Midnight sun and delicate lace curtains. Long-stemmed, glistening green goblets. Crystal carafes filled with water and wine. Flowers in vases and urns. Freshly picked from the garden and the meadows. The fragrance of spring leaves through the window. Distant sounds of mountain winds and roaring rapids.
Jacob used all his wisdom. He approached her with soft down in his hands. First, he took off her shoes, which had caused him such pain earlier in the evening.
He still ached in unmentionable parts of his body. He still sensed the nauseating dizziness he had felt when Dinars shoe hit its target.
She sat on the high, wide bed and looked at him. Braced herself with her arms behind her. Gazed until he began to feel embarrassed. Could not remember the last time a woman had made him shy.
As he knelt at her feet, tugging her shoe, he was once again a clown and a servant. Humbly, he felt his heart skip several beats when she straightened her instep so he could remove her shoe more easily.
What was worse, he had to maneuver her into a standing position to take off her clothes.
The shade was not drawn completely. There was too much light.
And he saw those pale, watchful eyes! Slightly slanted. Wide open, expectant. Far too observant of his every movement.
He cleared his throat. Because he thought she expected him to talk. He did not normally talk with women in such situations.
If only there were winter darkness in all the corners, instead of this accursed light! Beneath her clear gaze he felt naked and on display.
With his forty-eight-year-old body and its ordinary, but very visible, stomach he was as shy as a sixteen-year-old.
The deep lines in his face. His years as a widower, with their worries and carousing. His gray hair. They gave him no experience for moments like this.
Suddenly he remembered that she had noticed his gray hair. The day at the sheriff’s estate when he first saw her with the cello between her thighs.
Jacob went to pieces. He hid his head in Dina’s lap. Wantonly, and with a certain shame.
“Why are you doing that?” she asked, squirming impatiently.
Jacob lay motionless.
“Because I don’t know what to do,” he replied at last.
“You were undressing me. You’ve taken off my shoe….”
She yawned and leaned back heavily on the bed. Which left him lying like a forgotten dog.
“Yes,” was all he said, as he emerged from her lap. First just one eye, then his whole gray, tousled head.
He surveyed all the splendors. The hilltops. As she lay there, her skirt sank into the crevices. It drove him wild. But he kept himself under control.
“You’re slow,” she said dryly, and began to undo her buttons.
He fumbled feverishly. Helped her remove one piece of clothing after another.
The closer he got to her, the stronger grew the smell of stable, hay, and spices.
He stood behind her and gently filled his hands with her breasts. Savored the effect of fabric and warm skin. A breathless moment. Before he took off her dress, petticoats, corset, and pantalets.
Her eyes followed his movements with curiosity. A few times she closed them and sighed. While he summoned all the tenderness within him and gently stroked her shoulders and hips.
Completely naked, she freed herself and walked to the window. Stood there. As if she were from another world.
He would not have believed it possible. A woman, a virgin! Who rose naked from the bed on a light summer night. And calmly strolled across the room to the window!
She stood there with gold on her shoulders and hips. Witch and angel. No one had possessed her! She was his alone! Strutting around in his room, in his house.
The midnight sun turned half of her body to honey as she turned toward him.
“Aren’t you going to take off your clothes too?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied huskily.
And one piece of clothing after the other fell in quick succession. As if he were afraid something would happen before he reached his goal.
To tell the truth, it took a while before he reached his goal. He had never imagined it would be like that.
When they were in bed and he had spread the white sheet over them and wanted to press her close, she sat up and pulled the sheet off him.
Then she began an inspection. Greedily, with an air of having found an animal she did not fully recognize.
He got so embarrassed he covered himself with his hands. “It’s different from a bull or a horse,’ she noted with interest. “But the bull’s is completely different from the horse’s too. It’s long and thin and pink. The horse’s is a big fellow!” she added with grave expertise.
He felt his lust recede and his maleness burst.
He had never met anyone so completely uninhibited. Images came to his mind. His few times with those who did it for money. But their mating rituals were a matter of time and training. Determined by the payment. He remembered how sad he was to see through the artificial passion and the empty, mechanical movements.
Their eyes had been the worst….
He realized then that Dina — the mistress of Reinsnes — was a child. He was moved by the thought and filled with shame. And excited beyond belief!
It was a long, long ritual. In which she demanded her role. Insisted on playing all parts. Grew furious and punished him by turning away if he did not agree with her ideas.
Sometimes it crossed his mind that this was unnatural, animal-like. Breathing heavily, he comforted himself with the thought that nobody saw them.
And when she showed her pleasure, he took even more time. Played her games. Felt as if they were the first couple on earth. And everything was acceptable.
The graying man fought against tears a few times. It was too much for Jacob. To be a child making love among the trees.
When it came time for him to penetrate her, he held his breath. His rutting instinct was suddenly a black cat sleeping in the shadows.
Amid a crimson fog, he knew: she could utterly destroy him, if she grew to hate his ways. That helped him get through.
