The Beachcomber

by Ines Thorn

  She remained that way for two entire weeks. She ate nothing and drank very little water. She didn’t wash, slept where she sat, didn’t change her clothes, and didn’t speak a single word. Her skin became sallow and gray, her bright hair became dry and tangled, her eyes were empty as a dry well, and her lips cracked. Etta tried everything to help her daughter. She shook her, put cold cloths on her forehead, coated her dried lips with butter, and even gave her a powerful slap in the face. But Nanna still sat there, unmoving.

  Little Jordis played at her mute mother’s feet. Sometimes, she tugged on her skirts and then cried when she was ignored. When there was no reaction, she continued to play because she didn’t know what else to do.

  Once, the child heard her grandmother talking to a neighbor. “Maybe we should fetch the doctor from Westerland, or even bring her to Tønder on the mainland,” Etta said, but the neighbor dismissed the idea.

  “She’s gone into a trance of grief. There’s nothing that will help. Perhaps the pastor could bless her and pray for her. Maybe that will make a difference.”

  Another neighbor said Etta should shock her daughter to wake her from the trance. “Pour a cup of ice-cold water over her head,” she said. “That will wake her up.”

  Jordis’s grandmother filled a cup with ice-cold water and poured it over her daughter’s head, but she didn’t move. The water dripped down her hair and her neck, running over her face like tears and soaking her bodice. Etta got a towel and patted Nanna dry. She also dried off the unread, still-sealed letter, and then sent the neighbor to get the pastor.

  When the pastor came, she could see spiteful satisfaction written on his face. “It’s her punishment for not believing in God,” he said.

  “Is God not there for everyone who suffers?” Etta replied. “How do you know what she believes? She attends church on the high holy days, and she has always contributed generously to the collection basket. She is a good soul and cares for others, helping whenever she can.”

  The pastor rubbed his hands together, not listening to Etta’s words. “She’s not Christian, and that is evident now. If she were Christian, she would find comfort in the Lord. But you can see for yourself that she is completely inconsolable. I’m afraid I can’t do anything to help.”

  “Oh, yes you can!” Etta replied. Her voice was strong and determined. “It’s your job. If you don’t try, I’ll tell everyone in the village that you left her without spiritual counsel. You call her whatever you like, but she was christened and confirmed like any other Christian.”

  The pastor gritted his teeth. He wasn’t used to being contradicted. He was God’s divine messenger on earth, and his word was law. Even the weather should bend to his will. He was the most powerful man in the village, and the Ice Women had withheld their veneration long enough. They had lured other stupid women to them, tricking them with their pagan Norse beliefs. After a visit to Etta, one woman had begun to avoid the church and had questioned his divine authority. Another had even laughed at him when he had proclaimed that everyone got their just deserts.

  “You mean to say that my husband deserved his cold grave in the sea? My husband was a good man, the kindest I ever knew. And you say he deserved to die?” She had spat in front of him, directly on his shoes, and turned away in disdain.

  The other women who had been watching had closed their windows, and suddenly the pastor had been standing alone and defiled in the middle of the village street. Everyone had heard what the woman had said. She had spoken rudely to him, as though he were the lowliest of servants. He couldn’t forgive that behavior. Never. And Etta and Nanna were to blame.

  He glared at Etta angrily, but then he gave in. He had to, or the people of Rantum wouldn’t take him seriously. He lamented to God that the villagers didn’t have proper respect for him; they owed him much more. If Etta told people he had refused to help Nanna, the church would become even more sparsely attended, and the collection basket would be emptier than it already was. So he took Nanna’s ice-cold hand in his own. “I will pray for her,” he said to Etta.

  Etta nodded. The pastor began to speak. “Almighty God, please accept this woman into your flock. She has lacked in reverence all her life, but now you have taken that which is dearest to her, to force her to humility . . .”

  “Stop!” Etta cried. “What are you saying?”

  Pastor Mommsen held up his hands in a gesture of futility. “Is that not the truth? God has punished her. And now she sits there, frozen with guilt and shame.”

