She woke in a small bed in a little cabin on a boat. She knew it was a boat because it was rocking, and indeed the rocking, gentle as it was, had woken her up.ย ๎ขe cabin was spare and basic. She was wearing a thick ๏ฌeece sweater and long johns. Pulling back the blanket, she noticed that she had a headache. Her mouth was so dry her cheeks felt sucked-in against her teeth. She coughed a deep, chesty cough and felt a million pool-lengths away from the body of an Olympian. Her ๏ฌngers smelt of tobacco. She sat up to see a pale-blonde, robust, hard-weathered woman sitting on another bed staring at her.
โGod morgen, Nora.โ
She smiled. And hoped that in this life she wasnโt ๏ฌuent in whichever Scandinavian language this woman spoke.
โGood morning.โ
She noticed a half-empty bottle of vodka and a mug on the ๏ฌoor beside the womanโs bed. A dog calendar (April: Springer Spaniel) was propped up on the chest between the beds.ย ๎ขe three books on top of it were all in English.ย ๎ขe one nearest to the woman saidย Principles of Glacier Mechanics. Two on Noraโs:ย A Naturalistโs Guide to the Arcticย and a Penguin Classic edition ofย ๎ปe Saga of the Volsungs:ย ๎ปe Norse Epic of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer. She noticed something else. It was cold. Properly cold.ย ๎ขe cold that almost burns, that hurts your ๏ฌngers and toes and sti๏ฌens your cheeks. Even inside. With layers of thermal underwear. With a sweater on. With the bars of two electric heaters glowing orange. Every exhale made a cloud.
โWhy are you here, Nora?โ the woman asked, in heavily accented English. A tricky question, when you didnโt know where โhereโ was.
โBit early in the morning, isnโt it, for philosophy?โ Nora laughed, nervously.
She saw a wall of ice outside the porthole, rising out of the sea. She was either very far north or very far south. She was very far somewhere.
๎ขe woman was still staring at her. Nora had no idea if they were friends or not.ย ๎ขe woman seemed tough, direct, earthy, but probably an interesting form of company.
โI donโt mean philosophy. I donโt even mean what got you into glaciological research. Although, it might be the same thing. I mean, why did you choose to go as far away from civilisation as possible? Youโve never told me.โ
โI donโt know,โ she said. โI like the cold.โ
โNo one likesย thisย cold. Unless they are a sado-masochist.โ
She had a point. Nora reached for the sweater at the end of her bed and put it on, over the sweater she was already wearing. As she did she saw, beside the vodka bottle, a laminated lanyard lying on the ๏ฌoor.
Ingrid Skirbekk Professor of Geoscience
International Polar Research Institute
โI donโt know, Ingrid. I just like glaciers, I suppose. I want to understand them. Why they are . . . melting.โ
She wasnโt sounding like a glacier expert, judging from Ingridโs raised eyebrows.
โWhat about you?โ she asked, hopefully.
Ingrid sighed. Rubbed her palm with a thumb. โA๎er Per died, I couldnโt stand to be in Oslo any more. All those people that werenโt him, you know?
๎ขere was this co๏ฌee shop we used to go to, at the university. Weโd just sit together, together but silent. Happy silent. Reading newspapers, drinking co๏ฌee. It was hard to avoid places like that. We used to walk around everywhere. His troublesome soul lingered on every street . . . I kept telling his memory to piss the fuck o๏ฌย but it wouldnโt. Grief is a bastard. If Iโd have stayed any longer, Iโd have hated humanity. So, when a research position came up in Svalbard I was like, yes, this has come to save me . . . I wanted to be somewhere he had never been. I wanted somewhere where I didnโt have
to feel his ghost. But the truth is, it only half-works, you know? Places are places and memories are memories and life is fucking life.โ
Nora took all this in. Ingrid was clearly telling this to someone she thought she knew reasonably well, and yet Nora was a stranger. It felt odd. Wrong.ย ๎ขis must be the hardest bit about being a spy, she thought.ย ๎ขe emotion people store in you, like a bad investment. You feel like you are robbing people of something.
Ingrid smiled, breaking the thought. โAnyway, thanks for last night . . .
๎ขat was a good chat.ย ๎ขere are a lot of dickheads on this boat and you are not a dickhead.โ
โOh.ย ๎ขanks. Neither are you.โ
And it was then that Nora noticed the gun, a large ri๏ฌe with a he๎y brown handle, leaning against the wall at the far end of the room, under the coat hooks.
๎ขe sight made her feel happy, somehow. Made her feel like her eleven-year-old self would have been proud. She was, it seemed,ย having an adventure.
