Before they descended off the mountain, they broke their fast. Some had brought skerpikjøt and bread in a rucksack, and others had dried pilot-whale meat and blubber, but none of them ate potatoes. Only a few years had passed since a Norwegian pastor’s wife had introduced that particular scourge to the country. She believed potatoes were an excellent food supplement for the poor. However, those present on Skælingsfjall were not among the needy, and no one, certainly not a Norwegian pastor’s wife, was going to pollute this holy ground with potato peelings. They ate quietly, as befitted Sunmen, and occasionally someone would lift his right hand and say, Oh, Mother Sun, and continue their meal.
The only thing that was strange was seeing the old poet, the Sjóvarbondin, pouring drink from a horn. A smile played about his broad face, but what exactly was behind that smile, whether it was disdain or warmth, was difficult to say. He was bare-headed, and his long hair was the color of bark. The solemn face resembled a rugged cliff, and Pløyen thought his smile was as old as the mountain they stood on. His beard was also bark-colored, and as he served them, he skipped no one, not even the two inquisitive guests. The horn was decorated with carvings and silver inlay, and before he tipped it the Sjóvarbondin spoke three words: sun, earth, eternity. That was the password, and then the horn was emptied.
Even though everything on Skælingsfjall was calm and collected, the experience had been a terrifying one for Nils Tvibur. Not that he would ever consider telling that to anyone. He would rather break his own bones or thrown himself off a cliff than to so shamefully admit his distress.
What made the Skælingsfjall experience so terrifying was that it was familiar. His father, Gregor Selleg, had said once—no, not just once—the words on Walpurgis Night in 1827 when Nils was nineteen years old. That evening his father had said that the sun was the yeoman’s old god. The sun blessed their crops and animals, whereas poor men, not to mention those church-hating Haugeans, had to make due with the carpenter from Nazareth. And that Nazarene was probably no prize-winning carpenter either. If so, he would have stuck to his trade and refrained from gallivanting around, preaching and unveiling, since the god he called Father was even incapable of helping him in the end.
His father’s words struck Nils as hurtful, and he asked why his father did not sacrifice to the Sun then. His father replied that most of what he said was meant as a joke.
Nils, however, did not take kindly to such jokes, and he did not interpret his father’s words as such. Gregor Selleg’s tone had been far too solemn.
Nils demanded to know if his father had taught Øystein, Nils’s older twin brother, to worship the sun since Øystein was going to inherit the farm and all.
Gregor Selleg tried to calm Nils and put a hand on his son’s shoulder. But Nils was in no mood to be pacified. He ordered Gregor to remove his yeoman’s hand.
His father did not obey. Instead, he put a second hand on his son’s shoulder and said that Nils needed to learn to control his anger. Everything had a purpose, including the fact Nils had been second born. Anyway, Nils was too hot-tempered to run a farm.
Close to tears now, Nils repeated his words. “Gregor, my father,” he said, “remove your hand, I beg you.”
His father’s derisive smile caused the muscles in Nils’s neck and throat muscles to tense; his forehead struck his father’s face like a hammer blow.
The old man staggered, blood running from his nose and mouth, and then he collapsed and lay still in the yard.
That same evening Nils left the Selleg farm, and had not been home since.
Of course, he had no desire to tell Pløyen any of this as they rode back toward the capital.
Some Words Concerning Kristensa, Eigil, and Karin
THIS STORY, OR rather, this short episode in Corporal Nils Tvibur’s family saga, was related to Eigil Tvibur years later by his mother, Kristensa. She gave birth to Eigil in Tórshavn, and he had been a small schoolboy when she married the printer Ingvald Sivertsen. Even though Kristensa took Ingvald’s last name, and though the two daughters they later conceived were baptized Sivertsen, she allowed Eigil keep the old Tvibur name.
Eigil belonged to an earlier period in her life, or rather, he belonged to a world that had nothing to do with Ingvald and the girls. Kristensa maintained a connection to her own origin through her son; that was the nature of the beast. Selfishly and thoughtlessly, she laid the groundwork for what was later to prove Eigil’s misfortune. The often-grim tales concerning both the corporal and the Tvibur family were things she discussed only with her son. They came from a place where time had stopped, a little mausoleum that held the coffins of some unpredictable and dangerous individuals.
Eigil was thirty years old when he published a volume of articles, sketches, and short stories based on the tales his mother told him, and the prosaic title on the cover was just that: Articles, Sketches, and Short Stories. The book was as thick as it was uninteresting—so wrote the literary scholar Kim Simonsen in an article on contemporary Faroese prose. The article covered eighteen years of literature, from In Greenland with Kongshavn by Magnus Dam Jacobsen to Rules by Tórodd Poulsen.
The scholar, however, did touch on one thing that attracted him, and that was the remarkable ruthlessness that inflamed and beat at the body of the text. The so-called “Grettir-pastiche” had a tone and tint that was not only singular, but was downright frightening. What Kim Simonsen could not know was that the pastiches were actually excerpts taken from the Eigil’s own family saga.
