The Unseen

by Roy Jacobsen

  “No,” her mother said. “She won’t bi comen’ agin.”

  “Yes, she will,” Ingrid said.

  19

  The frost became more severe, north-easterly gales blew up, which made it feel even colder. Ingrid and her mother moved into the South Chamber above Martin’s room. He stoked his private stove furiously down below, and they had the hatch in the floor open, so the heat rose. When her mother slept Ingrid could hear that her grandfather was also asleep, as though they were in the same room.

  Martin couldn’t do any fishing in this frost. They ate pollack and salted herring and potatoes and bread and jam. They ran out of thin birch twigs, but Martin didn’t want to beachcomb for kelp to make fodder, it was too cold, they should have done it before, now it was too late, the sheep would have to go down to the beach.

  Ingrid and Maria herded them there. But bundles of rattling ice began to hang from the animals’ legs, which made them kick out and roll around until they were covered in an icy coat of mail, they became heavier and heavier and began to stagger under the weight. Ingrid could see that her mother was afraid. They drove them back home, had to drag several of them, and the ice on their wool didn’t melt until they had been in the barn for more than a day. During that time they were given the hay the cows should have had and the seaweed Maria and Ingrid managed to rake up with a grapnel and pull home on a sled to boil up and make fodder. Martin didn’t take part in this either, he stayed in bed grieving the loss of a daughter. The sheep were also given the little cod liver they had, pollack cooked to death and all the leftovers, they had begun to tremble and go dizzy.

  Then Martin got up after all, donned as many clothes as he could squeeze into, pushed out the smaller rowing boat and set a string of gill nets in the water off the new boathouse. But the nets became sheets of ice as soon as he tried to pull them in. He had to leave them, night after night, picked off the fish as best he could every day, but after two weeks they were so full of seaweed and algae that they weren’t catching fish anymore and all he could do was let them stay there, these were Barbro’s newest nets.

  But they had fresh fish again and crispbread, there were livers in the fish, and they had potatoes. Now, though, it was vital they refrain from going into the cellar, so they didn’t let the frozen air in there too. They shovelled even more snow on top of it and stored potatoes in fish crates on the parlour floor, enough potatoes for a week at a time. They baked potato cakes on the kitchen stove, which usually they did only before Christmas. The house smelled of Christmas. Then the frost broke. Last year the winter had been so cold that a band of ice had encircled the island. This year it was much colder because of the wind.

  20

  Ingrid was the first to see the boat. She was standing up to her knees in wet snow on the headland by the boat shed and her fingers were no longer cold, not even when she formed snowballs to throw at the seagulls which thought they were food and swooped down and fought for them. On her head she had only one headscarf; in the frost she wore three and one in front of her face. Now she took it off and waved it, and for the first time this year she felt the wind in her hair, the winter was over.

  It wasn’t one boat but two, and the second one was being towed. In the first sat four black-clad oarsmen and three other people, in the other there was no-one, it was Barrøy’s færing, which had gone missing with Barbro.

  Ingrid recognised it by the colours along the side and ran up to the house to tell her mother. But Maria had seen them and was already on her way, Martin shuffled over as well, from the new boathouse, so they were all standing on the shore as the iron keel of the first boat hit land.

  In the prow sat the priest’s wife and another woman, whom at first Maria didn’t recognise. In the stern behind the oarsmen sat Barbro, wearing unfamiliar clothes. She stood up and stepped over the oars, laid a hand on the priest’s wife’s shoulder, then came ashore and walked up towards the houses without saying a word. They stood watching her until she was inside and had closed the door behind her. Ingrid ran after her.

  Karen Louise Malmberget said that Barbro didn’t want to stay with her anymore, she had done her utmost to keep her, but it was no good, she cried and wanted to come back to Barrøy, but they hadn’t been able to travel before because of the wind and frost.

  Then she put both hands to her mouth when she realised that Barbro had not merely left the island but fled, and that the islanders thought they had lost her. At which point Karen Louise stood looking around, just as her husband had done an eternity ago, stared across at the buildings on the main island, where she herself came from, but which she had never seen before, and she said:

  “How nice it is here.”

  It was such a meaningless statement that Martin said “Christ Almighty” and gave a surly “no” in answer to the oarsmen who asked if they could help him to put away the færing. He went into the boat shed and fetched two trestles, told them to pull the boat up onto the rollers, then lumbered up to the house as well. But that was for the best, for now Maria had recognised the other woman, her name was Elise Havstein, they had gone to school together.

  They shook hands and smiled.

  It was a stiff reunion. Elise Havstein was wearing clothes she obviously hadn’t sewn herself and was a midwife with a white scarf around her neck, which made her look like a nun, and Barbro was with child, she was due in the course of the summer, Karen Louise had brought her with her to the island so that she could get to know the place.

  Maria didn’t understand, they had given birth to children on this and all the other islands since time eternal without a midwife. But Karen Louise had authority and claimed that Barbro would need more help than others, she knew that from experience, Barbro wasn’t like the others. Elise Havstein appeared to agree, at least she nodded in a way that meant it was unnecessary for her to say any more.

