The earth clutched the deep frost. The rain would not come and end the longest winter in anyone’s memory.
Hjertrud did not appear all spring. Dina paced back and forth in the warehouses. For hours. Until the cold crept under her wolfskin coat and caught her feet in an icy grasp. They turned numb and wanted to go their own way, inside to the stove.
Spring was harder than the winter had been, for people and animals. One even heard prayers for mild weather from the pulpit, and pleas for rain and melting snow were added to the sermons read at home.
Rarely had prayers been so sincere and well formulated and contained so few barbs against one’s neighbor.
Summer arrived in mid-June. Suddenly, a hot sun blazed on every living thing. The birch tree stood with its erect trunk half hidden in snow. New leaves formed an immodest veil over the slender branches.
The snowbanks in the mountains rocked gently at first, the night the southwest wind came. Then they let go. One after the other, they swayed and shook loose. And joined the great, exuberant rush down the mountainside. Everything happened so fast, so fast.
Then came the melting snow and the floods. Water covered the fields, rushed through the gorge. Took with it the road through the mountain pass and thundered the same route that Jacob had taken with the sleigh.
Then everything abated. Little by little. The late spring planting sprouted apprehensively.
People and animals emerged from the buildings. Reassuring summer sounds dared to prevail The days were finally sated with sun and tar and the scent of lilacs. Late, but extraordinarily good.
I am Dina, The sounds drift in to me like distant shouts or annoying whispers. Or a thundering din that devours my eardrums.
I stand at the dining room window and see Benjamin playing with a ball in the garden. I am drawn into Hjertrud’s realm. Like a whirlwind.
Cannot resist.
It is Lord’s face! So large it fills the entire window, as far as the fjord stretches, and even farther. Benjamin is a tiny shadow in the pupil of Lorch’s eye, whirling very fast.
Lorch is afraid! I let him come inside. It is the seventh of July.
While the late lilacs were still blooming, a letter arrived from Copenhagen. Addressed to Dina at the sheriff’s estate. In neat, slanted handwriting.
The sheriff sent a farmhand to deliver it. It was short. As though each sentence were chiseled into a mountain with great difficulty:
Dearest Dina!
I lie ill in the royal city. Will finally die. My lungs are eaten away. I have nothing to leave behind. Except good wishes for you. Each day I regret leaving Eagerness.
Have neither health nor means to return. But the cello is alive. Dina, will you ship it home? Do it carefully! It is a noble instrument.
Your Lorch
Dina paced and paced. In all three warehouses, one after another. On every floor.
She paid no attention to Hjertrud the whole day. Jacob was merely a curl of dust.
She howled softly to herself. Her shoes chopped the hours to pieces. The daylight was unending. Shone through the small leaded windows and across the floor.
She entered the realm of the dead. In and out of the cones of light. It was a nightmare, and a beautiful dream.
Then at last, Lorch leaned against her forehead.
* * *
Afterward, she always met Lorch when she needed to find peace.
In death, as in life, he was shy and awkward.
Each year during lilac season, he wandered the garden paths, which were newly strewn with crushed shells. Among flower beds edged with pebbles. The sea had ground and formed them, licked them and left them behind.
Lorch was there. She had brought them to Reinsnes, all of them. Including Lorch. He belonged to her. The discovery was a loud boom from the ocean. The melancholy notes of a cello. Deep bass tones from taluses and mountains. It was uninhibited desire and necessity.
Chapter 9
Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted…. The governor again said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.”
— Matthew 27 : 15, 21
The passenger list in the Troms0 Stiftstidende said the Prince Gustav sailed from Trondheim carrying theology graduate Johan Gronelv in first class.
Mother Karen was beside herself with joy and wiped happy tears from her eyes. Few letters had arrived recently. But they knew he had taken his final examinations at last.
He had not been home during all these years. But he wrote to Mother Karen that he was returning to Reinsnes to think simple, sensible thoughts and to get rested, after years of keeping his nose in the books.
If the thought of Johan’s return made Dina uneasy, she hid it well.
In his last letter the young theologian mentioned in passing that, with great misgivings and an admitted lack of modesty, he had applied for a parish in the Helgeland region. But he did not mention the specific place.
Dina thought he should seek a parish in the south. They were wealthier, she added, looking Mother Karen straight in the eye.
But Mother Karen was not concerned about rich parishes. She tried to remember what he looked like, how he acted the last time she had seen him. But her thoughts became paralyzed. Jacob’s death was so much greater. She sighed and paged through Johan’s letters. Thoroughly prepared herself to welcome him as he was now. A grown man and a theologian.
* * *
I am Dina, who knows a boy with frightened eyes. He has “Duty” written on his forehead. He does not look like Jacob. He has salt water in his unruly dark hair, and thin wrists. I like his chin. It is cleft and knows nothing about
the duty on the forehead. When he comes, he will wear a stranger’s unfamiliar face to hide himself from me.
Mother Karen and Oline planned an elaborate homecoming. The pastor’s family would be invited. The sheriff’s family. All the important people!
They would slaughter a calf and serve a good Madeira. They polished the silver. Washed the tablecloths and stoneware.
