The Greenlanders (20 page)

“A day’s row from Hvalsey church is a long row, and once inside the solid walls of Gardar, a man might find it difficult to see how a church could be in such disrepair as to drench the worshipers in a sudden shower or to render them windblown and uncomfortable in a stiff onshore breeze. Gardar is low and warm and damp, but St. Birgitta’s is higher and more exposed, and closer to the open sea.”

“Gardar does indeed look rich to some, but those who left before the vomiting ill cannot know how the daily life of the place has changed. So many have died off that copying manuscripts and singing have ceased altogether. Services in the cathedral are stark and poor things, and shameful offerings to the glory of God and His Son. The bishop is not so aware of this falling off, thanks be to God.” He fell silent abruptly, and then went on, “As much wealth as possible has to be gathered at Gardar before the summer’s end. In fact”—he looked Pall Hallvardsson full in the face—“we do the Hvalsey Fjorders a favor in not requiring more revenues than usual of them, but allowing them to use the extra that might have been required for repairing their own church. And your house is very large, whether it have three rooms or six.”

“Do the Greenlanders have extra to give? Every farm is hard pressed, it seems to me.”

“No more is being required than the farmers are able to pay. The bishop, in his generosity, gave a great boon before Yule when he allowed the farmers to hunt reindeer on Hreiney. Every farm that participated is rich in meat and hides. But even if this were not true, we have noticed more than once that the farmers of Greenland pay great attention to the wealth of the earth, but little to the riches of Heaven. More than one farm is nearly as wealthy as Gardar, and every farmer schemes to get more goods for himself. Almost no one gives freely to the church, or the king. All live as if they were their own men, here and in eternity.”

“This is true, that the Greenlanders are much accustomed to holding their own opinions and doing as they please.”

“Now when they have the chance to glorify God in His earthly temple, they grumble and mutter more even than the French, although they sacrifice themselves far less than the French, and although, in fact, the building they dare to call a cathedral would be as nothing among the French, or among the English or the Germans, or any people you could name on the face of the earth.”

“The Greenlanders are much unlike the French.”

Now Jon stood up, and his visage was dark with indignation. Pall Hallvardsson raised his hand and said quietly, “Brother, it seems to me that you have persuaded yourself that these Greenlanders deserve your anger, and that you are about to speak in haste of things that should be considered carefully, especially in light of the fact that it is likely that you and I will die here among the Greenlanders, and never again visit or live among the French or the Germans, or even the Norwegians.”

Jon seated himself again and was silent for many minutes, and then at last he said in a low voice, “Brother, it is many weeks since I have been confessed,” and together the two men went into the cathedral.

Now Sira Jon knelt behind the gray wadmal curtain of the confessional, and he spoke in low, passionate tones. “It seems to me,” he said, “that there are two sins that rise like twins in my heart, and that these are anger and pride. These demands of the Hvalsey Fjorders touch me closely on these two points, for what they withhold, it seems to me, will end in the humbling of Gardar and of the bishop himself, and I am his steward these days.”

Now he was silent for a long while, and Pall Hallvardsson listened to him shift and groan at his place. “Whatever our feelings, the bishop is fixed in his views on the proper wealth of the Church, is he not? He deplores the heretical meanness of such as the Franciscans, does he not? It is true that the peculiar place of the Greenlanders on the face of the earth has spared them that baneful influence, but it also gives them such pride in themselves!” And now he groaned loudly, and declared, “You see in my tones this anger that mortifies me? That I wrestle with every day? Every time I have aught to do with a Greenlander? It is given to me, of all the bishop’s men, to gather goods for the tithe, and so it is given to me to witness the trickery and reluctance and stubbornness of the farmers. Indeed, they become deafer and deafer when I name to them the sums they really owe, and more forgetful as the day of payment approaches. I am not taking these gifts for myself, am I? Is not God Himself the recipient? Why think they that they are losing something? Know they not that they are building up treasure in Heaven?

