Hendrik Jorgensen and Eirá Kvitfjell had much in common and even more where they could not have been more different. Since this all took place decades ago in a major English public school [US readers note that is an exclusive, very expensive, all boys, private school that only took pupils as boarders in those days] let us use the model English teachers used in those days for a good essay. Contrast and compare Hendrik Jorgensen and Eirá Kvitfjell.

Hendrik was, sixteen, blond, considered good looking, six feet tall, fluent in English and Norwegian, moderately clever, from a wealthy, influential, industrial Oslo family that had had money for generations, and an arrogant racist bigot who was nowhere near as clever as he believed.

Eirá was twelve, dark almost black haired, too soft featured to be handsome, five feet three, spoke little English, but was fluent in the more than a dozen languages spoken in north Scandinavia and the western parts of the Soviet Union, a brilliant scholar, from a reindeer herding Sámi family that spent most of their time in Norway, self effacing, one who minded his own business and he was much cleverer than he appreciated.

Hendrik considered the Sámi to be primitive savages who should be exterminated and he made Eirá’s life hell. Hendrik was a prefect and he could legitimately get away with most of what he did, and the rest was ignored.

Eirá considered southern Norwegians to be unreasonably greedy, land grabbing folk who were driving his people to extinction, but he judged individuals on an individual basis. He didn’t hate Hendrik, for hate was too costly an emotion for a hunter to expended on his prey. Hate could cause you to make mistakes, costly mistakes, so as long as it was unavoidable he put up with Hendrik.

Hendrik was at the school because his father and grandfather had gone to school there.

Eirá was at the school on a full scholarship because he was brilliant and the school hoped for great things from him once he learnt the language which he was doing incredibly quickly.

Hendrik never considered that Eirá wouldn’t put up with his persecution and the state of affairs indefinitely, for what choice had he? There was no escape, for they lived at school.

Eirá however, having been a hunter all his life was merely biding his time till his prey took that one incautious step too many, and he had taken to carrying a hockey stick, an innocuous enough thing to do given his environment that many of the boys did. [US readers, in the UK hockey is field hockey not ice hockey].

It was mid afternoon when Hendrik was crossing the narrow path in front of Eirá, and he had not realised Eirá was there. No one was around, and Eirá’s moment had arrived. The hockey stick went down, Eirá deposited the unconscious Hendrik in an empty, steel, waste food bin, dropped the catches of the steel lid down on both sides and went about his business.

It was a big bin, say three feet across and five tall, and like its companions was kept in an ill frequented loading bay where only the trucks that handled the bins and the kitchen staff who deposited the waste food every forty-eight hours ever went. The bin containing Hendrik had six inches of stinking waste food in it that had been put in it that morning. The weather was warm and when Hendrik came to the stench of the rotten food and the maggots was appalling. The flies tormented him, but no one heard his screams, kicking and drumming on the bin. There was a search for him which Eirá refused to participate in. Hendrik’s treatment of Eirá was known, so no one was surprised he refused to help. The police had been informed when Hendrick had not been present at the evening meal. They had assumed he was yet another runaway, for the school was a brutal environment and runaways were not infrequent, and made enquiries at the train and bus stations, but they never thought to search the school. Hendrik was not discovered in the search, but, after forty hours in the bin, by the member of the kitchen staff who dumped forty-eight hours’ worth of food slops on the sleeping Hendrik before realising he was there.

When informed the police laught, put it down to a boyish prank and closed the incident. Hendrik ranted and railed and accused Eirá of doing it. Eirá just smiled and said “You only say that, for that it is what you would do.” Everyone suspected Eirá, but there was no proof, and the powers that be had far more sense than to try to investigate, for they were not unaware of the situation between the boys. The incident made a laughing stock of Hendrik, but the unkindest thing of all was the nickname Eirá gave him which stayed with him till Bindrik left school.

Many years later Eirá, after a life full of change and challenge, was attending a royal function in connection with her efforts that had promoted the interests of her people and had given them rights to the minerals and fossil fuels under their traditional grazing land which thanks to her efforts they now held indisputable title to in perpetuity.

Eirá was looking gorgeous that eve attired in one of her intricate and highly decorative hand made traditional costumes that the women of her folk wore, every one of which was unique. She was accompanied by Dmitri her husband, a Siberian of indigenous descent of massive proportions. Over two metres fifteen [seven foot one] tall, built like a bear and dressed in traditionally tanned leather he stood at her side a silent, and protective presence.