Oline happily gave orders and laid plans. Jacob’s son would be welcomed like a king!
She took Benjamin in hand and taught him how to bow politely to his older brother.
“Like this!” she told him, clicking her heels together like a general
And Benjamin mimicked her, very seriously and precisely.
Mother Karen supervised preparation of Johan’s room, the south dormer room that she had vacated earlier. There was not time for all the improvements she wanted to make.
But she insisted, despite Dina’s furrowed brow, that the two gold leather chairs in the master bedroom must go into Johan’s room. And the mahogany bookcase with ivory rosettes on the door handles would be moved from her room to the young theologian’s.
Several young men, with Tomas at the fore, strained under the heavy furniture while Mother Karen sat on a chair in the hall, cheerfully giving orders.
Her presence acted as a gentle whiplash on the panting, perspiring men.
“Careful now, dear Tomas! No, no, keep an eye on the wainscoting! Turn slowly there! Watch that the glass doors don’t slide open!”
But at last everything was done according to her instructions, and Dina helped her climb the stairs so she could inspect the room.
Either her age was playing a trick on her, or else the room had shrunk, both in length and in width, she said.
Dina bluntly replied that such elegant furniture as Mother Karen deemed fitting for a pastor did not fit in the south dormer room at Reinsnes. They would have to enlarge the house.
Mother Karen held back her words and sat down on a chair near the door. Then she said quietly:
“He should have been given the master bedroom….”
Dina did not answer. She put her hands on her hips, looked around the room, and thought for awhile.
“We’ll give him the desk from the master bedroom and the chair th
at goes with it. They match the bookcase. And we’ll move these big chairs back where they were before….”
Mother Karen’s eyes looked helplessly from wall to wall
“The room is obviously too small …”
“He won’t be in this room all the time. He’s going to live in the whole house, isn’t he, Mother Karen? He needs a bookcase, a chair, a desk, and a bed. When he wants to be alone, I mean.”
Things were done as Dina had said. But Mother Karen knew that a theology graduate should be given the master bedroom when he came home.
Rain came from the southwest.
The four larch trees, with the old dovecote in their midst, stood with their soft clusters of branches horizontal to the wind.
Ingeborg’s rosebushes suffered terrible punishment near the walls and around the summerhouse. And Mother Karen’s great pride, the lily bed, looked as though someone had soaked it in lye for hours.
Oline had slammed the oven door three times. She was a veritable Doomsday of brimstone and beseeching, weeping and wailing.
The maids ran back and forth and forgot from minute to minute what they were supposed do. For when Oline occasionally went crazy, it was always worse than the last time.
Anders stopped briefly in the kitchen for some coffee, after supervising the men who were securing the boats at the wharf.
When he saw how bad things were, he remarked good-naturedly:
“Someday Oline will get so angry she’ll split right in two. But that won’t matter, because there’s plenty of her on both sides!”
“Yes, but only one foot and one hand on each side to serve you. Get out of here, my fine fellow!” she retorted, kicking her wooden shoe at him.
But he got his coffee. That was the law. Two loads of birch twigs were the payment.
* * *
The men had secured the boats and were lashing down everything on the wharf.
A tattered flag still hung on the flagpole. Most of the blue part was gone. It looked as though someone had disdainfully raised a pirate flag.
The worst thing was the rain. It was so heavy, and its constant racket on the roof and in the gutters wore on Mother’s Karen’s nerves.
A leak was discovered in the servants’ quarters. Maids and farmhands ran with tubs and buckets to save the bedding and chests.
Tomas rushed to the roof. Tried to fasten new slates over the sorry mess, but soon had to give up.
Out in the sound, the Prince Gustav had maneuvered with difficulty for hours, without getting much closer to shore.
People peered toward the steamboat in the midst of all their duties. Was it making headway now? Yes, indeed, it seemed to be doing a little better.
They discussed whether they should take down the tattered flag. It was the only one they owned. Mother Karen said absolutely not! If the weather took half the flag, they could not help that. But a naked flagpole was an insult.
Niels wanted to send Tomas inland to borrow a flag from a tenant farmer.
But Dina said no. Before Tomas returned, Johan would be inside the house and nobody would need a flag.
Twice, Benjamin had run outside to look for the steamboat without wearing a raincoat and had needed a complete change of clothes.
The second time, Oline shouted through the house that the youngster was completely wild and Stine should take better care of him.
But Benjamin shouted back in a loud, cheerful voice:
“No, Oline. Benjamin’s a heathen!”
Hanna nodded gravely as she helped him with his many buttons. Their love was unassailable. Hanna trudged after him wherever he led. If he fell in the stream, Hanna fell in the stream. If he scraped his knee, Hanna cried. If Oline thought Benjamin was a heathen, then she cried loud and furiously until Oline had to grant that Hanna was an equally good heathen.
* * *
Cello music poured through the doors and windows and cracks. Mingled with the gusts of wind.
The rain was a water harp that played its own melody.
Dina sat in the midst of it, while the household turned topsyturvy and the whole estate was as agitated as cream in a churn. She was not involved in the commotion. The chaos did not seem to disturb her.
