December 15
Some days you wake up and just know it’s going to be a shitty day. You can hope you’re wrong, you can try to change it, or
you can be like Preben Wexelsen: accept that the day is what it is and try to make the most of it. After all, shit works well
as fertilizer, and that means that the shittiest days can also be the most fruitful.
Preben Wexelsen was pleased with this metaphor as he sat up in bed. He noted that it was something he should use in a lecture
sometime.
He’d been giving a lot of lectures lately. And he’d had a lot of shitty days, weeks, months. Actually, it had been a pretty shitty year in general. He didn’t let those around him see that, though. To most people, he was the same as always: a successful, strong, and enterprising mountaineer, leader, motivator, and businessman. Whatever was bothering him, mentally or physically, was something he kept to himself. He always chose to try to make the best of everything. And more often than not, he succeeded.
He swung his legs out of his plaid H?stens bed—more than a hundred and fifty thousand well-invested kroner—and put his feet
on the floor. He looked at his own naked, sinewy body in the mirrored door of the closet as he stood up. He hadn’t changed
much; he was still a tall, slim man with piercing eyes and a suntanned face that contrasted with the pale skin on the rest
of his body. A few scars here and there.
A jolt went through his body as he put his weight on his right foot, but he quickly straightened himself up. That ankle would
never be quite right again after it broke in the avalanche last year. He rolled out his shoulders. They ached, too, as did
his right wrist and most of his fingers. Decades of climbing in subzero temperatures had taken their toll. The tendency to
osteoarthritis that he’d inherited didn’t make things any better. He had good days and bad. Today was clearly going to be
a bad one.
He heard the rain pattering against the window and opened the blinds, listening to the town hall bells playing a tune he remembered
from his childhood: “Ingrid’s Song.” Maybe it was a sign.
He made himself a double espresso and drank it as he gazed out over the lead-gray Oslofjord. Was this supposed to be winter?
Everything was foggy, gray, and wet. But he’d never been one to let the weather stop him. Preben always had places to go and
people to see—even on a Sunday, like today.
He whistled along to the melody from the clock tower—terribly off-key, he could hear that himself—as he got dressed. Nothing flashy: a suit, but no tie. He thought about going in a sportier direction for a moment, but today’s meeting required just the right amount of formality. He checked his teeth in the mirror after brushing. They gleamed white, just as they always did.
He never would have admitted it, but he actually felt some nerves ahead of the meeting. Nothing he couldn’t handle, but it
was an important conversation. He’d sat up late the night before, preparing for what he had to do today.
Getting here had taken some time. At first, he’d been too sad, then he’d been too angry. He wasn’t able to accept that what
had happened was all his fault—even if Ingrid had thought so. It was downright unreasonable. After all, they’d planned the
expedition together. It had been their project, their shared goals! Then the accident struck, and everything changed. Afterward, she hadn’t even wanted to speak
with him. When he was discharged from the hospital in Kathmandu on crutches, he’d tried to see her but was told he was unwanted.
Ingrid was in no shape to see him, the nurse had said.
He’d been unharmed himself, apart from the ankle. Pure luck. But somehow that almost made it worse.
He had to go through a series of interrogations with the tourist police. Ingrid had spoken with them separately. Then he found
out she’d left the country—gone off just like that, without answering any of his texts or calls. Left him to deal with questions
from the press and partners on their own. Hung him out to dry.
He’d been furious. But over the months that passed, he’d become more intent on atonement. He understood her anger, her grief
for Giovanni.
The Benedictine monk had been a part of Ingrid’s climbing team before, and she was the one who’d argued for him to join them on some of their Seven Summits attempts, even though Preben had been skeptical at first. However, he had to admit that it had been easier to accept Giovanni’s participation when Preben realized that the monk also had access to valuable sponsorships.
Giovanni had been a driving force behind several projects in the Himalayas that focused on sustainability and the coming generations.
The climbers had seen firsthand how much was in the process of being destroyed in these important mountain regions and felt
a responsibility to do something about it. They’d seen families disintegrate in the wake of the forces of nature and met many
children growing up in extreme poverty.
“The children are the future,” Giovanni had always said. “They’re the ones who will save the world. But we can help them do
so.”
And this was what it was all about now, Preben thought. The project was bigger than him and Ingrid— much bigger. And now he could really take it on. He’d sworn to himself, many times ever since last year, that he would make up
for things. Now he had the opportunity, and he wasn’t going to let it slip away.
***
Borghild held the umbrella in her right hand and the bag with the flowers in her left as she crossed the cemetery in the pouring
rain. She knew exactly who was in which grave without even having to look at the stones. So many people she knew were resting
here now. She remembered her teacher, Mr. Thorkildsen, from her school days. The Moen family gravesite. She’d played with
the Moen children back in the day, but now they were all gone, all five of them. Parish priest Tankred R?hmer. Good riddance!
