80

Thomas tried to conveniently forget about the balloon on his way out of Nora's place, but was prevented from leaving it behind by his colleagues who insisted on him taking it with him to the casino. And seeing no way around this, Thomas put the weight at the end of the string in the breast pocket of his shirt. He then put his jacket on, zipped it up, and stepped out in the cool evening air with the balloon hanging above his head.

The air was completely still which made the walk back to the village square quite pleasant despite the low temperature. Even Frank, in his light summer jacket seemed to be doing all right in the cold.

Another family from Kirkenes, by the look of it, came walking up the other way, and the mother in the group asked if they were returning from Nora's place.

"Yes, we are!" Ante answered, delighted to help.
"So there will be a table ready for us when we get there?" the mother continued.
"I guess they are preparing the table as we speak!"
"Oh, that's good to hear. You see we are a little early."

Ante checked his watch. "Yeah, I see... We finished our seating early... I guess we could have hung around for another fifteen minutes."
"And it's right over there, right?" The woman asked, pointing to Nora's place.
"Yes! That's it... Enjoy the food! It´s fantastic."
"Yes, we will!" the woman answered before thanking the men and leading her group onwards to the restaurant.

The small talk put a smile on Ante's face, perking him up even more. "I love helping people out," Ante commented as he too was aware of his positive reaction to the woman's simple questions. And his colleagues nodded in agreement.

"There's something wonderful about being nice," Bjorn agreed. "I think that's pretty universal."
"And yet there's no end to the wars and riots, it seems," Thomas continued without dismissing Bjorn's thesis.

But before they had any time to continue their philosophical musings, they were again asked to help. This time by a man in a casual grey uniform, with the logo of Lance Security displayed both on his jacket and on his military style hat.

"Have you seen anyone loitering around here?" the man asked in broken English.
"No!" Ante answered, again quick to be of help. "Only a family heading for Nora's place."
"No teenagers?"
"Among the family members?"
"No. On their own?" the man corrected, looking anxiously in the direction of Nora's place.

The man did not wait for an answer, as he seemed to have caught sight of something, and left the men wondering what was going on as he started running towards the restaurant. Not being in a hurry, the men watched the security officer disappear around a corner, only to reappear a little later right behind the family at Nora's doorstep.

Nothing much happened after this, and the men resumed their walk towards the casino. The last they saw of the security officer was him first talking to Aung, and then remaining on the porch before drifting into the garden, disappearing behind the house, clearly still looking for the teenagers he was looking for.

"I thought they did not have any police in the village," Espen commented on the episode as they neared the village square.
"Well, that guy was working for Pedro," Bjorn replied, happy to show off some knowledge on the subject.
"Really?" Frank asked.
"Lance Security," Bjorn continued. "It's Pedro's insurance company."
"Insurance company?" Espen asked. "But that was a police officer of sorts, not an insurance sales man."
"Sure," Bjorn answered. "But there are no police in Lundby, so I guess the insurance companies have to pay for their policing themselves."

The men went silent on this latest comment until Thomas nodded in agreement. "That does make sense," he concluded, with his colleagues joining in with nods and grunts of their own.

The village square was as busy as always, and paraffin lamps, hung from the roofs of the stands, lit it all up in a pleasant warm glow. And some of the store fronts at the far end of the square were also open, with a few people window shopping in the cool arctic night. There was a kiosk selling all sorts of stuff, including PC's, mobile phones and other electronic equipment, a drycleaner, and a fashion store, all of which had escaped Bjorn's attention on his first trip to Lundby.

Pingo was still open across the square from the casino, and so was the petrol station, both still doing good business, although less so than when the men arrived earlier in the evening. And the men laying down the final bit of side walk in front of the casino were finishing up their work at the far end of the big building that used to be the local administration office for public services, according to Ante who pointed out the irony of a public building being turned into something as un-Norwegian as a house of sins.

"Everything goes in there," Ante said with a smile. "Except smoking your cigarettes."

Ante pointed to the familiar circular signs with a line crossing out a lit cigarette, posted on either side of the entrance and on every door going into the casino. And it was clear that people followed the rule, as there were plenty of smokers standing outside with their cigarettes in hand, huddling around paraffin heaters set out for comfort. But just as Bjorn was about to make a comment on this, they were all approached by two scanty clad black girls commenting on Thomas' balloon. "Hey birthday boy!" they said with mischievous glee. "Are you ready for a party?"

