Today, the Lord gladdened us with the happy arrival at the colony of the ship from the homeland. With it arrived a man by the name of Matthias Jochumsen, accompanied by his brother and son, most mercifully sent to us, who is to reconnoitre the passage to the Eastern Settlement, if such passage is at all possible, and furthermore to investigate if there are minerals in the land, a matter of which he claimed to be knowledgeable.
FROM HANS EGEDE’S JOURNAL, MAY 1732
Stillness. The fjord is like a sheet of silk. I propel myself forward, stroke by stroke, the paddle blade scooping up the water, splashing it back against the side of the kayak; the little twist of my torso as I plunge the opposite blade into the water then draw it back to complete the cycle, feeling the element’s resistance in the trembling tendons of my hands; the slight, lurching thrust of the vessel at every stroke, the water pressed against the thin membrane of the kayak skin, parting at the bow, cleaved aside to fall away in maelstroms and scintillating spray, the wind buffeting my face. Swish, swish, swish, like a mill the paddle twirls its small, flattened circles, above me the eternity of the heavens, below me the seventy thousand fathoms of the sea. The kayak is a knife, its passage upon the calm surface an incision which opens and heals at once. I am Frederik Christian, the one they call Two-Kings. The breath of the sea lifts me up and sets me down, and I am a part of it, this great respiring world.
But notwithstanding that all these superstitions are authorized by, and grounded upon the notion they have of him they call Torngarsuk, whom their lying angekuts or prophets hold for their oracle, whom they consult on all occasions, yet the commonality know little or nothing of him, except the name only: nay, even the angekuts themselves are divided in the whimsical ideas they have formed of his being.
I have a toothache. A cheek-tooth. It is quite rotten. The smith will not pull it out. It will come out on its own, he says. Yet it hurts me so much! Drink aquavit, he says. But I do, I tell him. Then drink some more, he says. The aquavit dulls the pain in the tooth, but removes it to the soul. Now the tooth throbs again, but my soul is as calm as the sea, as quiet as the great murmuring expanse I slit with the blade of my paddle. Soul and flesh each in different states. One cannot have it all.
The soul is as the sea. When the wind blows it is unsettled. When it is cold it falls into torpor. And when one is suffering from inappropriate desires it throbs like a rotten tooth. To kill a child in its cradle would be better than to nourish such wrongful lust. To drown would be preferable by far. To vanish into the blue. To die.
The natives are fearful of the kayak dizziness. One understands them well on a day such as this. The crisp, impermanent boundary between sky and sea becomes almost erased, the firmament all-engulfing, and up could just as well be down. I keep my eye on the islets, the fells, reference points that help me maintain the distinction.
My hunting bow is at my shoulder, arrows splayed out in a fan held in place by the deck lines of the foredeck, along with the harpoon and darts. On the foredeck too is the rack which holds the hunting line. Behind me is the hunting float, an inflated, depilated seal-skin finely stitched and sealed with blubber. I have made all the equipment myself, to the smallest detail. I have shaped the wood, filed and honed the arrowheads, softened the skin, inserted the rivets. No woman has laid a hand on any of it, nor on me. I have no love of women. I was fond of Titia. She was a good friend. We were supposed to have been married. I had no objections. But she belonged to another, so it transpired, and he came and took her and strung her up, and all that was left was her small and withered body, which the Governor carried onto the fell alone and placed in its grave. I loved the priest’s daughter. Yet it was a false love, it turned into fear and loathing, and then it died. Love is like paddling a kayak. The thin and delicate boundary between the light of the firmament and the darkness of the deep is almost invisible and may cause a man to dizzy and drown. Or to begin to hate himself. For if he looks down, he sees only himself, and then he is lost for ever.
I paddle. I could paddle for days without sleep, without food, without a thought in my head, the blades twirling their endless ovals, sprinkling their spray into the air around me. Beyond the islets the swell rises. It lifts me and pulls me down. It feels wonderful. A seal appears before me, upright in the water, looking at me, trustful and unsuspicious. Natsiaq. A small ringed seal. I paddle closer. It submerges, but I can see where it swims and pursue it cautiously, rest the paddle across the deck, pick up the harpoon and thrust it forward as the seal appears again exactly where I anticipated. Such a thing must be in the blood. Passed down from heathen to heathen, and now to me. I do not hunt very often. And my body is stiff after hours in the mission room with Egede each day, working on his Description. Not a word about that. It is not a matter that may be spoken about. It is a secret. He has already written a stack of pages, a manuscript locked inside a drawer. I am not to breathe a word to anyone and must not disturb him when he writes. Instead I sit quietly, hardly daring even to swallow my spit, so quietly I can hear the lice as they chew the powder of his wig. Presently he will read aloud what he has written and ask if it is good enough in such a wording. What do you think, Frederik Christian? And at that juncture I am permitted to speak, but I must say only that it is good, I must praise him, for he dislikes being spoken against, and therefore I have no idea why I must sit there hour upon hour and listen to his lice grow fat.
