The Body in the Fjord (8 page)

Pix was finding the daughter-in-law as loquacious as the mother-in-law, more even. Although the tone was the same. Who said men don't marry their mothers? Pix quickly focused on Sam's mother, a charming lady who'd died several years ago, much mourned by everyone.

“I'm sorry things aren't going well. This should be a very happy time for you.” It was all she could think of to say, and she stood up as she said it, ready to leave while some remnants of the lack of tension the sauna had induced remained.

“Oh, I'm happy, very happy.” She spoke through
slightly clenched teeth. Her towel had slipped. From the appearance of her firm young breasts, Roy junior was probably happy, too, at least in bed. Lynette tugged at the towel, then, irritated, took it off, either oblivious or indifferent to the sauna's other occupants. Pix closed the door behind her and headed for the showers. What surprise did Lynette have for her mother-in-law? Suddenly, it didn't seem like a fair fight at all.

 

Ursula was sitting by the wall of glass at the end of the hotel lobby, a wall that served to magnify the view. The mountains appeared to be a few steps away, especially the tallest, its rocky summit high above the timberline. The peak had a slight purple cast to it. Pix walked toward her mother. The mountains were in fact close, the hotel surrounded by them, and only a large well-kept flat green lawn separated the front of the hotel from the precipitous drop to the valley far below.

Ursula had made friends, two slightly grizzled-looking older men, faces reddened from working outdoors, and something else perhaps. Mother was drinking coffee. Her new friends were sticking to beer.

“Oh, there's my daughter now.” Ursula waved Pix over. “This is Mr. Knudsen and that's Mr. Arnulfson. My daughter, Pix Miller.” The men stood and shook hands. “We were just talking about how we all came to be on the tour. Mr. Knudsen and Mr. Arnulfson are from North Dakota. Such a long way from home!”

Mother was sounding perky, even slightly coquettish. It was working.

“You must call me Ole—everyone does—and he's Henry. Anyway, as I was saying, the whole thing was that fool Svenson's fault.”

Henry nodded solemnly and drained half his glass.

“My sister read about a tour of Norwegian farms in the Sons of Norway newsletter and thought the lodge might want to go. ‘See how they're doing things over there,' she
said. ‘Be a good chance and very cheap.' So at the next meeting, we counted heads and decided to do it.”

This explained the large number of males from Fargo on the list—Norwegian bachelor farmers. Pix had seen them sticking together like glue and assumed they were some sort of group. Sons of Norway, of course.

“But I don't think this tour has many farms. Just one, on the fjord after we reach Balestrand,” Ursula commented.

Henry nodded slowly and finished his beer.

“That fool Svenson”—the three words had become his full name—“wrote down the wrong tour number on the form when he sent in our deposits. He's our treasurer, or was, and when we found out the money was nonrefundable, we decided to go. No sense in wasting it. They make a big-enough profit. So we came.”

Henry joined the conversation briefly. “We never should have put that fool Svenson in charge, his mother being Swedish and all. Anyone want another drink?”

No one did and the farmers ambled along. As soon as they were out of sight, Pix began to laugh until she thought she'd cry.

“I think we can eliminate them from whatever it is we're listing,” she said.

“Yes, they seem to travel in a pack, poor things. You notice they're always first on the bus, by the door, or in the dining room. They must be terrified of getting lost or left behind.”

“Have you made any other friends?”

“I chatted some more with Valerie and Sophie. I have the feeling their English is much better than they're letting on. Marge Brady joined us and they had no trouble speaking with her. She was telling them all about French châteaux.”

“How nice for them.”

“Don't be naughty, Pix. But I did learn something interesting. Don Brady is retired from the oil business. And
there's another man on the tour, a Mr. Harding from Connecticut, who's currently working for an oil company.”

Pix was slow on the uptake. “Why is this interesting?”

“Mr. Harding's is a Norwegian-owned company and Don Brady's had ties to the industry here. You do know about the North Sea oil?”

“Now, don't
you
be naughty. Of course I do. It's what catapulted the country from getting by to just about the world's highest standard of living. But how does it all connect to Kari and Erik?”

