Barbara (29 page)

And old Armgard struck the table with her clenched fist so that the silver goblet resounded to it.

Pastor Poul sat for a moment open-mouthed. Then he said, “Aye, to Hell with her. The Devil take her, the way she’s behaved. Bloody woman. Confounded bitch she is.”

And with this, he fell asleep. The law speaker smiled unhappily and discreetly called his sons. They carefully carried the minister to his bed. They were not completely ignorant as to what had taken place in the law speaker’s room.

“You should have seen,” said Samson with a wry smile, “you should have seen when he drank to Armgard. I think he thought it was Barbara.”

Pastor Poul woke in the middle of the night and at first could remember nothing at all. But suddenly he recalled everything that had happened. It came to him like a great blow at the root of his heart. After this, he slept no more, but lay there filled with the greatest presentiments and with a desperate pain in his breast. He longed avidly for the people of the house to awaken and for day to come.

He was the first up that morning, and the first thing he did was to ask the law speaker’s sons whether the weather looked as though it was likely to be good enough for him to get to Tórshavn that day.

He went out and in and then out again, held out a hand in the half light and felt a fine drizzle; he looked at the sky and tried to guess the direction of the wind. The idea that he could see Barbara again that evening was almost enough to choke him.

But the law speaker’s sons were slow to leave their bunks, and when they finally emerged under the eaves they said that they thought the strong wind would probably rule out the possibility of reaching Tórshavn that day. There was at all events no question of going south around the promontory now that the days were so short, but it might be possible to make land near Velbestad. They said they would discuss this with their father.

The law speaker had never been an early riser. When he finally turned up, there was something slightly concerned about his profoundly phlegmatic person. It could be imagined that he would have looked like this if Stegard had been burning down around him. He was bordering on being in a hurry.

During his long wait, Pastor Poul had been wandering ceaselessly in and out of the house. He had in turn stared at the weather and stared at the people. He was like a dog, wretched and unable to speak, pleading for human interference in some desperate affair. Now, finally seeing the law speaker approaching, he rushed straight over to him. A sense of irrepressible impatience emanated from the clergyman; his will was so strong that it had the effect on the others of some uncontrollable force.

“The weather isn’t good; it certainly isn’t,” said Samuel Mikkelsen. He leant forward over a dry stone wall and studied the heavens intensely.

A short time passed.

“I think it would be wisest for you to go by way of Futaklet,” was the tentative suggestion of the law speaker’s son Jacob.

Pastor Poul made no reply to this. But perhaps he made some slight gesture or other. His entire being radiated the most intense dislike of the idea. He knew that this would be a journey taking at least two days. And was he now to have that dreadful journey back to Futaklet, to Kvívík, to Leynum, to Oyrareingja, all that long way that in happy days he had travelled together with Barbara? And which she had now travelled together with Andreas! His heart tightened into a knot in his despair.

“Of course,” said the law speaker with conspicuous gravity, “we have to realise that Pastor Poul might be in rather a hurry today.”

He looked enquiringly at the minister: was that not so? His eyes only expressed kindness and courtesy.

“This is the devil of a gale,” exclaimed Jacob. He was a little short of breath, as was his habit when he became excited.

Samuel Mikkelsen made no reply. Pastor Poul stood shuffling apprehensively. He was quite beside himself; indeed it was as though his spirit wanted to wrest its way out of his body and fly alone across the Vágar Fjord.

The law speaker gave another look appraising the clouds: “The wind is very strong,” he said. “But then its direction is as favourable as we could wish for as long as it stays in the north east. And there was a half moon yesterday, so the current should be favourable… though it isn’t exactly gentle when the moon is so close to the earth.”

He stood considering for a while; his face betrayed no feeling. “If we wait until the west flow lessens a little, it will probably be possible,” he added.

It sounded almost like a chance remark. Only when the law speaker and his sons were on their way back into the house did Pastor Poul understand that these were the last words to be spoken and that the matter had been decided. He stood there alone and could hardly believe he had got what he wanted. He was to see Barbara again that evening.

