The Unseen

by Roy Jacobsen

  There are no longer any bird screams either. There is no rustling in the grass and no insects are buzzing. The sea is smooth, the gurgling of water between the rocks on the beach has gone quiet, there isn’t a sound between all the horizons, they are indoors.

  A silence like this is very rare.

  What is special about it is that it occurs on an island. It has more impact than the silence that can descend upon a forest without warning. A forest is often quiet. On an island there is so little silence that people stop what they are doing and look around and ask themselves what is going on. It makes them wonder. It is mystical, it borders on the thrilling, it is a faceless stranger in a black cloak wandering across the island with inaudible footsteps. The duration depends on the time of year, silence can last longer in the winter, with ice on the ground, while in summer there is always a slight pause between one wind and the next, between high and low tide or the miracle that takes place in humans as they change from breathing in to breathing out.

  Then a gull screams again, a new puff of wind springs up from nowhere, and the well-fed child on the sheepskin wakes and bawls. They can pick up their tools and carry on working as if nothing has happened. For that is exactly what has happened: nothing. We talk about the calm before the storm, we say silence can be a warning, a call to action, or that it might mean we have to search in the Bible for a considerable time to understand its import. But silence on an island is nothing. No-one talks about it, no-one remembers it or gives it a name, however deep an impression it makes. It is the tiny glimpse of death they have while they are still alive.

  24

  This spring Hans Barrøy came back from Lofoten with new tools. They were stored in the boathouse where the Swedes had stayed. Two of the bunk beds have been removed and converted into one workbench with vices, which he had also brought with him. Martin came and examined the new planes, braces, drill bits, clamps and three different saw blades as well as a spirit level that could also be used vertically.

  “All that thar must a cost tha a packet, eh?”

  Hans didn’t answer.

  He had also brought back quite a few slim, pleasingly shaped pine mouldings, as golden as syrup, they had been unloaded with his nets and equipment. Now he held a pair of narrow brass hinges in front of his father’s face and asked him if he missed his stupid woolly hat.

  Martin put his hand to his bare scalp and was about to leave in anger. But all this happened after he had once again forgotten to take in the nets from the sea, so instead he went to get the boat, hauled the nets ashore and spent the rest of the day cleaning and hanging them up to dry on the rack behind the boat shed, it was like laundry the whole world was meant to see and admire. Three days later they were woken by a terrible racket in the kitchen. Ingrid went down and saw that the window in the west-facing wall had been torn out and a new one was on its way in. Her father was putting in blocks and wedges, levelling up and hammering in nails, then filling in and cladding, inside and outside, and there was also a sill. It was a hinged window. A window with two sections, which could be opened.

  Outside, he screwed in two hasps and made a wedge for each so that the windows wouldn’t bang in the wind when they were left open. This should have been done in Martin’s day, like so much else, because they didn’t have a bakehouse on Barrøy, they baked in the kitchen and had to keep the door open to let out the steam, and it didn’t want to go. Now they could open the window instead. It was left open for most of the summer, also when it was drizzling, because like everything else that was new, it had to be in use all the time. Then they closed it. But it could still be opened, such as when, a few months later, Maria had to shout to her people working in the potato field that dinner was ready.

  “Go an’ wash tha mitts.”

  *

  The other change was bigger. It concerned the new quay, which still lacked a decent building, a house. In August, materials were delivered in the Trading Post’s cargo boat and piled under an old sail away from the shore. Maria went and counted them up and worked out what they cost, but said nothing, in fact she never did say anything.

  And Hans pretended he didn’t hear.

  He and his father hammered and sawed for a month, made the roof trusses on the ground and hoisted them aloft one by one using a block and tackle, then started to board the house at the beginning of September. They discussed which wall to start with and agreed to tackle the long, south-west-facing wall first, most of the weather came from this direction, so they would have some shelter while they clad the rest of the house. Martin noticed that he had a say in reaching this decision.

  The morning they were about to start on the first gable wall the wind picked up. Hans took a look at the weather and decided there was nothing any human could do.

  They walked home and watched from the new kitchen window as the storm tore their construction to pieces, like matchsticks, and hurled it north into the fjord. The gales died down in the course of the night. The next morning they put to sea in the færing and rowed around collecting whatever they could find. They landed on islets and skerries and also spoke to Thomas on Stangholmen, who had seen what had happened through his binoculars and had been out gathering some of the materials that drifted his way. They salvaged almost everything.

  The following day they set about laying another bottom beam in the same place. But this one they bolted down more securely. By the beginning of October a new framework was in place. A week later the south-west-facing wall was weather-boarded for the second time. They used more stays and diagonal braces than it needed. As they did with the other walls. At the end of the month the first snow arrived. By then they had clad four walls and were in the process of finishing the wooden roof structure.

  However, one afternoon something strange happened to the sky, and when the sky not only goes dark but also strange and is low and hard to read, this is a sign in itself, a sign of the worst. They spent the next hour tying down the construction with whatever wires and rope they could find. Immediately after the onset of darkness the first crash broke over the island.