78

All the tables in Nora's restaurant were occupied, and the men agreed that it was a shame that she did not have a larger place so that she could serve more people. "She should expand her business at the earliest opportunity," Ante said, echoing the sentiment of his colleagues. And everyone nodded in agreement. The food was fantastic and plentiful, and it was tempting to stuff oneself to the point of it becoming painful. However, as the main course drew to an end, Aung asked if everyone were ready for desert and coffee, and this stopped Bjorn from scraping the serving dishes spread out over the table, and appeared to have the same effect on both Thomas and Espen who leant back in their chairs as if to contemplate the offer.

"That sounds great!" Frank replied. "What's for desert?"
"Deep fried banana with ice cream," Aung answered with a smile. "And a birthday cake for the birthday boy."
"In addition to the banana, I hope?" Thomas asked, looking concerned.
"Of course!"

Ante looked at his colleagues, to see if everyone were finished with the main course. "So, are we finished?" he asked, just to make sure, and everybody nodded with a "yeah, sure, it was delicious."

Aung immediately sat about clearing the table while the men leant back to give her easy access to their plates and glasses. Bjorn looked around in the restaurant to see if everyone else were as pleased with the place as him, and there was no doubt about it being a success with everybody.

Three foreigners were sitting at a table by the far wall, talking just loud enough for Bjorn to identify them as Italians. A table in the middle of the room had what looked like a family party of locals from Kirkenes, with parents, a grand mother and three teenage children. And two strong looking men, also Norwegians, were sitting at a table for two by the near wall.

Everybody were enjoying themselves. Even the teenagers looked pleased and not at all bored by their company, and when Aung started coming in with the deep fried bananas for Bjorn and his colleagues they perked up even more, clearly eager to try some themselves.

The men got a cup of coffee and a small glass of banana liquor to go with their treat. And before anyone could stop him, Ante had swallowed his liquor. "Man! That's good!" he exclaimed shamelessly as his colleagues looked with some concern at their designated driver.

"You better stop drinking now!" Thomas protested. "We've all been drinking. Who's going to get us back to the checkpoint?"
"Come on!" Ante retorted. "I have the whole night to burn off this alcohol. Two beers and a bit of schnapps isn't going to make any difference in a few hours time."
"So you're going to quit drinking now?" Thomas asked.
"Yes of course. Stop being so worried!"

77

The men were seated at a table by the window which gave them a great view of the water separating Nora's place from Ane's factory. And Bjorn, sitting right by the window, facing North, also had a wide view of the alpine mountains at the far side of the Lundby bay. The bright red glow behind the mountains signalled the end of the day, and the rising moon, coming up behind the church, would soon be the only source of natural light for the village.

Turning his head to look south, Bjorn noticed that very little of the village could be seen. The knoll with the parked cars obscured the view completely, so the only other buildings visible from where he sat, was a couple of wooden houses next to the church, and another house behind the factory.

But Bjorn had little time to contemplate the view. Aung handed out the menu to everyone, and engaged them all in small talk. When Ante told her that they were celebrating Thomas' birthday, she lit up and told Thomas that he would get an extra treat on the house.

"We also have balloons," she added with a smile. "Would you like one?"
"Uh... No thanks..." Thomas answered embarrassed.

But everybody around the table protested and insisted that he accept the balloon, and it ended up with Thomas getting a silvery and blue helium balloon when Aung returned with drinks to everybody. It had "Birthday Boy" written in large gold letters, and it had a small weight attached to the end of its string.

"Just in case you should accidentally loose hold of it later tonight," Aung explained. "The weight will prevent it from flying away... Are you ready to order?"

There were not a lot of choice on the menu, which made it easy to decide on the set menu with a bit of everything. Nora's concept was clearly to stick to a few dishes and do them well rather than to provide a lot of variety and risk doing them poorly, and possibly being stuck with a lot of unused ingredients.

Very soon after placing their order, food appeared on the table, and the men dug into the goodies with eagerness. The review in the Gazette had certainly not been unjust. The food was great and the service friendly and homely, with hardly any waiting for anything. As soon as Bjorn had emptied his glass of beer, he was offered a new one, and the food appeared in such a steady stream that there was no waiting at all.

Ante took a small exception to his no alcohol policy for the night, finding the prospect of trying some authentic Philippine beer irresistible. He had one at the start of the meal, arguing with his colleagues that the alcohol would be worked out of his system by the end of the night, so there was no reason why he shouldn't embrace this unique opportunity to try something new. And when he had his second beer towards the end of the meal he simply said that it was too good to resist, and that the night was still young.