If one aspires to the office of an angekkok, and has a mind to be initiated into these mysteries, he must retire from the rest of mankind, into some remote place, from all commerce; there he must look for a large stone, near which he must sit down and invoke Torngarsuk, who, without delay, presents himself before him. This presence so terrifies the new candidate of angekutism that he immediately sickens, swoons away, and dies; and in this condition he lies for three whole days; and then he comes to life again, arises in a newness of life, and betakes himself to his home again.
The harpoon has embedded itself in the shoulder of the seal. The animal emits bleats of pain, arches backwards into the water and submerges itself in its blood. It twists, writhes and thrashes. The line sings, and when there is no more I tug on it to see if the harpoon head is embedded firmly. Then I release the float. It dips beneath the surface twice, after which I draw it back and forth repeatedly, playfully almost, and in high spirits. I watch the seal as it struggles to come free. But it cannot come free. It is doomed. A living creature in the throes of death.
It surfaces again, snorting and coughing, eyes filled with fear, pain, resignation, but not rage. It is a fine little creature, quite without anger or malice. There is no anger in small seals. Small seals are soulful. I think God blew his breath into them, and when they die I sense something inside me die too, that must be given up so that something else may be born and take its place, a hardness, an insensitivity. I am not suited to living in this land. Why did God have me born here? What sense is there in it? Can He not see that I am a stranger here?
The seal adopts a new strategy. It swims away, dragging the hunting float with it. But it has not the strength to swim from me. I paddle gently after it. There is no need to hurry. It needs no more help to die. It turns its pale belly upwards and capitulates. As yet it breathes, and squirms slightly, eyes rolling in its head. But then, before I can extract the harpoon head, a shadow darts forward from my right, the line is cut with an audible reverberation, and the seal is gone.
I almost capsize. My seal!
The thief pretends not to hear me. He paddles away at furious speed, churning the surface, the seal laid across his deck.
Thief! I shout after him.
He hears me well enough. I can tell from his neck and shoulders that he is laughing.
I retrieve the float and attach it to the rear deck, wind the line around the rack. The kayak rolls in the swell. It is not the seal which is important. I can always catch another. It is the humiliation. If I were a savage, I would paddle after him and kill him. But I am not a savage. I am Frederik Christian, not Paapa. I am a Christian. Am I not?
I plunge the blade into the water and begin to paddle. The thief is heading south. He paddles quickly, torso thrusting forcefully. Behind him he draws a trail of blood, and the blood connects us to each other. Probably he is a better kayak man than I, and stronger too. But the seal will slow him down.
I pick up speed. We round an islet, and the sea becomes choppy, low waves breaking over the deck. I plough through them. The water flies from the paddle blades as they snatch at the crests, I catch the air, and then the sea again, the spray consumes the bow and I am flying, skating across the surface.
The Greenlanders’ ignorance of a Creator would make one believe they were atheists, or rather naturalists. For, when they have been asked from whence they thought that Heaven and Earth had their origin, they have answered nothing, but that it had always been so.
He realizes he is being pursued. He glances over his shoulder, then lunges forward once more, paddle attacking the waves, heaving himself onwards at speed. But I too am quick. His strength is gathered in the name of fear and guilt, mine in vengeance and rage. They are well matched. The distance between us is undiminishing, unincreasing. But I will catch him. I have killed once today. I can kill twice. Or die myself.
We enter the open sea. The swell is lazy, the waves tall and long. I adjust my rhythm, deep and steady strokes, riding a crest, slipping down behind it, reversing my strokes to keep the vessel upright. I see him in glimpses, when we mount a wave simultaneously. I am closer now. I know why, and it is not because he is weary. He is dropping back to fight me. Combat at sea? Then let it be so. I am ready to kill or be killed.
But suddenly he is gone. I rest on my paddle and glance to all sides. All I see is the ocean, the rolling sea, but no man anywhere. Yet there are no hiding places here. How could he disappear? I paddle further, narrowing my eyes to see what cannot be seen. Who is he? I know who he is.
