Independent People (35 page)

“Father,” she sobbed, “I want to go home. Father, Father, let me go home.”

But he told his little love to stop her whimpering. “The silly lads are only amusing themselves; they’ve had a drop too much to drink, and in a minute or two they’ll be weeping down one another’s necks; so take your clothes off now, we save a dime by using the same bunk.”

The bedsteads were ranged along the walls of the room and had each an upper and a lower bunk. The child crept into one of the lower bunks and slipped off the flowered dress, but did not dare take off her petticoat.

The peacemakers talked on, still discussing the fight and its causes, over and over again in various forms and from various points of view. Finally they began whispering in confidence out in the middle of the floor, the amount of adultery that was going on was really something terrible. Though she heard little of their whispering, Asta Sollilja could neither sleep nor rest and was still shivering under the coverlet, so strong was her emotion after having lived the Rhymes in this unrhymed, commonplace fashion.

She was thankful when the company, showing signs of sleepiness at last, proceeded to blow their noses, unfasten their shoes, and pull off their trousers. Her father, too, sat down on the edge of the bed, blew his nose, unfastened his shoes, and pulled off his trousers. She listened expectantly to his movements, feeling that he took an age to rid himself of every garment. Not before he was lying beside her did she think herself safe; never had she felt such an impatient or so irresistible a desire to nestle close up to him as after this brawl. She could not yet control the trembling of her limbs; her teeth were still chattering in her head. The men bade one another good-night in Christian fashion, and their beds creaked as they lay down.

“Move over a bit, lass,” said her father, “there’s no room at all in these damned things,” and she tried to squeeze herself as close to the wall as possible. “There we are, chicken, turn your face to the wall now and go to sleep.”

But she simply could not get to sleep. There seemed to be so much cold coming from the partition, probably that was why she was shivering so much. The coverlet was far too thin and her father had pulled it nearly all away from her, and the warmth from him only warmed her back; her shivering fits continued with little pause. The men around had fallen asleep immediately and were now snoring loudly, but there was no sleep for her in the cold from the wall.

The hours passed and she was still lying awake. At last she opened her eyes. The curtains had been drawn over the windows and the room was dim; it must have been well after midnight and both her knees were sticking from under the coverlet and there seemed to be a draught from the wall above her; her father had not even said good-night to her, though he knew how much she
was afraid. All around her strangers were sleeping in this great, mysterious house of the world, the world that she had looked forward to with such anticipation that she had thought sleep a waste of time. And now, when at last she had got out into this world of hers, she found herself suddenly so terrified of it that no matter how she tried she could not sleep for fear; she was surrounded on all sides by evil men whose wives wore red pants. How could she possibly sleep here alone, in an ominous, unrecognizable world? Alone? No, no, no, she was not alone. As long as her father was with her, she could never, never be alone even though he forgot to say good-night; only to have him lying beside her was enough, dear Father, darling Father, your little Asta Sollilja is near you. And then before she realized it she was thinking of the soft white place on his neck, the place that would relieve all apprehension if only she could rest her mouth on it. And because they were all snoring; and because she could not get to sleep; and because she was so cold; because she was so lonely; so sad and apprehensive out in the world—and yet so happy at having him by her side, security itself, he who could do anything he liked and owed not a soul; whom nothing could surprise; who had an answer to everything; the king of Summerhouses; and a poet—because of all this she began very slowly to turn over, so slowly that there was not a single creak; so slowly that no one would be able to tell that she was moving; only a very, very little at a time; and then a very little once more; and the house silent except for the snores of night as if from another world and the birds crying high over the great town; and finally she had turned right over, turned towards her father; no, she was not alone out in the world, she was awake beside her father’s strong breast. She edged her head nearer on the pillow, till her lips found rest on his throat and her closed eyes in his beard—the man who had fought the country’s spectres barehanded on the very night that she was born.

