To-day came to us the married couple among the as-yet living former inmates, Johan Hartman and Sise Hansdatter, with their foster-boy whom they have adopted from the Governor’s unfortunate housekeeper, and requested that I baptize the child, saying to me: We thought he would die and therefore did not come to you before, but since they wished that he might join the realm of God, they requested he now be baptized. After I impressed upon them the imperative of upright intentions regarding the child’s christening, and of not departing from the good virtues they have shown until now, the boy was baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity and given the Christian name of Lauritz.
FROM HAN EGEDE’S JOURNAL, SEPTEMBER 1729
Now there’s a fist-fight outside the governor’s house. Blood, sweat, spit, the rubbery smack of lunging blows, muffled groans, urgh, urgh, shouts and cries of the crew folk who have gathered in a ring around the combatants. The buildings, the rocks, the fjord, the fells as grey as the shadings of a lead pencil in the rain. September 1729.
It is one of the seamen from the Morian, which has arrived late this year, and the colony cooper who are embroiled in a boxing match. They have wound rags around their knuckles and are bare-chested. They circle each other, sideways on, their guards raised, and now the cooper lunges forward, twisting his body in an attempt to land a blow to his opponent’s kidneys, but the seaman, who is younger, bigger and less afflicted by the scurvy, evades and plants a simple and effective fist in the cooper’s face. There is a crunching sound, a very satisfactory sound for a boxing audience, or indeed a seaman, though less so for the cooper or anyone who has put their money on him. It seems the cooper is in for a leathering. The crowd whoops. The cooper staggers and blinks as his blood spouts from his nose onto his bare and hairy chest. A gentle prod would be enough and he would undoubtedly go down. But the seamen slackens, he stands back with a foolish grin and crows over what he has done to the haemorrhaging cooper, and the older man has time to collect himself, he doubles up, bobbing and ducking behind his guard, edges a few wobbly steps forward and lets fly at his opponent’s chin, missing the mark completely but demonstrating thereby that he is far from finished.
The cooper is a meagre, hollow-cheeked man of thirty. He only just survived the last winter and does not anticipate making it through the next. He has nothing to lose, but a bottle of the Governor’s cognac to win. He economizes with his punches, which more times than not land crisply when at long last he strikes, and moreover possesses a keen, intelligent gaze beneath his flaxen fringe. He goes for the liver, kidneys and chin. But he is tiring.
The seaman is young, large and fleshy, strong but laborious, a giant waiting to be slain. His eyes are brown and peer lazily, revealing unfeeling amusement at his ageing, rickety opponent. Most have put their money on him. He and those who have wagered in his favour have yet to grasp that he is proceeding towards defeat.
The Governor is the referee. He circles around the boxers, clad in full uniform. He has asked for a fair fight and ordered the two men to remove the knives they have concealed in the shafts of their boots. The contest will be decided when one of the men lies flat in the mud and cannot get up again. A bottle of cognac stands ready for the winner. The pot is almost five rigsdaler, and the odds, calculated by the Governor’s own book-keeper, are three to one in favour of the seaman.
Now the cooper bobs and weaves again and gets in a punch to the seaman’s ribs. Winded, he doubles up in pain and when he ventures to raise his head and look up the cooper butts him. The seaman’s eyes roll in his head and the cooper lunges quickly, a haymaker to the younger man’s chin which seems almost to be stuck to the cooper’s fist as it follows through. Nonetheless, the giant seaman remains on his feet. His arms tremble as if in spasm. The cooper realizes he has finished him off. He stands back and watches as the man falls on his face without so much as putting his hands out to break his fall. The onlookers groan their disappointment. Weakling! Milksop! Old woman!
The seaman lies on his side in the mud. His eyes are closed, but it seems he is awake. He is ashamed of himself. The cooper looks down on him benevolently. He rolls his shoulders and performs a lap of honour around the ring while the crowd, even those among them who have lost money on him, cheer enthusiastically. Age conquers youth. This is something they can relate to. And it is easily worth a few miserable marks that cannot be spent on anything here anyway.
Pors declares the winner to be the cooper, whereafter someone empties a bucket of water over the seaman, who gets to his feet unsteadily. The crowd whoops and derides him. He laughs and shakes his head apologetically. He and the cooper shake hands.
Get away from the window.
It is her mother calling. She is darning socks in her chair.
Petronelle, Egede’s youngest, now fourteen years of age, has been watching the bout through the filter of the lace curtain.
