Paradise Reclaimed (8 page)

11

Money on the window-sill

When daylight came, it is not too much to say that the family at Hlíðar were startled, for Steinar’s hayfield and meadows were swarming with a greater horde of ponies than had ever been seen in those parts. It was a magnificent herd of beasts. Some accounts say that there were 300 ponies grazing at Hlíðar that morning; others say 400. There had been a lot of rain for the last few days, and the ground was soft. The chafing of the ponies churned it up and turned it into mud wherever they thronged together. Already during that first night the home-field had been trampled beyond repair. All these ponies had travelled miles from their home districts, and so were restless and unruly; the colts were alternately frisky and frightened, and kicked out at every wall in sight. Already during that first night large gaps had appeared in the dry-stone dykes that had been built by the master-craftsmen of Hlíðar, generation after generation.

When the girl woke up that morning she found herself alone in the room. It was broad daylight. She was still wearing the ragged old petticoat she had hurriedly thrown on the night before. Her visitor was away in his long topboots. When she had a look through the window she saw that their home-field and meadows were all dense with ponies; and while she was standing staring at this in amazement, she happened to catch sight of a red coin on the window-sill. She took this strange object through to the kitchen and showed it to her mother, and told her how she had found it on the window-sill of the spare-room on her way out.

“Well I never!” said the woman, taking the coin and studying it. “I suppose it was inevitable that this day would dawn, like all other days; but I always thought that the Saviour would spare me as long as possible from having to touch the metal your father Steinar least desires. This is gold, you see, the stuff that creates all the evil in the world, my child. No one in Hlíðar has ever touched this kind of metal before. How does it come about that you bring this evil object from the room our visitor used?”

“I slept the night there,” said the girl. “And when I woke up there was nothing there except that.”

The woman stared at her daughter dumbfounded. When she finally found her tongue she spoke in that suppressed tone of resignation which was current in Iceland for as long as people believed that everything bided its time: “May the Lord have mercy on all wretched creatures, and most particularly on those who have no wits. Did I not tell you to sleep on the saddle-turves out in the shed, child?”

“Indeed you did,” said the girl. “I simply don’t understand myself. I had helped him off with his things and had got to my feet. I had said goodnight and was on my way out. I swear it, I was on the point of leaving the room. Then he said, ‘Where are you going, little one?’ And when I told him that I was going out to the shed to sleep, why, then he started insisting that it was out of the question for me to have to lie on a scrap of turf out in the shed on his account. Anyway, not to make a long story of it, before I knew what I was about I was in the bed beside him and fast asleep.”

“You poor little fool,” said her mother. “And what then?”

“Nothing,” said the girl. “The next thing I knew, it was morning, and that thing was lying on the window-sill.”

“Am I really to believe, my child, that you have slept the night with Björn of Leirur himself, no less!” said the woman.

“Mother dear,” said the girl, “I don’t believe for a minute that old Björn is as bad as he is said to be. He certainly did me no mischief, stupid though I am.”

“I suppose you know you’re a fully grown girl now and can no longer go to bed beside a man,” said her mother.

“What, me?” said the girl, on the verge of tears now at her mother’s words. “How can you say such a thing to me, Mummy, you who know better than anyone else, except perhaps the Saviour, that I’m still just a little girl and think about nothing all day long except my daddy and how it can be that he went away. And anyway I didn’t undress at all.”

“How much are you wearing underneath?” said the woman. “There, isn’t that just what I thought! If you’ve never had any idea before this how things are with you, poor wretch, then it’s time you started thinking about yourself, after last night.”

“What has happened to me, then, Mummy? Won’t you tell me?”

“As if you had no knowledge of him, child!”

“I only just felt there was a person there,” said the girl. “He’s so big and brawny as everyone knows. And I’m big and brawny now, too. And the bed scarcely has room for one, even.”

“He must have pressed up against you just a little bit, child,” said the woman. “They used to in my day, at least.”

“I was dead tired and fell asleep at once,” said the girl. “And Björn had started snoring. If there was any pressing after I was asleep, how was I to know about it? I don’t think there was very much. At least I never woke up; I wouldn’t even call it a nightmare. And I didn’t wake up until this minute, in broad daylight.”

