Dina's Book

by Herbjorg Wassmo

  This realization did not hit Jacob until he was watching over the corpse. He had thought it was a matter of business and bed. Instead it was incredibly much more.

  For a year, he tormented himself sleepless and thin because he had never shown Ingeborg his real love.

  He neglected his inn and drank more whiskey than he sold. This not only resulted in a poor profit; it also made him listless and indifferent.

  The capable foster sons had much to do, but they also had all the power and praise.

  People both at home and abroad would surely have found Jacob disgusting had he not been such a handsome man.

  He projected an aura of sensuality. It affected every living thing, just as it had affected Mistress Ingeborg.

  Jacob was a sailor and a vagabond. And Ingeborg’s talents as a businesswoman quickly came to light once she was gone.

  The foster sons treaded water and stayed afloat. But soon realized they must either assume the management completely or send Jacob to sea, to do business where he knew the rules. Otherwise their entire enterprise could go bankrupt.

  Jacob was tolerated and forgiven. And protected. Even when he carried the canopy bed into the garden one night.

  He had drained several whiskey glasses and missed Ingeborg in every way and in every place. Probably thought he would be closer to her in the garden. At least he could see her heaven.

  But obviously, heaven did not care about him. Rain fell like cannonballs. And thunder and lightning punished the brave man in the canopy bed.

  It had been hard work to dismantle the bed, haul it outside, and then reassemble it properly.

  He had not hung the silk canopy. Which was fortunate. The rain was hard enough on the wood. It would have been a catastrophe for the silk.

  But Jacob got sober. As if by a miracle.

  Chapter 4

  The two angels came to Sodom in the evening; and Lot was sitting in the

  gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and bowed

  himself with his face to the earth, and said, “My lords, turn aside, I pray

  you, to your servant’s house…” But he urged them strongly; so they

  turned aside to him and entered his house…. The men of the city, the

  men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man,

  surrounded the house; and they called to Lot, “Where are the men who

  came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them.”

  Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, and said,

  “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Behold, I have two

  daughters who have not known man; let me bring them out to you, and

  do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have

  come under the shelter of my roof.”

  — Genesis 19 : 1-8

  When the sheriff heard about the canopy bed being dragged outside, he decided to invite his friend to Fagerness. They would hunt, play cards, and have a few drams together.

  The widower arrived at Fagerness in a white boat with a deckhouse and blue railings.

  The air had an autumn crispness, but during the day the weather was warm and pleasant. Ptarmigans had been sighted. Motley, as was to be expected so early in the fall. And since there was no snow, the men expected hunting to be poor.

  But that did not matter.

  Their meeting was warm and friendly.

  Jacob praised Dagny’s dress, her hair, her figure, and her embroidery. He praised the food, the liqueur, the warmth of the stove, and the hospitality. He smoked cigars and did not bother anyone with talk about himself and his unhappy situation.

  Dagny joined the men after dinner and vivaciously described the Swedish man who had visited them for a week. He had scurried around studying birds, for whatever good that might do.

  “Didn’t you have a wild bird in your house last year?” asked Jacob with careless good humor.

  The hosts became uneasy.

  “She’s probably in the stable,” the sheriff replied at last.

  “Yes, she was there the last time too,” Jacob chuckled.

  “It’s hard to get her to grow up,” said Dagny.

  “Well, she was pretty long-legged the last time I saw her,” said Jacob.

  “Oh, it’s not that,” sighed the sheriff. “It’s that she’s wilder and more unmanageable than ever. She’s fifteen years old and should have been in school or in a good foster home. But that’s just asking for trouble…”

  Jacob was about to remark that being motherless could not be easy, but he refrained. That would not be an appropriate thing to say.

  “But doesn’t she eat?” he wondered, glancing into the dining room, where the maids were clearing the table.

  “She eats in the kitchen,” replied the sheriff with some embarrassment.

  “In the kitchen!”

  “She always causes so much trouble,” explained Dagny, and cleared her throat.

  “Besides, she enjoys being in the kitchen,” the sheriff added quickly.

  Jacob glanced from one to the other. The sheriff felt uncomfortable. They turned to other subjects. But the atmosphere was not the same.

  Mr. Lorch said nothing. He had an ability to be invisible and not present. It caused both irritation and pleasure.

  This particular evening it made the sheriff break out in a cold sweat.

  Jacob and the sheriff went hunting at daybreak.

  Dagny demanded that Dina get dressed properly and play the cello after dinner, threatening dire consequences if she disobeyed. For some reason, which could only have been Lorch’s master strategy, Dina did as she was told. Despite the fact that Dagny had given the order. She even endured sitting at the table with the adults.

  The men were in good humor and helped themselves to the lamb roast. Wine flowed. There was laughter and conversation.

  Mr. Lorch did not join in the masculine topics of conversation.

  Hunting was not his strong point. He was a scholarly man and a good

  listener.

  The men held forth at great length about the hunter’s excitement.

  Then they remarked that perhaps hard times had ended here in the north. The price of dried cod had risen. In fact, the price of raw fish had risen two speciedaler per storhundre.

