44

Bjorn hung off his coat in the hallway before going into the living room, leaving Ante to clean and dice vegetables in the kitchen. He pulled out the crumpled copy of the Lundby Gazette from his pocket as he left his jacket behind, and sat down in the sofa next to the large window with a view of Lundby, half hidden behind the near hill.

A football match was playing on the TV in the corner, and Frank and Geir were sitting in front of it in their separate easy chairs, watching it while talking softly about Ane's factory. Bjorn did not bother to listen in on their conversation, un-crumpling the newspaper instead.

Bjorn scanned the article on the imminent influx of asylum seekers to Lundby until he reached the point were he had stopped reading it while down in the village, and while doing this he noticed how the grammar was much improved from the previous copy of the newspaper. This latest copy was far easier and more pleasant to read.

Reading on from where he had stopped, Bjorn learned that the old military airport would be opened the next week to handle the immigration, and that "special arrangements" were being put in place to make sure any criminal elements would be "identified and neutralized". There was no mention, however, of what exactly the special arrangements and neutralization entailed.

This was all new to Bjorn, and curious to know how much of this was known to his colleagues, he asked Frank about the airport and the screening that evidently was going to take place down there.

"Yep, that's true," Frank replied. "The airport is going to open on Thursday, and we will have to go down there on Wednesday to make sure everything is in order."
"And what about the special arrangements put in place for the immigrants?" Bjorn asked.
"I have no idea. As long as they do not break the terms of our agreement, it's all up to them what they do with the refugees."
"And what exactly are these terms?"
"I believe they agreed to comply with the UN rules on the matter. Isn't that so Geir?"
Geir nodded. "Which leaves the field wide open, apparently," he added. "You've seen how they are treating the people already there, haven't you?"
"And now they're going to add another layer of misery to it all?" Bjorn asked rhetorically.
"Apparently," Geir answered. "But on the up side, I'm sure that will cut down even more on how many people come to Norway begging for asylum."

43

Bjorn carried the vegetables, cheese and wine into the kitchen where he found Ante busy preparing two large roasts for dinner.

"Here´s your groceries, debit card and receipt," Bjorn said with a smile, putting everything onto the large dining table occupying the centre of the room.
"Great! And how did you like the place," Ante replied, giving Bjorn only a brief glance before continuing the process of marinating the meat.
"Well, it certainly is a strange place."
"You liked it though, didn't you?"
"Yeah, I did. But it is a desperate place, isn't it? At least for some."

Ante didn't respond to this, turning instead to the basin where he washed his hands briefly before going over to the groceries left on the table by Bjorn.

"Not a bad catch for so little money, don't you think?" Ante asked while checking the receipt.
"It's unbelievable," Bjorn agreed. "Here we are, way up in the arctic, with everything priced as if we were in some southern European country."
"And have you seen the price of the cheese?" Ante asked with a sly smile.
"Yeah, I was wondering about that. Those are Norwegian cheeses, but the prices are just a fraction of what they are in Oslo."
"You know why, don't you?"
"Well, there is no taxes on anything," Bjorn ventured.
"No, that's the wine. No alcohol tax and no sales tax. The cheeses are subsidised."

Ante was quite enthusiastic about this fact and continued eagerly on his explanation. "The colony is not only tax exempt, it gets all its food from abroad, so we get the double advantage of not having to pay any taxes while having tax payers fork over money to us whenever we buy stuff with export subsidies."
"Really?" Bjorn asked, not sure if this was something to celebrate.
"Yeah! And we all benefit from this since the food budget is fixed according to Oslo prices," Ante continued. "The combination of no taxes and export subsidies is what allows us to live like royalty here on the base while military bases all over the country are cutting back on everything due to the crisis."

Bjorn nodded and smiled as this was explained to him. "I must say I was expecting something less extravagant when I came here, especially in light of the news stories about military personnel driven to their wits end, and almost revolting due to the cutbacks."

42

Geir paid for the petrol with Ante's debit card. The man operating the pump, typed in the price to be paid on a small handheld device, and all Geir had to do before leaving the petrol station was to type in the pin code to execute the transaction.

"It's not really Ante's debit card, is it?" Bjorn asked as Geir drove back into the street. "It's more like a common card for all of us at the check point, for groceries and petrol and stuff, isn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess I shouldn't call it Ante's card when it really is our card. But Ante is the one administrating our food budget, and he's the one who got hold of it. He's responsible for it. But, you're right. It isn't Ante's personal account we're dipping into when we're using it."

Bjorn caught sight of the captain from the fishing boat, heading for the tiny market in the middle of the square, together with some of his crew members, just as Geir pressed the accelerator, heading back in the direction of the check point. "What a strange place this is," Bjorn thought to himself. "Terrible wage conditions, civilians carrying guns, a casino, no taxes on food, wine, or petrol. And people not even using real money, but casino tokens instead."