A figure rises up out of the water and hurls something at me. In his upturned kayak he has lingered, his body upside down, suspended, though bent double, his face breaking the surface for air, and thus he has kept me in his sights, waiting for the moment to right his vessel and strike. The harpoon hurtles past me to lodge itself in the foreside of the stem. The skin rips open with a sigh. He hauls back his harpoon. I snatch the hunting bow from my shoulder, load an arrow and fire seamlessly. But the angle is wrong, and his position now means I have the sun in my eyes. The arrow whistles above his head and cuts into the sea. Yet he is frightened. Had he not expected me to defend myself? He ducks, turns and paddles away. He has no bow of his own.
My feet are drenched. I realize what is going to happen. Soon my legs are wet to the thigh. My kayak is drinking the sea. And it is thirsty. My opponent has turned again and paused some distance away, beyond the range of my arrows. He rests on his paddle. He is laughing, and watches me with interest.
The angekuts, as before observed, are kept in great honour and esteem, and beloved and cherished as a wise and useful set of men; they are also well rewarded for their service, when it is wanted.
I am lost. What will he do with me when I am drowned? Will he simply turn and paddle away, boil his seal and devour it with good appetite? Or will he fish me up and put me in a grave, sing over my body and give me a heathen burial? Will he weep over me? What is he thinking?
I try to paddle, but like a wounded bird I get nowhere and sink only deeper. If he wished, he could harpoon me and put me out of my misery. Yet he does nothing. He sits and watches, his mouth curled in an inquisitive, roguish smile. It is considered an impoliteness among the savages to reveal oneself to one’s victim. A harpoon in the back and quickly away is a preferred method. But he is no ordinary savage. He does not abide by their rules. The seal hangs draped over the foredeck of his kayak and bleeds into the sea. Calmly, he puts his weapon away under the deck lines, picks up his paddle, turns his vessel and sends me a final look before sedately paddling away.
God will punish you!
May you burn in Hell!
I hate you!
Now I am alone. Alone with my death. The sea is sucking me in. I am sinking and will descend slowly through its seventy thousand fathoms. I blink. No, I am afloat. Balancing. The kayak is under the surface, I am in water to my chest. But I am not sinking. A pocket of air must be keeping me up. I try to paddle, but cannot. The kayak points its nose to the sea-bed and threatens to sink once and for all. I size up the islets that lie but a musket shot away to my left. If I am lucky, I will drift towards them. But no, it seems I am drifting away, to the north. I must find some way to manoeuvre.
I undo the spraydeck that is fastened around the coaming of the cockpit, tighten it again around my waist and wriggle free. Now I am lying flat on my stomach on top of the kayak. It remains buoyant, though beneath the surface. Most of my body too is below water, only my shoulders and head are above. My watertight tunic, my tuilik, keeps me afloat for the moment. But the sea is freezing cold. My feet and legs are numb. Like an eel, I slither forward to the tear in the bow, pull off my mitten and feel the damage with my fingers. It is a clean tear, an incision. It gurgles and spits like a dying seal as the kayak rises and falls. I try to cover it with my hand. I feel the air stream in and out between my fingers.
A fog moves in, thick as whipped cream, sucked into the fjord. Soon it will be evening. I lie prone on the drowning kayak, half-drowned myself, dead and yet alive, but the balance between death and life is shifting in the wrong direction. I have given up holding my hand over the tear. I can do no good, only wait. I say the Lord’s Prayer. The sky around me changes colour. Evening falls. Darkness. Good night.
I am woken by a cry. It startles me. I tumble into the water, claw at the kayak, but succeed only in pushing it away from me. My arms and legs flail desperately, my mouth fills with water, water fills my clothing, water rises above my head. Silvery bubbles effervesce around me, and I collide with an object. I make a grab for it, but it is slippery like soap, smooth and cold. And then the respiration of the sea lifts me up and gently puts me down again on a stony beach.
I lie gasping for air. Breakers rush through the pebbles. It is the most wonderful sound.
It was a raven that cried. It sits on a rock, hopping about, cocking its head, watching me. Further ashore, in a grassy nook among the rocks, sits the man who stole my seal.
He casts a glance at me as if I had merely happened by. I stagger up the beach towards him and fall down in the grass.
You’re soaked, he says. You must be freezing, you fool. Look, I’ve boiled meat for us.