Intense feelings were necessary now and then. When the steamboat anchored, they would call her. Tramp down the stairs, crunch on the coarse gravel, clatter in the kitchen and pantry, and slam doors.
Then the house would be completely quiet while they greeted Jacob’s son on the beach. Even if the ship’s whistle and the welcoming shouts of “Hurrah!” were only distant sounds riding on the storm, she would still hear them clearly enough.
It appeared she wanted to wait until that point. And then walk down the broad tree-lined path to wave a welcome. Away from all the people. Perhaps she wanted to meet him alone in order to see who he was.
But nothing happened the way they expected, even though they had accepted both the storm and the delays.
The Prince Gustav had sounded the familiar whistle blast and was ready to continue its voyage. Anders and Niels had rowed out to get the returning son themselves. As their boat neared shore, a young farmhand waded out to meet it, grasped the bow, and towed it in among the rocks.
The rain had stopped. Dina stood at the front door, looking down the path.
From behind his trunks, Johan smilingly raised his hat to the people clinging to each other among the rocks and warehouses. Beside him stood a tall, dark-haired man in leather clothing.
On the beach, the kerchiefs, shawls, and fluttering skirts strained toward the northeast. In the furious sky overhead, clouds rushed by at a dizzying pace.
Then the lightning struck. Flames. Large, red, and vicious.
“The haybarn’s on fire!” screamed the farmhand.
In the resulting chaos, nobody knew what to do.
Theologian or no theologian, Prince Gustav or no Prince Gustav — it did not matter!
People rushed to the barn. An irresolute knot of arms and legs.
Tomas was on the roof with a raised axe immediately. Black with soot, he furiously chopped loose the burning timber. And threw it to the ground with a shower of sparks. Nobody knew where he got the strength and resourcefulness. Nobody had told him what to do.
Suddenly Dina was in the midst of the crowd, giving quick orders.
“Anders: The animals! The horses first! Niels: Wet sails on the hay! Evert: Find more axes! Gudmund: Open the fence! Girls: Each find a bucket!”
The orders snapped through the wind and the crackling fire. She stood with her legs apart, her hair a black tangle.
Six breadths wide, her blue muslin skirt was a sail that pressed her body against the wind.
Dina’s eyes were cold and concentrated. They never left Tomas, as if her gaze alone could hold him upright.
She spoke with the voice of a raven. Dark and aggressive.
Later several men climbed the ladder that Tomas had leaned against the barn and helped him.
The rain, which had raged like an epidemic over land and sea the past day, had disappeared now. But the wind was treacherous.
They constantly had to run with wet sails and sacks to smother flames where sparks had found something dry and begun devouring it.
Several times, burning beams and boards crashed into the tinder-dry haymow and threatened to ignite the entire mound.
“Anders! Watch inside the haymow! Get wet sails!” shrieked Dina.
People rapidly gathered where they could be most useful. They brought the buckets that had collected water from the leaking roof in the servants’ quarters that morning. More buckets arrived from the kitchen and cellar.
It was fortunate that everything outside was so wet. The grass and the outer walls of the barn were completely soaked. Repelled the sparks with spitting and sputtering.
“Our Lord doesn’t seem to be guarding the roofs very well today,” Anders panted, as he passed Dina, carrying a roll of wet sail on his shoulder. But she paid no attention.
T
he Prince Gustav quickly dropped anchor and lowered small boats into the sea. Soon the crew and male passengers were streaming up the main path to help fight the fire.
The barn stood some distance from the beach. Beyond the main cluster of farm buildings. It was a long way to carry seawater for fighting the flames.
Some men ran to the well between the barn and the main courtyard. But that went slowly, only one bucket at a time, and did not help much.
They formed a relay line, both men and women. From the beach to the barn. They were too few to make a tight chain, so each person had to run several meters to the next link.
But soon the buckets flew from hand to hand through the fields to the hay barn.
The sailors were a good help. Coarse shouts were heard. Curses and cries of “Bravo!”
Both the captain and the first mate were among the firefighters. Tearing off their pea coats and throwing down their caps, they joined the undulating mass along with others from the ship.
The machinist was British and spoke in a booming voice, although nobody understood much of his gibberish. But he had a neck and shoulders like a walrus and was used to working hard.
Three men worked with Tomas. They had a rope around their waists and moved across the roof like a strange wave, at the mercy of the shifting winds and their own ability to stay on their feet. Two chopped with axes, two managed the water buckets.
The axes proved to be the most useful. Soon a quarter of the roof toward the east had been cut away and lay smoldering on the ground.
Eventually the wind reached the hay that was under the undamaged part of the roof and not protected with wet sails.
Suddenly the hay began to rise in a funnel shape, as if touched by a magic wand. A constant movement where each and every straw seemed to have received a message simultaneously. Up from the roofless barn, straight into the air. It made a slight curve above the people in the barnyard and fitfully continued south across the fields toward the sea.
“Niels! The hay! More sails!”
Dina’s orders carried so well against the wind that the captain raised his head for a moment in amazement.
Dina's Book Page 20