  When the priest’s wife had sketched out a kind of plan for the delivery, they shook hands again, the ladies were helped back on board the boat and the oarsmen rowed off.

  Maria was left wondering why she hadn’t offered them any coffee or food, no-one came here without being served refreshments.

  She walked along the beach musing how she was going to tell the others the news, her daughter and her father-in-law. She decided to make a start with Ingrid, she was a big girl now. Her husband would have to be informed as soon as he returned from Lofoten. But she delayed going up to the house.

  She removed her headscarf and walked along the beach towards the new quay, continued south to the sound of the babbling streams which had begun to carry the winter from the island out to sea. She sat down on a boulder, bared her feet and thrust them into the sea, waited until they were white and numb, pulled them out and dried them and her tears with the headscarf, put on her stockings and socks and went home and into the kitchen, where Ingrid was playing with her grandfather’s hands, he was sitting in the rocking chair staring at Barbro as though waiting for the final proof that she was alive. Barbro didn’t say anything. It was as if she hadn’t come home and never would.

  Maria went over and placed a hand on her shoulder and noticed that she smelled of roses, lilac and . . . nettles, noted that her hair had been cut and combed in the style women wore it in villages or on larger islands. She wondered if she should slap her, but her hand remained at her side. Barbro took it and held it tight and gazed into a well of despair, then let go, went into the pantry and came out again with the bread bin and said what she had missed most over there at the bloody rectory was decent food.

  21

  Since the frost had relinquished its grip and the wind was coming from the south-west, bringing heavy rain, mother and daughter moved back to the North Chamber. There, they could talk without having to keep looking over at the hole in the floor, beneath which Martin lay, he could hear everything they said.

  Ingrid was told what she already knew, Barbro had spilled the beans on the first day, so they could have a mutual secret from Martin. But now her mother to
ld her that when Ingrid was born her father had been afraid she would be like Barbro, it was in the family line, and every second or third generation they got a Barbro. But she, Maria, had seen that Ingrid was the way she was the moment she was born, it was her father who hadn’t been sure about her, he was afraid.

  “Hvafor?”

  Maria took a deep breath and told Ingrid that it was her she could trust.

  These were solemn words, and they were followed by no explanation, just some evasive phrases that had been locked inside her for so long that they were meant to stay there.

  Ingrid was unable to bring herself to say anything.

  They were at the end of the road.

  But as the evening wore on she began to feel it was her mother she couldn’t trust, as Maria had said something that frightened her, and had done nothing to dispel her fears, although she was allowed to knit now, no longer with an eiderdown over her shoulders, it was spring. Maria taught her how to knit the heel of a sock, by decreasing stitches, so that she would have a homecoming gift for her father when he came back from Lofoten.

  Ingrid was seven years old.

  But this incomplete conversation was not forgotten. And she still couldn’t frame the question to ask her mother that would dispel her fears. A hard lump had formed inside Ingrid, she had a red dot hovering in front of her eyes which made her arms tremble, and then a bubble burst in the barn, when she was alone with Barbro, Barbro who had returned from the dead in someone else’s clothes and with a child in her belly who didn’t belong to anyone, either.

  Barbro said that if Ingrid didn’t stop crying she would become like her, it’s like it’s rainen’ inside, an’ oilskins won’t help, it just makes tha more and more afraid, but tha can do somethin’ about it.

  Ingrid looked at her.

  Barbro was shovelling muck through the hole in the wall and said that Ingrid would have to pull herself together, all those thoughts in her head were just a sign that she was growing up. In the autumn she would be starting school on Havstein, with children from the other islands. From then on everything would be different, there is nothing to be afraid of, having nothing is something to be afraid of, but for that there are too many islands. The red dot went up in white smoke. Ingrid wrapped her arms around her aunt and never let her go.

  22

  Hans Barrøy had been worn out when he came home the previous year. Now he was stronger. The frost had devastated Lofoten too, but had not had much impact on line fishing. Now he had a quay on Barrøy. On his return, Uncle Erling’s boat could not only come alongside, but also stay moored there for over twenty-four hours, using hawsers and spring lines. Ingrid was allowed to go on board even though she was a female, and was shown round the wheelhouse, cabins and galley, it was a floating house, which sailed under the name of Barrøyværing – Barrøy Islander.

  The crew came ashore and was served food. Uncle Erling sat with his brother and father in the parlour drinking aquavit and coffee on a white tablecloth and eating lefse, and laughing louder than anyone had laughed here for four months, when Maria, through the open kitchen door, heard her husband enquire about the latest news and her father-in-law answer that they’d had a terrible frost but he had got through it, even though they had almost lost the mother ewes when the womenfolk herded them down to the beach to graze on seaweed.

  Maria stood with the coffee pot in her hand.

  She put it down, went to the hook by the door, where her father-in-law’s red woolly hat was hanging, grabbed it and threw it in the stove.

