The Prophets of Eternal Fjord (16 page)

Natives journey here and settle each autumn when the ship is due, in the hope of trading. Usually they are more numerous, the tents often approaching five score, but these past winters have been harsh and unknown numbers have perished, either directly from hunger or by the rampant culling of widows and children.

A woman and a man are seated on their haunches in front of the tent. They gape at the pastor, unsmiling and without expression. They exchange some words he cannot understand, a slippery babble of sounds. He wonders if it is he they are talking about, and walks on all the more quickly, pursued by their stares. Do they know about me? Do the natives talk about what the pastor does? About the pastor and the widow? He squelches ahead in his boots and hums a psalm to cheer himself up.

Down at the bay, drawn up on to land, lies the
Taasinge Slot
, dark and brooding, a Danish whaler wrecked years before. Its masts and parts of the woodwork have been taken away and used for firewood and building materials, despite the colony manager having issued a ban on removing so much as a rivet. Predictably, this merely hastened the destruction. The ship was found drifting some nautical miles south of the colony without a soul on board, yet still laden with numerous barrels of good oil, and was towed here with much difficulty. The colony manager has written to its owners, but it is clear now that the whaler has entered into a pact with the land and will never leave it.

He looks up at the captain's cabin beneath the quarterdeck, where the frames of the windows are intact, though the glass removed. He sees part of the ceiling inside. It is less than a year since he lay there within, clinging to the widow and a keg of aquavit, determined to die. He finds it to have been a happy time.

Sukkertoppen, this seventh day of August 1793

My dear sister Kirstine,

Autumn is soon upon us and all of us, Danes and natives alike, now await the arrival of the ship.

So many boats put into the colony with blubber at present that it resembles market days at Christiania. However, it is the trade that brings them, and company with the other savages; certainly not the pastor or the good Mission or the Salvation of the Lord.

My own longing to see this year's ship is as great as any other's. As I have already confided to you, it is my deepest hope that within a few weeks I shall be putting to sea, this same autumn once again, to be reunited with my beloved sister, if indeed she be above the soil, and to kiss her and pull her to my breast and thus make this letter superfluous. We shall then confide in each other, Kirstine. I shall be your father confessor and we shall be each other's comfort and solace. You shall listen to my account and I am confident you will forgive me everything!

Alas, how great a burden it is to remain separated from those one loves. I think and fear that you will find me quite changed in body and soul after these last six years, and I fear even more that my nightly vision of my sister Kirstine has spoken true.

Falck descends into the colony proper, where greasy smoke from the boiling of blubber infects the air and conspires with the eternal fog to inflict upon the permanent inhabitants a chronic hacking, bloodied phlegm and viscous, soot-infested mucus. At the blubber house he remains standing for a moment, his gaze turned to the harbour. He sees the Trader over by the colony house in dialogue with his overseer. Falck ducks, then scurries across the open space between the blubber house and the store to reach the water's edge from where the Trader cannot see him. Here, he almost collides with the smith, Niels Hammer, who comes trudging round a corner carrying what looks like a large bundle of sticks or switches on his shoulders.

Mind where you're going, Hammer! He leaps aside so as not to be knocked down by the brawny, heavily burdened smith.

Hammer drops his bundle. It lands with a swish on top of others of the same material, long, white sticks whose kind cannot readily be ascer­tained. He turns and looks Falck up and down. He does not smile, though his eyes flicker mischievously beneath his brow's protruding buttress of thickened bone.

Magister Falck. You're as soaked as a crow.

The smith hails from Lofoten and speaks the sharp, resounding tongue of northern Norway, a fact that occasions him to speak in a manner as though they were childhood friends, which is to say inappro­priately familiar and steeped with sarcasm. Falck, quite as Norwegian himself, replies in Danish.

Spare me your observations, Hammer.

He tries to get round the man, makes to his right, then left, but each time the smith steps in his way. He senses the foul stench of sweat, rotten tobacco and badly digested aquavit, and steps backwards.

Is there anything you require of me?

Is there anything the pastor requires of me? the smith rejoins face­tiously.

