To-day those who had been away with the purpose of trade arrived home with the boat well laden with blubber. They had encountered a Dutch ship in the south where they were, which brought to them rather sorrowful news from Copenhagen, that in a very unfortunate conflagration the city had been for the most part reduced to ashes, which since, regrettably, has been confirmed to be true.
FROM HANS EGEDE’S JOURNAL, MARCH 1729
Late evening, sunshine, stillness. The Governor has sailed north on the pilot galliot together with a large number of the surviving crew in order to oversee the establishment of a new colony at a place called Nipisane. He has also taken one of the priests with him, Ole Lange, leaving Miltzov alone with Egede, of whom he is rather afraid, as well as with the two girls, about whom his feelings are mixed.
The weather has become mild, an unusually early spring, almost summer-like, and the days are longer now. The sun sets, the earth darkens, but the sky remains light, and just as darkness seems to take the upper hand and night is becoming night, light again pools in the sky and the sun appears once more. Carpets of anemones, dandelions, rosebay and orchids cover the ground, appearing out of nothing, almost from the bare rock, an insistent flourish of life, opening out and absorbing the sunlight, the pale-yellow grass becomes green and lush, and the sheep and goats, as well as the single cow which as yet has managed to avoid the cooking pots, stalk stiff-legged to the moor in order to graze. During the course of the winter, some fifty people, half the crew, have perished. The stillness of the colony is reminiscent of a churchyard.
All this he sees from his perch on a rock a short distance from the colony. He has wangled a bottle of aquavit from one of the Trade constables and sips at its contents. He must make sure to leave some for tomorrow, and the day after that. There is much peace of mind in such a bottle. And much warmth. Though the weather is not cold, he has wrapped himself in a sheepskin and wound a rug around his legs. These evenings are his survival here. Previously he never drank at all, nothing stronger than ale. But now he has become an inebriate. He is fully aware of it. A person can be a drunkard and still be a good priest. And a good person too. Probably it is impossible to be good without aquavit. Only women can manage such a feat.
He is preparing one of the Egede daughters for her confirmation and predictably, though much against his will, has become attached to her, if not to say chained. It is due to his weakness in general and with respect to Egede in particular, and also for the simple reason that she is there. For Kirstine Egede so much resembles her father that he cannot avoid but think of him whenever he is with her. She has the same agreeable, rather equine features, the Egede nose, a near phallic feature in the face of a young girl, the Egede mouth with its knowing smile, as if she has discovered something about you and finds amusement in it, the moist gleam of the Egede eyes, the big hands. Her cheerfulness is sinister, her melancholy sarcastic, and her jocularity has a tendency to become malicious and to descend mercilessly on whoever happens to be closest to her, which for the time being is Henrik Miltzov. Her temperament is direct and confrontational, she never speaks ill of anyone behind their back, yet will readily insult the person who is standing in front of her. He excuses her on account of her harsh upbringing with poor weather, an unchanging diet and her father’s frequent boxing of her ears, all of which has made her as dry and as salty as stockfish. Sometimes, however, a gleam comes over her, a door is pushed ajar and a narrow ribbon of light streams out, and then he will forget her caustic jibes, her coldness. This rather rickety infatuation has now continued for a month or so as he has been instructing her.
No doubt it is Egede’s own doing. Schemingly, he has served her to him on a plate, wafting her in front of his nose like a piece of pork. He wishes a priest for a son-in-law. His grand design is to make Greenland a family business. He is coming to terms with the thought that he, Henrik Balthasar Miltzov, will take Kirstine Egede, with her puzzling, codlike smile and her cold fish-blood, to be his lawful wedded wife, then to beget a flock of gloomy Egedes gradually to spread along the coast. Fortunately she is not old enough yet. They can first be married in three years at the earliest. And a lot can happen in such a time, especially if one thinks about all that has happened in the year that has passed.
For the time being, then, he is in love with her, albeit somewhat bitterly and riddled with doubt. He wishes he could be in love with a girl who was less complicated, warmer, more sincere, more adoring, fleshier, more beautiful or simply plainer. Her younger sister, Petronelle, is likewise the spitting image of Egede, though milder and more playful than Kirstine, coy as a little girl, and flirtatious to boot; she follows them everywhere as if she were her sister’s chaperone, and they must constantly endure her silly giggles and frivolous questions and comments. When are they getting married? How many children are they going to have? If you kiss her, Magister Miltzov, I shall tell my father. She is a pest. Her nose is in everything and her eyes never miss a trick. He could easily imagine falling in love with her. But she is far too young, only thirteen years old.
