December 11
“Almost everything else has changed,” Nana Borghild said. “But the mountains are the same as always.”
She and Ingrid were standing at the panoramic window in the dining room, watching the first rays of sun over Glitter Peak.
Sunny smiled at them as she carried in trays and plates, setting up breakfast for the day.
“What a lovely girl!” they suddenly heard behind them.
They exchanged glances. It was Freya Wilkins, and it was too late to get away.
“Always so enthusiastic!” the American practically shouted, gesturing toward Sunny, who smiled and waved back.
“Yes, she’s fantastic,” Ingrid replied.
“I hope you take good care of her so Glitter Peak Lodge will be a place she’ll look back on fondly,” Freya said. “As the first part of a brilliant hotel career. Good morning, by the way. How are you?” She smiled, her teeth gleaming white against her tanned face. “I slept terribly myself, but it’s because John keeps nudging me all the time. He says I snore! Have you ever heard such a thing?”
Ingrid had no trouble imagining that Freya Wilkins was loud even when she was asleep but wasn’t planning on communicating
that.
She settled for a simple “Good morning!” while Borghild contented herself with nodding at the new arrival. Her grandmother
was usually good at chatting with the tourists, even though they hadn’t learned much English at school back in her day. Right
now, though, it seemed that she didn’t feel the need to say anything.
Freya still looked sharp and alert for someone who’d slept poorly. Her golden hair was gathered in a ponytail, and she was
dressed in surprisingly modern hiking pants and a beautiful green-and-white knitted cardigan in a traditional pattern from
Fana. She saw Ingrid’s approving look and beat her to the punch.
“Isn’t it lovely? I knitted it myself from a pattern from a friend in Daughters of Norway. I didn’t care about such things
when I was young. I just thought it was embarrassing with all the fuss about the motherland and traditions and lefse and lutefisk.
But when I started searching for my Norwegian roots, I found the joy of knitting, too.” She pointed at the T-shirt under the
open sweater: Knitting keeps me from unraveling .
Ingrid smiled. “You know all about that, don’t you, Nana?”
She turned to her grandmother, who didn’t have to answer because Freya kept on talking.
“John and I are going on an expedition today,” she declared. “We’re going to the old farmhouse up at Storebru. We heard it’s a spectacular example of the traditional log cabin style in this area.”
“That’s a nice trip,” Ingrid replied. “But the road is a little tricky between Dalen and the parking lot at Storebruveien.”
Freya laughed loudly.
“I’d say that all of the roads are tricky here in the old country! But what a godsend that we got hold of that Range Rover—and that John is
such a good driver.”
“Yes, that’s lucky... So Dr. Wilkins is on his way down to breakfast soon?”
“Yes, he’ll be down any minute,” Freya replied. “ Uten mat og drikke, duger helten ikke! ” she proclaimed in Norwegian with thick American r ’s. “An army marches on its stomach. That’s what my mother always used to say. And John has taken a liking to this milk of
yours, skummel kulturmelk . Eats a big bowl every morning with his oats. You’d think he was the one with Norwegian roots.”
“Skummel kulturmelk?” Ingrid repeated. “Scary cultured milk? You must mean skummet kulturmelk—skimmed cultured milk!”
“Yes, skummet kulturmelk!” Freya said enthusiastically. “I’ve heard you can use it to make pancakes, too?”
“Yes, absolutely,” Ingrid confirmed. “We can get Maja to make some one day if you’d like.”
“Great! We love pancakes, especially if they have a taste of Norway,” Freya said. “I’ll tell Miss Seter that we can do it
together one day. I can teach her some American cooking tricks, too.”
“I’m sure she’d like that,” Ingrid said.
Ingrid thought she saw her grandmother’s face twitch but pretended not to notice. Freya Wilkins certainly didn’t seem to see
it, at least.
“I thought I’d ask you something,” Freya said. “That painting hanging in the stairwell, is it the same view we see here from the dining room?”
