Secrets

The Good Teacher Inga spent a great deal of time being a cheerleader to half of our Norwegian class who were getting homesick and tired of how hard it was to learn Norwegian. Inga validated their feelings by telling us all that it’s very hard to move to another country even if you know the language because she lived six years in Ireland and was fluent in English but still had a horrible time adjusting. She was so good for us. The Good Teacher always cheered us on and told us all we are doing great – even the ones that couldn’t speak a word of Norwegian.




One day Inga mixed things up a bit and had us change our usual conversation partners. She put me with the little old Russian lady, Valentina, that didn’t speak much of anything. What a hoot that woman was. By looking at her, she looked old enough to be my mother, but she’s only five years my elder. (Life must have been hard in Russia.) She told me that day (through using her Russian/Norwegian dictionary – and me translating what she said using my Norwegian/English dictionary), that she used to live way up north on the Norwegian/Russian border.



We were supposed to talk about the weather in our home countries that day, so she said (also using a lot of hand motions and drawing pictures on paper for clarification), that in the winter, that far north, they would get up and turn on the radio and hear, “Today will be five minutes long,” and the next day, “Today will be ten minutes long.” That’s how long the sun would show itself on the horizon. And during those winter months, the whole town would go outside and wait to see that little crack of light (no matter what the weather) and they’d whoop and holler and have a great old time because the sun hadn’t left them for good.



I asked Valentina what she did for a living up there and she also told me that for seven years she was a General in the Russian army (I didn’t see that one coming). Then she made hand motions like little boys do when they shoot pretend guns and she made all the sound effects that go with it. I got the sense she’s actually shot people. She then looked up the word that meant “secret” and I’m not sure if she meant I was supposed to keep that bit of news a secret, or if she worked for the secret service agency within the army. I guess her secret is out now.