The Prophets of Eternal Fjord (60 page)

In the stalls he finds an old pair of skis, which he fixes to his boots. It is twenty years since he has last skied, but he still has the knack, he discovers to his delight, and his body remembers how best to fall without hurting himself. He goes up on to the esker and winds his way down through the trees, snow showering from his skis with each twist of his legs, one foot slightly in front of the other, knees bent; he makes fine use of the slender fence post he has taken with him as a ski pole. Madame Krøger comes out and watches him, smiling and nodding appreciatively. He tumbles. She applauds. When he comes in to dinner, ruddy-cheeked and out of breath, eyebrows white with snow, battered by flicking branches and involuntary somersaults, he devours the meal ravenously and drinks a jug of sweet ale. Never in his adult life has he felt so healthy.

But the widow is in the house. Perhaps she has been there all along. Floorboards creak, a door opens and shuts, someone draws breath in a dark cranny. The animals sense her and the maid complains that there is a ghost.

There are no ghosts here, says the Madame. We have never had a single one. Who would it be?

Your blessed husband?

The Madame scolds her. But in the evening she is silent.

He tells her he will be leaving soon.

She nods in the darkness. I know.

She lies on her back, he on his side. His thighs embrace her own; his feet rub warmth into hers beneath the covers. They hold each other's hand.

When will you leave, do you think?

Soon.

Take the skis, then you will arrive sooner. I shall give you a letter to take with you. My husband had relatives and friends further east. They will give you shelter and food.

Early one morning in April he jumps on to the milk cart, clad in the deceased farmer's – the blessed Olav Olavsson's – old wolfskin coat. Madame Krøger hands him the skis and a proper pole.

Farewell, Gunhild Krøger!

Farewell, Morten Falck. Send me word.

The labourer drives him to Vinje. They part and the man thanks him for all he has done. On his skis he follows the sled track east. The days have begun to lengthen. The terrain slopes away to his advantage, ever downwards, through curves and bends. The farms and settlements lie close together. He encounters no problems finding accommodation. There is more traffic, more people along the road, pedlars and mongers, knife-grinders and itinerant smiths. Occasionally he accompanies one or another for a couple of days, before parting company again. Some of the way he spends seated upon horse-drawn carriages and sleds. The widow sits jiggling her feet. She follows him in everything he does. I suppose you're happy now, he thinks to himself.

He comes to a village, which may or may not be the one in which he grew up. He looks about. The road is churned up and muddy; he walks at its edge, so as not to get his feet wet in the icy slush. Some men are standing outside the blacksmith's shop. They hold their horses by the bridles and watch him as he approaches. From inside comes the clash of metal against metal and a man is singing. He lifts his hat; the men nod, yet continue to stare at him with suspicion. He cannot see the track that leads to his father's farm and so he continues on out of the village. Only after he has come some way and looks back from upon a ridge does he realize that it is indeed the village of his home. He goes back.

Now he finds the narrow track leading down to the ford. He passes the schoolhouse, carries on through a wooded area and then comes to a cluster of houses where some boys are at play and cackling hens strut about. A peasant woman he may possibly know empties a bowl through an open door and calls out, though not to him. He comes to an oak tree in which he once climbed; a hilltop with three elms upon it. Now he can see the house. The sun is out; an unseen blackbird sings from some foliage above; the track is almost dry here where the ground falls away, the grass between the wheel tracks is green and tall, the air mild and moist. He has wandered since morning and is hot and thirsty.

The farm appears among the trees: three small, black-painted build­ings of timber. He approaches the main house, glances around the yard in which he played as a boy, and only now does it hit him that his mother is dead. Always she has been here, at work in the kitchen, stooped over the flower beds, pottering about in the stables and the barn, in her head-scarf and bast shoes, threadbare coat and a dress reaching to the ground, always busy, always in good cheer. As he crosses the yard, she fades away. Now she is gone.

He knocks on the door; a girl comes out. He removes his hat and tells her who he is.

He's around here somewhere, she says. I saw him only a few minutes ago.

