An old officer in a blue coat with red lapels leaned against a town pump. His well-waxed mustache looked as if it had been painted on him. Dina walked up to him and touched him. Clearing his throat in embarrassment, Jacob took her arm and drew her away.
Farther on, a sign in a café window offered choice Madeira and Havana cigars. Beyond the curtains they saw a room with red plush sofas and tasseled lampshades.
Dina wanted to go in and smoke a cigar. Jacob followed. Sounding like a worried father, he made her understand that she could not smoke cigars in public!
“Someday I’ll come to Bergen and smoke cigars, I promise you!” she declared angrily, and took a large gulp of Madeira.
Jacob bought an elegant double-breasted blue wool jacket with velvet lapels, and checked trousers. He wore a hat as though it were an everyday occurrence.
He spent a long time at the barber’s and returned to their lodgings clean-shaven. He had good reasons for shaving his beard.
The hotelkeeper had asked if he wanted two single rooms: one for Mr, Gronelv and one for his daughter. Also, he remembered that almost a year ago Dina had observed he was turning gray. There was no need to have more gray hair than necessary.
Dina tried on hats and dresses with the same deep seriousness as when she had secretly tried on Hjertrud’s dresses before leaving Fagerness.
The Bergen outfits did wonders. Dina became older and Jacob became younger.
They were two vain finches who admired themselves in every shop window and mud puddle they passed.
Anders smiled good-naturedly at all their profligate talk about clothes.
Dina estimated and counted, added figures and divided. Served as a living calculator for Jacob and Anders as they decided sales and purchases. She attracted attention.
One evening Jacob was drunk and jealous. She had talked with a cultivated gentleman who treated her with respect because she played Beethoven on the piano at the inn.
When she and Jacob were alone, he hurled at her that if she did not pin up her hair she would always look like a whore.
She did not respond at first. But when he persisted, she kicked his shins so hard he moaned, and she said:
“It’s all just Jacob Gronelv’s selfishness! You can’t bear to have anyone see my long hair. God isn’t selfish like you. Or He would stop my hair from growing!”
“You flaunt yourself!” he accused her, rubbing his leg. “And what if I’d been a horse? Or an outrigger? Would I have the right to be seen then? Am I supposed to be invisible, like a ghost?” Jacob gave up.
Their last day in Bergen, they walked past a wooden fence that had many notices nailed to it.
Dina was a fly that discovered the scent of a sugar bowl.
A Wanted poster for a pickpocket. The man might be dangerous, it said. Small homemade signs advertised seamstress services or inspirational religious gatherings.
An elderly, well-to-do man wanted a housekeeper.
In the midst of it all was a large black-and-white announcement that a man was to be hanged for murdering his sweetheart.
The picture of the man was mud-splattered beyond recognition.
“That’s fortunate for the family,” Jacob commented soberly.
“Let’s go there!” said Dina.
“To the hanging?” asked Jacob in dismay.
“Yes!”
“But, Dina! They’re going to hang a man!”
“I know. That’s what the sign says.”
Jacob stared at her.
“It’s a horrible thing to see!”
“There’s no blood.”
“But he’s going to die.”
“Everyone’s going to die.”
“Dina, I don’t think you really understand…”
“Slaughtering is much worse!”
“Slaughtering is animals.”
“Anyway, I want to go.”
“It’s not for women. Besides, it’s dangerous…”
“Why?”
“The mob might decide to lynch wealthy women who come just out of curiosity. That’s the truth,” he added.
“We’ll rent a carriage. Then we can drive away in a hurry.”
“We won’t find a driver who’ll take us there to be entertained.”
“We’re not going there to be entertained,” said Dina angrily. “We’re going to see how it’s done.”
“You frighten me, Dina. What do you want to see at such a place?”
“The eyes! His eyes … When they put the rope around his neck …”
“My dear, dear Dina, you don’t mean that.”
Dinars gaze floated past him. As if he were not there. He took her arm and wanted to leave.
“How he reacts, that’s what I want to see!” she said firmly.
“Is that anything to watch, a poor man in all his misery … ?”
“That’s not misery!” she interrupted impatiently. “That’s the most important moment!”
She did not give up. Jacob realized she would go alone if he did not accompany her.
They hired a carriage and drove to the execution site the next morning at dawn. Contrary to Jacob’s expectations, the coachman was not the least unwilling. But he demanded a large sum for staying there during the hanging so they could drive away at the least sign from Jacob.
A steady influx of people gathered around the gallows. Bodies pressed against one another. Tightly. Anticipation filled the air like nauseating cod-liver-oil vapors.
Jacob shuddered and stole a look at Dina.
Her pale eyes stared at the dangling gallows noose. She pulled her fingers, cracking the joints. Her mouth was open. Her breath hissed between her teeth.
“Stop that,” Jacob ordered, placing his hand over her fingers.
She did not reply. But her hands grew quiet in her lap. Beads of sweat slowly appeared on her forehead and ran down the crevices by her nostrils. Two strong rivers.
There were no ordinary conversations. A constant mumbling filled the air. An anticipation. Which Jacob gratefully did not share.
