The Greenlanders (66 page)

The steading was still in good repair, for Vigdis had reset the turves in the summer before her death. Kollgrim pushed open the door, and they entered the large and comfortable main room of the steading. Helga asked where they were. “It is an abandoned farm. I will tell you about it in the morning, when I am not so fatigued.” At this, he climbed into one of the bedclosets, and Helga climbed in after him, and they lay all night. Helga went quickly to sleep, and woke up only once during the night, but she did notice when she awakened that Kollgrim, for all that he complained of fatigue, was restless and lay with his eyes open. Then she went back to sleep. In the morning, she roasted two of the ptarmigan over a fire he made in the hearth, and commented upon how comfortable the steading was, and how little the hearth smoked. Now Kollgrim said, “This steading is our steading, and only the obstinacy of our father prevents us from laying claim to it. He may indeed wish to keep Birgitta at Lavrans Stead where she is happy recalling her mother and father, but we could live here as brother and sister, as our father and our father’s sister did many years ago.”

“Have you spoken to him of this?”

“I wished to see if we could sleep here comfortably first.”

“It seemed to me that I slept here more comfortably than you did last night.”

“You heard nothing then? Felt nothing?”

“Nay. I slept very well.”

“Then it may be that Vigdis is elsewhere, or that her ghost has not laid claim to the steading, for it was here that she was murdered by Ofeig.”

“You have done me an ill turn to bring my soul into such danger,” said Helga.

“But it has not turned out to be dangerous. In addition to that, I have slept here seven times now, and have never heard a sound nor felt a thing. Anyway, they say that her son had priests in the place shortly afterward, and that they have purged the spirits.” And so they looked about the steading, at the buildings and the furniture and the stalls of the byre, and they saw that all of these things were much finer and more conveniently made than they were at Lavrans Stead, and Kollgrim saw that the greed for such a life as one might live on such a fine steading was rising in Helga as it had risen in him. Helga found herself reluctant to leave, although the day was drawing on. They were standing in the byre remarking at the numbers of cows that had once been wintered there, when a figure appeared in the doorway, and startled them.

Kollgrim glanced up, and then glanced away, and stood as still as a post. Helga put her hand upon his shoulder, and felt that it was trembling, but then he shook her off and seemed to come to himself. He called out, “We are but looking over the abandoned steading. We have stolen nothing and mean no harm.” The figure stepped out of the doorway and disappeared, and Helga said, “I do fear to go out and gaze upon this spirit. They say that such things are so horrible that they enter one’s dreams forever afterward.”

“Nay, it is no spirit, but it is an enemy nonetheless. It is Jon Andres Erlendsson. We must not skulk about, but must go forth boldly if we intend to be his neighbors.”

“Perhaps such enmity is good reason for not being neighbors. If he strikes such confusion and fear into you—”

Kollgrim flared up. “Speak not of that again! Jon Andres Erlendsson is but a man, and neither as tall nor as broad as I am. Without Ofeig and his other accomplices he is nothing.”

“Then what is stopping us from going out?”

“Nothing.” But still he waited a moment before taking her hand and pulling her toward the entrance.

Jon Andres was sitting on the slope in front of the byre with his back to them, watching his horse crop the grass in the homefield a little ways off. He turned and looked upon them, and Helga, like everyone who had ever seen him, noticed his handsome looks and graceful manner. He said, “I was passing and I saw your belongings in front of the house. The steading is indeed abandoned, and therefore no more a concern of mine, but I do not wish its furnishings to be destroyed or stolen. You may look about as you wish.”

Helga replied, “I am Helga Gunnarsdottir, and although I was born here, it is entirely new to me, and of great interest.”

“I know who you are. I saw you from afar when I was carrying game and sheep to your father’s steading some years ago.”

Kollgrim flushed angrily and gripped Helga’s hand so that it hurt, but said nothing. Helga said, “We had intended to make our way back to Lavrans Stead this evening, and as it is a long journey, we had better be off.”

“Will you take meat with me at Ketils Stead? It is not far.”

