Soon afterward, he stopped the carriage and asked if she was ill.
Two blank, glassy eyes were her only response. But she paid well when she got out.
Am I Dina? A true dreamer of nightmares? Forged by Bendik? Why do I find everything imaginable, but not Leo? Am I Dina? Who cuts out a piece of her heart and places it in a madhouse director’s hands. Why am I here,
when I have a wound that will not bleed? Where is Hjertrud now?
Dina stayed in the cuddy the rest of the day.
That night Anders was awakened several times by groans that came from behind Dina’s curtain. He spoke to her.
But she did not answer.
The next morning, she was gray and withdrawn.
But they hired a carriage and drove to a factory by the Nid River to buy a new bell for the stabbur.
The old one had been cracked for a long time. But during the past spring, half of it had fallen, causing major damage to the roof.
They found a bell that was the right size and had the year inscribed on it and a good clang.
The owner of the factory had been a friend of Jacob’s.
Dina had let him know in advance that they were coming. So he received them with all due propriety, offered refreshments, and gave them a tour of the factory. Mr. Huitfeldt regretted that his partner, an engineer, was on a brief trip to England and, therefore, could not entertain her.
The man ignored Anders. It was clear that Trondheim citizens did not follow the same rules for tact as Bergen merchants.
Anders took it calmly. He had met such people before. Who did not understand that one could not take ships ashore to demonstrate one’s worth.
The factory owner told at great length about his company’s fantastic success with stoves, farm bells, and machine parts.
He enjoyed the new times, he said, laughing. And furthermore, he had the demanding task of casting machine parts for the Nidelven steamboat.
Anders and Dina exchanged a look as they seated themselves in the carriage again.
“I’m not sure it’s worth mentioning. But people of Trondheim seem odd in many ways,” Anders remarked.
“Although not everyone in Trondheim is from Trondheim,” said Dina.
They laughed.
Dina suddenly kicked his leg with the pointed tip of her shoe.
“Why do you let yourself get run over by such megalomania?”
“Oh, I don’t know… It may pay off. In the long run.”
“You’re really a merchant at heart, aren’t you, Anders?”
“Perhaps. But if so, one without capital.”
“Do you wish you had capital?”
“No. You see what they become. People with capital.”
“Am I like that too?” she asked abruptly.
“No. But you have your difficult sides,” he replied truthfully. “Since you ask.”
“What do you mean? I’m stingy?”
“No. But closefisted. And stubborn. Take this Trondheim detour, for example.”
She did not reply.
The wheels rumbled on the cobblestones. The city clamored around them.
“You went off on your own yesterday…. May I ask where?”
“I made a quick visit to the asylum/’
Anders turned toward her, not just his face but his whole body.
“You’re joking! Why would you go there?”’
“I delivered a package for Leo. A book he forgot … He has a habit of forgetting books.”
“Was he there?”
“No, but he’ll go there, I’m sure.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because they said he wasn’t coming …,” she replied thoughtfully.
“They said he wasn’t coming … and that’s why you’re sure he’s going there? What do you mean, Dina?”
“Something’s not right. The director didn’t like that I came. That I knew Leo was coming.”
“You’ve become a bit strange on this trip.”
“Do you remember that Leo said he was going to take a prisoner to Vard0 Fortress?”
“Yes…. Now that you ask. But that was just something he said.”
“In any case, he comes to the asylum here in Trondheim.”
“How do you know?”
“I know!” she said firmly.
They sat without saying anything, while the coachman fell into line with a whole procession of carriages that would not move out of the way.
Anders looked intently at everything happening around them for a while. Then he said:
“Have you decided on the Russian?”
“You don’t put any wrappings around your question, my dear Anders.”
“No. What’s your answer?”
“That I don’t display my decisions in public.”
“But you want him. I’ve seen that.”
“What you’ve seen, you don’t have to ask about,” she retorted.
He crossed his arms on his chest and kept silent.
“We were talking about capital …,” she continued after a few minutes.
“Yes,” said Anders readily.
“Do you know what your brother did?”
“Niels? Do you mean how he … passed away?” He looked at her in surprise.
“You and I both know how he died,” she replied firmly. “I’m talking about something else.” “What do you mean?”
“He embezzled money for years, your brother did!” She looked straight ahead.
“What … what are you saying?” He stared at her, wide-eyed.
She did not reply.
After a moment, he grasped her hands. The veins pulsed in his neck, but his face was pale.
“Why do you say something like that, Dina?”
“Because it’s true,” she said brusquely, and told Anders about the space under the floorboards.
Anders’s hands gripped hers and squeezed hard.
“How much was it?” he asked hoarsely.
“Enough for a trip to America.”
“And where is it now? The money?”
“In the bank.”
“Why on earth did he … ?”
“He wanted capital.”
