To-day the good ship the Kronprinds Christian returned from the north and had plainly done much good trade. The men reported that the Greenlanders up north had complained that some foreign ships which were there for the purpose of trading had robbed them of three whalefish, and having heard that our king was such a mighty gentleman asked that he defend them from the assaults of these foreigners and prevent them from stealing their rightful goods or in any other manner causing them harm. In return they were willing to allow the King’s men all the blubber and other goods they might otherwise have lost.
FROM HANS EGEDE’S JOURNAL, JULY 1728
Henrik Balthasar Miltzov steps from the privy and falls flat on his arse. Mud splatters about him, and he grips his wig as if somehow to rescue it from being soiled. He sits for a moment and wonders if he might have injured himself. No, all bones are intact. The earth is a mire and he must first turn onto all fours in order to rise. He scrabbles to his feet and finds himself staring into the eyes of a man who is seated on a rock some few paces away, watching him with interest. A savage. He holds a bone in one hand, a knife in the other. He appears to be carving a figure.
Miltzov bids him a good morning.
Peace of God, says the savage. Did you hurt yourself, priest?
Eh? says Miltzov.
It was a fine spectacle. No injuries, I trust?
Miltzov’s colleague, Ole Lange, hurries to his attendance and takes him by the arm.
No, I’m all right. The ground is slippery, I fell. He tries to wipe the thick, slimy mud from his hands onto a rock.
Egede’s waiting for us. He wants to give us a tour.
Arm in arm they proceed to the dwelling-house, the one as uncertain on his feet as the other. Reaching the slope, they feel themselves immediately beginning to slide, and without purchase they glide slowly towards the shore, gripping each other for grim death.
Will we be all right, I wonder? Lange says with a laugh.
If you fall, I fall too, Miltzov replies.
Don’t I know it.
Egede is standing on a rock, legs slightly apart, leaning his weight on his staff. His eyes follow the two men as sedately they slide by. Their involuntary procession comes to a halt and they clamber up the dry rock on which Egede stands.
I’ll have the native women sew you some of their hide boots, says Egede, himself sporting a pair. They’re very obliging in the matter as long as they can keep the needle in payment. I’ve not worn anything else for years, and have not fallen on my arse since.
Who is that man? Miltzov asks, turning in the direction from which he came. But the savage is gone. He bid me good morning with the peace of God.
What did he look like? Egede asks, glancing about.
Miltzov endeavours to describe him. Black shoulder-length hair fastened with a kind of harness. Clothing of skin. He sat carving a bone.
One of their warlocks, Egede says curtly. A sorcerer. They claim they can fly. Beyond the moon. To the bottom of the sea. That sort of thing. Swindlers, the lot of them. This one has been with us for some years. A bad man indeed. I’d thought myself rid of him. If our paths cross again, he’ll soon know that I’m not afraid of him.
They look peaceful enough, says Miltzov, his attention now on a group of natives pulling a skin boat onto the shore. The same clothes of skin. Bare chests. Much mirth.
One needn’t go into the desert to avoid looking evil in the eye, says Egede.
Miltzov and Lange exchange glances, but say nothing.
Egede turns abruptly and begins to walk. Lange and Miltzov look at each other questioningly. Then they follow the priest.
Does he mean mischief, this sorcerer? Miltzov enquires.
Yes, Egede replies, skipping from rock to rock, the two younger men hesitantly attempting to follow suit. Beware of him. He will not be ashamed to send an arrow into your back if he gets the chance.
Does he hate the Danes that much?
Yes, all Danes, though me in particular. He believes I’ve taken something that belongs to him.
What would that be?
Egede says nothing.
Can’t he be captured and punished?
We’ve been trying for some years. But he is sly, and as slippery as soap. Many’s the time I’ve had him in the sights of my musket, but lead seems not to bother him, the Lord’s Prayer likewise. He has a knack of vanishing without a trace, then appears again when one is least expecting it. He is in league with the Devil himself. He calls himself Aappaluttoq, the Red One.
The Commandant Landorph will surely be willing to track him down and put him in irons, says Lange.
