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I awoke with the taste of salt on my lips. Free from sickness, and invigorated I sought out the beak-nosed Englishman. There were many questions I wished to ask, and ask I did; yet he answered only in brief sentences, of the yes or no variety if it were appropriate, and even if it were not. Yes, he had known my father well. He had worked with him. Yes, he had been to Greenland before. No, he had not met my mother. How many of these statements did I believe, I wonder? The man was distant, curt, almost unresponsive, yet there was no one else to whom I could turn; I was entirely in his power and under his protection. What choice did I have but to trust him? Reading my thoughts and my suspicions, Eqingaleq put his mouth to my ear and whispered: had I noticed that despite the man’s age the corners of his mouth and eyes bore no wrinkles? It was as though never once had they been creased in laughter or joy. He did not recall ever encountering such a characterless face.
And the man’s eyes: it was as if they were full of water, colourless and shallow.
England, too, appeared colourless. The sky was hung with heavy, grey clouds that leaked a perpetual, irritating drizzle which seemed as though it might persist for ever. The faces by which we were surrounded looked as though they had never seen the sunlight. I knew that here the winters did not wallow in constant darkness, yet it was easy to imagine that this weather, this bleakness, might continue throughout the entire year.
Where I had come from the summer skies, for the most part, stretched for cloudless mile upon cloudless mile, an expanse of blue, and the sunlight glinted off the glacial ice, blindingly and brilliantly. The rain, when it did fall, was sudden, fierce and refreshing. It did not linger upon the soul as it did here. Beside me, Eqingaleq shivered despite the warmth of his bearskin trousers: it was not that this new country was cold – we were accustomed to freezing arctic winters, after all – yet the dreariness of the weather seemed to penetrate to the very bones.
Never before had I beheld so many people in one place, each a stranger to the other. At the harbour, while we had disembarked, I had seen many men laughing and talking, yet here upon the concrete streets there passed no signs of recognition between those who hurried along, around corners and over roads, heads bent to the weather and eyes at their feet. I realised how small must be the world from which I had come.
It need not be said that I drew some strange looks from those passers-by who deigned to lift their eyes from the ground, no doubt drawn by the sight of my sealskin kamiks. I had otherwise dressed in blue jeans, a shirt and my old, Norwegian fisherman’s jumper, that I might the more blend in. Yet I could not disguise the colour of my skin or my ink-black hair, any more than my scrutinisers were able to veil their curiosity.
We had arrived just as the skies were beginning to darken, and as night fell we – that is, the beak-nosed man and I – sought lodgings. We would continue to our destination in the morning, I was curtly and irritably informed in response to my questioning.
The room had only one bed, in which the Englishman slept soundly while Eqingaleq and I lay on the floor, huddled together under my anorak, both our heads resting on my backpack. I was unable to sleep, though not so much for the discomfort of my excuse for a bed: this new country was noisy, deafeningly so. In my town, up north, there was not one man who could dream of importing a motor vehicle from Europe – even if he could afford to, for there were no roads on which to drive one after all – yet here it seemed as though there were millions of them. Each time a car passed in the street below I would hear its rumble in the near-distance, growing ever louder until its engine was all but a roar intruding upon the comforts of sleep. Eventually, the sound would die away, only to be replaced by the approach of another vehicle. The air, too, was thick with the oppression of row upon row of towering buildings, a labyrinth of endless streets lined with faceless brick walls. When finally I fell into an exhausted slumber, as dawn fast approached, I dreamed of space, colour and light; yet upon waking became choked once more by my surroundings.
In the morning light I was unsurprised to find that it was still raining. I peered out of the grubby window, then rested my forehead against the cooling glass and breathed a mist before my eyes. I felt weak from the swell of the sea, and hungry and dizzy from too many sleepless nights. My breath on the window pane obscured the view of the city, and I could instead allow myself to imagine that behind the mist there rose mountains, or that the unspoiled purity of snow on ice merged everything into a wonderful and tranquil peace. Unwilling to permit me this moment, my humourless companion barked that I must get a move on, or I would cause him to be late.
