Seal Woman

by Solveig Eggerz

  In the middle of January, Charlotte began yet another portrait of her lost daughter. Each day she visualized the girl differently, so that her skin shaded from a pale freckled complexion to a glowing olive skin. The eyes ranged from periwinkle to sapphire. Henrik sometimes sat at her side, busy with his own painting. He often looked at her work and nodded soberly, as if to affirm that this too might be Lena.

  One day, when she rolled her sleeves up to the elbows, Charlotte noted the dryness of her skin, how it furrowed into weather-beaten wrinkles. It occurred to her that she was getting older. Lena's skin had been downy soft against her own cheek. Today she'd have strong young skin that blushed easily and stretched smoothly over the fine bones of her face. Would she already have tiny crow's feet at her eyes?

  Icicles hung hard and uncompromising from the shed roof, frozen like Charlotte's hopes should be, she told herself.

  In Wilmersdorfer Straße her parents had owned a cat that sat for hours at the entrance to the hole where a mouse had disappeared. But the mouse had probably come out somewhere else. Lena could just as well be in Hungary or East Germany, two other big countries.

  Capturing a Likeness

  With the spring, Charlotte felt a quickening in her blood. The cows cavorted like calves drunk with the smell of growing grass.

  The lambing season brought joys and heartaches. A ewe, busy with her sturdier lamb, butted its pitiful undersized brother, then turned her back on him.

  "We've got another orphan," she called to Ragnar.

  "Make her accept it," he called back.

  But Charlotte could not cajole the ewe to allow the rejected animal to suck. Henrik would have to spend the summer giving it milk from the old baby bottle. Still, as the summer wore on, the orphan thrived. When Henrik forgot to close the farmhouse door, they heard the piercing ack ack in the hall. Henrik ran for the baby bottle.

  The old woman swore as she plucked sheep droppings out of boots and shoes. But Charlotte rejoiced over the animal's survival.

  As the days grew longer, Charlotte's dreams changed. One night, she drifted into a café in a foreign city and took a table next to the window. Sitting alone, she could devote herself to watching pedestrians. A tall girl with a bouncing step passed by. Charlotte didn't recognize Lena, simply sensed that this might be her daughter. From the girl's backpack peered a worn, one-eyed teddy bear.

  When Charlotte awoke, she punched the mattress to shake Ragnar out of his snoring, then lay back, feeling a sense of peace. At its core was a new feeling about Lena. She called it Lena's knowing. If she concentrated hard enough, she felt she could let Lena know that she was thinking about her. The old woman had sung the words to the thrush:

  O greet most fondly, if you chance to see

  An angel whom—

  The next day, Charlotte looked out over the meadow. Wildflowers bloomed in pink and yellow and blue clusters. That evening, when she was filtering the milk, Ragnar touched her arm.

  "I liked the cluster of wild geraniums in the painting of me and Gunnar. Can you fill a whole canvas with those flowers? We could have them to look at all year around."

  A warmth flooded her cheeks.

  The next day she placed her sketchpad and colors in her backpack. She stroked Red's flaxen forelock, touched her cheek to the horse's velvety muzzle, and breathed in his aroma.

  "One day I'll paint the way you feel and smell," she promised, swinging herself into the saddle.

  The old woman helped Henrik clamber up into the saddle in front of her. Red moved eagerly out of the home field and down the hillside. She was glad Ragnar had taught her to ride if only for the squeak of the saddle and the rich smell of horse. On some farms, people ate horse flesh, serving it with a rich sauce and wild berries. But Charlotte had never been able to do that. Rotten horse flesh was a favorite form of bait among those who rowed out alone on tiny boats.

  The dog, Sam, ran ahead as Red trotted slowly across the meadow toward the valley. The pattern of blue wild geraniums and yellow marsh marigolds blanketed the hillside all the way down to the stream. She nosed Henrik's hair. The earthy smell stirred her.