“Yes, it is,” Ingrid confirmed, pointing out the window. “That’s Heaven’s Horn that you see towering over there, and Styggfossen
is the waterfall.”
“We thought we’d go check out the waterfall one of these days,” Freya continued. “It’s so big and wild! I’ve heard it’s taken
quite a few lives.”
“Probably mostly legends,” Ingrid said. “Though of course you need to be careful when you go close to such a waterfall. But
it’s frozen right now, so you can climb it.”
“I don’t think that’ll be something for me and John,” Freya laughed.
***
As they were heading up the stairs afterward, her grandmother stopped on the landing where the oil painting of Heaven’s Horn
and Styggfossen hung. Neither of them said anything at first; Ingrid stood and waited while Borghild stared at the painting.
Ingrid had walked past it every day of her life but never really thought much about it. Like many of the other paintings in
the house, it had simply always been there.
Now, she looked at it more closely. It was an early summer scene in an elaborate gilded frame. The pointed, snowcapped top
of Heaven’s Horn towered against a clear blue sky, the moss and grass in the foreground were light green, and the water in
the waterfall was light, almost white. So different from the ice castle it became in the winter.
“Yes, this painting’s been hanging here for more than sixty years,” Borghild said.
“Really? I thought it was even older,” Ingrid said. “It’s kind of old-fashioned.”
“No, it’s from 1961, but it was painted in a traditional style,” her grandmother said. “I’ll never forget the time it was
painted. The painter was a popular fellow, you see, during the months he stayed in the village. Antonsen was his name. Everyone
who could afford it bought one of his landscape paintings. He was quite the sensation, and my mother and father really got
caught up in the frenzy.” She smiled again. “They commissioned another painting, too. The one I have in my room.”
“The one of the girls in bunads?”
Her grandmother nodded, her face suddenly serious.
“It doesn’t seem so long ago,” she said. “But at the same time, it was a whole different lifetime.”
***
Ingrid went through the reservations for the coming weeks. People were coming and going, but she would have liked to have
even more bookings. It wasn’t exactly jam-packed here. On the plus side, she noted that the Wilkinses had come a whole two
weeks early. Lucky for them we weren’t full—unlucky for me that we have so few guests , Ingrid thought. The Americans were planning on staying here for Christmas and over New Year’s, and that was good for the
hotel; guests who stayed for weeks meant much less work than the short weekend visits, which made up most of the bookings.
On Friday the thirteenth— good thing I’m not superstitious , Ingrid thought—the hotel was expecting a group of young men who’d be staying from Friday to Sunday. Ingrid looked through the list of names and wondered who they were and what they were expecting in terms of amenities. This wasn’t exactly Hemsedal or Geilo with hot tubs and wild après-ski parties. Would they like staying at a traditional old hotel like this? At the same time, she had to assume there was a reason they’d chosen Glitter Peak in the first place. The climbing, perhaps. Two couples from the Hamar region would also be arriving for the weekend, as well as a British family, who were apparently pretty outdoorsy.
There were a number of guests who came here just to climb, even now during the winter season. Ice climbing was becoming increasingly
popular, and Styggfossen was an exciting challenge. Some came to hike and enjoy the peace and quiet and the views. On the
weekends, the premises were also open to guests who just wanted to have lunch or dinner in the restaurant. There weren’t many
such visitors because the hotel was pretty off the beaten track, but the pre-Christmas festivities—and perhaps curiosity—enticed
some locals to give it a try. On Friday evening, six people would be dining here in addition to the overnight guests, and
ten people were booked for lunch on Sunday. Ingrid recognized several of the names from her school days in Dalen. They probably
wanted to check out how things were going up here.
She felt uneasy at the thought of seeing her old schoolmates again. Thor was the only one of them she had any contact with.
