A New Faith: Part 1: Chapter 15

Sonia was surprised to get the call from Kaija. Although it was symbolic in nature, Kaija was the designated mayor of Sequoia. Also, Kaija was the sole non-refugee resident of Sequoia. In fact, Kaija was Norwegian-born and -bred.

Kaija hardly spoke in the City Council meetings. But the few times that Kaija did speak, she had caught Sonia’s attention. She was not completely sure about who Kaija was except for one thing - it seemed that Kaija had been a key person in the creation of Sequoia. Because of that one reason, Sonia was eternally grateful to her. She had never expressed her gratitude to Kaija, but she felt it strongly whenever she dwelt on that fateful day when her life had taken a turn for the amazing - the day when she found out that she was leaving Bangladesh for good.

Apart from the gratitude, Sonia genuinely respected Kaija. In her opinion, Kaija was an innately kind and generous person. A considerate person who thought carefully before she uttered a single word. A democratic person who carefully listened to all and treated everyone respectfully. Without exception! This was no act, Sonia had observed.

Kaija was part of that community of good white people that she had come to grudgingly respect. Sonia hadn’t liked white people, in general, before she came to Sequoia. Her experience with white people in Bangladesh was based on the white tourists she had interacted with during the couple of years she had served in Dhaka, the capital of the nation. In her view, they were voyeurs at best and obnoxious racists at worst. They came to ogle at the poverty and exotic aspects of Bengali society. They shot videos and left. They tended to treat most of the Bengalis with contempt and suspicion. She had learned enough of English language in high school to be able to eavesdrop on the conversations the white tourists had among themselves. Most of the time, it was not nice.

Then she had to deal with them - as a junior sub-inspector in her police station - when they came in to file complaints about theft. That is when the racism dripped not just from their mouths but emanated from their entire bodies. The way they wouldn’t even sit down when a chair was offered to them. As if the chair was too filthy or disease-ridden and they couldn’t wait to get out of the police-station. She had met some good white people, the ones who came to her country and stayed. The ones who lived and worked with her people. The ones who never complained. The ones who treated her and her people as, well, people should be treated anywhere in the world. But these good ones were a tiny minority.

Sonia had been so strongly prejudiced against white people that she had almost not applied to Sequoia. Somehow sanity had prevailed and she had sent in her application just before the deadline was up. She had forgotten all about it until the day she received the official letter at her police-station. She hadn’t known what to think of it and for several days didn’t even tell anyone that she had been selected. Gradually though, it had become clear to her that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for her to escape the misogyny she had faced all her life. 

She had always been an excellent cop and she had been fully aware of that. Even better, she had also been a natural leader. If she had been a man, she would have been on the fast-track to success right from the beginning of her career. Alas, she was a woman and every single man, irrespective of his rank, had hated the fact that she was so obviously better than them in every aspect of their jobs. So she had gotten shunned and then eventually, dumped in a village where she had been destined to live the rest of her life in anonymity. The silver lining - if one could say that - to her situation had been that the village got designated as uninhabitable in the process for selecting new residents for Sequoia.

She was unambiguously happy to be in Sequoia. Her extraordinary skills and experience had been so obvious to the UN team responsible for setting up the law-and-order system that she had immediately been appointed as the Police Chief in Sequoia.

Sonia had never really been sure of why Kaija had chosen to permanently leave Oslo and her family in order to move to Sequoia. That was an absolutely baffling decision in Sonia’s view. As a city, Oslo, was as good a city that ever existed in human history. Who would want to leave it? Anyway, someday she would find the right moment to ask Kaija about it. 

Until that evening, Kaija had never invited Sonia to her home. They had never really hung out in a social setting. It had mostly been a professional but caring relationship. Sonia knew that Kaija had been scheduled to speak at the General Assembly of the UN as the representative of Sequoia. Sonia had briefed Kaija and the rest of the City Council the day before. What could Kaija want to discuss this late in the day and at her home?

Kaija’s building appeared to have missed the attention of most mural artists for some reason. There was minimal artwork. For once, the building looked like an old-fashioned apartment building and nothing more than that. Sonia took the elevator to the top floor and rang the bell to Kaija’s apartment. A moment later, the door opened and Kaija warmly welcomed her. 

The apartment was done up in a very unusual way. It was the same size and general layout as most other flats in Sequoia. But the interior seemed to have almost a primitive feel to it. Like a log cabin out in the wilderness. Seeing modern appliances within the space felt odd. It felt as if Kaija had tried to recreate something from memory. Quite a few pieces were extremely old and suggested a distinct culture that Sonia was ignorant about. 

