Dina's Book

by Herbjorg Wassmo

The cotter’s boy, who had now taken his first voyage, was thoroughly scrutinized because his chin had sprouted a beard while he was in Bergen. He blushed and tried to escape, but the girls held him fast and rummaged in his pockets for a Bergen pretzel

  Hanna clutched a doll with a sad white face. It had a red velvet dress, cape, and bonnet. Its wooden head and limbs could move. They clacked cheerfully under the doll clothes whenever Hanna wandered.

  Benjamin’s present was a steam engine fastened to a board. With Anders’s expert help, it spewed steam and smoke into the room. But Benjamin had no interest in an engine that Dina did not stoke.

  The tin of Bergen pretzels was passed around until it was empty. Out in the courtyard, men removed the new dinner bell from its wood-chip packing and hung it on the grindstone axle to test the sound.

  Benjamin rang it. Time after time. People stood around him, smiling. Mother Karen was a piece of lacework in the parlor window. She fluttered with all the activity.

  “It has a sharp tone,” said Oline, who was skeptical about the bell.

  Anders thought the bell would sound different once it was in place under the stabbur roof. It had a better clang when it hung on a wooden beam, he said.

  Glancing sidelong at Dina’s room just then, he noticed the window was open and pulling gently on a white lace curtain. The delicate material had caught on the building’s rough wooden exterior and was struggling to get free.

  A strange thought struck him: It would be sad for the curtain if the wind tore it to shreds….

  Tomas was invisible today. He had prepared himself for weeks. No longer felt the pain. Actually, it had always been that way when the cargo boat returned from a long voyage.

  A large estate needed to have men at home in the fields when the cargo crew went to sea. To Bergen and Trondheim. And when the crew returned, there were many men around!

  Tomas found important tasks in the stable and barn. He said nothing about how things were on the estate until he was asked. And that did not happen for a while.

  He had seen her as she entered the cottage. Such a total stranger. With no face or expression. A bent, small bundle of a person. Iron claws and sharp fishhooks twisted in him.

  All during the welcoming celebration, Tomas busied himself wherever Stine happened to be. To ask about Dina. What was wrong? Was it true she had been violently seasick and cut her stomach to shreds in a storm on the Fold Sea?

  Stine nodded. Apparently that was true. But the worst was over. She would give Dina a brew made from roots she had just dug. Her body would certainly heal … eventually.

  Her dark, moist eyes stared straight through him without seeing him. Hid all her thoughts behind seven sails and many seas.

  Chapter 11

  If the righteous is requited on earth,

  how much more the wicked and the sinner!

  — Proverbs 11 : 31

  The days were busy. They brought the cargo ashore and distributed it to the proper recipients, stored it, or set it aside.

  Anton stayed a few days to assist them. He would also help to pull the vessel ashore. The cargo boat would not be used again until the Lofoten fishing trip. They might as well get it to dry land while there were enough men for the task. To leave it at sea was not a good practice. Maggots quickly infested waterlogged cargo boats. Besides, the weather was unmerciful to vessels that lay untended, objects of public ridicule.

  It took two days to pull the cargo boat ashore this fall. With the good aid of men and brandy. That the skipper should have more brandy than the others during such important work had been decreed by the honorable District Governor Knagenhielms as early as 1778. But Anders shared all gifts like a brother.

  There was no spring tide to help them, but they managed anyway. With coaxing, curses, and blessings. As well as practical equipment like block and tackle, ropes and capstan. Little by little, grasp by grasp. Hand over hand.

  Oline took care of the men. Did not let them languish on sea biscuits or the Bergen pretzels, which were quite dry by now. She cooked pots of salted meat and stoked the washhouse stove to bake bread and provide warm water for bathing.

  Salted meat made the men thirsty, she knew. But that did not concern her. She was generous with fruits drinks and coffee.

  They came riding, walking, and rowing. Everyone who had sent goods to Bergen or who knew it could be useful to do a day’s work at Reinsnes.