Now there are two more, she says. How long are they going to keep it up?
Until not a man is left standing, winners and losers alike, her mother replies. Come here and sit down with me, dear. Draw the drape.
She sits down on the floor beside her mother, tucking her feet underneath her. The figures of the people outside project as dancing shadows on the ceiling.
Such things are not for a young girl to see, her mother says.
Petronelle sighs aggrievedly and is bored. Where’s Kirstine?
Out walking with Henrik, I think.
I’d like to have gone with them.
You know they prefer to walk on their own now that they’re betrothed.
They kiss each other.
Yes, and they’re allowed to as well.
Imagine having someone else’s spit in your mouth. It’s disgusting.
Is that what you think, little Petronelle? Her mother smiles.
Restless, she gets to her feet again. I think I’ll go and find them.
Not on your own, you won’t. It’s not safe for you with all these strange men going about from the ship.
She goes to the foot of the stairs and calls for Frederik Christian. Paapa!
Busy footsteps cross the floorboards.
Will you go for a walk with me?
He beams. I’ll be right there.
Oh, he’s such a puppy dog, she tells herself. And yet she is smiling.
Wrap up warm, says her mother. It’s not summer any more. And don’t go out there. She nods towards the window, the renewed clamour of fist-fighting outside.
///
Upon the moor the air is still. Petronelle and Paapa walk side by side. They veer to the right and follow the edge of the bog in the direction of the inlet where the ship lies anchored, on the eastern side of the peninsula, half a fjerdingmil from the colony. A visible path has been tramped between the colony and this harbour by men going back and forth with goods, bent under the weight of rucksacks, yokes and enormous bundles held in place by means of headstraps. They meet several on their way, decent and meek toilers staggering along with their burdens. On the flat land of the moor, on the tongues and islets of the bog, goats and sheep graze with the colony’s only surviving cow. Somewhere, from where they cannot tell, they hear a voice, a series of interrupted sounds, as if someone were calling to them.
He’s out again, I hear, says Frederik Christian. He always sings when he’s out walking.
I’m not sure I’d call it singing, says Petronelle. He sounds more like a bleating goat.
No, I think he sings well, says Frederik Christian. He wanders here in the wilds for hours every day with the Danish hymns.
They stop and look around to see if they can see him, but all they have is the voice, the man himself eludes them, an ethereal, omnipresent song mingled with the gentle clanging of bells from the livestock.
Let’s go this way, says Petronelle, disinclined to meet her father. She picks up her skirts and strides off, stepping over the pointed rocks and squelching through the puddles of the bog. Frederik Christian scurries to keep up with her.
He catches up and slaps her on the back. Got you!
She wheels around like a fury and sees the way he shrinks back in fright. It makes her laugh. Oh, so that’s what you think!
He cottons on immediately, turns and runs, glancing back over his shoulder in giggles, and she sets after him, all flapping skirts and flying hair, her feet inside her kamik boots gripping the rocks with confidence, launching her forward again without her even needing to take care and watch where she is going. She knows the rocks, it is as if her feet themselves know where to tread, only on the level ground does she stumble, but now she is flying, her dress unfolds behind her in a rustle of fabric, he escaping her clutches with a sharp change of direction, before hurtling down a slope, she pursuing him still, fearless, and at once they tumble, grit and earth kicking up in their wake and tumbling with them; at the bottom they spring to their feet and run down the gentler slope towards the fjord, she the quicker, and he must zigzag in order to shake her off, though she knows of course that he wants her to catch him, for it is the whole point of this game of tag, an erotic frolic, to stand panting and sweating in close embrace, and she foresees his evasive movements, she cuts him off and closes in on him, though not too fast, for the hunt itself is so very delightful, and now she grabs hold of his coat, she clutches it tight, and he tries to wriggle free, only then she is literally on his back, riding him, tightening her legs around his chest, and he staggers on, though at last he must sink to the ground, she on top of him, locking his arms tightly and digging her knees into his ribs until he groans with pain and she bends over him, feels his sweet breath in her face, her hair sweeping over his cheeks, and she exclaims in triumph: Got you!
They roll onto their backs and gulp in air. He looks at her sideways. Her hair. It is untied, and flows all down her shoulders. He sees beads of perspiration at her hairline. Like silver. A butterfly of freckles across her nose and cheeks.
Why are you staring at me? Is there something wrong?
I love you, he thinks. He sits up with his arms around his knees and looks out over the fjord, smiling quietly.