Now Kollgrim was gripping her hand so tightly that it was only with difficulty that she didn’t cry out. “Nay,” she said, “we must not take the time, but you are kind to invite us.” Jon Andres nodded his head, and called his horse to him and mounted the beast. Only when he had ridden off did Kollgrim relax his grip. Helga turned upon him. “Now you have nearly broken my hand!” she exclaimed angrily. “And met his courtesy with rude silence! If you are so tall and so broad and so unafraid, then why have you let a woman speak for you?”

But Kollgrim, too, was angry. “I see that your eyes leapt to his quick enough, and your cheeks flushed when you talked to him! He is my bitter enemy, and he paid a compensation that was insultingly low for the injury he did to me!”

“It is you who has brought me here! If he is your bitter enemy, then it were best that you did not live cheek by jowl with him. But I can see in your eyes that such proximity is part of the attraction of this steading for you! Always it has been the case that you cannot bear not to look upon the trouble that you could avoid if you would. You would rather tease it toward you. I will not help you persuade father to claim this steading.”

“Will you talk against me?”

She had never denied him anything, since she was but a toddling child and he cradled among the furs of their mother’s bedcloset. They walked to the boat, and pushed it off the strand and got in. He rowed with great energy and a practiced, easy motion. She looked upon him, and finally said, “Nay, I will not talk against you, but I will pray against you.”

Kollgrim smiled.

Against this scheme, Gunnar raised many unanswerable objections. There were neither servants nor sheep to spare for another steading. Kollgrim’s services in getting game for the table could not be spared. Helga’s services in looking after the sheep and the dairy could not be spared. It was not seemly for an unmarried woman to go off before marriage and live by herself, as she would often be living if Kollgrim was out hunting. The steading itself bore a burden of ill fame and ill luck. They would do better for themselves if they stayed away from it, and left it to Bjorn Bollason the lawspeaker, although rumors of Bjorn Bollason’s interest in the steading had died down. Steadings were being abandoned in Hvalsey Fjord, if Kollgrim was so intent upon raising sheep. But Kollgrim was not intent upon raising sheep, only upon having this particular steading. And on this point Gunnar grew the most irate, and accused Kollgrim of always having been dissatisfied with Lavrans Stead and the life there. After these arguments, there was a long period of bitterness between father and son, for Kollgrim was loud in his complaints of Gunnar’s injustice. Helga put away any expectation of removing to the other steading, although with difficulty. Every arrangement at Lavrans Stead now seemed poor and inconvenient.

One day it happened that Thorkel Gellison appeared with two of his servingmen, saying that his wife Jona was ill, and wished to have Johanna with her for a few days, but after Thorkel and Gunnar had talked for a while, it came out that Jona was not very unwell, and still perfectly capable of getting about the steading and doing her work. In fact, she had been more ill earlier in the summer, and had not thought to call upon Johanna. Now Gunnar wished to know the real purpose of Thorkel’s visit, and Thorkel admitted that he intended to persuade Gunnar to allow Kollgrim, at least, if not Kollgrim and Helga, to take over the abandoned steading, for, he said, Kollgrim was a much steadier fellow than he had once been, and he needed but some additional cares to mold him into a proper man. Such an effect had taken place with Gunnar himself, in the year of the vomiting ill, and Kollgrim was already five or six winters older than Gunnar had been then. The boy, folk said, lived too close to his mother and his father, and they watched over him, folk also said, as if he were a child. In addition to this, many folk in Vatna Hverfi district would be relieved at the occupation of the steading, especially by Vatna Hverfi folk and not by strangers from the north. Folk who knew Bjorn Bollason and Signy considered them well enough, and Bjorn Bollason seemed to be enterprising as lawspeaker, whether or not he actually knew all of the laws, but he and Signy were alert and pushing in that northern way, not so pleasant to be with, and yet always offering this and that or making invitations. And the fact was that they would think so well of themselves if they got into Gunnars Stead that they would be unbearable. Now Gunnar laughed and said that they did not think of such things in an out-of-the way place like Hvalsey Fjord, and Thorkel laughed in return and said that the Hvalsey Fjorders had always been proud of their humility, and that was a fact, and the conversation died.