She barely moaned, although the sheet was more than spotted.
All the crude stories he had heard about wedding nights and weeping brides were contradicted.
This was unlike anything Jacob Gronelv had heard or seen. Everything he had learned and experienced had to be relearned.
His bride was a young mare. On lush green summer pastures. She pressed him against the fence. Stopped frolicking and drank from the deep pool when she became thirsty. Bit his flanks when he attempted an awkward leap. Until, unexpectedly, she allowed herself to be caught. And with the heavy calmness of a submissive mare, she hunched on her knees and arms. Let the trembling young body be opened, and received his careful thrusts.
Jacob was seized by a religiosity he did not understand. Release would not come. It was not his.
Jacob could not hide his feelings. He wept.
They did not go downstairs before late afternoon the following day. All the wedding guests had left. Including the sheriff and his family. Mother Karen had set a tray of food inside the bedroom door. And said good morning. With a mild expression and downcast eyes.
The servants smiled a little. They had never heard of a wedding night that lasted from two o’clock in the morning until five the next evening.
The reindeer steak was dry and tasteless and the potatoes had cooked to pieces before the newlyweds finally appeared.
Dina was impeccably attired in a new dress from her trousseau. But her hair still flowed down her back like an unmarried girl’s. The smiling, freshly shaven bridegroom clearly had problems with walking and with his back.
At dinner they completely ignored Mother Karen, Anders, Niels, and Johan.
Eros dominated the room. Heavy and satisfied, it paraded up the wallpaper, frolicked in the wainscoting, and dulled the silverware.
The bridal pair was visibly drunk before the entrée. Dina had be
en introduced to port wine before they came downstairs. It was a new game, sweet to the tongue.
Mother Karen’s gaze wavered, and Johan’s eyes filled with disgust.
Niels stole curious sidelong glances at Dina and ate well.
Anders looked as if he had unwillingly entered a room where he was forced to sit at a table with strangers. He handled the situation best.
Dina had learned a new game. She knew it from the pasture. From the chicken house and from seagulls pairing in the spring. Jacob was her toy. She looked at him with polished glass eyes.
Chapter 6
You will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow.
A cup of horror and desolation,
is the cup of your sister Samaria.
— Ezekiel 23 : 33
As early as March 5, 1838, the steamboat Prince Gustav had made its first voyage north from Trondheim. At that time, many thought such a trip was a madman’s journey. But miraculously, it became a regular coastal route.
The Lord had a say with regard to the sea’s surface. But there were also dangerous reefs. And difficult fjord passages, currents, and eddies. Winds blew in every direction, and passengers did not board at scheduled times. There was also the sad fact that on the Fold Sea and Vest Fjord, nothing, except centrifugal force and the earth’s rotation, occurred according to expectations.
Even now, several years later, not everyone along the shipping lane was convinced that the fire-and-smoke-spitting Prince Gustav was a blessing.
It could not be right for ships to travel against the wind and currents. Moreover, the steamboat frightened away the fish, according to those familiar with the subject. A conclusion difficult to disprove.
But people did reach their destinations. Those who traveled often praised the steamboat. It was pure paradise compared to an open Nordland boat or a crowded cuddy on an outrigger.
The gentry traveled first class, in the men’s cabin with its ten bunks or the women’s cabin with five. Second class had an unsegre-gated cabin with twelve bunks. Third class was on the open deck, where passengers had to manage as best they could among the boxes and barrels and other freight.
But in good weather, the common people in third class also traveled like nobility. Ticket prices were high: twenty, ten, and five skilling per mile. But then, it took only one week to go from Trond-heim to Troms0 in the summer.
Trading centers fortunate enough to have steamboat service had flourished during the last years. Despite the fact that, in keeping with Nordland hospitality, innkeepers did not take money for food or lodging when the gentry went ashore.
It might seem surprising, then, that the inns made such great profits. But business in Nordland was a chess game.
The chessmen were always openly displayed. And one could think in peace and quiet while eating and drinking. But eventually one learned that one’s opponent also had playing pieces. Which attacked. Nordland hospitality could checkmate, if you were not careful.
One of the first things Jacob learned at Reinsnes was long-range planning. When the Prince Gustav arrived with business connections, Jacob was there with the patience of an angel and roast lamb that was pink near the bone. Deep wineglasses and good pipe tobacco. And generous portions of cloudberries brought from the cellar and served in elegant crystal bowls.
Jacob knew why he was grateful to the steamboat.
Dina had never seen such a vessel before her first week at Reinsnes.
She jumped out of bed the first time she heard the ship’s whistle. May sunshine filtered into the room, although the shades were drawn.
The strange, hoarse sound came simultaneously from the sea and the mountains.
She rushed to the window.
The dark object glided into the sound. Its red wheel foamed and roared. The vessel looked like a huge, odd cooking stove: nickel and copper stovepipes and cooking pots made in giant proportions and set adrift on the fjord.
