After he brought her back, she heard him turning the handle on the telephone. Gisela arrived the next day. Heavy-set and sensible looking, her friend bore little resemblance to the wild woman she'd met on the boat. In fact, her disapproving look grated on Charlotte. Was it Gisela's business if she swam in the ocean? She cast about for a safe topic of conversation.
"Christmas? What will you do?" Charlotte asked.
The downward lines in Gisela's face disappeared. "Tobacco for my farmer. Cooperative store toys for the kids.
You?"
"Shaving things. Socks." Actually Charlotte dreaded Christmas. The darkness. The cooking. But then she remembered, "maybe some artwork." She'd revised the golden saxifrage sketches she'd begun in the summer, doing them over and over again, never throwing anything away, searching her mind for the secret, the magical element that was missing. Now she took them from the back of the cupboard and spread them out on the table.
Gisela smiled politely.
Charlotte brought out the watercolors—the yellow and white chamomile, purple scurvywort blossoms against rubbery leaves, bulbous yellow and green meadow sweet, the tall spring cress with its delicate lilac color, and her favorite, the sea of wild geranium, purple against the yellow of the buttercup.
Watching Gisela, she saw it herself. Not a stamen was out of place, not a line was wrong on the petals, like the detailed plant drawings Max had done for the botanist. Even the shadows on the rocks were perfect. But the essence was missing.
"You could've been a photographer," Gisela said, folding her arms and leaning back in the sofa, smiling at her discovery.
Quickly Charlotte put her artwork away.
"You wrote me once about how you wanted to see the moss and rocks in a new way, how you thought you could make people realize that lichen lived," Gisela said.
How stupid she'd been to talk about what she herself didn't understand.
"What did you mean?"
"I don't know," Charlotte said.
"Coffee," the old woman called from the kitchen. Charlotte cut the brown cake. The heat rose between the slices, and the smell of baking soda made her feel ill. The old woman traded recipes with Gisela while Charlotte stared at her cake. She and Gisela drank cup after cup of coffee.
"I'll brew more," the old woman said, getting to her feet.
Gisela leaned toward Charlotte. "You won't find what you're looking for in the sea," she whispered.
Charlotte locked eyes with Gisela. "You're wrong."
The old woman was back, filling their cups again. She turned to Gisela. "You look tired. Got any monk pepper in your garden?"
Gisela shook her head.
"Tea from monk pepper's good for the 'change.'" Glancing at Charlotte, "Cures the shaky feeling you get just before you bleed." A scraping of chair as Gisela reached for her purse and took out a tiny notebook to record the information.
The old woman set down her cup and placed a hand on Gisela's shoulder. "And if your man gets too wild, grind up some monk pepper seeds and throw them into his tea." Gisela wrote this down also. She only stayed one night, and Charlotte was glad when she left.
The day before Christmas, Charlotte took the leg of smoked lamb from the hook in the smokehouse. She'd been tending the fire with manure chips for several days, and now the meat was crisp and brown on the outside. Her hands smelled like smoke from holding it. She put it to boil on the stove.
Used paper bags, saved over the year, and colored pencils lay on the kitchen table.
"Wrapping paper," she called into the living room. "No paper, no gifts."
Like lengthening shadows, Henrik and Tryggvi glided into their places at the table. They picked up pencils and grunted and sighed as they drew. Blue lions with wings. Green and yellow dragons. Dancing cows with a thousand eyes. Singing seals. And Tryggvi drew a frog named Maizie, smoking a cigarette and wearing a garter belt. "Go away now," she said, slipping into German. Weg mit euch. Alone she wrapped books and underwear in the decorated bags. She chose the green and yellow dragon paper for Ragnar's shaving brush.
That afternoon Ragnar cut branches from the bush that grew at the side of the house and put them in a vase and set it on the side table in the living room. Charlotte placed the gifts under the branches. Henrik came up behind her, his arms full of ungainly packages wrapped in old newspapers, decorated bones like last year she suspected.
Charlotte cut out paper dolls, like the ones she'd seen holding hands and dancing across Christmas trees among red and white flags in Danish magazines. Henrik pinned them on the tree with clothespins that he'd colored red. She whittled two tiny candles to clip on the tree. "At least you left us some," the old woman said out of the side of her mouth. That evening, she and Henrik sat on the sofa and gazed at the candles.
"I had a funny dream last night," he said.
She braced herself.
"I was out in the fog, looking for the cows. Io was there, you know the human one."
She nodded.
"Next to her was the ugly one, the one with a thousand eyes. You called him Argos in the story."
"Yes."
"In the fog, I saw only the eyes, not him. And the eyes were beautiful, millions of them bright and shimmering, just like in the picture of a peacock's tail."
"Must've been beautiful," she murmured.
He leaned against her.
"Tell me a story."
She told him about the bear who came to the young woman's bed as the unseen lover. The young woman welcomed him, felt his long, hard body. Every night she ran her fingers through his thick curly hair and smelled the warm musky fragrance of his skin. All night he caressed her, whispering poetry into her ear.
Charlotte raised a finger.
