The Prophets of Eternal Fjord (6 page)

He gets to his feet and studies her. One arms rests over her eyes. It looks like she is sleeping. He smoothes his hand over her hair.

Then he places two rigsdalers on the pillow and neatens himself, bids the wife a friendly farewell on his way out and returns across the no-man's-land.

He is back in the city, on his way home, away from the ramparts and the strange part of himself he has left behind. He cannot grasp what has occurred, only that it has made him glad. The snow falls quietly without a breath of wind to disturb it. The white streets glisten in the faint glow of the train-oil lamps that light up the windows. Morten Falck tramps along Studiestræde. Some streets away he hears a watchman sing, a rambling melody from medieval times, though he is unable to pick out the words. The hour must be well past midnight. The pretty tune makes him giddy. He dances a few steps in the virgin snow, twirls a pirouette, draws a circle in the blanket of white with the toe of his boot, sees its powder whirl at his feet. He stops and glances around. No one has seen him. He continues on his way.

Noble sir!

The watchman steps from the shadow of a gateway and raises his hand.

Morten halts, stiffening in mid-pace.

Noble sir, the watchman says again, is he inebriated?

No, Morten replies. He considers the man's bulbous nose, the blood­shot eyes. But you are! he feels an urge to say.

The watchman stares at him unkindly. Should I light his way home?

Thank you, but that won't be necessary. My lodgings are only two streets away.

Before the watchman can say any more, he turns down Nørregade and walks briskly on towards the printer's house.

Nothing shall remain unknown, he tells himself, the greasy taste of hermaphrodite sperm still in his mouth. I wish to know everything before I marry.

February passes, March comes. The snow falls without abatement. It swirls around the steeples and piles up in the gutters and along the walls of the buildings. Peasants and fishermen bring their wares to the city with runners on their carts. The nostrils of the horses expel white columns of frosty steam. The beasts labour, stumble in the slippery streets, whin­nying and snorting, depositing excrement in fear. The steam of their breath freezes into beads and garlands of lace in their manes and fore­locks. Morten finds it a torment to see the poor animals mistreated. The stables in the city are filled to the brim. Peasants are unable to come home at night or else they lie drunk in the serving houses, leaving their horses tethered to a fence or a stake. Each morning the watchmen discover those that have succumbed in the night, hanging by their heads in the tethers, thin legs splayed to the sides. If the owner turns up he is handed a fine. The carcasses are transported out of the city, to the melting houses of the soap and glue makers, who work around the clock on account of this sudden abundance of raw materials.

But the cold has its advantages. The stench of the gutter, a plague for most of the year, is almost gone. Even when the nightmen come and slop out the buckets there is hardly a smell. Rats and mice have become less of a pest. The eternal gnawing and scratching in the filling of the wall behind Morten's bedstead quietens, and the bugs vanish into cracks to become dormant. The city smells only of coal and wood smoke, of which Morten is fond, especially when it is mingled with the frosty air. But it is not healthy. It makes him cough, as the whole town resounds with the coughing of its inhabitants. For a fortnight he lies with fever and spits mucus into a bucket at his bed. One of the printer's maids comes with soup and hot elder syrup and aquavit. She changes his damp sheets and will wash his clothes. There are more messages from the young mistress. He no longer crumples them up. He gathers them in a pile in the drawer of his nightstand. He gives the girl the flacon of lavender to bring to Miss Schultz, and this time it is not returned. He thinks about the boy, or the girl, in the little shed out at the ramparts, the wife who sat knitting without glancing up, the warm liquid in his mouth. Is it something he has imagined in his fever? Or is the fever a punishment for having sinned against nature?

His temperature subsides. He feels the fever leave him. He coughs investigatively. His chest and ribs are sore from all his hacking, but the thick mucus of before is gone. He will not die. His sins are forgiven.

With cautious, testing steps he crosses the yard to eat with the print workers. They greet him kindly and make room for him on the bench. Several have also been ill; one is there no longer. He enquires about the printer's household. Have they been struck? No, the printer and his family are privileged and may retire to the country, where they can stay isolated from the poisonous and invisible filth of the city air, so all are thankfully in good health. And now they have returned. They glance at him and smile. He stares into his soup.

