Napoleon was rather surprised by the question. He knew that Tóvó used to fill Nils Tvibur’s seaweed middens, and when he spoke to Old Tóvó about taking the boy to Suðuroy, the old man had said that Tóvó was not a complete novice when it came to farming.
Napoleon knew that already. Besides, the boy had helped him numerous times. Sometimes when he was called to a patient, out to Kirkjubøer or Velbastaður, say, he would ask Tóvó to accompany him, and he would give him a dried mutton shoulder or some other little thing in return. Tóvó had also given him a hand in the apothecary. He was quick with the mortar and had such a good understanding of the fine weights that he could be trusted to weigh out whatever Napoleon wanted. The boy was a little odd, to be sure, but certainly not pathological.
But here in Tvøroyri there would be so many strange things for the newcomer to take in, or so Napoleon had assumed, that he had not given Tóvó any significant tasks. But if the boy wanted to make himself useful, Napoleon would certainly not object.
Tóvó grew enthusiastic when he realized his idea might become an actuality. His shoulders trembled and his eyes blinked rapidly. He pointed down at the beach and said that he had found at least two good places. He just was not sure about the surf.
“Tell me,” Napoleon said, “do you like it here in Tvøroyri?”
Tóvó thought a minute. Then he told Napoleon what Corporal Nils used to say: it was not a question of like or dislike. Instead, a person should do what was asked of them and eat the meal set before them.
“That’s right,” Napoleon answered. “But don’t you miss Tórshavn?”
Tóvó gave himself some time to consider this before replying rather dryly that he slept well up in the west gable, and that he liked the brown sauce that Napoleon made to go with the meat they ate on Sundays.
Napoleon clapped him on the shoulder and asked Tóvó to show him the places he had found for a midden.
Inwardly, however, he sighed. It would probably take quite a while before Tóvó became a typical and well-rounded young man.
He had never liked the Corporal, whom it appeared had crammed his Norwegian barracks mentality into a susceptible boy’s head.
Building the stone wall around the seaweed midden was Tóvó’s first independent task in Tvøroyri, and everything he came upon that could possibly rot he also tossed onto the heap. Seaweed, obviously, but also starfish, dead birds, sheep droppings, and cusk. The toilet pail was also emptied into the midden, and before the hens got to them, Tóvó carried their dinner scraps down to this sacrificial stone bowl, consecrated to future potatoes and root vegetables.
Tóvó’s most important job soon became cultivating what later came to be known as the the Doctor’s Field. It was something he had done before. Between Skansin and what Tórshavnars were beginning to call Penapláss, the Lovely Spot, was Nils Tvibur’s field. When Pløyen had ceded it to him, the area was still a heather-choked outfield used for grazing, and for many years, right up until the time that Nils got married and moved to Sumba, Tóvó had followed at the Corporal’s heels. Nils had taught him to cut seaweed and to collect what the surf washed ashore, and he told the boy to fill both middens before St. Clement’s Day in November, because without seaweed for fertilizer they would never coax potatoes or root vegetables to sprout.
By 1850, Nils had given Tóvó his own plot to work and the boy tended it well. He was proud of the ground he had plowed into neat long rows. The plants were also a continuous source of satisfaction. Their green stems were tall and thin, rather like the umbrella under which Frú Regenburg sometimes sat, and buzzing flies rested on their swaying leaves.
His great-grandfather told him make sure he took care of Nils’s field as well, saying that it was only shirks and scoundrels who refused to show gratitude to a benefactor.
Napoleon asked his cousin to appraise Tóvó’s work, and Jóakim immediately saw that Pole’s young servant was capable and skilled. With quick motions he dug up and flipped the turf, and then further broke up the clumps, so the sloping, fathom-wide field looked nice and smooth. It was also clear to Jóakim that the boy was neither mute nor otherwise handicapped, despite his nervous twitches, which could be quite pronounced. The problem was the boy was just extremely shy.
Pole had explained to Jóakim about the tragedy that had befallen the Geil house, and Jóakim knew enough about Tórshavn to have heard of the Brahmadells. The boy, it seemed, came from a family of sorcerers, or, as the saying went, from people who knew more than the Lord’s Prayer, so he would turn out alright.
