Winter's Tales (12 page)

The sky was so light that she hardly seemed needed there; it was as if she had turned up by a caprice of her own. She was round, demure and presumptuous. At that he knew that he must go ashore, whatever it was to cost him. But he did not know how to get away, since the others had taken the yawl with them. He stood on the deck for a long time, a small lonely figure of a sailor-boy on a boat, when he caught sight of a yawl coming in from a ship farther out, and hailed her. He found that it was the Russian crew from a boat named
Anna
, going ashore. When he could make himself understood to them, they took him with them; they first asked him for money for his fare, then, laughing, gave it back to him. He thought: “These people will be believing that I am going in to town, wenching.” And then he felt, with some pride, that they were right, although at the same time they were infinitely wrong, and knew nothing about anything.

When they came ashore they invited him to come in and drink in their company, and he would not refuse, because they had helped him. One of the Russians was a giant, as big as a bear; he told Simon that his name was Ivan. He got drunk at once, and then fell upon the boy with a bear-like affection, pawed him, smiled and laughed into his face, made him a present of a gold watch-chain, and kissed him on both cheeks. At that Simon reflected that he also ought to give Nora a present when they met again, and as
soon as he could get away from the Russians he walked up to a booth that he knew of, and bought a small blue silk handkerchief, the same colour as her eyes.

It was Saturday evening, and there were many people amongst the houses; they came in long rows, some of them singing, all keen to have some fun that night. Simon, in the midst of this rich, bawling life under the clear moon, felt his head light with the flight from the ship and the strong drinks. He crammed the handkerchief in his pocket; it was silk, which he had never touched before, a present for his girl.

He could not remember the path up to Nora’s house, lost his way, and came back to where he had started. Then he grew deadly afraid that he should be too late, and began to run. In a small passage between two wooden huts he ran straight into a big man, and found that it was Ivan once more. The Russian folded his arms round him and held him. “Good! Good!” he cried in high glee, “I have found you, my little chicken. I have looked for you everywhere, and poor Ivan has wept because he lost his friend.” “Let me go, Ivan,” cried Simon. “Oho,” said Ivan, “I shall go with you and get you what you want. My heart and my money are all yours, all yours; I have been seventeen years old myself, a little lamb of God, and I want to be so again tonight.” “Let me go,” cried Simon, “I am in a hurry.” Ivan held him so that it hurt, and patted him with his other hand. “I feel it, I feel it,” he said. “Now trust to me, my little friend. Nothing shall part you and me. I hear the others coming; we will have such a night together as you will remember when you are an old grandpapa.”

Suddenly he crushed the boy to him, like a bear that carries off a sheep. The odious sensation of male bodily warmth and the bulk of a man close to him made the lean boy mad. He thought of Nora waiting, like a slender ship in the dim air, and of himself, here, in
the hot embrace of a hairy animal. He struck Ivan with all his might. “I shall kill you, Ivan,” he cried out, “if you do not let me go.” “Oh, you will be thankful to me later on,” said Ivan, and began to sing. Simon fumbled in his pocket for his knife, and got it opened. He could not lift his hand, but he drove the knife, furiously, in under the big man’s arm. Almost immediately he felt the blood spouting out, and running down in his sleeve. Ivan stopped short in the song, let go his hold of the boy and gave two long deep grunts. The next second he tumbled down on his knees. “Poor Ivan, poor Ivan,” he groaned. He fell straight on his face. At that moment Simon heard the other sailors coming along, singing, in the by-street.

He stood still for a minute, wiped his knife, and watched the blood spread into a dark pool underneath the big body. Then he ran. As he stopped for a second to choose his way, he heard the sailors behind him scream out over their dead comrade. He thought: “I must get down to the sea, where I can wash my hand.” But at the same time he ran the other way. After a little while he found himself on the path that he had walked on the day before, and it seemed as familiar to him, as if he had walked it many hundred times in his life.

He slackened his pace to look round, and suddenly saw Nora standing on the other side of the fence; she was quite close to him when he caught sight of her in the moonlight. Wavering and out of breath he sank down on his knees. For a moment he could not speak. The little girl looked down at him. “Good evening, Simon,” she said in her small coy voice. “I have waited for you a long time,” and after a moment she added: “I have eaten your orange.”