One day she is in the courtyard as he comes unsteadily from his lunch. Her gaze is firm and bright. She smiles. He nods, hesitates, unable to walk forward or back, and raises a hand in greeting. She goes back inside the house. He sees the heel of her ankle boot as she jaunts up the step and imagines a fragrance emanating in concentric rings from her dainty feet. He thinks of his hand against her skin, against silken garments drawn aside to reveal the animal within, her warmth merging with his cold, her mouth opening, a darting tongue. A faint smell of lavender hangs in the air of the yard. Either he is hallucinating or else she has opened his gift.

Sitting in his room, the steeple of Vor Frue Kirke visible in the upper rectangle of the window, he struggles to write her a letter. No words are forthcoming besides the salutation.
Dear Abelone. My dear Miss Schultz. Dearest Miss Schultz. Beloved Abelone. My beloved Miss Schultz. Dear friend.
He feels his mind to be unready after his illness. His judgement cannot yet be trusted to strike the proper tone and form of address that will reveal to her his intentions without being inappropriate.

The mistress encourages him to touch her. She demands payment for placing her skin at the disposal of his trembling fingertips. He draws her rags aside and his fingers explore. He whimpers and cannot find what he is looking for. He does not know what he is looking for. Love, perhaps? A quintessence of the female principle, concealed at the point where her legs meet? A wild animal? He looks up at her, but her face is like water, indistinct in the dingy corner of the serving house. He grabs her harshly, tears the rags from her body and forces his member inside her. Her buttocks part, and he feels her warm anus thrust against his pelvic bone. She looks up at him over her shoulder and laughs shamelessly. She lies spread across a table, her hands fumbling to grip its edge. He studies her closely. It is Miss Schultz, not the other one. Or is it? Is this love? he asks himself, then falls on the floor and wakes.

Dear Miss Schultz. I am now sufficiently restored as to be able to sense once more what is occurring and what has occurred during this recent time.

My gratitude to you is greater than I can express in words. I wish, therefore, to do so in action!

What then? What action? He crumples the paper in his hand. There are no more sheets. The ink pot is nearly dry and broken quill nibs lie all about, together with his crumpled attempts at formulation. He goes outside, crosses the yard and knocks on the door of the printer's house. The maid ushers him in. He stands and waits in an anteroom on the ground floor, then is led upstairs to the printer's office. He has no idea what intention has brought him here.

Schultz sits behind his desk, surrounded by heavy folios and stacks of books with gilded letters on the spines. He issues a sound to convey that he is aware of Morten's presence and requires him to wait, but does not look up from his papers. Morten goes to the window and looks out. The view is an altered version of his own. The same walls, the same rooftops and chimneys, the steeple of Vor Frue Kirke protruding from the bare branches of the sycamore. He sees the window of his room, a surface darkened by reflection and allowing no view inside. The yard is white with snow, circular tracks of horse-drawn carts wind around the tree. Faintly, he hears the sound of the press.

It gladdens me that he has risen, says Schultz behind him.

He turns, then seats himself on the chair to which the printer's hand is extended.

I feel nearly fully restored.

We were worried about him. The printer's eyebrows are raised high on his forehead, as though he has uttered something amusing or else expects Morten to do so. My eldest daughter especially has been con ­cerned for his well-being.

I hope I have not been the cause of unnecessary anxiety.

Not at all! Solicitude is in a woman's nature and it is only healthy for young girls to be given a proper sense of life's realities, to learn of the harshness that exists outside the protective walls of the home. Nevertheless, it is a good thing Mr Falck did not succumb. It would not have been beneficial to my daughter's aspect on life.

Nor to my own, says Morten. The printer nods. They laugh. Morten makes note of two things: the printer has called him Falck and referred to his daughter as a woman.

No, I am genuinely happy to see him, says Schultz. It pleases me, really. We have become used to having him here with us. If he were no longer here, something would feel amiss. Anyway, was there something he wished to ask?

I have run out of paper and ink, he says. And quill nibs.

Aha! The student is at work on his thesis? When does he intend to conclude his studies?

This summer, if all goes well.

