18

Bjorn put down the binoculars. Now that he had studied the building site more closely, he could make sense of the distant figures as they moved around with no instrument to help him. He did no longer need the binoculars to know who were the slaves and who were the masters. And pleased to have figured out the division of labour down at the building site, he poured himself another cup of coffee, which he drank leisurely while keeping an eye with the builders.

Refreshed by the coffee, Bjorn felt an urge for nicotine, so he got up and out of the glass cage to smoke a cigarette. The clouds and the wind from the day before had pretty much disappeared, and the sun was shining down on the melting snow by the road side. A faint trickle of moving water could be heard everywhere, and the air was full of freshness and a sense of expectation. It was almost a shame to light up a cigarette in all this freshness, but on the other hand, the contrast between the sharp taste of the smoke and the mild crispness of the spring air was quite invigorating too.

The arctic summer, short and fragile, was on its way, pushing the winter to its side. Standing next to the glass box, with the sun shining down on him, Bjorn could feel how the warmth of the sun lifted his spirit, as by magic. But a cloud was drifting in from the west and would soon come between him and the sun, and that would be the end of the summery sensation. Another few minutes of sun, and then it would be gone for at least half an hour, judging by the size of the cloud and the speed that it was moving.

Wanting to keep the optimistic feeling of summer, and not wait for the cloud to spoil it with its bitter reminder of how fragile the summer will be, even at its warmest, Bjorn decided to go back into the glass cage while the sun was still bright. But just as he was about to enter, he heard a distant clatter from the south, which he immediately recognized as the sound of a snow clearing truck pushing a heavy plow in front of it, and curious to see it, he turned away from the door, ignoring the sudden chill that came with the sun disappearing behind the cloud.

Bjorn caught a first glimpse of the truck as it appeared from behind a hill, up the valley to Neiden. But it was soon gone again, and for a while, even the clatter of the plow was gone. Then the clatter reappeared, followed by the truck, now heading straight down towards the check point. Bjorn liftet his hand to greet the trucker the moment he could see him through the windshield, and the trucker responded by honking his horn.

The truck made a wide turn on the parking lot up by the barracks without reducing the speed by much. The trucker waved to Bjorn as he did this. Then, honking his horn again, he headed back towards Neiden.