“Why have you got that gold coin in your hand, then?” said the woman. “Leave it where you found it. You can’t have forgotten that Björn of Leirur and the sheriff and the king himself all offered gold in exchange for our Krapi; and what did your father reply?”

What astonished the family at Hlíðar, although it would not have been proper to mention it, was that the visitors showed not the slightest signs of packing up and leaving. On the contrary. During the morning, provisions and other supplies arrived for them on pack-ponies. They pitched a tent in the stackyard. It is considered small-minded in Iceland to ask visitors what is keeping them; but there was no attempt to disguise the fact that they were waiting for more horses to arrive. It was now clear, too, that the horse-copers were in no need of cow-soup, even though they had made out the previous evening that they would put up with anything, however humble. Some of the visitors lay in the living-room all morning, to the accompaniment of resonant bass snoring; others squatted on the paving at the door and crammed themselves with snuff from wooden flasks and horns as they kept an eye on the herd. One or two were drunk. Some dashed around on their ponies rounding up unruly colts. The neighbouring farmers were out in force to guard their own acres against this swarm of ponies which was like nothing so much as the plagues that befell the world in the Bible. The horse-copers gave the women meat and flour, and got them to cook soup and bake bread. They had boxloads of butter. They certainly showed no lack of liberality towards the housewife. If they handed her some coffee which had been roasted in her utensils, it was never less than a pound. The children could gorge themselves on sugar and Danish whey-cheese. Whole herds of ponies were sent off in one direction and replaced by others from elsewhere. More drovers arrived and bedded down in the tent, using armfuls of hay from the stack, and young Víkingur was hired as an extra drover and sent off on long journeys.

A few days later, Björn of Leirur returned. It was nearly midnight, and everyone was in bed.

“Where’s Steina?” he shouted from out on the paving.

The housewife put her head out of the door of the shed, ready to wait upon him. He kissed her and pushed her back inside and said he only wanted young girls. Steinar’s daughter had awoken by this time. She warmed up some soup for him in the middle of the night; then she had to make coffee, and then hot toddy; and finally help him off with his clothes, for he had been floundering through glacier-rivers as usual.

“You forgot your gold coin here the other day,” said the girl.

“It was yours, little one,” said Björn of Leirur. “For helping me off with my things.”

“Daddy and mummy say that gold coins are the source of all evil,” said the girl.

“Give me a hand again, little one,” said Björn of Leirur, and laughed.

Early next morning he was off again to buy more ponies, leaving behind a gleaming silver dollar on the window-sill.

It was a memorable autumn.

Alien ponies reigned over the fields of Hlíðar, and the horse-copers ruled over house and home. The bed in the spare-room was always made up for Björn of Leirur, who sometimes came and sometimes not. If he came, it was in the middle of the night, and always wet from the glacier-rivers.

“Where’s Steina?”

Steinar’s daughter was never allowed to leave his side, waking or sleeping, as long as he was there. And the girl’s mother was becoming more and more resigned.

One autumn day just before the second round-ups, while the farm was still under siege, it so happened for a change that a visitor from within the district came riding into the yard and asked to see the housewife. It was the furrier of Drangar, three farms or so farther to the east, and father of the boy who had not been given a ride on the white pony during that lamb-drive.

The visitor was ushered into the spare-room.

“There has been plenty happening here, dear lady,” said Geir of Drangar.

“Six hundred horses, day and night,” said the woman. “And just the two of us wretched women, apart from the boy, who has anyway been hired as a drover. May the Lord have mercy on us all.”

“I would not exactly call you dumb animals,” said the farmer. “But one would have expected a little more spirit from housewives here in these parts.”

“Didn’t you hear me telling you that we have neither sense nor speech?” said the woman. “We haven’t even got a rattle for the horses. Steinar has never wanted anything to do with such frivolities. Here at Hlíðar the only possession we have ever had is the head on Steinar’s shoulders.”