‘But where are we going?’ I asked, turning to face him across the small room. This was a question I had voiced many times, yet the answer had not been forthcoming, for reasons presumably beyond my understanding. He had not mentioned the funeral of my father since we had sat awkwardly together, as strangers, on my front doorstep. He was no less a stranger to me now.
‘It doesn’t matter to you where we are going,’ the man replied in a voice edged with irritation – anger, even.
‘I would like to know where we are going,’ I repeated. ‘You’ve brought me this far but you haven’t told me –.’
‘Shut up and get your f-ing shoes on,’ he growled.
I felt an anger, though weary, rise within me that I should be spoken to in such a way. Behind him, Eqingaleq strained his features and made frantic motions with his arms, indicating that I should drop the subject and do as I had been instructed. But I was not about to step down so easily. The anger by which I was spurned was, perhaps, directed towards myself, for I had accompanied this stranger to a country about which I knew very little – indeed I could barely speak the language – and for reasons that were beginning to be lost to me. The curiosity and sense of purpose I had felt upon leaving my home I could now barely recall. Once so sure of myself, now I was lost, and I could feel the cold hand of fear beginning to claw at my heart.
‘I would like to have something to eat first.’ It took all my energy to keep my voice from shaking.
‘You’ll get nothing.’
I was unsure anyway whether I would be able to stomach even a morsel of food. Ignoring Eqingaleq’s arms flapping in warning, I continued nonetheless, unaware, in the dizzy heat that spread across my cheeks, that the Englishman was moving quickly towards me: ‘I am not going anywhere with you until –.’ Before I knew what was happening, the man had raised a thick hand and landed it with all his strength against my cheek. The blow sent me to my knees, my own hand raised instinctively against the point of impact. I cried out in pain, in shock, and my eyes welled with tears.
‘We are leaving,’ he said, ‘Now.’
Eqingaleq helped me to my feet.
5
The first train journey of my life somehow marked a catastrophic leap into the chaos and machinery of the modern Western world which, until this moment, had been known to me only in books, photographs or hearsay. The beak-nosed man, having hauled me into the throes of a new day with the usual carelessness and insensitivity he had come to exhibit where I was concerned, had all but dragged me into the carriage of this new mechanical monster. I was sleep-deprived and nauseous, and overcome by uncertainty. The soporific rhythm of the train, however, soon sent me into an unwilling slumber which I could not fight. My senses, which had been overwhelmed by this tide of new information and experience, found opportunity to desert me for one long stretch of thoughtlessness. When eventually I slipped back into the haze of consciousness, as the train came to a standstill, I saw only brick, concrete and grey rain.
Leaning towards Eqingaleq I whispered were we not still in the same place? He said he did not know, for he too, had drifted from his senses with this strange sorcery of rhythm.
Some helping spirit you are, I reproached him, though light-heartedly and with a weak smile. Were it not for his presence and companionship I might have found myself unbearably alone.
We helped each other off the train and together
followed the thickset figure of the Englishman. Purposefully, and with long, determined strides he sought his path ahead and did not once turn his head to ascertain that I was at his heels. There was no need, I surmised, for he knew full well that I had nowhere else to go. And besides, what difference would it make to him if I were to duck unseen into the flowing crowd and disappear from his sight, never to return?
It seemed logical, to the people-pleasing, apologetic side of my mind to assume that the man were carrying out some sort of selfless favour towards me. The decision to leave my home had been my own, and were it not for the guidance of this white man who had taken me aboard the ship, I would be utterly lost in a foreign country and, so it seemed, a different time. Perhaps, then, the treatment that I received from him was entirely warranted; perhaps it was as much as I deserved and as much as he could give. Could I expect him to feed me as well as guide me? Although this idea welled foremost in my mind, I could not fight the resentment that grew and grew each time I laid eyes upon the man, and for this I was ashamed. While it was true that he had violently laid his hands upon me in anger, it seemed entirely likely that he was grappling with emotions which could find no other expression – we were, after all and as far as I could tell, on our way to a funeral. Perhaps he and this late father of mine had been close. Perhaps he was bereaved.