  By which time they were indoors.

  And this time they wouldn’t have to witness the destruction. It happened in the depths of night. But they could hear the noise. This storm was also more severe and nigh on two days and nights passed before they could row out to hunt for their materials. This time they found much less. Hans estimated that after three days of searching they had salvaged roughly sixty per cent of the house and a lot of the timber was so battered that it could be used only as firewood.

  Next day they bolted down a new bottom beam, but on this occasion the building was turned ninety degrees and would have the gables in the north and south and the long wall facing the quay to the west. They thought it would look ridiculous. But they weren’t making the rules anymore. By the time the frost came at the beginning of December the basic framework was complete for the third time with the roof trusses two foot or so lower than originally planned. But by now they had run out of materials. They used the last they had on the braces, left the exposed lathed framework as one big white Christmas present and went home, the winter would determine the outcome, if the bloody thing was still standing in spring they could finish the cladding then.

  But the following day was just as calm.

  They sat in the kitchen looking out at the pale morning darkness, at the new creation over on the Hammer, it no longer looked like a Christmas present but a block of ice, on all sides the sea lay black and mucilaginous like glue beneath a starless sky.

  Hans got up and went into the pantry, where the calendar hung, and read that today was St Barbro’s day, December 4. He had to smile, came back and opened the window and looked out, it was like another silence. Complete and unchanging, a hum of peace, which makes you believe that it might last, and after exchanging a few words with his father they put on their outdoor clothes and walked down to the boat shed, launched the færing, took the larger rowing boat in tow and rowed to the Trading P
ost. There they loaded the boat with all the materials they could get, bought twelve kilos of nails, a tin of coffee and twenty kilos of flour, rowed back and that same afternoon set about cladding the south-west-facing wall. They finished just after midnight.

  They slept a few hours and were there to meet the cargo boat the next morning, it was carrying more materials. They clad the next wall during the day and evening and ate the food Maria and Barbro brought to the site. They also worked through the next night. A day and a night later all the walls were finished. The old kitchen window was put in the north-facing gable wall, two big doors opened up onto the quay and the second long wall had a narrow door which faced the old Lofoten boat shed. The two buildings seemed to be staring at each other. Now it was time to start on the roof structure.

  It took them two full days.

  Maria and Barbro carried more food to the building site and also passed up materials from the ground. Hans and Martin nailed down two broad planks for the roof ridge. Then two more. Thereafter they laid the battens, and the question arose as to what roof covering they should have. It should be slate, Hans decided, he had seen it on many houses in Lofoten, also on the mainland, he would buy some there this winter and have it transported home in Erling’s boat.

  Martin didn’t like the idea of slate, it blew off, like the pages of a book without a spine, and was lost in the sea. But his son wouldn’t listen. He was busy drilling holes in the rock for two steel cables which would stretch up to the eaves, complete with turnbuckles, making the quay house resemble the rigging on a schooner. It was the only building on the island that had stays. They didn’t know yet if it would be progress or a fiasco, only winter would tell.

  But the weather stayed calm from Christmas to the New Year, including when Uncle Erling moored and everyone stood watching Hans loading his fishing tackle and equipment. This time, though, Martin helped with the line tubs. And Barbro had her child in her arms, little Lars, kicking his legs and laughing. Ingrid noticed that it was no longer heartbreaking to say goodbye to her father. At most it was sad. They waved, went home, and their loneliness began.

  25

  Ingrid has started school. Her mother rows her there on the first day. Over to Havstein. They laugh a lot on the way. Maria has something to tell her, from her own schooldays, she seems to miss them. Ingrid asks her if she was once a child too. Maria laughs and says yes and suddenly seems to be a mixture of a secret and a question. Then she declares that she didn’t have such a good father as Ingrid has. Ingrid asks if her mother’s father was a bad man. Maria says no. Ingrid cannot think of anything else to ask, and Maria has no more to tell.

  They row into a flock of puffins, and she asks Ingrid to count the colours on their bills. Ingrid says that is boring, she has done it before. She too does some rowing. Because it is a long way. Afterwards she sits on the forward thwart and can feel her mother’s back against her own as Havstein rises from the sea, a strip of land with lots of houses. One of them is white. It is the farmhouse on Havstein estate, where school is to be held this term, with teachers and fifteen pupils, eight of them new. They each come from a different island, some are bigger than others, but they are all small.

  They have to sleep in the loft of the farmhouse for two weeks, then they are home for the following two weeks while Olai Christoffer Christoffersen teaches on another island. When he has taught the new children to put up their hands and ask for permission to say something before they say something, he asks his first question, can they swim?

  The new children look at each other in puzzlement, the more experienced glance down at their writing boards. Ingrid puts up her hand and says her mother can swim.

  “You’re going to learn too, today,” the teacher says in a strange dialect, because they are islanders and for islanders swimming is as important as being able to sail and row and pray. He orders the new pupils into the yard where they are to line up in two rows.