Egede snorts and skips on, turning then to face them. If you’re to be any use to me, you must learn to approach the natives with a firm hand. Without fear. Without lenience. Without mercy. They are to be punished. Cold-blooded, they are, as the cockroach. But they’re subdued easily enough. Use the whip when necessary. Or simply wave it under their noses. It’s often sufficient.
But will they not hear of salvation? Miltzov asks.
Oh, but indeed. They are in fact quite susceptible and easily moved. One can captivate them with tales of the Saviour and other stories from the Bible. And in one way they do wish to be delivered. They are also God’s creatures of a sort, and thereby as naturally inclined towards salvation as any other, although their inclination may at times be hidden away in all of Greenland’s blubber. And no sooner has one left them than they have forgotten all that one has imparted to them and devote themselves once more to their silliness and lechery.
///
I am Aappaluttoq. I have for a moment since been with the Pope in Rome. I was served tea and biscuits, and spoke to him for an hour or more on the subject of Christianity and how it became divided by ‘the great Luther’, and moreover how Erasmus was by far the better reformer. He was a kind and reasonable man. His name was Benedict, and there was much to trouble him. The antics of the priests, gambling and other things he was against. In many ways he was unfortunate and was unable to carry into effect what he wanted, cheated and duped by his own men. All this he told me.
I have flown in spirals and figures of eight around the sun and moon. It was a dizzying flight. I pressed my arms close to my body and flew. At one point I lost consciousness, which is dangerous indeed, for if both one’s timi, which lies bound and croaking on the floor among the blubber lamps, and one’s tarni fall unconscious, it can be difficult to put them together again. I know of several who have perished during such a flight. I have penetrated to the core of the earth, a glowing mass into which I poked a finger without being burned, and I have of course been to the bottom of the sea, for there sits the woman with the tangled hair, and this is above all what a shaman does, swim down to Sassuma arnaa, which is what we call her, to comb and brush her hair, for it is she who gives us the animals we hunt, those that live in the sea, and if her hair is too tangled by the rubbish we people throw into the sea, she will hold back the animals and we must starve in punishment. These things may quite easily exist alongside belief in God and Jesus, our faith in Sassuma arnaa, Tornaarsuk and Sila, and all the others too, which fact I conveyed to Benedict and found him in agreement with me. We Catholics have our saints and guardian spirits too, and pray to them, he said. Basically, it’s the same. I could introduce Christianity into this country as effortlessly as anything if I were allowed to do it my way. I think, in fact, that we Greenlanders are a kind of Catholics. Egede, however, cannot fathom this at all. Therefore, we can only be enemies.
///
Egede skips lightly from rock to rock in his soft shoes of hide. He plants his staff and vaults over clefts and chasms without so much as glancing down. Lange and Miltzov must clamber and crawl on all fours like obedient dogs, scrabbling over the rocks where Egede springs like a goat. Now he stops on a pinnacle, stands and balances without a wobble. He rests his staff on his shoulder. The wind tugs at the tails of his long coat and ruffles his wig. He waits until the two young clergymen catch up with him, then jabs his staff in the air as if indicating to them a broom cupboard in which they might store their chattels.
Baal’s River. So called after an Englishman.
The two clergymen stand beside him and look at the view.
The fjord and its tributaries reach some fifteen Danish miles into the land, Egede says. After that, the ice means one can proceed no further. Impossible to negotiate.
It’s said there are people living on the other side, says Lange. Norsemen?
Perhaps. The old writings refer to it as Østerbygden, the Eastern Settlement. There was a monastery there, and a bishop too. I’ve done as I’ve been able in order to relieve them, as was His Majesty’s wish. They are his subjects, of course, yet stand in papist aberration, if they are not all dead or mingled with the natives. The Augsburg Confession will be quite unknown to them. It hardly bears thinking about.
Dreadful, indeed, Miltzov mumbles.
Devil worshippers, Egede growls. Perhaps it’s for the better if they’re all gone. Why no sign of life from them in hundreds of years? Why have they not shown themselves on this side of country? They are known to be excellent seafarers.
