NORWAY
he fabric walls pulse and
warp, and wind rushes
through the gaps in the planks
of the loor. A sea fret drifts
in and ills the structure as
though with smoke. Each
testimony ends with the same
phrase: ‘burned at the stake’
R
eaching Vardø is a protracted process.
Especially when it is your irst trip
abroad, alone, ater a decade of
mental health crises. I did not want to be
in my own company, but the island was the
setting of my novel, and I owed it to the book,
The Mercies, if not to myself.
Connecting through Oslo, I stopped for two
nights in Tromsø, to meet an academic whose
research had informed my story. Of course, in
July in the Arctic Circle, there are not ‘nights’
as I had ever known them. Recovering from
a bout of insomnia, it felt vindicating to have
endless light, the sky as awake as me.
Ater dinner, I walked across the Tromsø
Bridge to the Ishavskatedralen, the Arctic
Cathedral. Built from concrete and glass, it
speaks of water’s life as ice and liquid, its
splinter and low. Closed for a midnight sun
concert, the music iltered outside as I stood,
breathing and listening, watching Tromsø
across the water, in the endless half-light.
Another light took me further north east
to the town of Vadsø. From there, a drive
to the island of Vardø. I’d read how a rowan
tree planted at the fortress of Vardøhus
Festning died almost immediately, and its
replacement is swaddled like a newborn
throughout winter. But the strangeness of
a land without trees, its unbroken expanse,
still came as a surprise. The sea, constantly
to my right, was grey and, at various points
across the bay, land materialised — Russia.
Until 1983, the crossing to Vardø was by
boat. Now, a 3km undersea tunnel joins
it to the mainland. Thus, arrival here is
unremarkable — it spits you out onto a
potholed stretch of road that splits like a
wishbone around the harbour, angled north
east towards Hornøya, an island uninhabited
but for thousands of rare Arctic birds. Across
the harbour was the hotel, a low-slung
concrete block, guillemots wheeling overhead.
You do not come here for the food, which
is limited but ine enough, or the hospitality,
which is much the same. There are no
quaint isherman’s huts, or traces of Sámi
settlements. During the war, Vardø was
occupied by the Germans, and all-but-razed
by Allied Forces. Since 1995, the population
has more than halved, and in 2017 the ishing
industry here was declared obsolete.On a solo visit to the Norwegian island of Vardø — the scene of 17th-century
witch-hunts — the writer inds peace at last, in more ways than oneFor most visitors, it is simply the last stop
on the Hurtigruten ferry’s south-north route,
or an access point for Hornøya. But what I
came for is a 15-minute walk from the hotel,
across a small hump of residential streets.
The Steilneset Memorial hugs a stretch of
shore that faces a blank sea. Within sight of
Vardøhus Fortress, it is one of the few places
on the island that ofers a piece of unconcreted
land, upon which a world-class piece of art and
architecture sits. Peter Zumthor’s canvas-and-
wood walkway groans and snaps in the wind,
91 lights lickering in the small windows.
Because, for four years in the 1620s, Vardø and
its castle became the site of Scandinavia’s
most vicious witch-hunts. Each of the lights
represents a life lost, and is accompanied by
the murdered men and women’s testimonies,
translated by Dr Liv Helene Willumsen, the
academic I met in Tromsø.
Entering the memorial is a disorientating,
emotionally draining experience. The fabric
walls pulse and warp, and wind rushes
through the gaps in the planks of the loor.
A sea fret drits in and ills the structure
as though with smoke. Each testimony
ends with the same phrase: ‘burned at the
stake’. At the end of the tunnel is a separate
installation by Louise Bourgeois. A metal
chair, laming and sizzling, surrounded by
hazy mirrors. It is a place of remembrance
that brings the past within touching
distance, and stings as much as it soothes.
The next day, I drove to Hamningberg,
an abandoned ishing village. I saw wild
reindeer running on shingle beaches, a sea
hawk liting and dropping a tern on the road
until it opened like old fruit. I passed no one
on the roads, there or back. For three days,
I spoke only to order food and pay bills and
say thank you. And yet, when I joined the
road that would take me to the airport, I was
not ready to go home. Ater years of hating
my own company, this journey had brought
peace. Part of me wanted to keep driving this
road, the E75, which starts in Vardø, and does
not end until it reaches Sitia, on the island of
Crete. One day, I will. I might even go alone.The Mercies, by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, is published
by Picador (£14.99).
@kiran_mhNOTES FROM AN AUTHOR // KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE
SMART TRAVELLERILLUSTRATION: JACQUI OAKLEY
April 2020 43