  The dried-cod business was booming, said the sheriff. He was planning to clear his hills for drying racks all the way to the moors. The heather cover was so thin that he could hire children to do the clearing if necessary.

  Jacob did not know anything about dried cod.

  “But the hills at Reinsnes are marvelous! You have hills all around you!”

  “That may be, but it takes people to do the work,” Jacob noted. He clearly had no intention of getting involved in such a thing.

  “I’m better off in ship chandlery and small cargo trade,” he insisted.

  “But you’d increase your profit if you made the products yourself instead of buying them.”

  Dina, following the conversation, noticed only facial expressions and voices. What was said was not very important.

  She sat opposite Jacob and stared openly at the “old widower.” Otherwise she ate her dinner with surprisingly good manners.

  Her firm young body was decently fitted into a bodice and a long skirt.

  “You’ve turned gray, Mr. Gronelv,” she observed in a loud voice.

  Jacob was obviously embarrassed, but he laughed.

  “Dina!” said Dagny,’ quietly but sternly.

  “Is there anything wrong with having gray hair?” Dina asked stubbornly.

  The sheriff, who knew this could be the beginning of a quarrel, hastily gave a brisk order, even though they had not yet eaten dessert:

  “Go and get your cello!”

  Dina obeyed without protest.

  Mr. Lorch hurried to seat himself at the piano. He held his hands and body over the keys for the minutes it took Dina to find her
correct position.

  The bordered green velvet skirt divided itself as she placed the cello between her knees. This was no womanly gesture. Neither neat nor elegant. A heavy sensuality filled the room.

  It blurred Jacob’s vision.

  Two buxom young breasts presented themselves as she leaned over the instrument and drew the bow.

  Her face became tranquil beneath the dark, unruly shock of hair. Which was more or less brushed and free of straw dust for this occasion. Her large, slightly greedy, girlish mouth was half open. Her eyes looked past everything. Dully.

  Jacob had felt a hard pulse in his groin when she leaned forward and began to play. He knew what it was. Had certainly felt it before. But this was more powerful than anything he could remember. Perhaps because it came so unexpectedly?

  Jacob’s head became a swallows’ nest, all the eggs shattered by the music. Yokes and whites ran down his cheeks and neck. Instinctively he leaned forward, letting his cigar go out.

  Dina’s clothing was suddenly thick foliage covering a young woman’s body. That the same woman had certain problems interpreting Schubert to Mr. Lorch’s satisfaction was far beyond Jacob’s reality. He saw the fabric in her skirt quiver over her thighs as the notes trembled.

  Jacob became the strings under her fingers. The bow in her soft, strong hand. He was the breath beneath her bodice. He rose and sank with her.

  That night, Jacob Gronelv could not sleep. It was all he could do to keep from rushing naked into the frosty night to put out the torch.

  One door away lay Dina. He undressed her with all the ardor he possessed. Was about to burst with the image of her large young breasts. With the picture of her knees hospitably spread wide, the brightly lacquered instrument between them.

  All night long, Jacob Gronelv did not know what to do with himself.

  He was to leave the next morning.

  When the boat was ready to sail, he took the sheriff aside and said with a determined look:

  “I must have her! I … I must have Dina … as my wife!”

  The final words came out as if he had just then discovered that this was the only solution.

  He was so distraught about how to present his message that he forgot to speak civilly. The words stumbled out of his mouth as though he had never heard them. Everything he had decided to say was forgotten.

  But the sheriff understood.

  As Jacob’s boat left the shore, snow began to fall. Very gently at first. Then heavily.

  The next day, Dina was summoned to the office and informed that Jacob Gronelv wanted to marry her as soon as she turned sixteen.

  Dina stood with trembling knees in the middle of the room, wearing her old homespun trousers. She had already created a pool of melted snow, manure, and straw on the floor.

  When her father called her into the office she had thought she was going to be reprimanded for her latest trick on Dagny or for letting her little half-brother into the pigsty earlier that day.

  She no longer had to look up when she talked with her father. She was as tall as he.

  She gazed at him as though observing that his hair was rather thin or that he needed a new vest. The sheriff’s waist had grown large during the past year. Life had been good to him.

  “You’ve gained weight! You’ve gotten fat, Father!” she said matter-of-factly, and was about to leave.

  “Didn’t you hear what I said?”

  “No!”

  “Jacob owns the best trading center in the area. He has two cargo boats!”

  “He can wipe himself front and back with his cargo boats!”

  “Dina!”

  The sheriff roared. Set off an echo that rang from rafter to rafter, room to room, throughout the house.

  At first he tried gentle words, a form of mediation. But Dina’s raucous response was more than he could tolerate.

  The slaps resounded loudly.

  What no one saw was that the slaps came from both sides. Dina went after her father at the first blow. With the fury of someone who had nothing to lose. Who did not care about limits. Was not restrained by either fear or respect.

  The sheriff emerged from the office with a gash on his cheek and a torn vest. He staggered to the little outhouse with the heart on the door and thought he was about to end his days, the victim of an overexerted heart.