Madame Rasch, Gertrud, is the one he gets along best with in the family. He would be quite happy to have her as his mother-in-law, providing she lives that long. She is approaching her three score years, a kind wife forever seated with her handicraft. She says little, and when she does she speaks in a voice that is softly resonant, like a gentle echo among the fells of Lofoten. He is also able to speak with her about serious matters, about faith and the Mission, about Luther, of whom her husband is so fond. If the Egede family were a wind orchestra, she would be the oboe, Egede the trumpet, his son the French horn, and the girls would be two chattering shawms. And then of course there is the foster-son, Frederik Christian. What instrument would he be, I wonder? I find it hard to say. He seems not to fit in, though Egede is seldom seen without the native lad in his three-cornered hat traipsing along at his heel.
The Madame has taken in a number of native children. One could ask oneself, if one were so inclined, what kind of unsatisfied needs these children fulfil. Miltzov knows how much she is opposed to giving them up again once they have come into her home, but their native parents have discovered that by placing them in her care the children will soon be fattened up, whereafter they, the parents, will show up on her doorstep again to claim them back. Presumably she has brought down the infant death rate among the native population quite considerably. Miltzov often sits with her.
The Madame does not often go out, and when she does she moves with difficulty, with a marked sway in her gait on account of rheumatism in her hips. Her husband is fleet-footed and supple, he will rather run than walk, rather walk than stand still, and rather stand than sit. One might reasonably wonder if he ever lies down? In her case the opposite is true, and for that reason they seem such an odd couple.
Niels Egede, Miltzov’s prospective brother-in-law, resembles his mother, though has also inherited the family curse: the nose. Miltzov is fond of him. He is somewhat evasive and cautious in the company of the Danes, yet free and lively with the natives. He speaks the language fluently, better than anyone in the family with the exception of his brother Poul, who is now in Denmark preparing for the priesthood.
Henrik lies in his bunk upstairs, nursing his daily hangover, when he hears the girls, or one of them – their voices can be hard to distinguish – calling for him up the stairs.
Magister! Are you to sleep all day?
Kirstine. He sighs, swings his feet out of bed and rises.
She is standing at the foot of the staircase looking up at him with a smile on her face. Holier than thou.
Have you slept badly, Magister? You look tired.
No, not at all, he mutters.
Put your boots on, we’re going for a walk.
Yes, dearest.
He descends cautiously, step by step.
Where are we going?
Out in the fine weather, she says. Petronelle, are you coming?
They go up to the graves, a half-hundred piles of stone with higgledy-piggledy crosses. The names of the dead are etched into the wood along with the year of the person’s birth, if known, and the year of their death, which is to say 1728 or 1729.
Does the Magister know the word for dead? Kirstine asks.
No, I can’t remember.
Toqu. I’ve told you before. Remember it now. Isn’t that what you priests tell us all the time: Remember death?
Prepare for death, more like it. But I suppose it’s the same thing.
When are we meant to prepare for life? Petronelle asks. Why do priests always have to talk about death?
It’s our job, to prepare people for the afterlife.
Do you think they’re all rotten down there? Kirstine asks.
Miltzov swallows a suddenly ascending mouthful of acid reflux.
They’re frozen stiff, says Petronelle. Preserved.
Black and blue, I imagine, says Kirstine. They turn that way after a while. Look, who’s this? She bends down to read: Ane Antoniusdatter. I remember her. They called her Ane Woollen-sock.
She was a tart, says Petronelle, scratching herself hectically under her armpits.
They all were, Kirstine replies, seemingly catching her sister’s itch, for she too begins to scratch under her arms.
Do you think she is in heaven or hell, Henrik?
I don’t know.
Can tarts go to heaven?
Certainly. Maria Magdalene is believed to have been one. She was the first to whom Jesus appeared after his death. She is even described as the disciple Jesus loved.