"So, what's with the wine?" Bjorn asked, taking another quick look at the receipt from Pingo which he had been absentmindedly fingering since he sat down in the car. "It's kind of un-Norwegian to drink wine at a military base, isn't it?"
"It sure is," Geir replied. "It's not even legal."
"That's what I thought too. So why isn't Frank putting his foot down?"
"Because he likes it... He's a bit of an alcoholic."
"Really?"
"He and Ante," Geir continued. "Ever since Ante started buying food from Pingo, wine has been constantly available at the base."
"And you're not tempted to report this?" Bjorn asked.
"I am, but it wouldn't be very popular."

Bjorn nodded in agreement. He liked Ante and his wine, and would not be very happy himself if Geir was to spoil the little pleasures provided by Ante.

41

Bjorn could not help admiring the boy's optimism in the face of the hopeless situation he and his father had gotten themselves into. With the minimal wages paid by Ane, neither the boy nor his father were likely to see their family in Senegal again any time soon. Certainly not as long as they were sending whatever little extra they were making back to their loved ones.

"Here is five MG for your help," Bjorn said, fishing out the smallest chip he could find from his pocket. "Keep the change!"
"Thank you," the boy replied, suddenly switching to Norwegian, and grinning from ear to ear.
"So you speak Norwegian, do you?" Bjorn asked, also switching to Norwegian.
"A little, I lived almost six months in Oslo before we got busted and sent up here."

Bjorn found the boy's story fascinating while Geir clearly found it less so. Impatient to get going, Geir demonstratively got into the car while Bjorn exchanged a final few words with the boy, encouraging him to keep up his Norwegian, and wishing him good luck for the future.

When the boy finally left, heading back to the village square, Bjorn discovered that he was holding the receipt from Pingo in his hand, and he was for a moment surprised by this before remembering that he had absentmindedly picked it out of one of the bags when putting away the groceries in the trunk of the car. He scanned the receipt briefly before entering the car, seating himself in the passenger seat next to Geir.

"That's interesting," Bjorn said, as Geir started the engine. "This receipt from Pingo has a field for the sales tax, and it is set to zero."
"And?" Geir asked with an irritated tone of voice that Bjorn chose to ignore.
"Well, it means that king Pedro is not collecting any taxes on the food. So we still don't know how he's making any money on this project."
"Maybe he owns Pingo," Geir suggested.
"You think he went to all this trouble just to open a grocery store in the arctic?" Bjorn asked mockingly.
"I don't know," Geir replied, even more irritated. "And you know... I don't really care either."

A bus had stopped to let out a fairly large number of passengers right next to the parking lot, and it took some maneuvering on Geir's part to avoid the many pedestrians crossing the road. Then, he drove the car over to the petrol station where a man greeted them at the pump. Geir rolled down the window on his side, and asked the man to fill up the tank.

"You don't see that very often anymore," Bjorn remarked as the man went ahead with the business of filling their tank with petrol. "In fact, I can't remember having seen this kind of service since I was a kid."
"We have thankfully progressed from back then," Geir countered while tapping the steering wheel lazily with his hand.
"Yeah," Bjorn agreed. "It is not hard to come up with this kind of services when salaries are close to zero."
"Exactly!" Geir nodded. "We have come a long way since the seventies."

40

Bjorn felt strangely exited as he stepped out into the grey outdoors together with Geir, with a bag containing three wine bottles in one hand and a bag full of carrots and cheeses in the other. Everything about the village felt both strange and familiar at the same time. Its exotic foreignness contrasting sharply with the drab predictability of its arctic setting.

A light drizzle had started once again, and Bjorn felt a sting of pity for the merchants out on the market place, struggling to keep their wares dry by covering their flimsy make shift stalls as best they could. An enterprising merchant had hammered together a roof of sorts, covered with canvas, which he slid into place with the help of three teenage kids. The others simply covered their wares with large sheets of transparent plastic.

Everything about the village seemed ad hock and badly planned. But there was no sign of despair anywhere. People seemed to accept their lot, some even with visible enthusiasm.

"You need help carrying that?" a tall black teenager asked, appearing out of nowhere.
"No," Bjorn answered instinctively, feeling uncomfortable by the sudden and uncalled for attention.
"One MG, and I'll carry it all the way home for you," the teenager insisted.
"One MG?" Bjorn asked, surprised by the miniscule amount asked for. Then, still feeling uncomfortable, he excused himself by saying he didn't carry such small change.
"That's all right," the youth continued. "I got change for as much as twenty MG." And he held up a handful of tiny casino tokens to prove his point.