  They do as he says and are marched to a bay on the far side of the island where they find a sandy beach as white as the one Ingrid has at home on Barrøy. But the beach here forms almost a complete circle and is very shallow everywhere, at low tide it is dry, so the sun can warm the sand, which then heats the water when the tide comes in. Along the eastern bank there is a level shelf of rock, as though a road has been hewn from the mountainside. The teacher stands there with a long bamboo cane – even longer than the boathook Ingrid’s father uses to haul straggling fish on board – and orders them to go into the water in their underwear.

  It is cold, though still warm for the sea. In turn they hold the end of the cane as the teacher steps up onto the rock and gives instructions they can’t understand. He pulls them to and fro through the water like wriggling white fish. They splash their feet and are scolded until they do it correctly. Then they stand still with the water up to their necks making swimming strokes until finally they have to duck their heads under the water, again and again, if anyone doesn’t do it they get a whack with the cane; in this way they learn to hold their breath, it is an art in itself.

  Eventually they have to lunge forward and perform the movements they have learned with their arms and legs, because now that they can hold their breath, it doesn’t matter whether they hold their heads above or below the water. The teacher looks at his watch and the sun and the tide marker and they are not allowed to get out of the water until they all have blue lips and their teeth are chattering.

  “That was a good start,” he says.

  They march back to the farm in wet underwear, enter from the rear so that no-one sees them and go up to the loft where they will be sleeping, boys in the north, girls in the south, and where they find a number of washing lines stretched across the rooms for them to hang their wet clothes, after which they can put on the second set of clothing they have been advised to bring from home.

  After three days they can all swim, and a competition is held. In pouring rain they have to swim across the bay and back again, then grab the bamboo stick which is now floating like a yellow snake between two pieces of rope beneath the rock shelf where the teacher stands and where he at length can confirm that Nelly Elise is the winner. She is the daughter of the midwife. As it is absurd that a girl should win, the teacher rules that she could already swim before she arrived at the school. Nelly has a stammer, so she does not complain. Nor does she say anything in the classroom, however much the teacher admonishes her, and he does so with fervour, until he finally gives up. Nelly is strong.

  Ingrid isn’t. She enjoys being with the others and isn’t frightened at all, only excited, and laughs all the time. But she isn’t allowed to. You are not allowed to laugh in the classroom, for three reasons, the teacher counts on his long, thin fingers: it is disruptive, it is infectious and it looks stupid.

  You are not allowed to laugh when you are eating, either.

  Ingrid doesn’t understand what he means. Not being allowed to laugh when you need to is like being deprived of a leg.

  But life is hell, she does learn that at least, so she stops laughing and starts crying instead. Every night. She shares a bed with Nelly, who still won’t speak, and in her heart yearns to be home on Barrøy. The red dot is back. She gets out of bed and runs half-naked into the rain and around the house, down to the harbour and up again and towards the beach where they learned to swim. Without meeting a single person. Then back again, because Havstein is an island too, no matter how well you can swim or row. She goes up to the loft and takes off her wet clothes and hangs them on the line and puts on dry ones and gets back into bed and cries until Nelly opens her mouth and tells her to shut up. She also says:

  “Tha h-h-has nice h-h-hair.”

  She asks if she can brush and plait Ingrid’s hair. She can. Tonight and every other night. Ingrid can’t say no. And when Maria comes to collect Ingrid the following week her mother says the same:

  “Hvur lovely tha hair is.” As though discovering her daughter for the first time. On the way home she also says:
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  “Hvur serious tha is.”

  Ingrid doesn’t tell her much about her first two weeks in hell, about how she cried and threw up and felt a burning in her insides and fainted twice. Instead she tells Maria that she has learned to swim, that they have doors with keyholes and rooms you are not allowed to enter, she has learned the alphabet and numbers and seen herself in a big mirror they have hanging in the farmhouse, once when the door wasn’t locked.

  Maria studies her, as though searching for something.

  Nelly has taught Ingrid not to say anything because what is odd about contagion is that it can encompass both good and bad. And now she has a fortnight off. At this time her father and grandfather are constructing the first building for the new quay. She is allowed to be with them every day and passes them nails and the spirit level that her father brought from Lofoten, the instrument that ensures that whatever has to be plumb is plumb and whatever has to be level is level.

  26

  Martin says that there is a reason for Hestskjæret being known as Horse Reef, and for Oksholmen, Bull Island, being surrounded by dangerous waters. These animal names are warnings, signs to disguise the reefs’ real names and true nature, they are tokens of the Devil, of Satan. They also have a Bukkeskjær, Goat Reef, and a Værholme, Ram Island. For the same reason. Hooved animals. Four-legged beasts. Having a horse on board a boat, for example, goes against every instinct, and happens only in extremis, when they are being transported. Just think of the hell it is getting a breeding bull here or when the cows have to leave, it is never a normal job, there is quite simply something that is not right about the whole operation, you can feel it in your body.

  His son is sick of this talk, he thinks it is old man’s blather and an irrational belief, the opposite of true faith, which is founded in God, who rules over fate and the weather and fish, as anyone can confirm. Superstition, however, is based on idiocy.