The Prophets of Eternal Fjord (51 page)

12 June

Two things happened today:

A young man had fallen unconscious; his fellow habitants could not restore him to life and were resigned to lay him in the grave. Yet when I attended him and called upon him loudly and placed my hand upon his feverish brow he immediately woke and asked for water to drink. He is now already much restored.

Moreover: I went up on to the fell in order to pray in solitude and sat beneath a rocky overhang, when a number of boulders fell down around my person, just one of which might easily have killed me. Only by pressing back against the rock did I narrowly avoid being struck. When later today I encountered Habakuk outside my house he glared at me hatefully and his face was clouded.

I confided in the widow and she was at once concerned and fearful.

She will speak with Maria Magdalene that she might talk her husband back to his senses.

15 June

Habakuk left this morning without warning, accompanied by a handful of hunters and their women of pleasure, for what is called the Paradise Vale. There he will remain for some time, the widow tells me. Thus, peace and harmony once again prevail in the settlement and I am able to fully devote myself to my work and to my beloved wife.

.  .  .

She watches the whole night. Only seldom in this recent time have I found her to be asleep when waking up myself.

Dearest, why are you not sleeping?

I'm thinking.

Share your thoughts with me. Am I not your husband?

I want to die.

But, my dearest!

You said I should share my thoughts with you. This is a thought of mine. Now I am sharing it with you.

But why do you want to die?

I've lost everything. I have nothing more to live for.

But, my beloved, what have you lost? You have me.

She says nothing.

She is a stranger to me, another species, a zoological riddle. I fear it was a mistake and a sin that we wedded.

Yet the folds and hiding places of her body are full of sweetness, and when my own body is joined with hers we are one flesh and one species, and I know by the Lord that I love her!

.  .  .

She asks me about the baptism, how soon it may take place.

It will take place when you are ready to stand before Christ, I reply.

I am ready now!

The day and the time is for me to decide, I tell her. Be patient.

She turns away in fury. Never before have I encountered such haste to become christened.

But Maria Magdalene, too, asks me to fix a date for the ceremony.

The catechumens are eager, she says. They have waited for this for many years, during which, for want of a priest, they have received instruction only from my husband and me.

Why such haste? I enquire.

They yearn for salvation, she replies. They thirst for it. Life is for us uncertain. If you are dead, you cannot be saved through baptism.

I promise her to intensify my instruction and have given my word that the ceremony will take place before the month of July reaches its end.

.  .  .

July .  .  .

O, may the summer never reach its close!

The ice drifts past upon the ford, fracturing and breaking up in the warmth of the sun's rays and in the no less balmy gusts of wind that come sweeping down from the fell. The place is alive with the cries of gulls and children at play. The roofs have been dismantled from the peat houses and the dirt and filth of winter is brushed out through the doorways.

On the flat expanse in front of the church we play a ball game. A seal­skin has been stuffed to form an egg-shaped ball some one ell in length. At each end of the playing area a small cairn of stones has been piled and the object of the game is to topple the cairn with the ball, the method being to run with it under one's arm and to overcome one's opponents. I participate often in this game, and today I succeeded in hitting the cairn and causing it to fall, whereupon I threw my arms triumphantly in the air and ran back to my own camp in jubilation. Unfortunately, I had toppled the wrong cairn and everyone laughed heartily on account of my embar­rassing error.

Another game,
the wandering ring
, is a singing game in which a number of participants – men, women and children – form a circle, draw­ing out between them a long strip of leather on which is threaded a small ring. The person who stands in the middle must guess where the ring will wander, while a taunting rhyme is sung, and where it will stop when the singing comes to an end. Lately I stood for a long time in the middle and tried to ascertain where the ring might be, but was unable, and for this reason I had to remain there while everyone sang and taunted me, though with faces full of kindness and love for their silly
palasi
.

The widow is dearer to me than ever before, and she is happier now, too, I believe. I made her laugh this evening when I said that I would take her back to my own country so that my elderly father might greet his daughter-in-law. She was quite surprised to learn that my father is still alive, and this was most probably the reason for her laughter. She con ­siders me to be an old man, although I am only thirty-seven years and one month.

But still she does not sleep. How long can a person go without sleeping?

.  .  .

I no longer know what time it is, nor do I care.

Baptized twenty-two of my flock yesterday, among them the widow. The Lord let the sun shine down upon the ceremony and only a mild wind from the fell was felt. The whole settlement was gathered in front of the church, and the crisp tone of the old ship's bell rang out across the land and sea, and must surely have been heard for miles around. The font was a tin plate and the water in it came from a small tarn at my own direction, since it is found at the place where the deathly procession I witnessed appeared to have its source, for which reason I blessed its waters
in extenso
.

Many come to me to be healed of physical defect and infirmity, now that the Lord has given me this gift. I have become ashamed to think upon the primitive and inferior medical science to which I formerly subscribed and which I practised. How feeble it is compared to the power given by the Lord to he who believes in Him. Thus I say to the cripple: Rise up! And he rises up and walks. And I say to the barren wife: Be now with child, and it occurs. With the blessing of my wife I have already impregnated a number of the settlement's native women – with good result, I am certain.

I have discarded my vestments. During service I wear now only a white tunic, which the widow has sewn according to my instruction. I have thrown away my wig and allow my locks to hang freely about my shoulders, this being of much benefit to them, for they are now more manifold and thicker than since I was a lad with flowing mane, leaping over the rocks at the shore of the Holsford. Since my exile upon the
Taasinge Slot
my beard has grown quite without intervention and fringes my chin and mouth, as dark and coarse as sheep's wool. The scurvy by which I was afflicted last year bothers me still, though less so now, which undoubtedly is due to the many physical diversions life with the widow presents to me. I wish to write a thesis on the subject: the detrimental effects of accumulated sexual fluids and suppressed lust. But who would publish such a monograph back home? It would be seen only as a lapsed clergyman's mad fantasies! So much the more fortunate for me that I have made this discovery and found the source of youth before it is too late.

