The Weight of Water (17 page)

“On the other hand,” I say, “Wagner seems to have no alibi for that night, and the next morning he’s reported to have told
people he committed murder.”

“Jean doesn’t always get to pick her assignments,” Thomas says. He sounds apologetic.

“A crime of passion,” says Rich.

“A crime of passion?” Adaline narrows her eyes. “In the end, a crime of passion is just sordid, isn’t it? At heart. We think
a crime of passion has a morality all its own — people have thought so for years. History is full of judgments that forgive
crimes of passion. But it doesn’t have a morality, not really. It’s pure selfishness. Simply having what you want.”

“I think it’s the knife that makes it seem like a crime of passion,” says Thomas. “It was a knife, wasn’t it?”

“An ax.”

“Same thing. It’s the intimacy. With a gun, you can kill a person at a distance. But with a knife, you have to touch the victim
— more than touch. Manhandle. Subdue. It would seem to require, at least for the several seconds it takes to complete the
deed, a sustained frenzy or passion.”

“Or a lucrative contract,” says Rich.

“But even then,” argues Thomas, “there would have to be something in the act — the handling of the victim, the feel of the
knife against the flesh — that attracted the killer to that particular method.”

“Thomas,” I say, nodding at Billie.

“Mommy, take a picture of the pancakes,” she says. “Before they’re all gone?”

I reach behind me into my camera bag and bring out the Polaroid. I shoot the platter with the pancakes that are left, and
then rip the film out and give it to Billie to hold. She’s a pro at this, and holds the corner casually.

“The Masai,” I say idly, “believe that if you take a photograph of a person, you have stolen his soul. You have to pay them
for the picture.”

“The soul is for sale then?” asks Adaline.

“Oh, I think the Masai are shrewder than that.”

“See, Adaline? Look!” Billie stands on the bench to hand Ada-line the Polaroid. As she does, she cracks her head on the sharp
corner of an overhanging cabinet. The color leaves Billie’s face, and her mouth falls open, but I can see that in this company
my daughter is determined not to cry.

I reach over and fold her into me. The photograph flutters onto the table. She presses her face into my chest, and I feel
her breath through the opening of my robe. Adaline picks up the Polaroid. “Lovely picture, Billie,” she says.

I kiss Billie’s forehead, and she pulls away from me, turning in her seat, trying bravely to smile. Adaline hands the picture
to Billie.

“Very game,” says Adaline to me.

“Thanks.” I envy you.

I look quickly up at her and catch her eyes. Does she mean Billie? Or does she mean having my daughter with me? Or does she
mean Billie and Thomas — the whole package?

“Sometimes I imagine I have caught a likeness of a person’s soul,” I say carefully. “Occasionally, you can see it. Or what
you imagine is the true character of that person. But of course, it’s only a likeness, and that likeness is only an image,
on the paper.”

“But you can fool with images,” she says. “Didn’t I read that somewhere? Can’t you change the image?”

“You can now,” I say. “You can do it almost flawlessly with computers.”

“So you could, theoretically, create another character, another soul.”

“This is assuming that you believed the camera could capture the soul in the first place,” I say.

“This is assuming that you believed in the soul at all,” says Thomas. “That what you saw was not simply an arrangement of
organic particles.”

“But surely you believe in the soul,” Adaline says quickly, almost defensively. “You of all people.”

Thomas is silent.

“It’s in the poems,” she says.

I have a series of photographs of Billie and Thomas together, taken shortly after we have eaten the pancakes. I have dressed
and am getting my gear together in preparation for the boat ride over to Smuttynose. I take out the Hasselblad, which I have
loaded with black-and-white. I do four quick shots — click, click, click, click — of Thomas and Billie, who have lingered
at the table. In the first, Billie is standing on the padded bench, inspecting Thomas’s teeth, counting them, I think. In
the second, she has bent her body so that she is butting her head into Thomas’s stomach; Thomas, too, is slightly bent, and
has wrapped his arms over her back. In the third picture, they both have their elbows propped upon the table and are facing
each other, talking. The conversation must be serious; you can see that in the tilt of Billie’s head, the pursing of her mouth.
In the fourth picture, Thomas has one hand tucked inside the open collar of his shirt, scratching his shoulder. He is facing
me, but he won’t look at me or at the camera. Billie has turned her head away from Thomas, as though someone has just called
to her from the forward cabin.