"He warned her, Don't ever try to see me, or you will lose me. But the young woman loved him so dearly that one night when he slept, she crept out of bed, lit a candle, and held it over the bed. She saw the curly hair of her handsome lover. A drop of tallow dripped onto his cheek. A large white bear climbed out of her bed and lumbered to the door. She never saw her lover again."
Henrik laughed, but the story wasn't funny.
After the old woman had gone to bed, Charlotte lit a Christmas candle, set it next to her bed. She felt like Candle Stealer, one of the Christmas elves. It had taken her three Christmases to learn all their names, and now she'd become one of them. She lay in bed, watching the flicker of the candle, pondering Henrik's visions.
Soft as moss, the image of Henrik and Lena meeting wrapped itself around her old wound. She fell asleep envisioning Henrik and Lena in the mist, surrounded by eyes from the peacock's tail.
A whisper awakened her. A man, his face misshapen and bloody, stood beside the bed. She gripped the covers and pulled back. He mustn't stain the sheet. Ragnar wouldn't like that. He sat down on the bed. The look in his eyes frightened her.
"Why didn't you tell me about the East? The camps?" he asked.
"I didn't know," she said.
His features softened. Sadness overwhelmed her. They'd missed so many years together. She lifted the sheet, and he came into her arms. His blood smelled of sweetened meat. It soaked her nightgown. Very gently, she peeled away his clothes, and made love to him—holding herself back for fear of hurting him.
His moan told her he'd forgiven her for not saving him. Afterwards, she kissed his face, told him Ragnar wouldn't mind if he stayed in the bed. Grateful that he had come to her again just before Christmas, she fell asleep stroking his chest.
Much later, when Ragnar came to bed, she woke with a start. Max was gone. She pretended to be asleep, but Ragnar's hand enclosed her breast. Dutifully, she climbed upwards through the silent stages of lovemaking with him. Pleasure consoled her for her loss. But at the peak, she cried out the forbidden name. Max.
***
On Christmas Eve, the tiny candles flickered on the bush branches above the packages. Otherwise, the room was dark. Henrik kept glancing at the window. She knew why. It was the night when the troll came up out
of the darkness and hung on the window.
If you look, you'll turn to stone.
The boys touched their knives and forks with their fingertips, the nice cutlery, a wedding gift from the hillside farmers to Ragnar and his first wife. Charlotte raised a finger.
"Not yet."
The old woman sat up and leaned her back against her chair. She expanded her chest as if to sing to the thrush. Her mouth looked small and young, and her eyes glistened when she sang:
There's a joy in every hillock
A song in every rock
Ragnar carved the smoked meat, cold from the pantry. The snowy white mashed potatoes, the canned green peas, and the pink meat formed a landscape on the unchipped holiday plates. Afterwards, he moved the side table so they could do the Christmas dance around the bush branches. Charlotte grasped the old woman's hand and Henrik's. Holding up their clasped hands, they walked sideways, singing.
Adam had seven sons. Seven sons had Adam.
They shook their hips and clapped their hands. When Charlotte glanced out the window into the darkness, Henrik pulled her elbow.
"You musn't."
And she remembered the warning about troll's faces at the window. But she sought a different face.
Dog Day King
Charlotte loved how the cows bolted from the shed in the spring. The memory of the long, dark, ill-smelling winter in the shed disappeared. A new life took over. Frequent rain squalls dismissed the winter snow and turned the grass bright green. The thrush pumped out his raucous song, and new lambs dotted the fields.
How she loved the hillside. Herding the cows, she relished the many shades of green in the moss and heather. In Berlin, landscape had meant paintings in the gallery. Here it curled at her feet and carried her vision up the mountain on one side, down to the sea on the other. On dry days, after she'd finished the washing and baking, she slipped out past the knolls and flopped down on the grass, breathing in the life that came from the earth.
Henrik wouldn't let her forget the hidden people, but the long bright days of spring illuminated the dark corners she'd avoided in winter. Her burden of not knowing grew lighter in the sunshine.
But certain things never went away. Despite their talk in the hollow, Max lingered as a barrier between her and Ragnar. For weeks after her phantom lover had shared their bed, Ragnar had barely spoken to her. Silly man—jealous of a ghost. But she also knew another truth. For her Max wasn't a ghost. And the more Ragnar withheld words, the larger Max loomed for her.
She carried a pail of milk into the kitchen. The old woman was sorting berries, leaves, roots, and bark, humming to herself. In the pantry, Charlotte spooned curds into the boys' bowls. She strewed sugar and minced scurvywort over the mixture, so that it resembled a snowy scene with traces of grass. Over this she poured Skjalda's warm milk.
A clattering on the stairs. Henrik and Tryggvi sat down to breakfast.
Ragnar was in the outer field cutting hay. While he was gone, she would grind dried manure wedges for scattering on the field at the far end of the farm. She remembered the letter from her mother, the one she'd discarded. It was time to answer it. She sat down by the window in the living room, looked out at the lime green grass blowing gently in the wind, and picked up a pen.