  “She is frozen with grief. It’s your job to comfort her, not to cause her more pain!” Etta glared at him with such indignation that he began to feel uncertain. He took Nanna’s hands again in his own and said the Lord’s Prayer. When he let her hands go, they fell limply back to her lap. He lit a candle and dripped holy water onto her forehead, but the woman didn’t move, not a single eyelash. Then he took a step backward. “Perhaps she’s possessed by the Devil.” His voice trembled. He feared that by touching her, he had gotten the filth of the Devil on his hands. He wiped them on his black robe, rubbing them over and over again, but the feeling wouldn’t go away.

  “Nonsense,” Etta said. “She’s possessed only by her grief.” She watched the pastor rub his hands, twisting them in his robes, as though he wanted nothing more than to get out of the house. Her mouth twisted in contempt. “What kind of a pastor are you, to abandon your flock in times of distress?” she asked condescendingly. “Get out of this house! You’re not worthy to kiss the feet of the Lord.”

  The pastor took a step toward Etta, glaring at her with hatred. He would have liked to slap her, but Etta didn’t lower her eyes. Instead, she raised her chin in defiance and repeated her demand. “Get out of here! Right now!

  Mommsen balled his hands into fists. “May God chastise you,” he grunted as he walked toward the door.

  After that, she let Nanna sit there. Etta left water and porridge on the table, which Nanna ate at night when everyone was asleep. But Nanna still became thinner and thinner. Her hair lost its shine and became dull and dry. Her cracked lips became almost white. Sometimes, Etta just stood next to her and stroked her daughter’s hard back, trying to loosen her shoulders, and brushed her long platinum hair. But nothing helped. And the letter still lay unopened next to her.

  The last Dutch smak arrived in the harbor just before the autumn storms began, bringing the last of the sailors home, as well as the knowledge that those who hadn’t yet returned wouldn’t be coming back. The church bell tolled all day, and one requiem after another was read. But so far, no one had prayed for the young father Jori Lewerenz. Etta went to the pastor, put a few pieces of silver into his hand, and requested a requiem. The pastor didn’t hesitate for long; although he viewed the family with anger and fear, the silver pieces transformed his annoyance into feigned kindness. Etta knew exactly why the pastor didn’t protest more loudly. Jori Lewerenz had been a well-regarded native of Sylt and a respected man of excellent character. If the pastor were to refuse to perform a funeral for him, the villagers would not stand for it.

  When the church bells rang and called the villagers to the funeral, Etta took her granddaughter by the hand and went to church with her, while Nanna still sat frozen in mourning, not even seeming to have heard that the bells were tolling for her husband. Some neighbors slipped sweet crullers and other treats to the child. Pate, a sailor and a friend of her father’s, even gave the little girl a silver penny. After the funeral was over, the congregation streamed out of the church. Etta held Jordis by the hand and glanced at the sky, where black clouds were building. “There’s going to be a storm,” she said.

  “It will be a strong one. Thank God the men have returned to the island,” a neighbor replied.

  That evening, the tempest began. The wind whistled down the chimney, made the flames flare up in the fireplace, and then extinguished them. It tore at the shutters and threw sand against them, and the rain drummed on the roof so hard that it sounded like all the hounds of h
ell were dancing there. The sea roared and threw high breakers onto the beach, but the sound was barely perceptible under the howling of the wind. Just to be safe, Etta got the Bible out of the cupboard, opened it, and folded her hands in prayer. She told Jordis to do the same. They said the Lord’s Prayer together, and afterward Etta prayed to the sea goddess Rán, and to Odin, Loki, and Baldur, and lit candles.

  The wind roared ceaselessly, forcing sand through the cracks around the door, creating a tiny dune in the hall. Etta hung a blanket around her daughter’s shoulders and felt her hands. She wrapped a scarf around her neck, and Nanna passively allowed it to happen just like everything else, without taking the least bit of notice.

  Etta sent Jordis to the box bed to sleep, and lay down next to her soon afterward. She wrapped her arms around the child, who was shivering with fear. “Nothing bad will happen,” she promised. “If you fall asleep, everything will be all right.”

  In the middle of the night, Jordis woke up. The storm was still raging, whipping rain against the shutters. The last coals of the fire glowed in the kitchen, and by their light Jordis could see her mother wasn’t there. The letter lay on the table, but it was open and wrinkled at the edges.

