Whatever the vocation of Birdie’s forefathers, the man certainly knew how to negotiate polar conditions. Whether he, like Rasmus, felt at home in the north, Rasmus had never been able to decipher; come hardship or adventure the man was continually straight-faced, his expression blank as a post, entirely unreadable. He rarely spoke, and when he did the tone of his voice did not vary. It was only his eyes – unnervingly clear, like pools of shallow water – that seemed alive, and his gaze was piercing, heavy, somehow challenging. There was something about the shadowed steadiness of his eyes that filled Rasmus with a deep unease. Had he ever seen the man smile? He could not recall.
Nevertheless, he had come to view the man as a partner, so often had they found themselves working together during the war years. Birdie’s arctic survival skills were almost as refined as Rasmus’s; he appeared to have the same determination and natural inclination to master the elements. These skills put to good use, they both rose quickly through the naval ranks and achieved a sort of respected notoriety.
Following the war, they each returned to neighbouring home towns. They saw little of each other. Yet it was Birdie who, in fact, first introduced Rasmus to Judith – the young woman who was to become Rasmus’s wife. Rasmus recognised at once the look of longing for this woman in Birdie’s eyes, usually so guarded and unreadable. And so he had married Judith, fearing that if he hesitated then Birdie would get there first. Besides, the war had been over for a couple of years already; it was about time, he thought, that he found himself a beautiful young woman. And he loved her, of course.
His spirits were inexplicably low on their wedding day, though he did his best to mask these feelings. Even the sour look on Birdie’s face – who he had, in all honesty, invited solely as a witness to his, Rasmus’s victory – did not cheer him up.
Throughout his life, he contemplated, he had hoped that one day he might make the Arctic his home. Now that he was a married man he doubted that possibility. His blood ran cold with the thought that he was no longer free to follow his own path. Now he had responsibilities; the dream of an escape would never again be so tangible.
The chill of the arctic wind had found its way into Rasmus’s bones as he stood up on the deck of the Danish supply ship bound, at last, for Greenland. There ran a pang of guilt through his body as his thoughts turned now and for the very first time to his wife, the one thing that truly anchored him to his home in England. They had married shortly before he had set sail. Judith was quiet, sensible, a good ten years younger than him; a good match, a good wife… Yet still there churned an unwelcome anxiety in Rasmus’s stomach: was this to be his life from now on?
And what was it that he had said to his wife before he left on this journey? You will always be in my thoughts. That was it. He wondered if he had perhaps read that line in a book somewhere; it had not come from his own heart.
7
Malik
Many weeks passed before I finally found relief from the grip of exhaustion. My recovery was slow, for each time I drifted into consciousness there would appear the same white walls and floral curtains and it would dawn on me that I was being cared for in the house of my late father, and by my late father’s wife. This realisation, no matter how many times it was replayed, would without fail send me once more into the pit of nervous exhaustion which I seemed doomed to inhabit until such a time as I were able to forget where I had come from – and indeed whom. My coming into this world had been a gross act of betrayal against the woman who now attended to my sick bed; I had been born to another woman, one who had entered my father’s heart – and his bed – while his wife had stayed at home, unknowing.
Each time she came to attend to me, with food, with water or a kind heart, I would imagine grasping her by the hands and apologising with all the strength of my soul. I longed to let her know of this incredible hurt that bore me to the bed with leaden limbs. But of course I could not carry out such a gesture: I lacked the linguistic skills for a start. And what, regardless, could I possibly say to ease the years of pain she must have suffered, to entreat her not to hate me for the simple fact of my existence, or to soothe the injustice that she must now care for me in her own home? I could utter only a heartfelt thank you once my needs had been seen to, and once alone again would weep bitterly into the pillow.
I was in no doubt that she knew my identity – this I could see in her eyes.