The lice have left me. I commanded them to go, to depart from me in the name of the Lord, and I pointed to the door. They went! My body has in truth become a temple of cleanliness.

Madame Magdalene says likewise that I have become as a young man, and indeed I feel myself to be strong and youthful and in the prime of my manhood, which the widow, my spouse, must also acknowledge at hours both early and late. Life inside the ford has transformed me. May the Lord be praised! I shall now climb into my bed to lie with my lovely wife and ask her to spread her delectable legs, for these latter words have caused my fluids once more to stream towards their purpose.

.  .  .

All formerly unchristened are now led to salvation by virtue of instruc­tion and subsequent baptism. In total: 57 adults and 22 children. A number of infants remain, but shall be taken to baptism in proper and orderly manner these coming Sundays, on which occasions those recently baptized shall moreover be confirmed. Thereby this place is quite del­ivered from heathens and has become an oasis of true Christians in the midst of this savage continent of Greenland!

I thank the Lord each day for having brought me here.

Healed an elderly woman yesterday who suffered from a most dread ­ful dermatological condition, scabies or scrofulosis. I placed my hand against her brow, without fear of my own contamination thereby, and bade her go to the consecrated tarn upon the fell, there to take off her clothes and wash herself from head to toe, and to pray to the Lord her Saviour. This she did, and returned with the purest and most delicate skin! In the night she came to me and the widow gave up her place beside me, that the woman might express due gratitude for her healing and I bless her reborn
corpus femininum
.

.  .  .

I grasp the ankle of my spouse with one hand and draw her closer to me in the cot. I look into her eyes: they are dark and indifferent, as though she were a detached observer of this union of our flesh. The sweeping line of her foot is a thing of beauty, its arch is elastic and resilient and rather wrinkled by tiny horizontal grooves, which with bated breath I follow with the tip of my thumb.

Her toes peep up from the ball like friendly guardsmen from behind a breastwork and I kiss them, moistening the pad below the big toe with my saliva, allowing my lips to dwell upon the place, to taste its salty aroma of tanned hide. I look up at her again, an ironic visual comment upon this foot-licking in which I have begun to indulge of late, but she stares distractedly up at the ceiling, scratches her belly with unclean nails and fingers the large crucifix that always hangs upon her breast.

I allow my gaze to wander across her nakedness, holding my breath once more, her fair skin, the round volcanic crater of her navel, the flaccid mounds of her breasts, the deep-red strawberry peaks of the areolae, the raspberry tint of her mouth, the wettened gleam of her teeth – and all of it mine! I may do with it as I please, whenever I want. I wish only to do good by this unity of our flesh. I have no malice! And I tell her as much.

I now permit myself to part her thighs and look upon what they hide, the dizzying depths where opens, with slight reluctance, the other mouth, the manner in which the labia majora, the lips of her sex, stick loosely together, then to release and unfold like a flower receiving the first sun of morning, my face shining upon them, and a low-voiced whimper escapes me at this sight, this moist and red blooming rose, so nearly unendurable in its paining and magnificent splendour. I touch it and feel its supple­ness, observe how its hidden muscle fibres make it quiver spasmodically, and I see with contentment and appreciation that it is wet and glistens and is thereby ready to receive my member.

I look at her a third time and now at once she is awakened: her eyes return my gaze.

What is on your mind, dearest? I ask.

Refrain today, she says. I cannot do it today. I don't want to.

Oh, but you can, you shall and you will, I say. We will, and my voice trembles with love and desire. It is lovely and I shall make you content!

No. Not today. It is my daughter's birthday today. Eight years since she came into the world through the hole you so wish to enter. For this reason you must not stick your cock inside me today.

My dear, I say, stiffening in my stiffness, in my satyric curvature upon her. I did not know. Forgive me.

She says nothing. She turns to face the wall. I lie the whole night and listen to her breathing.

.  .  .

Devotions on the green outside the church. Emotional!

For some time a number of the inhabitants here have spoken of exhuming one of their deceased relatives to see if what is said is correct, which is that the unchristened become saved by virtue of their descen­dants' salvation. They came to me then with this request, for permission to carry out the enterprise. I conferred with Maria Magdalene, who was at once angered and vexed by the matter and called them ignorant and heretical and was prepared to have the culprits lashed, but after a while she settled and opined that perhaps it was best thus, in the light of day, for otherwise they would do so in the night, when no one could watch them. And thus she allowed it to happen.

A grave was selected and they set about the task with hacks and spades, and within a short time they had dug through the thin covering of earth to the cadaver that lay swathed in skins and which was lifted from the grave at once and placed upon the ground beside it. With caution the skins were unfolded. I stood at the front in order to observe the undertaking and to ensure that no improper conduct occurred with respect to the deceased.

A face then appeared, whole and unscathed, a young woman's, and thereupon her body, as pale and smooth as marble, yet quite without post­mortem lividity or any other visible
degeneratia mortis
. Her mother, an elderly wife, kneeled down at her side and burst into tears, whereafter the entire gathering followed suit. I cannot truthfully deny that I, too, felt compelled to stifle a sob. And yet the weeping quickly passed, for the face of the deceased became visibly enlivened, as though awakened by such lamentation, and a smile appeared on her lips, which for some time took on a rosy appearance. We held our breath at this sight, not a word was uttered, and all that could be heard was the wind in the grass. Abruptly the miracle ceased and the young woman slid back into death like a person drowned sliding back into the sea, and her cheeks sank about her cheekbones and became once more ashen and as hard as stone.