If he wishes to have the thesis printed and bound, he must come to me. A well-composed text will surely make an impression on his principals.

Thank you. I shall remember it.

There is a lull in the conversation, during which neither speaks. Schultz sits reclined in his high-backed chair considering him. His hands are folded on his stomach. He has dark eyes, Morten notices, and his powdered wig is placed on the desk. His own hair is gathered in a thin, grey pigtail at his nape.

Approach my bookkeeper, Kierulf. He will equip the student with whatever he might need.

Morten makes a third note: the printer mentions nothing of payment for these supplies.

He returns to his room with ink, pens, quality paper, envelopes and sealing wax enough to last him months. The desktop is scarred with deep grooves made by the penknife he has used to absently dig into the wood. He retrieves a blotting pad and spreads it out over the desk. He moves the desk to the window facing the yard so that he might look out over the rooftops as he works.

Dear Abelone.

He does not crumple the paper. Now he can stand to look at it. He studies his handwriting, the swirls of the quill. His hand is fully restored like the rest of him, though it has become rather more slanting, a touch more pointed. Through the window he watches the afternoon turn grey. He sees that beyond the frost-covered pane it has begun to snow. He puts on his coat and boots and goes into town.

The cold has subsided. His feet remain warm inside his well-greased boots. The city is oddly still. Perhaps it is the silence that follows upon serious illness or perhaps it is because of the snow that falls in large flakes. He walks down Vimmelskaftet towards Amager Torv, but then turns left along Klosterstræde, wanting to look around the narrow streets of the Klædebo quarter, perhaps purchase a little something for Miss Schultz, a token of his gratitude for all that she has done for him, for his being alive, and for the feelings she arouses within him. And then he is in Vester Kvarter. He cannot recall having passed the Rådhus, and yet he must have done. Hanens Bastion. And now he is in the same drinking house. The host seems to recognize him and brings ale. He seats himself and listens to the music and the talk at the tables.

Later, the boy appears. He sits down at his table.

Now it'll soon be spring, Pastor.

He says nothing.

Then we can get away from here.

Where will you go?

All over. Anywhere. I like to be journeying, to see what's round the next corner.

I could go with you, says Morten and laughs.

The boy laughs, too. A fine gentleman like the pastor can't go with one like me.

Morten smiles. He says nothing. The potman brings them their frothy mugs. He looks up at the man and sees himself reflected in him. I must be radiant, he thinks. Am I lost or saved?

Does he want a turn like before? says the boy.

No. I just wanted to see you one last time. To see if you were real.

Skål
, Pastor, says the boy. I'm sure we'll meet again.

I doubt it, he says, and leaves half a rigsdaler on the table.

He resumes his studies, working his hardest to complete them. Eventually spring arrives. The days grow longer, the weather milder. The gutters thaw and the nightmen shovel the filth ahead of them through the city to the canals. The cobbles are shiny and clean, then comes new waste from the latrine buckets and night pots, mash from the brewing houses and distilleries. The warmth, the stench and the rats come seeping back with an epidemic of the fever that weeds out the city's most impoverished. Four of the boys he has taught at the Vajsenhus expire with them. His own constitution is strong and sound.

In June 1785 he graduates
non contemnendus
, i. e. with the lowest grade required to pass. And yet it is better rather than worse than he had expected. He has been afraid of a
rejectus
and has already composed in his mind a letter of apology home to his father. He has neglected his theology. Not until this last half year has he studied systematically. But for his probationary sermon in Vor Frue Kirke, where he speaks for Professor Swane and a select congregation upon David's Psalm 43, he receives a
laudabilis
, the highest mark possible. His performance surprises not only his examiners, but also himself. He has felt a man's gaze upon him, a very old man seated in the front row, with grey-blue eyes, angular hawk nose and a smiling, vivacious mouth that seems to repeat and chew upon each word he hears. He does not know who this man is, but his presence has a stimulating effect upon him and after a while he addresses only him. Afterwards, they are introduced. He is Poul Egede, pastor of Vartov and bishop of Greenland, son of Hans Egede. Moreover, he is principal of the Seminarium Groenlandicum, a position he has inherited from his father.