I don’t know where I am when I wake up. 

I’m warm. That’s good, I guess. I try to sit up, but I feel too woozy. My tongue is glued to my palate. I scan the dark room and see dogs littering the floor. I count twelve. Katvar must be out with the other team. One of them walks up to me and dips her wet nose against my cheek. 

‘Hey Gull.’ I rub her behind the ears. She shuts her eyes, opens her mouth and sticks her tongue out. I swear these dogs know how to smile. 

I move aside and pat the mattress of twigs, the sheet of fur. ‘Come, warm me up a little.’ She moves close to me and I snuggle up to her soft body and soon fall back to sleep.

A rumbling and the excited yapping of dogs wakes me. Gull jumps up and cold air blows at my skin. 

Katvar bumps the door open, knocks snow off his clothes and cocks his head.

‘You woke up,’ he signs.

‘What’s happened?’

He pokes his finger in the air and grins at the package tucked beneath his arm. He acts as if that thing is the solution to all of humanity’s problems.

‘What is it?’

He clicks his tongue and shakes his head. Okay, a surprise then. I watch him add wood to the embers in the fireplace and set snow to melt in a pot. When he sits down next to me, he frowns. His hand signs are choppy. ‘I lost you in the blizzard. Found you lying on the doorstep.’ He nods to the entrance. ‘Don’t know how long you were lying there. Maybe an hour or two. You’ve had a high fever. Two days. Scary.’

‘Sorry. I can’t remember a thing. Just…lots of bad dreams.’ 

‘You scream every night. Only this time…’ He puts his index finger to his cheek. There’s a faint bruise. He grins. ‘You punch real good. I don’t want to be where your fist lands when you are fully awake.’ Katvar guffaws one of his throaty laugh-thingies, brushes his finger over the knuckles of my right hand and signs, ‘I’m proud to be your friend.’ Then, his expression turns solemn. ‘Tell me about your nightmares, Micka.’

Heat rolls over my skin. ‘I’d rather forget them.’

‘Hm…’ he says, looks down at his hands, then lifts them and signs, ‘I think you never noticed that…’

‘What?’

‘When you have one of your nightmares, I caress your hair and you stop screaming.’

‘I think I noticed. I…I thought it was a dream,’ I mutter. Feeling stupid, I lower my head back on the furs and cover my face with my arm.

Katvar shuffles to the pot over the fire. There’s a lot of clonking and scraping. Curious, I crack my eyes open. He’s shielding my view with his torso as aromas of porridge and something fruity fill the cabin.

He gives me an apologetic smile as if to say, ‘I’m sorry I touched you,’ pours whatever he made into a bowl and holds it up, taps it three times with a spoon, and hands it to me as if I’m the Empress of Russia. 

I’m stunned to see the contents: rolled oats cooked in milk, topped with dried blueberries. Not just a spoonful of blueberries. Nope. A good handful of them. 

‘Katvar, this…where did you…how could you afford it?’

‘Shot a nice stag and traded it together with an iron pot for frozen reindeer milk, grain, bread, butter, cheese, and dried fruit. The village is only an hour from here.’ He jerks his head north.

‘Wow. I’m…I’m…’ I blow air through my nose, bring my fingers to my lips and move them toward Katvar. Thank you. The smile he gifts me warms the entire room.

The creamy richness of the porridge and sweet tartness of the berries spread softly on my tongue, layers upon layers of flavours and textures. I offer him every second spoonful and he declines every one of them. ‘Tomorrow we share,’ he signs. ‘Today you need it all.’

I’m full already, but I’ll not refuse his present. I lie down on my back, the bowl on my stomach, and shovel lazily into my mouth, savouring each tiny bit while he makes tea for us.

My teeth grind the blueberries to the tastiest mush in human history and I find myself smiling at no one in particular. I roll the flavours around in my mouth, push them to the tip of my tongue where they bite a little, and back farther down — almost down my throat — where the flavours grow muskier and sweeter and slightly bitter. 

When all is eaten and I begin to miss the taste of blueberries, of milk and creamy oats, I say, ‘This was absolutely wonderful. You are wonderful, Katvar—’ My hand comes down on my mouth so violently, my teeth cut my lips. Flavours explode in my mouth, spread past my palate, to my ears and halfway through my brain. 

When the sensation subsides, I say it again, quietly, ‘Katvar.’ At once, the blueberries in reindeer milk hit my tongue, my palate, and my mind with such force that my vision begins to swim. Gasping for air, I press my arm over my face. 

Fingers wrap around my wrist and gently pull my arm away. Katvar looks puzzled. ‘What did I do?’ he signs.

‘You taste of blueberries and milk.’ I wipe a stray tear off my cheek.

He frowns and feels my forehead. ‘No fever. You want to talk about it?’ his hands ask.

‘I don’t know how,’ I whisper.

He stands and walks to the pot with boiling water, tosses a handful of lichen into it. 

I close my eyes and pull the furs over my head to make my own small cave. I whisper, ‘Katvar,’ and the result is the same. Milk and blueberries. Lots and lots of them. 

Softly, I say, ‘Runner,’ but nothing happens. ‘Basheer,’ and still nothing. The void opens. It’s as if I’ve lost him all over again.

I weep into my hands, glad Katvar doesn’t ask what it is that makes me cry. I remain in my darkness, shutting off the outside world, trying to deal with memories. I don’t dare speak Rajah’s name for fear it might taste of scorched flesh.

When I move the furs aside, the cabin is empty. I must have fallen asleep. A cup with cold lichen tea stands on a block of wood next to my makeshift bed. I reach up and drink it all. I feel better. It’s time for me to get a move on. I’ve been idle long enough.