The village was better off without him .
But there were many there whom she missed.
She stopped at her own family gravesite and stood there for a while before laying the wreath on the headstone, where the names shone white toward her in the pale morning light. She sat down on the small stone bench, even though it was wet, and looked at the inscriptions.
Christian Stugu 5.11.1935–11.24.1985
Angelina Berg Stugu Foss 1.25.1964–6.24.1992
Marius Foss 8.25.1962–6.24.1992
She’d procured a new gravestone when Christian died, as the old one was already full of names and dates. She’d assumed that
her own name would be next in line on the new stone, after Christian’s: Borghild Berg Stugu , which had been her official name when she got married, even though she mostly used Berg , the family name at Glitter Peak. There had been every reason to believe that many, many years would pass before the names
of future generations would be engraved there. But that hadn’t been the case. Not even seven years after she became a widow,
Borghild lost her daughter and son-in-law as well.
People in the village had frowned at Angelina’s marriage to a “city boy” from Oslo, an economist from a wealthy, well-known
family from the capital. Angelina and Marius met in business school. She moved to Bergen to study right after high school,
also to a great deal of headshaking from many of the villagers. “So you have to go to school to be able to run a hotel now,
is that it? That Glitter Peak girl is posh now,” they scoffed. That perception was further strengthened when she came home to visit with her big-city boyfriend. But when they got married and came back to Glitter Peak for good, and it became clear that they were serious, opinions started to change. By then, Christian had already died of a sudden heart attack, and Marius was seen as the “new lord of Glitter Peak.” By the time little Ingrid was born, all was forgiven—even the fact that Marius was from the capital. It also helped that he was an easygoing and practical man. He liked chatting with people in the village and eventually made many acquaintances, if not close friends. He didn’t have time for too many, though, because the young family had been living there for only a few years when tragedy struck. They drove off the road on a steep curve one summer on their way home from a midsummer party. Both had been killed instantly when the car hit the stone scree below. Borghild had asked herself how this could have happened, time and time again, but had never come up with a good explanation. It was an accident, plain and simple, at least as far as the police could tell. Perhaps they were speeding or not paying attention. Marius had been driving. He didn’t have any alcohol in his system. Neither did Angelina. The autopsy showed that she was pregnant. So three lives were lost, actually: a daughter, a son-in-law, and a little boy who never even saw the light of day.
It was a tragedy so immense that Borghild hadn’t known whether she could cope with it. But she had to—because not everything was lost. Three-year-old Ingrid hadn’t been in the car; she was sleeping in her crib in the hotel that night as her grandmother babysat. Her parents had thought about taking her to the party, but the little girl was tired, and Borghild said it was just as well for them to leave her at the hotel. Borghild loved watching her granddaughter. She’d had Ingrid in her arms as she said goodbye to Angelina and Marius on their way down to the village. Ingrid was wearing a flower crown. Her parents had been in a fantastic mood on that bright summer evening. Marius honked his horn as they drove off, and Angelina leaned out the car window and waved to them.
That was the last time Borghild saw them alive. And Ingrid lost a little brother in addition to her parents. She lost a future
as part of a family.
Marius’s parents had agreed that he should be buried here with his wife. The Foss family had loved Angelina—just like everyone
else who met her—and Marius had felt more at home here in the mountains than he ever had in Oslo. So here they lay, forever
twenty-eight and twenty-nine years old, and Borghild’s heart had been so thoroughly shattered that it was only her responsibility
for little Ingrid that had enabled her to get back on her feet at all.
Borghild had been in her fifties at the time. Now she was over eighty. She’d been a mother and grandmother, hotel manager
and widow, everyone’s friend and at the same time someone who had lost those closest to her. She’d scaled the operation up
and down, hired and fired people, cleaned and tidied, laid baseboards and managed the finances, painstakingly built up a team
of reliable employees, and always made things work—even if only barely at times. She’d done it. And now, little Ingrid had
finally come back from the big world to take over.
“It was about time, Christian,” she said to her husband as if he could hear her somewhere over in the hereafter. “I can’t
believe you never got to meet Ingrid. But you would be so proud of her.”
Borghild stood up, leaned toward the gravestone, and adjusted the flowers a little. “Yes, Christian, here I am in the rain,
thinking about death. Well, ‘One day we shall die. But all the other days we shall be alive’—as that Swedish writer said.
He’s dead now, by the way. But he got a lot done first.”
She took the empty bag the wreath had been in and strode firmly toward the parking lot with the umbrella over her head.
***
Ingrid stood in the doorway to the dining room, watching the lunch service. Sunny and the new kitchen assistant worked well
together, replenishing food and carrying plates in and out. Sunny was good at creating an atmosphere. Now, she was smiling
and chatting with the geology students, who were heading back to Oslo after lunch. Then she stopped in the middle of the room
with plates in hand and posed for Pia P, who was taking pictures with her phone. That’ll look good on Instagram, Ingrid thought.
