Dina's Book

by Herbjorg Wassmo

  Niels had found a crack between the beam and the ceiling. Must have poked and prodded to get the rope through, because the crack was very narrow.

  Then he had hanged himself.

  He had not bothered to leave the warm cottage to do as people usually did in such weather. Hang themselves in the boathouse. Where it was easy to find beams with enough space.

  In his final moments he had chosen to be near the warm stove. It was too lonely and high under the boathouse roof. A generous arch, with room for as many bodies as necessary.

  So Niels hung himself near the stove. From a ceiling that was so low a full-grown man could barely dangle from it.

  He was not a frightening sight as he hung there, despite the circumstances. Neither his eyes nor his tongue was distended. But his color was not good.

  His head did not have much contact with the rest of the man. His chin pointed toward the floor. He swayed gently from side to side. Must have swayed a long time.

  Tomas Had burst in through the door, his heart thumping like a steam engine.

  The old building began to be filled with movement, and Niels swayed with it. His dark hair drooped on his forehead. As if he had drunk too many glasses of liqueur. His eyes were closed. His arms hung straight down, slightly irresolute.

  Now, for the first time, he revealed who he was. A very lonely store clerk, with many invisible dreams. Who had finally made a decision.

  Niels lay on a wooden shutter on the dining room table until they could arrange a fine coffin.

  Anders was in Lofoten. But they had already sent word to him.

  Johan kept vigil over the corpse with Stine. Tended the wax candles all night long.

  Stine threw herself onto Niels’s body again and again. Paid no attention to anyone in the room. Not even when Mother Karen hobbled in and laid a thin hand on her shoulder and wept. Or when, at regular intervals, Johan read passages from the Bible.

  Stine had turned her dark, eider-duck eyes toward the sea. Her cheeks were less golden than usual. She did not share her thoughts with anyone. The few words she said, on the day they cut down Hanna’s father, were to Johan:

  “You and I were closest to him and should wash him.”

  Dina looked reflectively at Niels’s face when she entered the room, almost as if appraising an animal she had just decided not to buy. But it was not an unwilling gaze.

  People from the estate had gathered. Their faces showed helplessness and disbelief, along with genuine horror and a drop of conscience.

  Dina nodded mutely to Niels’s last thoughts, which still rushed around the room futilely. In that nod was recognition at last.

  Johan needed all his wisdom to convince Mother Karen that Niels should be buried in hallowed ground. Despite the sin he had committed before God and humanity.

  “If they won’t accept Niels at the churchyard, then we’ll bury him in the garden,” said Dina brusquely.

  Johan shuddered at such words, while Mother Karen wept silently and sincerely.

  Niels was buried in hallowed ground for several reasons. First, it took six weeks before one could even think about a burial, no matter whether the ground belonged to God or to humanity. Because the parish was hit by the worst freeze in memory. The earth was like granite everywhere.

  Secondly, the official story was that Niels just died. The conversations Johan and the pastor had, with each other and with God, were very useful in the matter.

  Moreover, the worst talk had subsided by the time a grave could be dug. Niels got what space he needed behind the church. In silence.

  Everyone knew he had hanged himself from a narrow crack in the cottage at Reinsnes. With a brand-new hemp rope that Anders had gotten from Russia, or Trondheim, or wherever it might have been. But they also knew that the people of Reinsnes had their methods and their might.

  Stine began to say to Hanna: “It was three weeks before your father died …” Or: “It was the winter after your father died.”

  When Niels was alive, she had never mentioned who Hanna’s father was, but now she took every opportunity to emphasize it. This had an amazing effect.

  Before long, everyone accepted that, unfortunately, Hanna’s father had died and Stine was a woman with a fatherless child.

  In death, Niels restored her honor as he could not do in life.

  Dina dropped a few words. People on the estate heard them and put the words together to form the truth:

  Niels had changed his mind at the end. He had given Dina some money he had saved and asked her to deposit it in the bank as an annuity for Hanna. The news spread faster than a grass fire in May. Once the Lofoten fishing boats returned, everyone in the parish had heard it.

  People realized Niels was actually not so bad. He could have his place with the Lord, despite having taken things into his own hands.

  * * *

  The cargo boat returned from the Lofoten Islands with good profits. But Anders was gray and drawn.

  He went straight to Dina’s room and wanted to hear how it had happened.

  “He couldn’t just do such a thing. Dina”’

  “Yes, he could,” said Dina.

  “But why? What could I have done for him?”

  He put his arms around Dina and hid his face against her. They stood this way a long time. That had never happened before.

  “I think he had to do it,” said Dina darkly.

  “Nobody has to do a thing like that!”

  He created a flowing stream between their faces.

  “Some do!” said Dina.

  She clasped his head. Looked long into his eyes.

  “I should have …,” he began.

  “Hush! He should have! Everyone needs to take responsibility for his own life!”

  “You’re hard, Dina.”

  “Some people need to hang themselves, and some need to be hard,” she replied, as she pulled herself away.