  You might profit well from coming. And you would be penalized sooner or later if you stayed away without a good reason. That was the way things were. Ancient, simple rules.

  But it was not all work. It was a celebration too. There was dancing at Andreas Wharf when the task was finished.

  And then there were the generous meals! The laughter. The fun.

  Servant girls at Reinsnes were something special. They were watched more carefully than other maids. But were soft and cheerful as butter in the sunshine. So people said,

  Anders went back and forth, taking charge of everything. Dina lay in the new widow’s bed,

  A strange mood fell on the estate when people realized she would not be present. Would not play the piano, or give orders for pulling the block and tackle, or furrow her brow like an old shoemaker when something broke.

  Usually this was something unique to tell people from other districts. That the tall woman stood with her hands on her hips and participated in the work. Such things did not happen at other estates.

  Dinars illness was hard for Mother Karen. She walked stiffly across the courtyard and spent a few hours with her each day, talking and reading aloud.

  Dina accepted it with a twinkle in her eyes. She complained to Mother Karen and Stine about being unable to drink wine. It made her ill.

  The fact that she even thought about it was a sign she was getting better, Stine thought. But Mother Karen said it was blasphemous to complain about such a thing after she had been so sick.

  Oline fed her liver, cream, and fresh blueberries. To prevent the fever from recurring and put more blood in her veins.

  Mother Karen wanted to send for the doctor, but Dina just laughed. She was over the worst now. All she needed was some time to heal.

  Stine helped her brush her hair twice a day, just as she did for Mother Karen. She understood more about Dinars illness than she said. As if they would be punished for allowing the words inside the walls. The room, and every object, had ears.

  Stine knew to whom she owed her position at Reinsnes, From beneath thick black eyelashes, she sent Dina quick glances. Golden as amber. Soft. Like ripe cloudberries on the mountain bogs in September.

  When Dina asked her to bring the pieces of soap she had saved from Jacob’s trips to the city, Stine got the cardboard container and removed the cover. Fragrance burst into the room like flowering fields and filled the air.

  Stine smoothed the pillows. Brought blueberry juice in the old crystal pitcher.

  She had Oline decorate the tray with glazed raspberries. And she told Hanna how to find wild strawberries in the pasture. Which they threaded on a straw and served to Dina on a plate with gilded edges, along with a white linen napkin and a glass of Madeira.

  Dina once had found a girl at the marketplace and brought her back to Reinsnes because of her wonderful singing voice. She had stayed to help Dina in the cottage.

  Now she was placed under Oline’s supervision. For Stine intuitively understood that to have a healthy, well-built woman moving about the cottage would be too much for Dina. The girl’s strong femininity, her aromas and activity, made the room hold its breath. This was precisely what Dina did not need in her condition. Stine aired out the smell of the girl entirely.

  So only Jacob’s soaps and Stine’s comforting fragrance filled the bedroom. Stine smelled of heather and air-dried sheets, green soap, and various dried herbs. Smells such as one notices only when they disappear.

  A few days later, Dina sent for Anders. He entered her bedroom in his stocking feet and seemed like a complete stranger. As though h
e had never seen her in any situation other than lying in the large bed with its German lace curtain and matching coverlet. As though he had never removed a single clump of blood from her or tried to clean her after the deluge on the voyage across the Fold Sea.

  He stood bareheaded, his hands behind his back, and was somewhat ill at ease.

  “You’re starting to feel better?” he asked.

  “It’s going fine,” she said, and motioned him to the bed. “Sit down, Anders. I have some business to discuss.”

  His shoulders sank with relief. He reached eagerly for a chair and sat down, at a proper distance from the bed. Then he sighed and gave her a broad smile.

  “I haven’t been able to check the figures at the store since before the Bergen trip,” she said.

  He nodded understandingly.

  “Can you help me go through them? I can’t do much yet, you realize.”