  Even though Jordis was just a child, she knew immediately where her mother was. She opened the door and braced herself against the wind, which tore at her nightshirt and raised goose bumps all over her body. She didn’t take any notice and began to climb the dunes. Sand was blown into her mouth, but she kept going, catching her nightshirt on a stand of gorse. She tugged and it tore, but at last she reached the top.

  She stopped and looked down at the roaring sea below. The moon shone through the racing clouds and cast long silvery shadows on the beach. Jordis saw her mother immediately. Nanna lay at the waterline like a stranded fish. Every time a wave washed over her, her body moved in a strange, macabre dance. Jordis didn’t feel the cold or the wind. She didn’t even notice the salty spray that coated her skin and hair and soaked her thin nightshirt. She raced down the dune to her mother, who lay facedown in the sand with her hair spread around her like seaweed. She grabbed her by the arms and tried to pull her mother away from the roaring, ice-cold waves, but she couldn’t do it. So she sat down in the wet sand and tried to turn her over, but she couldn’t do that either. Finally, she turned her mother’s head carefully to the side. She gently raised the eyelids with her thumbs and recoiled in shock at the dead, dull whiteness behind them.

  “Mama!” the girl cried, first softly and then louder and louder to be heard over the hissing and crashing of the waves. “Mama!” But the woman didn’t move. The water tore at her skirts, pulled the stomacher out of her dress, and washed it out to sea.

  Jordis put her hands on her mother’s face, feeling the cold that radiated from her skin. She clung to her, wrapping her little arms around the cold body, as though she could give back the warmth of life.

  She lay like that for a long time. Soon she began to shiver, feeling her limbs go stiff and her bones get so cold she was afraid the slightest movement would shatter them. She saw the first pale rays of dawn on the horizon and hoped that everything would be better when the sun rose. She waited desperately for the first warming rays of sunlight, longing for them more than she’d ever longed for anything in her life.

  No one knew exactly how long Jordis stayed there in the freezing water, her arms wrapped tightly around her mother, her tears mixing with spray and salt water. It was a boy who finally found her. He was five years older to the day than she was and had been sent to the beach by his older sister to see what the storm had washed up. It was Arjen, son of Kris the whaler.

  Arjen gently pried her icy fingers off her dead mother and pulled her away. He rubbed the child’s arms and back, and even took off his warm jacket and wrapped it around the little one’s shoulders. “Come with me. You’re freezing. If you stay here, you’ll die too.” Then he picked her up and carried her to her grandmother’s house.

  For two weeks, Jordis hovered between life and death. She had a high fever, but most of all, she shivered. It didn’t matter how many blankets were piled over her. “That’s the sea chill,” the neighbor said. “Once it’s soaked in, you can’t ever get warm again.”

  “Nonsense,” Etta said, and put hot stones at the foot of the bed so her granddaughter’s feet would be warm. But the shivering didn’t stop, and Jordis cried out in her sleep. She pleaded with the sea, imploring it to let her mother go. The entire time she shivered and couldn’t stop.

  “You must fight water with fire,” the neighbor said.

  “So I should put her in the oven?” Etta retorted, shaking her head.

  The neighbor’s brow creased as she thought. Then she pointed at the letter, which still lay on the kitchen table, more wrinkled than before. “You should read that to her, so she knows exactly what happened.”

  Etta shook her head again. “Shall I cause her even more sorrow? It’s not bad enough she found her mother the way she did? She should also hear how her father died?”

  The neighbor nodded. “There’s no other way,” she said, and left the house, glad she didn’t have to stay.

  Jordis lay in bed with her eyes closed and her arms wrapped tightly around her body. She hadn’t heard what the neighbor had said and hadn’t heard her grandmother’s reply. She was neither hungry nor thirsty. She was freezing and wanted nothing more than to be with her parents. She didn’t care where they were. People had told her that they were dead, but she didn’t really know what that meant. She didn’t care either. No matter where Mother and Father were, she wanted to be there too.

