Dina's Book

by Herbjorg Wassmo

  While they were waiting for dinner, Dina played the piano and the bookseller sang.

  The bishop and his wife were also invited.

  When people looked into the wife’s large gray eyes, something seemed to fall into place. Madam Henriette had a large, strong nose with an unusually broad base. The cleft between her nose and mouth brimmed with sadness. Under a white kerchief, her dark hair had an impeccable center part. A lace collar was the only ornamentation she wore, except for her wedding ring.

  She was a refuge for all women, regardless of their family or social class, Julie said.

  Madam Henriette’s eyes rested briefly on one person after another. Like a cool hand on a fevered brow. She was not the least pretentious about her position as the bishop’s wife. Nonetheless, her presence at the table was extremely dignified.

  “You’ve been a widow for many years, even though you’re so young?” the bishop’s wife asked gently. She poured coffee into Dina’s cup herself, as if she were the servant of all.

  “Yes.”

  “And you manage an inn and a cargo boat enterprise and oversee many people?”

  “Yes,” whispered Dina. That voice! Those eyes!

  “It must be difficult.”

  “Yes …”

  “Do you have anyone to help you?”

  “Oh, yes, I do.”

  “A brother? A father?”

  “No. The workers at Reinsnes.”

  “But nobody close to you?”

  “No. I mean … Mother Karen …”

  “Is she your mother?”

  “No, my mother-in-law.”

  “That’s not the same, is it?”

  “No.”

  “But you have God. I can see that clearly!”

  Madam Julie began speaking to the bishop’s wife about a woman in the community who wanted to visit the parsonage but did not dare to come on her own initiative.

  The older woman turned slowly toward Julie and, seemingly by chance, laid her hand on Dina’s. Light, cool fingers.

  The day was a gift.

  When the bishop looked at his wife, his broad face grew gentle and his eyes almost overflowed. Slender threads connected those two and pleasantly affected the rest of the party as well

  Dina skipped the cigar after dinner and did not provoke anyone.

  There was no defiance in her the following day either. But she could have left for Vard0 Fortress! Instead she rode Müller’s horse to exhaustion. On the island. Around a lake. Thundered through woodlands and thickets. The smell of summer was so strong that all her senses burned.

  Chapter 15

  The watchmen found me,

  as they went about in the city.

  “Have you seen him whom my soul loves?”

  Scarcely had I passed them,

  when I found him whom my soul loves.

  I held him and would not let him go

  until I had brought him into my mother’s house,

  and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

  — The Song of Solomon 3 : 3-4

  The day Müller had arranged that Dina would sail to Vard0 Fortress, a terrible southwest gale beset them. The bay seethed.

  Vessels that had not planned to stop in Troms0 sought safe harbor there. One after another. There were so many masts in the harbor that one could hop far across the water dry-shod. Had it not been for the rain!

  Aboard a Russian lodje headed south to Trondheim was a person who would have been glad not to go ashore in Troms0. He had business elsewhere.

  He took a room at Ludwigsen’s hotel to get away from the sailors” crowded quarters. He wore a broad-brimmed felt hat and leather trousers. After settling into his room and informing the hotel that he did not want to share the room with anyone, he went to the pharmacy. To buy something for a finger that had become infected and swollen on the voyage from Vard0.

  He was standing at the counter, waiting to be served, when the door chime announced another customer. Without turning around, he realized it was someone wearing a skirt.

  The rain had stopped, but the wind came through the open door and blew his hat off his head.

  It was July 13, 1855, three days after Dina had sat at the Müllers table and witnessed love.

  Perhaps it took three days for the blessing of the bishop’s wife to be fulfilled? In any case, Dina picked up Leo’s hat and weighed it in her hand, as she looked at it with repressed interest.

  The pharmacist hurried over and slammed the door behind her. The door chime was furious. Its uneven peals reverberated from the walls.

  Leo’s eyes zigzagged up Dina’s cape and body. As if he did not dare to see her face immediately.

  They caught their breaths simultaneously and stared at one another for a moment. Then they just stood there, two steps from each other.

  She holding his hat like a warning. He looking as if he had just seen a horse flying through the air. Only when the pharmacist said, “May I help you?” did a sound come from Dina. Laughter. Rippling and free.

  “Here’s your hat!”

  The scar was a pale new moon in a brown sky. He stretched out his hand. Suddenly the rest of the world did not exist. His fingers were cold. She stroked his wrist with her index finger.

  They went out into the wind without buying drops for Mother Karen or bandages and iodine for Leo’s finger. The friendly pharmacist stood behind the counter, staring openmouthed, and heard the door chime as they left.

  They wandered along a narrow, muddy street. Men were laying sidewalks at the lower end of it.

  They did not say a word at first. He took her arm and tucked it securely under his. Then, finally, he began to talk. In that deep, remarkable voice that carried so well. That used such clear words. But always held back something.

