Far Afield (29 page)

“East off Húsavík.” Sigurd was huffing. “A two-man boat saw them.” He sat briefly in the chair opposite Jonathan and popped up again, circling the linoleum in his heavy boots. “An hour ago—they saw them an hour ago!” He was as near to frantic as Jonathan had ever seen anyone in these islands.

“You’re sure you don’t want coffee?” He lifted the pot a second time.

“There’s no time for coffee.” Sigurd snatched the pot from Jonathan’s hands and clanked it in the sink. “Get your boots.”

“Can I just finish this cup?”

“I’ll get them.” Sigurd ducked into the hall closet and clattered around.

“They’re here,” Jonathan called. “They’re by the stove.” Trying to enter into the spirit of the moment, he gulped his coffee and grabbed his boots. “I’ve got them,” he reported to Sigurd, who was still tangled up in the closet. “They’re on,” he added. Getting no response, he stepped
into the hall; no sign of Sigurd. He opened the front door in time to see Sigurd bounding up Petur’s steps. He took the coffeepot out of the sink and poured himself another cup.

He hadn’t drunk half of it before Sigurd blasted back into the kitchen with Heðin behind him.

“Hah,” said Heðin. “No time for coffee. Let’s go.”

Jonathan stood up.

“Bring your slicker,” said Heðin. And to Sigurd, “Have you got the knives?”

Sigurd nodded and made a last circle around the kitchen while Jonathan tugged the slicker over his heaviest sweater. “Are we ready?” Sigurd asked. Heðin, scuffing the floor like a horse pawing the dirt, watched Jonathan fumble with his snaps. “Leave it, leave it,” he said. He flung the door open and led them out.

They piled into a rusted-out Dodge Dart that sat idling a few feet from Petur’s door: Sigurd in the driver’s seat, Jonathan squeezed in the middle, knocking into the gearshift, Heðin holding on to the roof through the open window.

“Can you shut that window?” Jonathan asked. It was early still, about nine-thirty, and dark and cold.

“Can’t,” Sigurd said. “Door opens.”

“What?”

“I’ve got to hold the door shut like this,” said Heðin.

Jonathan sighed and finished snapping his slicker.

They were heading out the eastern road that crossed the mountain separating Skopun and Húsavík. As they neared the crest of the hill, the car slowed to a heaving, whining pace. Up at this height, the land was barren; it lay in gray, frost-edged slabs around them, drained of even the brown that tinged the turf around the village. And then they drove into a cloud, so dense Sigurd turned on the wipers. Heðin began to sing,
“Noregis menn, dansið vœl.”

Norsemen, dance well, Jonathan translated to himself, then asked, “What’s that song?”

“
Sigmund’s Kvœði
. We sing it after the
grind
.”

“Don’t sing it yet,” said Sigurd. “Ah, look.” He stopped the car.

They had cleared the cloud and reached the top, and below stretched the long finger of Húsavík Fjord. Staining the sky all around the horizon, the sun rose tomato red out of the ocean. All three men smiled. It was the time of year when the mountain obscured the sun till nearly noon in Skopun, and for weeks they had seen only an exhausted star already on the wane.

“Good, a red sun,” said Sigurd.

“Why is that good?” Jonathan asked.

“Much blood,” said Sigurd.

Jonathan gulped. He had so far put out of his mind what was awaiting them in Húsavík. He decided to change the topic. “We have a saying in America: Red sky at night, sailor’s delight, red sky at morning, sailors take warning.”

“We have it too,” said Heðin. “It’s about fish, though, not whales.”

“Fish? I thought it was about weather.”

“Fish, weather, what’s the difference?” Sigurd snapped the car on again, popped into neutral, and began coasting down the hairpin turns.

Sigurd was a remarkably bad driver, jamming the brakes on in the middle of curves, grabbing at the wheel and wrenching the car dangerously close to the boulders and cliffs that edged the road. He seemed, though, to be having fun, smiling and drumming his hand on the dashboard in time with Heðin, who was still humming the dirge-like tune of the
kvœði
. Jonathan was cold, getting hungry, and nagged by a sense of having forgotten something important. As they reached the outskirts of Húsavík, he realized what it was: his notebook.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” he said.

“Yah, we’re going to have a good Christmas this year,” Sigurd said. “A Christmas
grind
—that’s very nice. Whale and
spik
on Christmas eve.”

“I forgot my notebook,” Jonathan couldn’t believe he’d done this.

“There’s no time to write at a
grind
,” said Heðin.

