Inge was a Norwegian from Stavanger staying in a house in Federal Hill in Providence, Rhode Island trying to translate a book by Driss Chraibi for her American Airbnb hosts, which meant that she was trying to get a sense of the Arabic, the French, the Norwegian, and then the English. A fan from Morocco had left it behind as a thank you gift and the host — a chatty pair of Professors always in their garden (and they were always in the garden, even at night; did they sleep?) — had mentioned it to her when she arrived, asking if she could translate it. 

She hadn’t enough to rent the place outright for herself — too rich a move; and  she was used to the idea of shared rest stops along the Nasjonale turistveger anyway — so the idea of saving money and having a chat seemed perfectly reasonable to her.

“We just think it’s great, what you’re doing,” Professor Jennifer Falridge said, trying to find where she put her cup of tea amongst the garden.  “Traveling all the way over here.” 

“You represent all of Norway, right?” Earl Falridge teased, leaning forward as if to gently slap her knee but only swiping air. 

Aucune commune mesure avec cet autre robinet sur le quai, en plein soleil, debout tel un marteau au bout d'un long tuyau aussi épais qu'un rondin. 

Okay, so, Inge thought, running the linguistic math near the top of her eyeballs. No commune in Arabic was “لا توجد كومونة.” In Norwegian, it was “Ingen kommune,” which meant that — in English … 

“Are Vikings to you what cowboys are to us?”

“Earl.”

Earl Falridge threw up his hands from his wicker chair in mild mock protest.

“No, no. I mean — cowboys were only really a thing for fifteen years in this country, right? Were Vikings a thing for, like, eight years in Norway? One particularly memorable weekend?”

Inge furrowed her brow, closed the book for a moment, and leaned forward.

“Sorry. But how would that work, though?”