“Oh, Nora,” cried the boy. “I have killed a man.” She stared at him, but did not move. “Why did you kill a man?” she asked after a moment. “To get here,” said Simon. “Because he tried to stop me.
But he was my friend.” Slowly he got on to his feet. “He loved me!” the boy cried out, and at that burst into tears. “Yes,” said she slowly and thoughtfully. “Yes, because you must be here in time.” “Can you hide me?” he asked. “For they are after me.” “Nay,” said Nora, “I cannot hide you. For my father is the parson here at Bodø, and he would be sure to hand you over to them, if he knew that you had killed a man.” “Then,” said Simon, “give me something to wipe my hands on.” “What is the matter with your hands?” she asked, and took a little step forward. He stretched out his hands to her. “Is that your own blood?” she asked. “No,” said he, “it is his.” She took the step back again. “Do you hate me now?” he asked. “No, I do not hate you,” said she. “But do put your hands at your back.”

As he did so she came up close to him, at the other side of the fence, and clasped her arms round his neck. She pressed her young body to his, and kissed him tenderly. He felt her face, cool as the moonlight, upon his own, and when she released him, his head swam, and he did not know if the kiss had lasted a second or an hour. Nora stood up straight, her eyes wide open. “Now,” she said slowly and proudly, “I promise you that I will never marry anybody, as long as I live.” The boy kept standing with his hands on his back, as if she had tied them there. “And now,” she said, “you must run, for they are coming.” They looked at one another. “Do not forget Nora,” said she. He turned and ran.

He leapt over a fence, and when he was down amongst the houses he walked. He did not know at all where to go. As he came to a house, from where music and noise streamed out, he slowly went through the door. The room was full of people; they were dancing in here. A lamp hung from the ceiling, and shone down on them; the air was thick and brown with the dust rising from the floor. There were some women in the room, but many of the men danced with each other, and gravely or laughingly stamped the floor. A
moment after Simon had come in the crowd withdrew to the walls to clear the floor for two sailors, who were showing a dance from their own country.

Simon thought: “Now, very soon, the men from the boat will come round to look for their comrade’s murderer, and from my hands they will know that I have done it.” These five minutes during which he stood by the wall of the dancing-room, in the midst of the gay, sweating dancers, were of great significance to the boy. He himself felt it, as if during this time he grew up, and became like other people. He did not entreat his destiny, nor complain. Here he was, he had killed a man, and had kissed a girl. He did not demand any more from life, nor did life now demand more from him. He was Simon, a man like the men round him, and going to die, as all men are going to die.

He only became aware of what was going on outside him, when he saw that a woman had come in, and was standing in the midst of the cleared floor, looking round her. She was a short, broad old woman, in the clothes of the Lapps, and she took her stand with such majesty and fierceness as if she owned the whole place. It was obvious that most of the people knew her, and were a little afraid of her, although a few laughed; the din of the dancing-room stopped when she spoke.

“Where is my son?” she asked in a high shrill voice, like a bird’s. The next moment her eyes fell on Simon himself, and she steered through the crowd, which opened up before her, stretched out her old skinny, dark hand, and took him by the elbow. “Come home with me now,” she said. “You need not dance here tonight. You may be dancing a high enough dance soon.”

Simon drew back, for he thought that she was drunk. But as she looked him straight in the face with her yellow eyes, it seemed to him that he had met her before, and that he might do well in listening
to her. The old woman pulled him with her across the floor, and he followed her without a word. “Do not birch your boy too badly, Sunniva,” one of the men in the room cried to her. “He has done no harm, he only wanted to look at the dance.”

At the same moment as they came out through the door, there was an alarm in the street, a flock of people came running down it, and one of them, as he turned into the house, knocked against Simon, looked at him and the old woman, and ran on.

While the two walked along the street, the old woman lifted up her skirt, and put the hem of it into the boy’s hand. “Wipe your hand on my skirt,” she said. They had not gone far before they came to a small wooden house, and stopped; the door to it was so low that they must bend to get through it. As the Lapp-woman went in before Simon, still holding on to his arm, the boy looked up for a moment. The night had grown misty; there was a wide ring round the moon.