"As long as you stop drinking after this," Thomas insisted. "But don't go all drunk on us again. You're our designated driver, remember?"
"Sure!" Ante answered with a confident smile. "It's not like I don't know when to stop."
"Really?" Frank asked. "It did not look that way last time we were out."
"Hey, give me a break! That was a one off. I'm not like that normally... Have you ever seen me drunk up at the checkpoint?"
"No, but I have seen you pretty hopelessly drunk down here," Espen answered on Frank's behalf.

76

Bjorn too felt let down by the higher than expected price for the tokens, and ended up buying just 500 MG instead of one G which was his original thought. However, he found Espen's reaction ridiculous. Considering all the things they could buy for the tokens, they were still cheap, all be it less so than the gold price had led them to believe. And the lady behind the counter was right. It was not like they were asking for gold. They were asking for tokens, and the tokens were naturally priced according to what people were willing to pay for them.

But Espen kept going on about how they had all been scammed, and did not calm down before all his colleagues started ignoring him, focusing instead on the changes that had taken place during the week since their last visit. "Even the sun is different today," Thomas remarked as they walked in the direction of the bright red sunset. "It was dark by now last weekend."

"And in a month from now there will be no sunset at all," Ante added with a smile. "I love the midnight sun."
"Never experienced it," Bjorn remarked, glad to have something trivial to talk about.
"It's like the long summer evenings down in Oslo, only better!" Ante continued, still smiling.

The men stopped at the street corner next to the knoll with the parked cars, not so much to look out for traffic, of which there was very little, as for reading a sign on the other side, advertising the opening of a bowling alley in an old warehouse behind the casino.

"Anyone for bowling?" Frank asked.
"Yeah, we should do that one day," Ante answered. "But we're already a little late for our dinner at Nora's place."
"Maybe after dinner?" Thomas suggested.
"No! After dinner is casino time." Frank said resolutely. "We'll just have to note bowling down on our to do list."

The men looked at Frank, finding his resolute intervention amusing.

"And what about Thomas? Shouldn't this be up to him? It is his birthday after all?" Ante asked.
"Never mind," Thomas said, not waiting for an answer from Frank. "I'm fine. We can go to the casino as planned... It's not like I'm a die hard bowling enthusiast or anything."

They all continued down the shore line towards Nora's place which was situated directly across the water from Ane's fish processing plant. The little white church above and to the right of the factory was also clearly visible, flood lighted and literally shining as a pearl against the huge rock behind it.

It was a muddy gravel road they were walking down, full of potholes and with a soft shoulder that at places had slid out and disappeared into the water. However, it was not like the road was completely unfit for driving. In places, it was even wide enough for two cars to pass. And being a road only meant for access to a handful of houses, it was no doubt good enough.

Nora's place turned out to be the third house down the road, and was marked with a square box at the edge of the road, functioning both as a sign and as a lamp. It read "Nora's Place" in large friendly letters painted on the translucent surface of the illuminated box.

The restaurant was, as it turned out, simply the living room of a private house, converted into an open dining area with several tables. The house was, as the church across the water, flanked by a rock, all be it a much smaller one than the one by the church. Still, the boulder was as large as the house itself, and shielded it perfectly from any winds coming from the north.

But none of this came as any big surprise to Bjorn. He was getting used to things being ad hoc and improvised in Lundby, and there was nothing uncomfortable about walking into the private sphere of Nora's house. The front door was set with a large glass pane, with an "open" sign clearly visible. And a little desk with a book containing the appointments for the evening was visible through the window in the door.

Stepping into the hallway a bell signalled their entrance, and almost immediately a young Asian woman appeared, ready to help the men find their table. There was something familiar about her, but Bjorn did not immediately recognize her. Only after hearing her speak a few more words as she lead the men to their table by the window, did he suddenly, in a flash, make the connection. The woman was the same one who had welcomed Geir and him over at Ane's factory a few days earlier, and full of curiosity he immediately asked if she happened to be Nora.

"No, no..." she answered with a smile as the men sat down at their table. "I'm Aung. I help Nora out in the evenings."
"So you are still working for Ane?" Bjorn asked, still curious.
"Oh yeah. That's my day job," she answered. Then, taking another look at Bjorn, she blurted out "ah... I see, you are the one we had over the other day."
"Yeah," Bjorn answered with a smile.
She giggled. "Please excuse me... You really all look the same to me."

And with this the men burst out laughing, and the mood was set for a relaxing dinner.

49

"Ante sure knows how to throw a party," Bjorn thought to himself as he entered the kitchen where most of his colleagues had already sat down to eat. Only Thomas and Espen were still over by the stove heaping up generous amounts of steak, baked potatoes and vegetables for themselves. There was no shortage of whine either, but John and Espen were both having water, either for personal reasons, or in sympathy with the official rules banning any kind of alcohol consumption from Norwegian military bases. But Bjorn saw no reason to be any more prudent than Frank or Ante, and poured himself a big glass of red wine to go with the food.