“You write too much anyhow,” Sigurd put in. “You’re always walking around writing. You could make the Encyclopedia Britannica of the Faroes by now.”

Jonathan wondered where Sigurd came up with all his literary references: Swift, encyclopedias; soon he’d be quoting Milton. He looked at his boots and shook his head. Without the notebook, he felt unprotected. Without the notebook, he would have to participate in what was probably going to be mayhem. And now, worrying him further, Heðin opened the glove compartment and drew out three knives with blades about eight inches long and yellowed bone handles.

“Here,” he said, handing one to Jonathan, who took the knife and held it, blade up, between his knees.

“Hold it down, it’s sharp,” Heðin said.

“I know,” said Jonathan. “I know knives are sharp.”

Heðin leaned over, lifted a lock of Jonathan’s hair, and sliced through it without a sound. He held the clippings in front of Jonathan’s nose. “Really sharp,” he said. Then he laughed.

Jonathan did not laugh. Heðin slapped him on the knee. “
Mokka
, you know what that means?”

“To cut with a knife,” Jonathan answered.

Sigurd laughed. “We do that later, after we sing,” he said, leaning toward Jonathan.

“Do what?” Jonathan didn’t like being leaned on by these people who, at the moment, seemed like strangers, rather coarse strangers.

Heðin slid his right index finger back and forth across his left palm:
“Mokka,”
he explained, and winked.

“Oh.” Jonathan braced himself for a comment about Daniela, and sure enough, Heðin said, “Your girl in Tórshavn, we’ll call her from the post office. She could be here for tonight.”

“No,” said Sigurd. “He’ll get a new girl. A Húsavík girl.”

“Two girls,” said Heðin, “one for Sandoy, one for Streymoy. That way, you don’t have to wait for the fucking boat.”

“Very practical,” said Jonathan. He’d intended this to end the conversation, but it only set them both laughing.

“You like them fat?” asked Sigurd. Without waiting for an answer, he said, “I like a fat one. Like a nice little puffin. Keeps you warm.”

“Nah.” Heðin waved away the fat girls. “I don’t like them fat.”

Jonathan did not like the discussion. Talking about girls with Heðin was one thing; talking about girls with Sigurd was something else. Jonathan was young enough to find a middle-aged man’s lust embarrassing. And thinking about Daniela, even in private, was embarrassing. A number of times since Wooley’s visit he’d caught himself shaking his head and blushing as he cooked dinner or walked around town—discomfited by the awkwardness of the Daniela episode, which had been in some way compounded and amplified by Wooley. He’d missed the mark with both of them, and had watched his love darts and his barbs fall equally unheeded on the ground. Jonathan these days felt constantly cut down to size, and the size he was trimmed to seemed too small. But every time he tried to stretch out a bit, the thought of Daniela or Wooley nipped him, pinched him back. As for his resolve to be a better person, buying potatoes from Sigurd or fish from toothless Gregor on the
dock didn’t offer much scope for experiments with a new personality.

But today, the whale hunt, where there would be new people and new events—startling events, he was sure—offered scope: more scope than he wanted, in fact. Jonathan sensed himself shrinking from opportunity, not being a better person. What would it be, that betterness? He looked at the black-streaked, whorled handle of his knife: courage, at any rate. Maybe Sigurd was right; maybe it was good he hadn’t brought his notebook. He couldn’t play the innocent bystander anymore.

Sigurd pulled over to the side of the road and parked with one front wheel on some rocks, making it difficult to get out of the car, which swayed and teetered as first Heðin, then Jonathan, jumped to the ground. Heðin put his knife under his belt and handed a knife to Sigurd, who did the same. They looked to Jonathan like mild-mannered pirates, the fierceness of their weapons belied by their muddy rubber boots and homemade sweaters. Jonathan smiled, anticipating, suddenly, an adventure.

But now Heðin and Sigurd were serious and didn’t smile back. Sigurd was digging around in the trunk of the car and Heðin was rolling a cigarette, staring out to sea. He squinted, then pointed.
“Grindahvalur,”
he said. “That’s him.”

Jonathan looked, squinted, didn’t see anything. “Where?”

“Out east.” Heðin pointed again. “See the boats?”

Jonathan did, barely, see some dots that might have been boats at the mouth of the fjord. He nodded.

“See off east of them, something cuts through the water?”

Although Jonathan did not see this, he nodded again.

“That’s him.”

“Who?”

“The leader.” Heðin lighted his cigarette.

