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Wednesday, February 26, 2014

30

Ane looked very pleased with herself as she walked over to Bjorn, leaving the workers at the end of the production line to resume their activities.

"They were planning to park the fish outside," Ane explained. "A terrible idea. It is difficult enough to keep the seagulls away from the fish we're hauling into the plant, so you can imagine what would happen if we left these crates with finished product out there for the birds to peck into."
"It would be a right mess, wouldn't it?" replied Bjorn, stating the obvious.
"You could say that again. But some of these people have never seen the sea before, let alone seagulls, so I guess they can be forgiven for coming up with such a silly idea."

Bjorn was happy to see Ane so talkative, and eager to keep her that way he glanced over at two men pulling a cartload of finished product over towards the sea side wall.

"So you told them to put the fish over there?" Bjorn asked.
Ane followed his glance. "Yes, that's the idea," she concurred, joining Bjorn in observing the men. Then, as the men stopped by the gate, Ane raised her hand in approval, signalling that the men could go ahead and park the fish at their chosen spot.

The two men, an African and an Asian smiled and waved back at Ane, clearly happy for her approval, and this made Bjorn again curious about the sort of conditions the workers were labouring under. He could not quite make up his mind as to the nature of what he was witnessing. The smiles of the workers, taking pride in doing things right, did not quite square up with the drab and dreary vision of a gulag. But on the other hand, Ane was in possession of a gun, and probably for good reasons.

"How much are you paying them?" Bjorn ventured, hoping he wasn't overstepping his welcome by asking such a loaded question.
"Hundred MG per day," Ane replied without hesitation, clearly not bothered by the fact that so little money could hardly be considered a living wage.
"But that's nothing," Bjorn protested. "Nobody can live on that."
"Well, they are alive, aren't they?" Ane replied, with her cold stare returning in a flash.
"But you can hardly get a loaf of bread for so little these days," Bjorn continued, ignoring Ane's stare, feeling rightfully outraged on behalf of the workers.

Ane paused as if considering whether or not to bother a reply. Then, apparently sensing that Bjorn was genuinely interested in some sort of explanation, she continued.

"They are paid what they are worth. There is no shortage of labour, you know. And in a few weeks time, there will be thousands coming up here, and then I may well pay them even less."
"Less than a hundred MG? There is no way anyone can survive on so little," Bjorn protested.
"Want to bet?" Ane replied. "Do you have any idea what things cost up here?"

Bjorn was suddenly reminded of the five hundred MG that he was carrying in his pocket, which Ante had assured him was enough for a full night of fun in the village. And it suddenly dawned on him that prices may indeed be radically different in the village from what he was used to in Oslo.

Bjorn had to admit that he did not in fact know what things cost in Lundby. "But can people really live on a hundred MG a day?"
"Well, clearly they do," Ane answered. "Do these people look as if they are starving?"

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

29

By the time Geir and Bjorn were back by the fishing boat, Ane had gone inside, presumably to take care of some business. The two men stopped and looked around, and Geir took up his usual self important pose as he observed the activity around the boat with a critical eye. Then he shook his head as if in quiet despair over the ignorance displayed by the fishermen. "No, no, no," he mumbled before turning to Bjorn. "You see how they drop the crates too close to the line?"

"Yeah, almost on top of it," Bjorn answered, again worried that his ignorance of the rules might be exposed.
"Exactly. It leaves no room for the workers to get behind the crates without crossing the line. We can't have that."
"No, that will only encourage them to break the rules." Bjorn ventured, again trying to make himself sound knowledgeable.
"Exactly. I seriously doubt that the captain is properly familiar with how things have to be done when doing business here in Lundby."

Then, after a short pause, Geir continued: "Why don't you go in and tell Ane that everything is in order, but that she has to be more insistent on other people, like this captain, doing things properly too. I'll straighten out these fishermen in the meantime."

