The Prophets of Eternal Fjord (27 page)

Because of my many burdens, says the smith. Now that the carpenter and the cooper are both ill, I must do their work, besides my own. And yet I receive only wages and provisions for one.

Today is Sunday, says the Overseer. Instead of seeking pleasure he ought to observe the holy day and read in his postil. It would become him better than filling himself with aquavit.

Haldora finds herself thinking the Overseer is correct in what he says. And yet she feels for the smith and considers Dahl to be self-righteous and insensitive.

Now she sees the smith clutch at his throat and cough, as though on a theatre stage. I've such a tightness here, he whimpers. I think there is a cold coming on, perhaps a boil in the throat. Who knows how long a man may have left in this vale of tears? It is only wherefore I come to ask the Overseer for a small and insignificant half-pint of the aquavit, to chase the cold away, so I don't end up in bed like the carpenter or under the peat like the old pastor.

Indeed, we can't have that, can we? Dahl quips back with a sarcasm that is lost on the smith, though not on Haldora, who prods gently here and there in her dubious vegetable garden while she eavesdrops.

Dahl sighs. All right, Hammer. A half pint and not a drop more, does he hear me?

Thank you, your Excellency, says the smith, and Haldora hears how he has already discarded his subservience and adopted a more brazen, sneering manner. She looks forward to tomorrow, Monday, when she might take him to task and order him about.

She straightens her back and watches the two men as they walk towards the warehouse where the colony holds its stock of ale and aquavit.

I'm docking this from next week's provision, she hears the Overseer say. Just so he knows.

They disappear from view and she walks back up to the colony house, rather excited by this minor dispute. Through the walls a short while later she hears the carpenter and the smith talking in their room in the other part of the house. Their voices are woollen, she cannot make out what they are saying, but from the tone of the smith's voice she can tell that he is not in the best of humour. A lengthy exchange follows. She feels, perhaps, that they are speaking of her. She hopes the carpenter, decent as he is, will defend her. Then a door slams and all is quiet.

She settles down to write a letter to her sister, only to lapse into daydreams. The chambermaid comes in and looks at her enquiringly. Not now, she says, and sends her away with a wave of her hand. When she is gone, she wishes she had not, but is loath to go out and call her back. Sunday. Once it was the best day of the week, a day of outings and trysts with young men, whose desires she found mysterious and inciting. But that was at home. That was when she was still young and unknowledge­able and thought that life would be just as her father, the apothecary, encouraged her to believe. It is a long time ago. Now she has travelled from youth at home to adulthood abroad.

Her husband Jørgen loves this wilderness. He came to Godthåb as a ship's boy aboard the schooner
Aurora
, allowed her to sail again without him and was taken on by the Trade. He told her the story during the time when they were engaged, and she has heard it told many times since. It is more than twenty years ago now. He worked his way up; for, as he is wont to say, the only qualification needed to advance a man's station in the colonies is not to be dead. If only he makes certain to remain alive, then sooner or later he will be king. Or Trader, as Haldora tends to add. Indeed, but that is but a station. You mark my words, my dear.

He speaks often of Greenland's future development. It is a land of enormous opportunity, as he likes to lecture her, and immeasurable resources. Only ambition and will are lacking, and someone to organize matters into a system. Most who are posted here are satisfied to stick it out for the apportioned number of years, earn a wage and serve the king. Survive. Advance a couple of rungs.

My dear Haldora, he says, occupying the middle of the room. What this country needs is for the small administrative units, the colonies, to be dismantled in favour of centralization, with a view to the industrial exploitation of what the land has to offer. Of course, a certain autonomy, he mutters, pacing back and forth beneath the rafters of the ceiling, will be required, a degree of, erm, detachment from the mother country; self-rule, if you like. A new governor would have to be appointed .  .  . indeed, of course!

At this juncture, Jørgen Kragstedt sends his wife a smile, which she returns. This is a discussion they have conducted many times before.

Had he asked her what she needed, she would have said: a child.

So he refrains from asking.