At first she thought he was asleep and had not noticed anything. The moments passed. She heard his breathing and listened also to the strong, heavy beating of his heart. But gradually she realized from his movements, which were far too small and wary, that he could not be sleeping; he was awake. And she was ashamed of herself—would he rise and strike her, angry because she had dared to turn round after he had ordered her to face the wall? In her despair she nestled even closer to him, and for a while
they lay thus with their hearts beating quickly one against the other. She was lying motionless now, with her face against his neck, pretending to be asleep. Little by little, almost without her being conscious of it, his hand had come nearer, involuntarily of course; all that he had done was to make a very slight change of position. One of the two buttons of her knickers had by some chance become unfastened, and in the next moment she felt his hand, warm and strong, on her flesh.

She had never known anything like it. All her fear was suddenly gone. The shiver that now passed through body and soul was of a kind altogether different from the cold shivering that had kept her awake all night, and in her mouth there was suddenly something that resembled a ravenous appetite, except that it was not the sight of food but his movements that had roused her hunger. Nothing, nothing must ever separate them again; and she gripped his body fiercely and passionately with both hands in the intoxication of this impersonal, importunate selfishness that in a moment of time had wiped everything from her memory. Was this the delight of the world come at last—

And then—then there occurred the event that she never afterwards forgot; that was to cast an indelible shadow over her waking youth and fill to overflowing the cup of harshness and cruelty that was already her lot; at this very moment when she had forgotten everything but him—he pushed her away from him and jumped out of bed. Hastily he pulled on his socks and his trousers, tied his shoes, slipped on his jacket, and was out of the room. He closed the door behind him, she heard his step in the passage, he opened the outer door and was gone. She was left there alone among the snoring men. She lay for a while exhausted, every thought wiped from her mind, but he did not return. Little by little the reproaches began to steal into her mind. What had she done? What had happened? She had not the remotest idea, felt only that it must be something terrible, something a hundred times worse than when he had slapped her face because of an unreadable passage in a ballad; something that he would never afterwards be able to forgive her, however long she lived. What had she done to him? And why did she have to go and do just that? How could she possibly have suspected that such dreadful, incomprehensible things lurked behind something so good and innocent as nestling up to his throat? What had happened to her? “Father, father, what have I done to you? Am I so terribly bad,
then?” The tears began to flow and, sobbing bitterly, she pressed her face into the pillow for fear of waking the snoring men. Her father had gone home and would chase her away if she followed.

At length she could weep no more and sat up in bed and looked about her despairingly. Yes, he must certainly have left her; she was alone and helpless out in an evil world. Who would give her anything to eat now when she was hungry? It occurred to her that possibly she might be allowed to stay with Magnus’s father, the warehouseman who had weighed the wool yesterday. Or should she try to pluck up sufficient courage to approach the merchant himself? Perhaps the secretary, Jon of Myri’s son, who had spoken so nicely to her once, would be willing to shelter her. She arrived at no conclusion and got out of bed in her utter despair. She slipped on her dress and pulled on her shoes, and then she noticed that her necklace had snapped, the beads were lying scattered all over the bed. But it was all the same to her, she had lost all interest in these beads of hers now that her father had forsaken her; her life was ruined and she was left alone in the world.

She stole quietly to the door, sneaked out into the dark passage, and in a few moments was standing outside in the light of the spring night, in the deserted streets of the town. A fine rain was falling; there was mist down to the middle of the hillsides. She did not know what time it was, but it must still be very early; no one about, the screaming of gulls out on the fjord unlike the song of any other bird. She wandered mindlessly away up the street.

She could never have imagined a world so soulless, a town so desolate. Not a single living soul to be seen; the chill mist and its fine rain hanging over gravel and houses. Many of the houses were out of the perpendicular. There were broken windows everywhere. The paint had scaled off the corrugated iron, and here and there whole sheets had been blown away and not fixed up again. The rain had washed the mortar off the tarred paper, which in many places hung in great shreds from the walls. Smelly fish-heads and fish-bones on fences and palings. Dejected cows chewing the cud on the open slopes. No elegant men, no fine girls. Desolation.

Aimlessly she trailed away up the main street in the direction of the mountain, her legs uncertain, her mind void of thought. The rain wet her hair, and her dress was soon soaking, but it did not matter. Then through the mist there loomed up before her a man leading a horse. As he approached she saw that it was her father. He had been fetching the horse from the pasture.

‘What’s the matter? Why aren’t you in bed?” he asked. She
stood motionless, with downcast eyes, then turned away from him without replying.

