“Is that so?” Grandad said. “Well, it’s a good idea. Yes, it’s nice there. You can see over seven parishes from the top.”
“We’re looking forward to it,” Dad said while Mom and Grandma were talking about an oak and a holly tree they had brought from Tromøya the previous year that they were now growing here.
I decided I would go and have a look at them.
Dad’s glare stopped me in my tracks.
“Aren’t you going to drink your milk, Karl Ove?” he said. “It’s straight from the cow, you know. You won’t get better milk anywhere.”
“I know,” I said.
As I didn’t make a move to drink it, he fastened his eyes onto mine.
“Drink the milk, boy,” he said.
“But it’s warm,” I said. “And there are lumps in it.”
“Now you’re offending your grandparents,” Dad said. “You have to eat and drink whatever you’re served. And that’s that.”
“The boy’s used to pasteurized milk,” Kjartan said. “From a carton in the fridge. They sell it in the shop here, too. Of course he can have some of that! We can buy it tomorrow. He’s not used to milk straight from the cow.”
“That seems unnecessary,” Dad said. “The milk here is just as good. If not better. What nonsense to buy milk just because he’s pampered.”
“I like pasteurized milk best myself,” Kjartan said. “I agree wholeheartedly with your son.”
“OK,” Dad said. “Just so long as you’re not taking the side of the underdog as usual. But this is more about manners.”
Kjartan smiled and studied the table. I put the glass of milk to my mouth, stopped breathing through my nose, tried to think about something other than the white lumps, and drank it all in four long swigs.
“See,” Dad said. “It was good, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said.
After the meal we asked if we were allowed to go for a little walk even though it was late. We were. On with our shoes, into the yard, and down the road to the barn. The dusk was tenuous and hung like a spider’s web all around us. The shapes were intact; the colors were absent or had gone gray. Yngve undid the catch of the cowshed door and pushed. The door was stuck and he had to put all his weight behind it to open up. Inside it was dark. Dim light from the dirty peepholes above the stalls made it possible for us to glimpse contours. The cows, lying in their stalls, stirred when they heard us. One turned its head.
“It’s OK, cows.”
It was nice and warm inside. The small calf, which was isolated in a kind of pen on the other side of the muck channel, was stamping around. We leaned over toward it. It looked at us with frightened eyes. Yngve patted it.
“Don’t be scared, little calf,” he said.
It wasn’t only the door that was overgrown; all the walls and the floor and the windows were as well, as though the room had sunk at some point and was now submerged beneath water.
Yngve opened the barn door. We climbed into the hay that was lying there, clambered up onto the barn bridge, and opened the door to the small henhouse. The floor was covered with sawdust and feathers. The chickens sat motionless on the roosts staring straight ahead.
“Doesn’t look like there are any eggs,” Yngve said. “Want to go up and have a look at the minks too?”
I nodded. When he pushed the tall barn door to, a white cat shot past us like an arrow and disappeared under the bridge. We went down and called it, knowing it was hiding somewhere, and finally we gave up and headed for the three mink huts that stood to the far west of the property, right by the forest. The acrid smell that met us as we approached was almost unbearable and I started breathing through my mouth.
There was a rustling and a banging in all the cages as we stopped in front of them.
How unpleasant it was.
It was darker here by the forest. The minks’ claws clinked against the metal of the cages as they paced back and forth. We went up close to one. The black animal shrank as far back as it could, turned its head, and hissed at us. Its teeth shone. Its eyes were black like black stones and when, twenty minutes later, I was lying on the bed in our room on the first floor, alongside Yngve, who had his head on the pillow at the other end and was reading a soccer magazine, it was them I was thinking of. Of them moving back and forth in the cages all night while we slept. Suddenly voices were raised in the living room beneath us. It was Mom and Dad talking with Kjartan. Raised voices didn’t mean anything worrying; on the contrary, there was something reassuring about them. They wanted something, and they wanted it so much it couldn’t be whispered or mumbled, it had to be shouted.
The next morning Grandad came in and asked if we would like to help pull up the fishing nets. We did, and a few minutes later we followed him down the path to the fjord, carrying an empty, white tub between us.
The boat was moored to a red float in the water. The mist was so dense it seemed to be hovering in the air. Grandad pulled the boat ashore, we jumped on board, and after he had shoved off with an oar against the bottom Yngve sat down on the thwart by the oarlocks and began to row. Grandad sat at the stern directing him whenever necessary; I sat in the bow looking into the mist. Lihesten, on the other side, was almost completely lost from view, visible only as something hard and gray in all the moist haze.
“It’s very unusual for there to be mist here,” Grandad said. “And especially at this time of year.”
“Have you been to the top of Lihesten, Grandad?” Yngve said.
“Oh yes, you bet I have,” Grandad said. “Many times. But it’s a few years now since the last time.”
He sat forward with his arms over his thighs.
“Once I went there as part of a rescue mission. It was Norway’s first real plane crash. Have you heard about it?”
“No,” Yngve said.
“It was misty, like now. The plane flew straight into Lihesten. We heard the bang, you see. We didn’t know what it was, though. But then the plane was reported missing, and the local police chief needed men to go up with him. So I went.”
“Did you find it?” I said.
“Yes, but there were no survivors. I saw the captain’s head. That’s a sight I’ll never forget. His hair was perfect! Combed back. Not a strand out of place. No, I’ll never forget that.”
“Where did it crash? Into the wall of the mountain?” Yngve said.
“No, we can’t see it from here. But there’s a pinnacle on the plateau. It crashed there. We had to climb up to the wreck. Bit to port!”
Yngve’s eyes narrowed, presumably trying to work out which side port was.
“That’s it, yes,” Grandad said. “You’re a good oarsman, Yngve! Well, it was a big affair at that time. It was in all the papers. And there was lots of talk about it on the radio.”
In front of us, the float above the net shone red through all the gray.
“Grab it, will you, Karl Ove!” Grandad said. I leaned over with a pounding heart and caught it in both hands. But it was slippery and I lost hold at once.
“Scoop your hands underneath,” Grandad said. “Let’s try again! Row back a bit. That’s it, yes.”
This time I managed to bring it on board. Yngve drew in the oars. Grandad began to drag in the net. The fish were revealed first as small, twinkling lights deep in the black depths, then they grew in size and clarity until a moment later they were dragged wriggling over the side. So shiny and clean with their gray-brown or bluish markings on their spines, their yellow eyes, pale red mouths, and razor-sharp fins and tails. I held one of them in my hands, where it writhed with such force it was hard to imagine it could be the fish I saw lying still on the boards at my feet the very next moment.
Grandad patiently extricated them from the mesh of the net and threw them into the tub. We had twenty. Mostly saithe but also the odd cod and pollock, plus two mackerel.