A good question, says Miltzov willingly.
They cultivate the Devil, says Egede with a sly grin. For which reason they keep themselves to themselves. I don’t know which is worst, these dastardly, cold-blooded natives or those belligerent papists.
Is there a map of the land? Lange asks, though only to distract the affronted priest towards matters less volatile.
Only the occasional Dutch sea chart and a few sketches done by my own hand. Largely, the land is quite unexplored. The Eastern side lies in darkness, naturally. I endeavoured to sail south of the land some years ago, but was forced to turn back because of ice. The Evil One has his little lodge over there, and blocks all passage so that he might keep his worshippers to himself.
Adam of Bremen writes of Greenland in his Gesta, says Miltzov.
And then there is the Speculum Regale, Lange adds.
Papist upchuck, Egede snaps. Worthless. Shite and phantasms. The earth is divided into rings, of which those in the middle are glowing hot, while those at the outside are ice-cold. The Northern Lights are thereby reflections of the hot rings. And so on. And anyway, the Speculum Regale contains little at all about Greenland, so clearly you haven’t read it. Read Peder Friis and his description of Norway. Apart from that, let me give you a piece of advice: read as little as possible, the more to observe with unbiased gaze. Besides that, be certain I shall teach you well.
Indeed, Mr Egede, the two men say in unison, like schoolboys.
How old are the candidates? Egede asks.
Thirty-one, Miltzov replies.
Twenty-five, says Lange.
Egede looks from one to the other from the more elevated rock on which he stands. Where is your family from? he asks Lange.
My father, Magister Peder, is minister of the royal chapel at Frederiksborg Castle. My mother’s name is Karen Krestensdatter.
Egede shakes his head. Never heard of them. Are they alive?
Yes, both alive.
And you’re not betrothed, I hope?
No, certainly not.
Family and other bonds can only be left behind if a man is to come here, says Egede. Love will make him fat of arse and slow of mind.
And yet Mr Egede has brought his own family, says Lange.
That is quite another matter. He looks at Miltzov piercingly. And where might you be from?
Frederikshald, he replies. My first living was there.
But you don’t speak Norwegian?
No, I seem to have lost it somewhere during the course of my studies.
Frederikshald, says Egede. That’s nearly Swedish, is it not?
Right on the border, says Miltzov. The home guard is everywhere.
I’m from the Lofoten islands myself, says Egede. Further north than here. Longer winters, longer summers, better weather. Here, it’s all the same.
Will Mr Egede return to his homeland when his task is completed here? Miltzov enquires.
I doubt it.
Without another word he turns and proceeds by the lightest of springs down the northern side of the rock. Lange and Miltzov remain standing for a moment before commencing their ungainly descent.
///
I am Aappaluttoq. Has anyone seen my son? The priest took him from me when he was a little boy. Now he is half-grown. I see him often, though he knows me no more, or will not acknowledge me. To be a stranger to your own son is a painful thing. I wish not to take him back, only to make myself known to him, so that he may know who I am. They cannot deny me that. A father should know his son, and a son his father. It’s the order of nature. I gave him the name of Paapa. Now he answers to a Danish name, is clad in Danish clothing, a cocked hat, he smells like a Dane, speaks like a Dane, and reads the Bible like a priest. I wish to tell him his true name, so that he may know who he is. A person needs to know his name, for in the name is the soul. I wish to tell him who his father is. I am Aappaluttoq, I will say, the great shaman of whom you have surely heard. You need not be ashamed of me. Be proud, my boy. I think it will be good for him to know. At least, it is my hope.
///
Egede and the two young priests descend to an inlet which, as far as Miltzov can judge, would seem to be parallel to that at which Egede’s house stands. There are some tents and a number of skin boats, large and small, drawn up onto the shore. A native boy sees them and shouts something. A dozen natives appear and come towards them. They seem good-natured enough. The long hair of the men is gathered by pearl-studded harnesses fastened beneath the chin, the women’s hair is worn in a top, which seems almost to pull their faces upwards and lend them a cheerful, rather frivolous appearance. Their breasts are bare and rather flat. One holds a large child which clings to her, its weight resting on her hip as it suckles her milk. Miltzov looks the other way.
