The Greenlanders (43 page)

As she put off the trip from day to day, it seemed to Margret just possible that they might winter at Steinstraumstead, if they prepared for it for the entire previous summer and if the winter was a short, snowy one, and if some large pieces of driftwood could be obtained and if they surrounded the tiny steading with another course of turf and if, to be honest, Koll appeared after Yule with extra provisions. Except that he would look for them at Brattahlid. And this was another provocation to Gudrunn, the yearly visit of Koll, whom she called, “that servingmaid’s demon.” In this view, as in no other, she was supported by Sira Isleif.

And so the first winter nights came, but this was earlier than Margret had ever gone to Brattahlid. And then, according to the stick calendar Margret had made herself, came the mass of St. Kolumban, and soon enough after that the feast of St. Andrew. Always by this time in past years they had made their passage across the fjord. In early years, in fact, Marta had sent servingmen for them, to help them over the ice, for the fjord was well iced up, a smooth surface for skating or skiing. But still the coldest part of the winter had not set in, and the four of them were comfortable enough. Another few days went by, and it was the feast of St. Nikolaus; Advent had begun. They sat down at their morning meat and Margret saw that there were but three cheeses and some dried sealmeat remaining, and in addition to this, the sheep could no longer paw through the snow to any grass, as the snow was too deep. Margret said, “We will take two of these cheeses to Gudrunn Jonsdottir tomorrow.” Asta nodded.

But on the next day, they awoke to a snowstorm that blanketed sight and this storm continued for still another day, and on the morning of the third day there was but a single cheese to be taken to Brattahlid, and a wedge cut out of it to boot. Margret considered, as she had never done in the days of Marta Thordardottir, how she might make her party welcome, or at least avoid scorn until she could finish some weaving. She went through her belongings to find some little gift, and her hand came upon some tablet weaving, a border for a shawl in bluish-gray and white, and she folded this up and put it in her bundle.

The two women had decided that Asta would carry Bryndis and some other articles on her back, and also drag behind her a sealskin bag full of necessities. Margret and Sigurd would herd the five sheep before themselves, and the trip would take a morning or a little more. When they got outside the steading, however, they saw that the snow was much deeper now than when they had made their plans, and that Sigurd would have to go on someone’s back, namely Margret’s, although he was almost too large for her to carry. And so they strapped on their short skis and made their way, with the sheep in front of them, down the hillside to the fjord. Sigurd sat in a piece of wadmal tied around Margret’s back and neck, as Gunnar had done once. The sheep were weak from hunger, which had this advantage, that they did not care to frisk away or wander off, but this disadvantage, that even under the best circumstances, one or more of them might not make it all the way to Brattahlid. On a day in summer, the red buildings of Brattahlid were clearly visible across the fjord, and shadows playing on the hillside, and sometimes, folk moving back and forth across it, but on such a day as this, when whiteness shrouded every surface, no sight of the goal drew them forward, or carried their eyes out of their heads, making the way seem short.

Only once did Margret dare look back at Steinstraumstead, and when she did, she saw that her own hillside loomed above her. Momentarily it seemed to her that the ice she was walking on was slipping backwards underneath her feet, so that no matter how she stepped forward, the ice carried her back. She shook off this feeling and looked at Bryndis, shrouded in the foxskins so that nothing of her skin could be seen, only the movement of the fox fur as she breathed against it. She would be sleeping with Asta’s walking, and warm in the furs. Margret turned her mind upon this, the sight of the little girl sleeping warmly among the furs, and she thought about it with absorption, so that when she had to go off to bring a sheep closer into the group, she longed for the sight of Bryndis asleep as if it were her own warm bedcloset or a seat beside a fire. On her back, Sigurd sat still and calm, as Gunnar never had. Now Asta forged forward in front of the sheep, breaking a path through drifted snow. Margret saw that good luck alone would carry them across the fjord, and she could not help giving herself up to contemplating her luck, which was little enough, all things considered. But then the thought of Skuli Gudmundsson came to her, and with it something that her father had often said, that a man’s luck shows itself differently to him than it does to his neighbors. And in the midst of these thoughts she saw that they were more than halfway across the fjord.