He held Dina firmly when the man was driven on a cart to the spot beneath the gallows.
The doomed man did not have anything over his head. Was ragged, filthy, and unshaven. He clenched and unclenched his hands in the shackles.
He was the most down-and-out human being Jacob had ever seen.
His eyes stared wildly at the huge crowd. A priest arrived and said something to the poor fellow. Now and then someone spit at the cart and shouted abusive words. “Murderer!” was one of them.
At first the man tried to avoid the clumps of spit. But before long he seemed as if already dead. He stood passively as the hand and leg irons were removed and the noose was put around his neck.
Many people had pushed their way between the carriage where Dina and Jacob sat and the barrier in front of the gallows.
Dina stood up. Clung to the top of the carióle and leaned over the heads of the spectators below.
Jacob could not see her eyes. Had no contact with her. He rose to catch her if she fell.
But Dina did not fall.
The hangman’s horse received a flick of the whip on its flank. The man dangled in the air. Jacob put his arms around Dina. The murderer’s twitching was powerfully transmitted into her body.
Then it was over.
She did not say a word as they drove to the harbor. Just sat quietly. As erect as a general.
Jacob’s scarf was wet with perspiration. He forced his homeless hands into his lap and wondered which was worse. The execution? Or Dina’s desire to” watch it?
“He was pretty calm, that fellow,” commented the driver.
“Yes,” said Jacob dully.
Dina stared blankly into space, as if holding her breath. Then she gave a loud, deep sigh. She seemed to have finished a huge task that had weighed upon her for a long time.
Jacob felt ill. He kept an eye on Dina the rest of the day. Tried to talk with her. But she just smiled with a strange friendlines
s and turned away.
The second morning at sea, Dina awakened Jacob, and said:
“He had green eyes that looked at me!”
He held her close then. Rocked her, as if she were a child who had never been taught to cry.
On the voyage north they stopped to see Jacob’s friends at the old Tjotta manor. It was like arriving at a king’s palace. Because of its elegance, and because of the royal reception they received.
Jacob worried about how Dina might behave. At the same time, he was like a man displaying his rare hunting falcon. People would just have to accept that she reacted if you did not handle her carefully.
Dina did not seem particularly impressed that they were staying at an estate that had housed chief magistrates and members of the Royal Council and that, at its height of prosperity, had been as large as two or three parishes combined. She uttered no polite exclamations about the splendid rooms. Did not remark on the manor house itself, which was two stories high and sixty-eight feet long.
But she stopped each time they passed the remarkable old bautas at the entrance to the main courtyard. Showed almost respect for the tall, rough-hewn stone monuments and wanted to hear stories about them. She ran outside without shoes to watch as the evening light fell on them.
On their first night at Tjotta, conversation was lively above the punsj glasses. The drawing room was crowded with young and old. Stories flew back and forth across the tables.
The host told how Nordland had once fallen into the hands of a powerful seventeenth-century Dane, Jochum Jürgen, or Irgens, as he was also called.
This royal property administrator in Jutland became chamberlain in King Christian IVs court. He was extremely cunning and sold endless quantities of Rhine wine and pearls to the royal household. But the treasury did not have money to pay for it all. So the king gave him all the royal property in Helgeland, Salten, Lofoten, Ves-terálen, Andenes, Senja, and Troms — according to the deed of January 12, 1666. To settle a debt of 1440 vag.
This was more than half the land in North Norway. In addition, Irgens received Bod0gard manor and the Steigen estate, as well as the king’s share of the entire region’s tithe.
Dina found this story so shocking that she wanted Jacob to prepare his cabin boat immediately and take her through the district that had paid for the Rhine wine and pearls.
She also devised arithmetic problems for the young girls on the estate. How many flasks or small wine barrels would Irgens’s property have been worth? How many large barrels?
But since no one could tell her the exact price of either pearls or Rhine wine in the 1660s, she could not figure the answers to these problems.
Jacob would have preferred to leave on the second day. But their host urged him to remain two more nights, as was customary.
Dina and Anders wanted to stay, so he agreed. Although the mate, Anton, was of the same mind as he.
During the whole trip, Jacob had been on guard about Dina’s behavior. This had begun to take its toll on him. The nightly exercises were demanding too.
It was a welcome relief when Dina and the young daughters at Tjotta spent two nights watching for a ghost.
The ghost usually appeared at night. Dina heard forewarnings. Several people on the estate had seen it. They talked as though this were an ordinary visit from a neighbor.
But Dina’s eyes clouded, and her forehead wrinkled as if she had been given a difficult piece of music to play.
The second night, a little child floated through the main parlor and disappeared behind an old clock. The Tjotta daughters agreed. They had all seen the child. Again, Dina was silent. So silent it was almost rude.
Jacob felt glad the visit was ended but did not show it outwardly. They had slept three nights at Tjotta.
On the homeward voyage, Jacob remarked that the belief in ghosts at Tjotta was very strange.
Dina turned away, stared out to sea, and did not reply.
“What did it look like?” he asked.
“Like most lost children.”
