In a small house perched on a rocky hill in Nuuk, an old man named Arne sat at his worn wooden table, slowly chewing a piece of kiviak. The pungent aroma filled the room, clinging to the walls like smoke from a fire. His grandson, Malik, stood nearby, wrinkling his nose.
“I don’t know how you can eat that,” Malik muttered, shifting from one foot to the other.
Arne chuckled and held out a piece wrapped in seal skin. “I hated it too when I was your age,” he said. “Couldn’t stand the smell. But now…” He popped another piece in his mouth and sighed. “Now it tastes like home.”
Malik shook his head. “I think home should smell better than that.”
Arne laughed again, his face crinkling like the ice that cracked along the fjords in spring. “You’re like the rest of your generation. Everything has to be clean and easy now.”
“That’s not true,” Malik shot back. “I just… I don’t like things that stink.”
For a moment, they sat in silence, the only sound the faint whistle of the wind against the windowpane.
“Did you hear about the election?” Arne asked, changing the subject.
Malik nodded. “Yeah… Everybody’s talking about independence again.”
Arne leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. “When I was your age, I thought we’d be independent by now.” He tapped the table. “Your great-grandfather always said we needed to stand on our own feet. No Denmark, no America… just us.”
Malik hesitated. “But things are different now. Everyone’s scared. Trump’s talking like he still wants to buy us or something.”
Arne scowled. “That man talks too much.” He jabbed his finger in the air. “We’ve survived centuries up here — cold, hunger, war. We’ve outlasted kings and governments. You think some loud American is gonna change that?”
“I guess not,” Malik said softly.
“That’s right,” Arne said. He reached for another piece of kiviak, but stopped. “You know, Malik… when you get older, you learn that things you didn’t like at first — they start to make sense. Kiviak smells bad, sure, but it keeps you warm in winter. It kept our people alive when there was nothing else to eat.”
Malik glanced at the dark, oily meat. He leaned in just a little, inhaled, and gagged. “I’m not there yet, Ataata,” he said, using the Greenlandic word for grandfather.
Arne smiled, warm and patient. “You will be.”
All names of people and organizations appearing in this story are pseudonyms
Polls open in Greenland’s parliamentary elections, as independence looms large
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