  His breathing came in heaves and gasps.

  A loud whinny and hooves thundering against the ground did not make things better.

  It was hard to be the father of a devil.

  He never admitted it to a living soul. His grown daughter had given him quite a battle.

  They were more or less equal. What Dina lacked in brute strength was more than compensated for by her teeth and nails, her vicious tactics, and her physical agility.

  The sheriff could not understand what he had done to deserve such a fate. As if things were not already bad enough. A child who hit her father! Oh, God!

  To tell the truth, it was the first time anyone had laid a hand on the sheriff. He had grown up with an authoritarian but loving and absentminded father and had been his mother’s only son.

  He was not a hard man. Now he sat in the outhouse and wept.

  Meanwhile, Dina galloped along the rocky beach and across the heath to the other side of the mountain.

  Intuitively, she sensed the right direction.

  Late that afternoon, she rode down the steep slope to Reinsnes.

  The path zigzagged among large rocks, shrubs, and clumps of juniper. A bridge spanned the swiftly flowing autumn”river. Here and there, the path was reinforced with stones to protect it against spring floods.

  Clearly, the best approach to Reinsnes was by boat. The slope was so steep that from the top it appeared there was nothing but sea below.

  On the opposite side of the broad sound, a somber ridge of mountains rose toward the sky.

  But to the west, the sea and sky offered all the freedom an eye could need.

  As she descended farther, the fields spread out to the left and right. Flanked by luxuriant birch forest and the pounding gray sea.

  Far in the distance, the sea and sky merged in a way she had never seen.

  When she rode out of the last crevice, she reined in her horse.

  The white buildings. There must be at least fifteen! Two piers and two warehouses. This estate was much larger than the sheriff’s!

  Dina tied her horse to the white picket fence and paused to look at a small octagonal summerhouse with stained-glass windows. Each corner was decorated with elegant carvings, and Virginia creeper arched over the front door.

  The entrance to the main house was solid and imposing, with ornate leaf carvings above the doorway. Its broad slate steps had wrought-iron railings and a pair of facing benches by the door.

  It gave such a lavish impression that Dina took the path leading to the kitchen entrance.

  She asked a shy, bewildered maid if Mr, Gronelv was at home.

  Jacob Gronelv sat dozing in his large rococo chair by the iron stove in the smoking parlor. His vest was unbuttoned, his shirtfront missing. His curly graying hair was rumpled and hung down on his forehead. And his mustache drooped.

  But he was not conscious of his appearance when he saw Dina standing in the doorway.

  She came straight out of his wildest dreams. Albeit without her bodice or her cello. She was already fluttering in his veins. So it took a moment before he realized that she was actually standing there.

  Jacob Gronelv’s neck and ears turned slowly crimson. The effect of seeing her was overpowering.

  His first impulse, before fully awakening, was to take her. Then and there. On the floor.

  But Jacob had a sense of propriety. Moreover, Mother Karen might come into the room at any moment.

  ‘‘Father says we have to get married!” she hurled at him without saying hello. Then she pulled off her sheepskin cap with a boyish movement and added:

  “It’s not going to happen!”

  “Wo
n’t you please sit down?” he said, getting to his feet.

  He cursed the sheriff’s manner. The girl had undoubtedly been frightened out of her wits by commands and harsh words.

  Jacob reproached himself. He should have said that he would ask her himself first.

  But it had happened so suddenly. And since then, he had thought of nothing else.

  “Your father surely didn’t say we have to get married. Didn’t he say I wanted you to be my wife?”

  A sudden uncertainty crossed her face. A kind of precocious curiosity.

  Jacob had never seen anything like it. It made him awkward and young. He gestured again toward the chair in which he had been sitting. Helped her remove her jacket. She smelled of fresh sweat and heather. Had small droplets on her hairband and upper lip.

  Jacob smothered a sigh.

  Then he ordered coffee and cookies to be served and said they were not to be disturbed otherwise.

  With controlled calm, as if Dina were a business partner, he took a chair and seated himself opposite her. Expectantly. He was careful to look into her eyes the whole time.

  Jacob had done this before. But not since he proposed to Ingeborg had so much been at stake.

  The whole time they were drinking coffee, which Dina slurped from the saucer, angry furrows remained between her eyebrows.

  She had partially unbuttoned her heavy cardigan, and the front of her outgrown blouse could not keep her breasts or his gaze in place.

  Jacob dutifully sent for Mother Karen and introduced Dina. The sheriff’s daughter. An unkempt figure who had ridden across the mountain with a message from her father.

  Mother Karen looked at Dina through her monocle and a veil of goodwill. She clapped her hands and ordered the maids to prepare the south dormer room. Warm water and clean sheets.

  Jacob wanted to show her the entire estate. Needed to have her to himself.

  He looked at her. Spoke earnestly in a low voice. About everything he would give her.

  “A black horse?”

  “Yes, a black horse!”

  Jacob showed her the stable. The warehouses. The store. Dina counted the trees along the avenue.