Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name

Read Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name Online

Authors: Vendela Vida

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #United States, #Contemporary Fiction

BOOK: Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name
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LET THE

NORTHERN LIGHTS ERASE

YOUR NAME
A Novel

Vendela Vida

Contents�

Map�

Be Loved

1�

Because I Was Late

39

Family Portrait Above Altar

65

Who Sleeps Where in the
Lavu

77

Perfume Girl

103

Northern Lights

115

This Is How to Prove a Reindeer Belongs to You

129


Empty Chair, Hanging from Tree

153

Tongue to Ice

171

Point Zero
Acknowledgments � About the
Author �
Praise�

Other Books by Vendela
Vida �

Credits�
Cover� Copyright�

About the
Publisher �

187

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1.

It was three in the afternoon when my plane landed at the Helsinki airport, but outside my window, dusk was already settling in like a bruise. I retrieved my suitcase, its handle cold, and stumbled to the tourist information desk, where a woman with good teeth and bad English helped me find a hotel near the train station. My plan was to take the first train north, to Lapland, after a night of sleep. She directed me toward the hotel’s free shuttle bus waiting outside. Its doors opened just as I was preparing to knock.

The blond bus driver’s name tag said
ari
, but he told me, the only passenger on the bus, that his name was Kari. The name tag belonged to his twin brother, for whom he was filling in (would I please not tell anybody about that, he asked). When it was clear no one else would be boarding, Ari/Kari turned and spoke to the general area where I was sitting. “We go now,” he said.

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