  Etta checked on Jordis, who tossed restlessly in her sleep, her teeth still chattering. Despite the many blankets and hot stones, her skin was as cold as ice. Her grandmother sighed, took the letter, and sat down in an armchair next to the box bed. At last she began to read. “We regret to inform you that husband and father Jori Lewerenz lost his life on the distant seas of Greenland. His ship encountered a storm and was surrounded by pack ice. Another whaling ship attempted to help, but it was too late. We are unable to send your husband’s body because he died so far from home. He and his brave men were buried side by side in the sailors’ graveyard at Spitsbergen, where the shipping company paid for a finely carved coffin and spared no cost for the funeral feast. A cross was laid in his coffin, and it has been arranged that every year for ten years, on the evening before Allhallows, a grave light will be lit.”

  Etta lowered the letter and dried the tears that were running down her cheeks. “I should never have named my daughter Nanna, after the Norse goddess called the brave one,” she said softly to herself, but also so her granddaughter could hear.

  “Why not?” little Jordis asked. They were the first words she had spoken since the night her mother had died.

  Etta took her small, cold hand in her big, warm ones. “Nanna was the wife of Baldur, who was good incarnate. Baldur died because the god Loki, the mischief maker, gave blind Hodr a bow and arrow, and he killed his own brother, Baldur, by accident. Nanna broke with grief. She couldn’t live without Baldur and threw herself onto her husband’s burning funeral pyre. Your father, my dear, died in the sea, and your mother followed him there.” Then Etta began to weep, quaking with her sobs. As the tears poured down her cheeks, she moved to the bed and wrapped Jordis in her arms, and the child wept too. She nestled against Etta’s chest and soaked her grandmother’s dress with her tears.

  They held each other that way for a long time, united in their pain. It didn’t go away, but after a while, it became a bit easier for them to bear. Only after they had exhausted all their tears did Etta dry Jordis’s wet face, put the handkerchief back in her pocket, and get up to fetch another hot stone. She had barely reached the stove when the child let out a cry.

  Etta hurried back to her. “What is it, Jordis?”

  “The stone! It’s too hot, it’s burning me!” the girl replied.

  As soon as it was gone, Jordis threw off the blankets and sai
d she was as hot as if she were standing in a fire. Etta brought cold water for the girl to drink, and the next morning, Jordis was free of the icy chill.

  CHAPTER 4

  Everything happened so quickly that Jordis wasn’t able, later, to say how it happened. It was as though Rantum had been hit by a storm.

  Jordis walked to the beach and sat on the crest of a dune, gazing out to sea. The sky was milky blue, and a few slips of white cloud drifted cheerfully overhead. The sun had already lost much of its summer strength, but it still warmed her. The salt air smelled of seaweed and faintly of the plants that grew on the dunes. The high, pale-green stalks of beach grass swayed gently in the breeze, and the sea holly’s thorny branches stuck into the sky. On the island, it was a symbol of homesickness and loyalty for sailors; it grew so high above the beach grass it was the first thing they saw when they returned home.

  A few sea buckthorn bushes had already lost their leaves, and the last of the yellow-blooming beach roses scented the air. Jordis slipped out of the wooden clogs she usually wore and dug her bare toes blissfully into the sand, pleasantly warm on top and cool a little deeper. Below, on the beach, a few fishing boats lay protected above the high-tide line. The fishermen that were on the water were pulling up their nets. Two old women collected driftwood and seaweed, which they would dry and use for heating in the winter.

  Jordis felt the breeze blowing gently through her hair. She knew that she should be tending the sheep grazing on the dike, but she loved to sit there and gaze at the sea, which was covered with little whitecaps. The bell of the Rantum church struck eleven. Jordis sighed and stood up. She brushed the sand off her dress, picked up her shoes, and walked over to the dike. The two sheep were busy grazing and paid no attention to her. A few days ago, Jordis had found a bald, infected patch in one’s fleece, and her grandmother had given her some marigold ointment to treat it. Now Jordis wanted to check if her efforts to heal the creature had helped. She walked calmly toward the animal, speaking to it softly, found the patch, and noticed with satisfaction that the wound was healing, no longer red with infection. Then she heard an excited dog barking. The sheep became nervous, and when Jordis turned, she saw Arjen climbing up the dike, headed directly toward her. His dog ran after him, and he was carrying something wrapped in a blanket against his chest.