The horse is in the pasture, kicking up the snow with its hooves to find grass to eat. He goes up to it. It is a different horse, a mare. The old gelding of which he was always rather frightened is, of course, long dead. The horse looks up for a moment, only to lower its head again, uninter­ested. His father wrote that he has got rid of much of the livestock, since being left alone.

He goes into the stable and sees a pair of feet sticking out from one of the stalls. A voice speaks. He recognizes it to be his father's. It sounds muffled.

Here, kitty, come on, the voice says indistinctly.

Falck goes up to the stall.

Father?

Ssh! comes the reply, accompanied by a hand that waves him away.

Falck sees the seat of his father's pants, shiny and pinched, protruding from a hole in the floor. It looks like he has tried to crawl down into the hole and has got stuck.

Do you need any help? Falck enquires, but receives only the same gesture as before, this time followed by an exclamation of annoyance. He stands and waits. He looks around him. The stable seems not to have changed at all. He sees lamps hanging from nails, as they hung twenty years ago, flyspecked now, as then. He sees his own and his sister's names etched into the timber of the stalls. He sees a cracked pane, the glass frac­tured by his having knocked it with the end of a broom some twenty-five years ago, and he finds himself fearful that his father may have discovered the culprit.

But the voice is mawkish and ghostly now; it beckons from beneath the floorboards. The protruding arse is enlivened. Suddenly, there is activity: his father wriggles and begins to extract himself from the hole, then to appear, beaming with delight, hay and cow dung stuck in his hair, with three kittens squirming in his arms. A black and white farm cat follows him, rubbing itself affectionately against his legs as he gets to his feet.

Ha! he exclaims triumphantly. Gotcha, you little devils!

Falck assimilates the sight of his father, a small, adroit man with white, wavy hair smoothed back from his forehead and fine wrinkles radiating out from the corners of his eyes. His face is tanned, his ears large and jutting, his eyes alert and waggish.

Father.

His father finally removes his gaze from the kittens and looks up at him, studies him intently, head cocked back, as though in wonder or surprise, before speaking.

What happened to your eye, boy?

He reaches a hand up to his bad eye. Oh, nothing much. An accident, that's all.

And your teeth, what happened to them? You've certainly changed, I'll say.

Falck smiles at him. He wants to embrace him, but cannot on account of the kittens. You haven't at all.

We live a quiet life here, his father says. The years pass. Not much happens.

We?

Are you hungry? You must be starving, all that walking. Let's see if Karen has something for us.

He follows his father across the yard and has yet to be welcomed home. He realizes the moment has passed.

The kittens are placed carefully in a haybox that has been made ready for them next to the stove. Their mother lies down beside them and begins to purr as his father tickles her under the chin. He speaks kindly and comfortingly to her.

Will you be staying? he asks.

I don't know. I have no plans in particular.

Did you lose your position? Is that why you're back already?

He explains, while his father scrutinizes him, that he has stepped down quite legitimately and is moreover to receive a small sum each month in allowance. He omits to mention the large debt he has yet to even begin to repay.

We didn't know if you were coming, his father says. We knew nothing. Your letters, we could make head nor tail of them. How long have you been away, anyway?

Eleven years. Six in Greenland.

Well, indeed. Eleven years. It only seems like two since we sent you off. How time flies. His father shakes his head.

Father.

His father calls for the girl. He introduces her. This is Karen. She's been a great help in difficult times. He asks her to bring them some food.

She returns with flat bread and butter and a jug of ale that she pours out into three glasses before seating herself. The ale is fresh; he hears it fizzing in the glasses.

Karen is your new mother, his father says.

Oh, says Falck. He nods to her kindly.

The girl looks down. The cat has jumped into her lap; it narrows its eyes and nudges her hand with the side of its head. Inside in the parlour the big clock ticks.

Falck spreads a thick layer of butter on to his bread and bites off a piece. He sips his ale. He wishes to ask about his mother's final days, but cannot bring himself to, on account of her successor, whose knee rests against his under the table. His father seems cheerful and without cares.