  She went into the parlour, poured the coffee, and told them what she had done, nobody will be wearing a red woolly hat anymore, it was old and grubby, and from now on Father-in-law was going to have a bath at least once a week, in the tub, in the barn, he was a pig. And one more thing: six of Barbro’s new nets, complete with floats and sinkers and anchor ropes, were still strung across the sound like a dirty brown wall, south of the Swedes’ boathouse, so Erling would have to watch out when he sailed south, and take the long route around Moltholmen.

  They gaped at her.

  Yes, and there was something else: in a month or so she would be going to Mo i Rana and staying there over the summer.

  Mo i Rana?

  Martin uttered a few expletives which were unfit for Ingrid’s ears, once again she was sitting in her father’s lap. Hans exchanged glances with his brother. Erling nodded. Hans put down his daughter and went into the kitchen.

  From the parlour, it sounded as though they were having a normal conversation. The front door banged. Ingrid got up and from the parlour window saw her parents walking side by side across the spring-brown meadows. They were talking. Her father had his arm around her mother, her head lay on his shoulder, they were strolling hand in hand, then let go, now her mother walked with her arms crossed, her father with his hands in his pockets, they stopped and talked and looked around and went on and vanished. Ingrid hadn’t noticed anything unusual, or alarming, neither had she seen anything she didn’t understand, but she had seen something she would never forget.

  *

  From then on Martin had a regular bath in the barn. As regards the nets, he said, well, the frost had been so diabolical that there had been no question of taking them in, and after that he had forgotten all about them. He rowed out, cut through the furthermost anchor rope because he couldn’t free the grapnel, and got the horse to drag the whole caboodle ashore. There it lay in a stinking heap throughout the summer, until it stopped stinking the following winter, after which it began to turn into earth, a circle of earth, between the smooth, bare rocks, where roseroot, sorrel and foxgloves would later grow. It looked strange, as if this mound of earth needed some reason to be there, or some explanation. Eventually, it was given a name at least, it was called Frosteye, Ingrid thought the name up.

  *

  Events turned out as Maria had predicted on the day of the homecoming, except the bit about Mo i Rana, which was never mentioned again. Those were words which never should have been spoken. For that very same reason they are not so quickly forgotten either, just like the things Maria told Ingrid about the family defect and her father, and what Barbro said about it raining inside and school and the other children who were like her, and growing up not being anything to be afraid of.

  When Barbro gave birth, later that summer, with such suffering that Hans and Martin had to leave the house for more than a day and a night, it was Maria who delivered the baby. Elise Havstein arrived eight days late and was served coffee and cinnamon biscuits in the kitchen while the oarsmen were given crispbread with butter and syrup on the grass. It was fine weather that day. The men were also treated to some milk. And Elise the midwife stayed a long time. She saw to the baby boy, who was as round and white as a dumpling and cried whenever he couldn’t suckle on Barbro, who had stopped working and had taken up residence in Martin’s rocking chair. Barbro sang and breastfed. Elise Havstein had a daughter of Ingrid’s age, whose name was Nelly and was also starting school that autumn, they were bound to become friends, there was no doubt about that. Elise Havstein stayed so long that the mountains on the mainland had turned blue before the flashing oar blades disappeared on the margin of their vision to the north. The boy was christened Lars, after the Swede Lars Klemet, who had been here with his workmates because of a war, and constructed a quay, before leaving again.

  23

  They are cutting peat. It has to be done between the peak periods on the farm, in June, so that the drying season is long. They use old scythe blades on which Hans has made a wooden handle. Only Hans uses a spade, he has whetted the blade, it is as sharp as a scythe. That is why he is the only person standing upright while he works. The others are on their knees in the bog. Barbro too. Her child is asleep on a sheepskin in the grass beside her.

  The turfs of peat look like thick, black, wet books, they have to lie for a week in the heather until they form a crust and Hans and Martin can lay them in a circle and then build a round tower as high as a man
with any number of little cracks like embrasures, then they toss the rest of the turfs into the cylinder, higgledy piggledy, and finish off at the top by working inwards to the centre, giving it a dome-shaped roof. It doesn’t look like any other roof, on a house or a church, but not a single drop of rain can penetrate it, and the wind rushes in, through the crevices in the cylinder, like a thousand dry streams, then carries all the moisture out on the other side.

  A correctly constructed peat stack is not only beautiful, like a man-made eye-catching attraction in the countryside, it is a work of art. A slapdash, hastily built stack, on the other hand, is a tragedy, which reveals its true nature at the worst possible moment, in January, when they wade through the snow with hand-woven baskets on their backs and discover the peat to be encrusted with ice, frozen rock solid. You have to attack it with a sledgehammer and an axe. With dynamite. And pick up the pieces for miles around and thaw them by the stove, only to find that what you have in your hands is not fuel but thick black mud, which is no use for anything. On top of that, you have to row a long way to the Trading Post and buy what is free of charge in your own bog, you can’t get any more stupid than that.

  Ingrid is the only person who doesn’t cut, again she is too young, she turns half-dry turfs and stands them on their edges like dominoes in a fishbone pattern so the wind can slip between them and dry them out, the warm land wind that has blown over the island for many days now, but then it suddenly drops.

  They all notice.

  They stop working, gaze upwards and look at each other and listen.