“But such anger is not my deepest sin, rather this sin is something I know Greenlanders see in me, and are right to despise.” And now his voice rose: “For I am humiliated to be here, at Gardar, when I should be at Nidaros or even Paris. I have been trained for that, not this. Oh, brother, what means it that just before sleep, or just waking, I often see myself in such a cathedral as at Rheims, as if from on high, a tiny insect carrying a taper from light to light, and simultaneously I see the huge vault of the ceiling, the interlaced fans receding and disappearing into the gloom, and there seems in such a place no room for pride, and the great space of the cathedral is filled with the glory of God, and I am as a fly in this space, happily attending my functions, and thinking only the simplest of thoughts. This picture comes to me unbidden. Though I push this picture away, it comes to me, driving out whatever better thoughts are there, and the result is that the stony gloom of Gardar and its turf smell seem paltry to me, a shame to God and His Son, this crude altar and these ragged tapestries! Thus pride and humiliation partake of each other, and the thing that I long for seems at times pure and at times defiled by my longing.”

“In the fertile soil of the Greenland fjords, there is an eighth mortal sin that sprouts, and that is the sin of yearning. A man’s only resource is to turn his yearning more and more toward God and death.”

“Oh, I am but a young man, just twenty-nine winters old. Is that not too young to be yearning for death? Most men care for women or riches or good food, but through long habit I care not for these. May I have no pleasures of the simplest sort? no glimpses of orchards in bloom nor of the carved faces of the saints? nor the feel of leather and parchment volumes weighing in my hands? nor the sound of sacred music in my ears, but only the everlasting noise of sheep and of the wind whistling around the buildings, and with this the complaints of the Greenlanders, who think that God and His Son live far away in Rome, and cannot see them?”

“And yet, the Great Death has never come here, although it has visited and revisited all those places of which you speak. God must see in them some virtue that you do not.”

“Yes, and I see in these speeches that I strive to repent without repenting, and that I seek to love something that I don’t love.” And that was the end of their conversation on this subject, and Jon neither asked for nor received absolution. Later, after the evening meal, when they spoke again of the Hvalsey church, Jon repeated that the revenues must be forthcoming, and had changed his views on the matter in no way. When Pall Hallvardsson spoke of these things to his parishioners, they declared that they would reckon up the value of their work, and withhold exactly that much from the tithe, and in this resolve they were determined and nothing Pall Hallvardsson said could move them.

News of these doings came to the Gunnars Stead folk with Lavrans and his servant when they came to Vatna Hverfi, for Birgitta was carrying a child again and Lavrans visited frequently, bringing dishes and remedies that the women neighboring Lavrans Stead thought might be successful in bringing about a healthy birth. But this time it appeared that few remedies were necessary, for Birgitta filled out nicely, like a cow let loose in the homefield, said Lavrans, and her cheeks were pink and fat as well as her belly, and her hair also seemed to thicken and shine. Now the women Birgitta met at church predicted the birth of a girl, for, they said, this was the way with some, to fight the boys and flourish with the girls, or to fight the girls and flourish with the boys. Others denied this, and remarked that many babies had died in the year of the vomiting ill, both girls and boys, and some born dead hardly looking like babies at all. The fact was that folk would see what they wished to see, but it was God Himself who gave babies and took them away.

It was also said among the women that Vigdis, the wife of Erlend, was taking a great interest in this baby, especially considering the enmity between Gunnar and Erlend, and that she was often asking after Birgitta—how she looked or how she seemed to be feeling—and it was true that when Birgitta was in church, she occasionally raised her eyes and met the gaze of the older woman, who looked her up and down at her leisure, then turned away. Now it came into Birgitta’s mind that Vigdis might be wanting to put a spell on the baby, and she grew afraid to go to church, although she and Katla had gotten into the habit of going every week. One day walking home after church, Birgitta asked Katla if evil spells could actually be cast inside the sacred walls, but Katla could not say. The women talked about Vigdis between themselves all the way home, but Birgitta hesitated to speak to Gunnar, fearing his reaction. After that, Birgitta decided to consult Nikolaus the Priest, but he was past understanding the talk of anyone but his “wife,” and, as this woman was a good friend of Vigdis, Birgitta only declared that she had come to make an offering for the health of her baby, and she left the two cheeses she had brought on the altar. When Lavrans came again, she persuaded him to take her back to Hvalsey Fjord in his boat, so that she could visit with her old friends and look after her twenty-four ewes and lambs that were grazing the fields of Lavrans Stead.