  Chapter 3

  A liberal man will be enriched,

  and one who waters will himself be watered,

  — Proverbs 11:25

  Mother Karen had a special book in her bookcase. Written by a public official in Drammen, Gustav Peter Blom, who bore the venerable title of Chief Land Tax Commissioner. He described a trip through Nordland and offered instructive information about Nordlanders in general and Lapps in particular.

  “Lapps never feel pain or loss/’ and “Nordlanders are superstitious, probably due to their dependence on the powers of nature,” he asserted.

  Mother Karen did not understand what was superstitious about people who placed their fate in God’s hands and who trusted nature more than the false promises of human beings. But she had no opportunity to discuss the matter, so she accepted it for what it was.

  According to Mr. Blom, few creatures there near the North Pole were cultured or enlightened. And he was very dissatisfied with the Lapps” appearance.

  He had not seen Stine of Reinsnes, mused Mother Karen. But she kept the thought to herself. And just laid the book lengthwise behind the others. In case Stine ever did the dusting.

  For Mother Karen had traveled the world with her husband. To the Mediterranean, to Paris and Bremen. She knew that people stand naked before God with their new sins, no matter what their lineage.

  Mother Karen had taken it upon herself to teach Stine to read and write when it became evident that the young woman could do neither. But she learned quickly. It was as if she put a glass to her lips and drank knowledge.

  Mother Karen had also waged war with Oline. And, after a long siege, made her see that Stine had a natural talent for running a large house.

  In the end, Stine, like Oline and Tomas, held an indispensable position at Reinsnes, for which she was respected.

  But beyond the estate, she was the Lapp girl whom Dina had befriended. The fact that Dina let her stand at the font when Benjamin was baptized could not change the general opinion about Lapp girls.

  People now said that Niels had died because Stine had cast a spe
ll on him. And while animals and skillings multiplied at Reinsnes, the mistress who had banished Stine from Tjeldsund died. It was the Lapp servant’s revenge for the treatment she had received.

  Stine seldom went far from Reinsnes. Her sinewy body moved from room to room with silent energy.

  It seemed as though she was so filled with grief that she had to work constantly in order that her body would have no chance to break down.

  Her Lapp heritage had settled in her muscles. And her calm, gliding movements affected the young girls she trained.

  She seldom revealed what she was thinking. Her face and eyes darkly radiated the message: I tolerate being in the same room as you, but I have nothing to say to you.

  Her high cheekbones and musical speech clearly bespoke her ancestry. They held mountain plateaus and the rhythm of rivers.

  She no longer wore leather jackets in the summer and a fur jacket in the winter. But from her belt still dangled a knife and scissors in tanned leather sheaths and a brass needle box and brass rings, just as on the day she arrived at Reinsnes to nurse Benjamin.

  One day Dina asked Stine about her origins. She told her brief story. Her ancestors were Swedish Lapps who had lost all their reindeer in an avalanche. For years, they roamed Swedish Lappland. Herded wild reindeer, hunted, and fished.

  But then rumors began about her father and grandfather. It was said they stole reindeer from other herds.

  The whole family had to flee south.

  Eventually they settled down in a turf hut in Skänland, procured boats, and began earning their livelihood by fishing. But Lapps without reindeer, who had become small fishermen, felt no self-respect.

  In Swedish eyes, they were just poor “field Lapps” and were not even counted in the census.

  At the age of twelve, Stine had to leave home and begin earning her own keep. She tended the barn on a farm in Tjeldsund. But that ended when she gave birth to a dead child one day. They could not accuse her of infanticide. There was just talk of sinful fornication.

  The master defended hen But the mistress could not bear the sight of the Lapp girl She had to leave the farm. With her breasts bursting with milk and bloody cloths between her thighs.

  “Women often tear people into tiny shreds that they scatter to the wind. Then they go to church!” Dina commented.

  “Where did you hear that?” Stine asked hesitantly.

  “From the sheriff.”

  “Nobody at Reinsnes acts like that,” observed Stine.

  “No, but the men here aren’t sheriffs either.”

  “Was your mother like that?”

  “No!” said Dina, and left the room quickly.

  Each season had its specific rituals for Stine. Weaving birch baskets, making doilies, gathering herbs for medicine and yarn dyes. Her small bedroom smelled of insects and wool and children’s healthy bodies.

  She had her own shelves in the pantry. Where her decoctions would cool Or the dregs settle before the liquid was poured into bottles. To be ready when needed.

  After Niels was cut down from the cottage ceiling, she became just two hardworking hands. For a long time.

  One evening Dina sent for her. Late, after the others had gone to bed, Stine knocked on Dina’s door and handed her a map of America.

  “I should have brought you his map long ago, but I didn’t,” she said.

  Dina unfolded it on the bed, bent over, and examined it carefully.

  “I didn’t know you had Niels’s map. That’s not what I wanted to talk about…. Were you going with him?”

  “No!” said Stine harshly.

  “Then why do you have the map?”

  “1 took it. He couldn’t leave without a map!”

  Dina straightened up and held Stine’s gaze.

  “You didn’t want him to leave?”