Eqingaleq did not agree. The man had revealed his white wings in the clear light of day, he said, the moment he had hit me. The man’s hideous eyes, he said, turned him cold to the very bones. Half-heartedly I reprimanded him for his assumptions: we should not condemn the man simply because we had not yet seen him smile, or because we could see no light in his watery eyes. We must learn to see the good in those whom we needed to trust.
We bickered in hushed tones as we trailed the man in question, stumbling over our sealskin boots in our haste to keep up. Leaving the train station, which appeared identical down to the very last detail to the one from which we had boarded the train, we moved onto endless grey streets no different from those which had crowded the window of last night’s lodgings and suffocated me as I slept. We walked for what seemed like hours. I worried that the unyielding surface of the streets would wear through the soles of my skin boots, those boots which had held strong for years.
At long last we turned from the streets, and passing through an ornate iron gate left behind the blank faces of the buildings. In their place rose great, leafy trees, like ancient giants, the likes of which I had never before seen with my own eyes. As we walked the distant roar of the traffic grew quieter, softer, and faded away. I realised with wonder that in its absence I could hear the rustle of the trees’ magnificent canopies above my head. My feet came to a standstill, I peered upwards towards the grey sky, raindrops fell from the leaves into my eyes and onto my cheeks; everything was wonderfully still and quiet. The suddenness of this change threw my exhausted mind off balance, and for a second I forgot where I was.
This moment, however, was short-lived, for at once the Englishman hissed something that I could not catch, and Eqingaleq dragged me onwards. Ahead of us I saw gathered a group of people whose figures stood out like unmoving, dark silhouettes, each and every one dressed in black clothes which cut a stark, terrible contrast with the surroundings. To my horror the grey-haired man led us directly to the gathering, stopping only on the outskirts. I sensed one hundred pairs of eyes turn upon me, some in curiosity or surprise. Some were still frozen in sadness, others in an array of emotions I could not decipher. Nonetheless I could feel the mêlée of thought and emotion my arrival had caused move like electricity through the air. Not a word was spoken, save for the continued drone of a man, also robed in black, who continued to address the crowd.
I might have turned and fled, had not the sun decided, at that moment, to finally make an appearance. It was as though the sky opened and flooded the world with a brilliant, unexpected light that spilled colour upon the greenery and fell in broken rays beneath the broad canopies. The gathering was not overshadowed by the trees, and thus basked in warm sunlight; across the patch of bright sky that showed overhead there flew a gaggle of geese, honking their joy of freedom. Through their keen eyes I imagined the drab city sprawled beneath, like a stain upon the earth, and at its limits the beginning of lush, green fields strewn with drops of the recent rain, glistening in the sunlight…
I winced as the grey-haired man elbowed me sharply in the ribs.
‘You might at least try to look bereaved,’ he hissed through clenched teeth.
I realised with a sudden rush of nausea that this gathering of black-clad folk was in fact the funeral to which I had been promised passage. I had not known what to expect. The experience that I had fabricated in my imaginings, and mentally replayed countless times during the journey to this place, had been one of profundity: a picture in which I was to be found in deep contemplation to finally be so near to one to whom I owed my existence. In reality, however, I was taken so much by surprise that all understanding of the proceedings abandoned me; my mind wandered and came to dwell only on the mundane and the general.
How bizarre, I contemplated, that the deceased should be confined to a wooden box before being placed into the ground: forever removed from the very earth from which they had come. I shuddered involuntarily at the thought of my elusive father’s body decomposing alone in its wooden tomb; his soul would not be at peace until the earth had reclaimed his flesh, blood and bones. Looking around the graveyard I saw that the ground was littered with slabs of rock standing on end, and though they were engraved with letters I could not read I understood that under each one, beneath the grass, must be buried such a box as the one in which my late father now lay. A box that housed the remains of a body denied final peace with the earth.