The head sea is apparent the moment we round the breakwater. Small waves hit the Zodiac and send their spray into and over
the inflatable boat. With one hand on the tiller, Rich tosses me a poncho, which I use to protect my camera bags from the
salt water. When I look up again, I find I can hardly see for the spray. My face and hair and glasses are soaked, as in a
rain, and foolishly, I have worn shorts, so that my legs are wet and cold and covered with goosebumps.

Rich turns the Zodiac around. He has wanted to observe the ocean on the unprotected side of the island, and he has seen enough.
He maneuvers back into the harbor and puts the Zodiac up onto the narrow dark beach of Smuttynose, a beach I left only the
night before. I dry my glasses on the inside of my sweatshirt and inspect my camera bags for any signs of wet.

“How do you want to work this?” he asks as he is tying up the boat. His T-shirt has turned a translucent peach. “You want
me to go with you and hold things? Or do you want me to wait here.”

“Wait here,” I say. “Sit in the sun and get dry. Rich, I’m really sorry about this. You must be freezing.”

“I’m fine,” he says. “I’ve been wet before. You do what you have to do.” He smiles. “I know this is hard to believe,” he says,
“but I’m actually having a good time. The truth is” — he gestures to indicate the expanse of the ocean and seems to laugh
at himself— “I usually have to go to a lot of trouble to be able to do this on my days off.”

“I’ll try not to be long. Thirty, forty minutes at the most. And if you do get cold,” I say, “give a shout, and we’ll get
out of here. This isn’t worth getting sick over.”

I bend to collect my camera bags. When I stand up, Rich is wrestling with his wet T-shirt. He takes it off and wipes the top
of his head with it, and then squeezes it out. I watch him walk over to a rock that is in the sun, or what is left of the
sun, and lay the T-shirt carefully out to dry. When I was in Africa, I observed the women there drying their clothes in a
similar manner — by laying them flat on top of long grasses over a wide field, so that often you would come upon a landscape
of bright cloth. Rich glances over at me. Perhaps because he has almost no hair on his head, the thick dark chest hair that
spreads across his breast draws the eye. I turn around and walk to the interior of Smuttynose.

The defense waived its right to cross-examine Ingerbretson, at which point the prosecution then called Evan Christensen to
the stand. Christensen was asked to identify himself and to talk about his relationship to Smuttynose.

“In March last, I lived at the Shoals, Smutty Nose, in John Hontvet’s family; I had lived there about five months. Anethe
Christensen was my wife. I was born in Norway. Anethe was born in Norway. I came to this country with her after I married
her.”

Yeaton asked Christensen what he was doing the day of the murders. Christensen answered: “During the night my wife was killed
I was in Portsmouth. I arrived at Portsmouth about four o’clock the night before.”

“Who was with you when you arrived at Portsmouth about four o’clock that night?”

“John Hontvet and Matthew Hontvet. I was at work for John in the fishing business.”

“Was anyone else with you that night?”

“No, sir.”

“Where did you spend the night at Portsmouth?”

“I was on board till twelve o’clock; after that went up to Johnson’s house and baited trolls.”

“Baited trolls the rest of the night?”

“Yes, till six or seven o’clock in the morning. John Hontvet was with me when I baited trolls.”

“When did you first hear of this matter at Smutty Nose?”

“Heard it from Appledore Island.”

“Where were you then?”

“On board Hontvet’s schooner.”

“Who were with you at that time?”

“Matthew Hontvet and John Hontvet; it was between eight and nine o’clock in the morning.”

“Did you go ashore?”

“Yes; got a boat and went ashore on Appledore Island.”

“Where did you go from Appledore Island?”

“I went first up to Ingerbretson’s house. After I left there I went to Smutty Nose. When I got to Smutty Nose, I went right
up to the house and right in.”

“What did you see there?”

“I saw my wife lying on the floor.”

“Dead or alive?”

“Dead.”

“What did you do?”

“Went right back out again.”