Poul! Egede calls out, shouting the name out louder again after a short moment: Po-ul!
A young Dane appears. Egede has no need to present him by name, for they share the same beak of a nose, though the son has a somewhat milder line to his mouth, and kinder eyes.
My son Poul, he says nevertheless in his by now familiar offhand manner, jabbing his staff by way of indication.
The lad bows and presents himself politely.
Poul will be sailing back home with the ship to prepare for the priesthood, Egede tells them.
Are you to follow in your father’s footsteps and become a missionary? Lange enquires.
Yes, that is the plan, Poul replies. I wished to become a sea captain, but my father refused. He glances up in his father’s direction.
If you are still thinking of becoming a seaman, then I shall find you a gallows on which to hang yourself, says Egede. My son speaks the native tongue fluently, he goes on. We have embarked upon a translation of the New Testament into Greenlandic. The Evangelists.
From the Greek? Miltzov asks.
We’re sticking to Luther’s splendid German.
I won’t be going until the autumn, the lad says. I can take you out in the boat and show you the district.
We would appreciate it, says Lange.
One of the natives says something. Poul translates. He wants to know if the King has sent you.
Yes, says Miltzov. King Frederik has sent us.
We know the King, says the man. My uncle has met him.
Indeed? says Miltzov, his incredulous eyes returning to Poul.
It’s true enough, says Poul. A small number of the natives sailed with one of the ships to Denmark so that His Majesty might meet his new subjects. Regrettably they caught the pox and most died, though not before having shaken hands with the King.
Are you to help palasi tell us stories? they ask.
Palasi?
Their word for us priests, says Egede. A corruption of the North-Norwegian pronunciation of the word, I should think. Præst. With a couple of vowels added and the t thrown out.
I’ll help you with the language, as much as I can before I leave, the young Egede says. Then Niels can take over.
Niels?
My brother.
Is he not to be a priest too?
No, he’s to be a merchant, says Egede. He hasn’t the head for the priesthood.
They chat for a while. The natives join in the conversation, freely and without restraint, and Egede and his son switch between Norwegian and Greenlandic. When addressing the two young clergymen, they modify their dialect and employ a slightly more formal Danish. An elderly man, clearly the oldermand of the settlement, says something solemn.
He wishes you welcome to his land, says Poul Egede. He permits you to go about peacefully wheresoever you will, and to shoot the game and take a native wife.
I don’t think that’s allowed, says Miltzov awkwardly.
It may be forbidden, but it’s done all the same, says Egede. Such is life here. One has to be pragmatic. The law must follow on the heels of lechery, as it has always done, moderating, though never entirely eradicating. Since we are to colonize the country, we may as well mix with the locals. Besides, it will make our missionary efforts that much easier in the long run. Fornication, however, is most certainly not permitted.
It is said that the native women are hollow-backed, says Lange.
Twaddle, says Egede. They’re as good as all other women. Head and arse are where they are in ours too. They’re broad below and narrow above, so a man can tell which is the important part.
///
I am Aappaluttoq. I steal into the dwelling-house. It is warm and smells of food, and there are people, all Danes from the ship. They do not see me. I can’t see Paapa anywhere. And I cannot call for him. The priest is not there, which is good. He knows me. And he despises me, though I have never done him any wrong. Well, perhaps teased him a bit. He doesn’t like that. He thinks I’m the Devil. He would throw me out if he saw me, or else he would beat me. I don’t want to fight with the priest today. All I want is to find my son, to say hello to him and then leave. My kayak lies up the shore in an inlet, I will tell him. I frequent the skerries further south, and I will tell him where they are. Come and visit me sometime, if you will. I wish you no harm. All I want is to say hello to you.
///
They enter one of the tents, the oldermand’s, and are shown to a large bench. The place is teeming with people, mostly women and children. The women’s eyes are lively, Miltzov finds. Those of the children are more reserved. The gaze of the men appears as if through a film, a deathly membrane. He finds them beautiful, and no longer refrains from looking at the women’s nudity. But there is a raw stench of urine, untanned hide and boiling flesh that is repulsive to him.
