Dina's Book

by Herbjorg Wassmo

  Sometimes two dark glances met. Her deep-brown eyes and the round black eyes of the eider duck. The bird sat calmly as she pulled some downy lining from the nest.

  When she left, the bird swayed a little, stretched its wings, and settled onto the eggs again. Then it quickly plucked some down from its breast to replace what Stine had taken.

  She had hundreds of birds in her care these weeks in April and May. They returned year after year. Those hatched at Reinsnes returned. And the spring marvel became greater and greater.

  As soon as the eggs hatched, Stine carried the tousled balls of fur to the sea in her sackcloth apron. To help the eider ducks protect their young from the crows.

  The ducks calmly accepted the escort. They waddled at Stine’s heels, chattering loudly. As if asking her advice about rearing the fledglings.

  She sat on the sloping rocks and guarded the small families until they were reunited and safely in the water. The males had already flown away. Toward the sea and freedom. The females were alone again. Stine shared their loneliness.

  The small, downy balls developed feathers and other colors and learned to find food. In the autumn they disappeared.

  The baskets of eiderdown were emptied, and it was cleaned and sewed into cambric bags to be shipped to Bergen.

  Eiderdown was a desirable product. Especially if you had contacts with merchants in Hamburg and Copenhagen,.

  Anders was not strict about his percentage where Stine was concerned. To tell the truth, he did not charge anything for brokering or transport.

  Stine’s eyes grew more and more like the round, damp eyes of an abandoned female eider duck when the male flies toward the open sea again.

  She feared that sneering crows would come and put an end to the young life for which she was responsible.

  Stine did not know that Mother Karen’s book said, “Lapps never feel pain or loss.”

  Chapter 4

  For lo, the winter is past,

  the rain is over and gone.

  The flowers appear on the earth,

  the time of singing has come,

  and the voice of the turtledove

  is heard in our land.

  — The Song of Solomon 2 : 11-12

  Dina had the loose floorboard in the office nailed down. And as an added precaution, she told the maid to move the washstand when she cleaned each Wednesday.

  Niels troubled her only on rare occasions. Usually when she wondered whether the lists of merchandise were complete or whether she had forgotten something important. Or when she saw Hanna trudge barefoot across the courtyard with Benjamin behind her.

  Niels could suddenly stand in front of her and refuse to move. Then she had to review the inventories again. Until she was absolutely sure the details and columns of numbers were correct.

  Sometimes he made her take the fatherless little girl on her lap.

  Niels had been of some practical use while he sat in the swivel chair in the office. But he was not indispensable.

  Dina familiarized herself with order forms and daily bookkeeping. She cleared out all the trash that had accumulated through the years. Created order in the shelves and cupboards. Cleared up unpaid sums.

  She sent messages to those who she knew could pay what they owed. And she warned those who felt so ashamed of old debts that they did not come to Reinsnes to purchase their farming and fishing needs, but went to Tjeldsund instead.

  Her warning was clear. As long as she saw them at Reinsnes whenever they had purchases to make, she would ensure that they did not starve when they had no money. But the moment they were seen with furs or fish anywhere else, she would take legal action to recover what they owed her.

  It had a rapid effect.

  The main house abounded with people. There was activity behind each wall and in each chamber.

  No matter what the hour of day or night, Dina was sure to meet someone going to the outhouse, to the kitchen, or whatever place it might be.

  The worst thing was all the women. They fluttered about constantly. The bustling, knitting, chattering, changing women created utter confusion. At the same time, they were necessary.

  It annoyed Dina intensely.

  She decided to renovate the cottage and live there.

  “Then Johan can move into the master bedroom with all his books,” Dina told Anders.

  He was the first to know about her plans. And an important ally.

  Anders went to Namsos to buy materials for the cabin he planned to build on the longboat.

  To everyone’s dismay, he returned with an entire raft of materials in tow. He had good business contacts and could buy high-quality lumber at a low price.

  Since first only Anders knew about Dina’s plans, it shocked everyone to hear that she wanted to renovate the ill-fated cottage where Niels had hanged himself.

  Oline began to cry. She thought the place should be torn down and forgotten. But had just not said so. Until now.

  “You want a living soul to move into that unlucky place? Not Mother Karen! There’s plenty of space for her in the main house!” she scolded.

  Dina and Anders gave explanations and showed drawings. Talked at length about the enclosed veranda that would face the sea. Where one could sit leisurely and watch the oyster catcher when it came strutting across the field to hunt earthworms on an early spring morning. They talked about the chimney that would be repaired. About the windows that would be moved to the southwest wall.

  Not least, they made clear that it was Dina who would live there.

  But Oline was still upset. She wept for Dina. And for little Benjamin, who was to live with his mother in the house of death.

  “I wish lightning would strike that house! And make it disappear!” she fervently declared.

  At that point, Mother Karen took charge. She would not allow such talk. Oline had to retract her un-Christian wishes and promise to curb her nasty tongue. If Dina wanted to live in the cottage, there was probably a reason for it. Young people needed some time and space for themselves. Dina had heavy responsibilities, after all, and many complicated thoughts. About the estate, the store, and the accounts.

