“The Sami have a saying: ‘En rein som står stille, er ikke en rein.’ ‘A still reindeer is not a reindeer,’” said Leif. “Migration is a part of their being. To move is to exist.”
They drove further into the wilderness. Charlene noticed telephone poles running alongside the dirt track, which surprised her, given the remoteness of their surroundings. The poles carried a black cable that was as thick as a grown man’s leg. Gradually, a tower became visible in the distance. The top of the tower was bulbous; it looked like a mushroom-headed rocket ship.
Fig. 1.3. The Wardenclyffe Tower at the Bjørnens Hule, Kirkenes, Norway
From Røed-Larsen, P., Spesielle Partikler, p. 148
“What is that?” asked Charlene.
“It’s our Wardenclyffe tower,” said Leif.
“What’s a Wardenclyffe tower?”
“Nikola Tesla invention,” said Kermin, craning his head to get a look. “It makes free electricity for whole world. But how did you do this?”
“So you know about Tesla?” Leif said into the rearview mirror.
“Of course. He was Serb,” said Kermin.
“And a poor businessman. But he was also the greatest mind of the last two hundred years.”
“Wait — free electricity for the whole world?” said Charlene. “Is that even possible?”
“Yes, well, it’s all in theory right now,” said Leif. “But Tesla’s design was quite genius. The towers use the earth like a battery, drawing electricity from deep currents—”
“Intra-crustal telluric currents,” said Kermin.
“That’s right.” Leif paused. “And then the tower transmits this current through the atmosphere. The idea is that everyone has a small antenna on their roof and receives their electricity almost like a radio wave—”
“How deep into ground do wires go?” Kermin interrupted.
“Three hundred meters.” Leif smiled. “Deep enough.”
The road ended at the base of the Wardenclyffe tower, where there was a cluster of a dozen or so traditional wooden lodges with sod growing on the roofs. Lying between the buildings were large piles of mechanical equipment — ten-foot diesel engines and generators and strange, loop-de-loop electrical transistors. Wires ran from each house into the tower, then back into the transistors, then into totemlike wooden carvings of animals frozen in ferocious poses, their eyes replaced by lightbulbs. They disembarked from the jeep and stood, blinking.
“Welcome to home base,” said Leif. “We affectionately call it the Bjørnens Hule, or ‘the Bear’s Cave’ in English. We’re somewhere between the Finnish-Norwegian border.”
“What do you mean, between?” Charlene asked.
“Borders are complicated up here. Especially now. The Cold War has made everything a bit testy. You can’t spit near the Russian border without being picked up. But borders are not natural things. Birds do not listen to borders.”
“But we’re in Norway now?”
“Well, something strange happened. A cartographer made a mistake. The Finns thought the border was one line, the Norwegians thought it was another. Normally when this happens you get a big argument and maybe a war or two because someone is claiming too much, but, typical Scandinavians, both countries have claimed too little. And now there’s a space, like this.”
He used his fingers to demonstrate:
“It’s where we get our emblem. The eye.” He pointed at the base of a totem pole, where a stenciled eye watched them without comment.
“Over there,” he said, waving his hand vaguely, “is the Treriksrøysa. A point where Norway, Finland, and Russia all come together. You aren’t allowed to walk around this point fully, like this,” he said, promenading his fingers, “because you would violate international law. Wandering in and out of countries. But how about this: at this point, if such a point could even exist, time fluctuates. Norway is on Central European time, Finland is on Eastern European time, one hour ahead, and Russia is on Moscow time, two hours ahead. One point, three times. How can that be? And yet we’re okay with this being true.”
Charlene looked at her watch, suddenly feeling as if she were losing her bearings.
“What time is it right now? I forgot to set my watch.” She fiddled with the dial, spinning the hour hand forward.
He shrugged. “In the summer, when the sun never sets, time becomes quite relative.”
“Twelve thirty?”
Fig. 1.4. The Treriksrøysa
From Røed-Larsen, P., Spesielle Partikler, p. 140
“As you wish.” He smiled. “But I’m sorry, I’m being a terrible host. You must be exhausted from your travels. Would you like a sauna? I find it’s the only way to cure jet lag.”
Caught between a haze of weariness and the urge to follow local custom, Kermin and Charlene, against their better judgment, found themselves stripped and sweating alongside Leif inside a small sauna cabin on the outskirts of camp while Radar slept outside on a blanket in the grass.
The ticking of the sauna’s furnace and the resonant smell of the baking cedar planks overwhelmed Charlene’s fragile system. She tried to let the heat perform its restorative magic but found it difficult to relax while naked inside a small, sweltering room alongside this stranger. She peeped out through the little window in the door to see if her son was still there, then she cinched the towel tighter around her breasts.
“So how do you know Brusa Tofte-Jebsen?” she asked.
“Brusa and I taught together in Bergen before the war,” said Leif. His hairless body glistened pink, his small penis a little mole rat of a thing, which she tried to avoid with her eyes. He did not seem to be sweating.
“I have been to Bergen,” said Kermin abruptly.
“Oh?” said Leif. “A beautiful place, isn’t it?”
“I don’t remember,” said Kermin. “It was night and I am sick. We escaped to America. We were not tourists.”
“Ah, well, that’s a shame. It’s funny how beautiful towns can turn very ugly in difficult times. You forget to look at the views, you know what I mean?”
“Then you moved up here?” said Charlene.
“When the Nazis invaded, I had just started my first year teaching physics and chemistry in high school. You can’t imagine what it’s like to be occupied. We all wanted to join the resistance but didn’t know how. It was like a slow death. A silent death. We did simple things, stupid things, like wearing paper clips on our lapels as a sign of protest. We started underground newspapers, declaring all kinds of things. Suddenly you had a newspaper, so you had to have radical ideas to go in the newspaper. Many people think the idea comes first, but it’s usually the other way around. You need a place to put the idea before you can have the idea, you know what I mean? But the real turning point was when the quislings wanted all of us teachers to sign a declaration of allegiance. The declaration stated we could only teach Nazi-sponsored topics and such. So we saw our chance — we would take a stand and break our silence. We refused to sign the document. All of us. Without even consulting each other. Seven hundred teachers were arrested, rounded up, and sent up the coast on a small boat. It was packed to the ceiling. Many of them got very sick on the journey. Some even died. Brusa and I worked for a year in the camp up here in Elvenes. Heavy labor. It was freezing; terrible conditions, you know. But we started a few interesting projects in secret, and after they released us, a couple of us ended up staying. And now I have been here for over thirty years.”