  Below, Sam skipped through the icy stream and shook himself on the mossy rocks on the other side. A frightened godwit fluttered up out of the water and flew toward the ocean, the sun gleaming on its rust-colored neck. The graceful Modigliani of birds always reminded her of Max.

  Charlotte turned Red away from the ocean toward the hill on the other side. She dismounted and left him to graze by the stream. The wind was cool, but the sun warmed her. Halfway up the hill, she stopped. Lava rocks formed a sheltering ridge, and the heather smelled sweet. Sheep pellets littered the ground like tiny black pebbles, and yellow fleece clung to the rocks. She sat on a tuft of gray-green moss, and Henrik joined her. He leaned back and stretched his legs until his toes touched a rock covered with orange and rust-colored lichen.

  He placed his fingers on his lips.

  "A secret place."

  "Why secret?" she asked.

  But then she saw it, the place where the gentian had bloomed last summer. No sign of it now. A holy place for those who saw what others missed. She rolled up her sleeves and felt the warmth of the sun on her skin.

  Drowsiness overcame her, and the brown and golden lichens took on new shape. They blended, pulled apart, changed their colors to amber and red. Their apricot and marmalade-colored bodies wrapped themselves around one another.

  Without taking her eyes off the rock lovers, she sketched this eternal life-giving embrace of the fungus and algae. She worked on the drawing until her hand hurt and her neck ached. Examining what she'd made, she stretched out her arm, looked away, then back. In it she recognized the familiar hawk-like profile. It had been a long time, but it was definitely he.

  She set down the sketchpad and lay back against the moss. His face, yellow and brown like the lichen lovers, appeared above her. Her fingers reached for his tangled curls of ginger and chestnut and drew him to her. His hair tickled her face, warmed her neck. The thirst began in her mouth.

  Apollo held a silver cup of divine nectar to her lips, but a rumbling sound disturbed her rapture, and red-headed Thor, the clumsy Norse god of thunder, pressed a drinking horn of foaming mead to her lips. She laughed. There was no accounting for gods. The copper-colored hair of Thor's chest brushed across her bare breasts. The familiar smell of Max's sweat sent a ripple of pleasure through her.

  Her lips brushed his navel, and her nose moved ever so slightly against his hardness. The tiny hairs tickled her nostrils. Somewhere above her he sighed. She parted her lips and tasted him. Finally, he was no longer the wounded Jew, torn to shreds because she hadn't saved him. She gave herself over to his pleasure. Afterwards, he did not leave her. His head on her breast, he spoke in a voice so low that she could barely hear him.

  You see how happy I am.

  He was gone, but this time she did not feel the pain of losing him. A sense of peace came over her. Another being came into her arms, and she knew the smell of her pup, stroked its soft birth hairs, hugged its warm little body.

  When she woke up, the sun was gone. The fog climbed the hill toward her like a veil, and everything beyond it was invisible. She looked at her sketch of Max and knew that he was finally gone.

  But where was her child?

  "Henrik," she called.

  Silence.

  The stream beyond gurgled. She stood and walked into the fog, calling his name. A woman's voice spoke first, followed by Henrik's high-pitched voice. They were climbing the hill toward her. But who? Charlotte withdrew, but it was too late. She could see them now.

  The woman had short brown hair and wore a white dress. She held the hand of a small girl with copper-colored hair. The child also wore white. Charlotte cursed herself for drinking the old woman's tea that morning. It made her see things in the fog. People who saw these hidden creatures were usually loners like Henrik who walked alongside the earth's crevices. On foggy days, the hidden people crawled up ou
t of the earth. The women were always beautiful. They always wore white.

  Henrik ran ahead of them, then back, a herding dog who's finally found his sheep.

  It was too much. Her heart felt like it would burst. Charlotte closed her eyes and turned her back on them. That would make them disappear. But they wouldn't go away. Instead, they came closer. She could see the pink in their cheeks, the tiny wrinkles around the eyes of the woman.

