“I wouldn’t make a good skipper,” he said politely. He still held his hat crushed under his arm.
“I can’t be married to a man who’s wandering around Russia and everywhere!” she shouted.
“You shouldn’t be married, Dina. I don’t think you’re suited to being married.”
“But who will I have?”
“You’ll have me.”
“But you’re not there!”
“I’m always there. Don’t you understand? I’m with you. But I can’t be fenced in. You can’t be the fence. That only leads to hate.”
“Hate?”
“Yes! You can’t confine people. Then they become dangerous. They’ve done that to the Russian people. And everything’s going to explode soon!”
Millions of meadow grasses were flattened by the wind. Some terrified bluebells dangled back and forth.
“You can’t confine people. Then they become dangerous …,” she whispered. “Then they become dangerous!”
She said it into the air as if it was a truth she had not realized until just this moment.
They did not need to touch one another. A bond as strong as mooring lines stretched between them.
The next day, a messenger arrived at the Müller estate with a package. For Dina.
It was her hat. It looked as though it had been lying outside all winter. But inside the crown lay a card in a sealed envelope.
“No matter how bad things appear, I’ll always return.”
That was all.
She took the first steamboat south. He was two days ahead of her. There was no joy in the vessel’s wake. But the tranquillity was a companion of sorts.
The bishop’s wife knew that love existed. And Dina had saved herself a trip to Vard0 Fortress. She had heard it was a windswept, godforsaken place with a dungeon and a fort inside a star-shaped wall.
“You can’t confine people. Then they become dangerous!” Dina murmured to herself. She did not have much to do besides count mountaintops and fjord entrances.
The people on board were insignificant.
Chapter 16
For my life is spent with sorrow,
and my years with sighing;
my strength fails because of my misery,
and my bones waste away.
— Psalms 31 : 10
While Dina was on her way home, Mother Karen collapsed in her wing chair and could no longer speak.
Tomas was sent across the mountain on horseback to get the doctor. And Anders rushed a message by sea to Johan, who was visiting the pastor in Vagan.
The doctor was not home. But even if he had come, he probably could not have done much.
Johan packed his travel bag and set out for his grandmother’s deathbed. To him, as to everyone else, it had seemed natural that Mother Karen would never die.
Oline was beside herself. Her distress affected the food. Everything she touched was tasteless and unfit to eat. Her face was as pink and naked as a baboon’s rear.
Stine sat with the old woman. Boiled herbs and fed her with a spoon. She wiped away the secretions from the old woman’s pores and openings. Washed her and strewed potato starch. She filled leather pouches with dried herbs and rose petals to sweeten the air in the sickroom.
Now and then Mother Karen thought she had come to the Garden of Eden and could forget the long road she must travel to reach it.
Stine warmed wool cloths and placed them on the limp limbs, plumped the pillows and quilts, and opened the window a crack. So there would always be some fresh air.
Meanwhile, the August sun blazed, the blueberries ripened, and the final loads of hay were brought into the barns.
* * *
Benjamin and Hanna were invisible and silent, on Oline’s orders. They mostly wandered along the beach, watching all the ships that might bring Dina and the presents she would have for them.
Benjamin understood that his grandmother was ill. But he regarded it as one of Oline’s many exaggerations to say that Mother Karen was going to die. Hanna, on the other hand, had inherited Stine’s sense of the inevitable. So one day she stood barefoot at the high-water mark, speared an overturned crab with a stick, and said:
“Mother Karen will probably die before Sunday!”
“Huh? Why do you say that?”
“Because Mama looks that way. In fact, Mother Karen looks that way too! Old people have to die.”
Benjamin was furious.
“Mother Karen’s not old!” he declared. Then added gently, “People just think she is….”
“She’s ancient!”
“No! You’re crazy!”
“Why do you deny it? She should be allowed to die now, without you getting angry!”
“Yes, but she’s not going to die! Do you hear?”
He grabbed her braids and twisted them right to her scalp. Beside herself with rage and pain, she plopped down on the high-tide beach and howled. Her dress and pantalets got soaked far up her back. She sat there with her legs outstretched and her bottom underwater. The cries came fitfully from her gaping mouth.
Benjamin forgot he was angry at her. Besides, he realized he had to do something if he did not want Stine to come running to see what was the matter. He stared at the girl a few moments. With a resigned expression. Then he reached out both hands, helped her to her feet, and calmed her down.
They took off her wet clothes. Wrung them out and laid them on the warm rocks to dry. And since they were sitting there like that, not really knowing whether they were friends or enemies, he began to examine her, as he sometimes did when nobody could see them. Still feeling offended, she stretched out on the rock, flicked an erring ant from her thigh, and graciously let Benjamin continue. While she sniffed phlegm and tears and let herself be somewhat comforted.
Both of them had forgotten that Mother Karen was going to die before Sunday.
* * *
Dina arrived on the steamboat the next day. She took the children into Mother Karen’s room. They stood by the bed with stiff arms and downcast eyes.
