly taciturn, the Sami men lay back to rest, apparently indifferent to her. Only Jova was active, preparing food.
Maarit dropped down next to her. “All right. First, let’s take off those coats you have on. Maybe someday you’ll tell me why you’re wearing two.” She slid behind her and pulled on the sleeves while Kirsten shrugged out of the shoulders. Under the coats she had on a simple high-neck sweater, which needed no explaining.
“Yes, some day.”
Unperturbed, Maarit came around in front of her again. “Let’s take a look at your feet now,” she said, and helped Kirsten unlace her boots. They managed to tug off the right one, but the left one refused to move at all.
“It’s frostbite, isn’t it?” Kirsten grimaced. It was the most likely explanation for the loss of feeling in her feet. If so, she might be facing disaster.
“Probably, but let’s worry about it after we’ve seen it.” She unlaced the boot completely, then gripped both sides, peeling them away from the foot. Inch by inch, she managed to draw the foot out of its confinement. “Does that hurt?”
“No, and that’s what worries me.” Wincing, Kirsten slid off her woolen sock and was shocked at what she saw. No wonder she couldn’t take off her boot. The entire lower part of her foot was swollen and yellowish, and all her toes were blistered. The worst were the two center ones, which looked like yellow balloons, while the big toe was m
erely red.
“Try moving your foot in a circle, from the ankle.”
Clenching her teeth, Kirsten tried. The swollen foot didn’t have much mobility, but limited movement was still possible. Maarit massaged her heel and halfway down to the damaged toes. “Does any special place hurt more than any other?”
“Just the ankle. It’s strange that my ankle hurts so much, but my foot feels nothing.”
“Probably because you have two different injuries. Anyhow, it seems to me, being able to walk at all after the crash means your ankle isn’t broken. You can walk with a broken toe, or with a fracture in one of the foot bones, but not with a broken ankle. And since that’s where the pain is, I’d guess you have a bad sprain. Your toes are the big problem.”
“They look terrible. Frightening that I can’t even feel them.”
“I saw a few cases in the clinic where I worked in Trondheim, and of course Sami freeze their toes all the time. This looks like second-degree frostbite. If the blisters were bloody, or the whole area blue, I’d worry about gangrene, but I think this can all heal. We’ll warm your feet, of course, which will probably hurt a lot, but you should recover.”
“How long will it take to heal? I’ve never had anything like this.”
“A few weeks. The skin will slowly dry, turn black, and peel off. Looks nasty, but the muscle underneath should heal with no damage.”
“And this one?” She slid the sock from her right foot, which looked like a milder version of the left one.
“Same thing, I’d say.” Maarit gently grasped the toes in her palm and warmed them, though Kirsten felt nothing. “Considering how deadly frostbite can get, it looks like you got off lightly.”
“So that means I’ll have to—”
Before she could finish her sentence, Jova reached past Maarit with a metal pan.
“Warm water. Jova knew right away what you needed. Let’s get this over with.” She set the pan by Kirsten’s feet and placed each foot gently in the water. “This will undo the freezing, but of course it won’t reverse the damage.”
The warmth was pleasant on Kirsten’s heels, but as the frostbitten flesh began to thaw, she sensed a combination of prickling and burning. Within minutes, the pain was excruciating, and she moaned through clenched teeth.
Maarit grimaced in clear sympathy. “Hold on, and try to remember that the pain is a good sign. It shows that the flesh underneath is still viable. And now that your toes are unfrozen, you have to be especially vigilant that they don’t freeze again.”
“Yes, they…warned us about that…in training.” Kirsten forced the words between pants.
“Training? Who trained you? For what?”
“Sorry. Shouldn’t have said that.” She changed the subject. “What about my ribs? Can we do anything about them?”
“If you were trained to deal with injuries, you know you don’t do anything for ribs. We don’t have an X-ray machine, of course, but we can assume the fracture, or fractures, are simple. If they were compound, with bone splinters puncturing the lung or the pleura, you’d be in much worse shape. Pneumonia is still a problem, and the only way to avoid that is to breathe as deeply as you can, even if it hurts.”
“Yes.” Kirsten grunted. “I actually knew that already, too. I was just hoping you had some magic Sami cure.”
“No magic cure, but some good Sami soap.” Maarit held up a clay pot containing an unappealing gray-brown substance.
Kirsten sniffed it. “Not bad. A bit piney.”
“Birchwood ashes, pine-tree sap, and crushed juniper. It’s the reindeer fat that holds it all together. It will take away some of the grime while your feet heal.” Maarit gently massaged Kirsten’s feet, spending a few more minutes on the one with the sprained ankle. “Is the pain any better?”
“A little, I suppose. A notch down from ‘kill me please’ to simply unbearable. How am I going to walk? It was better when I couldn’t feel anything at all.”
“It should ease off in a while. With any luck, you’ll be able to stand by tomorrow.”
“But I’ll never get my boots back on.”