  “No.”

  “Why did you want him here?”

  “For Hanna’s sake …,” she whispered.

  “But if he’d asked you, would you have gone to America with him?”

  The room grew silent. Sounds from the rest of the house settled on them like a loose lid on a tin pail. They sat inside the pail. Shut in with each other. And themselves.

  Stine began to realize that this conversation was more than just questions.

  “No,” she finally answered.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I want to stay at Reinsnes.”

  “But you could have had a good life.”

  “No.”

  “Do you think that’s why things happened the way they did?” asked Dina.

  “No …”

  “Why do you think he did it? Why did he hang himself?”

  “I don’t know…. That’s why I brought you the map.”

  “I know why he did it, Stine. And it had nothing to do with you!”

  “People say I put a spell on him and made him die.”

  “People talk with their rear end,” snarled Dina.

  “It could be … that people are right.”

  “No!”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “There were other reasons, which only I know. He couldn’t stay here.”

  “Was it because he wanted you?” Stine asked suddenly.

  “He wanted Reinsnes. That was the only thing we had in common.”

  Their eyes met. Dina nodded.

  “Can you cast spells, Stine?”

  “I don’t know …,” she replied, barely audibly.

  “Then maybe there are several of us,” said Dina. “But people will have to watch out for themselves, won’t they?”

  Stine stared.

  “Do you mean that?”

  “Yes!”

  “You understand there may be powers … ?”

  “There are powers! How would we have managed otherwise?”

  “I’m afraid of them.”

  “Afraid? Why?”

  “Because it’s … the devil…”

  “The devil doesn’t bother much with small things. Ask Mother Karen.”

  “It’s not a small thing that Niels hanged himself.”

  “Do you care about Niels?” asked Dina.

  “I don’t know.”

  “One doesn’t stop caring about people, even if they hang themselves.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “I think if you care about Niels it can save him from everything and from himself. Then he didn’t hang himself in vain.”

  “You really believe that?”

  “Yes. And Niels did one thing at least. That’s why I sent for you. He deposited a small annuity in the bank for Hanna. You’re her guardian. There’s about enough for a trip to America.”

  “Good Lord,” murmured Stine, studying her checked apron. “I’ve heard people talk about that, but I thought it was just lies, like everything they say about me.”

  “What should I do with the money?” she asked in a whisper.

  “The two of you won’t have to beg for anything, even if the devil should move to Reinsnes,” Dina said emphatically.

  “The devil has never been at Reinsnes,” replied Stine gravely. Then, retreating into herself again, she calmly rose to leave.

  “He must have thought about Hanna … before he did it.”

  “I’m sure he thought about you too.”

  “He shouldn’t have done it!” Stine declared with unexpected force.

  “Given you money?”

  “No; hanged himself.”

  “Maybe that was the only way he could give anything to the two of you,” Dina said dryly.

  The other woman swallowed. Then she brightened. The large door with its venerable rococo panels and heavy brass knob was closed carefully between them.

  Mother Karen called it the “spring marvel.”

  It had occurred every year since the first spring after Stine stopped nursing. And it all began when Stine saw the legion of eider ducks that nested on the islands and skerries in the channel. Then she heard that gathering eiderdown had been a p
rofitable source of income in the past.

  Stine felt at home in nature. She built a shelter for the ducks with her own hands. Bound clusters of juniper branches into a natural tent. She fed the birds and talked to them.

  Most important, she prevented anyone from disturbing them or stealing their eggs.

  The birds returned by the hundreds to the beach and the buildings. Spring after spring. They plucked feather after feather from their breasts and lined their nests.

  Throughout the parish, people told how the Lapp girl at Reinsnes tended eider ducks. And the sums she earned by collecting down from the deserted nests grew to enormous dimensions.

  Now the income was so great that the Lapp girl had put the money in the bank. And apparently she was going to America to get ahead in the world.

  Occasionally other women tried to follow Stine’s example. But nothing came of it. For the Lapp girl put a spell on the eider ducks in the parish and brought them all to Reinsnes! She certainly knew her art, said those who understood the matter.

  Eider ducks appeared in every imaginable and unimaginable place during brooding season. One spring a duck entered the cookhouse through the open door and settled in the large baking oven.

  In the following weeks, Oline and Stine waged a tug-of-war to decide what was most important: to use the baking oven or to leave the eider duck in peace.

  Oline lost the battle, with few words said.

  When she sent a boy to the cookhouse to move the nest and lay the fire, Stine appeared like a bolt of lightning. She grasped the fellow’s arm firmly and, with flashing eyes, said some Lapp words.

  That was enough. The boy returned to the kitchen, pale, shaking his head.

  “1 don’t want her to cast a spell on me!” he declared.

  That was the end of the matter.

  And the doors to the cookhouse and the baking oven remained open so the eider duck could go in and out to get food.

  There was movement behind each hillock and under each tiny roof.

  Stine gathered eiderdown as soon as the birds finished laying eggs and began to brood. Her skirts swept between the nests.

  She did not take all the down at once, just plucked a little here and there.