  Hadn't the old woman warned her?—don't fall in love with the hidden people or you'll go mad. She wouldn't look at them, just at Henrik. But out of the corner of her eye she saw the shape of the girl's cheek, just like—and the eyes. Henrik's eyes. The same eyes that she'd seen in the ocean. But they'd turned out to be seal's eyes. She wouldn't be fooled again. She stepped back, ran her fingers over the lichens on the rock. When you faced hidden people, you had to touch something real. The woman came closer. Her skin had an olive tone. Her eyes were locked on hers.

  "Mamma," a voice said.

  Charlotte glanced at the child. But it was the woman, not the child, who had spoken.

  Then their outlines blurred. Was her eyesight fading? Quickly she took up her pencil and began to draw them, following them when they moved, pursuing them between rocks, chasing them among the heather. Looking quickly from them to her paper, she added colors, making their faces ochre and orange against sun-colored lichens.

  At last, exhausted, she looked up from her work. The sun had slid behind the hillside. The cool breeze stung her, emphasizing her loss. She rose to her feet and began to run.

  Let me see you just one more time.

  She discovered them nestled in the moss, their faces soft and gray and gentle. She started a new drawing with different colors. Her arm moved in different ways, quickly without stopping, until she'd filled the whole page.

  Her heart beat fast, and her breath came rapidly. Wisps of fog streaked the hillside now, and she could barely see the meadow beyond. She looked everywhere. The figures had blended back into the moss and flowers. But she knew she'dcaptured them. It was the only way to ensure they were hers forever.

  ***

  Charlotte lay in bed, drifting between sleep and waking. Somebody touched her hand. Henrik's face was lively with enthusiasm.

  "I want to go to the ocean today," he said.

  "Why?"

  "You said we should think of others."

  "Yes."

  Then she saw his bones on the chair behind him, white and dry, lying in a pile, waiting. "It's for them. They want to see the ocean."

  She sat up, reached for her bathrobe. In the back of her mind a question sharpened its tiny teeth. Was he stranger than other children?

  She searched her mind for a comparison and remembered a time at the lake. It was after Max had gone to the East. Lena had brought her bear with her to let it swim. When it sank, Charlotte had closed her eyes and held her nose. Swimming below the surface, she had felt along the muddy bottom until she put her hands on the bear. But a toy bear was practically a living thing, not a pile of bones.

  Henrik bent over the bones, picked them up and embraced them. He fixed her with his wide eyes. She pulled on her pants, hunted for a sweater. Tryggvi and Ragnar were at Butterdale leveling Nonni's field of tussocks. Soon they would do the same at Dark Castle.

  The truck rolled down the hill like a horse that knew the way. Charlotte's occasional tap of the brake was the bridle. Henrik hugged the bones to his chest.

  "You will like this more than anything you ever did before," he told them.

  At the edge of the sand, Charlotte stopped the car. The wind blew in off the ocean, and the water shone like green glass under the sun. The briny sea smell filled her nostrils, and she felt the pull of the tide in her blood stream. The sand was loose under her feet. She placed her hand on the back of Henrik's neck, felt the warmth of his skin. They walked to the ocean's edge.

  The sea foam curled over the toes of Henrik's boots.

  "What do the bones want here?" she asked.

  "This."

  He leaned forward and flung his arms open so that the bones fell into the sea.

  Something tightened around Charlotte's heart as a greedy wave pulled the bones into its center, then released them, exposing the bones where they had sunk into the sand. The next wave swallowed them completely. But she breathed in an easy, steady manner and felt no urge to go in after them. She glanced at Henrik.

  He looked up at her.

  "Can they swim?" she asked.

  "No. But they'll come back."

  She saw the faith in his eyes. Could he stand the disappointment? She must prepare him.

  "What if they don't come back?"