“When I was here last summer, there was a great deal of talk about what they call the Russian mafia operating in Norway, using any means necessary to learn exactly where the Norwegian oil fields are and the technology that located them. There's been a dispute for years over the Russian/Norwegian border in the Barents Sea, up north. The Russians are desperate to find some oil or natural gas of their own there and the stakes are very high, I read recently.”

There is nothing like
The Christian Science Monitor
every day to keep you informed, Pix reflected. Maybe she should switch from
The Boston Globe
. Faith, of course, clung to
The New York Times
and was always borrowing the Millers' paper to find out what was on television. But this was all interesting. If someone was using the tour groups to pass secret information concerning the oil industry and Erik or Kari had learned of it…Any means necessary.

“All right, we'll add oil to everything else—and Russians. I'd almost forgotten that Norway has a common border with them in the north. Maybe Marit has some idea about how this might fit in. The tour didn't go to Stavanger, but Bergen is as big an oil town.”

“I wonder if she's heard any more from the police. I bought
Aftenposten
and took it to my room. I couldn't read it, but Kari's name wasn't anywhere, so there hasn't been anything new in the press.”

“That's good. They're onto something else and Marit
doesn't have to see her life distorted. It must have been horrendous.”

Pix told her mother about the encounter with Lynette in the sauna and Pix's request to Carl for an introduction to the Felds at dinner. She didn't want her mother to think she'd been idling away in the steam.

“Then we should certainly make it a point to be on time for the meal,” Ursula said, leading the way. As if there was any question.

 

Not surprisingly, the Felds had never heard of Pix's friend, but they were a friendly, outgoing couple. Arnie was an intellectual properties lawyer and Helene was an art historian. They had no children and had traveled extensively. This was their second trip to Norway.

Pix was sure that Helene, who seemed quite intelligent, would be able to give her some idea of the nature of the quarrel between Kari and Erik. The question was how to bring it up. For the moment, the big decision was over poached salmon or smoked pork. The whole table took the salmon, as well as the wild mushroom soup first and “fruits of the woods” with vanilla sauce for dessert.

Spooning a large, ubiquitous boiled potato onto her plate, Pix asked the Felds how they had liked the tour so far.

“It's been very well organized,” Helene answered. “I wanted to spend extra time in the Norsk Folkemuseum on Bygdøy, the peninsula across the fjord from Oslo. I'm sure you've heard of it. It's where both the Viking ships and
Kon-Tiki
are. Anyway, there was no problem. Some tours make you stick rigidly to their schedule. The same in Bergen. I had never visited the Museum of Decorative Arts and wanted to go there instead of some of the other places on the itinerary. I missed the tram ride up to Fløyen, but people said it was misty and they didn't get such a clear view of the city. What has also made the tour interesting is that both Carl and Jan are extremely knowledge
able guides. They must bone up on things during the winter.”

“What kind of art are you particularly interested in?” Ursula asked.

“Originally, it was wood carving—especially those wonderful Romanesque vines and ribbons combined with the zoomorphic forms that descended from Viking times and are still influencing Norwegian art today. Those lovely dragons!” Helene's glasses had slipped down her nose and she was gesturing expansively. “At first, I disliked rosemaling, overly influenced by the bad imitations in all the gift shops—those overblown roses and swirls painted in garish colors on everything from rolling pins to toilet seats!”

Ursula nodded. “I know, but the older work is very beautiful.”

“Exactly,” Helene agreed. “And all that color and decoration are more in character with the exuberant Norwegian temperament than the constraint of the Early Christian carved wooden forms.” The glasses inched down a little farther. Pix watched in fascination, wondering if the spectacles would tumble into Helene's soup with the next folk-art era.

“It's good to hear someone refer to the Norwegians as exuberant,” Ursula commented. “I get so tired of all those other adjectives—
staid, placid
. You know what I mean. The Norwegians I've met seem fully capable of kicking up their heels.” Pix noticed her mother was drawing back from details, but scenes of uproarious parties and joke telling crowded into Pix's mind. She and Sam had visited shortly after they were married. Every relative of Hans's and Marit's had been bent on welcoming them. Even now, many years later, when Sam imbibed a bit too much, he'd tell his wife he was merely getting in training for Norway.

