The first time BrÃd saw the traffic sign with a polar bear on it, she giggled. She was finally here! For the longest time she had dreamed of the far north, getting to move to Svalbard or at least spend a significant amount of time there. During the past five years, the dream had gained friction, and finally, after getting a hefty front payment on her upcoming book, she had made good on her long time dream. She would spend a whole year up here, in a cabin she had rented, situated firmly in the middle of nowhere.
She sighed and stopped the car to take a photo of the sign. It felt a little silly, but then there was absolutely no traffic, so why not. She eyed the desolate dirt road lovingly. She was going to love it here! She was absolutely certain of it.
She got back to the jeep and continued her bumpy journey. The road zig-zagged along the coast, steep majestic peaks to her left, ocean to her right. The few possessions she had brought along clattered at the back and she whistled cheerfully.
She stood in the yard, wondering if she'd found the right cabin. Her key fit the lock, so supposedly she had. Wilderness surrounding her seemed undisturbed, and once she'd shut the engine down she couldn't hear anything but the wind. She turned towards it, let the cold, crisp, salty air tousle her hair, and breathed deeply.
This was home.
Inside, her cabin was small and cozy, just like it had been in the pictures. She unloaded the jeep and put her clothes in the drawer, arranged her laptop and notes to the desk, and checked out the lockable closet. It had been explained to her that since her cabin was usually public domain, it was customary to keep the doors unlocked, so that if someone seeked shelter from either polar bears or the cold they'd be able to get in, but that she was welcome to keep her valuables locked away. It had felt a little weird to her, but she had consented, after all she did have her gun so she'd be able to fend off any unwelcome visitors. The gun was to be kept with her at all times while moving outside. If she would encounter polar bears the first shot was to be shot to scare them, but if that failed she was informed to shoot to kill next. One wasn't to take chances with them.
She went through the rest of the safety instructions in her head, in a manner of well-learned children's riddle, as she eyed her new lodgings: keep ice spikes with you at all times, keep your feet warm, don't get lost, don't drive motorized vehicles anywhere but on marked roads, if electricity goes out make sure to keep the fire burning in the fireplace.
BrÃd busied herself with carrying firewood inside and making a fire. It felt good to do something so physical, so basic: she couldn't remember the last time she'd lit a fire. Her urban life in the states didn't include such activities, and she wasn't much of a camper.
She grinned victoriously once the flames licked the logs and smoke disappeared neatly up the chimney. If only April could see her now! April had always laughed at her arctic dreams and claimed she wouldn't last a month, that after a week or two without takeaway coffee she'd be scheduling for an early return.
Thoughts of April made her frown. They'd had a tumultuous relationship, and even though it was over a year since they'd broken up, BrÃd often found herself thinking of her. April had been her first woman; after years of dating men, constantly seeking for something she felt was missing, she'd stumbled into April in a mutual friend's party, and it had been love at first sight. With her, BrÃd had felt fulfillment like never before, and realized that even when she'd always loved cocks, she loved pussy even more.
Their relationship had been unstable, dramatic and highly impossible. BrÃd still didn't know whether it was because of April, because of them together, or if it simply was that way to be with a woman. Eventually their lows had gotten too low to bear, and they'd called it quits, as explosively as anything else in their relationship. BrÃd hadn't heard a word of her since.
April had described herself as "raging dyke" and had always pressured BrÃd into identifying as lesbian, claiming bisexuality was just inability to choose. Even when BrÃd hadn't agreed with her black-and-white views, she had found herself unable to get interested in men after their breakup. She also hadn't dared approach any woman, and part of her admitted she had acted on her old dream of spending time in the far north just to get away from all that. If she was all alone, there was no need to define her sexuality, was there? Nor to angst over sharing her life with anyone else.
BrÃd sighed and looked lovingly around the wood-paneled walls of her new home. She wasn't accountable for anyone, she was allowed to spend her time here as she saw fit. Her only obligation was to write her book, after all it was her publishing house that had negotiated for her to spend time on this remote island usually occupied by only scientists, miners and a small number of Norwegian civilians.
Writing wouldn't be a problem. She could practically hear her brain humming, gearing up. After feeding another log into the happily crackling fire, she decided to get started right away.
Words flowed easily, almost faster than she could write them down. She had in mind to write something profound about the human condition, the perpetual loneliness, the sweet agony of consciousness and the inability to ever share it with another. She could feel the story taking shape as she wrote, like a winding road that was visible for one turn at the time, but always took her forward. It was so alluring she didn't want to stop for anything, and ended up having cold tuna straight from the can for dinner, eyeing through her script while she wolfed it down. Yes, this place would be perfect for this book. This was going to be her biggest yet, and nothing would prevent her from writing it.
--#--#--#--#--
Days got shorter fast, and then the sun stopped rising altogether. BrÃd had known arctic night lasted for months in Svalbard, but she hadn't been able to imagine the reality of it. She slept like a log every night, but keeping any kind of schedule soon became a drag. Nothing changed except the time on the clock. If it wasn't for her cell phone telling her what date it was, she wouldn't have known.
Supply runs to the tiny store in the nearest village became a lifeline of sorts. The shopkeeper nary said a word, and at first BrÃd thought it was because he didn't want to speak English. She tried her few phrases of Norwegian and Russian, but to the same result. Once she happened to be at the store at the same time with another customer, and by how the shopkeeper exchanged only nods and grunts with them, BrÃd deduced his silence wasn't because of her, after all. The next time she just nodded when she stepped into the store, and was rewarded with the smallest of smiles.