She’d become a little wary after the avalanche and the public breakup with Preben. She got anxious when she had to meet people,
especially old acquaintances who often asked how she was really doing—people who’d read about her online and took the information they found there as an invitation to stomp into her personal and emotional life. They’d probably seen the headlines in the gossip magazines. Dramatic breakup after accident. Left the country in a hurry. Friends losing hope: she won’t speak to him.
She shook it off. Curiosity and feigned concern were things she’d just have to deal with. She was trying to secure the future
of the hotel, she needed guests, and she was going to be happy about every single one who came—no matter what their motivations
for visiting might be.
Friday, December 20, was the last big arrival day. One of the groups from Hamar and one from around Drammen were expected
that weekend, along with two families from Oslo who would be staying in the apartments in the annex. Vegard and David would
be coming up that day as well—if Vegard even managed to go back to Oslo before then. That depended on Pia P. Ingrid got the strange feeling that Pia was dragging out her visit. Perhaps
she was planning on moving in? Anyway, she’d said she would pay—although Ingrid didn’t know how to bring that up again.
Ingrid was the one who’d decided that the hotel should stay open for Christmas, but now she regretted the decision. It was
strange to think that she and Nana Borghild would be celebrating Christmas with the Wilkinses. That would be a pretty special experience! She wished Vegard could be here then, too, but of course he had other plans with David
and his family.
Glitter Peak used to have guests during Christmas, but not since Ingrid’s parents died. Nana Borghild had had enough to deal
with taking care of little Ingrid in the years after the accident, and celebrating Christmas with strangers hadn’t felt natural
after Angelina and Marius had passed.
More than ever, it struck Ingrid how dramatic and demanding life had been for her grandmother—what with the sole responsibility not only for the hotel but also for Ingrid. Her paternal grandparents in Oslo had also been there for her, and Ingrid had had a good relationship with them until they died a few years ago. But it was Nana Borghild who in practice had been both mother and father to Ingrid when she was growing up, and it was Nana Borghild who stood on the hotel steps and waved goodbye when Ingrid headed out into the world. Her grandmother had carried everything on her shoulders, and Ingrid had never once heard her complain.
Thank you, Nana , Ingrid thought. Now, at well over eighty years old, you’ll finally be able to bow out while I take over. It’s really not a moment too soon.
I’m sorry I didn’t come back before.
***
Borghild went into the library. It was empty. Perfect. She wanted to look through the guest books in peace and quiet before
handing them over. Sunny wanted to write term papers about the hotel’s history, and Ingrid had started asking questions about
what had happened in the 1960s. Borghild needed to think carefully about which story she wanted to tell.
Here they were, on the bottom shelf of the bookcase: several stacks of books in worn brown leather bindings. She picked up
the oldest and carried them over to the sofa by the fireplace. Initially, she’d planned on reading through the books between
1960 and 1962, but as she ran her fingers over the leather covers, she couldn’t resist the urge to start at the beginning.
Glitter Peak Lodge was written in gold Gothic letters on the oldest volumes. She flipped through the pages in Volume 1. The first entry was dated August 1, 1893, in elegant calligraphy: “Grand Opening of Glitter Peak Lodge.” The thick book was filled up by New Year’s in 1899, then a new one was started. There’d been about twenty books so far. For 130 years, hikers and tourists had written their names and observations within the heavy leather bindings. Hiking trails were described, good and bad weather noted. Holiday menus were pasted in, and sketches of plant and animal life were drawn in the corners: heather and lichen, mountain birch and cloudberries, animals ranging from lemmings to bears.
She lifted her gaze and looked at the stuffed bear in the corner by the fireplace. Barry was an Ursus arctos arctos —a Eurasian brown bear. Not as large as the American grizzly or Kodiak, but big and scary enough. Borghild clearly remembered
when Barry was killed. It was Dalen’s self-proclaimed legendary huntsman who’d shot it. Bear hunting was legal at that time,
and the hunter was young. He’d been Borghild’s friend. He no longer was.
She shuddered and continued flipping the pages of the guest book, put it down, and picked up the next one, then the next.
