always Ursula and Marit. Both were the only girls in their families and they sought each other’s company on every possible occasion. Marit was such a frequent guest for dinner, she had her own napkin ring.
Mr. Larsen was a carpenter and his business prospered throughout the twenties. Ursula liked to point out all the houses he had built in Aleford and the surrounding towns. “There’s one of Pete’s,” she’d announce as they drove past. Mrs. Larsen stopped doing wash and devoted herself to handwork, inviting her ladies for coffee and cakes. The smell of cardamom, Ursula once told Pix, could still transport her instantly back to the Larsens’ kitchen. Then the Depression hit and people weren’t building houses anymore. Peter Larsen eked out a living repairing stoops and doing other odd jobs. Mrs. Larsen started washing again. But when they finally made the big decision to return home, they told the Lymans that they had never touched their savings—savings securely tucked into the bank in Norway, where their cousin, Olav, worked in Tonsberg. The Larsen boys were grown, married, and on their own, doing as best they could. Marit had recently finished high school. It was time to go.
When that time came, Mrs. Larsen was as sorry to leave as she had been to come, but it was Marit who was the most bereft. She and Ursula swore to remain friends forever, write often, and visit as soon as they had the money. It would be a long time before the first visit, but they wrote constantly. The war years were very hard. Marit lost both her parents. Heart problems, the doctor said, but she knew it was the lack of good food. The Lymans sent packages, many that never arrived. The years after the war ended were lean, too. Pix remembered packing dried fruit and jars of peanut butter for people she’d heard so much about, she felt she knew them. Marit had married shortly before losing her parents. Her daughter, Hanna, was born during the occupation.
Now the Norwegians were the rich ones, with their black gold, the North Sea oil. Ursula had been astonished at the wealth of the country she’d observed during her trip the previous summer. No more food packages, although she wondered how people could afford anything at all, even to eat, with prices so high.
Pix awoke with a start. She had no idea where she was. The steady drone of the jet engines brought her back to reality. Reality? What was that? She was on her way to Norway to join a tour group because her mother’s best friend was certain the key to her granddaughter’s disappearance and the death of her fiance lay hidden somewhere among the camera-laden, sensibly shod, indefatigable tourists Kari had been shepherding. And if Marit Hansen believed something was true, there was no arguing. The only one Pix knew more stubborn than Marit was Ursula.
“Why don’t you go out and find Marit and I’ll wait for the suitcases,” Pix suggested. Her mother had taken her cane out again. All the better to pass through customs, although a silver-haired grandmother, especially one who had not been to South America several times in the last month, would merit no more than a smiling, passing glance from the Norwegian passport control. It was, Pix reflected, the perfect cover. She also gave a thought to why her mother was posing as an old lady again. What did she have in her hefty purse?
Captain Magnusson had been a man of his word and they were only a half hour late. It was eleven o’clock in the morning, June twelfth. June eleventh had been swallowed up by various airports and the time change. Pix felt only slightly fatigued, but she wished she could tap into Ursula’s energy source. Kelp pills? Ursula swore by them and all the vitamins she took.
The two bags appeared, carry-ons that SAS had still insisted be checked, much to Ursula’s annoyance. “The whole notion of traveling light is to avoid having to check your luggage. Why can’t they understand this? Scandinavians are usually so sensible.’’ Pix pointed out that, judging from the name tags sported by the personnel at Newark Airport, it appeared no one working for SAS had been born anywhere near the Land of the Midnight Sun and let it go at that.
Quickly passing through customs, blushing with guilt at the thought of her hair spray, gloves, and other paraphernalia, Pix pushed open the heavy door leading to Fornebu Airport’s main waiting room and was immediately embraced by Marit. Like most Norwegian women, she was well groomed, her bright white hair waving softly back from her tan face. In the winter, the color was from ski trips; now it was from the beach or the park. She was wearing a navy knitted suit and what Pix always called “the Norwegian Ladies Club necklace”—a heavy chain of gold they wore with everything from ball gowns to bathing suits. She was smiling as she greeted Pix. Pix was not surprised. Norwegians as a whole were not given to letting it all hang out. Erik was dead and Kari was missing— wanted by the police to aid them in their inquiries, as it was delicately put—but you’d never be able to tell from Marit’s demeanor. A Norwegian’s entire family could have been wiped out by a giant meteorite and the first thing he or she would say to a visitor would be, “You must be hungry. How about some coffee and a little cake?” And Marit was doing it now.
