The Greenlanders (90 page)

On the hillside, Margret sat up and threw off her cloak, for the sun was already warm upon her. Below her, she saw a woman and a child in the middle of the homefield, the child in a little white shirt, stumbling and running forward, its arms raised happily in the air. Its giggle rose on the breeze and came right into Margret’s ear. Behind it, the mother, also in white, swayed in attentive pursuit, now smiling, now laughing at the child’s antics. The child stumbled into a circle of flowers and fell down. The mother stepped forward and swept it into her arms and covered its neck with kisses, just below the ear, so that the child laughed out in glee. Now the mother put the child down, and lifted her sleeves to her face and wiped her eyes. Now she tossed her head, and she saw Margret and stopped dead in her tracks. Margret stood up.

With the distance, Helga could not tell who the woman on the hillside could be. Her hair was such a pale yellow that it might be white, and hung in braids in front of her shoulders, leading Helga to think that she must be an old woman. But she stepped with such firm grace that Helga thought she must be a young woman, and this look, of youth, of age, fascinated Helga and made her stare discourteously and stand still instead of going forward, as folk should do. But, of course, Gunnhild went forward, not toward the woman, but toward some flowers that attracted her gaze, and Helga could not help but follow her.

Now they were close enough to speak, but Helga knew not what to say, nor why she felt this hesitation.

Margret reached out her hand suddenly, and said, “You will be Helga. What is the child’s name?” She knelt down and looked at the child, but did not stare, and kept her hands to herself, which made Gunnhild bold enough to step toward her.

“She is my daughter Gunnhild. I have another as well, Unn, but this one is up with the sun lately.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“Nay, I do not, but it seems to me that I should.”

“I am your father’s sister.”

“I know of you, though my father has never spoken of you. My brother Kollgrim said once that you lived inexplicably among those folk at Solar Fell.” Her faced whitened, then reddened, and she cast her eyes down.

“Among your enemies, you are thinking.”

“Nay, I know not what to think of them. They are not of our district, nor of our mind. Perhaps they have been bewitched by the Icelanders, who are so ready to cry out about witchcraft.” But now she was agitated, casting her head about and wringing her hands, so Margret said, “They are ill to speak of. We should speak of Kollgrim, instead.”

Helga’s chest heaved. “There is no pleasure there, for he was a lost soul.”

“Then let us talk of my brother, Gunnar, for I am eager to know about him, but little eager to see how he glances at me after so many winters. Is his hair white? Does he creep about, afflicted with the joint ill? Does he see and hear? Does he remember what happens from day to day?”

“He stands straight and suffers only from grief for my mother. He sits with his lamp over his parchment every day, and makes his marks, but hardly goes outside the steading. He is well enough. May I take you into the steading? My sister Johanna is there, too. She takes after you in the face, I see that now.”

“Nay, I would rather sit upon the hillside, and perhaps look at the folk as they come out of the steading. You must go about your business, and pay me no attention, for now that the moment has come, I can hardly bear it. Later, perhaps, we will sit at the loom and talk to one another.”

Not long after this, Gunnar came out of the steading to wash himself in the cistern, and his white hair stood up on end and he was wearing a peculiar particolored shirt, and he looked to Margret just as he had looked as a four-year-old child, with the same half discontented and half sleepy morning look on his face that he had worn then. He coughed and sniffed, and the sounds rose clearly on the breeze. Now he rubbed his eyes, and looked at the weather, and he saw her, and his gaze paused, and moved on, then moved back to her, and now it seemed to her that his blue eyes would never turn away from hers.

He had forgotten how tall she was, how gracefully she unfolded herself, and with what swaying strides she stepped forward. Her braids, he saw, were as thick as ever, and hung to her hips. Her gaze caught him, frightened him a little, as it always had, so unsmiling. She had aged so little, although she was twelve years older than his Birgitta, that she came toward him like a ghost from his youth. When she got closer, though, he saw the wrinkles in her face and the age of her hands—wrists and knuckles thickened with work. At this sight he remembered that he had done her many ill turns, and it seemed to him that she was due for revenge. He had no courtesy. He put his hands to his hair, and felt that it was standing on end, and he looked down at his shirt. He had put it on days before. When he looked up and met her gaze, she said, “My brother, have you made this shirt yourself?”