Bjorn suspected that Geir had grown so irritated with Ane that he disliked the idea of confronting her again, and that this was the true reason behind Geir's suggestion. But Bjorn had only grown more fascinated with the woman, and was more than happy to have another chance to talk to her, so he accepted Geir's suggestion without hesitation. He headed for the nearest gate, pushed through the heavy plastic strips, and immediately caught sight of Ane down at the end of the production line. She was busy explaining something to one of the workers, and not wanting to disturb her while in the middle of whatever she was talking about, he stopped at a discreet distance, just close enough to make it abundantly clear that he was waiting in line for her.

Taking another full view of the processing plant, Bjorn's attention was again drawn to the production line where water and fish gut littered the floor. Two men, each with a hose, were spewing the mess towards open drains where it dropped down and slithered out of sight. The fish gut was clearly sprayed directly down into the water below, which explained why the seagulls that had first circled the fishing boat, had in increasing numbers disappeared in under the quay with their shrill shrieks and aggressive presence.

However, other seagulls had flocked to the quay from all around, and their total number had reached unpleasant levels outside. If it had not been for the plastic curtains in front of the gates, the factory floor would probably have been full of the pesky aggressive birds by now, and the whole processing business would have been impossible.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

28

Ane led the way down the stairs and across the factory floor. Wearing a water proof trench coat and a broad-rimmed hat she looked like someone taken straight out of a western movie. However, her outfit was in no way covering up her feminine appearance, and she made no effort to appear masculine in any way. Her long dark hair flowed freely down her back, and she moved with a natural elegance matching her stature and gender. If anything, her outfit only served to highlight her femininity.

The factory floor was teeming with activity. Not only were groups of workers hauling fish into the factory from outside, groups of women were already manning the conveyor belts, processing and packaging fish. They were all dressed in white water tight gowns and wearing thick orange gloves to protect their hands from the cold and the water.

Three groups of women, each sitting at the head of a conveyor belt on the receiving end of the production line, were busy gutting the fish and cleaning it with liberal amounts of water before tossing it onto the conveyor belt in front of them, sending the fish on its way down to a point where the conveyor belts merged and dropped the it onto a single belt.

The single belt was in turn manned by another group of women who picked up the clean fish and put it into crates, carefully arranging the fish, tail to head for optimal packaging. And every time a woman had filled a crate, she released it from her station by pulling a small lever, allowing it to move across a series of rollers to its final destination while she put another empty crate in front of her to repeat the process.

A small group of workers manned the final station where the crates rolled onto a large electronic scale to be weighed and labelled, after which the workers covered the fish in crushed ice and sealed it off for transportation.

"We really need a fork lift," Ane remarked as she led Bjorn and Geir past the second conveyor belt where two women and a small Asian man were struggling with four crates of fish stacked on top of each other. "I wish grandpa hadn´t sold the one we had."
"Your grandpa?" Bjorn enquired, curious to learn more about Ane´s connection to the place.
"Yeah, he had to sell it of course. The poor man was stabbed in the back."
"Really?"
"Well, not literally of course. But he was promised all sorts of subsidies and help from Oslo, and it never materialized. He sank his fortune into this, and it was all for nothing, until now that is... But that is of little comfort to him now... He would have loved to see this place up and going again, though."

Coming out on the quay in front of the plant, Ane switched the subject back to the rules and regulations that were the sole purpose of Bjorn and Geir´s visit. A yellow line was painted on the concrete surface, parallel to the waterside, and now that it was pointed out to him, Bjorn could see that the line stretched the entire length of the quay down to the fence with the barbed wire. He must have seen it when he entered the area, but must have overlooked it completely, not understanding the significance of it.

To Bjorn´s surprise, Geir wasted no time pulling out a measuring tape from his pocket, handing the lip of it to Bjorn and asking him to hunch down and place it at the land side of the yellow line. Taken a little aback by the suddenness of Geir's action, Bjorn nevertheless did as he was told and hunched down next to line. Geir on his side rolled out the tape to measure the distance to the edge of the quay, and it was clear that Geir was taking the business of inspecting the premises way more seriously than Bjorn had imagined.