Pole told Jóakim about July 1, 1846, the day he met Tóvó. The reason he remembered the date was that the Havfruen had come into Tórshavn that same day with Doctor Panum and August Manicus on board. That very afternoon the boy had walked into the apothecary at Nólsoyarstova carrying a telescope, which Nólsoyar Páll had given his grandfather, wrapped in a red silk cloth. Pole had showed his father the curious treasure that evening, and he imitated how the old man had adjusted his glasses on his nose and inspected the telescope from all sides. He thrust his chin critically forward, bared a row of worn yellow teeth, and made a series of bleating sounds. Pole’s imitation of his father was so good that Jóakim roared with laughter.
“Yes, indeed,” his father had said, “typical brother Páll.” No doubt he swiped the telescope from some Frenchman whose name began with the letters P and N. Well, this much Jákup Nolsøe could tell his son the doctor, Mr. Hernia and Bladder Specialist. In 1791 his brother was still going by the name Poul Poulsen, so P. P.! “What we have here is stolen goods,” the old man said. “Stolen during those brief, flamboyant years when that blabbermouth simply lived and died by the French whorehouses, and you’re an idiot to let yourself be fooled by some weeping Brahmadella spawn. Well-educated man that you are, you’re afraid of magic. That’s why you didn’t have the nerve to deny the boy his opium drops. To hell with the telescope, and learn to take real money for curatives!”
If problems arose, Jóakim tried to teach Tóvó how to solve them. One day when he was standing in the field he pointed to a large rock that Tóvó had been eyeing. There was no need to drag the stone from the ground, he said. Jóakim asked to see the boy’s spade. Then he dug a hole next to the rock, pushed the rock in, and covered it with dirt.
That was how it was done. He also advised the boy to keep a whetstone on hand, since a sharp spade made the work that much easier.
Jóakim also taught the boy another trick. He showed Tóvó how to work rocks loose with an iron bar, and to put something beneath the bar while doing it, since that allowed you to lift many times your own weight.
And he constantly warned Tóvó against unnecessary effort. The trick was to work calmly and systematically. There were too many heroes here in the south who liked to pretend they were figures out of Faroese folk tales, like those giants of legend, Jansaguttar and the Harga Brothers. The result was crooked and misshapen spines.
And then came the wonderful day that Jóakim brought the rock bores and wedges—oh, how much more interesting Tóvó’s life became. The smaller of the two bores was a foot in length, and Tóvó quickly caught on. The large hammer sang down onto the bore’s head, and every crack that was split produced a little dust. Tóvó twisted the bore slightly, split another crack, and another, and every strike drove the bore a little deeper into the stone. Sometimes he also hammered two, even three times in the same crack or groove, and he noticed this caused the tip to disappear further, but could also damage the bore. So, a slight twist of the bore for every strike, and even though less emerged, the smaller strikes produced the desired result.
Diligent and happy, Tóvó sat boring rock, and from the ringing iron came snatches of songs and sometimes fragments of the witty and strange ballads his great-grandfather liked to hum.
Words like rock king, chisel master, and hammer prince also showed that Tóvó himself was no stranger to fancy.
He bored rock for his sister Ebba and for Great-grandfather and for his broth
er Lýðar, who had sailed again this year with the Glen Rose. He bored deep holes for his mother. Maybe he would reach that diseased place in her heart where insanity, like a starfish, had suctioned on. He bored for the sun and the moon and for the Tears of St. Lawrence. And last but not least, he bored for Pole, who could get so enraged he snapped his pipe between his fingers.
So absorbed in this simple iron music could Tóvó become that he completely forgot people might be standing and listening. A 700-to 800-pound rock split with amazing ease, and from there Tóvó eventually moved onto even bigger stones and the longer bore. The thrilling moment was when he pounded the wedges into the hole. Watching cracks spread through the hard material was always a true pleasure. A rock that was too heavy for a man to lift, and which he could not even have pulled on the rock sled, suddenly lay shattered at his feet, perfect wall material. Conquering rocks calmed the mind.