But in the law speaker’s home there was a considerable commotion that morning, as the minister could not fail to notice on the expression of the law speaker’s wife. And Samuel Mikkelsen once had to silence his son Samson, who was otherwise never accused of being a coward, but who nevertheless swore roundly at the prospect of undertaking this bloody trip just for the sake of a baggage like Barbara. But the law speaker said they would go for the sake of Pastor Poul, out of pity for him. And Armgard banged the table and her face looked like flint as she said they must go for the sake of the family to ensure that that whore should not be the complete ruin of Andreas.

It was getting on for midday when Samuel Mikkelsen and ten men rowed off from Sandavág. He himself sat in the stern, steering the boat, and Pastor Poul sat with him. The wind gusted and took them out towards the gap. The sail was hoisted and the great boat was blown along, and all the houses in Sandavág and Midvág quickly receded into tiny, insignificant groups while the mountain peaks above them started to reach their black fingers up above the steep sides that had been hiding them. The knot in Pastor Poul’s heart gradually began to loosen; he was sailing, flying towards his goal. This evening… he did not know whether he should be filled with fear or joy.

It was not long before they reached Klovning, a sharp promontory, the outermost part of which had been split off from the land and stood out there brooding over the sea. Here, they turned out into the open Vágar Fjord and rowed east along the high-rising land. The wind came from above in unpredictable gusts, and they lowered the sail. The water was smooth and black, the towering rock known as the Troll’s Wife’s Finger rose like a dark spire a thousand feet above their heads, and behind it the perpendicular mountain was still much higher.

The men rowed. They dipped their slender oars in the waves in short, quick movements, and the boat progressed jerkily and resolutely, the law speaker and the minister nodding involuntarily with each movement. The men spoke in hoarse voices and spat quids out into the water. They kept a close watch on the clouds above them. “The sky’s like a pot of soot,” said one of them.

He was right. The sky was very dark. And at the foot of the mountain the water was boiling gently. But the law speaker was smiling from the depths of his kindness, his hand resting excitedly on the rudder. His redhead son Samson was rowing like a giant. “So sail the heroes of Norway,” he sang and gave the clergyman a great look and winked. And Pastor Poul smiled back at him. It was as though a healthy current of air was beginning to fill his heavy heart. He wished he had been a man like Samson.

They had been rowing for an hour and had long been clear of the Vágar coast. The wind was blowing slightly against them from the Vestmanna Sound, but the water was not particularly rough. Then, suddenly, one of the men said: “Listen, isn’t the wind turning more to the east?”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that,” said Samuel Mikkelsen. “So it’s all the more important to row in close to the Streymey coast. Then we shall be sheltered all the way to Velbestad and even have the east flow with us.”

But it was still far to the shielding coast of Streymey, and it was both wet and salty, for the wind blew more and more against them, and the water splashed regularly into the boat so that one of the men occasionally had to bail out. But the high prow went doggedly up and down, up and down, and forced its way east yard by yard, while the oars snapped at the waves.

“So sail the heroes of Norway,” sang Samson once more, laughing through the salty water that was running down over his brow. But Pastor Poul no longer felt happy and was impatient at the slow progress.

“The wind’s changing, the wind’s still changing,” said the men, concerned that the east wind had now started to turn south. Their senses were alive to nothing but the weather and the current; they looked and looked and took note of countless signs in the flight of the clouds and the movement of the waves. But over the restless surface of the sea, the islands rose like roughly carved blocks. To the south west, Koltur raised its wild head, rearing towards the heavens, and the current before them was like a long row of battlements and chasms.

When a snow shower suddenly blocked out everything the boat all at once seemed terribly cut off. All that could be heard was the falling tops of the waves between the oar strokes. The law speaker fumbled to take out a compass and guided the boat according to it. The wet snow whipped him angrily in the face, but he showed no sign of concern.

“It’s changing, it’s changing,” he was thinking as he watched the trembling compass needle.