When Eigil met Karin in June 1988 following the Norðoyastevna Festival, he had just published Between Tórshavn and San Francisco, a work that the same Kim Simonsen branded an absolute masterwork in contemporary Faroese prose.
Eigil had been to the festival and had attended to some work-related errands in Klaksvík, and he was on board the Ternan back to Leirvík when he caught sight of Eyðun Winther, the translator of Grettir’s Saga. The man was wearing a jacket and hat, as well as a woven scarf about his neck. He bore obvious signs of the illness that would send him to his grave a few months later. And the man knew he was living on borrowed time. His wife was a doctor at Fuglafjørdur’s public health department, and she was seated at the table next to him, along with a younger woman, who turned out to be Karin.
Eigil greeted them and introduced himself, and the translator and his wife politely responded.
The younger woman told him to drop the false humility and take a seat. We know who you are, she said. Nations know their great sons, she added, her laugh revealing her teeth.
She was wearing a white blouse with red polka dots. Even though her breasts were not especially large, the dots made Eigil think of delicious strawberries.
She opened her purse, and while she carefully worked the stopper from the whiskey bottle she had concealed in it, Eigil noticed her delicate fingers. And then it happened. He had not been thinking of anything below the navel, or wherever it was that desire was situated, but within the two to three seconds he watched Karin’s fingers play along the neck of the flask and stopper, he got an exceedingly hard erection.
She poured the whiskey into coffee cups and offered Eigil a drink. He brought the cup to his lips, smiled at Karin, and suddenly noticed her heavy eyelids. They were so heavy that on a plane she would have to pay an overweight baggage charge.
Eigil later told her that and they often laughed at the thought.
For Eigil, Grettir’s Saga had been a pure revelation. And he said as much to Eyðun Winther. He said that 1977 was a good year for two reasons: Jens Paula Heinen’s burlesque novel Beachcomber saw the light of day, and that same fall Grettir’s Saga appeared in its handsome Faroese dress.
In his translator’s introduction, Winther had written: I have heard that when rural folk came to the Royal Danish Trade Monopoly in Tórshavn to do business and stayed on a while, the old director, Jákup Nolsøe, would stand at one of the shop’s windows after closing time and read the Icelandic Sagas to them while they stood outside and listen
ed attentively, and so well-versed was he in Old Norse that he could translate into Faroese as he read.
Now Eigil asked if Winther thought Jákup Nolsøe occupied the place in Faroese history he deserved. Eigil also wondered if it was just idle speculation, or if it really was Jákup, and not his brother, who had composed Ballad of the Birds.
Eyðun Winther said he was familiar with the question, but was in no position to answer it. He said that it was certainly a tragedy that Nólsoyar Páll had died in his prime, but that when it came to tradition, a person’s legacy was of great significance, so in that way one could say that Nólsoyar Páll had died a fitting death. He went straight from death into Faroese history, and he had reigned there ever since as a revered national deity.
Then Winther smiled and asked in what way Grettir’s Saga had been a revelation for Eigil.
Eigil said he loved sweeping narratives and liked books less whose artistic merit was found in psychological descriptions. Grettir would not have sat well on Sigmund Freud’s couch. And then Torstein Ongul, who murdered Grettir on Drangey, was himself murdered in Miklagarður. That 700-year-old saga had quite the unusual cosmopolitan streak.
What Eigil did not want to admit was that he saw the image of his great-great-grandfather, Nils Tvibur, in the outlawed giant.
Karin had sat and listened to the discussion and suddenly asked Winther why these ancient authors had been so reticent when it came to descriptions of a good old-fashioned fuck—um gott gamaldags mogg, as she expressed it
Winther responded that gamaldags mogg was not precisely correct, but rather gamaldags moggan, old-fashioned fucking, or perhaps moggan í gomlum døgum, fucking in the old days.
Suddenly, Eyðun Winther grinned and then burst into laughter. His laughter was fresh and clear as rain, and his face opened and shone like a light-hearted schoolboy’s.
If one wanted to be truly antiquated, one could say forn samlega millum kall og konu, olden-day intercourse between man and woman, or why not kynjanna aldargamla troðan, the ancient coupling of the sexes.
He wiped the unexpected smile off his lips with the back of his hand, and while the laughter still shone in his eyes, he said that he was no writer, just an old school-teacher, and so he was not the one to answer her question.
He nodded politely toward Eigil, and his wife and Karin turned their faces in his direction, all three of them smiling.
All at once Eigil was the focus of a conspiracy initiated by those six inquiring eyes.
Karin again filled their cups and told him to wet his throat; Eigil followed her suggestion.
“Would you be offended,” Eigil asked, “if I told you I wanted to lick your beef?”