A Visit from Froðba
ONE DAY AN old man from Froðba, a town to the east, stopped by to see how work was progressing. He could hear the hammer singing clear out to Torvheyggjur, he said, and one thing he knew for certain: good things were happening here, both when it came to farming and to wall-building.
Tóvó explained that Doctor Pole took care of the all really heavy rocks. The big rocks on the wall’s north and west side were ones the doctor had put in place.
The Froðbinger found a rock and sat down. He had light-blue eyes, and when he spoke, he tended to tilt his head. He said, yes, building a wall did take strength, but tilling new ground and making it as smooth as Tóvó had done also took strength, not to mention skilled hands and a trained eye. The old man had a dog with him, and while he talked he scratched the dog beneath the chin.
The words of praise gratified Tóvó. He had cultivated two separate plots, each around 20 fathoms long, and he had started on a third. Right now, though, he mostly bored rocks. That gave him material for a wall around the field and also let him clear the ground east toward the Tvørá River.
Tóvó smiled to find himself sitting and talking just like other people did. He asked the Froðbinger why rocks were made of such different material. Some were like glass and could be shattered to pieces, while other rocks took a whole day to bore through.
“I don’t know exactly,” the old man answered. But no doubt it was all part of God’s plan. However alike dogs and wolves seemed, they were also different. The birds of the skies were different in color and song as well as wingspan. Or take fish. Halibuts were flat and had both eyes on the gray side, while the ling looked more like a worm. Could rocks not have the same variety? A place in Sumba had a green rock layer he had heard Pastor Schrøter call jasper. People said Charlemagne’s armband had the most beautiful green pearls, and in Revelation it was written that God’s glory is like jasper and sardius. And then the Froðbinger pointed toward Rangabotnur and said that the mountain was full of coal, and that coal was also a kind of rock. “Maybe everything in creation is so different,” he said, “so that men can admire and praise creation.”
The old man took up a wedge, weighed it in his hand, and then said an odd thing: “I’ll tell you this, Tórshavnar. A wedge’s strength and a woman’s wiles—they’re both unpredictable forces.”
Tóvó grew anxious. Abruptly, the comfortable moment was shattered. Why did the man say women were unpredictable? Could he be referring to Tóvó’s mother? Had rumors of her insanity traveled south? In that case, both Froðbingers and Trongisvágurs would know that Tóvó was the son of Crazy Betta.
Tóvó had the sudden, desperate thought that maybe the old man was not even human. He had never seen the man before, neither in the shop nor those times Pole sent him to Froðba with medicine. Plus, the man did not cast a shadow, but just sat there, a small, bearded figure with a dog, which also had not made any sound. That, too, was suspicious. Perhaps the dog was no ordinary dog.
Tóvó felt dizzy. He was sitting here talking to a hulda, that was what he was doing, and underworldly forces had stripped the dog of its bark.
A bank of clouds had blocked the autumn sun, but Tóvó did not notice. He was conscious only of the goose bumps rising on his arms, and how everything suddenly felt cold and unsettling. The old man was still holding the wedge, and suddenly Tóvó remembered you were supposed to strike huldas and other underworldly beings hard enough on the nose that blood flowed and they lost their power. But he dared not strike the Froðbinger, he had such lovely blue eyes, and when he thought back, the old man had done nothing wrong. Nothing at all. He had just sat and rested and spoken rather strangely about women and wedges.
Tóvó glanced west toward Rangabotnur, wondering what would happen if all that coal caught fire, how many years the mountain would stand burning out in the Atlantic? Would they see it all the way to Kirkwall? Or what if rot crept into the jasper in Sumba? Perhaps the mountains covering all that green stuff would topple into the ocean, sending all those people and sheep and chickens and even Corporal Nils’s farm into the depths.
The dog suddenly lifted its head and as they looked into each other’s eyes, Tóvó remembered the terrifying day his mother tried to kill Mogul. It was around St. Bartholomew’s in 1847, right after the two Danish warships had left Tórshavn. With both her hands wrapped around the knife handle, his mother had driven the blade into Mogul’s neck, drawing forth a spray of blood. The next thrust entered the dog’s side, but after that Mogul was able to escape.
