37

As it turned out, the work being done in front of the casino was not nearly as nonsensical as it had appeared from afar. The men breaking up the asphalt of the sidewalk were doing this manually, but apart from that, the work made perfect sense once it was clearly explained.

What appeared to be an armed guard overseeing the work, wearing a modern looking gun belt with a hand gun, stood idly at the far end of the stretch of side walk being broken up, and Geir in his self confidence, shamelessly asked for this man's attention, demanding an explanation as to what was going on. Seeing that the man looked foreign, possibly from southern Europe somewhere, Geir chose to speak English, loudly and confidently in his thick Norwegian accent.

To Bjorn's surprise and relief, the guard did not mind at all telling Geir what the plan was, and quite happily explained that Jan, the casino owner, had ordered the sidewalk replaced with a heated one, decorated with black and white cobbled stones, in the style typically found in Portugal. The guard's English was even worse than Geir's, and with an accent Bjorn could not readily place.

"To do this," the guard explained, choosing his words deliberately, at times struggling almost painfully to complete the sentences, "the old asphalt has to be removed... sand has to be raked out to form a flat surface... on top of which specially designed electric heating blankets can be rolled out... and then... to top it all off... another layer of sand must be spread out before the black and white cobbled stones are put in place to form the patterns."
"And the old asphalt is used to fill pot holes up the road?" Geir suggested, to complete the guard's explanation.
"That is correct."
"And how long will this take before it is finished?" Bjorn asked out of pure curiosity.
"We hope to be done by Friday night. We want this place to look its best for the weekend guests."
"That's quick!" Bjorn exclaimed, impressed.
"We have many workers, you know," the guard explained. "With so many hands, we will get everything in place in record time."
"And what are you paying these people?" Bjorn asked, hoping he wasn't pushing the guard too much by this question that he could not resist asking.
"I don't know," the guard replied, not upset at all by the question. "These are Jan's workers. I assume they get the usual hundred MG per day."
"And you? You are getting more than that I assume," Bjorn ventured, still unable to keep his curiosity under wraps.

The guard looked at Bjorn for a moment, before deciding to tell him the truth. "Once this job is done, I get to take a hundred gram gold wafer with me back to Portugal," the man replied.
"Hey! That's pretty good," Bjorn exclaimed, honestly impressed. "Not bad for a few days work!"
"Not bad at all!" the guard agreed. "I came here on Sunday, and this coming Sunday, I'll be back in Porto with my gold."
"Just for looking after these guys?" Bjorn enquired, finding the pay excessive. The man was after all making almost as much money in a week as Bjorn was making in a month.
"Well, I'm the master coble stone layer in charge of this project. That's pretty much what I charge. Only problem is that there are few projects these days, with the economy as it is. I don't always have work. But when I do, it pays pretty well."
"So you are not guarding these people?" Bjorn asked, suddenly realizing that the man was not a guard, but a craftsman.
"Guarding?" the man asked puzzled. "No, I'm supervising the work and making sure everything is done correctly."
"But the gun?" Bjorn asked.
"The gun? That's for protection. There are no police here, so we have to do the policing ourselves."

36

Still waiting for the black boy to come back from the casino with his change, Bjorn finished his coffee, tossed the paper cup into a bin next to Peter's stall, and started unwrapping his cheese and ham baguette while looking around at the people coming and going through the little market place.

There were a large number of cigarette packs, stacked neatly on top of each other on the right hand side of Peter's stall,  flanked by a metal basket containing what appeared to be the latest copy of the Lundby Gazette. "Pack of 20 cigarettes = 20MG" a small sign read, taped onto the table in front of the packs. "Free news" another sign read, this one taped onto the metal basket.

"May I?" Bjorn asked, reaching for a copy of the newspaper. "They are free, right?"
"Yes they are," Peter replied while handling another customer.
"And a pack of cigarettes," Bjorn continued.
"That will be 20MG... Help yourself!"

Bjorn grabbed a newspaper and a pack of cigarettes with his free hand, put the cigarettes in his pocket, and proceeded to read the top headline, all while taking a first bite of his baguette. "Preparing for the big invasion," the newspaper read in fat types all over the top half of the flimsy paper. "What's this?" Bjorn thought, immediately curious to read on.

The article turned out to be a local angle on the fact that all the asylum centres in Norway would soon be shut down, with the asylum seekers having to choose between going to Lundby or leaving the country. And while the author assumed that most people would choose to try their luck some other place, he was nevertheless convinced that the influx of new residents to Lundby would be significant over the next couple of months. However, before Bjorn had time to read all the author's thoughts on the matter, Peter's little helper returned with Bjorn's change as promised, and Bjorn had to stuff the newspaper into his pocket, together with the cigarettes, in order to handle the change.