The floating black stove appeared to be stoked for all it was worth. It boiled and seethed and surely might explode at any moment.
She flung the window wide open, without fastening the hatch. Leaned out her whole upper body, half naked. As if she were the only person on earth.
People outside could not help seeing the lightly clad young wife in the window. Her bare skin had an amazing effect on them, even from quite a distance.
Their imaginations acted like telescopes. Enlarged each pore and each small nuance of color. The distant figure came closer and closer. Finally, she plunged into the minds of those who saw her. They lost all interest in the steamboat.
Jacob was standing in the garden. He saw her too. Sensed her aroma. Amid sunshine and wind and the slow rustling of spring foliage. A provocative tingling, coupled with helpless wonder, took his breath away.
Niels and the store clerk had rowed out to meet the steamboat. Niels strictly prohibited boats from surrounding farms to “disturb the channel,” as he put it. He did not want any commotion other than what he caused himself.
So when the steamboat whistled at Reinsnes, there was less noise and festivity than elsewhere.
Jacob did not interfere with Niels’s discipline of the young people on neighboring farms and estates. Because he knew that Niels’s refusal to allow boats on the sound was precisely why people congregated at the Reinsnes wharves to see who arrived and what cargo was loaded. And this, in turn, meant profits and helping hands for the estate.
Today there was not much cargo to unload. Just some sugar sacks for the store and two bookcases for Mother Karen. Then a bewildered-looking man climbed down the ladder and stood in the rowboat as if it were a parlor floor. For a moment, the small craft rocked dangerously.
Then Niels made the man understand that he must sit down so they could get safely ashore with the sugar.
The visitor proved to be an ornithologist from London, who had been advised to stop at Reinsnes.
“The steamboat just deposits people at Reinsnes?” Dina asked in amazement.
Mother Karen had come to the bedroom to help Dina dress more quickly, so she could go downstairs and greet the guest.
“This house is also an inn, as Fm sure Jacob told you,” replied Mother Karen patiently.
“Jacob and I never talk about things like that,” said Dina lightly, fumbling with the buttons on her bodice.
Mother Karen went to help her. But Dina drew back, as if a flaming cudgel had been thrown at her.
“We need to talk about dividing the household duties,” said Mother Karen, ignoring the rejection.
“What duties?”
“Well, it depends on what you used to do at home.”
“I was in the stable with Tomas.”
“But indoors?”
“Dagny was there.”
After a slight pause, Mother Karen asked:
“Do you mean you haven’t learned to keep house?” She tried to hide her dismay.
“No. There were many others to do that.”
Mother Karen brushed her hand quickly across her forehead and moved toward the door.
“Then we’ll start with small things, my dear,” she said pleasantly.
“Like what?”
“Like playing music for the guests. It’s a great gift to be able to play an instrument…”
Dina walked quickly to the window again.
“Does the steamboat come often?” she asked, looking at the black smoke in the distance.
“No; every three weeks or so. It comes regularly from about May to October.”
“I want to travel on it!” said Dina.
“You must learn something about housekeeping and responsibility before you start traveling,” said Mother Karen, her voice not quite so gentle.
“I’ll do as I please!” said Dina, and shut the window.
Mother Karen stood in the open doorway.
Her pupils shriveled like lice in a flame.
Nobody spoke to Mother Karen like that. But she was a refined person. So she held her tongue.
> And as if fulfilling a compromise between the two women, Dina played the cello for the household and its guest after dinner.
Mother Karen said they planned to buy an English grand piano. Dina could develop her talents at Reinsnes just as well as at the sheriff’s estate.
Niels raised his head and commented that such instruments cost a fortune.
“So do outriggers and longboats,” she replied calmly, and turned to translate the remark to the Englishman.
The man gladly allowed himself to be impressed, both by the price of outriggers and by the music.
* * *
Johan strolled through the garden with his books strapped together, or he sat reading and dreaming in the summerhouse on warm days. He avoided Dina like the plague.
He had inherited Ingeborg’s narrow face. He also had her square chin and eyes that changed color according to the sky and sea. His hair was dark, like Jacob’s, and straight, like Ingeborg’s. Though still thin and ungainly, he showed good promise.
His head was the most important thing about him, Jacob liked to say with unconcealed pride.
Aside from wanting to be a pastor, the young man had no apparent ambitions. He did not share his father’s interest in women and boats. And heartily disliked having the house constantly filled with travelers who came and went and did nothing more beneficial than eating, smoking, and drinking. They had so little education and culture it would almost fit in a schoolbag!
Johan’s disdain for people — the way they behaved, and dressed, and moved —- was merciless and uncompromising.
To him, Dina became the symbol of a whore. He had read quite a bit about whores but never had any direct contact with them. Dina was a shameless female who made his father look ridiculous and disgraced his mother’s memory.
The first time he saw her was at the scandalous wedding. And afterward he could not meet people’s eyes without wondering whether they knew, or whether they remembered….
Dina's Book Page 8