This gives them something to think about. They sit and contemplate, scratching and twitching, obviously pestered by lice. He himself barely notices them, most likely a blessing of the aquavit. His evening leisure hour on the rocks strikes him to be a religious image, tinted by the radiance of the night sky reflected in his schnapps bottle.
Did Jesus really love a tart? Kirstine asks.
Yes, after she changed her ways. Jesus feels particular tenderness for sinners who have repented and found the one true way.
I don’t think he loved Ane Woollen-sock. She was dreadful. She lay with a great many men and took money for it.
Shall we go somewhere else? he says.
Why do we actually have to die, Magister? Petronelle asks. What’s the point if we’re going to be resurrected anyway, whether we’re sent to heaven or hell?
Because the Lord wishes to test us, he says. We must prove to him that we are worthy of his salvation.
But doesn’t God know that already? I thought he knew everything.
He has given us a choice. The same choice he gave to the first two people on Earth.
That didn’t work out too well, did it? says Kirstine. Why do you think Eve ate the forbidden fruit?
Because she could not resist the serpent.
Why didn’t God kill the serpent?
He punished it. But the serpent, and evil, is part of life, unfortunately. On the judgement day he will crush the serpent’s skull under his heel.
What is your serpent, Magister? asks Petronelle, who is even more talkative than usual today.
Oh, he says, embarrassed. There’s always something, I suppose.
Aquavit, Petronelle says. I’ve seen you drunk lots of times.
Do shut up, says Kirstine.
No, I don’t drink any more, he lies. It is true that I suffered a weakness last winter. But now I partake for medicinal purposes only. Apart from that I drink only ale.
Fibber, says Kirstine with a smile.
Ale can make a person drunk too, says Petronelle. Especially the strong ale the baker brews.
What splendid weather today, he says, and turns his face to the sun.
I still don’t understand why we have to die, Kirstine continues solemnly. Her finger moves absently over Ane Woollen-sock’s cross. Several times her arms twitch as if in spasm, and her hand darts inside her blouse. He hears her nails as they scratch at her skin. Or why we are even alive, for that matter, she adds. Why must we be dragged through such suffering and degradation? Do you know what all these crosses ought to say, Magister?
No, what?
They should say, ‘Why?’
A good question, says Miltzov. He feels more affinity with Kirstine when she is in sombre mood, as clearly she is today, much more so than when she is mean and scornful. That is what we might call the ‘bone of contention’. But come, let us walk a while. The girls rise from the graveside at which they have knelt and follow him over the rocks in a southerly direction across the peninsula. He continues: The serpent of course is Satan, you know that, I’m sure? And Satan was a son of God.
Some son, says Petronelle. If my father had been his father, he would have thrashed the daylights out of him and then we wouldn’t have had such a pickle of a life.
Put a sock in it, says Kirstine. Let the Magister speak.
Satan of course knew that God is almighty, that He is all-knowing and governs everything, that not a leaf falls to the ground without His will. But what he did was to doubt, not the almighty nature of God, but rather His right to be so. Do you see the distinction?
The girls make affirmative noises.
So what happened was that they squabbled. God and one of his sons, or cherubs, Lucifer as some call him. And Lucifer scorned his father and said that if man were given free will he would no longer worship Him. So God said to him, very well, then test him, I shall give you five thousand years. And thus Lucifer descended to Earth and with him several more of God’s sons, whom we refer to as fallen angels. Now it is they who rule our world. But on Judgement Day a final battle will be fought between God and his heavenly hosts, led by Jesus, and the rebels, Lucifer’s proselytes.
So we’re no more than pawns in a family quarrel, says Kirstine. It is as if we are trapped in a game.
But you are more than a mere pawn, he replies. You are blessed with your own free will. You may decide for yourself which path to take. Therein lies God’s kindness and love.
I see, she says. My father would probably disagree with you on that. He hates the idea of man’s free will. Luther did too. Let us say I have a knife, here in my hand. And now I say, Magister Miltzov I give you a choice: Shall I cut your throat or shall I not?
Yes, hm, he says. I’m not sure if your analogy holds. In this case it is you, with the knife in your hand, whose will is free. Will you cut my throat or will you not?
That’s just it, she says. Even if I wanted to, I would never cut your throat. The very idea would be out of the question.