  At one point, she slipped in the mud. His strong arm kept her from falling. Pulled her close. Her skirt dragged in the dirt, because she was holding her hat instead.

  He did not notice. Just observed absentmindedly that mud clung to the hem of her dress, more and more greedily with each step.

  They walked up the hills. Until the city and the mud were left behind and meadows and birch forests took over. They walked holding on to their hats. Until Dina let hers fly with the wind. He ran after it. But had to give up. They watched as it flew north, its ribbons fluttering. A lovely sight.

  He planted his large black hat on her head and pulled it over her ears.

  The city lay below, but she did not see it. For Leo’s mouth was red. With a sore, brown stripe around it from overexposure to the sun.

  She stopped and put her hand on his mouth. Slowly brushed her fingers over the sore skin.

  He closed his eyes, while still holding the hat on her head with both hands.

  “Thank you for the gifts the Russian lodje brought last spring!” she said.

  “The music pieces? Did you like them?” he asked, his eyes still closed.

  “Yes. Thank you so much! But you didn’t write anything.”

  He opened his eyes at that.

  “No, it was difficult…”

  “Where did you send them from?”

  “Troms0.”

  “You were in Troms0, and you didn’t come to Reinsnes?”

  “It was impossible. I went inland. To Finland.”

  “Why did you go there?”

  “For adventure.”

  “You don’t find adventure at Reinsnes anymore?”

  He laughed quietly but did not answer. His arms were still around her shoulders. In order to hold the black hat, apparently.

  Little by little, he leaned toward her.

  “Were you planning to come to Reinsnes for a while?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you still planning to come?”

  He gave her a long look. Then he tightened his arm around both her and the hat.

  “Will I still be welcome?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “Yes!”<
br />
  “Why are you so hard, Dina?” he whispered, and leaned closer. As if afraid the wind would fly away with the answer.

  “I’m no harder than necessary. You’re the one who’s hard! You make promises and lie. Don’t come when you say you will. Let people wait in suspense.”

  “I sent you presents.”

  “Oh, yes. Without even a scrap of paper to indicate who sent them!”

  “That was impossible right then.”

  “I see. But it was cruel.”

  “I’m sorry!”

  He put his hand with the swollen finger under her chin. Was embarrassed that the hand was so coarse and let it fall again.

  “I went to the prison in Trondheim to ask about you. And I left a letter.”

  “When were you there?” he said into the wind.

  “A year ago. I was in Bergen too…. You weren’t there?”

  “No. I was stuck on the Finnish coast and saw the British playing with dynamite.”

  “You had a job to do?”

  “Yes,” he replied candidly.

  “Did you sometimes think?”

  “I never do otherwise.”

  “What did you think about?”

  “About Dina, for example.”

  “But you didn’t come?”

  “No.”

  “Something was more important than Dina?”

  “Yes.”

  She pinched his cheek angrily and kicked a stone so it struck his calf. He remained impassive. Merely moved his foot a little. And put the hat back on his own head.

  “I think you’re doing dark deeds!”

  She snarled like a judge who encounters a stubborn defendant. He gave her a long, searching look. But with a broad smile.

  “And what will you do about that?”

  “Find out what’s going on!” she exclaimed.

  Without further ado, he began to recite a poem he had translated for her the last night he was at Reinsnes:

  When she sees the bait, she’ll howl and rage

  like wild beasts in an iron cage.

  Though restrained by rocks, silent and grim.

  On wings of hope she hurls toward the rim

  and hungrily licks each hill.

  Her voracious longing is never still.

  Dina glared at him.

  “That’s a description of a river, remember?” he said. “Pushkin accompanied a Russian division on a military campaign against Turkey. Do you remember I told you that?”

  She nodded.

  “You’re like a wild river, Dina!”

  “You’re making fun of me,” she said crossly.

  “No … I’m trying to make contact.”

  I am Dina. Pushkin’s poem is soap bubbles that come out of Leo’s mouth. His voice keeps them floating in the air. For a long time. I slowly count to twenty-one. Then they burst and fall to the ground. Meanwhile, I must rethink every thought.

  Not until they were returning to the city did she ask where he was going now.

  “South to Trondheim,” he replied.

  “Without stopping on the way?”

  “Without stopping on the way.”

  “Then you can get your underlined book at the asylum there,” she said triumphantly. “Because it’s connected with those dark deeds that you can’t talk about. That keep you from including a name or a greeting when you send gifts. That result in nobody knowing who you are when I ask.”

  “Who have you asked — or talked to — about me?”

  “Russian sailors. Bergen merchants. The people in charge of the asylum and prison in Trondheim.”

  He stared at her.

  “Why did you do that?” he whispered.

  “Because I had a book I wanted to return to you.”

  “And that’s why you went to all that effort from Bergen to Trondheim?”

  “Yes. So now you can get the book yourself!”

