The Greenlanders (39 page)

Nevertheless, like Bjorn, Einar was a generous and interested man, as free with tales and trinkets from abroad as he was with advice. Best of all, he was of the sort of sanguine temperament that doesn’t recognize when it is giving offense, and so he felt no enmity for others, and received none. When folk heard of the betrothal to Gunnhild Gunnarsdottir, they cocked their heads wisely and declared among themselves that the Gunnar Stead lineage would certainly bring some much needed pulchritude to the lineage of the Icelanders. But mostly it was a lucky match for Gunnar, who was a man of little luck, after all.

Now Einar began to talk to Sira Pall Hallvardsson of the cattle before them in the Gardar pen. These cattle now numbered about forty, including spring calves, who were just being weaned, and Einar was not much impressed with them; he had seen better in Denmark, Germany, even Iceland. And now he told a tale of Iceland, in which someone he knew desecrated a small chapel by using it for a lambing fold in the early spring. And this man lived near a volcano, and one day some vapors rose out of the volcano in the gray cloud and settled upon the farmer’s pastures, and after this his cattle and sheep grew quickly, but in distorted and monstrous ways—their teeth grew out of their mouths so that they could not feed, and their hooves grew long and curved backward toward their pasterns and one or two legs grew more quickly than the others, so that the animals could not stand or walk and were in great pain, so that those who didn’t die the farmer had to kill himself and he was reduced to a beggar and had to go out to the farms of other folk as a servingman.

Sira Pall Hallvardsson had no tale to match this one, so he only said that when he first came out to Greenland, there had been almost a hundred cattle in the pasture, all fat and glossy, with these same lovely white marks upon them. And the Gardar sheep had numbered in the hundreds, and of all possible colors, and in addition there had been many goats, ten horses, a half dozen or so pigs, and many dogs, both of the reindeer hunting breed and of a smaller black and white breed that was sometimes used by herders to ease their work, but these were no longer found much at Gardar or Brattahlid, though more in the southern parts of Vatna Hverfi district.

Einar declared that these deer hunting dogs were fine beasts, but not as fine as those you might see among the Irish, dogs whose backs came up to a man’s waist and who were coursed against wolves as large as themselves. And now he told about Ireland, where everything is greater than everywhere else—the grass is greener, the wolves and dogs and horses are larger, the hermits more austere, the folk more violent, the women more beautiful, the rich men richer and the poor men poorer. And so he went on, and it seemed to Sira Pall Hallvardsson that he was lolling in a wealth of words. Now the great bell of Gardar began to toll vespers and Einar and Pall Hallvardsson strolled toward the cathedral, talking of the Irish.

In the morning, as they were rowing in Einars Fjord, which was still and blue so that the icebergs sat in the water like stones, Pall Hallvardsson said to Gunnar that the tale was that along with Margret and her servingwoman, Asta, there was a boychild of some three or four winters of age running about, and it seemed to folk that he was dark-haired and flat of cheek, as if he were of skraeling lineage, and Gunnar made no response to this, for it was his habit never to speak of Margret and never to act as if he had heard her spoken of. When, at the end of the next day, they rowed up to the landing place at Lavrans Stead, he was much pleased to see his wife and daughters, though not as pleased as he expected to be. And that evening, telling the news, Lavrans Stead seemed quiet and small to him, and he could not help a longing for the business and wealth of Gardar.

It was true that a child lived at Steinstraumstead with Margret and Asta, and his name was Sigurd. He was the son of Asta Thorbergsdottir. The father of this child was the skraeling boy who had once asked her hand in marriage. He had two wives who were skraelings and spent most of his time in the east or the north, or at any rate away from Steinstraumstead, but he visited Asta two times each year, once at Yule time, at Brattahlid, when he brought with him rich gifts of sealmeat, furs, and walrus tusks and once in the summer, when he brought child’s clothing fashioned by his two wives as well as other provisions such as he had gathered in his summer hunting. He spoke no Norse, and he always came by himself. Asta spoke none of the skraeling tongue. But she dressed herself carefully for these visits, prepared rich foods, and looked out eagerly for his skin boat. Although his name was Quimiak, she called him Koll.