My feverish dreams were awash with the beating of wings and the terrible scream of the gull. Feathers brushed my cheeks, obscured my vision and suffocated me as I slept. In my waking hours, however, there was no sign of those birds by which my dreams were haunted, and I knew that the grey-haired, beak-nosed man was nowhere to be found: he had left me. In place of the relief that I ought to feel in his absence I trembled with fear, for now I was alone in this place and without a guide – however unpleasant he may have been.
For the first time in years I recalled the story of the raven who decides to accompany a flock of migrating geese southwards across the sea, so strong is his love for one of these beautiful white birds. It is too far for the raven, who cannot rest upon the surface of the sea like the geese; but fear not, says his beloved, you may rest upon our backs as we sleep upon the waves. The geese, however, soon grow tired of this requirement, for the raven is much slower than they. The flock flies onwards, and the raven finds his inky black wings enveloped by the cold Atlantic, and cannot struggle free.
How foolish I had been.
I would rise only to use the bathroom occasionally, and finding I had little desire to explore my surroundings, would always return promptly to the safety of the bed and the guilt-ridden clutches of sleep. Seemingly not content to follow my hopeless example, Eqingaleq would spend his hours pacing the floor examining the pictures that hung on the walls, books and trinkets lined up on shelves, and the faces that stared out unnervingly from framed photographs. He had come to the conclusion, he revealed one day, that the room in which we dwelt appeared to belong to a young woman: there were remnants of her childhood dotted here and there, he said, though from the photographs it seemed obvious that she had since grown. The drawers, however, were all but empty of clothes, and aside from the presence of the two of us, the room appeared otherwise uninhabited. Sometimes, in the dead of night when he was sure that there moved not a soul in the house, he would creep downstairs, sealskin boots inaudible on the woollen carpet: a silent detective, an invited intruder. Though when he returned he would confess that he did not know what, if anything, he was looking for, and whether or not he had found it. Some evenings he would stand and gaze out the window for hours at a time, immovable and lost in thought, his features graced in turn by sorrow, trouble, nostalgia, peace... I did not feel the need to join him, for I knew what lay beyond those floral curtains; I knew, also, what it was that Eqingaleq could see within himself – those memories that caused the corners of his eyes to crease in melancholy and remembered smiles.
◆◆◆
I was awakened one morning by the sound of a bird outside the window. It was not the coarse laughter of the gull – whose ghost of a voice so often accompanied the long, tremulous nights – but the sweet notes of a songbird welcoming in the bright morning. The room glowed a dull gold, an indication that beyond the closed curtains the sun had broken free from the clouds that so often seemed impenetrable. I pushed back the covers and got out of bed. My legs were steadier this morning, and my mind clearer. There was no sense in hiding in this room for the rest of my days – I would have to face the world sooner or later. I wiped the sleep from my eyes, pulled on my old jeans and jumper and quietly, cautiously, opened the bedroom door.
Sunlight flooded in through a window at the top of the staircase, blinding me momentarily. I followed its golden pathway down the steps and to the closed door that I knew opened into the kitchen. I could hear the busy sounds of clashing crockery, running water and muffled voices. I took a deep breath, my heart mimicking the frenzied drumming of the shaman as he ventures into the
darkest areas of the spirit, and pushed open the door.
I was met again with the blinding rays of the morning sun climbing into her new eastern sky. Once my eyes had adjusted to her brilliance, I saw that this time there were present no squawking gulls, only my kind carer and – as Eqingaleq whispered in my ear – a young man who must be her son. The former busied herself about the stove, the latter sat eating at the table. As both had their backs to the door, I stood unnoticed and uneasy for a few long moments. Eventually, I cleared my throat quietly, and the young man spun around in his chair with such fierceness that I almost turned tail and ran, like a startled hare. The glare that he fixed upon me was one of suspicion; my cheeks burned as he looked me up and down, evidently sizing me up. His mother, however, smiled and wished me a good morning, and motioned that I should take a seat.