Hendrik was present at the court function too, but in the capacity of a middle rank civil servant making sure all went smoothly. Unlike Eirá, Hendrik had not fulfilled any of his dreams or promise and other than the effects of age looked a great deal like the sour faced boy of years before, but the pompous superciliousness had been leached out of him by the vicissitudes of time. His family’s influence and wealth had waned, and it was only his position as a civil servant attached to the court that gave him any satisfaction at all. He had not managed to marry well, and his wife was a lower middle class girl, whom his years of abuse had turned into a nagging shrew, who had proven to be barren, so his father had made Hendrik’s younger brother Bjørn his heir because Bjørn had four children two of them boys. To add insult to Hendrik’s grievance Åse Bjørn’s wife was pregnant with another daughter.

Eirá recognised Hendrik at once. It had not occurred to Hendrik that he knew her. He merely knew she was a Sámi who had risen to such eminence that the government had to consult her on all and any matter that affected what were now the Sámi homelands. He also was aware she’d been a friend of Princess Märtha Louise and Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden long before the award of her title had ennobled her and she was rumoured to be a potential Nobel peace prize winner. As such it would be exceedingly unwise to offer any hint of his deep despite for the ‘northern savages’ that he still held to.

It was a great shock to Hendrik to be addressed by the fêted woman of the eve with her brooding and menacing man at her side, “Good evening, Bindrik.” It was a few seconds before he realised what she had called him, a name he’d not heard since he left school. He was stunned, how could she possibly know about that?

“Good evening, Lady Eirá,” he replied, his years of enforced self effacement forcing down his contempt and the scrotum tightening fear that threatened to make him run.

“Yes. It is I, Eirá, the one who put you in the bin, Bindrik, all those years ago. This is my true self you perceive. Eirá the woman. After I left that hellhole that you and others like you made worse, I became myself. My people are far more understanding of such as I than are yours. I am now married and have eight children, but I couldn’t possibly consider introducing someone of your like to them. As you used to constantly tell me, ‘One has to maintain standards.’ Strange isn’t it, that Eirá is a name used for both girls and boys by my people. It’s almost as if the flow of time itself could see my future. Other than a small surgery, I’ve had to change nothing. It was good to renew our acquaintance, but I must go, her highness is beckoning me. Good bye, Bindrik.”

As they walked across the reception room towards Eirá’s friend, Dmitri growled, “Are you all right, My Delight? Did he upset you?” The big man had no idea what had just happened. His wife had an international reputation for going the extra mile and turning the other cheek. Many a time he’d seen her do it under circumstances where he’d wanted to slaughter dozens. That there was one wound that would prove to be too deep even for Eirá to forgive was something he couldn’t imagine, and he’d no concept of just how badly Eirá had hurt her old bête noire, or how good she felt having done so.

“No, My Love. I’ve just been repaid a long outstanding debt. I’ve never felt better. Come, this eve is to enjoy on behalf of both our folks and Märtha and Victoria await us for supper. I wonder if Daniel is joining us.”

At breakfast the following morning Dmitri reached for the paper as usual to read with his final cup of coffee when he said, “My Delight, that ministry man you went to school with, the one you spoke to at the palace last night, hanged himself from a balustrade shortly after we went for supper. I wonder why. What do you think? What was he like at school?”

“Well we didn’t get on, My Love. He always was highly strung if you’ll forgive my rather inappropriate turn of phrase given the circumstances. I believe he had a wife. I feel for her. When the funeral and the fuss is over I’ll made sure she has a decent pension even if I have to fund it myself.”

“You are the kindest person I know, My Delight. I don’t believe you have ever done an unkindness to anyone. There is no reason you should do that, but it would be pointless to argue with you, would it not.”

It wasn’t phrased as a question, but Eirá treated it as one, and what her grandfather had taught her decades ago flitted through her mind, “The greatest hunters are implacable when stalking the prey, but feel nothing but gratitude towards the meat.”

It was a few seconds before she said, “Not really, My Love. I’m sure I must have had some unkindness in me somewhere towards someone in the past, though I certainly can’t think of anyone today whom I feel that way towards.”