The marriage came about during his time in Denmark awaiting his posi­tion as colony manager. Her father, the apothecary Knapp in Køge, was family to his mother far removed, and Kragstedt had frequented the resi­dence in the summers of his childhood, long before Haldora was born. Her father it was who had taken it into his head that they should be brought together, before she even realized that he existed at all. He was invited into the home on a number of occasions; a heavy man with red hair, a feature she found slightly repulsive, though not sufficiently to cause her to object. She had yet to become herself again, following the death of an older sister in labour. Decisions were made, steps taken. It was the easiest way.

The proposal itself occurred during a walk. Woods. A village. The manor. Fields. The lake. It was a very long walk. Eventually they were standing on a bridge that led over the millstream. The sound of gushing water and the paddles of the mill wheel released her from the exact and no doubt stuttered articulation of the proposal. She said yes. He stood with his hat under his arm, his upper body slightly bowed. His scalp was freckled. He looked at her enquiringly, anaesthetized by the noise of the mill. They walked home, arm in arm, neither having heard what the other had said, though both assuming the matter to be happily resolved. When they arrived home, her parents embraced them and wept. And thus they were betrothed.

The dowry never materialized and Kragstedt spoke of taking the issue to the courts. But then so much else happened. He was given his position, preparations were to be made for the voyage, and they married so quickly that it gave occasion to gossip. Then they departed. Her parents and sisters sailed as far as Elsinore. A year after their settling at Sukkertoppen they received word of her father's bankruptcy and sudden death. Two sisters are still living, and her mother, too, but she has no one close by in whom she feels she may confide. Now, however, she has begun to regard Magister Falck as one who might fill the void in her life. She has no idea if she will ever see Denmark again.

She catches sight of the smith, who stands gazing at the enclosed garden, the black soil. She draws quickly away from the window and the smith fails to notice her presence. But then she hears someone on the main step and a knock at the door. She goes into the hallway, stands in the dark and listens.

Who's there?

Niels Hammer, Madame. The smith. If you don't mind, it concerns the Madame's gate.

She opens the door, opens it wide. The smith stands looking up at her with bloodshot eyes, his head bare, hat pressed to his chest. He gapes. Haldora glances down at herself. Is there something amiss with me? she wonders. She realizes she perhaps ought to have draped a shawl over her bare shoulders and gathered her hair, which hangs freely down her back.

The smith clears his throat. The thing is, you see, Madame Kragstedt, the thing is I need your help.

My help?

The smith laughs nervously. With the gate. The drawing. He flaps his hand in the air: The drawing has become blurred. On account of the dampness, perhaps. He groans softly, then pulls at his whiskers. Haldora smells the fumes of alcohol that waft towards her and recoils. The smith steps up to her, only to think better of it and retreat downwards again. Would the Madame do me the favour of casting her eye on the drawing and explaining to me certain things about which the pitiful smith is unclear?

We have already spoken of this several times, she says admonishingly. I thought him to have understood. Did he not assure me of it just the other day?

That may be so, but a man can become uncertain. He throws out his hand in apology. I wouldn't wish to make a mistake so the whole thing should have to be scrapped. All I want is to do it just the way the lady wishes. He stares at her, his eyes devour. She stares back, without causing him to lower his gaze.

Does he have it with him? The drawing?

In the workshop. He jerks his head nervously in the direction. If the Madame would come with me down to the workshop, she will see what I mean. I can't describe it properly in words, it's kind of .  .  . He throws out his hand again and expels a slight, explosive snort. It's the iron, Madame, a resistance in the iron, in the transfer from the paper. I'm sure the lady understands that I can hardly bring the iron and the drawing and the hammer and the anvil up here to show her. Can the lady not see? He closes his mouth and bites his lip.

Haldora smiles at him. The sight of this fawning and subservient muscle of a man makes her feel strangely at ease. She could extend the toe of her boot and he would take it in his hand and kiss it with reverence. The thought makes her feel rather elevated, omnipotent and extravagant. She feels goodness and mercy absorb into her soul. She smiles. Yes, I can see that. But can it not wait? Today is Sunday. Tomorrow I can visit him as usual and we can go through the whole thing again.

