North Child (6 page)

Then one day, taking a basketful of eggs to Widow Hautzig, Rose laid eyes on the widow's loom. Widow Hautzig was a local craftswoman who had a small business weaving coats and rugs and various other items to sell both in nearby Andalsnes and to wandering merchants who would take them to fairs and markets farther afield. To Rose, who knew only our own rough one at home, the widow's loom was large and impressive. It was twice as tall as Rose, and the wood was polished and carved with simple designs.

Unfortunately, Widow Hautzig was a grouchy old woman with no patience at all for a small, wild girl desperate to learn all about her beautiful loom. More than anything in the world, Rose longed for a loom of her own, a fine big one like the widow's. But she knew that was impossible, that Father would never be able to afford it. Still, Rose was stubborn, and she would not rest until she had found a way to get the Widow Hautzig to let her use her loom.

When she was nine Rose found out that Widow Hautzig had a weakness for chanterelle mushrooms. So Rose trained her favourite dog, Snurri, to sniff out chanterelles in the forest. After much hard work she struck a deal: in exchange for a weekly basket of chanterelle mushrooms, Widow Hautzig would teach Rose how to work her loom. Though the lessons were short and very disagreeable (often Rose would come home in tears over some gibe of the widow's), still Rose was a determined pupil, and before long the baskets of chanterelles were being traded for a chance to actually do her own weaving on the loom.

She could only do this during the very short breaks between Widow Hautzig's own projects, some of which took a long time to complete. And Rose would have had no time at all on the loom were it not for Widow Hautzig's rheumatism. When her rheumatism was acting up, the widow would take a long rest, sometimes even as much as a fortnight if it was a particularly bad bout.

“Thank God for Widow Hautzig's rheumatism,” Rose would say every night before bed. Mother once overheard her and scolded her, so Rose was careful to whisper those words to herself from then on.

Even with Widow Hautzig's rheumatism, Rose never could weave anything that required more than a few days' work. Then, one day, as she was trying to discourage Snurri from digging under Widow Hautzig's storage hut, Rose saw something through a crack in the woodwork of the hut. There were no windows in the hut, but it was not locked, and without asking permission, Rose entered the small building. The inside was cloaked with dust and cobwebs, but Rose barely noticed. Her eyes were riveted by a good-sized loom leaning against the far wall of the hut. The frame listed at a precarious angle; the warp beam and heddle rods were splintered; there appeared to be no crossbeam at all; and a tangle of decayed and unravelled warp thread sprouted from top and bottom, but Rose was not discouraged.

It took Rose a long time and many baskets of chanterelles to convince Widow Hautzig to let her try her hand at fixing up the broken-down loom, which had been the castoff of an old aunt of the widow's. In return the widow made Rose clean the filthy old storage hut until it was spotless.

Rose then cajoled Father and me, as well as Willem, to help her repair the loom. Widow Hautzig offered no assistance, and even insisted that it not be removed from her property. She also complained unceasingly of the small amount of noise we made, hammering and sanding and such.

I was appalled when Widow Hautzig did not give Rose the loom outright, since she had no use for it herself. What rankled even more was that the nasty woman even continued to demand chanterelle fees for the use of the loom we repaired, and made Rose work in that windowless, unheated hut.

Nevertheless, I'd never seen Rose so happy as when she could grab a few moments to go off and work on the loom.

I wrote a poem about Widow Hautzig. It began

Hautzig the weaver, queen of the dead.

The strands in her loom dripping with red.

Lips dry as bone, her hair made of snakes,

The souls of her victims to Hel she does take.

Well, maybe I exaggerated. But only a little.

The first thing I made on Widow Hautzig's loom was a table runner. It had a simple reindeer design in the weave, and I was absurdly proud of it. My next projects were a shawl for Mother and head scarves for my three sisters. Then I made a jacket for Neddy and a pair of breeches for Father.

The last thing I made on that loom was for me. A cloak. It took me nearly half a year to finish. It was during this time that things went so wrong with the farm.

Father told me the bad luck began the year I was born. The barley crop failed, and that setback was followed by an unusually harsh winter that killed off our largest sow. Since then there had been blight that killed our fruit trees, a sickness that went through our poultry, not to mention a heartbreaking series of crop failures. By the summer when I was working on my cloak, there was so little to go around that it didn't seem right to be hunting chanterelles for Widow Hautzig; nor was there much time for weaving, other than that which was strictly necessary. We were all working so hard just to keep from starving. And there was no extra wool for spinning.

For a long time I had been in the habit of scrounging for tufts of wool. I would find them stuck to fences and the bark of trees. But it really wasn't enough, and it was only thanks to Father that I was able to finish my cloak at all. He brought me wool, clumps that he had bargained for from neighbours, and he insisted that I take breaks from chores to go chanterelle hunting with Snurri.