Not long after this, one of the ewes stumbled and fell down, and then did not get up. Margret called out to Asta, who turned and saw the sheep, which was lying on its side with its eyes closed. And Asta made her way back to the sheep, and hefted it into the crook of her arm and began to carry it forward. But then another sheep fell over, and there was no carrying two. Margret went to the second sheep and began to coax it to its feet, and briefly it stood up, while she was slapping it and urging it, for sheep are fearful beasts and they distrust the touch of hands. But after stumbling a step or two, the second ewe fell into the snow again, and Margret saw that it would have to be left there to freeze to death.

In this way they trudged forward, and some time later they came to the Brattahlid jetty, and Margret began to look about for a servingman or someone else to help them, for indeed she felt like falling down herself from the weight of Sigurd Kolsson on her back, but no one was there, so they began the steep climb to Osmund’s steading, only stopping at the cowbyre to fold the sheep in with the others that were already folded there, and to gather for them a few handfuls of hay from the stack in front of the byre. And it was the case with Margret that the sight of the buildings filled her, not with the desire to go forward into them, but with the false assurance that if she were to founder just where she was standing, she would be discovered and preserved. And from this she knew that she had nearly died on this journey across the fjord. Asta, too, labored painfully up the hillside, and looked about for folk but saw none.

And now it happened that they came to the door of the large steading, and still they had seen no one in the byres, no one in the storehouses, no one in the dairy, no one gathering snow to be melted for drinking water. Asta put her shoulder against the door and it swung open, and she stepped inside with Margret just behind her. The room was warm and humid, but dark, for no lamps had been lit. Margret and Asta stood still and peered about. In the master bedcloset, a figure rustled among the furs, and then a thin, high voice said, “Who is it? Who has come?” And Margret said, in a low voice, to Asta, “This stench I remember from many years ago. This is the stench of the vomiting ill, and, no doubt, partly the stench of death.” Then she spoke up and said, “It is Margret Asgeirsdottir and Asta Thorbergsdottir. We have a great fear of what we have discovered here.”

“You would have done better,” said the thin voice of Gudrunn Jonsdottir, “to have stayed where you were, even starving, than to have come here,” and her voice faded away as she fell back into the bedcloset. Now Asta put Bryndis in her foxskins down on the bench, and Sigurd huddled beside her, and Asta covered them with whatever furs she could find, so that they would get their warmth back, and then she and Margret went about the bedclosets and took note of the inhabitants, and these were dead: Osmund, his daughter, two servingwomen, and a servingman; Gudrunn seemed well enough, while her son, Ozur, appeared to be sleeping. A servingwoman and three servingmen were weak, but recovering, for it is the case with the vomiting ill that its course is straight. If a man goes to the bottom of it and does not find death, he will come up again with time.

And now it was with some dread that Margret and Asta began to minister to the living and see to the dead. Asta carried Osmund and the others out and buried them in a snowbank for the time being. Margret went to the storehouses and brought out dried reindeer meat and sourmilk. The first of these she seethed in broth, and with this she cooked some pieces of mutton, and she also found some salt to add to it, for Brattahlid was a rich farm, and sometimes in the summer when a fire was built for other purposes, such as butchering or washing clothes, the servingmaids made salt from the water of the fjord. In addition to these things, she found much dried dulse and dried angelica, and these, too, she added to the broth, so that it was thick and smooth and nourishing, and on this food, first the broth, then the bits of meat, then the sourmilk, the folk of the steading began to revive. Sira Isleif, they said, had gone off with one servingman to Ragnleif’s steading, upon hearing that Ragnleif was ill. This was some six or seven days before.

