In November Kalle arrives early to meet with farmers about boarding Zirkus animals in their barns and sheds; with toymakers about repairing wagon wheels; with the blacksmith about shoeing horses and ponies. Old rifts mend once the Ludwig Zirkus winters over and people help care for animals they’ve only seen in parades and in the arena. They visit one another with tales of the ponies’ fancy footwork, say, or with worries about the lion whose scent agitates the cattle. Already he’s been relocated from the Knudsens’ barn to the Bauers’ goat shed where he has to crouch. Now the goats live in a barn with the Bauers’ cows; disoriented by the high rafters, they knock into each other, and bleat in that indignant voice only goats have.
The Sisters invite the eight monkeys into their aviary, and even church families bring their children to see those monkeys swinging and eating and scratching where children are forbidden to scratch their own bodies. The children’s shrieking matches the monkeys’ shrieking, behavior not tolerated at home or at school; yet, at the aviary, their parents become lenient, wander into the lobby to show their children the exhibit of paintings and weavings by students and faculty. Some ask the Sisters if they’ll have another recital.
Such excess of good will causes church people to nod greetings toward St. Margaret Girls; causes the blacksmith’s wife to rip the double seams of her husband’s uniform from the German-Danish War, turn the blue fabric inside out, and sew a skirt and fitted jackets for Hedda who lives with her baby above the smithy.
Through much of the winter the ground will stay muddy because all those hooves won’t let it freeze; no matter how carefully people will wipe their shoes, they’ll drag dirt into houses and churches, especially into school where the children will study the biology of animals.
You map out your lives with your children. Immerse yourselves in preparations that become as immediate as your lives in your farmhouse on the land side of the dike. And though you cannot reach your three oldest—not yet, not yet—you can keep your love for them tucked away, your worries, too. Until you see them again. And you feel calm. Ready for the first high tide after the Schwarze Sonne when you’ll row out and bring them home. Rungholt has entered your souls: more vibrant now its colors; more defined its structures; while the familiar landscape of Nordstrand is blurring.
Kalle trusts his dory. He and the beekeeper built theirs together.
“I’ll chart the location, the exact location above and around Rungholt.”
Once the boat is centered above the island, you’ll wait for it to rise. Reveal its point of entry.
“We’ll only see it if we’re right there,” Lotte says.
“If we’re too close to the rim, we’ll get sucked into the waters that pour from the edges of Rungholt.”
“Like waterfalls.”
You will enter the island together and bring your children back home. This is how it will be.
Every day Kalle stops by his boat, checks oars and oar locks, checks its flat bottom, its high bow that points in the direction of Rungholt, and proclaims it safe for his entire family. It’s a fine boat. To test their plan they row out while Wilhelm plays with his wooden zebra and his wooden monkey on the bottom boards, listens closely.
Vati says, “We know where to wait. Above the center when the island emerges.”
Mutti says, “Careful with what you say. Wilhelm understands too much.”
Vati lowers his voice, but Wilhelm still hears him say, “In that lull just before the tides reverse.”
Mutti says, “I wish it could be today.”
Wilhelm’s zebra walks up Vati’s leg.
Vati says, “The time is not right. The Schwarze Sonne hasn’t come back.”
“We cannot tell others,” Mutti whispers.
“This is just for you and for me.”
Wilhelm’s zebra bites Vati’s leg.
“And for the children. Who do you think will greet us?”
“Hannelore.”
“Ja. Or Martin.”
Wilhelm’s monkey jumps. Up and down. “Sketch, Vati?”
“Bärbel will try to run ahead of them, forgetting she is still little,” Vati says. “Always so surprised when Hannelore and Martin pass her.”
“Maybe Hannelore won’t like being lifted up. Too old for that.”
“Then I’ll kneel in front of her and hold her.” Kalle closes his eyes, suffused with love for his Hannelore as he holds her in his arms; but when he opens his eyes, Wilhelm’s face bobs in front of his, lips puckered around his thumb.
Voice muffled. “Sketch, Vati?”
“Not today. Too many chores.”
That quick glaze of hurt.
“But soon,” Kalle says.
He decides he won’t make Wilhelm wait as he did with Hannelore, even after she turned six and begged him to teach her. He wishes he’d shown her to lean the weight of her hand into a pencil stroke; how to play with the fluidity of a stroke: where it lies heavily on the paper, widening; where it is light and narrow. And then of course the spaces left bare to suggest the body, motion. But there will be time for that now. And he’ll start with Wilhelm.
As they head back to their house, he says, “Do you know that animals are never without motion? Even while they sleep. A tiger about to wake up. A bird about to catch a fish. A monkey about to…”
“Leap!”
“Good.” Kalle eases the thumb from his son’s mouth. “What other animals can you think of?”
Shadow of stork on steeple … Wilhelm claps his hands. “Stork about.”
“About to eat?”
“Fly!”
“Something is always about to change.” Kalle squats next to him, faces at the same level. How wasteful he’s been with his son’s devotion. How afraid of failing him. He did not keep his other children safe. What chance does his youngest have? “Would you like me to carve a stork for you?”
Wilhelm nods.
“Shall I carve it flying?”
Wilhelm nods.
“Or standing on one leg?”
Wilhelm raises one knee—stork I am stork—teeters on the other leg.
Kalle catches him before he can fall, steadies him by his skinny shoulders, feels the quiver in his son’s bones. And tears up. “We’ll draw it together.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Chores.”
“Is that how I answer you? Thank you for reminding me. I want to stop with chores and sketch with you. Now. Let’s find some storks.”
Storks on steeples. Storks in wet meadows. Ruts of water. Wilhelm is cold, scarf dragging. Clack-clack of storks. Long red beaks. Long red legs.
Vati ties scarf around Wilhelm’s neck. Says, “The knot is in back so you can’t undo it.”
Clack-clack. Vati crouches. Draws lines in mud. Muddy fingers. Draws storks on steeple. “Soon, you’ll be able to draw birds in motion, Wilhelm. Other animals too. If you imagine the animal the moment before it moves, you know the bones beneath the feathers or the fur … even the muscles and the blood vessels. You can teach yourself to see.”
Wilhelm frowns.
“By looking … By imagining. I’ll show you how.” Kalle tugs Wilhelm’s scarf over his mouth. “Hold on to my sleeve so you won’t fly off.”
“I can fly.”
“I know you can fly. Just don’t leave me behind.”
Wilhelm breathes warm through his scarf. Cold where his nose drips. Snot icicles hurrah.
In the houses of others they come across Sister Hildegunde’s paintings, expanses of green and yellow and blue that can hurt your eyes if you forget to blink. Wind hunts the clouds—gray clouds, purple clouds, pink clouds—across endless skies. And windmills. Windmills. So much land and so few houses in that flat, flat landscape, heartbreakingly beautiful.
Sister Hildegunde gives breath to the landscape Kalle longs for while on the road: winds ripple fields of grasses and fields of rapeseed and fields of wildflowers as if they’re waves. The slopes of dikes flecked with sheep: most white; a few black. Yet, when he’s on Nordstrand, Kalle longs for the Ludwig Zirkus; and gradually, the Zirkus makes it into Sister Hildegunde’s paintings as if summoned by Kalle’s longing. Like a girl in her joy, Sister paints from the angle of her childhood—radiant animals and performers—summoning the magic and colors that arise from what you conjure and give credence to.