The dog had been whelped in Hoyvík, and probably because the animal sensed its end was near, it set a course for its birthplace. The wretched animal managed to drag itself to the town’s south wall. And there it collapsed. It had no strength to climb the wall, partly because it had lost so much blood, but also because its insides were hanging out. A few ravens hopped around Mogul, the most enthusiastic hacking at the warm seeping flesh. Every time the dog managed to nose its guts back inside its belly a bit, the ravens went after its neck wound, and when the dog snapped at them, more ravens hacked at the unprotected entrails.
Mogul heard a man’s voice and watched the vicious birds fly off. The Hoyvík farmer squatted down, spoke gently to the wounded animal, and immediately saw there was nothing that could be done.
With a quick motion he slit the dog’s throat, and one day when he had business in Tórshavn he visited Old Tóvó and told him what had happened and how he had put Mogul out of his misery.
After the Froðbinger left, asking that Jesus be with Tóvó, the boy remained sitting, doubtful. He knew it was foolish, but he grabbed a handful of grass, picked up the wedge that the old man had touched, and placed the wedge in a puddle of water, where he let it lie awhile before retrieving it again.
My Sweet Lord
THE DAYS WERE getting shorter, and even though the ships tended to stop fishing in late November, Tóvó still watched the fjord mouth for sails.
For two years his brother Lýðar had sailed with the Scottish ship, the Glen Rose, and since the Trade Monopoly had opened a branch in Tvøroyri, it was usual for the Shetlandic and Scottish sloops that fished the waters south of Munken and all the way to the Bill Bailey Bank to put in for fresh water and supplies.
Jóakim said the Bill Bailey Bank had been named after a Welsh skipper who had invented a special net, which the Scotts called a trawl, around the turn of the century. The trawl was dragged behind the boat and could catch an incredible amount of fish, indeed, several skippunds at a time. However, fishing like that was dangerous because the ship relied on the wind for its required momentum. They fished at full sail and amid huge waves. A capstan was used to pull the trawl up and it was not unusual for men to be dashed overboard, a fact that pained Bill Bailey. Indeed, the drowned fishermen tormented him so much that finally all he could do was hang himself.
Tóvó asked if Jóakim had known Bill Bailey personally, but no, he had not. Tóvó said his brother was sailing with the Glen Rose, and that their father had been a permanent crewmember for about a decade. He did not want to tell Jóakim, though, that
the Scottish fishermen were still regular visitors to the Geil house.
It was not too long ago, actually, that several crewmembers, along with the skipper, George Harrison, had visited the Geil house to pay their tribute and to show their grief for a deeply respected man, as the skipper put it.
The skipper, as it happened, belonged to a sect of church haters, and when he spoke, he continually exclaimed Oh, my sweet Lord in a hoarse, tear-filled voice.
Everyone in the Geil house knew the meaning of the English phrase, but their mother had made sure her children both feared and hated the words. She lay on her bed shouting my sweet lord, and that the Scots could go to Hell with their tribute and grief for a deeply dead man.
She changed the words according to her whims, and sometimes she invited the whole Scottish fleet to board her—she would show them the crushing force of a Brahmadella woman’s loins!
Jóakim was familiar with George Harrison; he said that the Glen Rose had come into Tvøroyri several times for water, and to make Tóvó happy, he told him a little white lie. He said that he himself had once spoken to Martimann, and that the man was a fine fellow.
It was Jóakim who supplied the ships with drinking water. He steered his boat beneath the little waterfall called Sixpence, and when the water was almost up to the oar bank, he rowed it out to the sloop. The water was then hauled aboard by bucket.
It was the Scotts who had nicknamed the waterfall Sixpence, because that was the amount they paid Jóakim for the service.
Water was not the only liquid for which the ships came ashore. The fishermen also bought brandy at the Trade Monopoly, since in cities like Lerwick, Kirkwall, Fraserburgh, and Inverness, as well as the large cities along the north Scottish coast, brandy had either been outlawed or was so expensive that only the rich could afford a pint of the strong stuff.
The Brahmadells Page 8