Unformed Landscape Read Online Free PDF

her towel, but when she went out to shower, Thomas’s father had come out straight after and had stood outside the shower until she was done. He had held the towel out for her, but she had grabbed it out of his hands, and quickly brushed past him, draping the towel round her hips. She felt certain he was watching her.
    Nothing in Creation is hidden from His eyes, Thomas’s father said later, when they were sitting in the sweating room, everything lies bare and open to the eyes of the One to whom we owe an account of ourselves and a reply. He laughed, and with the palm of his hand brushed some drops of sweat off his chest and belly, so that they flew across the room, and some landed on Kathrine’s neck.
    Afterward they drank tea, and Thomas’s father said, now you’re one of us, welcome to the bosom of the family.
    Kathrine’s girlfriends had congratulated her on their engagement, and her mother was happier than she’d been for a long time. She had liked Thomas right away, had permitted herself to be dazzled by him, just as Kathrine herself had been dazzled by him in the early days. He was good-looking, and was always in a good mood. He hadbeen all over the world, and had an interesting job and a good salary. At first, Kathrine used to ask herself what she had done to find such a husband, and what he saw in her.
    Thomas had one of the highest grades in his year, and had a PhD in economics. He had been a champion swimmer as a boy, and had friends on every continent. He could speak five languages fluently, and had once had an offer to be the personal adviser to a cabinet minister in Oslo. He had devised a well-known computer game, and was a black belt in quite a rare form of martial arts. Twice a week he would run the ten kilometers to the airport and back. He had spent a few winters as a substitute skiing teacher in north Norway. Once, he’d gone on a tour with Crown Prince Hakon, and once spent the night in a ski hut on the Hardingervidda with Agnetha from ABBA. And not a word of it was true.
    But for Morten, Kathrine would probably never have found out. Morten was her oldest friend, her only real friend. They had known each other since school. Both of them said they’d known each other forever. At the time, everyone thought they would get together sometime, but then Kathrine had got the baby from Helge, and after the divorce, either she or else Morten had always been in a relationship, or some sort of affair. They had always missed each other, as they said from time to time when they had a beer or a coffee together. And Morten and Kathrine would have been a good-looking couple. He was dark, not too tall, and slender. As a child, he had alwaysclaimed to have a French grandmother. It wasn’t actually the case, but because of that, and because he always kissed girls on both cheeks, they later all called him the Frenchman. Kathrine was pretty sure he had some Sami in him, as many in the village did. Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, and Sami stock were all mixed together here, in some families there was also Russian or Chukchi. The borders had always been permeable, as the humans simply followed the reindeer herds, the fish migrations, which weren’t governed by boundaries. They came to the village because they wanted to work here for a couple of years, because the fish factory paid good money. It didn’t matter where you lived, it was cold all over and dark. It doesn’t matter, said Morten, I’ve lost touch with my family anyway.
    Kathrine and Morten saw each other often in the village, but after Kathrine married Thomas they never went out together. Thomas didn’t want Kathrine to be seen with other men. Not that he didn’t trust her, he said, but the village wasn’t the biggest, and he didn’t want his wife and his marriage to be the subject of gossip.
    “And least of all with the Frenchman.”
    “Why do you call him that? You don’t even know him.”
    “I’ve known plenty of French men,” grinned Thomas,