The old woman’s room was narrow and dark, with but one small window to it; a lantern stood on the floor and lighted it up dimly. It was all filled with reindeer skins and wolf skins, and with reindeer horn, such as the Lapps use to make their carved buttons and knife-handles, and the air in here was rank and stifling. As soon as they were in, the woman turned to Simon, took hold of his head, and with her crooked fingers parted his hair and combed it down in Lapp fashion. She clapped a Lapp cap on him and stood back to glance at him. “Sit down on my stool, now,” she said. “But first take out your knife.” She was so commanding in voice and manner that the boy could not but choose to do as she told him; he sat down on the stool, and he could not take his eyes off her face, which was flat and brown, and as if smeared with dirt in its net of fine wrinkles. As he sat there he heard many people come along outside, and stop by the house; then someone knocked at the door,
waited a moment and knocked again. The old woman stood and listened, as still as a mouse.

“Nay,” said the boy and got up. “This is no good, for it is me that they are after. It will be better for you to let me go out to them.” “Give me your knife,” said she. When he handed it to her, she stuck it straight into her thumb, so that the blood spouted out, and she let it drip all over her skirt. “Come in, then,” she cried.

The door opened, and two of the Russian sailors came and stood in the opening; there were more people outside. “Has anybody come in here?” they asked. “We are after a man who has killed our mate, but he has run away from us. Have you seen or heard anybody this way?” The old Lapp-woman turned upon them, and her eyes shone like gold in the lamplight. “Have I seen or heard anyone?” she cried, “I have heard you shriek murder all over the town. You frightened me, and my poor silly boy there, so that I cut my thumb as I was ripping the skin-rug that I sew. The boy is too scared to help me, and the rug is all ruined. I shall make you pay me for that. If you are looking for a murderer, come in and search my house for me, and I shall know you when we meet again.” She was so furious that she danced where she stood, and jerked her head like an angry bird of prey.

The Russian came in, looked round the room, and at her and her blood-stained hand and skirt. “Do not put a curse on us now, Sunniva,” he said timidly. “We know that you can do many things when you like. Here is a mark to pay you for the blood you have spilled.” She stretched out her hand, and he placed a piece of money in it. She spat on it. “Then go, and there shall be no bad blood between us,” said Sunniva, and shut the door after them. She stuck her thumb in her mouth, and chuckled a little.

The boy got up from his stool, stood straight up before her and stared into her face. He felt as if he were swaying high up in the air,
with but a small hold. “Why have you helped me?” he asked her. “Do you not know?” she answered. “Have you not recognised me yet? But you will remember the peregrine falcon which was caught in the tackle-yarn of your boat, the
Charlotte
, as she sailed in the Mediterranean. That day you climbed up by the shrouds of the top-gallantmast to help her out, in a stiff wind, and with a high sea. That falcon was me. We Lapps often fly in such a manner, to see the world. When I first met you I was on my way to Africa, to see my younger sister and her children. She is a falcon too, when she chooses. By that time she was living at Takaunga, within an old ruined tower, which down there they call a minaret.” She swathed a corner of her skirt round her thumb, and bit at it. “We do not forget,” she said. “I hacked your thumb, when you took hold of me; it is only fair that I should cut my thumb for you tonight.”

She came close to him, and gently rubbed her two brown, claw-like fingers against his forehead. “So you are a boy,” she said, “who will kill a man rather than be late to meet your sweetheart? We hold together, the females of this earth. I shall mark your forehead now, so that the girls will know of that, when they look at you, and they will like you for it.” She played with the boy’s hair, and twisted it round her finger.

“Listen now, my little bird,” said she. “My great grandson’s brother-in-law is lying with his boat by the landing-place at this moment; he is to take a consignment of skins out to a Danish boat. He will bring you back to your boat, in time, before your mate comes. The
Hebe
is sailing tomorrow morning, is it not so? But when you are aboard, give him back my cap for me.” She took up his knife, wiped it in her skirt and handed it to him. “Here is your knife,” she said. “You will stick it into no more men; you will not need to, for from now you will sail the seas like a faithful seaman. We have enough trouble with our sons as it is.”