“Meddling has never been considered much of a virtue, to be sure,” said the farmer, “and everyone has the right to dispose of his own property as he sees fit. Everyone can see that Hlíðar is turning into a morass which will grow no grass for long enough. However, my real reason for coming here today is that I have had wind that my son Jóhann might be thinking of coming here to have a word with your young daughter Steina sometime soon. Hmmmm! It occurred to me that someone or other who wished you well might have a word with the sheriff to see if he can use the powers of the law to put a stop to this wanton destruction.”

“To tell you the truth, neighbour,” said the woman, “it so happens that the man who drives the horses provided evidence that it had all been arranged by agreement with my dear husband. So I have to content myself with believing that He who created the plants will make the grass grow again sometime here at Hlíðar. But it does no harm to have good neighbours for all that, and you and your son are always welcome here, the sooner the better, by night or by day.”

As Geir of Drangar rose to his feet to take his leave, he glanced towards the window and noticed some money lying on the sill. There was one large English golden guinea and many gleaming Danish silver dollars.

“You seem to have hooked a good catch here at Hlíðar,” said Geir of Drangar.

“Old Björn of Leirur always leaves something in the mornings before he goes off,” said the woman. “But we have never learned to handle money here at Hlíðar; we don’t even dare to touch it. I suppose his idea is that little Steina should have it as a reward for helping him off with his things. The thought’s the same, even though we leave the money lying there untouched.”

“Listen, Björn,” said the girl the next night as she knelt on the floor and pulled the clammy, muddy clothes of the traveller who was readier to ford glacier-rivers on horseback than any other man: “There is always one gold coin on the window-sill there.”

“What did you expect?” said Björn of Leirur. “Gold is for maidens. A man only gives it once to the same woman.”

“But now there’s this heap of silver coins as well,” said the girl. “Mummy and I are frightened of it. What are we to say to Daddy when he arrives?”

“Silver is for girl-friends,” said Björn of Leirur, and laughed.

A few days later the girl woke up in the spare-bed one morning, rose to her feet, looked out of the window, and saw that there was snow everywhere. It was the first snow of the winter, late in October. In the autumn darkness it had spread itself over the country, clean and white. She was amazed that there was not a single pony to be seen. Nor were there any tracks in the snow; the ponies had all been driven away during the night, before it started to snow. The trampled ground lay out of sight beneath the snow. Not a sound was to be heard anywhere. No strangers snored in the living-room. Farm and farmland had been whisked into a cold, white world of silence. Seldom have so few missed so many horses.

“The dear Lord be praised,” said the girl.

Then she noticed that a handful of large copper coins had been added to the precious golden guinea and the pile of silver pieces on the window-sill.

12

The sweetheart

As time wore on the folk at Hlíðar often thought they caught a glimpse of a man coming along the main track round the shoulder of the hill, particularly at twilight. He always seemed to have that circumspect, conscientious way of walking, putting each foot down twice with every step as if testing whether the ground were bearing. But it was never he. Usually it was just one of the elves. The children went to sleep tired after the autumn round-ups, only to be afflicted by the same dream night after night: they dreamed that their father was wandering along an endless road through the autumn darkness in some foreign land, and could not find the way home. The first snows had disappeared, to be sure, but the birds did not return, not even the fulmar or the skua; there was just the raven’s back glinting blue in the white autumn sunshine. The berries were soft and the heather red. The land was utterly silent. The sky was also silent. There was frost at night now. The trampled turf round the farm and the tormented meadows were frozen hard. It was now November and the last autumn boat had already reached Iceland. The stones came tumbling down the mountainside at night.

The boy who had not been given a ride on the white pony was at the door, offering his hand to the housewife.

“I was just passing,” he said.

“You’ll be wanting to talk to Steina,” she said.

“Not about anything particular,” he said.

“I’ll call her,” said her mother.

“Not if she’s busy,” said the visitor.

“She’s in the pantry, churning,” said the woman. “Perhaps she would like to wipe the butter from her face before she talks to a young man.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said the boy. “I can come back around Christmas.”

“Around Christmas?” said the woman. “It’s nowhere near Christmas yet, thank goodness. It’s nice to see youngsters with some modesty; but it can be overdone.”