Geir who had been inspecting, as it were, the rest of the tiny market place while Bjorn had been hanging around Peter's stall, suddenly appeared next to him, just as he clumsily directed a small handfull of casino tokens, held in his right hand, into his left hand trouser pocket.

"Stuffing yourself with free stuff, I see," Geir said with a smile, obviously finding it amusing to see Bjorn's difficulty in handling all the things he had eagerly acquired.
"Yeah, they really are giving stuff away for free down here," Bjorn replied, also with a smile, realizing how silly he must look with a newspaper sticking out of one pocket, a baguette in his left hand, and his right hand crossing over to his left hand pocket in order to put away his change.
"Here! Let me help you with that," Geir suggested, taking the baguette out of Bjorn's hand for a moment to give him two free hands.
"Thanks," Bjorn replied, relieved to have full control of the tokens again.

Handing the baguette back to Bjorn, Geir suggested they cut over to the casino to see what the work in front of it was all about. "Yeah, let's do that!" Bjorn answered, eager to see if there was any sense in it all.

35

Bjorn and Geir headed straight for the little stalls occupying the centre of the village square, curious to see what kind of things they had on offer. The stalls, less than ten in all, formed a miniature open air market, doing quite well by all appearances, attracting the attention of a surprisingly large number of people out and about in the grey and threatening weather.

The stalls were positioned in such a way that people cutting diagonally across the square naturally had to walk in between them on their way to the other side, which struck Bjorn as a clever way of attracting maximum attention also from people who would otherwise have ignored them.

"This is new," Geir remarked as they approached the cluster of stalls in the middle of the square.
"What is?" Bjorn asked looking at the make shift stalls.
"All of this. There was not any of this last time I was down here.
"And when was that?" asked Bjorn as he looked over at a selection of Asian sweets and specialities offered at the first stall they passed.
"Last week. I came down with Ante to help him buy groceries at Pingo."

Bjorn stopped and looked over at the tiny super market, next to the petrol station. "Really?" Bjorn remarked uninterested. "And there were no stalls out here then."
"No."
"Not that these stalls look very new," Bjorn continued. "Flimsy, make shift things, aren't they?"
"They probably found these stalls in some abandoned warehouse somewhere," Geir speculated.
"Yeah."

A stall offering various snacks and refreshments caught Bjorn's eye. "That looks interesting," he mumbled, turning in its direction before excusing himself to Geir, who headed over to a stall selling cheese.
The snacks and refreshments stall was tucked in between a stall selling vegetables and another selling jackets and boots, as well as other garments, but Bjorn's attention was directed entirely towards a pile of baguettes and sandwiches being offered at the stand he was heading for.

"Ten MG for a baguette with cheese and ham?" Bjorn asked in English, surprised by the low price noted on the side of the stall.
"Yes, this is all ten MG," the short Arab-looking man behind the stall replied, pointing to his big variety of sandwiches and baguettes.
"And the coffee?" Bjorn asked, ignoring the little sign with "5MG per cup" propped up in front of the thermoses.
"That is five MG."
"Fifteen MG for a baguette and a coffee," Bjorn said approvingly. "Well why not?"

Bjorn handed his five hundred MG token over to the man, who reacted as if it was a fortune.

"Don't you have anything smaller?" the man asked, holding the token up against the light, as if to check for some kind of authentication.
"No, that's the only money I got," Bjorn replied bemused by all the fuss the man was making.
"Okay," he said. "But I will have to break this into smaller tokens. Do you have time to wait a minute? You can take your baguette and coffee while you wait."
"Sure!" Bjorn answered, feeling confident that he would soon get his change.

However, Bjorn felt suddenly less sure of himself when the man handed his five hundred MG over to a young, pre teen black boy who had been loitering in the background while Bjorn had been talking to the Arab. The man and the boy exchanged a few short sentences in Arabic, and the boy set off towards the Casino. Was this the last he was going to see of his five hundred, or would the boy return? Bjorn wondered, as he followed the boy with his eye.

"You gave my five hundred to that boy?" Bjorn asked nervously.
"Oh, don't worry, he'll be back," the Arab replied with a smile.
"But five hundred is a fortune to that boy!" Bjorn protested.
"Ah, but I know where he lives," the Arab replied with an even bigger smile. "Now, if you will excuse me, I'd like to help this gentleman over here."

Bjorn turned his head to face a tall blond guy who had apparently already signalled what he wanted since he got two sandwiches handed over to him as soon as Bjorn stepped aside. The man thanked the Arab, mentioning his name as he handed over a twenty MG token.

"Peter?" Bjorn asked, curious about the Arab's origin. "That's not a Muslim name, is it?"
"No, I'm Christian."
"From Syria?" Bjorn guessed.
"Yes. It is terrible what is happening there, you know."
"Yeah. So I've heard..."

