Our world, stark and curated as a diorama, was upended in 1941. It was early August when the Norwegian first mate stepped ashore and delivered the news that we had to leave. All of us. Tapio went out to speak with the man and I remained in the hut, as was my custom. This had also, to my consternation, become Skuld’s custom. No more did she run wild and unhindered across the beach with any sailors who happened to drop anchor. She had just turned fifteen, and was sober. If she had taken Tapio’s tutelage seriously before, she now approached her work and her life with a gravity that rivaled even his. This self-possession unnerved and intimidated men, even those who had known her from youth. In turn, their uncertainty in her presence only increased her reserve. She knew things were no longer as they once were, and she wanted nothing to do with it.
Skuld had the best qualities of Tapio and Helga: his focus and drive, her compassion and disarming forthrightness, though I wondered if Skuld hadn’t taken on a bit more of Tapio over the years. Was there anything of me in her? If so, it would feel as if I were congratulating myself, for she made me proud in all her doings. She admired the famous female inhabitants of Spitsbergen—Wanny Woldstad chief among them—but could never understand why they had come and gone, why they seemed to lack dedication to our cold coast. I believe it was her intention to do more than they had done, to create no undue ties or divided loyalties, and be more than the equal of any Arctic hunter.
The appearance of this official in Alicehamna was not an utter surprise. We had heard the rumblings for a year or so. I confess that when MacIntyre told me the Germans had invaded Poland, I paid little attention. But when they occupied Norway and Denmark, in 1940, even the most hermetic among us had to open our eyes.
“What is a Nazi?” I asked Tapio at the time.
“A bad German.”
I gave him a bemused look.
“No, I mean worse than usual. It is a fascist political party now controlling that benighted, overfed country of theirs. They blame the Jews for their problems and wish to infect all the earth with their insidious world view, killing everyone they dislike. It may have been a good thing that your anarchist friend was whisked away to Siberia. I never thought I’d say it, but he’s better off with the Russians.”
Now here we were a year later, and the war had reached even us. Tapio said that Germany was coming for Svalbard. The first mate told him that all settlements were being evacuated. Even the mines were to be obliterated, so that they didn’t fall into evil use. British, Canadian, and Norwegian forces were united in the effort to ferry us to safety. (It had the ridiculously self-important name of Operation Gauntlet.) Everyone was bound for England, since Norway was no longer an option. That included almost two thousand Russians, who could then find their way home as they saw fit.
“I don’t wish to go to England, Papa,” Skuld said. “Or Sweden.”
“Nor do I.”
But we made ready. Skuld took it the hardest, though there wasn’t much time for misery or fear. The sailor said someone would return at the end of August to pick up every hunter and that we should pack light. Fortunately, the fruit of our winter labors had already been sold to British and American markets in the spring, so we were in good standing financially. The hardest blow was our small library, which would have to remain in Raudfjordhytta. We made a final trip to Biscayarhuken, mostly so I could retrieve the photos of Helga, and then we waited for deliverance.
When we pulled into Longyear harbor, the town was in chaos. Soldiers were everywhere, outnumbered only by the countless dogs—some chained up outside makeshift tents, many running free, and all barking madly. I thought Sixten might lose his mind. He trembled down to his toenails and his eyes darted around at random as though he were concussed.
MacIntyre ushered us inside. I realized that my own concerns about leaving behind some odds and ends were nothing to his. But he was a forward-thinking person, and had steadily been shipping crates of his most precious belongings to family in Scotland since the advent of the war. Over two days, waiting for the ships to depart for Britain, and while Tapio came and went making preparations of his own, MacIntyre, Skuld, and I talked a great deal and sat in silence like the recently bereaved. Skuld and I were still in perfect agreement about Sweden as a wholly untenable destination. MacIntyre insisted that we should come with him to Scotland instead. We would be safe there, and welcome. I knew there was virtue in his words, and could scarcely bear the thought of parting from him, but I had other things in mind. I had not been off the Spitsbergen archipelago since 1916. I was fifty-seven years old. Circumstances had conspired to push me on my way, and perhaps this was a chance, my only real chance, to go in search of Helga.
“Did the Vikings colonize Scotland?”
“They bloody well tried,” MacIntyre said with some vehemence. “But if you’re asking whether Helga might be found there, I tell you with some degree of certainty that she cannot. I have made inquiries. Many inquiries.”
I perceived then that my friend—approaching seventy-five, or maybe even past it, with each year adding lines to his forehead but serving only to hone his intellect and curiosity—had probably exhausted considerable resources in the search that I was just now beginning. Well, I thought, he has his way, I have mine.
“I must go elsewhere, then.”
“Have you considered Iceland?” he asked, regarding me with his usual perspicacity.
“No. In truth, I’m not sure where it is.”
“That can be remedied,” he said, and produced some maps. “It so happens that the vile, presumptuous British saw fit to invade the country last year, for the Danes were neutralized and England feared a fleet of German ships taking up residence in the middle of the Atlantic. Then England had the gall, about a month ago, to cede control of Iceland to the United States. I know an officer or two in the American army, and I believe I could secure safe passage for you and Skuld.”