  He nodded again. Resembled the poor fellow in Mother Karen’s weather house who leaped out and bowed from the waist in bad weather.

  “I’ll soon be back on my feet and able to do it myself. But we need to place orders for the winter and send notices to those who must pay their bill before getting more provisions. There aren’t many such cases. But you know …”

  She leaned back on the pillow and gave him a direct, searching look.

  “The cotters don’t need to pay, or they can pay by doing day labor during the Christmas rush…”

  Her mouth trembled, and her eyes wavered for a moment. She stretched out her hand.

  He did not move, as if uncertain about the situation. Then he pulled the chair closer to the bed and took her hand.

  “Anders?” she whispered suddenly.

  “Yes,” he whispered in return.

  “I need you, Anders!”

  He swallowed and looked away. Became a little boy with a stubborn chin, a protruding jaw, and serious blue eyes. Who, for the first time, was allowed to go to the altar and watch all the large candles being lit.

  “I’m here,” he said, squeezing her hand between his.

  “You must send for the sheriff. I want to write my will.”

  “Dina, what are you thinking? You’re not thinking you’ll … You’re going to get well.”

  “Death never harvests according to a person’s age or value around here,” she said.

  “What a terrible way to talk!”

  “Don’t worry. I just want to write down my wishes regarding the things I own.”

  “Yes, yes …”

  “I want you to have the Mother Karen, Anders. The cargo boat is yours! She’ll outlive both you and me.”

  He took several deep breaths.

  “Do you mean it?” he finally managed to say.

  “Obviously I do, since I said it.”

  The light struck the porcelain washbasin and created a haze over

  the roses painted around the edge. It climbed into Anders’s wiry blond hair. Revealing white hairs at the temples.

  He was no longer the little man in Mother Karen’s weather house. He was the cherub with a lighted torch on her bookmark.

  “Have you heard anything?” Dina asked, after a long pause.

  “Heard? Heard what?”

  “Does anybody wonder?” she said in a hard voice. “Wonder what’s wrong with me?”

  His lower lip curled.

  “No. Nobody! I explained what happened. How it started. And how long it lasted.”

  “And if, in spite ofthat, there’s a hearing …,” she whispered, forcing him to look at her.

  “Then I’ll swear to it under oath,” he said firmly.

  She sat up with sudden energy. Leaned forward and grasped his head with both hands. She pulled it down to her, hard, as if in a vise. And stared him straight in the eye.

  For a wild moment, something trembled between them. And for the second time, they sealed a pact. Understood one another’s ways.

  Then it was over.

  He pulled on his boots in the entry and went out into the dusk.

  His lower lip was soft today. He had shaved his beard, as he always did when he returned from a long trip. And the less tanned part of his face was slightly flushed.

  As he walked across the courtyard, his shoulders were unusually erect.

  Chapter 12

  The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor.

  –Proverbs 12 : 24

  By the end of October not even a tiny birch leaf remained on the trees. The snow blew across the sea before blanketing the ground, and frost settled in the large water barrel in front of the washhouse. Stoves were kept burning from early morning until people went to bed. The hunting season was spoiled, and the lingonberries froze.

  But Dina finally got back on her feet.

  Mother Karen received a letter from Johan. A pitiful letter. He was unhappy in Helgeland. The parsonage was in poor condition. The roof leaked, and he lacked the bare necessities of life. It was impossible to get servant girls, even if you paid in gold. And the congregation provided little help, financially or otherwise. If Mother Karen could spare some amount, large or small, to supplement the annual allowance he received from his inheritance, he could buy a new chasuble and some bed linens.

  Mother Karen went to Dina and read the letter aloud, with a mournful expression on her face. She wrung her hands and sat close to the white stove, wrapped in her shawl.

  “Your bun is slipping, Mother Karen/’ Dina said calmly, and sat down too.

  Somewhat bewildered, Mother Karen tried to fix her bun.

  The flames leaped inside the open doors of the tile stove. Eternally searching for something to consume.