You’re my best friend, she says. You’re my brother.
He replies with Greenlandic silence, lifting his eyebrows. She often does the same when her father speaks to her, which annoys the priest intensely: Say something, girl, instead of pulling such a devilish face at me!
When was the last time you saw your father? she asks.
I see him often when I’m out in the skerries.
Does he still want you back?
I don’t know.
Don’t you want to be with him?
No. Egede is my father, and your mother is my mother. He is a heathen and a sorcerer.
But he is your flesh. I wonder if you ought to meet with him and talk to him. You could persuade him to become a Christian. He has already received instruction from Top.
He shakes his head. He won’t have it. Your father, I mean. He will not baptize someone like him.
No, he’s odd like that. Sometimes it seems the biggest obstacle to the natives becoming Christian is the man who is meant to christen them.
We must tread softly, says Frederik Christian. We can only baptize those who understand the articles and who genuinely feel themselves to be Christian. Otherwise we’d be desecrating the sacraments.
Now you sound like my father.
He has taught me everything.
They get to their feet and walk along the shore, a series of inlets, one after another. After a while they veer away from the water’s edge and climb up onto a rocky ridge. The voice of her father comes drifting from some indeterminable direction. Kingo’s ‘Morning Song’, she thinks. From eastern skies I now see sunlight streaming.
They settle in a hollow where there is shelter from the chilly gusts coming in from the fjord.
I love that hymn, says Frederik Christian.
Yes, it’s beautiful.
They sit and listen to the voice as it floats and drifts on the air.
It gilds the rockface brow, sets hillsides gleaming.
The words are so fine, he says.
It’s poetry, she says.
She feels herself observed by him again, though says nothing. Let him look, if that’s what he wants. Perhaps he finds her pretty.
Her hair, he thinks to himself. Dark and tumbling, the occasional hint of auburn, like long strands of tobacco. And the nape of her neck, where her perspiration beads like silver – he would give anything to be allowed to kiss her there.
Rejoice, my soul . . .
And let your praise be ringing, he joins in, then laughs embarrassedly.
From earthly home set free . . .
Now they both sing along: Through thanks and faith now be to heaven winging.
Abruptly, her father’s voice falls silent.
So, this is where you hide, my children.
He is standing on the rock above them, leaning on his staff.
Father! they exclaim at once, leaping to their feet.
I thought I could hear you.
We could hear you too, she says.
Yes, the ‘Morning Song’. A very long hymn, it takes a morning to sing. And what are you two up to?
Frederik Christian is testing me in the Catechism, she lies.
Is he indeed? He gauges them quizzingly. Well, it’s good to see you out in the fresh air, he says after a moment, with kindness in his voice. God likes us to appreciate his Creation.
Yes, Father.
Mind you don’t get cold. The summer is gone.
He jumps down effortlessly from the rock and strides away with the lightest of steps, his boots crunching the sandy earth.
Be good, children, he says, and descends to the shore.
They watch him as he goes. Eventually they look at each other, and each sees their own fright reflected in the face of the other.
///
In front of the colony house, two combatants are engaged in a new contest, a tradesman from the Morian and one of the colony’s native kiffaqs, a helper at the Trade. They are poorly matched, yet the contest appears to be even, the tradesman is a tall, lanky type, the kiffaq compact and muscular. They have been fighting for some time and their bodies are glistening with sweat. The bottle of cognac won by the cooper earlier is passed among the onlookers, and the two contestants swig from it too.
Fight! says Pors, who is still the referee. The cannon pounds.
The two boxers step towards each other, rolling the sweat from their shoulders, glaring into each other’s eyes. The Dane throws a punch but strikes only the kiffaq’s arm, his opponent quickly sidestepping to his right and at the same time launching a left uppercut that catches the Dane in the ribs, causing him to emit a hollow groan. The onlookers cheer. They are a crowd divided. The Greenlander represents the colony, but as a native he is quite as much a stranger as the ship’s carpenter, who on the other hand is Danish. The odds are in the latter’s favour, four to three, making him a slight favourite.
They fight with legs firmly apart, pummelling each other from all angles. The punches rain, yet neither of the men will yield. The shouts of the crowd escalate into rage. Now the native falls, only to spring to his feet again instantly and jump up and down on the spot to collect himself. He grins and spits blood. Someone hands him the cognac, he sweeps the bottle to his mouth and gulps down its contents in a single swig, the crowd cheering him on. He stands still for a moment and considers the empty bottle with a look that suggests he is already regretting it.