The light is flat and muffled, colors indistinct. Thin, dull cloud has slipped over the sun, still rising in the east. I am
annoyed with myself for having wasted too much time the day before shooting Maren’s Rock. I walk to the spot where the Hontvedt
house once stood. The air has a chill in it, or perhaps it is only that I am chilled because my sweatshirt and shorts are
wet. I am grateful that Rich knew not to bring Billie.

I stand in the footprint of the house, surveying its markers. There is little here that will make an outstanding photograph;
its purpose will be merely documentary. Unless, that is, I can convey the foundation’s claustrophobia.

I know that it is always true that the dimensions of a house, seen from above, will look deceptively small. Space appears
to increase in size with walls and furniture and windows. Yet even so, I am having difficulty imagining six grown men and
women — Maren, John, Evan, Anethe, Matthew, and, for seven months, Louis Wagner — living in a space not much bigger than the
single room Thomas had in Cambridge when I met him. All those passions, I think, on such a small piece of land.

I find what I think must have been one of the two front doors of the house and stand at its threshold, looking out toward
Ap-pledore, as Maren must have done a thousand times in the five years she lived on the island. I take my cameras and lenses
from their separate pouches, check the light meter, and shoot a series of black-and-white stills to make a panorama of that
view. Directly west of me is Gosport Harbor and, beyond that, ten miles of water to the New Hampshire coast. To my north is
Appledore; to my south is Star. Behind me, that is to say east of me, is the Atlantic. I back away from the threshold and
stand in the foundation’s center. Beneath me, the floor of that old house has long given way to thistle and wood sage. I find
a small patch of bare ground and sit down. Above me, the clouds are growing oilier, as though a film were being washed across
the sky. My sweatshirt sticks to my back, and I shiver.

I dig under the brush to feel the dirt. I bring the soil up and massage it with my fingers. In the place where I am sitting,
two women died. One was young, one was not. One was beautiful, the other not. I imagine I can hear Maren’s voice.

21 September 1899

T
HE MORNING AFTER
we arrived on the island of Smutty Nose, John went off with a man named Ingerbretson to Portsmouth to secure more provisions
and also to see about a schooner that might be for sale. In order to make a living on Smutty Nose, around which we were told
was an abundance of mackerel, cod, flounder, haddock, and menhaden, John would have to have his own boat plus full gear for
fishing. This would be a great expense, and would largely exhaust John’s savings, but it was clear to him that no profit,
nor even a livelihood, could be earned without such expenditures.

While John was gone, I stripped the walls of the yellowed and ugly newsprint, rolling the papers into logs and burning them
on the stove for warmth. At first, the house was colder than it had been, but I knew that shortly John would begin to build
wooden walls, behind which he would place goat’s tick for insulation. I also found a roll of blue gingham in my stores, which
I hastily fashioned into curtains. When these efforts were completed, I examined our remaining provisions for foodstuffs that
might make a meal, as I knew that John would be hungry when he returned. All that day I busied myself so that I did not have
time for any thoughts about people or a home left behind. I have found, in the course of my adult life, that the best cure
for melancholy is industry, and it was only when John and I were imprisoned in the cottage for long weeks at a time during
the winter months that I fell victim to that malady and could not control myself or my thoughts and words, so that I was a
worry not only to John Hontvedt but also to myself. That day, however, my first day on the island of Smutty Nose, was one
of determined busy-ness, and when my husband returned from his sail into Portsmouth, I saw that the changes I had made had
pleased him, and he had a smile upon his face, which, for the first time since we had left Norway, replaced the concern that
he nearly always had for my well-being.

Our daily life on Smutty Nose was, for the most part, unremarkable in many of its aspects. John and I would wake early, and
I would immediately remake the fire that had gone out during the night. John, who would have baited his trawls the evening
before, would gather his oil pants and underclothes from the hooks that were in the kitchen, and once dressed would sit down
at the table on which I would put in front of him large bowls of porridge and of coffee. We did not speak much, unless there
was some unusual piece of information that needed to be imparted, or unless I was in need of some provisions, which I would
inform John about. Early on, we had lost the habit of speech with each other, as I think must happen with other husbands and
wives who dare not speak for fear of asking the wrong question, or of revealing a festering hurt or a love for another person
which might be ruinous to the partnership they had formed.