Food is served to them, large lumps of meat on tin plates. Egede and his son immediately pull out their knives and cut off chunks to put in their mouths. The two young priests follow suit. The meat does not taste bad, Miltzov and Lange, seated next to each other, agree. It is very salty, perhaps even boiled in brine. It tastes slightly of whale oil and is delicate on the tongue.
Egede speaks to the natives. He mixes Norwegian and Greenlandic, and his son translates. Apparently, it is the story of the feeding of the five thousand. The natives interrupt him with questions and he ponders over his replies. Now and then his son interjects in order to explain something. It seems they have no conception as to what wine might be. Is it aquavit? Aquavit makes people wild and mad in the head. No, it’s not aquavit. Trees are likewise a mystery to them. Egede explains that these conversations are of great use to him in his translation work. For instance, he has chosen to render a line of the Lord’s Prayer as give us this day our daily meat. Bread is something they know only from the Danes, it is not a natural part of their diet, and thereby the meaning would be lost.
Do they not eat bread? Miltzov asks.
Sometimes they are given it here, but then they complain of stomach aches.
Is there drunkenness among them? Lange wants to know.
No, not that I know of. As such, they are innocent, Egede says. In many ways they are like children, mischievous and inconsiderate as children can be, but also innocent. The fact of the matter is that there is not a scrap of badness in the majority.
But these shamans? Miltzov enquires, unable to dismiss from his mind his earlier encounter with the savage. What about them?
Never a paradise without a serpent, says Egede.
Emerging from the tent, the air, mild but a short time ago, feels icily cold.
///
I am Aappaluttoq. I can make myself invisible. I become as glass or water. Thus I may wander about the rooms of the priest, among all these people who sit and eat and talk, without any of them noticing me. I have been here many times, and never was I seen by a single soul. Only the priest sees me, and his wife, Gertrud. There she is. She sends me a glance and nods. I lose confidence when the priest appears, and lose the ability to remain invisible. Several times he has beaten me, I don’t know why. Perhaps he is simply fond of it. We Greenlanders do not hit each other. It never happens. We might kill an enemy if necessary, pierce him with a harpoon or a bird arrow, cut his throat perhaps, though only when he turns his back. We consider it an impoliteness to kill someone face to face. But the Danes are different. They wish to change us and make us believe in Christ. I know Christ. I’ve got nothing against him. I’ve even met him. A nice man, and yet commanding, not nearly as mild and gentle as they want him to be. He listened intently to what I had to say. I’ve read their Bible too. I read Danish better than most Danes. It was the missionary Top who taught me it. I find it to be a good book. I like the story of Job, who loses everything and sits there tossing dust into the air. In the Bible a person may read about themselves, that’s the good thing about it. Anyone can find themselves in it. The story of Job is my own story. I should like to have told the priest about it. But he’s impossible to talk to.
///
Käthe! Käthe! Egede calls as they enter the house. Ah, there you are. Has he been here? Have you seen him? Have you spoken to him?
Madame Egede, whose proper name is Gertrud Rasch, helps her husband remove his skin shoes and hangs them up on a line.
We’ve boiled a big pot of barley porridge, she says without answering his questions. The ship has brought oats, and some have escaped the mildew. The girls have made butter of goat’s milk cream.
Remember to salt it well, says Egede. I wish to taste salt. He rubs his hands. Salt is a good measure against devilry. Where is the salt?
The bowl is pushed across the table to him. He picks some grains between his fingers and tosses them over his shoulder.