Of course he did. Possibly MacIntyre had been brewing this plan for years, foreseeing subtle geopolitical twists that would never occur to the likes of myself. And he wished to hear news of Helga just as much as I did. So we presented the plan to Skuld, and she agreed.
On the day of our departure from Longyear, I was lingering at the pier, anxious to be gone, squinting through the low clouds for a sight of German warplanes. I nearly stumbled over a man who sat with his back to a rotted post, his head lolling.
“Excuse me,” I said.
The man was clearly drunk. His eyes were pouchy, his neck skin puckered and gray. He appeared far older than MacIntyre, but though it had been nearly twenty years, I recognized him after a moment as someone closer to my own age. It was Sigurd, the misanthropic Norwegian trapper from Camp Morton. The years had been unkind to him—as unkind, no doubt, as he had been to them.
“Sigurd,” I said. “What a pleasant surprise to find you here after so long.”
He looked up, trying emphatically not to recognize me. At last he said, “The ugly Swede. Is your dog with you?”
“I have a dog with me, but not the one you mean. Alas, he has been dead these many years.”
“Too bad,” Sigurd said. “He had a few redeeming traits, I recall. As far as dogs go.” He gazed about with his habitually sour expression, displeased with all he beheld. “Spitsbergen is going to hell.”
“It certainly looks that way.”
“No, it was already going to hell. There’s not too much the Germans can do to make it any worse. It’s becoming far too civilized here.”
“Where will you go?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. Antarctica? I have been living with a minor case of scurvy for so long that should I dip below—or above—seventy-five degrees of latitude, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. Cold is the only thing keeping my fibers knit.”
Each step was another parting, but a person is less wistful—less gripped by the pangs of departure and the attendant sorrow, regret, and nostalgia—when he leaves no one waving on the shore. With Skuld and Tapio by my side at the taffrails, I had not thought to take one final look at Raudfjorden, or at my little hut rapidly diminishing into just another geological feature in the expanse. I thought only of the next step, and its profound inscrutability.
The same thing happened as we pulled away from Longyear, for now we had MacIntyre with us, as well as seemingly everyone else from the archipelago, and the bustle left no room for quiet moments of reflection. So I did not dwell on my past in that town, which held little for me anyway. We heard the explosions as we crept into Isfjorden, heading west. They sounded like distant thunder, a rare, incongruous thing in the high Arctic. I tried to imagine the mines caving in, but was instantly transported back to the avalanche that had caved me in, and I winced and wrestled my thoughts elsewhere.
Later that evening, when we rounded the southern horn of Sørkapp Land and Sørkappøya drifted away in the fog—when I might have caught my last glimpse of Spitsbergen, its inhospitable cold coast looming craggy and gray in the pale evening light of an Arctic autumn—I was indoors, warming up. The atmosphere on board the crowded ship was one of congenial anxiety. Few people watched from the decks. One hunter came inside later than most, and there were tears clouding his old squinted eyes. Poor soul, I thought, but did not think to apply it to myself.
And before I could even prepare for it, we were in Liverpool. The noise and commotion were tremendous. All the navy men seemed to be shouting, and I could not be sure if they were shouting the same thing. Passengers were chivvied off, the Russians shaking their heads in dismal confusion, the Norwegians looking depressed. Every surface of Liverpool within my admittedly small field of vision was obscured by filth. It was my first sight of England, and I didn’t think much of it. We would have been hopelessly lost, Skuld and I and poor feral Sixten snarling and nipping at the rope around his neck, were it not for MacIntyre and Tapio. Apparently the Helsinki native could navigate a crowded city as well as he could a pitted glacier. He and MacIntyre steered us with a firm hand, uttering words of direction and command, until we arrived at a far less congested corner of the port, where American sailors loitered, cigarettes dangling from their mouths, waiting to be picked up and ferried back to their ship.
MacIntyre spoke to them in an officious tone. They looked up briefly, nodded at us, and went back to loafing.
“Stay with these men,” he said. “Their ship is bound for Reykjavík. And now we must part. Take care, my dear Sven. I would ask you to keep a close eye on Skuld, but she is already under strict instructions to keep a close eye on you, and I trust her more with the task.”
“Must you leave at once?” I asked, once again the young man in his presence, unmoored and afraid.
“Alas, our ship leaves for Islay within the hour. We had best be on it.”
Only then did I realize that I had no idea where Tapio was going. That was generally the case.
“I’m staying with Charles for a few weeks,” Tapio said, as if anticipating the question. “Then, I don’t know. It’s doubtful I’ll return to Finland. There’s nothing for me there. Greenland is a possibility. I’ll send word once I’m settled somewhere. Through Charles.” His face was dark, his expression glacial. I knew it to be one of emotion repressed with great effort.
We all embraced one another. Tapio and MacIntyre took it in turn to kneel and bestow upon Sixten words of kindness and advice. Then they strode away, disappearing into the awful scrum.
I wish I could say I parted from my dearest friends with a memorable gesture—an oath, a profession of my undying affection. But in my experience it’s rarely the parting that is memorable, unless it’s a death. They are always hurried, awkward affairs. Never enough time to say what you wish you had said. You must trust that your feelings are known, and that you will be remembered as you were.