Thank you, says Miltzov, I’m glad to hear it.
Abruptly, Petronelle begins to run. First one to the top! she shouts.
Kirstine sets off after her at a gallop. He sees their flowing skirts zigzag over the rocks. Butterflies, he thinks to himself. Or rather moths. No, mountain goats. He catches up with them and wipes the sweat from his brow, seating himself on a rock.
How old is the Magister? Petronelle enquires.
Thirty-one.
That old?
Well, none of us is getting younger.
You’re twice as old as Kirstine. Aren’t you ashamed, Magister?
Yes, I am.
A view of the fjord, the skerries. Twittering birds and the cries of gulls. Blankets of tiny flowers among the rocks, quivering in the faint breeze. The colony is out of sight.
I have promised your father to go through the Augsburg Confession with you. We might as well do so now.
They groan. Oh, not the Augsburg Confession. It’s so boring!
Article Eight, he says mercilessly. Am I to tell your father that you refuse to learn it?
They slump in resignation. Their fishlike eyes swim in their sockets. They are seated close together on the flat rock, hands together in a confusion of interlaced fingers. Their thin plaits hang down over their lowered backs. He feels sorry for them.
The sooner we get started, the sooner we’ll be finished. Have you done your homework, Kirstine? ‘What the Church is.’
‘Although the Christian church, properly speaking, is nothing else than the assembly of all believers and saints . . .’
She rattles off the entire article, a monotonous landslide of words. He is always astonished at how quick they are to learn, beneath their dark and sulky exteriors. Kirstine sits broodily, her upper body rocking.
Is there something the matter with you? he asks with concern.
Some pains. It’s nothing.
It’s her time of the month, says Petronelle with obvious pride. Mine too. It’s not that bad. The worst thing is the lice get so bloodthirsty.
He senses his lips retract in disgust. He wishes to get to his feet and leave them, but does not wish to make them feel rejected, nor even that they should think he knows what they are talking about. And so he remains there seated on the rock. Kirstine curls up, holding her head in her hands and lifting her shoulders. Petronelle lays her cheek against her sister’s back and puts her arms around her. She whispers something he doesn’t catch. He realizes she is crying. And now he is assailed by a wave of sympathy for his unlovely fiancée.
Is it the Augsburg Confession that has upset you? he asks.
Petronelle shakes her head angrily.
Is it the pains?
No.
It’s the pains as well, says Kirstine, her voice thick with sobs. It’s everything. I hate him, I hate him.
Who? he says stupidly. Satan?
Oh, shut up, you twit! Petronelle bursts out, her enraged eyes glaring at him from her horselike face.
Her aggression abates. Kirstine lies now with her head in her sister’s lap, Petronelle gently stroking her hair. After some moments she sits up.
///
Now they play hide and seek. The girls have concealed themselves somewhere among the rocks and he is supposed to find them. He wanders about, calling their names, hears their girlish whispers, their whinnying and snorting, but cannot for the life of him discover where they are coming from. He stands below on the moor which unfolds around him like a vast light-filled void. Kirstine? Petronelle?
At last he finds them. They have hidden beneath an overhang of rock. The first thing he sees is a brown boot. He creeps up close, then leaps forward with a roar. Found you! They stare at him with expressionless faces, and he feels like a clown no one thinks funny.
Kirstine wants you to kiss her, says Petronelle.
He doesn’t know what to say. Certainly, he feels no desire to kiss her, a menstruating woman. It cannot be healthy, surely?
She wants to know what it’s like, says Petronelle. She smiles, albeit, he finds, rather unpleasantly.
I see, he says, and clears his throat. I think perhaps it would be inappropriate.
If you want her, you must kiss her. Otherwise you shall have to find someone else.
He flaps his arms theatrically in a gesture of resignation. Then you give me no choice.
Come in here. The man must come to the woman.
He crouches down and crawls on all fours into their den. Kirstine looks at him strangely. Her upper lip is retracted, making visible her teeth. It is a childlike smile, though with a lot of other things in it too, astonishment, revulsion, curiosity. He shuffles further inside and sits up against the crumbling rock. He feels her menstrual breath in his face. Now I shall kiss you, he warns, then leans forward and presses his mouth against hers. She screams, a shudder runs through her, and she stares at him with wide eyes.