Vegard was driving back to Oslo after lunch, but now he and Pia were chatting with Freya and John Wilkins as they enjoyed
some coffee. That was a new grouping, and Ingrid hoped Freya wasn’t talking Pia’s ear off. This curiosity of hers is probably some form of compassion , Ingrid thought. She entered the dining room, but as she approached the table, she heard that it was actually Pia who was
doing the talking and Freya answering.
“So your parents were Norwegian?” Pia asked.
“Yes, they were,” Freya replied. “My mother died a long time ago, but you know, I actually have a picture of her here.”
Freya rummaged around in her bag, pulled out a huge wallet, and handed something to Pia. “Here she is! Lottie Hansen from
Norway.”
“She was so pretty,” Pia said. “You look just like her.”
Ingrid was a little curious but didn’t feel that she could enter the conversation at this point, so she said a quick hello
before leaving the dining room again. It was nice that the guests had something to talk about, at least.
As she came out into the foyer, she saw a small figure slipping out the front door dressed in a puffy jacket and hat.
Ingrid crossed the foyer and opened the door as the figure scurried across the parking lot.
“Hussein, where are you going?” she shouted.
No answer.
The figure continued on toward the path. Ingrid ran over to the cloakroom where they had hiking gear for guests to borrow,
grabbed a windbreaker, and followed him. She looked down at her impractical sneakers for a moment but knew she didn’t have
time to change.
“Hussein! Hussein!” She ran over the path behind the hotel, where ice crusts crunched beneath her feet after yesterday’s freezing
rain. Hussein had to be nearby.
Suddenly, she saw him a bit farther up the hillside. She picked up the pace. Now she knew where he was heading. She caught
up to him at Troll Rock.
“What are you doing up here?” she shouted, panting. It had been a long time since she’d done any real cardio, she could feel
that now. Hussein squinted at her from the top of the rock.
“I wanted to see the view,” he said. “And I’m practicing climbing mountains. They say I can’t, but I can. I even have a headlamp,
just in case. Look.”
“Who’s saying you can’t climb mountains?” Ingrid asked.
“The kids at school. Mikkel and the others. Even though I’m the best climber in the whole school. They say I don’t know anything
about mountains because I come from a place that only has sand. But they don’t know anything. We have mountains in Jordan,
too! And in Syria! Higher than the ones in Norway!”
“Yes, that’s true. I’ve actually been on a really high mountain called Mount Hermon,” Ingrid said as she climbed up the rock and sat down next to Hussein. “That mountain is so beautiful that several countries are fighting about who owns it!”
“Have you been there?”
“Yes, I’ve been to that area several times. I used to travel a lot before, you know, and climbed mountains all over the place.”
Hussein looked up at her admiringly. “You’re the coolest person I know, Auntie Ingrid! Well, apart from my dad.”
She didn’t really feel all that cool. But she forced herself to smile. “And apart from you, Hussein. I think you’re the coolest person I know.”
“Next time, I’m going up to the top of Heaven’s Horn.”
“Heaven’s Horn?”
“Yeah! That’ll show them. And then I can’t wait to call my dad and tell him I’ve been up there.”
“Hussein,” Ingrid said, putting a hand on his shoulder. She knew it was unlikely that Hussein would actually ever set off
on his own, but she still felt a twinge of panic at the thought of the boy’s tiny body on the steep and difficult snow-covered
rock faces. “One day, you’ll be able to climb Heaven’s Horn. But it’s a very difficult and dangerous route. You have to practice
first. But right now, I don’t think we should climb anymore. You haven’t told your mom you’re out here, have you?”
Hussein looked down at the ground. “No, she was busy on her computer,” he said. “She didn’t notice that I left.”
They climbed down and Ingrid took Hussein’s hand and led him back toward the hotel. The little child’s hand was warm against
hers, but she was freezing cold.
When they entered the apartment, Aisha was still at her computer, going through the accounts. She looked up and smiled at them before frowning in surprise at the sight of Hussein’s outerwear.
“Where have you been, sweetie?” she asked. “You haven’t gone out on your own, have you?”
“Hussein and I have just been out... cleaning up the parking lot a bit,” Ingrid said.
She didn’t want to give Aisha anything else to worry about, and Hussein’s plans for climbing Heaven’s Horn most certainly
wouldn’t go down well with his mother.
“How nice of you to help, Hussein!” Aisha beamed, and Ingrid immediately felt a little guilty about lying.
“Ingrid, do you have dinner plans?” Aisha asked, standing up. “If not, you’re more than welcome to eat here with me and Hussein.
I have a lentil stew on the stove. I thought we could eat now since I just finished up what I was doing.”
“Oh, how nice!” Ingrid said. “I’d love to. Let me just go change my shoes first.”