Bjorn looked over at the Casino, but there was still no sign of the boy. He took a sip of his coffee, and looked around. There were young kids loitering everywhere, and it made him uncomfortable. Then it struck him that Lundby probably did not have any schools for the kids, and he felt again a sting of guilt as he realized the magnitude of the misery that he was being paid to sustain. "No school, no future!" he thought to himself, vaguely remembering a slogan from a political campaign he could no longer remember.

34

Geir looked at Bjorn as the two walked in the direction of the village square.

"She's full of it, isn't she?" Geir said as if to brush aside Ane's latest remark as nothing but menace. "She's making a fortune, thanks to us, and she has the nerve to accuse you of being mean. What a bitch."
"She has a point, though. Doesn't she?"
"No! Of course not. Do you really think she's running that business to help people?"
"No, but she is actually paying them. That is more than we are doing."
"Really? And how much is she paying them?"
"Hundred MG per day."

Geir made a quick calculation before concluding. "Per day? Well, that is nothing."
"That's what I told her too," Bjorn answered with a nod.
"And you're right. Those people are her slaves. They are working for free. She's only barely keeping them alive."

Bjorn nodded again. "And this is a gulag of sorts after all," he added. "I don't know why I'm surprised."
"Exactly," Geir continued. "There's a reason we're here, you know. Without us, these people would be gone. They would be in Oslo, selling drugs under bridges and turning tricks in sleazy hotels."
"They would, wouldn't they?"
"You bet."

Bjorn stopped and looked around as they came to the intersection with a road leading up to the little church overlooking the village. The drizzle had stopped and he pulled his hood back off his head. A big pile of wet snow was shoved up against the bare rock next to the street, crushing a couple of bushes struggling to survive in the harsh environment.

"At least, now they're off the streets in Oslo and doing something productive," Bjorn said, contemplating the church at the top of the hill. The tall cliff behind it made it look even smaller than it would otherwise have seemed. And the white painted wooden paneling gave it an air of innocence and purity, fragile, yet strong, like a white dove ready to take to the skies.

"That's what I've been saying all along, Bjorn. This colony is a stroke of genius. We clean up our towns and cities, and people like Ane get free labor to run their factories. It's a win win for everybody."
"Except for the asylum seekers, of course," Bjorn corrected.
"Yes, of course, but we never asked those people to come to our country, did we."
"No."
"So they have no reason to complain," Geir concluded, pulling back the hood of his jacket and glancing over towards the village square.

The two men started walking again, crossing the road diagonally in the direction of the square.

"But this Ane really pisses me off," Geir continued. "Here she is, making a fortune, yet she has the nerve to criticize us when we're the ones making all this possible. If it wasn't for us, Lundby would still be the abandoned village that it was only half a year ago."
"Well, the iron mine has re-opened," Bjorn commented, playing the devil's advocate. "That would see people moving to Lundby too. I bet people hesitate to move back here now that it is turned into a concentration camp."
"But the iron mine is also only possible because of the deal struck in Oslo back in November. It's all part of one big plan. And it's genius. It really is."

Approaching the village square, Geir looked over at Bjorn as if suddenly remembering something. "Did you tell Ane to be more insistent on having other people follow the rules too?" he asked.
"Yes. Yes, I did," Bjorn lied, eager to change the subject and explore the village more fully instead.

33

Bjorn was about to ask Ane for her opinion on the captain's vision of Lundby as a miniature China when Geir broke off the budding conversation.

"As I was saying," Geir interjected, giving the captain a stern look from under his hood. "This whole place will be shut down if you fail to observe the rules."
"Yes, I think I got that by now," the captain answered, clearly irritated with the man.
"But, and this is important," Geir continued, ignoring the captain's remark. "If you do your policing well, and manage to foil an attempt by the asylum seekers to escape, we will reward you for your diligence."
"Is that so? And what sort of reward would that be?"
"It depends on the scale of the break out. You can read all about it in our rules and regulations."
"So I can make money by catching someone trying to escape?" the captain persisted, suddenly interested in what Geir had to say.
"You can," Geir confirmed with a self important smile. "It pays to know the rules of the game, you know."
"Interesting..."

The captain looked over at Ane who nodded in confirmation. Having actually read the rules, she sent the captain a knowing smile, as if to say "I know what you are thinking." Then she turned to Geir, asking him if this would be all.

"Yes, I think we've covered all now," Geir confirmed. "And remember to keep anyone doing business with you informed of the rules and regulations. We don´t want any mishaps, do we?"
"No, we don´t," Ane replied. Then, turning to the captain she continued. "I'll let you know when the fish is ready to be loaded back on board. I'll be in my office if you need to talk to me."