  Mother Karen made many excuses,

  Oline continued to grumble. Declared that Dina could think about numbers and responsibilities when she was in the warehouse office. Basta!

  Finally, Dina lost patience and said bluntly that she had no intention of asking the servants for advice about building improvements. The rebuke lodged in Oline’s breast like a poison arrow. She bowed her head immediately, but she never forgot it.

  Months earlier, Dina had ordered colored glass windows from Trond-heim for the veranda and a white-tiled stove from Hamburg.

  She used part of Niels’s savings, which the sheriff withdrew from the bank as needed.

  That way she renovated the cottage for Niels too. So he had no reason to complain.

  She had the crack between the ceiling and the beam caulked. On the explicit advice of Mother Karen. Who could not bear to be reminded of poor Niels’s final deed each time she entered the cottage.

  The servants and farmhands needed food and supervision. That meant much hard work for Oline.

  But she took her time with everything. Did not rush. It was better for people to feel hungry for half an hour while waiting for good food than to eat bad cooking or leftovers, she maintained.

  Oline decided breakfast would be at five o’clock in the morning.

  Anyone not in place when the stabbur bell sounded its three short clangs did not get any food.

  “When the table is clear, food won’t reappear!” she chanted, with a stern look at a poor soul who had to go to work on an empty stomach.

  Mother Karen and Dina never interfered with Oline’s ironclad discipline. For its result was that most work got done long before evening.

  Sometimes they hired workers who were unaccustomed to such a strict system and asked to leave. Oline had a brusque response: “It’s good the wind blows away rotten hay!”
>
  One day when Dina stood on the flag knoll counting mountaintops with Hanna and Benjamin, the Prince Gustav came sailing north. The new store clerk had rowed out to bring mail and merchandise ashore.

  It was he! Dressed like a sailor. Carrying his sack and travel bag. His face was not clearly visible.

  The rowboat made its way slowly toward the pier, as the steamboat whistled — and continued its journey.

  Dina tugged Benjamin’s hair and counted the northern mountaintops in a resounding voice. She mentioned them all by name, at breakneck speed, as she pulled the youngsters down the rocky path toward the house. Then she left them, as though they were total strangers.

  She went to the master bedroom. Could not find a dress. Or a hairbrush. Or a face. Tripped on the rug.

  And the cottage was not ready to receive guests whom she wanted to have to herself!

  Meanwhile, he had entered Oline’s blue kitchen. His voice rose through the stairwell and open doors. Settled in her auditory canals. Like myrrh from Hjertrud’s book.

  She welcomed him like a friend of the household, in front of everyone. But Oline and the maids knew better. There were not many people Dina welcomed with a hug. They turned away and busied themselves, but made sure they stayed nearby.

  Stine greeted the guest and began setting a large dinner table. Johan and Anders arrived in the hall carrying Leo’s sailor sack. They dropped it by the staircase and came to the parlor.

  Anders stuck his head into the kitchen and asked for a welcoming drink to be served.

  Johan shouted from the hall as he hung his wraps on a hook. Inquired about the weather during the voyage and about the traveler’s health.

  The children came to the parlor too, and recognized the stranger. They were two small mice scampering near their hole, constantly aware the cat might come hunting for them.

  Conversation was lively at the dinner table.

  “Where’s the prisoner?” Dina asked suddenly.

  Two green and two ice-bright eyes met.

  “His pardon was rescinded,” he said, looking at her intently. As if amazed she remembered about the prisoner.

  He sat nearby. Smelled of tar and salt winds.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because he acted like a madman and went after a guard with a chunk of firewood.”

  “Did he hit the guard?”

  “Yes, just barely,” Leo replied, and winked at Benjamin, who sat listening openmouthed.

  “What kind of prisoner was he?” Benjamin asked boldly, stealing over to the visitor’s knee.

  “Hush!” said Dina gently.

  “Someone I was supposed to take to Vard0 Fortress when I went north again,” Leo answered.

  “What did he do?”

  “Terrible things,” said Leo.

  “Like what?” Benjamin did not give up. Despite Dina’s look, which felt like touching a hot stove.

  “He killed his wife with an axe.”

  “With an axe?”

  “With an axe.”

  “Damn!” said Benjamin. “Why did he do that?”

  “He must have been angry. Or she stood in his way. Who knows?” Leo was not sure how to take the youthful curiosity.

  “Would you have taken him here to our house, if he hadn’t smacked the guard with a log?” asked Benjamin.

  “No,” said Leo gravely. “One doesn’t bring people like that here. In that case, I guess I’d need to go right past.”

  “Then it wasn’t so bad that he hit the guard?”

  “No, not to my mind. But for him, it was bad.”

  “Does he look like other people?” the boy wanted to know.

  “Yes, when he washes and shaves.”

  “What did he do before he killed her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What will happen to him now?” Benjamin wondered.

  “He has to stay where he is for a long time.”

  “Is it worse there than at Vard0 Fortress?”

  “They say it is,” said Leo.

  “Do you think hell do it again? Kill somebody?”

  “No,’ said Leo, still very serious.

  “Niels hanged himself!” said Benjamin suddenly, looking into the tall man’s face.