These books really were a treasure trove! Here was a greeting from the British mountaineer Sir Peter Downsize, who in 1919
had found Glitter Peak to be “magnificent” and the hotel “splendid.”
And here, in 1921, an envoy from the Royal Norwegian Automobile Club had visited the hotel, which he found “very satisfactory,”
even though he had a lot to criticize about the “macadamization” of the roads in Dalen and the surrounding area. It was like
listening to Freya Wilkins complaining about the Norwegian roads. Some things never changed. A clipping from the local newspaper
with a picture of the proud motorist in a hat and driving gloves was pasted on the next page.
Her gaze stopped on a picture of a woman in a white blouse and long skirt hiked up above her ankles, heavy boots underneath. Ingbrita Berg, Borghild’s own grandmother, had been one of the very first female climbers in the country. People in the village told tales of her escapades: she wore a skirt when she posed in the pictures, but she’d been so wild that she climbed in pants. She was the first woman to climb Heaven’s Horn and one of the first people in general to climb it. She’d also been up Store Skagast?lstind—Norway’s third-highest and most difficult peak—at a time when mountaineering itself was completely new.
Borghild hadn’t climbed since Angelina and Marius died; the responsibility for Ingrid had made her put climbing aside. It
simply felt too risky. Giving up climbing had been a great loss, but Borghild had been careful not to let it overshadow Ingrid’s
own love of the sport. Someone else had taken that away from her.
They were a part of a long tradition, she and Ingrid. All these women who ended up in the shadow of men. She looked at the
photo of Ingbrita again. This was a story more people should know about. It occurred to Borghild that someone should write
the history of the mountain women and the hotel based on these entries. Perhaps she could do it herself? Yes. That’s just
what she wanted to do. Even in her eighty-third year on this earth, she still had the energy and willpower to keep working.
Now that she’d been relieved from her duties as hotel manager, writing the history of Glitter Peak would be her next project.
But first—first, she had to deal with what was happening around her now. She shut the book and looked for the one that had
records from the first half of the 1960s.
The sketch on the page she opened to was funny; it was supposed to depict “Sofie, Borghild, Christian, and Charlie on a mouse hunt in the hotel.” That was what was written in ornate handwriting beneath the picture. She remembered that winter well. Winter tourism was booming at the time. Starting around 1960, new and better roads had been built from Dalen and upward, and more and more people from the cities wanted and could afford to go on mountain vacations. Borghild and her friend, Christian Stugu—who had not yet become her husband—had therefore convinced Borghild’s parents that the hotel should stay open during Christmas and New Year’s to make the most out of the new business. This had turned out to be a good idea. His cousin Sofie had come from Bergen and worked there for several seasons. And Charlie . . . she imagined Charlie’s blond hair and contagious laughter. Charlie had been a natural part of the team. They’d been a group of young people working together while the townspeople had flocked to the mountains. The hotel had been full of guests and the atmosphere was fantastic.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t just the tourists who’d flocked to the hotel that year; the mice did as well. They’d found their
way into the buildings when the frosty nights set in, and as the weeks went by, the problem only got worse and worse. Borghild
would never forget the night Sofie had found a mouse in the bedroom she shared with one of the maids and ran out into the
snow in sheer panic, dressed in nothing but her nightgown. The others had laughed their heads off at the scene, though Sofie
hadn’t found it the least bit amusing. But it was. Even all these years later, Borghild still found herself smiling at the
memory.
Otherwise—apart from the mice—they’d had a wonderful time! There was no distinction between work and play back in those days; everything was work, and everything was fun. They washed the floors and carried luggage, guided tourists up to the tops of the mountains and skied back down. They peeled potatoes, changed sheets, and manned the reception area. And in the evenings, there was dancing. So much dancing.
Her gaze stopped on an entry, and Borghild stood up abruptly and shut the book. She didn’t want to sit here in the library
any longer. She wanted to take the book up to her room and prepare herself for what she would have to talk about soon—for
the first time since it all happened.