The cannon pounds again, and Pors barks: Fight!
The carpenter comes charging, but the native dodges him deftly. He turns, meets the Dane with his guard up, and after a couple of cautious jabs unleashes himself onto his opponent like a madman, the Dane seeing no option but to put his arms around his head, backing off until reaching the crowd. Brutally, they shove him back into the ring again, directly into a hail of ferocious punches, and after a moment he drops to his knees, then to all fours, though without Pors yet seeing reason to stop the fight. Now he lies with his face in the mud, gasping for breath. The native kicks him repeatedly, shouting in his incomprehensible tongue. The carpenter clambers to his feet, blindly, feebly punching the air, only to double up once more when the Greenlander delivers a well-aimed blow to the side of his head. He staggers and is jostled this way and that by the crowd who roar their scorn at him, but he will not fall and stands jabbing the air with a senseless grin, the Greenlander observing him with a proud smile. Then, after a second, he steps forward and punches his opponent hard in the chest and the Dane falls silently to the ground. The crowd kicks him and tries to haul him to his feet, but he remains lying in the mud, where he sighs happily. Two men take him by the legs and drag him away.
Salute! the Governor roars, and the cannon pounds.
///
Petronelle has been standing watching from the corner of the house. Now she steps inside the parlour. Frederik Christian goes upstairs. Her mother sits darning. Kirstine has returned from her walk with Miltzov.
I saw you with your native slave, Kirstine says teasingly.
I saw you with your priest, she replies quickly.
I suppose you know he’s in love with you?
Petronelle says nothing.
You must be careful, Kirstine continues. He is a man, after all.
Come and sit here with me, their mother says. There’s plenty of work for you to be getting on with.
They sit down on the floor on either side of their mother’s chair. She hands them each a sock, a darning needle and wool. Shadows dance on the ceiling. Cries and laughter resound from the arena.
///
The following day she is out walking with him again. This time they veer left and go up to the rocks at the peninsula’s highest point. They sit down. The wind is blowing. Snow has fallen on the fell and she can smell the frost. He wishes to take her hands to warm in his, but she pulls away. He resigns and stares down at the colony, smiling faintly. Your father isn’t out today, he says after a while. I can’t hear him singing.
No, I think he’s gone up the fjord.
It feels almost empty without him.
Yes, thank goodness.
I like your father. I’m very fond of him.
He’s fond of you too. More than of the rest of us.
She senses there is something he wants to say but feels he can’t. But then he does: Tell me, Nelle, can a native from the colonies become Danish?
It happens, she replies after thinking for a moment. There are slaves who have been bought free and have entered a Danish family and public office.
Oh, he says. Have you met any of these people?
There were a couple in Bergen. It’s said that the King’s best friend is one, a blackamoor.
And they live like ordinary people?
Certainly.
And are considered to be Danish in every respect?
I think so. I even think they are held in esteem. To be bought free is a royal privilege.
Do they have Danish wives?
Yes.
What do they look like?
They’re black, of course.
Black in what way?
Their skin is very dark, bluish almost.
I’ve seen pictures of such people, he says. But I can hardly imagine it. Black in the face, like someone hanging from the gallows?
No, they are beautiful people. Many women find them attractive. She blushes.
But what about their children, are they black too?
More brown than black.
Does the King really permit black and white to mingle?
It’s taken to be right and proper, even if they do differ in appearance.
But I’m not like that, says Frederik Christian. I’m not black, and I’m not a slave. Do you think I could be accorded such a privilege?
I don’t know. Is that what you want?
Yes, of course. I’m not a Greenlander any more.
What are you then?
I don’t know. Perhaps I’m more Danish than Greenlander now. Sometimes I wish I were a slave too.
You fool, she says and laughs. What on earth for?
Because then I could be bought free. The way things are, I am neither free nor a slave. I don’t know what I am.
But you’re Paapa, I mean Frederik Christian.
There, you see.
To me you’re Paapa.
The baptism ought to make a person forget their old life, and their old name, so they can be born anew.
To us, to Father and Mother and Kirstine and me, you’re a part of the family.
An Egede?
Not quite, but sort of.
There you are, you see. Do you think he would give us permission to marry?
She has been waiting for him to say something like this, and yet is quite unprepared for the question. She is annoyed, not so much by him as the situation itself, though it is him who bears the brunt.
Don’t say that, she tells him. You shouldn’t say such things.
Why not?
It’s not allowed.