BrÃd called her sister once a week, and soon that became the only time she spoke aloud at all. She kept irregular virtual contact with a few other persons, but mostly she was alone, totally and blissfully alone. She'd been a loner all her life, and for once her inside seemed to synchronize with her outside so that her life felt complete. She didn't think of April anymore, she didn't think of anyone but herself. She wrote, she read e-books, she spent time on cooking and what other few domestic chores there were, and she loved every minute of it.
BrÃd tried to establish a daily routine to keep some kind of sense of time of day, and started to take long walks on the ice, following the shoreline. She needed the exercise, the distraction from writing, and despite the constant wind and darkness she couldn't get enough of the rugged beauty of the nature surrounding her, engulfing her. She loved how snow felt and sounded under her boots, the clean and somehow gray scent of the relentless wind. She could never in her life get bored of watching the northern lights, when they occasionally filled the sky from horizon to horizon, wild and eerie in their cold glow.
--#--#--#--#--
BrÃd bowed her head to shelter her face. Wind was picking up, and while snowfall wasn't thick, the few flakes hit with a vengeance as she walked towards the wind. She fumbled to fasten her hood tighter. It was better to go against the wind first, so that the walk back would be easier. She'd learned it the hard way.
There was a voice, like a shout? BrÃd jerked her head up, squinting her eyes against the horizontally flying snow. Did it come from the shore or behind her? She stumbled, losing her balance in one terrifying, disorienting second as the ice suddenly disappeared from under her feet. She plunged down and into the coldest, most shocking slush and underneath it, water, she'd ever been in. She gasped, grasping around in blind panic, her arms whipping the slush into the water, her legs clumsy in her thick pants and heavy snow boots. She found the edge of the ice and screamed, screamed, screamed into the wind, scared out of her mind, still trying to understand what had happened to her. Her heart was thumping like crazy, and the water was so cold, so frightfully cold, it cut like knives.
"Hei, hei!" shouted a dark figure, running towards her through the whirling snow. "Ota iisisti!"
BrÃd screamed and fumbled wildly in their direction. Salvation! She reached for them, lost her grip and slipped lower into the icy water, and screamed again.
"Hei, lopeta," the figure said. They kneeled a little further from the edge of the hole, and BrÃd reached for them, desperately, and slipped again, gripping the ice for dear life.
"Um... hey, fuck you!" said the Savior sharply. BrÃd was so surprised she stopped screaming. Her gaze seeked the face of the person, unsure of what she'd heard.
"That's better," they said, and now that BrÃd wasn't screaming she could hear it was a woman. She had a heavy accent, but then so did everyone around here. "I get you out. Don't pull me in, okay?"
The Savior rose to her feet again and rolled her shoulders as if to prepare herself. Before BrÃd could react she stepped closer, reached for her padded parka jacket and, with a brisk and surprisingly powerful movement, yanked her up and away from the hole in the ice. Another yank, and BrÃd lay on the ice, gasping for breath, feeling the wind hit her wet clothes with astonishing force.
"Up, up," the Savior said and gestured with her hands.
BrÃd blinked at her, and the Savior extended her arms impatiently, helping her up, not very gently. She started guiding BrÃd towards the shore, shoving her if she slowed down. BrÃd was a little taken aback by her hard-handedness. She was grateful to be saved, sure, but couldn't they be a bit friendlier?
BrÃd stumbled, and she realized her feet were so frozen she was losing feeling. It resumed further up her shins, but there it was miserable: her muscles felt like ice blocks, painful and not responsive. The wet, cold clothes were heavy, rigid and easily the most unpleasant thing she'd ever felt. She tried to slow down, she wanted to tell the stranger she was too cold, that she couldn't walk, but they shoved her again and she stumbled forward another few steps. She was beginning to tremble violently, her movement hindered by how her trousers were freezing stiff in the relentless wind. The stranger took her by the arm and half pushed, half pulled her forward.
"Gå, gå, come on, kävele," she said.
BrÃd was too cold to object. Her teeth were chattering, and she stumbled forward, not really seeing where she was going, snow in her eyes, her feet and legs getting more and more useless. If it wasn't for the stranger's insistent shoving, she would've stopped and fallen face down in the snow. It was too difficult, required simply too much effort, and where was she taking her anyway? There was no shelter, the wind was too cold, she would die here - she stopped, swaying, as a small building suddenly materialized in front of her. Snow had piled against its side so that only a portion of gray-planked wall was showing.
The stranger opened the door and ushered BrÃd inside, leaving the endless wind howling outside. Air inside the cabin was noticeably warm compared to outside, but BrÃd was so cold now she felt she could never get warm again. Without stopping to explain, the woman threw a few more logs in the fireplace, then strode across the floor to the bed and pulled the covers open. She looked at it evaluatively, then hopped on it to pull down the massive bluish-gray pelt hung on the wall and put it on top of the blankets. She walked back to BrÃd, and without uttering a word started to undress her. BrÃd looked at her, confused, teeth chattering, as she impatiently pulled on her zippers and clips, forcing the half-frozen garments to obey.
BrÃd wanted to object when the mystery woman got to her underwear, but her mouth wouldn't co-operate. She made a hoarse sound, but the woman didn't react, she just undressed her completely, dried her briskly with a towel and then ushered her towards the bed.