The case was, that Gunnar was much angered at Kollgrim for putting his scheme to Thorkel, but in this as in all things, he thought, Kollgrim had gotten the better of him, for he owed such a debt to Thorkel that he could never simply dismiss any of Thorkel’s wishes, and besides that, Thorkel was a much older man, now, and Gunnar looked forward to his death with dread. Even so, he considered that Kollgrim showed little wisdom in this plan, whether or not he felt much antagonism toward Jon Andres Erlendsson, and it was hard to know Kollgrim’s real feelings on this score. On the one hand, a man could live with neighbors who were enemies. Many had, and through such generations as had lived in Greenland, every family had fought with their neighbors, and even killed their neighbors at one time or another. In addition to this, Ofeig and the other members of the band of mischief-makers had gone off long ago, and in fact it was not known exactly where Ofeig was. Some folk said he had taken up residence as an outlaw in some of the abandoned farmsteads in Alptafjord. On the other hand, however, Kollgrim flew to trouble as sparks fly upward, and Gunnar had little faith in the effect of new cares upon him. There was a difference between going off to live with an indulgent older sister and in taking a childish and dependent wife onto a farmstead where there was already such a husbandman as Olaf had been and such a housekeeper as Margret had been. Even so, Gunnar did not know how to stand against Thorkel, except by saying that he could not divide his flock or his servingfolk, and that Gunnars Stead was much too big to be taken on by two such as Kollgrim and Helga. And Thorkel said no more, except that if a way was found around these difficulties, he himself would send a pair of horses over to the steading. Now discussion of this scheme ended, and Kollgrim seemed to be reconciled to his father, and the autumn came on. Kollgrim went on the seal hunt, and brought back a great deal of meat, and things were quiet for the winter. Gunnar suspected, though, that he had not heard the last of proposals concerning Gunnars Stead and he looked forward to the spring with some misgiving.

At Easter, one of Gunnar’s neighbors, an old man named Thorolf, with two daughters and three sons, came to Gunnar and said that he intended to go away from his steading and seek service, for his oldest son wished to take over the steading. But the steading was much shrunk, and could not support as many folk as it had. Therefore, he himself was seeking service, and one of his sons and both of his daughters as well, and Gunnar took them on, with a great sinking of his heart.

Now, shortly after this, at about the time when the ice was breaking up and blowing out of the fjords, another neighbor of Gunnar’s came to Lavrans Stead. This was Hakon Haraldsson, and he was driving before him some twenty ewes and lambs, all fine beasts, and he left them in the care of his small son, to mill about in front of the steading while he sought out Gunnar. “Now, neighbor,” he said, “I have come to pay my debt to you and Birgitta Lavransdottir. I bring back such beasts as you and she once sent to my steading, when we were in poor straits and looked forward only to a slow and painful death. But now things have changed, and we have many fine beasts, and not enough pasturage for them all, and so you must take them, and not turn them down as you did two summers ago.” And Hakon was very proud of the beasts, and of the largess he showed in making his gift, and Gunnar could not therefore turn it down, but his heart sank again. And so it was that Kollgrim and Helga were allowed to carry out their scheme, and claim as abandoned the ancient farm of Gunnars Stead in Vatna Hverfi district.

Now it happened that on the night before they were to take their sheep and their furnishings in the big boat around the point of Hvalsey Fjord and up Einars Fjord, just as Birgitta and Gunnar had done some thirty-three summers before, Helga stayed up praying for the whole night, for she could in no way cause sleep to come to her, but she did not know whether she was praying for the move or against it, so confused did she find herself. She had dutifully fulfilled both of her promises to Kollgrim for many months. She had spoken not a word against his scheme, although she saw that Gunnar wished her to, but she had prayed against it, or else for a sign that it was opportune, every night. There was none, except, perhaps, for the fact that it went forward in such a way, with old Thorolf coming to them at Easter of his own will, and then with Hakon bringing the sheep of his own will, that the signs seemed to be for it. Against this, however, was Kollgrim’s manner, for there was no doubt that he was greatly agitated, and thought less of the steading that he was to take over than of the neighbor he was to live beside.

In her heart, Helga, too, thought often of Jon Andres Erlendsson, for the sight of him was uniquely pleasing to her, and she could not square this with what she had heard of his evil nature. She remembered how folk speak of the way that the Devil comes smiling among folk, but such a smile as Jon Andres’ smile was not what she had pictured all her life as the Devil’s smile. Now on the night before her departure, she went to Gunnar and she said, “I am much afraid of our neighbor.”