“And how do they look?” he asked impatiently.
“You should know.”
“Why should I know that?”
“You’ve had several in your house!”
She was a hissing cat about to attack. The change so alarmed him that he said no more.
Jacob told Mother Karen about Dina”s reaction to the alleged ghosts at Tjotta. But he did not say he had taken her to see a hanging in Bergen.
Mother Karen had her own thoughts, which she did not voice to Jacob. She realized the girl was wiser than she appeared.
“You’ve had several in your house” was a remark Jacob should have taken seriously, without anyone having to tell him.
Jacob admitted to Mother Karen that he was more tired than usual after this trip.
She did not say it was because he had taken Dina along. In fact, she never made wise remarks in hindsight.
Besides, Mother Karen had concluded that Dina”s trip to Bergen that summer had done much good.
The tall girl had a different bearing now. It seemed she had discovered, for the first time, that the world was larger than what the eye could see from the sheriff’s estate or from Reinsnes.
Her face had changed too. Mother Karen could not say exactly how. Something about her eyes …
Mother Karen usually understood more than she expressed aloud. And she did not repeat to Jacob what she had said when he announced elatedly that fifteen-year-old Dina Holm would be the mistress of Reinsnes.
She just put her hand lightly on her son’s shoulder and sighed sympathetically. And she saw that new clothes and a good haircut could not hide how much grayer Jacob’s hair had become and that his incipient potbelly had shrunk.
His vest fit as if it belonged to someone else. There were deep wrinkles in his forehead and dark shadows under his eyes. Nonetheless, he was extremely handsome.
Resigned weariness seemed to suit him better than the arrogant manner he had had when Dina first came to Reinsnes.
Calm, heavy movements. The way he drew himself erect. The tall, agile figure so utterly lacking the ponderous bulk that wealthy men his age should have.
Mother Karen saw it all From her perspective.
Oline moved to and fro in the kitchen. She saw the changes too. Was not sure if she liked this new Jacob, who bore the mark of such heavy responsibility. She did not particularly like Dina either. Oline wished everything had remained as before. Especially Jacob.
Dina wanted to sail the cabin boat throughout Nordland to see what Christian IV had given for some paltry pearls and firkins of Rhine wine.
She could not understand that it was impossible at this time of year.
Jacob said it gently but firmly: No!
He bore her fury like a calm father. And accepted her punishment. It meant he had to sleep in the alcove off the master bedroom, alone.
To be honest, his constant vigilance on the Bergen trip had so exhausted him that he slept soundly on the uncomfortable chaise lounge in the alcove. Secure in his conviction that the storm would clear and everything would turn out for the best. As long as he had health and vigor.
Chapter 8
For a harlot is a deep pit;
an adventuress is a narrow well.
She lies in wait like a robber
and increases the faithless among men.
— Proverbs 23 : 27-28
The new marriage, which began with the sight of two strong thighs embracing the body of a cello and continued with the dramatic rescue of a bride in a tree, lost its glow with a trip to Bergen.
Jacob was always tired. He seemed to have a constant need to be in Dina’s world. Never to lose her from sight or let her give too much to others.
He was not aware enough to call it jealousy. Simply knew that tragedy lurked around the corner if he left Dina for too long.
Something always stole her from him! Ghosts at Tjotta. Painters or musicians. Even a crew member, whom they hired out of kindness bec
ause he did not have money for the steamboat, became an impossible, degrading threat.
Dina had played cards and even smoked a pipe with that bearded, unkempt young fellow!
Jacob had a vague sense that his final love would cost him more than he had initially anticipated. Not least, his rest at night.
He even had to forgo his trips along the channel to carouse with blood brothers of his youth. Could not leave Dina and could not take her with him. Her mere presence was disturbing where men were concerned.
She could be as crude as the worst riffraff in the servants” quarters on Midsummer’s Eve, and as complicated as a judge.
Her femininity was not even worth mentioning, because it had nothing to do with usual, proper behavior. She moved her large, firm body like a young general. Whether sitting or riding.
The mingled aromas of stable and rosewater she exuded, and her air of disinterested coolness, made men swarm around her like flies.
Jacob got enough of that on the Bergen trip. It made him sweat profusely and get terrible headaches.
And then there was the music….
For Jacob, it was erotically exciting to watch Dina play, and he grew furiously jealous at the thought of anyone else seeing her with the cello between her thighs.
He went so far as to demand that she keep both legs on the same side of the instrument. That would be less offensive to observers.
Dina’s laughter was rare, if not nonexistent. But it rang through the whole house when Jacob — his face as red as a Siberian poppy in August — demonstrated how she should sit. They heard her as far away as the warehouses and the store.
Then she seduced him, in bright daylight, behind an unlocked door.
Sometimes Jacob tortured himself with the thought that she had not been completely innocent the first time. That her utter lack of shyness, her trembling abandon and methodical examination of his hairy body, bore more resemblance to his experiences with professionals than to the behavior of a sixteen-year-old.
The thought tortured him even in his dreams. He tried to question her, letting his words drop casually….
Dina's Book Page 10