“It was about the steading, in an old chest.” And these were the first words that they spoke to one another after thirty-four winters.

At Solar Fell, folk were as sanguine as they could be, and the entertainments and festivities of the betrothal went on for many days. Indeed, Thorstein had so many tales and rhymes and notions of things to do in his happiness that he seemed single-handedly to drive off the gloom that had lingered about the place for nearly a year. Thorgrim had taken Thorstein’s place at Nes, and Steinunn still lay in her silent repose, much more wasted and nearer death than she had been, and folk spoke openly of their hope that she would die before the wedding was to take place. Her own sister Thorunn took the lead in this talk, for it was to her that care for the madwoman had fallen, and she had little taste for it, as it was laborious and had less than no effect on Steinunn’s condition. It were better that she should die and receive her reward, whatever that might be, than linger as a burden to all, and a reminder of the frailty of women. This was what Thorunn said, that the Lord made sure that sin was too much for folk, and if the Lord made sure of that, then it was not for folk to go against His will. Whenever Sira Eindridi was about, he shrived and blessed the silent woman, and folk made the remark that perhaps this would be the last such time for him. And it was the case that she did die in the summer of this year, and the wedding was set for the early autumn, after the seal hunt, when there would be plenty of meat for the feast. This was also the case, that Sigrid set her heart upon having the wedding at St. Birgitta’s church in Hvalsey Fjord, for that was much the nicest church in Greenland, nicer than the cathedral now, for it was newer, and the Hvalsey Fjorders had kept it in good repair.

The circumstances of Steinunn Hrafnsdottir’s death did not pass without remark, and they were these, that one day in the summer, when folk were out of the steading going about their work, the living corpus of the woman was moved from one side of the bedcloset to another, and one of her legs and one of her hands were thrown over the side. But when folk came in for their evening meat, she was as still as ever, and these movements seemed unaccountable, except perhaps as evidence of her continued possession by the demons who had led her to her seduction. Thorunn went to her with her broth, and held up her head, and did what she could to get some nourishment into the woman, and these efforts were as fruitless as ever. On the next day, she had been moved again; this time she had been turned in a quarter circle from the straight way of the bedcloset, and at this, Bjorn Bollason went about to his sons and the servingfolk and asked who had been making sport at the poor woman’s expense, but none would admit to such a thing. And for three days after this, there were no movements, and folk forgot about them. Now on the fourth day, it happened that the woman spoke aloud, as if in a dream, and she said, “Nay, it comes not so these days,” as clearly as could be. Her speech was heard by two or three folk, including Signy, Bjorn Bollason’s wife. Now folk began to chatter among themselves, and to look for Steinunn to revive and regain her health, but this did not happen. Instead, a day later, she let out a great groan that went like a knife into the hearts of those nearby, so full was it of agony, and when Thorunn ran to her bedcloset, she saw that Steinunn’s eyes were open for the first time in many many months, and she said, “My sister, you are with us again.” Steinunn’s eyes filled with tears. But after this, her corpus twisted with pain, and soon after that she died.

And when the women went to lay her out, they saw that she was as wasted as folk had gotten during the hunger—with no breasts to speak of, and hipbones sticking up like spoons, and all of her ribs showing, and her knees larger than her thighs, and folk said that what she had died of was starvation, truly enough, just as if there hadn’t been any food at all. Before her seduction she had been such a woman as Thorunn, broad and sturdy. She was buried in the graveyard at Solar Fell, which lies near the shrine of St. Olaf the Greenlander, and folk considered that she was more blessed in this circumstance of her death than she had been in life, for between the fires of volcanoes and the fires of evil seduction, she had gained no peace in her days, and must hope as best she could for her heavenly reward, such as it was.