Was it that bad? he says.
No, it wasn’t bad. It gave me a fright, that’s all.
I want a kiss too, says Petronelle. May I?
Kiss him, kiss him! Kirstine says.
He kisses her as one would kiss a child.
Now you must choose, says Petronelle, scratching her scalp and armpits like a person possessed.
Choose?
You’ve tried us both, now which of us do you want?
I want you both, of course, he says. Why should I make do with one when I can have you both?
///
Later that day he speaks with Egede. Egede wishes to walk too. Anyone would think it were a family of peripatetics he is to marry into. It will be a marriage requiring solid walking boots. The priest strides briskly, and Miltzov has difficulty keeping up. On a spit of land Egede at last pauses, puts his telescope to his eye and sweeps the horizon in search of sails.
Nothing yet, he says, collapses the instrument and returns it to his pocket.
There was a ship a few weeks ago, with timber and some mail for the colony. Thus they learned of the great conflagration that has lain much of Copenhagen in ruins. Strange, he thinks, to live so far away from everything that one must hear of events such a long time after they have occurred. Now Copenhagen has in a way burned twice in a space of months.
Is she making progress? Egede enquires.
Who? he asks, confused.
Kirstine.
Ah, Kirstine, yes. Yes she is, a good deal in fact. I think she knows the entire Confession by heart.
Splendid. The Augsburg Confession is the very foundation of our faith, Magister. It is our bulwark against papism and other false doctrines. If a person takes care to learn it, I cannot see how there might be any way back.
Indeed, he replies, hearing how false he sounds, and Egede turns his head to look at him.
She is a good girl, Egede says.
Yes, she is. Very good.
She will be a pillar to her husband, especially if he is a priest.
Indeed. She could be a priest herself, she has the aptitude.
Gertrud has been a stalwart to me. I don’t know what I would have done without her.
We are all very fond of Madame Gertrud.
Sometimes, however, she is rather too clever for her own good. It is not the place of women to lecture their men. One must be alert. You must think on. They will assume control. Egede fixes him in his gaze.
Indeed, he says tamely.
You know what Luther says, I take it? She is much filth and little wisdom. That’s why her arse is broad and her shoulders narrow. In the man’s case the opposite holds.
I shall make a note of it, Mr Egede.
Luther says too that what goes in through a woman’s ear comes out again through her mouth. Therefore a secret is to be entrusted only to a dead woman, ha ha!
Miltzov says nothing.
She is not getting too clever in her written work, our little Kirstine?
No, we stick to learning by heart.
She takes after her mother. Thinks she knows better. One must nip it in the bud, make sure they know their place.
Indeed.
And punish them when necessary.
I see.
If you are to marry her, you must listen to what I say.
I’m listening.
Perhaps you would rather have Petronelle?
No, not at all.
No, she is very young yet. You probably can’t wait that long. A priest is a man too, of sorts. He erupts with laughter.
They have come to the shore. Egede places a hand on his shoulder. Miltzov immediately loses his footing on the slippery rocks, and if it were not for Egede he would have fallen. The man blabbers on in his clipped north-Norwegian dialect. Miltzov would like to talk to him about Titia and Frederik Christian, about the plans to have them marry. No doubt it will be he, Miltzov, who will join them, and first publish the banns for them, but he will not care to do so without Egede’s blessing. But it is as if somehow Egede senses that he wishes to approach some precarious matter and therefore continues to follow his own trains of thought.
Had it been up to my wife she would have become a procurator. Her father was the lensmand at Kvæfjord. He had his own approach to matters and allowed her and her sisters to be instructed by the deacon. It gave them ideas.
Urgh! Miltzov groans, not in response to what Egede is saying, but because he has inadvertently put his foot in the sea, soaking his boot and sock with icy water.
Exactly, says Egede.
But surely some measure of wisdom is not undesirable? Miltzov ventures.
That’s what I thought too, when I was young and newly wed. I thought she was the cleverest person I’d met. But it becomes rampant, bookish knowledge makes them arrogant and soon they wish to debate, and will argue until the Devil himself pisses his breeches. Perhaps I am old-fashioned. You, however, are young, Magister Miltzov. You must go your own way, and we old fuddy-duddies step back and stand with hat in hand.