How very different had been the burial of our ancestors! In my place of home, where the earth was so hardened by perpetual frost, it had been custom instead to heap stones over the bodies of the deceased. As a child I had often been drawn to these heaped mounds of rocks outside the town where, peering through the windows between the stones I could still see the bones of he who had been laid to rest so many years before. And in the shadow of the mountains they looked out over the fjord, those mountains and the sea beyond. During the short summer the water was littered and strewn with floating ice glowing serenely in the perpetual light; in the winter it became solid as far as the eye could see, and creaked and groaned in the dark with the movements of the spirits who lived beneath. This was the rightful place for the dead.
I stole a look at the man who had brought me here. His expression was cold. I could sense a feeling of urgency and expectation beneath this calm demeanour, as though he were waiting for something to occur. My skin prickled.
Concurrently there ran a ripple through the gathering. The man robed in black had stopped speaking, and those present began to disperse. The beaked man grabbed me roughly by the arm and steered me along in the direction the crowd were taking. Again we were on the streets, but thankfully not for long, for rounding a corner we passed through a doorway and into one of the buildings. I stood bewildered. Around me, the black-clad people were removing their coats and exchanging remarks. Some smiled, even laughed, though each one avoided my eyes. Once each and every coat had been hung by the door, my sombre companions disappeared through a door to the left, and I found myself alone. It was warm and welcoming inside the house: a collection of shoes was neatly arranged by the front door, many coats hung above them, and only the uppermost ones were black; the light glowed pink and orange, the white walls were hung with pictures. Just as I became aware that I truly was alone, that even Eqingaleq did not stand beside me, the figure himself appeared from the guests’ room and, eyes bright with excitement informed me that we were in the house of my late father.
He may be dead, he whispered, but his soul looks out from moments captured in time.
Photographs? I asked, and Eqingaleq nodded, his skin glowing strangely in the artificial light. Yes – and of his wife. A
nd children.
I had begun to feel dizzy. It was warm inside the house, so warm, and the air seemed still and saturated with unfamiliar smells. I had not eaten for some time.
I turned my head at the sudden sound of voices, sharper than the low murmur that drifted from the room into which the guests had retired. These voices were raised in heat and anger. I stumbled across the hallway and past a staircase. I pushed open the door that led into what transpired to be a kitchen, and there beheld the beaked man, wings aloft, screeching at a woman who in turn shrieked back. My knowledge of the language was limited, but I understood enough, sensed enough, to know that the cause of this unsightly noise was none other than myself. As each beak was opened in turn, or both together in cacophony, I heard only an intimidating shriek of a war cry in the form of my own name: Ma-lik, Ma-lik, Ma-lik. The sound was unbearable, it felt as though my ears bled. Then the heat and the exhaustion took a tight hold upon me, and I dropped into an encompassing darkness that thankfully, and at long last, was silent.
6
Rasmus
Rasmus and the man known as Birdie had met during the war, both deployed on naval operations in Arctic Norway. Rasmus was sure he had once known the man’s real name, but it had long since slipped his memory; the nickname he had acquired on account of his prominent, pointed nose, reminiscent of a bird’s beak. It was a ridiculous name for such a stern, humourless man, and yet it seemed to have stuck, though no one could remember who had first thought it up. Rasmus had often wondered whether the man might be a direct relation of the famous ‘Birdie’ Bowers, who had accompanied Captain Scott on his ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. He had asked him once about this possible family connection, jokingly adding that this could be the reason for his ending up, like Bowers, freezing his nose off at sub-zero temperatures in close proximity to the pole (be it South or North). His laughter soon faltered to a stop as the man responded with a sincere look of non-amusement. He had not mentioned it again.
The Seagulls Laughter Page 3