The Reindeer Hunters by Lars Mytting

Author:Lars Mytting
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2022-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

A Waterlogged Bell Rope

Breakfast passed rather too quietly. The melancholy of parting and the thrill of a forthcoming journey should have filled the moment, Victor was leaving tomorrow, with or without Jehans, and this last day ought to start with thanks for the pastor’s hospitality and promises of a reunion. But a tension in the air hampered conversation between the two men.

Victor reached across for the butter and cheese, and shot a discreet glance at Schweigaard. His host had seemed more reserved ever since the night they had gone trout-fishing. As though he was in two minds about something, or had a suggestion he did not dare put forward. Being a polite guest, Victor had no wish to appear mistrustful, and he tried to be cheerful, saying that he planned to take full advantage of the beautiful autumn weather by borrowing Jehans’ fishing rod and taking a fishing trip on his crutches.

But meanwhile, behind all the good cheer, his own uncomfortable thoughts began to pile up.

Initially he had felt a straightforward desire to help and reward Jehans. He had seen him as a Norwegian Kumara. But down in the boat he had felt an almost palpable urge just to have him close. That that would be enough.

Enough for what?

He had invited him to come to England. And Jehans would give him an answer that evening.

Now, as Victor negotiated his way up a stream high above the farms, hoping to find a good fishing spot, he regretted his offer.

Little suspicions had grown in him over the past few days, suspicions that he had pushed aside only for them to return. Unknown possibilities that tried to form a pattern. An impossible pattern of impossible events, informed by the pastor’s account of the events of 1880 and Ragna’s strange hint about Butangen.

Every year he had looked forward to opening his presents on March 28. Ragna had always told him he was born a few weeks early, and that the ship’s doctor had saved his life.

But was it possible? Might this Gerhard Schönauer, the man who had owned this fishing rod, have had an affair with his mother? Victor counted backwards from his birthday. Concluded that he must have been conceived in late June. At the height of the salmon season. The pastor had mentioned that Schönauer had sketched many stave churches in Vestlandet. There were several near Lærdal, where his father liked to fish. They had even visited Borgund and Urnes together!

What if his mother had met Gerhard Schönauer in Lærdal?

Was that why he felt such an urge to use his fishing rod? To know if there actually was some connection? Stuff and nonsense! It had been made virtually in his own backyard! In Alnwick! By the Hardy Brothers, whom he had met in person!

As he walked on, the possibilities seemed to whirr about him. An abyss opened up before him, an abyss he felt a reckless urge to leap into, just to see what sort of landscape he might land in.

Did he

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