Maarit turned to Jova, who was preparing food over the fire. The two spoke for several minutes in Sami, and all Kirsten could do was try to interpret their tones and facial expressions. Jova seemed initially affronted, resistant, but then her expression softened. Maarit must have said something funny, for the old woman cackled and nodded. She reached into one of the wooden chests that backed up what was obviously her domain. After some fumbling, she drew out a pair of deerskin shoes, made in the Sami style, with high backs and a toe that curved upward. She murmured a few more remarks, then handed the shoes to Maarit.
“Of course you can’t fit into your own boots now. Maybe not for weeks. But in the meantime, my grandmother has agreed to lend you these.” She placed the shoes beside Kirsten. “They’re my brother’s dress-up shoes. Jova made them for him, but he wore them only once. He had large feet, so even with shoe-grass for padding, your swollen feet will have plenty of room.”
“Your brother? Had large feet? You mean he’s…”
“He was killed last year.”
Suddenly the pain in her feet seemed trivial. No wonder Jova had been reluctant. “Please tell her I’m deeply grateful. I promise to take good care of them and to return them as good as new.”
Jova obviously understood Kirsten’s remark because she cackled agreeably, while she poured some mysterious chopped substance into a coffee pot. Kirsten lifted her feet from the pan of water, which had grown cold, and Maarit wiped them with a dishcloth. The diminishing pain allowed her to notice that she was hungry.
“My pack, is it still on the sled?”
“No. It’s here.” Maarit reached toward the jumble of sacks and bundles piled by the door, then tugged it out by its strap. “Something you need?”
Kirsten rummaged through the sack, feeling socks, utility knife, her side arm, and the crumpled remnants of the final food kit. “Ah, this is what I was looking for. At the end, I was too weak to eat anything.” She held up a packet of oatmeal, then turned toward Jova. “You can add this to the larder,” she said, with no idea whether the old woman spoke Norwegian.
Jova took the proffered packet and shook the dry oats into the coffee pot. After a few moments of waiting until it softened, she poured the lumpy mix into everyone’s dinner bowl. Though it was chewy, it was softer and more appealing than dried reindeer chips, and the slight sweetness of the oatmeal offset the bitterness of the “coffee.” For Kirsten’s palate, it made a decent meal.
When all had finished, Jova gathered the cups and bowls and scrubbed them clean with snow that she clawed through the ventilation hole behind her. With both medical treatment and meal finished, everyone fell silent.
Kirsten took the moment to study the faces of her rescuers. She hadn’t seen many Sami up close before, as they were rare in Oslo, but the grandparents seemed to fit the image she had of them.
Alof and his brother Gaiju had round, somewhat flat faces with leathery skin a shade darker than most Norwegians, a look that hinted slightly of Siberia. Gaiju, who was missing several lower front teeth, looked slightly more savage than his brother, and she was a bit afraid of him.
Jova’s face was also wide, though her eyes were large, deep pools of dark brown. Her expression was severe until she laughed, when it seemed to burst open with a high-pitched laughter completely at odds with her usual demeanor. All three had dark, almost black, hair.
Maarit bore little resemblance to them. Only her eyes were the same, chocolate brown under thick black eyelashes.
Maarit glanced over at her and, caught staring, Kirsten blurted out, “The calf. Is it all right?”
“With the vaja,” Alof said from the other side of the fire. Drawing his knees up, he pulled a pipe from a leather pouch on his belt.
So, the old scoundrel spoke Norwegian after all, she thought. As if the three words had exhausted him, he busied himself with packing his pipe with so
mething flaky and brown.
“Good the Germans did not find you,” he finally continued, starting a new subject. Curious, his ability to speak Norwegian suddenly rendered him less alien, more attractive even. But the subject was a dangerous one. Soon he might ask what she was doing on the plateau in the first place. She deflected.
“Yes. A lucky thing the reindeer were passing. Are all your neighbors herders, too?”
Alof stared into space, in no hurry to speak again.
“Some are.” Maarit filled in the silence. “Five other families live here, and three have herds of different sizes—Tuovo, Paaval, and Aavik. The reindeer that are scattered all over the valley belong to all of us. They’ll stay together until we need to round them up later in the winter.”
“It’s safe to leave them alone?”
“The deer? Yes and no. They’ve kept the same feeding habits for centuries, but we do check on them and watch for predators, injuries, or a frost that freezes the snow so they can’t get to their food.”
“Or Germans,” Jova said unexpectedly. It seemed the whole family spoke Norwegian.
“Yes, the Germans.” Kirsten nodded, calculating ways to keep the discussion away from herself. “Has the occupation been difficult for the Sami? Have the Germans taken much?”
Jova looked away, almost bitterly, it seemed, leaving the answer to the others. Alof took one of the glowing coals from the fire to light his pipe. When he puffed on it and blew out smoke, it became obvious it was not tobacco. It smelled rather of burning wood.
Gaiju also glanced up at the question, and she thought he would comment, but he seemed engrossed in some carving of the branches he’d collected and remained silent.
Alof puffed a few more times, as if marshaling his thoughts, then spoke. “It was already difficult. The Norwegians have been pushing us out of our grazing lands forever. Every year they take more reindeer, and our herds grow smaller and smaller. Taxes, they call it. The Germans don’t call it anything. They just shoot the reindeer for meat or try to harness them for work, but they don’t know how to treat the animals.”
To Sleep With Reindeer Page 7
