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Wednesday, May 7, 2014

59

Ante took out three filets of salmon from the fridge and lay them down on a baking sheet. Then he proceeded to marinate the fish with a mix of olive oil, salt, pepper, dill weed and lemon juice. It looked very promising, and Bjorn could feel how he was getting hungry just by looking at how Ante prepared the fish.

"You know... A strange thing happened while I was out in the glass box today," Bjorn said, breaking the silence and changing the topic of discussion away from taxes and politicians.
"And?" Ante asked with curiosity.
"There was this woman... She had no papers on her... And she had her daughter with her..."
"Yeah?"
"And she told me, dead serious, that she had no plans to leave the village any time soon."
"So?"
"Well, isn't that odd?"
"Why is that odd? There are quite a few people living in the village. Like Ane for instance."
"Yeah, but this woman was like... like she was running away from someone."

Ante dumped a sack full of potatoes into a large pot of water. Then, after some thinking, he asked if the woman was Sami.

"No! Why?" Bjorn asked puzzled.
"She was from around here, though?" Ante continued.
"Sure. She talked like you... Same dialect."
"I bet she was running away from the child protection services."
"The what?" Bjorn asked, surprised by Ante's quick conclusion.
"The child protection services," Ante repeated. "Surly, you have heard of them."
"Yeah! But why are you so sure that this woman was running away from them."
"Who else could it be?"
"Her husband, maybe?"
"Well, I guess it could be... More likely to be the child protectors, though. Don't you think?"

Bjorn could think of no better explanation. And the woman had come across as slightly manic, so it would not surprise him if she was in fact in need of help of some kind.

"Isn't it strange how those most in need of help, usually are the first to run away from it?" Bjorn asked.
"Like that woman, you mean?"
"Yeah."
"But is it really help if those you are helping feel like they have to escape?"
"Well... No..." Bjorn replied reluctantly, sensing a flaw in Ante's reasoning, yet unable to put his finger on it directly. "Maybe not."
"They were probably about to take the girl away from her, and she decided to flee," Ante continued.
"But what if she's really incapable of taking proper care of her daughter?" Bjorn asked. "I mean, some parents are really terrible. You've heard the stories, haven't you?"
"I have indeed," Ante replied.

Ante poured himself a cup of coffee, offering Bjorn some too. But Bjorn did not feel like drinking coffee right before dinner. And he did not feel like ending the discussion or change the topic either.

"So what do you think?" Bjorn asked.
"About the woman?"
"Yeah."
"Well, she got away, didn't she?"
"Yes, and what do you think about that?"
"Well... Good for her! She got away. I'm sure she's happy about that."
"And her daughter? What about her?"
"Did she look sad or unhappy?"
"Well..." Bjorn said while trying to conger up the memory of what the girl looked like. "She just sat there, neither happy nor sad, I think."
"So she didn't look like she was abused in any way? She didn't look like she wanted to run away from mother?"
"No."
"Then, good for her too! She got away with her mother. How is that bad?"
"But what if the woman is a terrible mother?"
"We don't know that though?"
"But the child protectors probably think so."
"They probably do."
"So... Doesn't that tell us something?"
"Well... It explains why the woman was fleeing with her daughter."

Bjorn sighed in frustration. But seeing that Ante was grinning at him triumphantly, he sensed that Ante was simply playing the devil's advocate, and that he could easily poke hole in his argument by exposing this.

"You really don't trust the government, do you?" Bjorn asked with a hint of sarcasm in order to see if Ante was just promoting one of Thomas' anti-government ideas, or truly meaning what he was saying.
"And why should I? I'm Sami after all!" Ante answered with no hint of irony. "And you know, Bjorn, we don't really know if she was running away from the child protection services or not. We are just speculating."

And with this, Ante effectively stopped the discussion. His reference to the plight of the Samis was enough to derail it. And it also explained why he had wondered about the woman's ethnicity. A lingering distrust of government agents and their motives must have been why he asked if the woman happened to be Sami.

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