After feeding the folk, Margret and Asta went about and washed them with heated water, for all of them were covered with vomit and other dirt. Then they washed the floors and benches and beat out the furs in all the bedclosets and brought snow into the steading for clear, clean water. And these tasks took all of the rest of the day and part of the night, so that the two women were much fatigued when they at last went to the bedcloset they were accustomed to sharing. They lay with Sigurd on the inside, beside Asta, and Bryndis in her foxskins between them. Now Margret said to Asta, “Have you heard the tale of Sigurd Njalsson, when he was in the Northsetur and discovered the ship of Arnbjorn the Norwegian in the time of Bishop Arnald?” But Asta had not heard this tale. Margret said, “Here is what Sigurd said, ‘There is nothing more certain than that the foul air of a closed room where men have died of sickness is utterly destructive.’ ” And Asta said, “If he is right, then we will find it out soon enough.” And the two women went to sleep.

The next days passed in this way, with much cooking and some cleaning, and some feeding of the beasts, for Brattahlid had a large byre full of cows. Six horses ran about in a walled-in field, and the sheep were fed in a protected fold, for Brattahlid had plenty of fodder, as Gardar did. And each day one visitor or more would come from one of the surrounding farms to bring the news and ask for provisions, and at every farm one or two were dead, though not so many as at Brattahlid. From each of these messengers Margret asked news of Sira Isleif or his servingman, but no one knew of events at Ragnleif’s steading. To all of these folk she handed out sealmeat and blubber with a generous hand, until Gudrunn was well enough to sit up and give these things away herself. Gudrunn was much cast down by the death of her daughter, who had been a very pretty and appealing child, less so by the death of Osmund, for this she said she had expected all autumn. She clung to Ozur, who clung to her, and Margret saw that they would not be easily roused to take charge of the steading.

And now, by the Brattahlid calendar, which Sira Isleif himself had made, the time for Yule came on, although by Margret’s calendar it was still some eight days off, and Gudrunn asked Margret and Asta to slaughter and roast two sheep for the feast, as was always done at Brattahlid, and indeed on most of the wealthier farms, for Yule. And it was as they were getting ready to do this, building the fire, that Asta began to vomit, and so she was taken with the vomiting ill, and shortly after her the child Bryndis, and within three days they were dead. And now one of the servingmen was pretty fully recovered, and he carried Asta out of the steading and buried her with Bryndis in her arms in the snowbank beside the others. Margret was not subject to the sickness at any time, and Sigurd became only a little ill, but managed to hold onto his food, and this, Margret told Gudrunn, was the way folk recovered, by keeping their food inside them to fortify them. As there still had been no news from Ragnleif’s steading, a servingman who had a daughter living there went off to see how things stood with those folk.

One day Gudrunn was sitting up in her bed and sipping some broth, and she said to Margret, “How is it that you go about your business with such strength when you have just lately looked upon the death of Asta Thorbergsdottir? But folk say that this is not the first death you have looked upon.”

Margret did not reply.

“Folk say you looked upon the death of your lover with indifference though his blood spurted over your dress.” But she spoke in a neutral voice, as if merely curious.

Margret said, “Everyone has many chances to practice with death. If you have not, then you are indeed rare among the Greenlanders.”

“It is practice, then, that makes you cold?”

Margret turned back the sleeve of her gown and exposed her arm. The flesh was thin and wiry, the skin white and dry. Margret lifted her arm toward Gudrunn. “Many deaths have worn me down, and soon I will be as bony and hard as Death himself. Then I will be cold indeed.” She took the basin that had contained the broth and turned away.

On this same day, the servingman returned from Ragnleif’s steading, and this was his news, that Ragnleif had not been ill, after all, only somewhat injured from a fall on the ice, but some five or six days after the coming of Sira Isleif, many at the steading had fallen sick all at once, with only Sira Isleif, who remained healthy, and one old servingman to take care of them. The short tale was this, that Ragnleif’s wife, Finna, and his youngest child, Steinthor, as well as a servingmaid and her child and two serving boys who were brothers, all of these had died, but all the others were recovering. And this, too, had happened, that in the midst of the sickness some unknown men had broken into Ragnleif’s storehouse and taken all of the mutton and dried reindeer meat and a moiety of the sourmilk, so that provisions were low at the other farmstead. And at this news, Gudrunn grew angry at Margret and berated her for handing out foodstuffs to all and sundry with such a generous hand, for now they would suffer the curse of seeing strangers fat and satisfied while near kin went hungry.