Dear Mamma, it's so lovely here. I've done dozens of flower sketches and watercolors. Come and visit us before the boys grow up. Please give up on Lena. I've had dreams, and I no longer believe that she is alive.
Relief came immediately. She'd finally made a decision. But after she'd sealed the envelope, she became uneasy. The letter wouldn't stop her mother from visiting the Red Cross and asking about Lena every day. She'd only try harder when she realized that her daughter, the child's mother, had given up. But most importantly, Charlotte wasn't sure she'd told the truth. She wasn't sure she believed what she wrote.
A sound of banging pots came from the kitchen. Charlotte dropped the letter. Over the kitchen door hung a banner. Long Live the Dog Day King. The old woman pointed to the day calendar. June 26. It was the day of the Dog Day King, and the old woman was baking dog day pancakes. In 1809 an English merchant had sent the Dane Jörundur Jørgensen to Iceland. He rode around the island shouting I am your king. Down with Danish monopoly. Down with Danish rule.
The old woman set the pancakes on the table. Charlotte saw the wild look in her eye. "The Dog Day King was the first to get us independence," she said. It only lasted a month. And the Dog Day King was sent to prison in Tasmania.
The old woman disappeared into the pantry. Charlotte heard her splashing in the pickling barrel. On most farms, they fed the intestines to the dogs. But at slaughter time, the old woman scooped the intestines out of the carcass, washed the guts with water, then with whey. Back in the fall she'd braided them before boiling them, called them blue gut for their offwhite color. The boys groaned when she held up a dripping handful of what resembled knotted worms. The sight sent a shudder through Charlotte.
"Dog Day King's favorite," the old woman said.
Henrik picked up a piece of blue gut, sniffed it, dropped it back onto the plate. The old woman fixed her gaze on him. "Spoiled brat. Do you realize what we got for treats back in the days of the Dog Day King?"
He shook his head gloomily.
"We dipped a slice of sheep's hide into a saucer of cod liver oil and licked it."
Hah, Charlotte thought, picturing the old woman eating the soldier's orange, peeling it slowly, arranging the slices on a plate, sniffing them, taking one slice, popping it into her mouth, keeping her eyes closed, murmuring, savoring the flavor with her tongue.
Charlotte poked a slice of blue gut with her fork, felt the old woman's eyes on her.
The boys were arguing about how the Dog Day King had looked. Under the noise of their talk, the old woman turned to Charlotte. "Did you talk to him?"
"Yes."
The old woman climbed up on the bench next to Tryggvi and took the herbal guide from the shelf. She blew the dust off the top of the book, opened it to purple violets rimmed with yellow, and read aloud:
"Violet tea cures a flaming temper. Makes you regular. Grows by the side of the road. It'll help you handle Ragnar."
"He's quite regular, I think."
The door opened and Ragnar walked in. He took a pencil from the tin can by the sink and a bill from the stack on the table. He began making calculations on a pad. She peered over his shoulder, saw geometrical shapes next to the figures, recognized the outline of a toilet bowl. He covered his drawing.
She fixed her gaze on him. He moved his lips, and she knew he was about to say something. She decided not to fill the silence but to wait.
"Can you teach the boys how to draw?" he asked finally.
She recalled how he'd described leisure activities as courting the devil. "Isn't that a waste of time?" she asked, deliberately using his words.
He looked like an obedient animal who had accidentally piddled on the floor.
"I just meant during haying season."
"Teach me," Henrik said. He was already rummaging through the silverware drawer for a pencil stub. Like Ragnar had done, he reached for a cooperative store receipt and turned it over.
"Like this," she said, starting a new portrait of Ragnar, sketching the back of his head, then adding his thick dark hair. Henrik pressed against her free arm. His breath smelled like the Danish peppermints Ragnar bought at the cooperative.
Tryggvi came in from the shed. She could smell his overalls at her shoulder.
"Change clothes," she ordered.
"No. I'm going out again." He jumped out in front of her, his fingers in his nostrils. "Do me," he said. The pleasure at his own body reminded her of Max. She blinked his memory away.
The old woman smiled when Ragnar joined her in the blue gut meal. While they ate, the sunny dog day weather changed to rain. But Ragnar pushed back his chair and signaled Tryggvi to join him. Charlotte heard them in the hall, blundering through the pile of boots. From the living ro
om, she watched them walk down the road, their macintoshes and shovels already shiny in the rain. Filling holes with gravel, Tryggvi would become a man like Ragnar, the kind of man she couldn't understand.
She took out the salted gills, an ugly and gelatinous food, rinsed them and dropped them into a pan of water. Were they always eating? In the pantry, she opened the burlap bag, took out a salted cod for tomorrow. Holding it by its tail, she admired its flat, triangular form. It had been the island symbol when the Dog Day King called for independence, prettier than a flag, she thought.
She washed the fish in cold water, cut it into pieces, and covered it with water. Tomorrow she'd remove the scales and cut off the fins, boil it, and serve it with melted sheep fat and potatoes. And on and on until she rolled over dead. Did secretaries in Berlin feel this way about ritual tasks? Or was something wrong with her? Did she have some kind of intolerance for daily life?
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