“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll go and get the cart.”

She sat down on a stone by the roadside, and the rain continued to wet her hair and her neck; soon her fingers were numb with cold. But she remained where she was, cold, sleepy, hungry, dazed. At last she heard the rattle of the cart in the quiet night air and saw her father approaching once more with the horse yoked in.

“You can sit in the cart if you like,” he said.

But she preferred to walk.

He led the horse along the steep winding path up the mountainside, the girl stumbling along behind. The higher they ascended, the heavier grew the rain; by the time they reached the top of the gap it had become a steady downpour, which had long since soaked the girl to the skin. The water streamed from her hair down her back and over her chest. Then all at once she remembered the handkerchief that she had looked forward to for such a long time, the handkerchief that the great ones of the world had been so eager to help her buy. Where was little Asta Sollilja’s handkerchief? It was lost. But it did not matter. It was all the same to her. Nothing mattered. She slipped in the muddy road, and when she got to her feet again, her dress was dirty and torn.

I’m going to rest the horse at the top here,” said her father. “And we’d better finish what we have to eat.’

Yesterday’s great ocean had disappeared completely in the sullen cloud of mist and rain below, and of the foothills and the plain with its great town there was nothing to be seen. In front of them the moorland hills rose in the rain and were lost to view. The road home and the distance yet to be covered seemed cold and unending and the girl thought cheerlessly of all the monotonous eternity that lay before them.

They sat down on a wet stone on the brink. Her father sat with his back to her, the bag of food on his knees. He passed over his shoulder a slice of dry bread and a piece of fish, the remains of the food that had been packed yesterday morning. But though she had been hungry a few minutes ago, she found that she had no appetite at all now and that the rain made these hard scraps even less tempting than otherwise, so it was with difficulty and disgust that she swallowed each bite. Her father was silent. They sat with their backs turned upon each other, while the rain splashed drearily on the stones all around. The food was so nauseating
that after a few bites she had to stand up; she walked forward a few paces and was sick. She spewed up the few mouth-fuls that she had managed to swallow and continued retching till finally she vomited a little gall. Then the moors began.

T
HE SUMMER
that followed was in one respect without precedent: it was the first time that Bjartur of Summerhouses ever employed hired labour. This major event soon became a date of reference in the history of Summerhouses, anything that had happened previously being so-and-so long before the summer that I had that old bitch of a Fritha, and anything that happened subsequently so-and-so long after old Fritha was here, damn her.

Who was Fritha?

The reason for her was this: now that there was a cow on the croft the number of hands would have to be increased to mow the additional hay. And just as it had been the perseverance of the Rauthsmyri folk that had forced the cow on Bjartur, so was it perseverance from the same quarter that now dumped an extra worker on the farmer of Summerhouses—though of course only after the latter had made the usual reflections on the former’s characters. And the workwoman came.

The Bailiff, who had sense enough for a whole parish, could of course be relied upon to choose someone who would suit Bjartur’s purse, so it was a stunted old wretch that turned up, a woman who had been living on the parish for years and years and who was, moreover, cursed with such a scurrilous tongue that very few could put up with her for any length of time. She had never been known to live on peaceful terms with her superiors and always reserved her most venomous abuse for her employers of the moment. As they were usually peasants, she had ample reason for criticism; she thought aloud. She had her own sort of delicate health, and unless supplied regularly with quantities of medicine to keep her up to the mark would take to her bed and stay there, medicine being her luxury, her particular form of self-indulgence. At first this medicine had been supplied by Dr. Finsen and put on the parish account, but there arrived a time when the Bailiff felt that he must put his foot down; these eternal bills were doing their share in ruining the taxpayers; so, being an expert in the art
of medicine, especially where paupers were concerned, he started brewing the medicine for her himself. These preparations, though poisonously strong, never appeared on any bill, and though he rarely handed them over without some grudging comment, he was always very liberal with the measure once he got started, never less than a three-gill bottle at a time, sometimes two. It was not usual to pay her any wage except in the height of summer, but this summer the Bailiff arranged that Bjartur should have an option on her services and should pay her a few crowns a week, of which half was to be in wool. She believed in Jesuspeter and invoked him endlessly.