I was saddened to hear of Kirstine's passing away, he says instead.

His father looks up, the ruminating movement of his jaw ceases abruptly. Yes, it was sad, he says curtly.

Do you know the cause of her death?

Her bereaved husband, Mr Gram, wrote to me. You can read his letter, if you like.

Was she ill?

Enough about the dead! his father snaps, his voice tinged with rage.

Your sister rests in consecrated soil, that's good enough for me. Read the letter, but don't mention her name again in this house.

His young stepmother makes up the bed for him in his old room. He lies fully clothed upon it and stares at the ceiling, studies the joists: their veins and grains, he senses with melancholy, gradually become aligned with his recollections. A pocket of time is torn open and empties its contents upon him. He had not thought it would feel like this, had consid­ered it would be pleasant to see it all again. Perhaps he is merely tired.

He unpacks his few belongings from the travelling chest that has been carried up to the loft, books, clothing, a lamp, a candlestick, the chess set and other items from his room in the Mission house. He sniffs at them. They smell of mould and much of his clothing has been ruined by mois­ture. But they smell of the Mission house, too. He turns a chess piece between his fingers and wonders how Bertel is.

The letter from Mr Gram, his sister's husband, is brief, yet fully informative. An accident with a razor. A great loss of blood. A period of confinement during which there was hope, and yet:
It pleased the Lord thereby, which is His right, to call my beloved home to Him on the night of Christmas Eve, for which reason my yuletide was somewhat unfortunately spent in the company of my aged mother, and we were compelled to tolerate gossip concerning my wife's demise.

Falck folds the letter and puts it back in the envelope. He places it on his night table. He looks at the envelope lying there. Kirstine is not inside it, and nor is her death. Her death has liberated itself from its report and she has attained salvation. He knows this to be true. Outside it has become evening; the trees catch the last of the sun's amber and the shore of the ford lies in shadow. He gets up and asks his father if the boat is where it used to be. It is. He goes down and puts it on the water and rows across to the opposite shore where there is still light. He sits in the grass.

Good, he thinks to himself. You did bravely, dear Kirstine. You are in a better place now than we who remain clinging to this life.

Since his father retired from the position of schoolmaster, a church warden has been entrusted with the teaching. But he is a sickly and unstable man with a tendency towards hysterical outbursts directed at the boys, and Falck takes on his lessons, albeit without contract of employment. The salary is poor; he has no choice but to remain with his father and his young companion. After a couple of months he confronts the woman and she admits to being pregnant. He puts the matter to his father, who pretends not to have known. You ought at least to show her the courtesy of marrying her, he tells him.

That's easy enough for you to say, you're young. I don't know how much time I've got left, his father says.

All the more reason.

Whatever happens, he is to become an elder brother. He can find within him not a single emotion, not joy, jealousy nor contempt. The disdain of which he makes a display is merely a matter of principle. Yet he must concede that the couple seem to be happy together, despite the forty years that separate them. His father complains of his symptoms and she teases him about it without him taking offence. Falck feels like he is the senior member of the household.

A calling in the Akershus diocese falls vacant. His father talks him into applying. He does not consider himself to be in any position to decline, and moreover he has begun to ponder upon his debt. Thus, he writes to the bishop and asks that he might
look graciously upon a former missionary among savages, who now has returned home to the district of his birth
. He receives in return a rather unkind letter of rejection, one that in no way encourages him to seek other positions. He remains in his father's house, eventually applying formally for the position of schoolmaster. It is the last thing in the world he wants, but he feels certain at least to be offered the job. A new letter of rejection, this time from the prefect's office. Nonetheless, they would like to keep him on until a qualified candi­date presents himself. His humiliation is there to be read in black and white and is made no less by his having no alternative but to remain in the job. He requests tamely that he might move in to the rooms above the schoolroom, but this request is also denied. The accommodation is for the schoolmaster alone. But then the old church warden, who has been living in the school's annexe, passes away, and he now has a place of his own, a door he can close behind him.