“And now they kill the leader?” Wasn’t that what the Danish guidebook had said?

“No. Why would they do that?” Heðin scowled. “They drive him in.”

“Oh. Into the fjord?” Heðin nodded. “And how do they do that?”

“Throw rocks.”

“Like herding sheep.” Jonathan laughed.

Heðin scowled again. “This is not a game, Jonathan,” he said.

“Hah,” said Sigurd, from within the trunk. “I knew I had it.” He pulled out a long, thick, greasy rope, which he wound around his waist. “Let’s go.”

The walk to the harbor was conducted in total silence. Just as well, Jonathan decided. He urged himself into a different frame of mind. He would be alert, awake, collecting every shred of information about this sacred Faroese ritual, this Corn Dance of the north or whatever it was. He put his knife under his belt and strode down the road in step with Sigurd and Heðin, armed, ready for anything.

A vigilant calm hung over the harbor when they arrived. Jonathan had expected bustle. Instead, the few people who were about had the look of an audience waiting for the curtain to rise. Ten or a dozen children perched on the end of the jetty looking silently out to sea. Down on the barren gray shingle, a line of men stood knee-deep in the yellow foam. The dock was empty of boats and looked naked and sad, its walls lined with peeling tires and barnacles waiting for high tide.

“There aren’t many people here,” he said to Heðin.

Heðin lifted his chin slightly toward the horizon. “Out on boats,” he growled.

Turning to Sigurd, Jonathan asked, “What’s that rope for?”

“Pulling,” said Sigurd.

Maybe the point they were trying to make was that he shouldn’t ask questions. Well, then, Jonathan resolved, he would not. He would watch what they did and do it too, without calling attention to himself. He would be one of them, and they would be impressed; or perhaps he would succeed so well that they would forget he was an idiot foreigner. And then he could forget it too.

For the moment, though, all Heðin and Sigurd were doing was standing at the top of the jetty with their hands in their pockets, something they did every day in Skopun and which Jonathan had long ago mastered.

“Where’s Petur?” Jonathan asked, and cursed himself: a question! Hadn’t he just determined not to ask questions? But this seemed to be an acceptable one. Sigurd and Heðin moved their heads right and left, conferring.

Sigurd pointed out into the fjord. “See how there are two lines of boats there?” Jonathan saw only waves and dots; squinting, concentrating, he convinced himself he saw two lines of boats and nodded. “Petur is in the northern line”—the northern line must be the one to the left, Jonathan figured—“and he’s the second boat.”

“Ah. I see.” Could he pull this off? Jonathan could no more pick out Petur’s boat in the water than he could see the dark side of the moon: not an auspicious first move in his game of Be the Native. He heard Heðin’s words again,
This is not a game
. A warning of some sort? A raw wind gusted off the ocean and gave him a chill. And then suddenly his vision resolved the blurs into boats, two long processions of boats that like pincers grasped between them a frothing mass of water sliced and scored by the fins of whales.

The line of men on the beach shifted, stretched out to cover more territory, and a murmur rose up from it. Then, as if this sound had triggered them, other sounds began: the kids on the jetty scuffled their feet against the cement, a few elders who’d joined Heðin, Sigurd, and Jonathan
coughed and whispered, Heðin and Sigurd bent their heads together for another mumbled conference. And swelling up behind these sounds, overtaking them within minutes, was a roaring compounded of the screams of gulls, the yells of men, the slapping of water on wooden hulls, and a high thin keening that seemed to be the voice of the ocean itself. The collective agitation that was the
grind
was moving closer to land, bringing its halo of sound with it. It was a living vortex, whirling and rushing to swallow everything within reach and to fix all eyes on its splendid voracity.

The sky above the water had gone flat white and was glazed with sea fog. Twenty degrees up from the horizon, the pale sun overlooked the fjord and its activities, casting toward land the huge shadows of men and birds, so that they moved in a mottled darkness.

They were close enough for Jonathan to distinguish words and faces: Petur yelling “Faster, faster!,” Jens Símun flailing the sea with a length of wood, Jón Hendrik perched at the bow of a six-man boat, teetering as they rode the swells but directing the crew and their oars with his thin arms. And over, under, through all of this, the keening ran like a silver thread, pure and ceaseless. One whale heaved up in a great black arc, and Jonathan saw his dark eye rolling, his dark mouth gaping. Water flashed off his flanks as he crested, soaring on the wing of his fin. And at that perfect moment, when in his black entirety he floated in the air, Petur speared him, and the ocean bloomed in blood.