She had always, in a generic sort of way, assumed that the primary history of Nordic countries consisted of Vikings. Basically, the gorgeous Thor. As a young girl, she had watched the Thor movies and ogled at the guy playing Thor. She didn’t much remember the movies themselves. Maybe they had not even been about Thor. Her eyes, though, had been fixed on him whenever he was on screen and yearning to see him when he was not. The decor in Kaija’s home had nothing in common with all that Viking stuff Sonia had seen in those movies. There were pictures of reindeers roaming the Arctic landscape sprinkled around the living room.

Kaija was keenly watching Sonia take in her apartment. She felt a sense of comfort when she saw that Sonia had not judged her home but simply observed it with interest and curiosity. She liked Sonia, too. The evening, though, was not meant to be a social occasion. She sat down at the chair behind her desk. There was another chair set up next to hers and she invited Sonia to sit next to her. 

“Thanks for coming over to my home. We are going to be doing a video call together. I was explicitly asked to include you in it and that we should call from a secure location where no one could overhear our conversation.”

Sonia sat down and raised one of her eyebrows at the same time. This was strange. She had assumed that Kaija wanted to talk confidentially about the murder investigation and the riot and maybe the general law-and-order situation in Sequoia. The last thing she had expected was a video call with someone. Clearly, with someone who was outside Sequoia. Who could that be? She nodded her head and waited for Kaija to elaborate. Instead Kaija clicked on a link that dialed someone. Instantly, the screen filled up with the faces of two women sitting next to each other. 

The woman with blonde hair and blue eyes spoke. She seemed to be about the same age as both Sonia and Kaija, in her mid to late thirties. She was wearing a formal beige shirt and had tied her shoulder-length hair in a sensible pony-tail. 

“My name is Rachel and this is Camille,” she said leaning her head toward the woman sitting next to her. Camille seemed to be a bit younger, maybe late twenties. She had dark red wavy hair and gray eyes. She was wearing one of those leather jackets that was severely weathered just like the face of its owner. While both Rachel and Camille were white, the latter seemed to be spending most of her time outdoors and the former indoors.

“Thanks for taking this call,” continued Rachel. Then she smiled. A lovely warm smile that reached her eyes and the blue in them lit up like the summer sky at noon. 

“Kaija, we met once, a long time ago. I am not sure you remember me,” she said. Then looked at Sonia and added, “you must be Sonia. Glad to meet you!”

Rachel’s warmth was so infectious that without realizing it both Kaija and Sonia smiled back at her. Their shoulders had been hunched when they had started the video call. That is when Kaija recognized Rachel. The kindness in her expression was what reminded her of that moment several years ago when she had visited the land that would soon become Sequoia. Kaija had been there to say one last goodbye to her best friend buried there. Kaija had been sitting next to the grave and lovingly smoothing the turf overgrown with wildflowers. She hadn’t realized that her eyes had welled up as she sat there until a woman wearing the UN hard-hat had kneeled down next to her and patted her back kindly. That woman was Rachel. Kaija had never seen her again or heard from her until today. It was so strange to be reminded of that part of her life. She nodded in recognition and Rachel’s smile broadened some more. 

“Let’s get the introductions out of the way and then we can talk.

By the way, we are calling from New York city. 

I am with the US delegation stationed at the UN. I serve as the deputy ambassador. In my own way, I helped with the creation of Sequoia.

Camille also played a crucial role in the creation of Sequoia. She - well, let’s just say that she is part of a global network of folks that are trying to end carbon dioxide emissions as quickly as possible.”

Rachel turned and winked at Camille, “did I get that right?”

“It is accurate and of course, we are not going to get into the details of our methods,” replied Camille solemnly.

“Kaija is, I guess, the person most responsible for the creation of Sequoia.”

Camille nodded her head vigorously and looked with frank admiration at Kaija. 

Kaija blushed slightly and mildly said, “you give me too much credit. There are far too many people who must have worked tirelessly to make Sequoia a reality.”

Sonia noticed that this was not the usual modesty that most people showed when being praised. Kaija’s eyes had a distant look in them and she seemed to mean every word of it. 

“I kept Sonia’s introduction for the last because there is a crucial difference between the three of us and her. While we have helped in creating Sequoia, the future of the city and the idea behind it now depends on Sonia.”

Both of Sonia’s eyebrows shot up instantly. She had been politely listening to Rachel. With that statement, though, she sensed that this was not a social call but something far more serious. Later she would think that it was not just a serious but an existential conversation.

“Let me explain…,” added Rachel.

## END OF PART 1 ##