I hung up the phone in the middle of one of Norway’s top hits from 1989 and looked out the window where the snow was still blowing around. Maybe some of the flakes would end up in Siberia. Some might even stray down into the sinkhole that had opened without anyone knowing why. Sinkhole. The word made me think of something, some memory, without my being able to quite put my finger on it.
I Googled “sinkhole in Siberia.” Articles from both American and British newspapers popped up. All of them agreed that the sinkhole was inexplicable, but they weren’t afraid to speculate. Some thought the crater was caused by a UFO that had landed in Siberia and was now lying hidden at the bottom, but most were of the opinion that the collapse stemmed from Soviet-era test drilling in the seventies. Apparently they had been feverishly searching for gas in Siberia back then and had big plans to extract it, but eventually the project had been back-burnered when several big holes opened up on the surface of the earth. They were all lying there like open wounds in the landscape, and most of them were still burning because of the methane gas pouring out.
I pictured those burning holes. Like big torches or lighthouses, not showing the way to anywhere other than destruction and death. Just like the bonfires of those people who rob shipwrecks. Could you see them all the way from space? Maybe that’s what had attracted the UFO here? Maybe that’s why it came?
And if we were being invaded from outer space, how was I going to get home? Bj?rnar had a lot of wonderful qualities, but he knew pretty much nothing about how to save a family from bloodthirsty aliens who had depleted their own planet and were now hoping for a piece of ours. My brain started tingling and the squeezing feeling was back in my chest. I closed my eyes and tried to think happy thoughts.
I went down to the lobby, where Peter was sitting in the bar with a glass of beer in front of him.
“Hi,” I said. “Are you sitting here alone?”
“Actually, Ingvill’s here, too. She’s buying herself a glass of white wine. She suggested we have a drink before we go to the Hermitage.”
“The Hermitage?”
“Didn’t you know about that? Ivan sent her a text message to invite us. I figured she would have told you?”
“Nope, she didn’t.”
“What didn’t I do, Ms. Know-It-All?” asked Ms. Tropical Fruit Salad.
I rolled my eyes and walked over to the bar. It was completely silent in there with the exception of some quiet murmuring from a Russian news channel on TV.
“Bad news,” Peter said when I returned.
“What?”
“A reliable source informs me that the dean won’t approve the bilateral cooperation agreement between our respective universities,” Ingvill said.
“Why? Things went so well at the meeting today. It was all friendship this and friendship that, in the past and the future and the present.”
She scoffed.
“You thought it went well? Then you must not know much about Russian body language.”
I wanted to tell her what I thought about her body language, but I refrained. Instead I turned to Peter.
“Don’t you think it went well?”
“Yes, yes.” He nodded, his mouth full of cocktail nuts. “We got presents and everything. Nice presents.”
Ingvill scoffed again.
“You guys are clearly novices when it comes to internationalization.”
“That’s true,” I said, taking a sip of my wine. “And if I’m not mistaken, you’ve never been any farther east than the outlet mall just across the border into Sweden.”
“Maybe we can make a better impression at tomorrow’s meetings,” Peter said, sounding hopeful. “Don’t we have three of them?”
“Ivan said there’s only going to be one. The other two were canceled. And of course it doesn’t help that the icon disappeared. No, I think we’re going to have to use the same tactic we’re using back home. I can be the hard-liner, and—”
“What icon?” Peter interrupted.
“That picture the dean showed us. In his office,” Ingvill said. “Ivan says it’s extremely valuable. Priceless, apparently. If you ask me, it looked kind of junky. That Christ figure looked like something my niece might have painted. But anyway, it’s gone. And apparently that’s a problem for us.”
“Why is that a problem for us?” I asked. “We didn’t take it.”
Peter looked down into his beer glass.
“Maybe not,” said Ingvill, “but incidents like that aren’t good for bilateralization. They lead to people looking for scapegoats. Studies have shown when that happens people tend to hammer down the nail that sticks out, so to speak. According to Ivan there’s a heated search under way at the university right now. Apparently the dean is up in arms. And that’s not good for anyone. I was supposed to meet Ivan tonight, but now he can’t. Luckily we get to go to the Hermitage together now.”
She stood up and walked over to the bar to buy another glass of wine. Peter gave me an odd look. He opened his mouth, but then closed it again.
“What is it?” I asked wearily.
“You know that icon . . .” Peter began.
“The Dean Icon?”
“Whoops.”
“What do you mean ‘whoops’?”
“I have it. In my room.”
“What do you mean ‘I have it in my room’?”
“What do you think I mean?”
“You have it? You mean you took it?”
I half expected him to start laughing and say the whole thing was some silly joke, but he just nodded gloomily and drained his beer glass.
“I thought it was a present!”
“A present?”
“I mean, they’ve been giving us gifts the whole time! Here, have some vodka. Here, have some chocolate. Here, have some mints. Here, have some of this and some of that. He was standing there talking about friendship and war and peace and, well, I was just absolutely sure he meant the icon as a gift. So I accepted it. On our behalf. On behalf of Norway. And a little bit for the Queen.”
“You mean Queen Elizabeth?”
He nodded.
I tried to wrap my brain around what was actually an un-brain-wrappable situation. Blood pounded in my head, and the soles of my feet started to tingle. I pictured a flaming sinkhole. I took another large gulp of wine.