Benjamin shivered in the warm room. He shook his head when Stine told him to take his grandmother’s hand.
Dina leaned over Mother Karen and held the old woman’s hands, one after the other, in both of hers. Then she nodded to Benjamin.
The boy put his hand in Dina’s, who guided it to the old woman. Then she held both their hands in hers.
A sudden light flickered in Mother Karen’s eyes. Her face was partly paralyzed. But she drew the left side of her mouth into a helpless smile. And her eyes slowly brimmed with tears.
Stine’s herb pouches swung gently above the bed. The white curtain brushed against the windowsill.
Benjamin threw his arms around Mother Karen’s neck and gave her a big hug. Without anyone’s telling him to do so.
Anders, Oline, and the other Reinsnes workers stood inside the door. They had been to the bedside one by one.
Mother Karen never spoke again. But she let them stroke her thin hands. Large blue veins twisted across the back of each hand like bare autumn branches. When her eyes were open, they followed the people in the room. And it was clear that she heard and understood everything.
A deep peace settled on the room. People merged with one another. Mute. Like clumps of heather after the snow has disappeared, they drew themselves erect and blended together.
Johan did not reach Mother Karen before she died.
The funeral boat was decorated with leaves and adder’s-tongue ferns. As well as bouquets and wreaths of flowers. They covered the coffin completely.
Oline was responsible for seeing that the funeral guests were well fed and did not go home and talk about the poor kitchen at Reinsnes. She would make sure Mother Karen did not get that posthumous reputation!
Night and day, she worked her magic with food and drink for the funeral. Nothing would be lacking. And she sighed and wept the whole time.
Benjamin thought it would never end. He had to help by wiping her eyes, so her te
ars would not fall into the lefse, the liver paté, or the sandwiches.
Johan was imprisoned in grief. What had happened between him and Dina remained on his conscience like spots of decay. And he had never received forgiveness for it. Mother Karen’s death was a dreadful warning. But Dina still existed! She could insult and subdue him merely by walking through the room. He had been unable to talk with Mother Karen about his terrible sin, and now she was dead! And he could never think about his father without great anxiety.
For a long time now, he had felt distant from God. He had tried to do penance among his parishioners on the windswept skerries. Refused a salary and gave all his earnings to the poor. But it made no difference.
His self-hatred was so intense that he could not stand to see his own nakedness. He could not even empty himself in his sleep without feeling that he was drowning in Dina’s hair. Her white thighs were the entrance to hell He saw tongues of fire licking him when he awoke, and he forced himself to remember all the prayers he had learned.
But clearly, this was not enough for Our Lord. Johan needed to confess his sin to the bishop in Nidaros or Troms0.
After the funeral, Johan returned to Helgeland. He had avoided Dina the way one avoids ice in an open channel.
Dina ordered the barn to be cleaned. And the floors in the store and the boathouses were to be scoured.
Nobody knew the reason for this cleaning. But they understood it was an order. She sat in the office through the long fall evenings, burning expensive oil while she minutely examined expensive numbers.
She did not move into the main house, and she did not play the cello. The latter made everyone uneasy.
Benjamin knew better than anyone that this was a dangerous Dina. He tried to reach her with the same tricks she used when she wanted something.
But Dina responded by hiring a tutor. With wisdom and discipline, he forced the children to make progress. As if they were two threshing machines that should be driven to their limits.
Anders traveled here and there. He seemed invisible even when at Reinsnes, because they knew he would be leaving soon.
Mother Karen lay in her grave, with no responsibility for anything. She was more sacrosanct than ever.
Her reputation flourished, pure and white as the frost patterns on Dina’s window. Mother Karen kept her distance. She did not come to Dina from the corners or from the heavy cloudbanks above the sound. She did not interfere with what Dina did or did not do. Made no demands.
It appeared she was perfectly content to be dead and had no need for any contact.
When it was rumored that bears had been seen on Eid Mountain again, Dina asked Tomas to go hunting with her. But he refused. Always had something that needed to be done.
Autumn passed.
In October winter arrived suddenly, with cold weather and heavy snowfalls.
Dina began to play the cello again. She divided her time between the ledgers and the cello.
The tones. Black signs on stern lines. Silent, until she gave them sound. Sometimes the tones came from the printed music, or from Lorch’s cello, without her playing. Her hands could rest idly on the instrument, and still the melody would emerge.
The numbers. In neat, dark-blue columns. Silent, but clear enough. For initiates. They always meant the same. Had their yearly rhythm and their hidden treasures. Or their obvious losses.
Chapter 17
Then Amnon said to Tamar, ‘‘Bring the food into the chamber, that I may eat from your hand.”’ And Tamar took the cakes she had made, and brought them into the chamber to Amnon her brother. But when she brought them near him to eat, he took hold of her, and said to her, “Come, lie with me, my sister.” She answered him, “No, my brother, do not force me; for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do this wanton folly …” But he would not listen to her; and being stronger than she, he forced her, and lay with her.