Of Sigurd, both she and Margret were very fond. He had no regular tasks and was carried everywhere by one or the other of the women and was made to eat only what he wished to eat and was allowed to speak out no matter who was speaking, and the two women fell silent to hear what he had to say, although it was also true that as a rule he was laconic in the manner of skraeling children. He was not handsome, but he was big and strong, like Asta, and looked much like her, except for his straight black hair. He thought very well of himself, Brattahlid folk said.

Of other matters at Steinstraumstead, there is this to say, that Asta and Margret had made of the place a simple but comfortable steading, and by living with great austerity, they managed to stay there from the time when the ice broke up in Eriks Fjord almost until Yule every year. Margret had gotten for herself ten ewes, and from their milk she made an excellent quantity of cheese, for the pasturage above the tiny steading was rich and little used. All the steadings up that side of Eriks Fjord were abandoned and she could pasture them for a great distance along the fjord and also as far back into the mountains as the glacier. At Yule they went with her across the fjord to Brattahlid and were bred to Osmund’s ram. Also in the summer she spun a great deal of wool and in the winter she wove this into wadmal for the use of folk at Brattahlid, as well as for clothing for herself, Asta, and Sigurd. She was quick at the loom, and was pleased to show the Brattahlid servants what she remembered of the patterns Kristin the wife of Thord of Siglufjord had taught her long ago. Her hair was completely white and her body as thin and hard as a whale bone. She was some forty winters old, and still suffered little if at all from the joint ill. She no longer complained of her dreams. She no longer had recourse to Sira Isleif, and had not taken communion or made a confession in three summers. Sira Isleif was afraid to approach her concerning this matter, for he was a timid man, especially since the death of Marta Thordardottir some two winters before.

Some things were changed at Steinstraumstead, and one of these happened as follows: one day when Sigurd was sitting at his meat, he knocked over his cup of ewe’s milk and spilled it into the moss that lay upon the floor of the steading. At once he began to cry, because he was very fond of this drink, and sorry to lose his. Now it happened that Asta, without speaking or considering, took up the other cup of ewe’s milk at the table and placed it in front of Sigurd, and he drank it down. This cup of milk belonged to Margret, and at once Asta realized this, and was stricken with mortification, and she and Margret gazed upon each other’s faces without speaking for some moments. Then Margret smiled, for she was amused, and she said, “Although you are my servant, Asta, it seems to me that you grow to fill every nook of this place, and all things here flow to Sigurd. We spend our days consulting his pleasure as servants do a peevish master. You grow and flourish as richly as a patch of angelica by the side of a clear stream, but it seems to me that I shrink and harden and shrink and harden, and when I die I will be as a small pebble, and this is not frightening to me, but pleasant.”

And Asta, because she had her child beside her, leaning into her so that she could feel the warmth of his body against hers, was somewhat offended by this remark and offered no reply. When Sigurd jumped up and wandered out of the steading, she, too, got up, and went to the vat of ewe’s milk from that morning and dipped up another cupful for Margret. This Margret drank, and all of the rest of the evening, Asta dogged Margret’s steps and helped her with tasks she was accustomed to doing herself and quieted Sigurd or sent him out of the way when he seemed to be annoying Margret, but by awakening time the next morning these things were forgotten, and Asta went back to thinking first of Sigurd in all things. Margret took some cheese and followed the sheep for the entire day, eating bilberries as she went about the hillsides, and this was a great pleasure to her.

At the farmstead, Asta had begun to look for Koll’s visit, for it was at this time of the summer and in such weather, brisk and bright, that he often came to her. This waiting was little agreeable to her, for fear was mixed with eagerness so that she alternately dreaded and yearned for the first sudden meeting. On the one hand, she had grown familiar with and almost fond of Koll’s face, so that it seemed as commonplace to her as any Norse face she knew. On the other hand, she had not gotten accustomed to the smell that arose from his clothing and his hands and his hair, and this came over her like a miasma, freshly each time. Fortunately, however, it seemed to go away after he had been near her for a while. Koll also seemed to share her fondness for Sigurd, whom he called by a name in the skraeling tongue. He always brought the boy exquisite gifts, finer even than those he had brought Asta to win her. The boy slept between two snowy white bearskins and as a baby had been swaddled in a length pieced from the fur of blue and white foxes. There were also carvings of ivory and two lamps of the skraeling style as well as various weapons and tools that Asta thought little of but kept for the boy.