Realizing that it was becoming increasingly clear that he himself had no idea about the exact wording of the rules, Bjorn tried to make himself sound at least remotely informed by commenting on the measurement that Geir read out loud.

"Two meters exactly," Bjorn said. "That´s good."
"Good? That leaves no margin at all."
"True!" Bjorn confirmed, and guessing the rule´s exact wording, he added "it should be at least two meters."
"Right! Some people go about these rules as if they prescribe exact measurements. Operating with such tight margins makes it damn hard to know if the rule is properly followed." Geir gave Ane a stern glance as he said this. "Come on, Bjorn, lets measure the line a bit further up."

The two men walked first down towards the fence, making several measurements, and then back up away from the fence, quietly ignoring Ane as they passed her. However, every measurement came in at exactly two meters, which clearly irritated Geir who kept repeating how such pedantic accuracy makes life hard for inspectors such as himself.

Finally giving up on trying to find a place where the line might be too close to the edge, Geir straightened up, giving the line a good hard look, before asking Bjorn if he had seen anyone crossing the line.

"No. Everyone seems to be following the rules," Bjorn replied, pleased to have another chance to pretend that he had actually read the rules.
"It looks indeed as if everything is in order," Geir continued, barely able to hide his irritation with Ane and her pedantic accuracy in drawing the line for the no go zone.

Bjorn could not muster much sympathy for Geir, though, and turned his attention instead to several box-like living units. The wooden barracks, placed next to the factory and stacked two levels high, were dwarfed by the protective rock along which the quay was built. They looked tiny and flimsy, and Bjorn wondered out loud about the plight of the workers, hoping to change the topic away from the yellow line that was absorbing all of Geir's attention.

"So this is where Ane keeps her cattle," Bjorn remarked, pointing to the living units.
"Cattle?" Geir responded, not getting what Bjorn was driving at.
"The workers," Bjorn corrected. "The barracks are for the workers, aren't they?"
"Yeah, I guess so. Why?" Geir asked, starting to walk back towards the fishing boat.
"Don´t you think it a little suspicious?" Bjorn insisted, tagging along with Geir.
"Well, what did you expect? Ane can´t very well let the poor buggers freeze to death, can she?"

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

27

Shaking Ane´s hand, it suddenly dawned on Bjorn that he had no idea why he was in this woman´s office apart from telling her that she has to make sure no one escapes from the colony. And such a message could clearly be given to her by telephone or e-mail. Bjorn looked over at Geir who, to Bjorn´s great relief, was looking around with his usual self important posturing, seemingly unimpressed by the woman´s guns or her cold no nonsense expression.

After making a few remarks on the factory being impressive and well staffed, which made Ane come out from behind her desk to stand in front of the glass panels overlooking the factory floor together with the two men, Geir turned the conversation towards the rules and regulations that he and Bjorn were obliged to enforce.

"Have you printed out and read the rules regulating border activities, as instructed by the foreign ministry?" Geir asked, looking down at the relatively petite woman.
"Yes, of course!" Ane replied without batting an eye.
"May we see it?
"You mean to tell me you are not familiar with it?"
"No, we need to see that you have actually printed it out."
"So you think I´m lying?"
"These are the procedures. We are just following procedures."
"Okay," Ane turned to her assistant, switching to English and asking her to get the file on government rules and regulations.

The little Asian woman got up from her desk, and quickly retrieved a thick folder from a shelf next to Ane´s desk, which she opened and handed over to Ane. Ane, in turn, found the document in question, a ten page pamphlet by the look of it, asking Geir if he needed to read it.

"No thanks, we only need to see that you have it," Geir replied. "And you have read it?"
"Of course!"
"So you are familiar with the rules?"
"Of course I am. Very important stuff. Very insightful," Ane replied, clearly ironic, but with the irony just as clearly not registering with Geir.