Now Birgitta stayed at her father’s farm for many days, and this was the first long visit she had made there since her marriage. She talked at length with her father’s old steward about her sheep, and he praised their size and hardihood, and the rate at which the lambs were growing. Against Lavrans’ wishes, Birgitta went out into the hill pastures behind the farm with the man, whose name was Jonas, and looked at every sheep and lamb, and Jonas told her which of these would do well over the winter and which would be best to slaughter for meat. Birgitta listened well to these remarks and watched carefully where Jonas pointed. Jonas was said to be a peculiar man, for he had been found more than once cast face down upon the grass, his clothing wet with rain and his sheep far and wide, sometimes the worse for mischief. Then he would rise up and have no memory of how long it had been since he last took notice, whether less than a day or more. And so, though possessed of much lore about the raising and breeding of sheep, he could find work with few farmers, or perhaps only one, Lavrans, who was generally thought a careless man. But Jonas knew nothing about the casting of spells.

Another day, Birgitta followed her father’s dairy maid about, a young woman named Kristin, who was ill-favored and club-footed, but knew well enough about making cheese and butter. This woman was a little older than Birgitta, and Birgitta had resorted much to her friendship as they were growing up, but now she seemed shy of Birgitta. and would hardly speak to her of news about Lavrans Stead or Hvalsey Fjord, much less of casting spells.

Finally, after some days of hesitation, Birgitta went across the water to St. Birgitta’s church and sought out Pall Hallvardsson, who greeted her jovially, and was much pleased with her looks. They talked briefly of Gunnars Stead and the folk at Vatna Hverfi, and Birgitta said she had been to visit with Nikolaus the Priest, but that he had not been able to hear her or to make out her greetings, but Pall Hallvardsson did not ask her why she had been to see the priest. After this, they spoke of Lavrans, and his livestock, and his fears for Birgitta’s new child, although Birgitta declared that she did not share these fears, except in one particular, but Pall Hallvardsson did not ask about this particular and instead began talking of other people in the district that he had recently seen. Birgitta listened patiently while he spoke, but could not have said, even at the moment, of whom or what he was speaking. Then there was something about Gardar and Jon the Priest and the men of Hvalsey Fjord, but Birgitta did not hear this, either, and Pall Hallvardsson declared that he might as well be giving a sermon, since she was nearly asleep at his news, and Birgitta laughed at this but still could not talk of what she had come to discuss, and so, after a few minutes, she bid the priest farewell and returned to her father’s farmstead.

At this time, Birgitta had been at Lavrans Stead for eight or nine days, so that there was little more for her to do there, and much work, especially in the dairy, calling her back to Gunnars Stead, but a dream came to her once during the day, when she did not even know that she was quite asleep, and in the dream Vigdis appeared, and she was so fat that she covered Vatna Hverfi district. After this dream, Birgitta was even more reluctant to return to her home, but she went about Lavrans Stead as if distracted, not sitting for more than an eye blink, but unable to work at anything useful, always going out and in, sometimes wandering toward the church and sometimes wandering away from it. One night she would sleep as if dead well into the morning light, and the next she would be up and down so that the servants complained and yawned at their next day’s work. Now Lavrans went out of the farmstead and reappeared not long afterward with Sira Pall Hallvardsson, and he closed the priest and his daughter in the dairy together and barred the door and said that they could come out when the girl was cured of this fretfulness.

Birgitta declared in her opinionated way that Vigdis Markusdottir of Ketils Stead was visiting her in her dreams, and striving to cast the evil eye upon Birgitta’s unborn child, and she would feel safe only when she had come upon a suitable charm against these endeavors.

“Are you not ashamed of seeking evil where there is none, my Birgitta?” And although he spoke to her in a low and soothing voice, Sira Pall’s eyes flashed in the dim light as if he were exceedingly angry with her. Birgitta lifted her head and thrust out her chin. “Think you of the Virgin, into whose womb the Lord Jesus Christ miraculously came through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Mary’s eyes were cast down and her thoughts within, for she trusted the Lord and rejoiced in her soul. Nor did she look about for enemies, conjuring up baseless fears and slandering her neighbors, but instead the love for all men grew in her as the child grew.”