The seal lies butchered and bloody beside him. The raven descends from its rock in a series of hops, directly to the entrails thrown to it by the thief. Its beak pulls at them, scarlet filaments.
Eat now before it gets cold, he says.
My teeth chatter. I pull off my clothing, my trousers, my kamik boots. And then I am naked. I sit down at the fire. The heat settles my breathing. He tosses me a piece of rib. I tear the meat from it with my teeth and swallow it. He pours a mugful of the stock and hands it to me. I drink the salty liquid, scalding my mouth, but drinking. I shudder and tremble as the cold releases my muscles, teeth as yet clacking. The man sits and stares at me through the flames.
What’s the matter with you?
Nothing. I’m cold.
Why do you hold your hand to your cheek like that?
A tooth. It’s driving me mad.
He nods. I could tell right away. A little red devil in the corner of your mouth. He’s the cause of the toothache. Do you want me to send him away?
You know very well I don’t believe in your heathen ways.
Please yourself. Look at me.
I lift my gaze, I look at him. The flames flicker between us.
What do you see? he says.
I see you. Your face. Your eyes.
Good. Eat now. Soon your clothes will be dry.
The rib I have gnawed falls on the ground. I sigh. My eyelids droop. I yawn.
Don’t sleep, he says. Not yet. Sleep must wait.
He leans across the fire and the flames wrap themselves around him, he is quite engulfed, and yet unburned. He embraces me, and now we are both enveloped by flame, though I feel nothing. All I feel is tired, I can think only of sleep. I sense something warm and moist against my face, like slime running down my cheeks, but I have no idea what it is. He mumbles some words, heathen rigmarole, it puts me at ease, makes me feel safe and secure, even though I resist. I feel like a child being rocked by his mother. And then I vomit, emptying my stomach completely, my body convulsing, and he grips me tightly, holds me to his chest and mumbles. Mumbles me to sleep.
I am still naked when I awake. But I am not cold. I am lying on a reindeer skin next to the fire. I must have slept for some time. It feels like Sunday, when the sun slants in through the window and one needn’t get up but can stay in bed all morning and watch the shifting light. I am limp as a rag. My eyes, the only part of me I can be bothered to move, scan the surroundings. There are my skin clothes, draped on the rock to dry. There is the butchered seal. There is the raven, tugging at the bloody entrails, flapping its wings in annoyance to attack its meal from a different angle. Clouds drift slowly across the sky. And there is my killer, my saviour. He sits bare-chested and stares into the fire.
Have I been asleep for long?
You were far away. You threw up a lot of sea water. Sit up and eat. There’s still plenty of meat.
I eat.
Have you performed sorcery?
It’s not sorcery.
What is it then?
It’s hard to explain. It’s secret. Something one is allowed to share only with those who wish to learn it. Do you wish to learn it? Do you wish to be like me?
No.
I pick up a piece of meat and chew. My head feels light after sleeping.
You stole my seal. Why did you do that?
I’m a poor hunter. I can admit that. I’m a good shaman, but a poor hunter. I have to steal my food.
You almost killed me.
I missed. I’m useless with a harpoon.
You could just as easily have got me. I could have drowned.
I was trying to get you. That was the idea. Only I missed as usual. Maybe God put a swerve on it. He sighs. You didn’t have to chase after me. It was stupid of you.
I was angry.
Anger is a dangerous thing. It gets people killed. You should have paddled home to your people.
I say nothing. I put my hand to my cheek and rub it.
Still got that toothache?
Yes.
Get the smith to pull it out.
He won’t.
Then get Master Kieding to do it.
You know Kieding?
I know everyone in the colony. I know your father too.
He’s not my father. He’s my teacher.
Are you going to be a priest?
Perhaps. He says I will. If I stick in.
I’m a priest as well, you could say.
You’re an angakkok.
But I know Jesus too.
Do you believe in him?
Yes, I believe in him.
Are you prepared to put your old ways behind you and become a Christian?
No, not yet. Maybe in a few years. When your father’s gone.
He’s not my father.
He’s made you his son. I think he loves you.
What makes you think that?
Someone whispered in my ear.
I hope to become a catechist. The first Greenlandic catechist.
Indeed, that would be something. I’m sure you’ll make a good catechist. You could baptize me.
The priest does that. You’d have to go to him.
Fair enough, but not until there’s another priest. Once there’s another priest I’ll let myself be baptized. But tell me something. Tell me what salvation is.