The first thing on the list is to wash. I stink and the feeling of sickness covering my skin is disgusting. I shovel snow into a large pot, hang it over the embers and throw more wood in the fireplace.

Flames lick the black cast iron. My head swims with exhaustion, but I stomp outside, greet the dogs that greet me back as if we hadn’t seen each other in years, and pick a handful of pine needles. They go into the warm water to add fresh scent.

I sniff at my clothes and find them too stinky, so fresh clothes it is today and the yucky ones will be washed. I’m sure Katvar’s need a good wash, too.

I begin to scrub myself and stop halfway through when I hear the dogs stir outside. The door opens and snaps shut a second later.

‘I’ll be done in a minute,’ I call. He can’t be particularly shocked. He saw me naked two winters ago. But then, it might be hard to get used to seeing the scars.

I rub myself dry with my dirty shirt, then put on my clean clothes and open the door to find Katvar sitting among his dogs, receiving nose-kisses and giving out ear-rubs. He’s happy. It warms my heart. ‘Hey, Mister, I’ll warm up another pot of water. Wash your dirty body and give me your clothes, so I can give them a good rinse.’

He stands and looks at me in a way I can’t really place. He seems taller, somehow.

While the snow melts in the pot, he feeds the dogs and checks their paws. I turn my back while he washes. 

Later, when he cooks a stew of reindeer ribs — the meat is for us together with the bread and cheese he brought, the stew is for the dogs — I wash our stuff, tie a line across the room and hang the wet clothes near the fire.

We eat in silence, watching the steam rise from our shirts, pants, and underwear.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say when we finally roll up in our furs — me exhausted from doing nothing, and Katvar tired from two long days and nights of trying hard to help me get better.

‘For what?’ he signs.

‘I cried and made you sad.’

‘You were sad.’

‘Yes and no. I was happy. You made me happy.’ I rub my face. This is complicated. ‘For as long as I can remember, words had flavours. When I spoke or thought in words and not in images, or when someone else spoke, aromas accompanied all words. Words that were used frequently or that had a meaning only in combination with other words, such as “it” and “and” added only the faintest hint of flavour, if at all, to a whole sentence or story. Other words were stronger. The names of my friends had the strongest and most complex flavours.’

I roll onto my side and look him in the eyes. There’s curiosity. He doesn’t seem to think I’m crazy. 

‘When I walked away from Runner and stepped into the helicopter that took me away from Taiwan and away from him, all words seemed to turn to ash in my mouth. There were no flavours anymore, just the constant feeling of a parched tongue. That’s when I realised that my memory seemed to be linked to my word flavours. Somehow, I remembered things better by connecting them to the array of aromas attached to them. With this sense of word taste lost, my mind has grown…scattered. It’s been harder to connect dots and to sort through my short term memory. But the worst, the thing that’s been hurting the most is that I can’t remember the taste of Runner’s name. Or the tastes of any of my friends’ names. I can’t even remember the taste of his kisses, his skin. When all the word flavours disappeared, I felt…dead.’

Katvar doesn’t move. I can tell he wants to place a comforting hand on my shoulder or cheek, but he doesn’t dare do it. ‘What happened today?’ he asks.

‘Your name tasted of blueberries and milk. It still does.’ I smile at him and whisper, ‘Katvar.’ 

Involuntarily, my fingers find my lips when his flavours spread in my mouth. ‘It’s lovely. Thank you.’

His eyebrows draw together as he curls his arms around his chest. He’s holding on to himself. 

I reach out and brush a strand of hair from his face. 

He seems to observe me. After a long moment, he signs, ‘Healing sometimes hurts.’

I can’t help but laugh. It’s a good laugh, one that’s infectious and that loosens up a too-tight chest. He grins and the darkness in his eyes lightens. Katvar is happy when I am happy. That’s how simple it is. 

I decide to make an effort to smile more often, to see the good things in life first, and the problems second. I’m a problem solver, I can’t just turn a blind eye to those. But seeing Katvar smile, the flicker of joy in his brown eyes, will be a higher priority. The very first, though, is to reach Svalbard and cause the most massive mayhem the BSA has ever seen.

‘May I try something?’ he signs.

‘Okay.’

He rises and rummages in the package he brought today, then comes back to sit cross-legged on his bed, the petroleum lamp providing warm light. His fingers hold up a dried plum. 

‘No pressure, huh?’ I mutter and grin at him. 

His hand moves closer, letting the fruit rest against my lips.

My tongue darts out. Sweet. I huff. My eyes burn. ‘Plum,’ I whisper and the word rolls around in my mouth, violet and purple, sweet with a bit of tartness, soft and supple against my teeth.

I choke. A tear rolls down my cheek and he catches it. The calluses on his fingertips rasp across my skin.

He blinks down at his knees, then up at me. With his hand, he shuts my eyes. A moment later, a round small thing touches my lips. I open my mouth and he places it on my tongue. A cranberry. I think of forests and ancient trees. Memories of Runner constrict my throat. I turn my head away.

He holds out another fruit and waits. I look at his strong hand and the small, wrinkled blueberry. It lays wedged between cracks and calluses, threatened to be crushed any moment now. I pick it up and look at it, close my eyes and hold it to my lips. The scent is sweet. I inhale and pop the fruit into my mouth. Katvar. Flavours of warm milk accompany the blueberry. They fill my mouth and trickle down my throat. 

I look up at him, lay my fingertips to my lips, then move them in his direction.

Since my hand is so close to his cheek already, I let it rest there, wondering how odd, and at the same time, how beautiful the world can be, and why on earth a mute man has the power to give me back my words.