The two Egede girls are at the age of confirmation. They approach bashfully. Their unattractiveness makes them seem all the more touching, Miltzov finds. Their father’s beak protrudes from their tender faces, an unsightly detail. God’s trembling hand, he thinks to himself. The son Niels has departed on an expedition further north together with a native foster-brother. Lange and Miltzov seat themselves and converse the girls, who have seated themselves on the floor as if they were natives, their feet tucked beneath their narrow behinds. They are shy, stammering and blushing, though soon warm up in conversation with the two young clergymen. The girls ask them about Copenhagen, where their father has been, though they never, about the various quarters of the city, as if they were familiar with them from personal experience: Have they seen that sign in Østergade, that statue on Ulfeldts Plads, this or that building? Have they been to the Palace and met the King and Queen, and are their dogs not wonderfully sweet? The girls become excited, something kittenish and manipulably girlish comes over them. Miltzov sees them from above, the shortened perspective, the soft sweeping line to their hips, their stockinged feet, toes peeping through undarned holes with which they absently fidget. Eventually, their mother tells them to leave the young candidates in peace, they’ve had a long voyage and there’ll be plenty of time to ask their questions later, and so they get to their feet and withdraw obediently.
///
Where is he? Paapa? I cannot see him anywhere.
I steal up the stairs. There are various rooms with beds inside, a stench of old bedding straw, the foul-smelling sleep of the Danes, of piss and sweat, rottenness and exile. Does my son smell like this, now that he has become a Dane? People who are torn up by the root quickly begin to smell, like corpses. Or does he still smell faintly as a Greenlander?
I open the doors and look inside, but Paapa is nowhere. In one of the beds lies a woman. There is something wrong with her. Her nakedness is like wax. She froths at the mouth, her body trembles, arches upwards and collapses limply again. Some women are like that. I have seen it before, in our own women too. It is a kind of moon sickness.
I bend over the bed, hold my hand flat against her stomach and press her down into the straw. Immediately she relaxes, her breathing becomes calm and steady, and she opens her eyes. I know you, she says. I have dreamt about you.
I am Aappaluttoq. Have you seen my son?
She does not reply. Instead she spreads her legs and invites me. Some women are like that. One must certainly feel sympathy for them. She begins to growl and murmur some words. Her eyes are dark as coal. She says something about the Devil. I am not your Devil, I say. I am Aappaluttoq. Try to understand. I am looking for my son. But she continues to growl and mutter about the Devil. She is mad, the poor woman. I lie down with her, nudging her gently aside with my hip to find room. I grip her head and hold her tight. She calms. I make love to her, pressing myself inside her. It is delightful. She is very young, I sense, untouched, filled with sweetness that ruptures about my cock. And then she sleeps. I leave her sleeping. My cock drips blood and semen. My head feels heavy. So it is always. One loses a part of oneself, and leaves it with them. They steal it from you, hiding it away in a compartment inside themselves, guarding it like a treasure, and you are a measure poorer when you leave.
The men look up at me as I pass through the room. And Egede is there. I am invisible no more. I cannot be invisible when he is about, not to everyone. Who are you? the men enquire. What are you doing here? We want no monkeys here.
Egede leaps to his feet. Glasses topple and fall to the floor. He shouts out: There he is, the Devil!
The two new priests jump up too. They stare at me, or stare through me. They cannot see me. So it is. Some can see me, others not.
I am not the Devil. And I am no monkey either. I know of monkeys. I have seen them in a forest a long way away. I am Aappaluttoq.
But I do not say so. I pass calmly through the room and out of the house. I run across the rocks, I return to my kayak, push away from the shore and paddle out into the open sea where I can shout and scream and weep with no one to hear me.
///
My dear Hans, says Madame Rasch, Egede’s wife. Whatever is the matter with you? There’s nothing there. You’re seeing things.
But indeed there is. Did you not see him, Käthe? He was here. Right there. He points. His finger trembles.
A ghost? says one of the men. I saw him too.
You’re drunk, says the one next to him. Or else not drunk enough. Have some more.
Sit down, Hans, says the Madame. Remember we have guests. Drink a cup of ale. She stands behind him, grips his shoulders, presses him down onto the chair. He wipes his brow, picks up a random cup from the table and downs its contents.
Mother Käthe is a pillar to me, he says, wiping his mouth with a still trembling hand. I could not manage in this land without her.
Miltzov and Lange glance at each other.
Why does he call her Käthe? Miltzov whispers to Lange.