“I just wanted to see a little something I know she has,” said the boy. “But if she’s busy it doesn’t matter, just give her my respects. Some other time, perhaps.”

“Go on with you into the pantry and see her, lad,” said the woman.

She was standing bare-shouldered in her petticoat with the glistening turf-wall behind her, churning with that special motion, rather slow but rhythmical, which the task demands: as if the person and the implement were inseparably fused in some strange dance. She did not falter when the boy appeared in the doorway, ducking low. The butter had splashed up on to her bare arms and neck and face. She blushed and smiled down at the churn, but one must never stop in the middle of a churning.

“Won’t you please turn that tub upside down and have a seat?” she said.

When he had seated himself she looked up from her work and said, “White ravens are rare visitors, I must say. What’s new?”

“Just the usual,” he said. “How are things with you?”

“Fine,” she said, without pausing for a moment in her churning; but she kept peeping up at him, curious and shy at the same time and smiling a little, until she could no longer restrain herself. “What’s happened to you?” she said. “Have you shrunk? I thought you were much bigger and broader.”

“It must be because you’ve filled out so much yourself,” he said, and could not take his eyes off this big, sturdy girl before him.

“We stare at one another and scarcely recognise one another, it’s so long since we met,” she said. “But perhaps you’re just cold. Why did you never come?”

“Did you expect me?” he asked.

“You said you were going to,” she replied. “I relied on that.”

“But we’ve seen one another at church now and again,” he said.

“I don’t call that seeing one another,” she said. “I’m just ashamed of being all smeared with butter like this when you finally do see me. But you’ll get some buttermilk soon.”

“If only there were no worse smears than butter!” said the boy. “And buttermilk is always buttermilk even though it’s really only a form of skimmed milk.”

“Was there anything special you wanted?” said the girl.

“I’ve heard it said that you’ve got yourself a gold coin,” he said.

“Who says so?”

“It’s said to have been put on your window-sill—one of those big ones that are valid throughout the world.”

“It’s no secret as far as I’m concerned, I suppose,” said the girl. “I’ll show you it when I’ve finished churning.”

At last the churning was finished. She took the unkneaded butter from the churn and put it into the trough dripping with buttermilk, then went to the kitchen to get a scone from her mother, for one always has hot rye-cakes with new-churned butter. Three things, according to the poets, are considered bliss in Iceland: hot rye-cakes, plump girls and cold buttermilk. With a liberal thumb she spread this lovely butter straight from the churn on to his cake, and gave him a jug of buttermilk to drink. She had fetched a knotted kerchief from under her pillow on the way, and now she took from it the gold coin and showed it to him.

“What a whopper!” said the boy. “I could well believe it’s worth the price of a cow. How did you get hold of it?”

She clicked her tongue as if there were nothing to it. “What, that?” she said. “Someone left it behind. You can have it if you like. Daddy’s expected home from Copenhagen today or tomorrow, and I can’t think what he would say if he found gold here.”

“From whom did you get it?” asked the boy.

“From Björn of Leirur,” she replied.

“What for?”

“Helping him off with his things.”

“Was that all there was to it?”

“The man was soaked,” she said. “He had been buying up horses all over the place and fording glacier-rivers up to the armpits. There wasn’t a dry stitch on him when he arrived here, at night.”

“He’s a dirty shit,” said Jóhann of Drangar.

“That’s the first time in my whole life I’ve heard such a nasty thing said about any living person,” said the girl, and now there was no smile in her expression. “Nor is it true, either. Björn of Leirur is one of the nicest people there is.”

“And I’ll bet it’s the first time
that
’s ever been said about Björn of Leirur,” said the boy. “Everyone knows that he marries off at least three or four girls a year, not counting those he doesn’t need to marry off because they’re married already; and then there are those he refuses on oath to acknowledge.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” said the girl. “Is this meant to be some sort of riddle?”

“It is to be hoped you never need to understand it,” he said.

“Clever, aren’t you?” she said. “You’re a good one, I must say.”

“You forget I’m nearly three years older than you are and that I’ll be doing my fourth season at the fishing at Þorlákshöfn this winter.”