  "That's all right. I've got more at home in the tussocks."

  She placed an arm over his shoulders, gently squeezed his upper arm. Her gaze traveled up the dark curve of the next mounting wave, over its white crest, down into the emerald green valley between the waves, then up again, moving onwards, all the way to the horizon. She fixed on a tiny dot that grew under her eyes until she could read it from left to right—the fulfillment of her promise to Max to keep his daughter safe. And along the entire line where the ocean met the sky, she saw all the years tumbling forward into the future, forward from Henrik's sixth year, forever and ever until she was gone, and Henrik was still here.

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to express my thanks to Fred Ramey of Unbridled Books for giving this book a second chance at life. As ever my gratitude to my agent, Sandra Bond, for her good work.

  My continuing appreciation to my writers’ group, the Holey Road Readers, for its ongoing support. And to my cousins, always ready to answer my questions about farm life in Iceland: Hólmfríður Gunnarsdóttir, Guðrún Þórarinsdóttir, Kristín Þórarinsdóttir, Soffía Stefánsdóttir, Hildur Stefánsdóttir. My special thanks to Hólmfríður, who generously translated the book into Icelandic. Hjálmfríður Þórðardóttir of the trade union, was very helpful. I am grateful to economist Pétur Eiríksson for his time and his thesis for the University of Iceland. [1]

  Some History. During the late 1940s, 314 German men and women arrived in Iceland as farm laborers by arrangement of the Icelandic Agricultural Association. Most arrived on June 8, 1949 with the Icelandic ship, Esja. The rest arrived by trawler. The Association provided a one-year contract and paid the Germans’ passage from Hamburg to Reykjavik. Of those who arrived, 48% of the women and 42% of the men married and settled in Iceland.

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  [1] From Memel to Melrakkaslétta: the origin, fate, and adjustment of German agricultural workers brought to Iceland by the Icelandic Agricultural Association in 1949, University of Iceland, September, 2006.

  ABOUT THE STORY

  During the late 1940s, 314 German men and women arrived in Iceland to work on farms by arrangement of the Icelandic Agricultural Association. Most arrived on June 8, 1949 with the Icelandic ship, Esja, which transported 130 German women and 50 German men to Iceland. The remaining migrants arrived by trawler. The association provided a one-year contract at 400 Icelandic kronas per month for women and 500 per month for men. The farmers who hired the Germans paid their passage from Hamburg to Reykjavík. Of the original 314 workers who arrived in Iceland, 48% of the women and 42% of the men married and settled in Iceland.

  Seal Woman is a work of the author's imagination. From interviews, the author learned that the Germans' arrival had an invigorating effect on the countryside where they settled. Icelanders considered these laborers hardworking individuals who contributed to the social fabric of the countryside where they settled. Several sources related that the Icelanders, out of consideration for the workers' privacy, did not ask the Germans about their experiences in Germany.

  For a non-fiction account of this migration, see Pétur Eiríksson's thesis, "From Memel to Melrakkaslétta: the origin, fate, and adjustment of German agricultural workers brought to Iceland by t
he Icelandic Agricultural Association in 1949," University of Iceland, September, 2006.

  A native of Iceland, Solveig Eggerz spent her early childhood there, but then her family also lived in Germany, England and the U.S. She has a Ph.D. in medieval English, German, and Scandinavian comparative literature from Catholic University. She has worked as a journalist and currently teaches in the D.C. area.

  Solveig has a family history of writing and storytelling: "I've carried the stories my forefathers told in my heart all my life. My great-great grandfather, Friðrik Eggerz, a farmer and a protestant minister, wrote his autobiography when he was in his eighties, a book that documented 19 century Icelandic regional history; my grandfather, Sigurður Eggerz, twice prime minister, wrote plays and essays. My father, Pétur Eggerz, a foreign service officer, was a best-selling author in Iceland and wrote fiction and nonfiction until the day he died at age eighty."