They stand on the rocks above the wide natural harbour on the eastern side of the peninsula. The ship that has lain there all winter is gone, sailed north with Pors and his men. It is a dark and gloomy place which for some reason always seems to lie in shadow, the vegetation spare, a meagre scattering of white flowers shivering in the wind.
A good harbour could be made here, Egede muses. The water is of sufficient depth, and there is little current to speak of. And in winter the only ice here stays innermost at the shore.
The colony will grow in time, says Miltzov. There will be need of a harbour.
Do you think? Egede sounds sceptical. The question is whether the Lord wishes it.
I am certain He does, Mr Egede.
Not much would suggest He applauds our efforts thus far. I came here with such grand designs. I saw a fine and enterprising mission, I saw a trading station and ships laden with barrels in their thousands, full of train oil. I saw a church, and happy Christian folk. I saw a prosperous town rise up out of the rock. But now? He shakes his head with a sigh.
All these things will happen, says Miltzov. But such matters require time and patience.
Yes, perhaps. A long time indeed, if it is to happen at all. I have seen the future, Mr Miltzov. And I was not a part of it.
///
Tuttut. Repeat after me, Magister.
Tut tut?
No, no, no, Tuttut!
Tutut.
Better, but not good. We’ll come back to it later. Now: aappaluttut.
Isn’t that the name of that shaman?
Yes, that’s what he calls himself. Paapa’s native father. Say the word.
It’s far too long, I can’t.
Say aa.
Aa.
Paa.
Pa.
No, pa-a.
Pa-ha.
Hopeless. Paa!
Paaa, paaa, paaa.
That’s better. And now the last bit: luttut.
Lut-tut.
She slaps him on the cheek, not hard, but hard enough.
Ow!
Luttut. Say it.
Luttut.
You see, you can if you must.
But it’s so difficult, Kirstine. Can’t we take a break?
No, it’s a trade-off. If I’m to learn the Augsburg Confession then you can learn my rhyme.
I don’t even know what it means.
We’ll get to that, she says with a playful smile. Now: nuluttut.
Nulu-tut.
She slaps him again, this time rather harder. Nuluttut.
Yes! Oqaluttut. Go on!
He has taken her hands in his. Let me say it without you boxing my ear. What was it again?
Oqaluttut.
Okralu-tut. Dear me.
Tuttut aappaluttut nulutut oqaluttut, she says, the words rattling off her tongue.
It sounds funny, he says. Like a poem. But what does it mean?
I won’t tell you until you’ve learnt it by heart.
Half an hour later he has managed to string the sounds together after a fashion: Tu-tut apalu-tut nulu-tut okralu-tut.
Hm, she says. I’m not satisfied with you, Magister. I ought to give you a good spanking. But I shall let you off this once.
So what does it mean then?
It means, ‘The red reindeer talk through their arse’.
Ha ha ha!
///
Oddly, the sky becomes paler in the evenings as the earth darkens. There is a separation of earth and sky for a few short hours. He sits on a rock, philosophizing drunkenly upon life in heaven. What is it like? He does not believe in the idea of angels and harps, though he does consider that the heavenly existence ought to involve music of some kind. He has a good singing voice, one of the few among his attributes of which he is proud. He hopes it will stand him in good stead in the afterlife. He could join a choir, stand with a candle in his hand, eyes turned to the heavens, and simply sing his way through eternity. His heaven is also bright and pleasant in temperature, an endless summer’s day, not too hot and not too cold, and no wind to make one’s head reel. But what of that other place? I have no wish to descend to it. Besides, I am not that bad, surely. Yet every time I drink myself senseless I am edging closer to a place in hell. The Egede girls are well on their way there too, the way they carry on. If only Egede knew. He would gladly kick them downstairs himself, if only he knew them well enough. He imagines the punishment: to wander upon an endless moor with the two girls chattering ceaselessly at his heel. Not being able to get away from them. Hell. I have no wish to go there. I have promised myself. But then I must soon stop drinking. He lifts the bottle and slurps a couple of mouthfuls. I must become a good priest, a good shepherd for the Christian flock here, and a good missionary for the savages. If only I could convert one or two, save a couple of souls, surely then there would be a place for me in heaven and I would escape that other place. But Egede stands in the way of it. The greatest hindrance to the conversion of the natives is the Pastor himself. Now the bottle is empty, and he is sated. Tomorrow will be hard. He gets to his feet and staggers home to the colony.