  “He’s been unfortunate with this parish,” Mother Karen said sadly, and sent Dina a pleading look.

  “There’s no question about that,” Dina agreed. “And now he wants a little of Mother Karen’s annuity?” she added, with a sidelong glance at the old woman.

  “I don’t have much left to give,”’ she said with disappointment. “He got most of it when he was studying. It was so expensive in Copenhagen. So extremely expensive …”

  She rocked back and forth and sighed.

  “Knowledge is easy to bear, but it’s a dearly bought friend,” she added.

  “Perhaps Johan wants some more of his inheritance,” said Dina good-naturedly.

  “Yes, that would probably be best,” said Mother Karen, relieved that Dina addressed the matter so quickly and did not make her beg for Johan.

  “I’ll talk with the sheriff and ask him to calculate the figures and find reliable witnesses.”

  “Do we need to be so precise?”

  “Yes. When it concerns inheritances, nothing is precise enough, Mother Karen. There are several heirs to Reinsnes.”

  Mother Karen glanced at her and said uncertainly:

  “I thought it would be possible to give a small gift … without deducting it from his inheritance.”

  Dina gave her a penetrating look. Forced the old woman into a corner.

  “Do you want Benjamin to give part of his inheritance to his grown half-brother, an ordained pastor?” she said quietly but very distinctly.

  Mother Karen bowed her head. The white bun meekly pointed straight up in the air. Silver curls quivered at her ears.

  She fingered the cross she always wore around her neck.

  “No, no. I didn’t mean it that way,” she said with a sigh.

  “I know. We just misunderstood each other,” Dina said lightly. “I’ll have the sheriff arrange for the witnesses and signatures. So Johan can get an advance on his inheritance, in addition to what he’s already received.”

  “It will be hard for him to divide his land and inheritance that way,” said the old woman sadly.

  “It’s never been easy to live beyond one’s means. At least not afterward,” said Dina brusquely.

  “But, Dina dear, Johan has surely never …”

  “Oh, yes, he has!” Dina interrupted. “He had a re
gular allowance while he was studying. Plus, you gave him your entire annuity!”

  There was a silence. The old woman sat as if someone had struck her. She lifted her palms toward Dina. Wanting to protect herself. Then her hands fell into her lap again. They trembled as she folded them tightly.

  “Dear, dear Dina,” she said hoarsely.

  “Dear, dear Mother Karen!” replied Dina. “Johan needs to do a little work before he dies. I mean that sincerely. Although I like him very much.”

  “But he’s serving a parish….”

  “And I had all the responsibility at Reinsnes while he was here satisfying his spiritual life and his hunger pangs! Without lifting a finger!”

  “You’ve become very hard, Dina. I hardly recognize you.”

  “Compared to when?”

  “When you were newly married and wanted to sleep all morning without doing a bit of work.”

  “That’s several lives ago!”

  All of a sudden, Mother Karen rose from the high-backed armchair and took a few uncertain steps to Dina’s chair. Leaned over and stroked the tall woman’s hair.

  “You’ve got too much to think about, Dina. Too many responsibilities. I know that’s true. And I understand better than anyone else. Because I knew you then … You should get married again. It’s not good to be alone, the way you are. You’re still young…”

  Dina laughed harshly but did not pull away.

  “Maybe you know a suitable man?” she said, looking away.

  “The Russian traveler would have been suitable.”

  Dina blushed intensely.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I’ve noticed that you run to the flag knoll and look out to sea, as if you’re waiting for someone. And because the Russian made your eyes shine as bright as the lighted tree last Christmas. And because you became bad-tempered, if I may say so, the moment the Russian left last spring.”

  Dina began to tremble.

  “Yes, yes … Yes, yes,” murmured Mother Karen, continuing to stroke her hair. “Love is crazy. That’s always been true. It doesn’t stop. It doesn’t even stop when it’s tested in storms and everyday life. It’s painful. Sometimes …”