Bjorn smiled at the woman´s last remarks, but Ane was as stone faced and cold as ever. Bjorn was starting to realize that the pamphlet Ane had received from the department of foreign affairs, was either the exact same, or a very similar document to the one he had received from his superior before leaving for Lundby. It was basically a ten page document saying that asylum seekers without a valid residence permit for Norway have to stay in the colony, and he for one had only leafed through it briefly without bothering to read it in any detail. He seriously doubted Ane had bothered to read it either, and to hear her praising the document as being somehow important would have been funny if it was not for the fact that his and Geir´s presence clearly represented a threat to her business. A threat with a magnitude she could not possibly be exactly sure of.

"As you will see, if you care," Ane continued, "we have marked the quay with the prescribed lines and no go zones."

Ane looked over at Bjorn as she said this, and his smirk vanished immediately. Ane had indeed taken the document seriously, and Bjorn felt again a fool for underestimating this woman. Bjorn had no idea what the lines and no go zones referred to, but here he was, supposedly having to verify that all of this was done correctly. Bjorn looked over at Geir, half expecting him to be as clueless as himself, but Geir was clearly still in control of the situation, or at least doing a fantastic job of appearing to know exactly what Ane was talking about.

"Yes, we would very much like to see that everything is in order," Geir replied. "Will you be so good as to give us a tour of the premises?"

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

26

The fishing boat that Bjorn had seen heading for Lundby was already unloading fish when Geir parked the car by the village square, and it was still busy doing so when the two men approached the fish processing plant. A tall fence with barbed wire on top separated the fish processing plant from the rest of the quay. A sign with "Private property, no guns allowed" written in large letters, and with a round sign of a gun with a line through it displayed next to the text, was clearly visible next to the gate. And the gate itself had another sign placed squarely at eye level with the message "Private property, trespassers will be shot," all in English rather than Norwegian.

"Private property, eh?" Bjorn said with a smile, as Geir pressed the button for the bell.
Geir responded with a solemn nod. "Privately run concentration camps. What will they think of next?"

A small Asian woman appeared in the doorway of the processing plant´s main building. Seeing the men standing by the gate, she quickly ran over to them to let them in.

"You must be from the check point?" she said in slightly broken English as she let the two in.
"Yes we are," Geir replied straightening himself up as to make himself even taller relative to her.
"No guns allowed! Put your guns over here pleace," the woman explained, pointing to a shed, next to the fence.
"We have no guns," Geir replied with a confident smile. "We are only here to inspect the premises and talk to the manager."
"Yes, I know. She told me to bring you straight to her office."

The woman was shivering in the cold and eager to show the men into the processing plant, walking quickly in front of them back to the door where she first appeared. However, the temperature was hardly any better inside the large building. It was built entirely out of corrugated iron plates, and two gates on the long wall facing the fishing boat were wide open to let a large number of people, mainly women, get the fish into the plant. If it had not been for curtains of heavy plastic strips hanging in front of the open gates, there would have been absolutely nothing separating the inside of the plant from the elements. The building was nothing but a huge shed with no internal walls, except for a small office with large windows, placed on a platform up against the long wall away from the quay.

The Asian woman showed the men the way across the factory floor and up the metal staircase to the office. Knocking politely at the door before entering, she introduced the two men to her boss, a woman sitting in a chair behind a large desk. The outside wall behind her was covered by dark brown panelling, flimsily built and with insulation material sticking out and clearly visible at the edges. Warm air hit the men as they entered, but the sight of the woman surprised Bjorn so much that he hardly noticed. In front of him sat the young woman he had seen on the ferry, and she was looking at him and Geir with the same cold glance that she had used to keep him from engaging in any small talk back then.

An AK-47 assault rifle was hanging on display on the panelled wall behind her, as to make it absolutely clear that she would not tolerate any kind of dissent among her employees, and when she rose from her office chair to give the two men a handshake, a large heavy revolver could be seen hanging in a western-style gun belt, strapped around her waist, and tied against her thigh.