A confession, perhaps? Falck suggests snidely. But his sarcasm cuts no ice with the smith, a notorious and unscrupulous fornicator. The Ten Commandments alone do not suffice to capture the sins of Niels Hammer, and for two consecutive years now Falck has worded written reports on his criticizable habitus and the damaging influence of his pres­ence on Danes and natives alike, christened or otherwise. But these reports seem without effect, perhaps because the pastor's own reputation is hardly any better, and because due to an incalculable number of other complications he is unable to report the smith for the unspeakable outrage he has committed against the Madame of the colony house. A fact of which the smith himself is eminently aware and for which reason he feels he may do as he pleases. The worst thing, however, is that Falck is wracked with guilt-tinged anxiety at having reported one of his flock.

What are these things? he asks, striving to be friendly and pointing at the heap of pale sticks.

Baleen, says Hammer. To be shipped.

Aha, says Falck. I see. Interesting. Indeed.

Whalebones, the smith adds, sensing that Falck has no idea what he is talking about.

I am familiar with the meaning of the word, Falck says.

Only now, though, does he realize what the items are. He puts his boot upon them, feels their spring as they yield beneath his sole. The bundled whalebones are bristly and as though decayed. There is some­thing inadmissible, shameless and pastily naked about them that is at once repulsive and inciting. One can hardly avoid imagining the process of refinement to which this material will be subjected by the textile manu­facturers of Denmark, and the final product that will come of it, the delicate, elastic stays of waist-cinching corsets. The journey which they are to make comprises one of the modern world's strangest metamor­phoses from nature to culture: from the plankton-filtering mouth of the humpbacked whale they bob along on the sweat-drenched shoulders of this smith to sway in the hold of a ship, are subsequently immersed in the cleansing chemical tubs of the factories, then cut and shaped and sewn into lace and fabric, finally to fulfil their destiny nestling against the waists of women, constraining undesirable flab.

The smith stares at him, the light sparkling in his keen blue eyes. He scratches his throat with hands the shape of shovels. Did I say something wrong? Morten asks himself. Did I make a sigh or cut a grimace? Why does he still stand here?

Indeed, he says, and clears his throat. I hear the ship will be here soon.

Der Frühling
, Hammer replies. She's out there somewhere, chopping in the fog. I saw her on my fire-watch this last night. A man sees a lot of things when he's out in the night, Magister.

Indeed, says Falck again. Very interesting, Hammer. He is about to say something that might lead the conversation in a different and less uncomfortable direction, but the smith is too quick for him.

So the pastor might be leaving us then?

I go wheresoever the Lord calls me to go. It is no matter for your interference.

The Trader says he'll send you home in chains for what you did.

Like I said, be good enough not to interfere in matters that do not concern you, Hammer.

There'll be those sorry to see you go, I shouldn't wonder, the smith says, more good-naturedly now.

And those less than sorry. Is that it?

The smith chuckles. The Magister's in the mood for jest this morning.

I may be leaving and I may not, Falck says frankly. It depends on one thing and another. If I am called home I shall go. If the Trader wishes to initiate proceedings I shall yield. I place my trust in the Lord.

Things will be quiet here without our pastor. The smith grins.

If I were you, I wouldn't count my blessings. And what of you, anyway, Hammer?

Me? This is my home. A land for proper men, Magister. I'm like a fish in water. My bones will rest in Greenland's earth.

I see. Still, I'm sure you are aware that such a wish may come true even before we anticipate. Life is brief and death is always at the door. Have you prepared for that, Hammer?

I'm prepared, the smith says. My bones are drawn by the soil. I suppose that's why I have this confounded arthritis in my hands. Do you not think so, Magister, him being both clergy and physician?

In my capacity as physician I would say it was more a matter of his trade and the cold of winter, the damp of summer, the heat of the work­shop, and not least excessive consumption of distilled spirits.

There's nothing like a wee dram to warm a man, Magister Falck. I know the Magister sets store by it too, now and then.

You don't say. Well, there's a thing or two I know about you as well, Hammer. He would be wise to bear it in mind.

You know everything about me, Magister. I am a sinner before the Lord, Hammer says with unveiled pleasure.

Falck wishes to move on, but the smith blocks his way.