  The scar shone bluish over ashen brown skin.

  “But Tomas says it’s almost ten years since the last time somebody died at Reinsnes,” Benjamin continued. “That time, it was Jacob,” he added knowledgeably.

  The boy stood in the middle of the room and looked at the grownups one after another. As if seeking explanations. The silence breathed heavily in their ears.

  Dina’s eyes were ominous. Her skirts rustled threateningly, and she came toward him like a swiftly gliding cargo boat.

  “Take Hanna outside and play!” she said in a dreadful, gentle voice.

  Benjamin grabbed Hanna’s hand. And the two children disappeared.

  “Yes, Niels is no longer with us,” said Mother Karen, who had entered the room unnoticed. She clutched the silver handle of her cane as she closed the door carefully behind her. Then she turned, walked laboriously across the room, and grasped Leo’s hand.

  He was a sleepwalker, who rose and gave her his chair.

  “But the rest of us must go on living. Welcome back to Reinsnes!”

  The story, told in a few simple words, filled the air. It settled like a film of dust on their faces.

  Mother Karen assumed the task of telling the story. At one point, a sigh was heard between the sentences. At another time: “My God … !”

  “But why… ?” asked Leo in disbelief. He looked directly at Dina.

  Stine slipped quietly into and out of the room. Anders put two tanned hands to his face like overturned boat hulls. Johan sat with lips pressed tightly together and homeless eyes. Mother Karen invoked a blessing on poor Niels.

  “Why did he do it?” Leo repeated,

  “The Lord’s ways are inscrutable,” said Mother Karen.

  “This wasn’t the Lord, Mother Karen. It was Niels’s free will. We mustn’t forget that,” said Johan quietly.

  “But not even a sparrow falls to the earth without God knowing it,” Mother Karen insisted.

  “That’s true,” said Johan amenably.

  “But why did he do it? What was wrong with the man? Why didn’t he want to live any longer?” Leo asked.

  “Perhaps he didn’t have anything to live for,” said Anders. His voice was husky.

  “One has what one can see, and something must have blocked Niels’s view,” said Johan.

  Leo looked from one to the other. And he did not try to hide his emotion. Suddenly he stood up, held the edge of the table, and cleared his throat, as if he were going to make a speech. Then he began to sing.

  A strange foreign melody in a minor key. Sorrow flowed from him as from a child. He threw his head back and gulped noisily, but continued singing. For a long time. One refrain was repeated again and again:

  They had never seen or heard anything like it. He had been sent to help them face what they had hidden from one another for many weeks. The lonely, cursed question: “Was I to blame?”

  After dinner Dina and Leo rode off on horseback, as Tomas watched in helpless resignation.

  The spring light was a keen-edged knife above them until late evening.

  “Do you and Tomas ride together?” asked Leo.

  “Yes, when it’s convenient.”

  Patches of snow still lay here and there. She led the way up the mountain.

  “Has Tomas been here long?”

  “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  “He has eyes like a dog.”

  “Oh?” she said with a laugh. “They’re just a little unusual: one

  blue and one brown. He’s energetic. Dependable.”

  “I believe that. But when he looks at you, Dina, his eyes are just like Niels’s eyes.”

  “Don’t talk about Niels!” she panted, and urged her horse to a gallop up the steep slope.

  “Y
ou drive men to great lengths!” he shouted after her.

  She did not turn around. Did not reply.

  He overtook her and grabbed the reins. It frightened Blackie, and the animal reared with a furious whinny.

  “Let go! The horse doesn’t like that!” she said. Her voice sounded as if it had been imprisoned for hours.

  “Do you know why Niels died?” he asked urgently.

  “Yes. He hanged himself!” she snarled, as she pulled herself loose.

  “You’re a hard woman!”

  “What do you want me to say? That I drove him to it because I refused to have him? Do you really think that was the reason, Leo Zjukovski?”

  He did not answer.

  They withdrew silently into themselves.

  I am Dina. Why do I bring Hjertrud’s messenger here? Is it so he will see time and place? See the sleigh in the deep pool? And when he has seen, will he become mute?

  When they came to the spot above the canyon where Jacob and the sleigh had thundered over the edge, Dina reined in her horse and said:

  “Have you been in Trondheim the whole time?”

  “No.”

  “Where have you been, then? You never sent a word.”

  She slid off the horse and let it roam freely. Leo followed her example before he replied.

  “I expected to come north long before now.”

  “From where?”

  “Bergen.”

  “What did you do there, Leo? Do you have a widow there too?”

  “No. No widows in Bergen. No widows in Trondheim. No widows in Archangel. Only at Reinsnes…”

  She did not respond.

  Blackie whinnied nervously and trotted over to Dina. Stuck his muzzle in her hair.

  “Why is the horse so uneasy?” Leo asked.

  “He doesn’t like this place.”

  “Oh? Why not? Is he frightened by the noise of the waterfalls?”

  “Jacob fell over the edge here. The horse and I escaped.”

  Leo gave her a questioning look.

  “And that’s almost ten years ago, as Benjamin said?”

  “Yes. The horse is getting old. I’ll have to get a new one soon.”

  “It must have been … horrible.”