She ran up to her own apartment and replaced her thin socks and sneakers with woolen socks and warm slippers. Her feet were
still numb from the walk in the cold. Aisha had finished setting the table by the time she came back down. The apartment smelled
delicious—like fried onions and spices.
Once they were finished, the two women sat chatting while Hussein took a bath on his mother’s orders.
“It’s so nice to have some time to talk about things besides finances and hotel management,” Ingrid said as she sipped from a cup of strong Arabic coffee. “I’m so impressed with you and Hussein. You’ve adapted to life up here so well. But sometimes I think it must have been a pretty rough transition.”
Aisha laughed. “Yes, it’s pretty different from the Middle East,” she said. “And colder !” She grew serious. “But we like it here, Ingrid. It’s so peaceful. You know... that’s not something we take for granted.
We’re from a place that’s been torn apart, that’s so unsafe. We miss Syria, but it’s hard to think of it as home now. Most
of my family is in Jordan, too. And we... no, we like it here.”
Ingrid thought about what Hussein had said about climbing to the top of the mountain to impress his father in Jordan, and
as if Aisha had read her mind, she suddenly said: “He misses his father terribly, you know. We hoped Mohammed would also be
able to work in Norway, at least for a while, but we don’t know if it will be possible.”
“Your husband has a job in Jordan, doesn’t he?” Ingrid asked. “I mean, he was already working there before the war broke out
in Syria as well?”
“Yes, that’s right. His family runs one of the big hotels in Aqaba, so we used to spend a lot of time there.”
Aisha had mentioned the popular destination before. Aqaba was an old city that had been built up as a tourist destination
in recent decades because it was located on Jordan’s newly acquired—and extremely short—coastal strip on the Red Sea.
“It was doing really well for a while, but it hasn’t been that easy lately. The pandemic is one thing, but all the unrest in the Middle East has also scared away a lot of the tourists. And now it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other—not since Hussein and I went to Nepal, when I got that job running the catering company. We’ve tried talking on Skype, of course, but it almost seems to make things worse for Hussein. He’s always so sad when we hang up. That’s why I’ve said we have to stop.”
“That’s terrible!” Ingrid exclaimed. “I hope he can see his father again soon.”
“When we left Syria, we thought our family was safe in Jordan,” Aisha continued. “But there have been some problems there,
too. Jordan has taken in so many refugees, they always have. Most of them are good people—decent. But some of them are no
good. Some come to make trouble.”
Ingrid nodded. She’d read quite a bit about Jordan’s challenges, with refugees and a rising level of organized crime in the
once peaceful country, but she didn’t feel she really knew enough about the situation to say anything sensible.
Aisha was silent for a while, then she continued, “That’s why I left. Took work elsewhere. Because of bad people. They come
from Syria and other places and seek out the people who are struggling.”
“They want young men to join the fighting in the neighboring countries?” Ingrid asked.
“Yes, that too. But also for... what’s it called? The mafia. They’re like a kind of mafia.”
“In Jordan?”
“Yes, they spread fear and violence. In gangs.” Aisha took a deep breath. “One of Mohammed’s uncles in Amman came into conflict
with one of these gangs. One day, they took his son, Mohammed’s cousin. He was only fifteen years old. He survived, but they
kidnapped and tortured him.”
“What?!”
“Yes. It was supposed to be a kind of ‘warning’ to his father. That’s when I’d had enough,” Aisha said. “I realized I couldn’t stay there. I couldn’t let the same thing happen to my son.”
***
Preben Wexelsen lit the gas fireplace with the remote control, leaned back against the leather cushions with a whiskey glass
in hand, and stared into the flames. Soft jazz rhythms flowed from the speakers on both sides of the couch. “An uncompromising
music system for uncompromising music lovers,” the advertisement had said. Strictly speaking, he wasn’t exactly an “uncompromising
music lover,” but he did always like to have the best of the best. He knew it was snobby, but he could live with that.
Preben undid a button at the neck of his shirt. He rotated his stiff shoulders. They hurt less than they had earlier in the
day. It was still pouring outside, but it was warm and cozy in here. Preben was happy. It was just as he’d always known: a
shitty day can turn into a fruitful one.
The meeting with the international organization had gone according to plan. The sponsors were in place, and the foundation
would be established shortly. They’d gone through everything: the finances, implementation, practical challenges. This meeting
had been the first step of the plan. Now he was ready for step two, and it had to be done quickly. And it had to involve Ingrid.
She didn’t want to see him; she’d made that clear several times. She hadn’t responded to his messages or phone calls, and
eventually, he’d given up. But he was going to do this. He owed it to Giovanni. He owed it to Ingrid and to himself.
So now, he had to talk to her. Face-to-face. Even if it meant he had to go all the way up in the boonies to find her in that ice castle
of hers.