It was the name of Luther’s wife, says Lange. I think he is rather obsessed with the great reformer. Listen and I think you will find he quotes him all the time.
When it is time to eat, the sick girl, the jomfru Titius, called Titia, is brought down from her chamber upstairs. Miltzov goes to her, takes her moist hand and leads her to the table. She seems unusually settled and satisfied with all things, speaking coherently and with reason with the Egede girls. She has brushed her hair and put on a clean dress, and there is a colour in her cheeks. She eats greedily and asks for seconds.
It gladdens me to see you feeling better, Titia, says Miltzov.
I am well now, she says. Someone came and did something. And now I am well.
Pors and some officers arrive in a boat. With them they have brought some small cannon and several barrels of gunpowder. Salutes are fired, there are fireworks and speeches, a party lasting well into the night. Miltzov, who does not drink, drinks. For the first time in his life he becomes wildly drunk.
///
A meeting of the colony council, the next day in Egede’s rooms. They have been onto the mainland and decided on the placement of the colony. Landorph, Egede and Pors, this triumvirate of power, sit at the head of the table. Miltzov and Lange are seated next to each other further down. Egede harps on about the Mission being the important thing. The Trade and the military are there to serve it. I have spoken personally with the King on the matter, he says.
I too have spoken with King Frederik, says Pors, only a couple of months ago as it happens. He expressed very clearly that he wishes a healthy and profitable Trade to be established.
Indeed, he is plagued by debt like all kings, says Fleischer, the Paymaster. Always on the lookout for income.
No, the Mission must come first, Egede protests. There can be no discussion. The natives are to be Christianized, whereafter the old Norsemen on the eastern side of the land are to be found and reformed into the Lutheran faith.
This project is greater than any of you can fathom, says Pors earnestly. It concerns something quite apart from Christianizing a few savages. And without the Trade we cannot achieve any of these matters. The Trade absolutely must come first, just as a man’s bodily nourishment must come before all else.
A well-nourished sinner is still a sinner, says Egede. And what goes in through the mouth soon comes out through the arse again. Faith must naturally take priority. What will the Governor do with nourishment and trade if he is to burn in Hell in spite of it all?
Pors’s countenance is severe. After a moment he says: First of all we must find a name for the new colony. The choice is ours, gentlemen.
Porsminde? says Landorph.
Oh, but that would be all too kind, my dear Landorph, the Governor replies cloyingly. I was rather thinking along the lines of Frederiksten, perhaps?
Frederikshald? says Miltzov.
Frederiksborg? Lange suggests.
Frederikshåb? the Trader Kopper chips in.
Kronprins Christians Borg? says Fleischer. Or just Christiansborg?
No, the Crown Prince is a miserable sort, says Pors. We do not care for him.
Dronning Anna Sophies Borg? one of the other officers poses.
Women bring bad luck, says Pors. No good. Besides, it’s too long. Let’s have something short and snappy.
Godborg?
Godsten?
Guldborg?
Gudhavn?
Gudhjem?
Kristborg?
Fredensborg?
Fredensten?
Godthåb, says Egede.
A silence descends. All eyes turn to the priest.
Yes, says Pors. Godthåb. It sits well on the tongue. Why not?
Why not Porshåb? mutters Landorph, who has been drinking. Or Claushavn? he adds, a tad desperately. No one laughs.
Any objections to the name of Godthåb? Pors asks the council. First, second, third time of asking. Then Godthåb it is. Bombardier, a threefold salute for the colony of Good Hope!
///
The next morning. Miltzov emerges from the privy. He has vomited, his guts are inside out. I do not drink, he tells himself. I am not a person who drinks. Never again. A small glass only. Hair of the dog. As of tomorrow I am done with it. He steps forward and almost loses his footing in the sludge. It has snowed. Snow, he wonders. In July? Everything is different here. I am different. The evenings are ruin, the mornings a resurrection. This is the new life.
He crouches down on all fours, picks up a handful of snow and rubs it in his face. When he looks up, the savage is there, barely an arm’s length away, a bone in one hand, a knife in the other.
Peace of God, priest.