I returned the greeting and placed myself tentatively at the end of the table. The woman returned her attentions to the stove, while the young man, obviously affronted by my intrusion, hissed something at her that I did not understand. She replied calmly, without looking at him; he responded only with a noise of disgust and a look of disdain in my direction, before pushing his chair back violently and flouncing from the room. He let the door slam with just enough force to support his apparent objections.
My cheeks were on fire. ‘Sorry,’ I said, barely audibly, but she only shook her head as if in assurance that I need not apologise.
I watched her, a little self-consciously, as she prepared breakfast. There was a grace to her movements that put me somewhat at ease. Her long, dark hair, plaited down her back, was littered with strands of silver-grey, like mountain streams through rocky gorges. It framed her face in wisps of pure silver, softening the sparse wrinkles in her creamy skin and lending a brightness to her countenance that spoke to me of compassion and kind-heartedness. How different it seemed to the sharp-beaked solemnity of the man who had brought me here. But I did not want to think of him.
I watched her as she brandished a wooden spoon and ladled hot porridge into a bowl; I heard the gentle hiss of the gas stove and the strange quiet that descended once it had been turned off. The kitchen smelled of coffee and sweet honey. Rays of the morning sun streamed through the window, warming my back and turning my hands golden. As my hostess placed breakfast on the table before me, I had to blink back the shameful tears that threatened. I thanked her with what I hoped she would see was all my heart, and she smiled, and sitting across from me drank her own coffee in tranquil silence, neither watching me nor ignoring me as I ate and was restored.
After I had finished, she rose to fetch the coffee pot, poured us both another cup, and sitting back down said: ‘My name is Judith.’
She said it clearly, a little slowly, as though concerned that I might not understand. ‘Judith,’ I repeated, and offered her another heartfelt, perhaps rather meek smile. ‘Thank you, Judith. Qujanaq.’
Her eyes were illuminated when she smiled, though there was a sadness within that light that I felt partly responsible for. I told her that my name was Malik; she nodded and again my cheeks began to glow heatedly, for my name was undoubtedly not new information. Now that we had introduced ourselves, perhaps I might feel less of a stranger in her home, though how I wished that I could say more to her! Any words of English that I had once learnt were twisted up and strangled by the nervousness that gripped me, and although the silence that hung between us was not entirely awkward, I feared that it were wasted on my part.
The coffee was strong and entirely unlike anything I had come across in my home town, which was situated even further away from the country of the coffee’s origin. The tins of fruit that stocked our new supermarket shelves, the packets of frozen vegetables, the processed meats: all the food that had been imported tasted bland and almost offensive, as though with each mile it accrued in its journey from its origin a part of its very soul was left behind. To eat the meat of a seal recently hunted, however, was like tasting the very essence of life itself.
On this occasion the food I had been given was at least sufficient to fill the uncomfortable emptiness that had begun to spread within me, and the hot coffee seemed to warm the blood that ran through my veins so that my aching muscles were soothed.
When I had finished I rose to wash the bowl and mug. Judith also got to her feet, but I only shook my head at her somewhat embarrassed insistence that the work was hers to carry out. I intended to earn my keep, of this much I was sure, though quite how I would go about it – aside from clearing up after myself – was something I had yet to figure out.
At Judith’s suggestion – thankfully, for surely I would have been too embarrassed to ask – I ran a bath. This was not a luxury I was often permitted, having been previously required to simply boil a kettleful of water, often melted ice, for a quick standing wash in the cold emptiness of my kitchen. When I was a child my mother would occasionally boil enough water for a sit-down affair which could be enjoyed by each of us in turn. For no one but myself – Eqingaleq, being not of this world, did not require washing – such an extravagance seemed unnecessary. Of course, in the house in which I now found myself, the effort involved in running a hot bath was so minimal as to be almost mundane: how gleefully surprised I was to discover that hot water came straight out of the tap! My hostess, who had accompanied me upstairs in case I needed assistance getting to know my new surroundings, could hardly hide her hilarity at my reaction. As I leapt back, a little too dramatically having submerged my hand in the running water, perplexed as to why no kettle had been filled first, she attempted to stifle a giggle but soon gave up as I too broke into reels of laughter. My hand, however, burned fiercely. Judith bid me run it under cold water. I did not say – could not say – that I feared this small affliction would be the first in a series of attacks from a world that I did not know how to negotiate.