The teenager smiled broadly as he nagged Bjorn once more, insisting on helping him carry the bags.

"You heard him, didn't you?" Geir said with an aggressive tone of voice, clearly in an effort to help Bjorn rid himself of the teenager.
"But you're not helping him, are you?" the teenager insisted, pointing out that Bjorn was carrying two bags, while Geir was not carrying any.
"He's my assistant," Geir proclaimed proudly. "Now, go away, will you."
"Is that so?" the teenager asked, looking at Bjorn with a mocking smile.
"Yeah," Bjorn admitted reluctantly. "But you know what?" he continued. "Why don't you carry these bags for me over to our car up there at the parking lot."

The teenager broke out in a big smile, took the bags, and started strolling in the direction of the parking lot, alongside the two men. Geir hissed a Norwegian curse. "Don't feed the stray dogs," he said, lecturing Bjorn on his mistake. "You'll never get rid of him now."

But Bjorn ignored Geir's whisper, turning to the boy instead.

"So where are you from?" Bjorn asked. "Your English is very good."
"Thanks! I'm from Senegal."
"Really? And you speak English in Senegal?"
"No. We speak French. I learned English at school."
"Comes in handy up here, doesn't it? Not very many people speak French here, do they."
"Quite a few do, actually. But English is the language that everybody understands."
"It is, isn't it?" Bjorn agreed. "And you are here with family?"
"I'm here with my father. My mother and sisters are back home in Senegal."

Bjorn had no idea where Senegal was, and completely clueless to its language, history or culture, he wondered out loud why someone would want to leave sunny Africa for the arctic.

"We were sent up here from Oslo, just the other day," the boy explained. "My father was working for a cleaning agency. But they got busted."
"Really? So you are not looking for asylum."
"Officially we are. But we are really just looking for work."
"Officially?" Bjorn asked, curious to learn about the boy's and his father's thinking.
"Well, with the new rules and all, we knew that we would be sent up here for free if we asked for asylum. So when my father got busted, he asked for asylum, and we got sent up here."
"But that´s hardly an improvement on what you had, is it?"
"We would have preferred to stay in Oslo. But since that isn't an option any longer, my father figured we'd try our luck up here."
"And how is that working out so far?"
"Not very well," the boy had to admit. "But at least my father still has a job."
"He does? Where?"
"At the fish processing plant."
"Not making very much money, is he?" Bjorn asked, looking for a confirmation for his quiet outrage over Ane's terrible wage policy.
"No, it is much less than what he used to get in Oslo. But it is still better than no job at all. And my father and I still have enough to send some money home to the family."
"Really? How is that possible?" Bjorn asked, genuinely surprised.
"We don't spend much money on ourselves."
"Clearly..." Bjorn nodded in confirmation.
"But things will get better," the boy concluded optimistically as they reached the car at the parking lot. "A lot better."

39

Approaching Pingo, Bjorn was struck by the low prices displayed for petrol at the petrol station next to the super market.

"Nineteen MG for a litre of petrol," Bjorn remarked. "Is that even possible?"
"Apparently," Geir replied. "That's what the sign says after all."

Then, suddenly realizing how the low price could be possible, Bjorn answered his own question with another question: "They are not paying any taxes here, are they?"
"Probably not," Geir answered. "Or very little?"
"To Pedro, maybe?" Bjorn speculated.
"Could be. How else is he making any money? Somebody has to pay him, and if it isn't through taxes, how else?"
"So you think this Pedro might be some sort of king down here?" Bjorn continued, fascinated by the implications of such a situation.
"Could be. Or this Jan and Pedro might be having some unholy alliance."
"The casino owner?"
"Yeah."
"Interesting..."

Bjorn could not help feeling intrigued by the village, and the murky circumstances that led up to its recent resurrection. "Come to think of it," Bjorn wondered out loud, just before entering Pingo. "I have not seen any sign of this Pedro at all. Wasn't he supposed to take care of the asylum seekers?"
"Well, that was the idea," Geir agreed.
"Yet everybody here seems to have been left to themselves," Bjorn continued. "Strange, don't you think?"
"Yeah," Geir nodded in agreement as he stepped into the store together with Bjorn.

Bjorn looked around in the brightly lit super market, half expecting to find some sign of Pedro. But here again, everything was as focused on the business at hand as everywhere else. The store was crammed, and felt disorganized, not for lack of effort to keep it tidy, but for lack of space. However, apart from it being too crammed, it did not seem very different from any other super market. Bjorn found it interesting that it had a whole aisle dedicated to wine, since wine can only be sold in special state run stores in Norway, but by now, Bjorn had gotten used to the idea that rules rigorously followed in Norway proper did not necessarily apply to Lundby.