Anders stared.
“It’s unbelievable!”
“In a way, he was right,” she continued. The words tumbled out.
“Right?!”
“His reputation was ruined. Because ofthat business with Stine.”
“But good Lord!”
“He had to go away. Far away. Couldn’t travel like a tramp. Leo did say he was going to America. Stine found a map… So he must have been planning to leave. He couldn’t go to prison. Hjertrud would never have allowed …”
“Hjertrud? Dina dear … But then, why didn’t he leave? Why … ?”
“He hung himself because he knew that I knew.”
“That you knew?”
“I gave him a chance to return the money.”
“Do you mean he took his life because … ?”
“Because of the shame.”
“Did he think you’d report him?”
“He had no reason to think otherwise.”
“Dina! Did you drive him to it?!”
He could go no further. His hands clenched tighter and tighter. His nails cut into her skin.
She leaned back against the seat. As if giving up.
“I don’t know,” she said angrily, and shut her eyes tight.
Anders put his arms around her and held her close.
“Forgive me!” he begged. “Of course it’s not your fault! People who do shameful things must bear the responsibility themselves. But to think that Niels … that he could do such a thing! Without a word to me.”
He sighed. But did not let her go.
Two children sharing an old misfortune.
“The streets in Trondheim are wider than in Bergen,” Dina observed.
“But unloading is more difficult, and it’s hellish going in and out of the fjord!”
Ande
rs was grateful to change the subject.
“The harbor is too shallow!” he added emphatically.
They both stared at the greasy column of smoke that rose from the steamboat as it puffed toward the harbor.
They drove down a narrow side street, past small, miserable houses. A sailor staggered across the lane in front of the carriage, and a hysterical woman shouted at a stout man in a tight jacket, telling him to hurry because the steamboat was already under way. He heaved like a bellows and lost a hatbox. They sprang in front of the horses as if asking to be run over.
The carriage stopped, and Anders paid the coachman. They walked the final distance to the harbor.
The bickering couple reappeared at the wharf, where the woman intimidated a ferryman into taking them to the steamboat. They stumbled over the thwarts. For a moment, it seemed they would overturn the flimsy ferryboat. And all the while, they argued and shouted at each other.
People swarmed along the sixty-foot unloading pier and the small shipping office. Gradually, others besides the first couple begged a ferryman to row them out to the steamboat before it departed. The large vessel was not allowed at the pier because of the risk of fire.
Anders was glad to have something on which to vent his despair.
“This is just a tea saucer of a harbor!” he grumbled, without anyone asking his opinion.
Dina gave him a sidelong glance and said nothing.
A man with a raised butcher knife ran barefoot along the pier after a boy clutching a bottle of rum. The police arrived and seized them both, with much shouting and commotion. People withdrew to the sidelines to avoid getting involved. Some were almost pushed off the pier.
Anders was filled with sorrow. Dinars wounds would not bleed. There were deep rifts in the sky, but no sun. Thoughts fell like rain.
They sailed the next morning.
The winds were favorable. But even so, Anton was not at his best.
“There’s a storm coming. I feel it in my hip,” he complained. He was a badly butchered cow standing at the helm.
They left him to his surly mood but were careful not to cause him trouble.
Anders and Dina had other problems. A tension between them that was both good and bad. New and untried. The conversation in the carriage was not finished. It was the prelude to something that was hard to approach when they had to be in the same cabin.
Anders’s eyes were a Bible verse under a magnifying glass. It said: We are brother and sister! Something disturbed our roles. We ought to know where we each stand.
He admitted things to himself. That for years he had longed for Dina to confide in him. Ask him for advice.
Now she had confided that Niels was a scoundrel Anders felt bewildered, and ashamed, for he was more happy about Dinars confidences than concerned about Niels’s last days.
Dina was an eagle that sat in its tree and disliked the daylight.
Chapter 10
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:
‘‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? …
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements — surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
when the morning stars sang together,
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Or who shut in the sea with doors,
when it burst forth from the womb;
when I made clouds its garment,
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
and prescribed bounds for it,
and set bars and doors,
and said, Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?
Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
and caused the dawn to know its place … ?”’
— Job 38 : 1-2, 4-12
They rounded the Trondheim Fjord and set the bow northward. Anders saw a storm gathering ahead. It was almost a relief.
By the time they could see neither flat 0rland to starboard nor Agdenes to port and were alone with the elements, they had light fog and a stiff wind.
The weather would not relent. Came like a dull gray ghost, bringing a northwester and rain.
The broad-beamed vessel was tossed into the troughs of the waves as if it were a drifting coffee cup without a handle. The sea rinsed the starboard bow.
Precious cargo was lashed more securely and covered as well as possible.