Widow Hautzig's tongue grew sharper over the years. She was unsympathetic to our ill fortune, sometimes even openly cruel about it, making nasty remarks about my father's farming abilities. I would have stopped going altogether had I not been on the verge of finishing my cloak. It was the best piece I had ever made. As our life got worse and worse at the farm, I even thought I might sell it, to bring in badly needed money, but Father wouldn't hear of it. He said the cloak belonged to me. The next thing I made, he suggested, we would sell.

I showed the cloak to Neddy first. I met him coming home from Widow Hautzig's, the material folded in my arms. It was a sunny day, with a brisk autumn wind blowing, and I was feeling a little breathless, irrationally excited about the thing I was carrying.

He knew at once. And smiled his dear, slow smile. “Show me,” he said simply.

I started to unfold the cloak, then, impatient, I shook it out. It caught the breeze, billowing up between us. Then it flapped into Neddy's face and we both laughed. He took hold of his end and I held tight to mine. We lowered the cloak and Neddy saw the pattern for the first time.

“A wind rose,” he said, then realizing, “
your
wind rose.”

I nodded. “Do you think Father will like it?”

“Of course. It is beautiful.”

I laughed again. I couldn't help it, for I knew he was right.

“Look,” I said, pulling the cloak downward and gesturing for Neddy to lay it on the grass. “Now I'll never be lost, no matter how far I travel.” Glancing quickly up at the sun, I pulled off my boots and, in my stockinged feet, positioned myself at the centre of the cloak. “See, I am the compass needle,” I explained somewhat proudly.

“Put it on,” Neddy urged. He took the cloak from me and fastened it at the neck.

The cloth felt warm and solid and good around me.

“Fit for a queen,” Neddy said, holding up the ends and pretending to be my courtier. I laughed, remembering the games we'd played as children; I'd be Queen Rose and he would be my loyal wizard or squire or tutor, whatever role he felt like playing that day.

Then he let go of the cloak, and the wind grabbed it again. Neddy tried several times to catch hold of it, and we were both laughing until tears came into our eyes.

It was then I saw the bear. Neddy and I were standing near a thick cluster of whitebeam trees, and it was through the trees that I saw it. That is, I saw its eyes and could make out a faint blur of white fur through the branches. We looked full into each other's eyes for what seemed a long time. Neddy was still going on about Queen Rose, but his voice faded and I was aware of only those black eyes.

I should have been frightened, with a large wild animal not fifty feet away, but I was not.

Unafraid.

Her mouth. A smile.

Piercing.

So long ago, so much lost.

Alone.

Always alone.

A cloak. Catching the wind.

Colours.

North.

South.

East.

West.

Purple eyes.

North south east west.

East.

Unafraid.

Rose whispered something, but I couldn't hear it. Her eyes were fixed on the trees that lay a stone's throw away.

“A white bear, Neddy,” she said, louder.

But by the time I turned to look, there was nothing there.

Rose dragged me over to the whitebeams and the two of us examined the ground for markings of a large animal. “You believe me, don't you?” Rose asked. There was nothing to show a bear had been there.

And yet I believed her, though I did not say so.

“'Tis almost suppertime,” I said abruptly, and began to lead the way back. Rose took off her cloak and, folding it as she walked, trotted along beside me.

“What is it, Neddy?” she said.

“Nothing,” I replied, trying to keep my voice normal. “It's gotten late…”

But I was lying. I was frightened. Not of the white bear, at least not for myself.

“Are you sure?” she persisted.

“Yes.”

Rose gave me one last sidelong glance.

“I wish you had seen it, Neddy. It was so large, and its eyes…” she said. “I get this feeling it wanted something. And that it was sad.”

“Must be your imagination,” I said, making my voice light and teasing. “This time of year it's still too warm for a white bear. And you know they don't come this far south, even in winter. Perhaps it was a white doe. Their eyes sometimes look sad.”

But of course I was lying. For I had seen the eyes of a white bear, that time years before. And I felt sure it was the same one.

I knew about white bears. After that day when I had looked into the eyes of the white bear that saved Rose, I set out to become an expert on them. I would interview everyone I came into contact with, to see if they had ever seen a white bear or if they knew anything of white bears. Most knew nothing. My main source of information turned out to be a peddler who had travelled into the far north and had once even been on a Saami expedition of white-bear hunters.

“Before going out on the ice to hunt the white bear,” the peddler told me, “the Saami taught me. They said I must know the
isbjorn
by heart if I was going to hunt him. They called him the Great Wanderer or Ghost Bear. Other names they used are: He Who Walks Without a Shadow. Ice Giant. Nanook. The Traveller. Great White. Sea Bear.” The peddler paused, letting those names settle into my memory.

“The white bear is a solitary wanderer, never moving with a pack or even a mate. He walks on all fours, but when he stands he is nearly ten feet tall.” The peddler raised one hand as far as he could above his head.