As a balance to this anticipation, Asta had a great fear of Koll’s other fondnesses when he saw her, for he came for the purpose of having intercourse, that was plain to see, and this activity seemed odd and not a little shocking. She had learned at his first reappearance, about a year after the marriage proposal, that to run or scream merely inflamed him and gave him greater strength. And yet the penetration itself, the pinning of her arms and the writhing of his flesh against her made her gasp and choke. This was a thing he wished to do many times during each visit. Each time he did it, Asta thought of Sira Isleif and regretted her sin, for this was sin indeed, but after each time was over, it seemed a small thing in retrospect, and little to pay for such boons as Sigurd and the gifts and, even, the fondness of Koll himself, who slapped her flanks and laughed at her flesh, and chattered about it in the skraeling tongue as if it were a thing of great beauty and pride to him.

Now she sat Sigurd in front of the steading with a basin of water and some other vessels, both whole and broken, and Sigurd set about pouring the water back and forth among the vessels. Then Asta went into the steading and carried out all of the skins of the two beds, and laid them on the hillside in the sun. Then she gathered some birch branches and lashed them together with a willow whip and began to beat the skins so that the fleas and lice rose out of them as well as dirt and dust. After that, she took a comb and set about combing the remaining vermin out of Sigurd’s bearskins, and this was something she did four or five times in a summer, more often than most folk, because she was very particular about such things.

As she was engaged in this, Sigurd got up from his play and came over to the furs and began to lie down upon them and roll around on them, laughing merrily, for they were soft and clean and sweet to the skin, and though he was undoing her work, Asta was incapable of wrath at her son, and she merely laughed with him and knelt down and ruffled his hair and put her face close to his and looked at him. His mother’s admiration moved the boy to jump up and begin running back and forth on the flat place in front of the steading, as fast as he could. Then he began to gather small stones and toss them down the hill toward the water, for it was his fixed desire to stand just in front of the steading and throw a stone so that it went into the water, although the strip of hillside was some fifty paces in width. He threw these stones with great intensity of thought, one after the other. Asta went back to her work, and finished combing the skins and began to carry them indoors.

In the shade of the steading was a vat of ewe’s milk from the morning, and beside it a smaller one from the evening before. Asta went over to these and looked at the milk, then gathered some small pieces of driftwood and a clump of sheep’s dung and built a small fire. On this she set a soapstone pot, and into that she poured the night’s milk, letting it heat until she could just barely endure to touch it with her finger. Then she poured it out into the morning’s milk. Now she went into the steading and got a small basin of buttermilk from the butter making of the day before, and poured it into the milk. After this she took Sigurd farther down the slope so that there would be no chance of his coming against the vat of milk or disturbing it in any way. She sat with him on the lower slope, looking across to Brattahlid, and she played with him a game that involved their four hands, where she put one of her hands down upon her leg, and he covered it with one of his, and she covered his, and he put his on top. Then she removed her bottom hand and put it on top, and he did the same, and they did this, taking turns, faster and faster. This was the one game Asta could remember playing as a child, and Sigurd enjoyed it very much and could go very fast without becoming confused. Then Asta got up and returned up the hill and gazed upon the vat of milk, and she put her finger into the mixture so that a hole was made that filled up with whey, and from this she knew that the curds were ready to be cut. She went into the steading and returned with a long blade made from the shoulder bone of a reindeer and sharpened, and she cut the curd four times, not hesitating to remove such pieces as Sigurd had a desire for, for fresh curd was a favorite treat with him. And so she went on with the cheesemaking, until the end of the day, when she set the cheese to drip over the vat, wrapped in a piece of clean wadmal and hanging from the eaves of the steading by a hook made from a reindeer antler. And on this day, Koll made no appearance.