As we ran into the quay, Dahler gripped my arm. 'Look,' he said. They are building a boat. And they build him just the same as they build boats two thousand years ago.'
Just beyond the quay lay the yellow skeleton of a boat. Five men were working on it. 'They are using nothing but axes?' Jill said.
'That is so,' Dahler answered. 'They use nothing but the axe. That is the way the Vikings build their boats. And up at Fjaerland they have always built their fishings boats that way. They can make carpets from local wool and stockings and jerseys — all by the method and in the pattern that they have always used. Nothing is new here — except the hotel and the steamers.'
We ran past a little wooden church, past the hotel, half-hidden in trees, and in to the wooden piles of the jetty. 'Is that your partner's boat?' I asked Sunde, pointing to a small tock-a-tock lying just beyond the quay. But he shook his head. His partner hadn't arrived and as though that were an omen, I suddenly had the feeling that things weren't going to go well.
I left the others and went up to the hotel alone. A waitress in national costume of black with embroidered bodice and frilled lace blouse stood in the entrance hall. 'Is Mr Ulvik in the hotel?' I asked.
She shook her head and laughed. 'Et oyeblikk sa skal jeg finne eieren.'
I waited. There were tiers of postcards, all of ice and snow and violent, blasted crags. Behind the porter's desk hung handmade rugs in brilliant colours, belts stamped out of leather and strange shaped walking sticks. On the desk were several pairs of slippers made by hand from what I later discovered to be reindeer. They had originally been made by the inhabitants for walking on frozen snow, but were now produced for the tourist trade on which the village lived. In a corner of the hall were piled rucksacks, rope, climbing boots, ice axes and a pair of skis. The atmosphere of the place was so different from the islands.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs. I looked up. A short, fat little man hurried towards me. He wore a black suit and white collar and looked as out of place as a clerk in a gymnasium. He held out a white, podgy hand. 'You are Mr Gansert, perhaps,' he said. There was a gleam of gold fillings in his wide smile.
'Are you Mr Ulvik?' I asked.
'Yes. That is me.' He spoke English with a slight American accent. 'Come. We will go into the lounge. You have had tea?'