  “I certainly can,” he said, calm and trembling. “To whom did you deliver it?”

  “The director.”

  He knit his brows for a moment.

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want it any longer.”

  “But why did you give it to the director?”

  “Who else would I give it to? But the package is sealed,” she said with a mocking smile.

  “I said you could keep it, you know.”

  “I didn’t want it. Besides, you were so worried about that book…”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Because you pretended to be so indifferent.”

  There was a pause.

  He stopped and stared at her for a moment.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” he said gravely.

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t explain, Dina.”

  “The director isn’t your friend?”

  “I have no confidence that he’s the right person for Pushkin…”

  “Do you know him?”

  “No. Now will you please stop asking questions, Dina?”

  She turned like a flash, walked over to him, and gave his cheek a resounding slap.

  He stood there. Riveted to the gravel road.

  “You shouldn’t hit people, Dina. People, and animals, shouldn’t

  fight.”

  He began to walk slowly down the hill. His right hand holding his hat. His left hand dangling like a dead pendulum.

  She did not move. He heard the silence. Turned and said her name.

  “Why do you have to be so secretive about everything?” she screamed down the hill at him.

  Her throat was extended, like that of a goose that does not want to be slaughtered. Her large nose protruded into the air like a beak. The sun had slashed the clouds. The wind was increasing.

  “You wander here and there, letting people get attached to you. And then you disappear without a trace! What sort of person are you anyway? Eh? What sort of game are you playing? I want to know!”

  “Come here, Dina. Don’t stand there shouting.”

  “I’ll do what I wish. You come here!”

  And he came. As if humoring a child whose tears he had caused.

  They walked down the hill. Close to each other.

  “You don’t often cry, do you, Dina?”

  “Not because of you!”

  “When did you last cry?”

  “In a storm on the Fold Sea last summer,” she snarled.

  He smiled a little.

  “Shouldn’t we stop the war now?”

  “Not until Tve found out who you are and where you’re going.”

  “Don’t you see me here, Dina?”

  “That’s not enough!”

  He held her tightly in his arms and said simply, as though commenting on the weather:

  “I love you, Dina Gronelv.”

  Several decades before someone had placed a large curbstone exactly where they stood. Otherwise she would have sat down in the mud.

  Dina sank onto the stone. Pulled and tugged at her fingers, as if she did not want them.

  “What does that mean? What does that mean? What does that mean?” she shouted.

  He accepted her hysteria. With apparent calmness.

  “Isn’t that enough either, Dina?”

  “Why do you say words like that? Why don’t you come to Reinsnes more often instead?”

  “It’s a long way,” was all he said. He stood in front of her, perplexed.

  “Tell me!”

  “Sometimes a man has reasons to keep silent.”

  “More than a woman?”

  “I don’t know about that. But I don’t beg you to tell me things.”

  Something was stretched too far between them.

  “Do you think you can come and go at Reinsnes as if nothing …”

  “I come and go as I wish. You absolutely must stop asking about me on your trips. I’m nobody. Remember that!”

  He was angry.

  She got up from the stone and took his arm, and they continued along the
road. There were still only fields and forest around them. No houses. No people.

  “What do you actually do?” she asked, leaning close to him in a confidential way.

  He saw through the technique immediately. Nevertheless, after a while he replied, with a sigh of resignation:

  “Politics.”

  She picked his face into small pieces with her look. Bit by bit. Clung to his eyes at the end.

  “Some people are after you. And others are trying to protect you.”

  “You’re after me.” He grinned.

  “What terrible things have you done?”

  “None,” he answered. Looking serious now.

  “Not in your own eyes, but …”

  “Not in yours either.”

  “Let me decide that for myself. Tell me about them.”

  He threw out his hands helplessly and, finally, took off his hat and put it under his arm. The wind besieged him.

  Then he said harshly:

  “The world is worse than you can imagine. Blood. Gallows. Treason, poverty, and degradation.”

  “Is it dangerous?” she asked.

  “No more dangerous than you’d expect. But more horrible than you’d believe. And that makes me a person who doesn’t exist!”

  “Doesn’t exist?”

  “Yes. Someday things will be better.”

  “When will that be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Will you come to Reinsnes then?”

  “Yes!” he said firmly. “Will you have me, even if I go by without stopping and am a person who doesn’t exist?”

  “I can’t marry a person who doesn’t exist.”

  “Do you want to marry me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you asked me?”

  “We’ve received a blessing. That’s enough.”

  “What would I do at Reinsnes?”

  “You’d live there with me and lend a hand as needed.”

  “Do you think that’s enough for a man?”

  “It was enough for Jacob. It’s enough for me!”

  “But I’m not you or Jacob.”

  They stared at each other like two male animals staking their territory. There was no trace of courtship in their eyes.

  Finally, she gave in. Looked down and said meekly: “You could be the skipper on one of the cargo boats and travel all over, if you wanted.”