///
Kiss me, she whispers.
Oh, Kirstine, what is it with all this kissing? I feel it to be inappropriate. We’re not married yet, not even betrothed.
Don’t you want to marry me then?
I feel myself unworthy of you. This is what he has decided to say after pondering the matter at length. It sounds better, he thinks, than telling her she is repulsive and that he feels only loathing for her.
Let me be the judge of that.
Their exchange is whispered. She has come upstairs with a tray for him of bread and tea. She sits on the edge of the bed.
I’m not feeling well, he says.
I’ll go, she tells him. But you must kiss me first.
Your mother will hear us.
No, she won’t. A kiss makes no noise. Don’t you like kissing me?
Of course I do. But here, directly above your mother’s head?
Life is short, she says. All of a sudden we are dead. If I die without you having kissed me, I shall come back and haunt you.
But I’ve kissed you lots of times.
And now you’re going to kiss me again. If you don’t, I’ll let Thomas Tode instead.
Tode? That desecrator of corpses? You’re welcome, is all I can say.
He has fondled my breasts. I allowed him to do it. Horny as a stallion he was. She smooths her hands over her chest.
You shouldn’t be doing such things, he says. It displeases me to hear you tell of it.
Tode wants to have me. He told me so.
Tell that to your father, he replies with sarcasm.
Perhaps you could challenge him to a duel?
I’m no good with a sword. I think I shall wait until I’m dead for Tode to cut me up.
So kiss me then, for goodness’ sake. I won’t bite.
He leans forward to give her a peck on the cheek, but is assailed by nausea.
She looks at him. What’s the matter with you. Is it because I’m ugly?
Oh, Kirstine. He feels sorry for her all of a sudden. You’re not at all ugly.
I know I’m not pretty. I can tell by looking at Petronelle. She’s ugly too, and she looks like me.
You are sweet and lovely girls, both of you. Your future husbands will be fortunate indeed.
But I want you, Magister. Can’t you understand? She picks up the tea cup and lifts it to his mouth. He sips dutifully, and in the same instant the contents of his stomach rise up in his mouth. He manages just in time to drape himself over the edge of the bed and vomit on the floor. Kirstine picks up her feet and sits now in the bed beside him.
Is it the alcohol sickness, Magister?
He hopes now that she in the least will have lost the desire for him to kiss her. But she has not, and will not yield until he has done so. Eventually, however, she gives up and goes downstairs. He hears her speak to her mother: The Magister is ill, he’s puked up on the floor.
///
He drinks again. The aquavit may indeed send him to hell, but it may also save him from the clutches of the Egede girl. Now he drinks openly, staggering about the colony and showing himself up in a variety of ways. Oddly, he becomes more popular for it among the crew. They pause to speak to him and ask his advice on personal matters, a sweetheart, a conflict among the men, a matter of faith, and he stands there with his wig askew, slurring his senseless replies. Egede issues a reprimand, not unkindly, more in a fatherly way, though without boxing his ears. He promises to improve himself, and returns to the drink. One morning he wakes up outside with Jens Smith shaking him. He staggers to his feet and looks around him in a daze. I cannot continue like this, he tells himself. He coughs and feels a shiver run through him. Now I am properly sick.
And indeed he is. He is compelled to stay in bed for several days with a fever, trembling, and begging for aquavit. Kirstine nurses him, but will give him nothing but water and bread soaked in sweetened tea.
A week later he is up and about again. He eats porridge with the Egedes, recovered, albeit still rather weak. Kirstine attends to him, spoons more porridge into his bowl, sprinkles the sugar on, her hand touching him lightly every time she goes past. He has never seen her so mild and gentle before. He wonders if he should start drinking again, properly this time, but cannot endure the thought of imbibing even a drop of aquavit ever again.
///
A ship comes early. New people arrive. They bring with them fresh supplies, mail, news from home. For a couple of weeks, Denmark–Norway seems that much closer. And then the ship departs again. Pors and his men are still in the north. There is a stillness. There is light.