If the Madame would have me excused, I've all manner of things to be getting on with tomorrow. With the carpenter and the cooper being laid up in bed, I've been saddled with their work as well as my own, as if it weren't enough to be smith. The way things are, I've got no choice but to work on the gate on the rest day, and run the risk of a fine into the bargain.

She considers the smith as he stands there in his Sunday best, heavy and drunken. If truth be told, he has said what she hoped he would say. There is no other way but to go with him. She leaves the door ajar and goes back inside, where she puts on a shawl and her boots, sticks a couple of pins in her hair and gathers it under her hat. When she comes out on to the step, the smith stands rocking on his heels and smooths back his hair with his fingers.

Lead me to his workshop, she says in a commanding tone.

Following on his heels down to the harbour, she registers that the air has become chaotic. It must be the change of tide, she thinks to her­self. Gulls scream, swooping down and rising sharply, one of them absconding with something hanging in its beak, a whole flock in pursuit. The smith throws open the door of the workshop. She hesitates a moment before stepping inside. The door snaps shut behind her. She stands in the room's bitter cold.

Has he not lit the furnace? she asks. I thought him to be at work.

She turns to face him. He is standing with his back to the door, observing her. He smiles gingerly. She stiffens, aware of herself in her flaming red dress, her bare arms beneath her shawl.

The lady is like a piece of Heaven, says the smith in a thick voice.

He moves forward. She retreats a pace and is stopped by something against the back of her thighs. She puts a hand out behind her and raises the other in front of her face to fend him off.

Do not hurt me, she breathes.

Pardon
? says the smith with the French pronunciation, and laughs.

Tell me what you want, Mr Hammer.

He breathes heavily and she can see that he swallows. She knows that she should not be hesitant and passive, that she ought instead to speak to him in an ordinary tone about the wrought-iron gate, and thereby drag him out of that which is about to overcome him. But she is herself in a state of terror and giddiness, as though she were standing on the edge of an abyss looking down. She wants to jump, but dares not.

I want to lie with you, Madame Kragstedt. He speaks calmly and deliberately.

He knows what he wants, she thinks to herself. The thought has formed inside him, and the thought is the mother of the action. It is too late now to stop him with talk.

Indeed? she says. I imagine he does. She feels her lips quiver, her teeth chatter.

Is the lady cold? He sounds almost kind and caring.

Yes, it is cold in here. She fumbles behind her back, her hand finds an object and explores it, identifying it as a tool. Hammer's hammer. She tries to force herself to be calm.

The smith stands stock-still, looking at her. He seems to be taking pleasure in the situation, as though he were thinking: Who is the master now? He moves away from the door, takes a couple of steps forward, reaches out and touches her breast.

The Madame is becoming. It's neither right nor fair that her husband should have her splendours to himself.

She feels his hand on her breast; it squeezes investigatively, quite unroughly. She looks down at the hand. It is huge and coarse, marred with scratches and sores, the fingernails yellowed and broken. It squeezes her breast again, cautiously, and more than once. The smith looks up and she meets his gaze.

I hope the lady doesn't mind me having a feel, he says

She shakes her head stiffly.

My father used to say you're all that way, all women. Lustful. It's why women and not men become whores. I can't say if it's so, but it's certainly true that only women submit to their lust and sell their bodies for copper. What would be the lady's opinion on the matter?

Her mouth is as dry as paper. She tries to wet it in order to speak. Is his father still alive? she stutters through chattering teeth.

There'll be no talk of my father here, he snaps.

No.

She feels his hand against her cheek. It feels like a dead thing, timber or a piece of iron. Her face must be warm.

The lady blushes, says the smith. It becomes her. Madame Kragstedt is beautiful, beautiful as an apple. He laughs. What nonsense!

His hands begin to explore up and down her dress, trying to find a way inside. But the fabric resists, more than she herself, layer upon layer of confining garments to be peeled away if he is to reach the goal of his desire: her skin. The hands move feverishly, he issues sounds of annoy­ance and comes closer, pressing himself against her. She smells his sweat and the aquavit on his breath, but also the bitter scent of her own skin and the rancid smell of stale sweat embedded in the fabric of her clothing as it becomes warm. He lowers his head and kisses her. She feels his wrig­gling tongue wet against her cheek and ear. He takes a step back and spits.