Echo: Chapter 3

 

For no rhyme or reason, I had been listening to The Art of Manliness Podcast by Brett McKay, when a message from Bjørn, his first for the day, arrived. “I am returning to my lover, on Klovn og Tosk, in a month and a week. Have you had breakfast?”, never quite remembering that our time differential is seven hours and thus breakfast is actually lunchtime.

“Okay. Say hi to her for me. Yes,” I replied.

“One does not say hi to the Murmansk Fjord, much less to the sea.”

“Oh. Pardon me.” I was smiling, though I wasn’t sure if he actually meant it.

“Du er tilgitt. (You are forgiven.) I will visit my younger half-brother in the afternoon, so I may not text for a while. It’s his birthday.”

That while lasted for eight hours, by which time I ate again, completely read a book by Tessa Bailey (I did tell you I was tired of philosophers of various ilk, so I proceeded to entropize my brain with smut), worked for a bit, and had been asleep when my phone rang with its signature Cosmic Radio tone, rousing me from dreamlessness.

“Are you sleeping?”

“I was,” I said, turning on the light. “Det er greit,” (“It’s okay”) I said, inevitably and absolutely butchering the pronunciation. Wincing, from the error, or perhaps from my natural sightlessness, I put on my eyeglasses. Hey, I’m trying here. “How was the birthday of Pepsi-mango?”

“No, this is not Pepsi-mango. That idiot man-child is my oldest brother; Jakob is my half-brother. What hatred I have for the one I have utmost adoration for for the other. After all, Jakob managed to be half-removed from my family,” he explained, making me slightly embarrassed that I misremembered his brothers. I must have been still half-asleep to make such a basic error.

This brother, he continued to tell me, is, in a roundabout way, a Doctor of Philosophy in Physics, who first fell in love with Leif Ove Andsnes’ rendition of Brahms’ Schicksalslied (when he was seven, in the Grieghallen) and did his dissertation at the University of Oslo. After writing and successfully defending his work entitled “Exploring Acoustic Devices Inspired by Topological Physics,” he upon graduating had been commissioned by QuietRock to invent, patent, and produce mass-loaded vinyl for music studios and for homes.

“That’s why the birthday party was brief, since he’s working on the MLV. It’s a three-year contract, and it’s supposed to be very complicated. He’s taken up courses on Materials Testing now.”

“What is an MLV? What does it do?”, I asked, slurping my coffee and finally waking up the rest of the way.

He took a deep breath. “It’s a mass damper in the form of a mat, attached to a wall which reduces airborne noise by either lowering the resonant frequency of the walls or providing a membrane to dissipate sound energy within the room, resulting in a decibel drop of fifty to four thousand Hertz.”

I paused. I know some of those words. “You memorized that, didn’t you?”

His smile made my day. “Yes, and no. The captain, Erik, actually asked me to buy marine soundproofing for seven boats, including the Klovn og Tosk. I ended up buying some for my own room. It’s actually quite powerful against the sound waves of ocean waves.”

“Clever,” I said, raising my left eyebrow. He didn’t usually try to be; he was as straightforward a man as they come. A fisherman, after all, and a king crab fisherman at that, need not – should not – be clever. That could be the death of him, especially when he has to engage the boat’s hydraulic system to pull up pots trapping what could be their next year’s income or what could be nothing, all within the middle of a storm. It could cost you your footing or your life if you are being clever and thus not totally reliant on your own wits, surrounded by thousand-pound steel boxes, amidst a freezing sea the waves of which can reach forty feet high in a matter of a few hours.

All this, of course, I replaced with the rather safe question: “Tell me about your captain. Erik. What kind of man is he?”

Another smile, at that. “I don’t know which to tell you about first: that he has thirteen children, or that he has a Husqvarna Svartpilen, or that he breeds Norske Jærhøns. All have equally interesting stories.”

Again, I pause. I know less of those words. “The motorbike, please. Then the Jærhøns. Never mind the children.”  I know this will be a long day, and I would have gladly listened to Bjørn had I not some work that was pending completion due the next day.

I have yet to ask him what he thinks of a home. Maybe I will tomorrow.