I don’t understand. If I’m a Christian, and a free man, why mustn’t I speak to a girl about marrying her?
Speak to my father, she says. He will explain.
I wanted to ask you first.
Ask? She gets to her feet. You make it sound like you’ll be proposing to me next.
Yes, why not? He looks up at her with puppy-dog eyes.
Oh, I don’t want to hear this, I don’t want to hear it at all.
He smiles distraughtly. His lips move, soundlessly forming the words, I love you, I love you.
Shut up!
I didn’t say anything.
Can’t you understand it’s not possible? You’re already betrothed.
That’s just something they made up.
Who?
Kieding and Pors.
You mean you’re not going to marry her?
I don’t know. I’d prefer not to. But if I have to, I suppose I must. I don’t love her. And she doesn’t love me.
She’s not right in the head.
No. Sometimes she scares me.
Then I suppose it’s best you don’t marry her then. You must find someone else instead.
No. It’s you I love. And I thought you at least liked me.
Don’t talk to me like that. She sets off and begins to descend the rocky slope.
He gets to his feet and follows after her, some paces behind.
I knew it, he says. I knew you were leading me on.
She pretends not to hear. She feels turmoil, rage and sadness. What a fool, she thinks to herself. Where would he get such a stupid idea? I’ve been too nice to him, and now he thinks he can get away with whatever he likes. How can he put me in such a spot? She marches on over the sodden moor, crossing the bogland instead of circumventing it, her boots sinking into the mire, her feet soaked. She hears him following on behind, without catching up.
///
Go away from that window. It’s not for young girls to see.
But she stays put, unable to tear herself away. There are so many worlds, so many spaces. There is the priest’s residence, there are the moors and the fells further inland, there is the church, even if there is no church here, only a mission room, but the church as a concept; and then there is home in Lofoten, where she lived for the first six years of her life, and the house in Bergen where they also lived; and in all these spaces she feels at home. There is also the world of the natives. She is reasonably familiar with it. She has been friends with a number of their children and has slept in their homes. But nevertheless it is a very foreign world. Then there is the world of the Governor, his parlour next door into which she has scarcely set foot, the world of the jomfru Titia, a world of madness, papism, fornication and confusion which is quite unknown to her, frightening and titillating at the same time; and then there is the crew house, a pigsty in which so many have perished, and the world of the ships, likewise unfamiliar; these male spaces, in fact, filled with things she does not understand and which are unpleasant for her to think about, their violence and toil, their drunkenness and barbarity, for instance what is going on out there now, the boxing match, two men fist-fighting, their brutal exchanges, the blood and spit that flies in the air. Her own spaces are enclosed rooms with thin walls in between, and doors through which she may pass in and out, and where she feels more or less at home. But sometimes, such as now, she senses a longing for other worlds, a yearning to mix together their different spaces. But it is not allowed. If you do, your entire reality will be torn asunder, with no knowing where it will end. This was what he did not understand. Paapa. And I cannot understand it either, she thinks.
Go away from the window. How many times do I have to tell you? Sit here with me and help me darn these socks.
///
He stands bare-chested and swaying in the ring. Someone has put a bottle in his hand. He tosses his head back and drinks, and the crowd whoops and cheers. He tosses the bottle into the mud. The crowd urges him on, they shove him in the back and roar, and he raises his arms above his head, certain he can beat anyone at all, for he knows that she is standing watching him, and the knowledge of it makes him strong and invincible.
But the man he is to fight, the boatswain from the Morian, looks at him and says, I don’t fight children, I’m no child-beater.
But Pors will hear none of it. It’s just an innocent bout. Money has changed hands, the pot is more than five rigsdaler. You’ve a responsibility now, boatswain.
The boatswain steps reluctantly forward and the lively featherweight goes at him like a windmill, an occasional punch even hitting home, but the boatswain barely feels a thing, he barges him about a bit, growls at him angrily, and when the boy comes at him again, arms flailing, he delivers to his chin an uppercut rather more forceful than intended, and the boy is sent flying, a spiralling, backward-twisting arc, to end in a sorry heap in the mud.
The crowd falls silent. The boy is lifeless on the ground. A man steps forward and pokes him with the toe of his boot.
Is he dead? Is there life in him?
They turn him over and upend a bucket of water in his face. He coughs and splutters, and the crowd erupts.
Salute! Pors barks. A triple salute for Two-Kings!
And the cannon pounds three times for Paapa, baptized Frederik Christian.