The atmosphere was positively festive which made Bjorn almost embarrassed to think that he had suddenly felt so uncomfortable in the living room less than two hours earlier. "This is not a bad place at all, is it?" Bjorn thought to himself. "And they are definitely a friendly and polite bunch." And to encourage himself to be more positive in his view of things, he concluded his short lecture for himself. "This is far better than I had imagined," He thought. "So why not be a little more grateful over this unexpected bit of good fortune?"

Almost immediately after sitting down, Bjorn was bombarded by questions from his colleagues which served to underscore his deliberately positive view of his colleagues. They were all curious to hear what he had to say about Lundby, and genuinely interested in all he had to say. They were especially curious to hear about Ane's factory, which none of them had visited before. But Ante was also very curious to hear about the open air market, and everybody thought the replacement of perfectly good pavement with a Portuguese style cobbled stone alternative excessively extravagant, especially in light of the poor living conditions that most of the inhabitants were suffering under.

At one point, they all descended into a discussion on the environmental aspect of the fish processing plant, sparked by Bjorn's description of how all the waste was simply spewed directly and untreated into the water underneath the plant. They all agreed that this could not possibly be legal. But with the alternative being to send everything to China with no guarantee that the environment would be treated any better over there, they could not agree on the factory´s net effect on the global environment. The local environment would surely come under strain from Ane's careless waste treatment, but would things really be any better if the exact same was done in China?

This in turn brought up the idea of a global government. A government with global powers on environmental issues, but they all agreed that such a solution sounded too utopian, and that it had to be up to local governments all over the world to make sure that people like Ane could not go around polluting the environment without any kind of cost or consequence.

Having settled on a conclusion of sorts as far as the fish processing plant was concerned, the talk turned towards the planned outing on Friday night, with Ante raving about Nora's place for which he clearly had great expectations. And Frank was all enthusiastic about the casino, eagerly describing the place as he remembered it from an earlier visit.

Bjorn gathered from the talking that all of the men, except John, had been down in the village on one or more occasion. John, it seemed, was fearful of the village, and the enthusiastic raves by his colleagues made him only less eager to ever visit the place, which made Bjorn think that the young man might be fearful of a lot more than just the village. John, it seemed, was not only fearful of the village, he was fearful of himself.

22

Bjorn leafed through the newspaper, reading the article about Nora's place, and skimming through an article about the casino. The paper was clearly a mix of local news, right out promotions of various kinds, and bits of global news, probably cut and pasted directly from the internet. But it was certainly very unexpected for a village the size of Lundby to have a newspaper, and this was the biggest new as far as Bjorn was concerned.

However, as soon as the four o'clock news came on TV with its characteristic fanfare, Bjorn put the Lundby Gazette back on the table, turning his attention instead to the  news readers. There was nothing truly new on the news this afternoon, and the predictability of the official line and editorial focus made it almost a mind numbing experience to watch it. International news was again about the Middle East and Israel's supposed provocations and meddling in the region. Economic news was all about the crisis, with politicians talking tough, promising more regulations, and central bankers arguing for continued monetary stimulus in order to stabilize the markets.

The local news from Norway was an equally predictable series of reports on lay offs, financial hardships due to rising interest rates and rising unemployment, and deteriorating health services as well as a general lack of old people's homes. And once again, there were the usual promises by politicians to sort out the troubles, but also stern faced appeals to people to be patient and positive.

Then there was the usual series of short news flashes from around the world, with sex scandals in France and the US, and a viral video, this time of a singing dog from Singapore. And finally there was about fifteen minutes of sports highlights from the day before.

Espen, John and Thomas all appeared pretty much immediately after the end of the TV news, and Frank turned the TV off as soon as they entered the room. The four men had clearly made a habit of playing cards in the afternoon, seating themselves around the table where Bjorn had met them the day before.

"Do you play Bridge?" John asked, looking over at Bjorn, out of politeness rather than any genuine desire to invite a fifth person into the group.
"No, I don't," Bjorn answered, clearly causing a bit of relief in the card playing group.
"You should. It's fun," Thomas added, as he sat down, making an effort to take the edge off the rather transparent fact that they did not really want to include him.
"I might, one day," Bjorn replied, not feeling offended in any way by the group's desire to keep things unchanged.

Ante left for the kitchen as soon as the other men entered the room to play cards, and Bjorn decided to go and join him for a while before going up to his room. He had taken an immediate liking to Ante, and he had a feeling that Ante felt the same way about him. Come to think of it, Ante did not seem to have any great liking for any of his other colleagues. Not that he gave any indication of disliking them either, but it could well be that Ante was in need of a proper friend at the check point just as much as Bjorn.