“Barbara, Barbara,” thought the minister, desperately peering out into the snow.

It had been Samuel Mikkelsen’s idea that they should make the entire journey in the lee of the high mountains of Vágar and Streymey, which would shelter them from the strong north-easterly gale, and at the same time he would let them drift south on the east flow through the Hestur Fjord. Now he saw this plan come to nothing. In the course of half an hour, the wind had turned to the south east and was now blowing up along the Streymey coast, exactly in the opposite direction to the flow of the waters. This was the worst thing that could have happened.

When the snow shower had passed, they could all see it. They were below the mountains of Streymey, but out in the fjord the gale had already taken a fierce hold of the rough waters of the east flow. They themselves were moving against a strong wind, but close to land the current was not so strong. Few words were spoken. They all knew it would be risky to turn round; it was just a matter of creeping slowly forward and keeping close to the coast in the teeth of the gale and hoping they could land at Velbestad. But that village was still three miles away.

They had now been rowing for over three hours. The huge Konufjall suddenly appeared out of the clouds like a petrified roar. Remains of mist were still flying past this mountain ruin, hiding the gigantic rock faces and revealing them again, wrapping themselves around cliffs and releasing them again, dancing, fuming and rising like smoke up through wet chasms and abysses. It was like looking up into some gigantic organ playing silently but with tempestuous, visible reverberations.

The law speaker kept the boat as close to land as possible. They rode over the tops of the waves on the edge of the surf, and it often looked as though they were about to be thrown on to the rocks. But on the other side of the boat, the east flow was foaming, whipped up by the gale blowing against it.

Pastor Poul sat looking at the wet shoreline. Its brown seaweed was bared deep down in the gaps between the waves. This is the island Barbara is on, he thought; it is only a couple of yards away. If only I could get ashore, I could hurry over to the place where she is. He thought no further than this. He did not know what would happen subsequently. And so he thought much too far ahead. The law speaker was thinking no further than Lambatangi, which they were soon to pass. It was renowned as the pincer-like meeting point of two currents.

“Aye, aye,” thought Samuel Mikkelsen, “the east flow is certainly at its highest now. But there was a half moon yesterday. That means the current is at its weakest. Although… the moon is at its closest to the earth at the moment. It’s not likely to be entirely smooth.”

Samson was rowing like a wild man. A vein in the middle of his forehead stood out. It was swelling like those in Roland’s neck as he blew the horn Oliphant at Roncesvalles. All ten men rowed and clenched their teeth. The boat crept forward, yard by yard.

“We’re like a fly on a tarred stick,” sighed one of the men.

“Aye, just like a fly on a tarred stick,” groaned another. And they worked their way forward at that moment in the great cleft immediately north of Lambatangi.

“A bit breezy today,” commented the law speaker calmly to Pastor Poul.

Immediately afterwards the first wave caused by the meeting of the two currents rose before them, its foaming crest rising above their heads. The law speaker grasped the rudder and said rather louder than was his wont:

“Keep going.”

The men dipped their oars in the water. It was as though they were whipping the boat on towards a foam-capped death.

“Now – now – now – row – row – keep going – row – now,” groaned an old man in time with the oar strokes. The law speaker steered the boat straight into the middle of the surf; it reared up in the turbulent waters, veered and took in water on both sides while everything disappeared in foam and froth, and salt water descended on them in torrents. The minister sat there deathly pale and held tight. A melody was going round in his head all the time. Suppose he did not find Barbara this evening?

Suddenly, all was quiet. They lay rocking on an expanse of foam. The two men at the rear of the boat were bailing out, and the rest were pulling on the oars for all they were worth. It was only for a brief moment. Suddenly, the law speaker shouted:

“Row all you can!”

This time he did shout, and his voice was quite broken. A green wall of water was rising in front of them, arching and cautiously starting to burst into a broad and elaborate crown of foam lacework at the top.

“Mercy on us,” said one of those in the prow.