My hand was soon forgotten as the rest of my body found relief in the deep water. I sank up to my chin, half-closed my eyes and tried not to think of anything: how I longed to be free of troubles for just a moment, a wonderful, suspended moment.
Eqingaleq dangled his bare feet into the water. Well, he said, what are we going to do?
I opened my eyes and shot him a warning look. It went unnoticed. Hoping that an attempt at nonchalance might deter his questioning for now, I sank lower still in the water and let my eyelids sink also. Go home, I suppose.
You suppose?
Irritation began to rear its unwelcome head. Yes, I said, trying not to let it enter my voice, I don’t see what else we can do.
There was silence for moment. I wriggled my body gently a few times and felt the water billow around every joint, crease and curve.
You’re telling me that after all this, you are going to give up, turn around and go home?
I opened one eye and fixed it upon him. Like I said, I don’t see what else we can do.
We don’t have any money to get home, he said.
I know that.
So what’s the plan? He gestured to where I lay in the water, my nakedness half-submerged. Sell your birthday suit?
That’s very funny.
Eqingaleq rubbed the palm of one of his hands against his heavily wrinkled forehead, as he always did when faced with a dilemma. Such things tired him. We’ve come all this way, he said.
I sighed. I know, and it wasn’t easy. But what is there for us here?
What is there for us back at home? Not enough to keep you there.
I made a mistake, I said.
He only shook his head slowly. You followed the path that was laid for you.
Please, I moaned, not wishing to be burdened by riddles and remorse, let me have my bath in peace.
Again there descended a moment of silence. Although he seemed to have taken notice of my tired plea, Eqingaleq’s observations were not exhausted. She seems very kind, he said. His voice was little more than a whisper, as though he were afraid the woman might hear from wherever she was in the house, or perhaps that in my clea
rly volatile state I might snap at him.
Yes, I said.
He drew his brown feet from the water. I wouldn’t give up just yet.
I emerged golden-skinned from the bathroom to find that Judith had left a neat pile of clean clothes on the bed. They were a little on the large side – the hems of the jeans had to be turned over several times before they no longer trailed on the floor – and the checked shirt had more than one hole around the cuff which would have to be sewn up later. I presumed they must be her son’s cast-offs, but I was thankful for they were certainly in better condition than the old clothes that I had owned for so many worn-out years. Once dressed, however, my skin crawled uncomfortably beneath my borrowed clothes. I knew that I could not continue to live on charitable donations, whether the path of my life would continue in the direction I had thus far been steered, or turn and take me back the way I had come.
8
Rasmus
His first glimpse of white, rugged peaks; from between them protruded the smooth curve of one of the many fingers of the ice cap, spilling over the mountain pass like a dog’s lolling tongue. The ship ploughed through broken sea ice below an endless blue sky. Icebergs the size of castles: ghostly presences in the glint of the sunlight. Seals plunged into the water’s inky depths, peeped their granite heads above the surface, eyes almost human. Rasmus’s fingers were stiff in the freezing spring air.
The supply ship pulled into the tiny harbour amidst the screeching of gulls and the creak of shifting icebergs on the still sea. News of the explorers’ visit must have already reached the settlement for a great many of its inhabitants – possibly even all of them, Rasmus thought – were gathered at the harbour. The children squealed and pointed excitedly as the ship approached, though Rasmus could not help but wonder whether they were more excited by the arrival of exotic explorers or the boxes of Danish treats bound for the village store.
The Seagulls Laughter Page 4