There was plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables to choose from, and both the meat and fish counters were well stocked. But there was also a large sections dedicated to very cheap foods like dried lentils and beans, rice of different kinds, flour and similar basic ingredients. However, keeping in mind that so many in Lundby must get by with as little as a hundred MG per day, this was hardly a surprise. The store was simply stocked with the huge income disparity in the village in mind, with both high end food products and cheap bulk foods, laid out in separate aisles for convenience.

It all looked surprisingly cheap to Bjorn, though, considering that the super market was located in an arctic village, far from where any of the products were actually produced. Every last product in the shelves had to be shipped up to Lundby somehow, and yet the prices for some of the goods were well below what he was used to from Oslo.

"This is kind of expensive," Geir commented as if he had heard Bjorn's thoughts, and decided to deliberately contradict him.
"What is?" Bjorn asked surprised.
"These cheeses."
"Really?"
"They are cheaper over at the market," Geir explained. "And the same goes for the carrots."
"You want to buy this stuff over at the market?"
"No. I can't be bothered. It is not that big of a difference, and I got this debit card I can only use here at Pingo."
"Okay..."
"It is Ante's card," Geir continued. "I'm sure he won't mind if we don't buy the very cheapest of everything. It is not like it is a huge difference anyway."

38

The master stone layer excused himself before going over to a group of men, busy raking a heap of sand into place in front of the casino entrance, leaving Geir and Bjorn to themselves.

"Well, that sort of made sense, didn't it?" Bjorn said thoughtfully.
"If tearing up perfectly good asphalt in order to lay down cobbled stones is your idea of resources well spent, that is," Geir remarked. "I'd say it is a waste of everybody's time. Surely, there must be more pressing issues to tend to than this."

Geir looked around as if everywhere there were more pressing issues than replacing asphalt for cobbled stones.

"And you heard what he is making, didn't you?" Geir continued. "Yet he is not lifting a finger to help the people doing the real work. Just look at him, bossing those black guys around as if they were his personal slaves."
"Yeah, he is not going to break into a sweat any time soon," Bjorn agreed.
"And yet he makes as much in ten days as these people do in a thousand. Just think about that for a moment! That guy, bossing those guys around is making a hundred times more than them."

Bjorn nodded thoughtfully. Something was clearly not right, and yet he could not quite put his finger on it. Venturing an explanation off the top of his head he remarked that the big difference between the master and his slaves was the fact that the master was free to leave at any time, while the slaves were basically stuck in Lundy for at least the duration of their asylum application.

"And again I can't help thinking that we are partially responsible for their misery," Bjorn said. "Since our job is to make sure these people cannot escape."
"No, you are mistaken. The problem is that this village is completely outside political control," Geir corrected confidently. "There are basically no rules down here. Anything goes, and this is what we end up with. A few wealthy people taking advantage of everybody else. Their misery has nothing to do with us."

Geir's explanation was comforting and convincing, and Bjorn did not feel like questioning it.

"You think it's like this by accident, or is it all some sort of conspiracy," Bjorn asked, curious to hear Geir's thoughts on the murky dealings that lead up to the establishment of the Lundby colony.
"What you mean?" Geir asked, not understanding the question.
"Well... I mean... Did they intentionally leave the whole issue of law and order out of the deal?"
"But they didn't," Geir corrected. "They specifically left the issue of law and order to be dealt with by Pedro, the contractor in charge of the colony."
"So this situation is by design?" Bjorn asked. "Surly, the foreign minister must have known the consequences of such a decision."
"I'm sure he did. But he saved the Norwegian tax payers a fortune brokering this deal."
"So he put money ahead of dignity for these people?" Bjorn asked, feeling uncomfortable again.
"He put our money ahead of their dignity," Geir corrected. "You keep forgetting that we had a hell of a problem with these people down in Oslo, and everywhere else where we put up asylum seeker centres for them. And now that we finally got a solution you're concerned about social issues?"

Bjorn nodded in agreement. He was clearly the confused one. He kept feeling surprised and even outraged at times. Yet he was all for the establishment of the colony in the first place. The conditions for the workers were terrible. But at least they were doing something of value, all be it misdirected and frivolous at times. And the main issue as far as his fellow Norwegians were concerned, was that the old asylum seeker policy was in great need of serious changes, and this was clearly a huge improvement for everybody, not least because the colony was privately operated at virtually no cost to the tax payers. Two check points and a few guards was the total investment as far as the tax payers were concerned.

"I got a few things to buy for Ante, over at Pingo," Geir said, stopping Bjorn from analysing his thoughts further. "He gave me this grocery list. We are apparently short on cheese, carrots and wine."
"Okay," Bjorn responded, only happy to be distracted with another assignment. Then he turned around and followed Geir across the road in the direction of the tiny super market at the other side of the square.