“You are so good to come. How was the trip? Are you very tired? Or hungry? And where is Ursula? Surely she has not been stopped by customs.”
“Isn’t she with you?” Pix looked wildly about the waiting room. It wasn’t very big. “She came out ahead while I waited for the bags.”
“Now, now, don’t worry. There’re not so many places she could go. We’ll have her paged.”
Pix had lost her children any number of times, ranging from agitated seconds in the aisles of Aleford’s Stop ’n Save to full terror at the Burlington Mall for five minutes before Danny emerged from beneath a sale rack at Filene’s. But she had never lost her mother.
Marit was speaking to a friendly-looking woman at the SAS information counter. “Yes, of course we have Mrs. Rowe. She’s having some coffee and a little cake with us in the back room. She didn’t see you and we thought she’d be more comfortable here.”
It was the first time Pix had heard Norwegian English in a long time and her ear welcomed the slightly singsong, lilting sound—some of the sentences ending on a questioning note—“Of course we have Mrs. Rowe?”— certain words punctuated by a quick intake of breath for emphasis, almost always with
Marit had tucked Ursula’s arm through hers and was leading the way out of the airport. She was making determined small talk—about the flight, about the plans to move the airport from Oslo’s center to Gardermoen, north of the city. “We all love Fornebu. It’s so convenient, except it really is too small. You know, we used to call it a ‘cafeteria with a landing strip,’ and it has gotten much bigger, but still the new one will be better. It will be nice to be on the fjord and not see the jumbo jets.” So far, nothing had been said about Kari or Erik.
Pix followed, carrying the bags. She blinked in the bright daylight. Like the airport, the very air seemed scrubbed clean. And the cars—they all looked like new, no dents, no grime. Marit opened hers with an automatic key, apologizing. “It came with it and now I’m so used to it.” Another national trait: no bragging, no self- aggrandizement. The opposite, in fact. During the Olympics, there had been a concerted campaign to get the Norwegians to root actively for their own athletes, passionately as they might feel inside. They had to be reassured that it was quite acceptable and the world wouldn’t think they were a nation of show-offs. Showing off—a Lutheran sin, right up there with adultery, lying, and murder. There was even a Norwegian word for it,
It was a short ride to Marit’s apartment. When Marit’s husband, Hans, died, she and Kari, who was a young teenager, had moved to the capital city, using the house in Tonsberg for weekends and during the summer.
Even in the car, Marit avoided the topic on everyone’s mind, but the moment they entered the apartment, it was the time and place. She firmly shut the door, announcing, “You have to get the two-fifty-five train to Voss to meet the tour, and we have a lot to talk about. You will need to take a little rest, too, Ursula?”
Her friend shook her head. “I’m not at all tired, and besides, it’s a long train ride and I can rest then. Why don’t you tell us everything that’s happened since we spoke? Has there been any more news?”
Marit led the way into the living room. The apartment wasn’t large, but it felt spacious because of the plate- glass windows overlooking the Oslofjord. The walls were painted a deep blue-green. The trim was white. Artwork of all sorts hung from floor to ceiling. There was a big stone fireplace and the floors were wood. A handwoven striped rag defined the dining area as separate from the living room. Where there weren’t pictures, there were bookcases crammed with books in several languages. Ursula and Marit sat on the couch, Marit motioning for Pix to sit opposite them in a comfortable-looking leather armchair. The inevitable coffee table, staple of Scandinavian home furnishing, did indeed hold coffee cups and plates.
“I know they feed you all the time on those flights, but you should have a little something. We can eat while we talk.”
Pix jumped up to help Marit, who insisted she stay put, returning almost immediately with the coffee and a