Arnie Feld agreed. “Somebody was having an anniversary party in one of the private dining rooms at the hotel in Oslo, and from the sounds of mirth, I'd definitely say
Norwegians know how to have a good time. And remember that couple we met on the train, honey?”

His wife nodded, still lost in contemplation of carved butter boxes and painted rooms.

“They were singing, not too loudly, and writing furiously on the back of an envelope. They were having so much fun, I finally had to ask them what was going on. They were composing a song for her sister's fortieth birthday, and after we talked awhile, they invited us to come along! I wish we could have.” He sounded genuinely disappointed, and Pix could understand why. Helene was still eager to talk about her passion for the folk arts of the country, though.

“Now I've become fascinated with the jewelry,” she continued.

“She's always been fascinated with jewelry. Don't let her fool you,” Arnie said good-naturedly.

She made a face at him. “Don't worry. Even if we were millionaires, we couldn't take the kind of jewelry I love out of the country. Norway has very strict laws about exporting antiques.”

Carl and Jan came by the table for their nightly check, picking up on the last word.

“Antiques?” said Carl. “Mrs. Feld's favorite subject! I hope you have been having a good time with Mr. Tønneberg's collection. By the way, don't miss the Hardanger bridal crown in the hallway. It's in a glass case high up on the wall. This one is extremely elaborate and very rare. During the 1800s in Norway, silver became scarce and many families turned their old heirlooms over to the state to be melted down. Brass was used instead for jewelry.”

“I did see it,” Helene enthused. “It's gorgeous. Is the collection cataloged? I saw a bowl that looks like it was painted by the ‘Sogndal painter'—this area around the Sognefjord has spectacular natural beauty, but it hasn't produced the art that other areas have, particularly those on the east coast and in Telemark. Too rugged a life, too
poor, but this painter—we don't even know his name—is the exception. He traveled all over the region in the mid-eighteenth century, which must have been difficult, and no other rosemaling has ever equaled his.”

“I know the bowl you mean,” Carl said. “The colors are so bright and the background is very soft, the blue-green he traditionally used. Very beautiful.”

“And worth a fortune,” Jan added. “If we had anything like it in my family, we probably used it for kindling. I grew up in the district and life was strictly practical!” He laughed.

Helene looked pained. “I hope not.” The salmon arrived on a huge platter. There was enough for two tables.

“Of course I am teasing you,” Jan told Helene. “My mother has her great-grandmother's engagement spoons, and if there was a fire, she'd grab those, then think of us!” It seemed impossible for the young man not to make a joke out of most remarks.

“Engagement spoons are two spoons connected by a long chain all elaborately carved out of one piece of wood,” Helene explained.

“I like the symbolism.” Ursula was busy helping herself to the fish. Pix could see it was perfectly poached, moist flakes falling to one side. There was hollandaise sauce, but Pix knew she wanted hers plain.

“We will leave you to enjoy your dinner,” Carl said. “We have a few announcements we'll make during dessert.”

Pix tried in vain during the rest of the meal to turn the conversation to Kari and Erik's quarrel on the train, but short of rudeness, it proved impossible to get Helene off her favorite subject. They heard a great deal about
tiner
, the butter and pudding boxes used to bring gifts of food to relatives or friends at weddings or other occasions, and much more about jewelry, especially
bunadss
olv
, wedding jewelry.

“I wonder if modern Norwegians are as superstitious as their ancestors,” Ursula mused after a treatise from
Helene about the use of silver to keep the trolls, those direct descendants of the Viking pagan gods, from harming mortals.

“There is certainly a renewed interest in the old jewelry and its use and legends. Saga makes wonderful reproductions, with an explanation accompanying each piece. As for warding off evil, I'm not sure. I know I said Norwegians are exuberant, but they also seem remarkably down-to-earth and even-tempered.”