Then Amnon hated her with very great hatred; so that the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her. And Amnon said to her, “Arise, be gone.”
— 2 Samuel 13 : 10-12, 14-15
Tomas had begun to be on the lookout for Dina whenever she was in the stable or barns.
She moved uneasily when he was nearby. As if she were avoiding an insect. Sometimes she gave him a searching look. Generally when he was at a safe distance.
One afternoon he approached her as she entered the cottage.
“Why are you always in my way, Tomas?’” she said angrily.
The brown and the blue eye blinked several times. Then they narrowed.
“If I’m to do my work, I need to move around.”
“And what work do you have here, on my steps?”
“I’m clearing away the snow. If you don’t mind?”
“Then maybe you could use a shovel?”
He turned and went to the toolshed. For hours, his spade shrieked near the cottage.
The next day, Dina called Stine to her room.
“What about you and Tomas getting married?” she asked without preliminaries.
Stine sank onto the nearest chair but immediately stood up again.
“How can you say such a thing?’” she exclaimed. “It’s a good solution.” “To what?”
“To everything.”
“You can’t mean that,” Stine said shyly, with a desperate look at Dina.
“You can live here in the cottage, like fine folk. I’ll move into the main house,” said Dina gently.
Stine put her hands under her apron and lowered her eyes. She made no reply.
“What do you say to the idea?” asked Dina.
“He doesn’t want to,” Stine said calmly.
“Why wouldn’t he want to?”
“You know why.”
“And what’s the reason?”
“He wants someone else.”
“And who might that be?”
Stine squirmed. Her head drooped farther toward her chest.
“You must be the only one who doesn’t know. It’s hard to make people change their hearts. And rarely leads to any good….”
“You’d be a blessing to anyone, Stine!” Dina interrupted.
Stine walked slowly when she left the cottage. Her eyes were almost black and looked resolutely straight ahead. She had forgotten her shawl on the chair. But did not go back for it, even though she was shivering.
For a long while, she stood on the kitchen steps, looking at the icicles that hung from the eaves. Oline was working inside, with her back to the window.
Dina sent for Tomas and told him about his future.
He stiffened, as if someone had nailed him to the floor. His face was utterly naked.
“You can’t mean that!” he whispered.
“Why not? It’s a good solution. You two can live here in the cottage, like princes!”
“Dina!” he said. His eyes fumbled for her. Blindly.
“Everything Stine puts her hand to turns out well,” said Dina.
“No!”
“Why not?”
“You know why. I can’t get married!”
“Are you going to go around acting like a fool all your life?”
He recoiled as if she had struck him. But said nothing.
“You dream too much, Tomas! I’m offering you a solution. It will be best for everyone.”
“You don’t like that I look in your direction,” he said harshly.
“There’s no future in looking in my direction.”
“But I was good enough … before!”
“Don’t talk about before, she said sharply.
“You’re cruel!”
“Do you call an offer like this cruel?”
“Yes,” he said hoarsely. He put on his hat and wanted to leave.
“It’s hard for you to be at Reinsnes without being married, don’t you see?”
“When did that start to be true?”
“When I realized you’re sneaking after me everywhere,” she hissed
softly.
He left, without her permission to do so.
Dina paced back and forth all afternoon, despite the fact that she had work to do.
The maid came to light the fire in the bedroom. But Dina screamed at her to get out of the house.
The cottage grew dark and quiet.
Tomas was sitting in the kitchen with Oline, eating his evening porridge, when Stine came to get something.
She glanced at him and blushed. Then left quickly.
The floor burned beneath Tomas. He stared as if he had never seen a door close behind anyone before.
Tomas slumped his shoulders and chewed his porridge thoroughly.
“Well?” said Oline. “Is the porridge cold?”
“No, not at all. Thanks very much,” said Tomas, embarrassed.
“You don’t look very happy.”
“I don’t?”
“And Stine looks the same way. What’s going on?”
“Dina wants to marry us off!” he burst out, before he could collect his thoughts.
Oline shut her mouth tightly. The way she closed the oven drafts every night.
“To each other, or to someone else?” she asked, clearing her throat. As if the whole idea were new to her.
“To each other.”
“Have you been … ?”
“No!” he said furiously.
“I see “
“You can’t just marry off people,” he whispered.
Oline made no comment and began rattling dishes on the table. Then she observed:
“She’s getting more and more like the sheriff.”
“Yes!” Tomas agreed. Then he became lost in thought again.
“Doesn’t she want you? Stine, that is?”
“I can’t imagine she would,” he said, bewildered.
“Would it really be so bad?”
“So bad?”
“It might be a good solution, you know.”
He pushed his coffee cup away, grabbed his cap, and rushed out the door.
“The hell with the good solutions here at Reinsnes,” he growled from the entryway.
The next morning, Tomas was nowhere to be found. Nobody knew where he had gone.
Dina's Book Page 44