"You must be Bjorn and Geir," she said as she leaned forward, across the desk, to shake the men´s hands. "I´m Ane. I run this place."

Monday, February 3, 2014

25

The two cranes that Bjorn had been observing from the check point were suddenly fully visible as the car reached the perimeter of the village, just a few minutes after passing the apartment building under construction at the other side of the low hill to the east of the village.

This was a much bigger construction site than the apartment building, and very far from being finished, at least as far as Bjorn could judge. Unlike the apartment building which had people working on it everywhere, only a handful of people could be seen, putting up scaffolding and preparing for concrete to be poured into huge moulds, all with a mesh of iron rods sticking out of them.

The impressive but quiet building site was located at the top of a long, moderately inclined street, leading all the way down to a square by the fjord. A few houses lined the street, but in a rather random fashion, with some houses drawn quite far back from the road, while others were practically next to it. The old village had clearly been constructed without much planning, and the only place with any indication of proper planning was the square which was lined with buildings neatly positioned around the open space in the middle.

The road circling the central square had sidewalks on both sides, and was as far as Bjorn could see, the only bit of road with a sidewalk. No such luxury had been afforded for any of the other roads, of which there were quite a number, all leading into the square.

A small low knoll of a hill, separating the square from the fjord served as a parking space, with several cars placed semi-randomly along its perimeter, and Geir drove the red sedan up next to a car already parked on this hill, adding to the pattern that had been established for the day.

The trip down from the check point had taken less than ten minutes, which left the two men with a bit of time to spare before going over to the fish processing plant. Geir suggested they walk up on top of the knoll as a short detour before going to the plant, and Bjorn was more than happy to comply, feeling an urge for a cigarette and eager to get a fuller view of the village.

The two low hills on either side of the village formed the valley in which the village was nestled, and protruding into the fjord, the same two hills formed a small bay, with the fish processing plant located on the eastern shore, and several houses located on the western shore.

Standing on the top of the knoll separating the town square from the innermost point of the bay, the layout of the village seemed less random than first impression had given cause to believe. The layout was simply following the natural lay of the land, and the wooden houses, painted in all sorts of bright colours, especially blue, red and yellow, were almost all located in spots that were both elevated and shielded at the same time.

A small church, located on top of a steep incline from the road joining the fish processing plant and the village square, perfectly illustrated this fondness for elevated yet shielded locations, located as it was on a rather commanding little hill, but shielded to the east and the north by a rock formation, dwarfing it while simultaneously protecting it from the hostility of arctic winds and weather.

There were quite a number of people out and about in the village considering that it could not possibly be housing more than a few hundred inhabitants and that it was anything but a pleasant summer day. Bjorn had noticed several people selling stuff from little stands in the village square, there had been a gang of people mending holes in the long, straight road leading up the valley from the square to the building site, and others were just walking about, seemingly with no purpose or business at all.

The mending of the road had struck Bjorn as extremely primitive and inefficient, as it was done with no help of any type of machinery, except for a big pan to heat the asphalt, which was poured into buckets as Geir and Bjorn had crawled past in their car on their way down to the square, careful not to hit any of the men. And the asphalt, once poured into the various potholes was made flat by men manually dragging a heavy roller across the soft, oily mess.

From the top of the knoll, Bjorn could see that the asphalt was simply broken up from the sidewalk in front of the casino, at the west side of the square, and taken in buckets up to the pan where it was heated and made into road repair. The process seemed totally nonsensical since the road repair clearly was at the expense of the sidewalk in front of the casino, but by the time Bjorn pointed out the strange spectacle to Geir it was time to go and inspect the fish processing plant.

"We can look at it later," Geir said as they wandered down the hill towards the plant. "I have a few things to buy for Ante while we are down here. Pingo is right across the square from the casino. Maybe it makes more sense once we take a closer look at what they are doing."