Salvation is forgiveness and the heavenly life.
But what are you supposed to do up there? Isn’t it better down here? I mean, God made the world, and he made it a paradise for people.
I’m not sure. But all of us hope to go to Heaven. Life on earth is merely a rehearsal to separate the sheep from the goats. In heaven we shall be reunited with all those who are dead, and join again with our loved ones.
Can a goat become a sheep? Would you know that?
Yes, it can. God forgives him who in honesty asks for absolution.
So there’s still hope.
Yes, I think so often.
You know your father’s a thief?
A thief? What did he steal?
He stole what was most valuable to me.
You mean me?
You said it.
He looked after me when I was ill.
And kept you when you got well. I call that stealing.
Egede is no thief. I cannot help but think of the pile of papers he has locked in his drawer, the secret I must reveal to no one. He is a good man, I say.
Don’t you ever miss the old life? Wandering in pursuit of the animals, living in the tents in summer, the peat-huts in winter? Being with your people?
I can’t remember it. I was only small.
You could come back. You could wander with me. We could be together for all time.
A person can never go back. It can’t be done. I belong with them now.
But you’re not one of them. They treat you poorly. What is it they call you?
Two-Kings. It’s because of my name. Frederik Christian. King’s names both.
There you are then. They make fun of you. They make you drink aquavit and lie down with their women. I happen to know you lie down with men too.
I look away, fearful of his gaze. I’m weak, I mumble. But Jesus forgives. He forgives seventy times seven times.
You’ll not have many left, he says.
That’s where you’re wrong! I reply. One can keep on repenting. It never stops. Always there is forgiveness, if only one asks for it in honesty. That’s the difference between you heathens and us Christians.
How sad, he says. Our rules are different entirely. You’d be a lot happier if you came with me.
No, I belong to him now.
Black Man, he says. He’s taken you from me, and that’s worse than dying seventy times seven times. If you don’t come with me, I’ll come and get you.
Where will you take me?
I won’t take you anywhere. You’ll go yourself. He stares at me.
I remember I always used to be afraid, I say. Before Egede gathered me up.
Afraid of what?
The monsters the elders always used to talk about. And people dying. People died all the time. My mother died. I remember it. And there was no hope. Egede says God gave hope to man to balance out his misery.
I understand, he says. It’s no joke being a heathen. I wanted to be Christian once as well. But your mother wouldn’t let me. It was her fault everything went wrong.
When the land has become Christian, it’ll be better for everyone, I say.
It’s possible, I suppose. But they’ll have lost something too.
What will they have lost?
The same as you have lost. The same as I have lost. And dear to us is but that which we have lost.
Who said that?
I did, he says, and looks at me with a sad smile.
The time has come for me to go home. I feel my clothes. They are still damp, though warm from the fire. I put them on.
Where are we?
A small island in the sea. How are you thinking of getting home? Your kayak’s no good.
I don’t know. Are there other people on this island?
No, just you and me. It’s more an islet, very small.
Then I suppose I’ll have to wait until someone comes by and picks me up.
No one comes by here. It’s off the shipping route, if any ship ever comes. Maybe a native boat, if you’re lucky. But I’d prepare myself for a long wait if I were you.
He goes down to the beach, launches his kayak and gets in.
I saved your bow and arrows, and your harpoon too. They’re up there.
You’re going to leave me?
Keep the seal, he says.
You can at least tell someone I’m here, so they can come and get me.
I don’t know where we are myself, he says. And with that he paddles away and is gone.
///
Stillness. The fog is as silk. It is not to say if it is night or day. The sea breathes heavily in and out, clacks the pebbles at the shore. The raven is here yet. It hops about with entrails bloody in its beak, then vanishes above the rocks. I follow after it. At once I am above the fog. The weather is clear, the sun ablaze. I am surrounded by an ocean of mist that reaches to my knees. And there is the colony, beyond the bay. This is not an island in the sea at all. I gather my belongings together and follow the curve of the shore.
When I arrive, the sun has burnt the fog away. The flag flutters on its pole. And there are the Egede girls, walking arm in arm at the harbour. They glance in my direction without waving. There is the carpenter, repairing a roof, and Egede looking up at him, instructing him. And there is Jens Smith in his smithy. He sees me, puts down his hammer and comes out into the doorway, from fiery darkness into sunlight.
Let’s sort that tooth out, shall we? Pull the bugger out.
My toothache’s gone, I tell him. The tooth is well.