“That thing you said, I suppose that’s what you call seamen’s talk?” said the girl. “But I can tell you this, that it would be hard to find a more pleasant and straightforward person than Björn of Leirur. I was always shy of people until Björn started staying here. I simply can’t tell you how horribly shy of you I was. I was ill for two years because I didn’t dare to give you a ride on the white horse during the lamb-drive.”

“Since you’re no longer shy, I think you should tell me why he has you in with him at nights.”

“Who says so?” said the girl.

“That’s what the horse-copers are all saying,” he replied.

“Why he has me in with him! Björn of Leirur? Now I’ve heard everything! Obviously for no reason whatsoever. You laugh? I never believed you were like that.”

“Why don’t you answer me?” he said.

“I don’t owe you an answer for anything,” she said. “It’s just that an insignificant little girl happens to like it when a grown man takes the trouble to talk to her like a human being.”

“And then what?”

“What do you think, for example?”

“Obviously a fellow like that starts some funny business at once,” said the boy.

“Funny business?” she echoed. “If you mean kissing and cuddling, then I can’t imagine anyone less liable to that sort of thing than Björn of Leirur.”

“But you yourself said that you pulled all his clothes off up to the armpits,” said the boy.

“That’s not what I said at all,” she replied. “It’s a different thing entirely, and no secret at all as far as I’m concerned—I even told my mother about it—that often when I had pulled his things off for him he would say: ‘Stretch out here on the bed beside me, little one, rather than curl up on a scrap of turf out in the shed.’”

“Although I’m no expert in this sort of thing,” said the boy, “I can hardly believe that a fellow like Björn of Leirur would leave a girl alone once she was in bed with him.”

“I know nothing about that,” said the girl. “He always left me alone, anyway. I just became sleepy and tired when I was near him, and I had no sooner stretched out beside him than I was dead to the world.”

“Didn’t he touch you at all, then?”

“I can only remember the one time when he pressed up against me a little bit accidentally in his sleep, and I woke up with a start as if I’d been dreaming something; but I was asleep again the next moment. And after that I was never aware of him except of course that he’s a big, burly man. And I can tell you that I’ve never slept so soundly as I did with him. I didn’t even stir when he climbed over me in the mornings when he left.”

The visitor stated at the girl dubiously.

“How is a man to understand women?” he said. “There aren’t more strange creatures. One either has to believe them or not. I prefer to believe you, Steinbjörg. And now I must be getting on. Thanks for the cake and the buttermilk. . . .”

“. . . And the coin, Jóhann,” she added. “The gold coin. It was about time I made it up to you for not letting you ride our Krapi, who’s now with the king anyway and is called Pussy.”

“It didn’t matter at all,” he said. “Goodbye, then. Maybe I’ll put your coin in my pocket after all—on account. And thanks.”

She looked at him, brimming with gratitude to him for having come, and regret that he should have to go so soon. She could not stop herself blurting out, “I think you’ve just grown bigger and broader, even in this short time.”

“It’s the cake and the buttermilk,” he said. “And the butter from the churn.”

She watched him ducking through the door, and perhaps she felt a shade of disappointment. But just as he was about to vanish into the pitch-dark corridor he remembered something and came back in to see her. He looked at her a little uneasily and seemed about to say something.

“What now?” she said, and laughed a little, scarlet in the face.

“It occurred to me to ask,” he said. “Was there only one?”

She had to think a little before she knew what he was getting at, and then her smile vanished.

“Wait a minute,” she said.

She untied her kerchief and brought out a collection of gleaming silver dollars.

“There you are,” she said. “I’d be glad if you would take them. I’m sure Daddy wouldn’t like it if he saw them in my possession.”

He took the silver and saw that it was good quality, right enough. “But,” he said, “what I meant was—were there no more gold coins?”

She looked at him in some surprise. And then the words of wisdom—or folly, rather—from Björn of Leirur came to her mind.

“A woman only gets the one gold coin,” she said. “After that she only gets silver.”

“Yes, exactly,” he said. “It’s just as I thought. You have surrendered something only gold could buy.”