One boy from a cotter’s farm at Reinsnes already lay in his bunk. The poor fellow had vomited in the bedclothes. Causing a great commotion from the man lying next to him. But no one took sides. They all had enough to keep them busy.
Deep in the sturdy vessel there was creaking and crashing. The sails and crossbeams moaned and wept.
Hours passed, under water more than above it. Still, Anton would not seek harbor. He steered into the Fold Sea, as if it were a personal test of strength.
Then everything broke loose.
Dina sat alone in the cuddy, clinging to the table.
The walls constantly shifted direction.
She pressed a pillowcase between her thighs when she saw blood dripping on the floor. Then she toppled onto the table for a moment.
A frightened pool of blood kept changing its course on the restless floorboards. Ran toward east and west, north and south, according to how the vessel heeled. A viscous, brownish river gradually formed between the cracks in the planks.
Am I Dina? Who was apipe organ last night. With many chorales coming from my body! Because that is what I wanted! Today the knives cut slash after slash. I am a river that does not know where it is going. There are not even any screams. I drift so terribly quietly. Where is Hjertrud now?
Mother Karen’s carved likeness, a stately, high-bosomed woman with thick hair gathered into a loose knot, disappeared into raging billows.
But she rose proudly again. Shook off the foaming, long-crested waves. Time after time. The eyes, chiseled by a local artist in Vefsn, stared alternately into the ocean depths and at the sky.
This was the Fold Sea showing its true, malicious nature. At least two months earlier than usual.
Anton ordered the crew to remove the bonnets and four yards. Anders watched the gusts of wind, like a hawk, through the heavy spray.
The weather was merciless. To head toward shore would be folly. There were reefs and skerries everywhere.
Anton prepared to sail the high sea. He had no other choice.
The wind was uneven and capricious but would have to surrender, because after years of experience, Anton and Anders knew its behavior.
Each time they eased the vessel and had it under control, Anders felt as if someone bit the back of his neck. Dina!
Time after time, the battle with the storm filled him with desire. For hours, he felt it. As they mastered the waves, mastered the wind. The boat and the sail.
Never before had he experienced such close-hauled sailing. His lower jaw thrust forward. His brows grew bushy with salt spray. Outwardly, he was a sea weakling tied to a line in the storm’s wake. Within himself, he was an iron stake. Even if everything went wrong. He knew how to sail!
Dina lay behind her curtain and saw nothing through the streaming windows.
Every loose object danced its own dance. She had put an oilskin under her on the bunk and held fast with both hands during the birth pangs.
Alexander Pushkin entered through the window and talked to her about death. When it struck a poor little one in the womb! He brought his book of poetry. As a gift from Leo. His laughter thundered in the hull. Then he thumped his book hard on her stomach. Went in and out the cuddy’s round window and always brought a new book. They became heavier and heavier, and had sharper and sharper corners.
In the end, her
lap was a bloody mass that hung from the edge of the bed in thin shreds of flesh.
She tried to hold them together, but that did not help. He was so quick, this dark man with the sharp books.
He shouted his great hatred of women in a ringing, desperate voice or called her the “Bronze Rider’s whore” and “my dear Natasha” through clenched teeth.
He had Leo’s voice and came out of the gusty wind. Loudly. As if he were using a megaphone. Shattered her head into thousands of tiny pieces.
He was a sea specter! Who had the smith’s hands, and Leo’s scar across his cheek. Finally, he drew Tomas’s rifle from his cape and aimed at her. Bang!
But it was Hjertrud he hit! Hjertrud stood in the corner, her face a large, gaping hole! How could that happen?
* * *
Warm liquid ran between Dina’s thighs. And gradually turned into icy scourges.
The wind had dropped a little.
Dina raised herself enough to gather the sheet together and hold it between her legs. Then she tottered to the door and shouted for Anders. Her lungs burst in her throat. The cries were witches on the way to their age-old meetings on Brocken Mountain. They cut through the wind and the whirling sea.
There could be no doubt. Something was wrong.
Anders was cold, tired, and bleary-eyed. But he found someone to relieve him. And struggled to the cuddy, where Dina roared his name furiously.
Once inside the door, he stood gasping for breath. Water dripped rhythmically from his oilskins.
The southwester had swept across the sea in violent squalls several hours before. Rivers ran down his face and neck from his blond, salt-caked hair. It was plastered to his skull and made him look like an angry seal. His chin thrust forward more than usual.
He stared at the woman on the bed. At first did not believe what he saw.
Daylight entered defiantly through the salt spray on the windows. It revealed Dina’s naked thighs. The white sheet soaked with blood. Her groans were a loose boom in rough weather. She stretched her arms toward him. Her eyes pleaded.
“Good Lord!” He fell to his knees beside her.
“Help me, Anders!”
She did not try to cover herself. He reached for her in a daze, murmuring desperate sounds.
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