Ane gestured in the direction of the gated fence at the end of her property, before leading Geir and Bjorn away from the fishing boat. The three walked in silence before stopping at the gate. Then, just as Ane was about to let the two out, she turned to Bjorn, asking him if he would like to help the refugees by contributing to the local charity.

"What do you mean?" Bjorn asked, puzzled by her remark.
"Well, you´re concerned about the refugees' well being, are you not?"
"Yes... But..."
"And you, just like me, are making a living from looking after these people."
"Yes... But I'm not employing them, am I."
"Exactly, so you are making money from their misery without contributing one penny to their well being."
"Hey... I'm paid by the state. I'm just doing my job. You are the one exploiting these people."
"Really?" Ane asked with her cold deliberate stare.

Ane unlocked the gate and let the two men out. Then she continued. "If you change your mind, you can go up there to make your contribution to their charity." Ane pointed in the direction of the church, partially visible from where they were standing. "Who knows, you may need their help one day yourself."

32

Stepping outside, Bjorn and Ane were met with shrieking seagulls and a light drizzle. Geir, talking to the captain over by the boat, had pulled the hood of his green army jacket up over his head to avoid the wetness drifting in from the fjord. The captain, perfectly covered from top to toe by thick water resistant gear, looked unimpressed by the weather, and even less impressed by Geir who was clearly in the middle of some mind numbing monologue.

Quickly reaching for his hood to cover his head, Bjorn walked over to the boat with Ane by his side, with Ane tilting her head somewhat to keep the drizzle from getting in her face. With her hat functioning as a small umbrella, and the trench coat keeping the rest of her dry, she was almost as well protected against the weather as the captain who lit up the moment he caught sight of her.

"Ah, there you are!" The captain exclaimed, breaking Geir off mid sentence in whatever he was lecturing. "As you can see, we have finished unloading, and I'm wondering how long it will be before you're ready with our fish?"
"Well, we are already stacking up the finished product over by the gate," Ane said with a proud smile. "We're probably ready in another two hours."
"Great! That leaves us with plenty of time to clean the hull, and even go for a quick visit to the village. I have not been here for ages."

Ane made a short pause, looking around and sending a quick glance up in the air to observe the birds circling overhead.

"Nothing has changed," she said returning her glance to the captain. "Yet everything is different. You´ll like it though. The place is full of optimism."
"So I've heard..."

There was another short pause, and Bjorn, curious to learn more about Ane's business used the opportunity to ask the captain about the fish.

"So you are taking the processed fish with you?" Bjorn asked. "Where to?"
"The fish depot in Kirkenes," the captain answered happy to explain. "You won't believe this, but we used to send this fish to China by plane to have it processed, and then returned to Bergen for distribution. Now, thanks to Ane, we can get the fish processed right here in Norway. It saves us a lot of back and forth. And I fetch a better price for my fish."
"To China? That makes no sense. Why?"
"It was cheaper that way. Labor cost here in Norway is so high that sending the fish half way across the world for processing actually made sense. Until Ane opened this business, that is. This colony is going to be like a little China one day."
"You think so?" Bjoen asked genuinely curious to hear the captain's view.
"Sure! With labor practically free, this place will be like a tiny China right here at the edge of the world."

31

Bjorn was clearly pushing his luck with Ane with his criticism of her low wages, and it was time to change the subject so as not to antagonizing her further. He looked around in the factory, as if looking for signs of suffering and not finding it.

"Well, they do seem very motivated and eager," Bjorn commented, noticing as he said this that he was in fact completely truthful about his observation.
"And so they are," Ane answered confidently. "They are all happy to work for me, or else they would not be here, would they?"

Bjorn had no answer to this, and after a moment of silence he decided to change the topic completely.

"We have found nothing lacking in the way you follow the regulations," Bjorn said, looking around once more as if he was still inspecting the place.
"Good, so you will be leaving now?" Ane replied, giving Bjorn her cold look as he returned his glance to her.
"Yes, I guess so."
"Okay, I'll show you out."

Ane gestured towards the gate, and the two started walking.

"It is quite a place you got here," Bjorn ventured, hoping to set off a better tone between the two before returning to the check point. "Is it all yours?"
"With the exception of some minority owners in Oslo, it is."
"So you got family in Oslo?"
"Family?" Ane answered with a puzzled look.
"Yeah, isn't this a family business?"
"It is. But I'm my grandfather's only grandchild," Ane explained with a smile, realizing what Bjorn was driving at. "My buddies in Oslo are no relatives of mine. They are in on this purely for the money."
"So you sold a part of this to raise capital?" Bjorn continued, happy to see Ane talkative again.
"You could say that, if you count political capital as capital."

The two stopped by the gate with Ane giving Bjorn a telling glance as if she had just revealed a big dirty secret.

"I took some lessons from grandpa, in a way," Ane continued before pulling aside an opening in the plastic curtain. "I don't think they will shut down this place any time soon."