Ante was in the process of taking out some fish and vegetables from the fridge when Bjorn entered the kitchen, and Bjorn was welcomed by Ante's usual talkative friendliness. Bjorn poured himself a mug of coffee, and pretty soon the two men were busy talking about everything from current affairs, their background, their plans for Friday, and about life in general. All while Bjorn sipped his coffee and Ante prepared the dinner for the day.

21

Back in the common room, Bjorn found Ante leafing through a flimsy little newspaper in an easy chair over by the window, and Frank still sitting in front of the TV.
"So what does 500 MG stand for?" Bjorn asked as he sat down in the sofa across from Ante.
"It is short for 500 milligram," Ante replied without putting down the newspaper. "It is half a Gram."
"Half a gram of what?"
"Of gold," Ante replied, now putting down the paper. "You can get physical gold delivered in return for those chips over at the casino. They only accept round numbers, though. The smallest gold wafer is two and a half Gram, and is really tiny. And there is a fixed service charge of 100 MG for each wafer to discourage people from trading in their chips for gold."
"So if I have five of these, I can get one of their smallest gold wafers?" Bjorn asked, holding up the green chip.
"Well, it would cost you 100 MG, so strictly speaking, you would need 100 MG in addition to your two and a half Gram in order to get one of their smallest wafers."
"That´s kind of cool, though," Bjorn remarked. "But why are they doing this?"
"Beats me. Jan and Pedro just decided to do things this way, and that´s how it has been."
"Jan and Pedro?"
"Oh, you haven´t heard of Jan and Pedro, have you?"
"No."
"Well, Jan owns the casino, and most of the land out here. And Pedro is the guy who negotiated the asylum centre deal with the foreign minister. Pedro is in charge of the asylum centre. He is into all sorts of businesses, apparently, and this is his latest venture."
"Making a living off of other people´s misery?"
"Perhaps. I don´t know. How about you? Aren´t you too making a living off of this asylum centre?"
"Well... yeah... I guess I am, in a way."

Ante was right, of course, and it was silly of Bjorn to point a moralizing finger at anyone regarding the ethics of the asylum centre. He leaned back in the sofa, and put the green chip back in his pocket.

"So have you decided whether or not you´ll come with us to Lundby on Friday?" Ante asked, changing the topic to something less political.
"I´m not sure. What´s the plan?"
"I have reserved a table at Nora´s place. It´s a Philipino place. Very good food, they say. And then we´ll go over to the casino and have a few beers afterwards."
"That´s it?"
"Yeah. What did you expect?"
"Nothing really. Who´s going?"
"Me, Thomas, Espen, and Frank. There is room for one more in my car. You know. You really should come with us. It will be fun."
"So you are going too?" Bjorn asked, looking over at Frank.

Frank confirmed the fact with a short "yep", and for some reason, this was the bit of encouragement Bjorn needed in order to accept Ante´s offer.

"Okay. I´m in," Bjorn said with a smile.
"Great!"

Ante looked at Bjorn, very pleased with himself. Then he pushed the thin little newspaper he had been reading over to Bjorn, pointing to an article on the front page. "Five stars for Nora´s place," was the title, spelled out in English rather than Norwegian.

"Here, why don´t you read this? It will make your mouth water!" Ante said. But Bjorn´s eyes was on the title of the newspaper. "The Lundby Gazette."
"They got their own newspaper?" Bjorn asked puzzled. "In English?"
"Yeah. Its a free weekly thing, and it´s all in English. Most people in Lundby don´t speak Norwegian, so I guess that´s why. I picked this one up last time I was down there. You find them everywhere. Didn´t you come across this on the ferry. They have them there too. In those metal boxes, you know."
"Really?"
"The articles are mainly promotions of Lundby as a tourist destination. But it features real news too."
"And who´s behind this?"
"I don´t know. Who cares? It´s a pretty good paper, for what it is. You find them on line too, if you´re interested. I´m sure you´ll find out who runs the thing if you´re curious. I suspect it's controlled by Jan, though. He is the one with the casino, so he is the one most likely to benefit from the PR."

Bjorn picked up the flimsy paper, and started reading it, quickly noticing that the grammar was far from perfect. Someone with a fairly limited knowledge of English was behind this, and the spelling was probably only as good as it was due to automatic spell checking. But the layout and look and feel of the thing was as good as anything. It looked very professional, so it was painfully irritating that the grammar made it hard to read at times.