Will the Magister not see the body?

He looks away. What body?

The widow. I've laid her in the timber store. I thought the Magister might wish to see her one last time, make sure she's ready to go into the ground like a good Christian.

He struggles to maintain his composure. Thoughts swirl in his head. My successor will attend to it, he mumbles.

The smith studies him. Then he nods and changes the subject. Does the Magister know what I'm looking forward to when the ship comes?

It really doesn't interest me in the slightest, but let me guess. He looks forward to bartering and drinking and fornicating in the company of the crew.

That as well, the smith admits. They're a good bunch of lads and have been a long time away at sea. They've not seen an underskirt in months and I've not had word from the homeland for a year, so who can blame us for wanting to enjoy ourselves? But do you know what I most look forward to?

He feels weak and rather poorly. No, what do you look forward to most, Hammer?

When the ship is unloaded and I can cook me stew with meat that is not musty, the smith says, and he is rapt.

An innocent wish, indeed, says Falck. If he thought more of the joys of the table and less of fornication it would be a step in the right direc­tion. But now he must excuse me.

Barley soup with cherries, the smith fantasizes. Pancakes with maple syrup.

Yes, well, says Falck. He feels as though his bowels are listening in on the transports of the smith.

Blood gruel, salted goose meat, bread-and-ale porridge with sour cream, matured herring that melts on the tongue.

That's enough, Hammer! Get a grip, man! He senses the sweat start out on his forehead and hears the squealing lament of his stomach. At once he sees the Trader coming briskly towards the harbour, followed by his overseer Jens Dahl and two native constables of the Trade. The Trader wields his stick, pointing to left and right, the overseer hastening in his footsteps, pitching in with obsequiousness. They do not seem to have noticed Falck, so he scuttles away, past the smith, ducking between the boathouse and the warehouse, scrambling in a zigzag over the rocks behind, as agile as a spider, sliding down the other side and crouching to wait. He hears Kragstedt's drawl drift away towards the harbour, Dahl's chatter and the greeting of the smith. Kragstedt utters some words in a commanding tone and Hammer answers back. They laugh.

His boots squelching and his coat-tails clinging to his thighs, Falck scurries further, to the flat area where the Mission house lies slightly apart from the main buildings of the colony. Again he crouches and remains in hiding until long after the Trader disappears from sight. And then he is inside. He slams the door shut behind him. Now he is safe. He flops down on the bed and stares up at the ceiling. She is dead. Good, he thinks. Indeed! It is consummated. I am free.

The Mission house is a sagging, half-timbered building clad with planks. The mortar rots in damp weather, which is to say most of the year, crumbling away at double the speed in the short spells of dryness. In winter the frost cracks branch and diffuse to eat away at the house as it is battered by storms this way and that. In the spring the process of disintegration continues, advancing rather more quickly than the year before. Half-timbered houses are ill suited to this land, as ill suited as the people who inhabit them, little more than ice-cold encasements in which a person can but sit and brood over his wasted life, yet when they catch alight they blaze like tindersticks.

Falck's accommodation comprises one half of the Mission house, a room measuring eight ells on each side, draughty and cold, and with a single window to let in a measure of light, the glass of which, however, is of such poor quality that everything outside appears as indistinct as a painting in which the colours have run together. Which is just as well. Morten Falck appreciates anything that may serve not to remind him that he is where he is.

The fixtures of this room are as follows: an alcove bed with a mattress of straw in need of replacement, some fox hides and two reindeer skins sewn together, all infested with mould and damp; a small desk with a drawer; a wooden chair whose back he wrenched asunder in a moment of unthinking rage; a leather armchair that looks as if it suffers from psoriasis; five bookcases filled with books, many of which cannot be opened on account of their pages having stuck together. A great mon ­strosity of a wrought-iron stove takes up much of the space. It smokes so infernally that he prefers to fill a bucket with glowing coals from the kitchen and place it on the slate beneath the desk, from whence it gives off sufficient warmth. The ceiling sags in the middle and he has felt obliged to support it by means of a plank jammed between ceiling and floor, taken from the
Taasinge Slot
. This has been Falck's home for six years. He is fond of it.