It seemed to Bjorn Bollason that he had done all that was possible in these circumstances, and that things had turned out well enough, considering what might have happened, namely that there might have been a pitched battle at the Thing, where many Greenlanders would have gotten hurt or killed, or that Gunnar Asgeirsson might have sought revenge, as he had done in the past, or that the Icelanders might have somehow blamed him, Bjorn Bollason, for the circumstances of the woman’s seduction and death. But Snorri Torfason was more than willing to take Bolli Bjornsson with him, and Thorstein Olafsson was as ardent a suitor as a man could be, and though Sigrid would find herself much farther off than Herjolfsnes, Thorstein had so confused and subdued her that, if she thought of it, she did not complain of it. Back in Iceland, folk said, Thorstein was a well-known man from a powerful family, and might indeed be lawspeaker some day. Of cows and sheep and horses there was no telling how many wandered Thorstein’s three steadings, and of goodly furnishings, well, there were articles from as far off as Damascus and Rome, as well as from Norway and England and Germany and Sweden. Thorstein’s own mother’s brother’s daughter was a waiting maid at the court of Queen Margarethe, or had been some years before, though she might be married to a great Danish lord by now. And Thorstein had that Icelandic way with words that would lead him everywhere, to every success, as it had the great poets of the past, like Egil Skallagrimsson. All in all, Bjorn had never looked forward to the future with such a high heart, and not the least of these pleasures was that the troublesome Sigrid would be off his hands, and in the care of her husband.

As for Sigrid, it was her secret that once in a while a curious dream came to her, always the same dream. In it, she was standing in the doorway to the steading at Solar Fell, looking down the hillside toward the strand. The turf was green, but the fjord was white with ice, and the sky above the mountains was piled with clouds. These were shot with all colors of red and gold and purple, and looked not as the sky ever looked in Greenland, but as it was said that Heaven itself looked. In the first part of her dream, she only stood there, holding a trencher in her hand, and gazing upon the scene. After this, a man would appear, a stranger, and he would come toward her over the ice, and she would begin to float down the hillside toward him, holding out her trencher as an offering. But though she floated toward him, she was much afraid of him, and of how he would greet her. Even so, she could not stop herself, or turn back up the hillside. He came on skis, but not with the swinging laboring motions of a skier. He, too, was floating. And as he came closer, he did not become more familiar to her. He was always a stranger. Even so, when they met, he always took her in his arms and embraced her, and happiness rushed through her like a strong wind, and of itself, her body pressed against his, and then the dream was over, and she woke up. And this was also the case, that she awakened from this dream elated rather than despondent, and it seemed to her that as long as she held this dream secretly in her bosom, it would return to her again and again.

She was not unpleased with her marriage to Thorstein. It seemed to her that he had her firmly in his power, and that with him, she was out of danger. In addition to this, her wedding was to be at the loveliest church in Greenland, and her wedding clothes were as splendid as hands could make them—her hands, the hands of Margret Asgeirsdottir, the hands of all the women round about. First there would be the wedding, then there would be a little boat ride to Iceland, then there would be large farms with many sheep and cows and horses and servants, and then there would be such children as her brothers were, obedient, strong, lucky little boys, four or five or six. Snorri Torfason said, sometimes, that conditions in Iceland could not but surprise them, but were not the Icelanders possessed of many fine things? Did they not speak in such a way that pleased the ear? Did they not know more of the world, and of the entertainments of the world, than any Greenlander? And did they not think a great deal of her, Sigrid Bjornsdottir, though she was but a Greenlandic maid?

She did not hate Kollgrim Gunnarsson, though folk thought she must. She did not know exactly why they had parted, except that it was their fate to do so. One day he had come to Solar Fell, and found her in the steading doing some tablet weaving while the others were out or in other chambers, and he had sat down near her without touching her, but only looking into her face, and she had let the weaving fall from her hands, although it tangled the threads, and she had known without speaking that they were parted, that their marriage could not be, and she had known so clearly that in spite of their wills and desires something was stopping them, she had not even felt grief, only a sort of relief that greater grief was being avoided by this parting. She saw that he knew this, too, and that they were parting as friends. That was in the autumn, and in the winter her fears had been fulfilled with the seduction of the Icelandic woman. How was one to think of that? In spite of what she was told, by Thorstein and Bjorn Bollason and Thorunn, Sigrid held tightly to her incomprehension, and placed it in her bosom next to her secret dream.