Karin had to laugh at this tactless remark. She said that mainly the question caused her to wonder about his dining habits, since one did not usually lick beef.
“Okay,” said Eigil, “But if I had looked you in the eyes and said: My dear, I want to fuck you, and for ‘fuck you’ I’d said mogga tær, using the second-person dative familiar, wouldn’t you have felt offended? Wouldn’t you assume I thought you were a cheap slut? Hand to your heart, wouldn’t you hit me with your purse?”
Karin’s face was suddenly serious; it was obvious she was insulted.
“I don’t hit people,” she replied. “And I, for one, have never been a killjoy.”
The Ternan had docked at Leirvík’s ferry, and the passengers were making their way to the door leading onto the deck. Eyðun Winther and his wife also stood and took their leave, clearly irritated at the unexpected turn the conversation had taken.
Eigil put his hand on Karin’s arm and apologized.
“For what?” she asked.
“I don’t know, exactly,” Eigil answered. “But I didn’t mean to be a killjoy.”
Karin made her way to the door and Eigil followed her.
“How should I know what ancient authors were thinking? The man who wrote Grettir’s Saga was probably a monk. Most of the Icelandic Golden Age writers were monks, and those guys can’t describe good, old-fashioned fucking. But I wasn’t trying to offend you, believe me. To be honest, you make me dizzy. And you have beautiful hands.”
“Hands?”
They had reached the gangway when Karin suddenly stopped, and Eigil did not know if she was angry or about to burst into laughter.
“Is that the best thing you can come up with, to tell a woman you’ve insulted that she has beautiful hands? Fuck you, Eigil Tvibur!”
For a moment Eigil remained there on the gangway. Then he ran after Karin, who had reached the car belonging to the translator and his wife, the municipal doctor.
“Are you going to Tórshavn?” he asked Karin.
“We’re going to Fuglafjørður. That’s where I’m from. And you know, all the women in Fuglafjørður have such beautiful hands.”
“Could we see each other sometime?”
She climbed into the backseat and the car door slammed shut, but Eigil got a neat little wave before the car drove away.
Eigil took the bus to Tórshavn, and it was a good thing he was wearing a coat because every time he remembered Karin’s fingers, her teeth, and the marvelous disdain in her voice, he got another erection.
He mailed Karin letters multiple times that summer, but never heard back.
One day, however, the unimaginable occurred: a tidy envelope lay in his mailbox.
Eigil immediately guessed its sender.
The first thing he noticed was that the envelop was lined with light-pink tissue paper. If the color had only been a little darker, it would have been like staring into a woman’s sex, and the fact she so charmingly expressed her womanhood almost knocked him off his feet.
The letter itself was on a regular sheet of paper, and she concluded her letter with the perfect line: Even a ferry ride between Leirvík and Klaksvík can be the start of an adventure.
Eigil answered her the same day, and in the months that followed it was not unusual for Eigil to write her one and sometimes two letters a week.
He asked questions like whether or not she still had any sweet childhood tendencies like sleeping with a doll, and the fact that such questions crossed the mind of a giant like Eigil Tvibur—that attracted Karin. He also told her that he had roasted a saddle of lamb, an animal that had made itself oven-ready on the slope of Blæing south of Sumba, and that he had set the table for two, but the woman who was supposed to sit across from him had missed the bus to Tórshavn. So he put Songs from a Room by Leonard Cohen on the record player and the evening had been almost perfect.
Later he ventured to ask if she slept naked or maybe in a nightgown. As a matter of course, he said it was not good for the circulation to sleep in both panties and a nightgown. If it were his choice, she would sleep only in a nightgown, preferably one whose collar was decorated with small embroidered flowers.
Eventually, he also sent her some small literary attempts.
For a while he had been writing prose pieces with the collective title Cultural History. One was called “The Cultural History of the High Heel,” another “The Cultural History of the Kiss,” and the one he sent Karin was entitled “The Cultural History of the Shit Dog.”
It was not just for laughs, though, that he sent her two pages of rectum-related literature. Eigil wanted to test her. A woman who was all sweet and lovely, but who hardly cast a shadow, was not someone who could attract him.
Eigil, therefore, was somewhat distressed that Karin did not like “The Cultural History of the Shit Dog,” and did not seem to understand that sheer decency was smothering Faroese literature.
Her reply was short and clear, she said every other word made her sick, and she hoped the story did not come from his heart.
The Cultural History of the Shit Dog
Canis Fæcalis, as the shit dog is commonly called, was notably very short and stubby-legged. Its most remarkable characteristic was its disproportionately large, pointed head that swayed atop a thin column of cervical vertebrae. So thi
n was its neck that one could in fact count the seven small vertebrae extending from its back on up. Yet not before it opened its mouth, and its long tongue either tumbled out or stuck straight into the air, did one understand why it so suited its calling of royal asslicker.
We are talking about the years leading up to the French Revolution, before running water was hooked up to the royal loo, when dirt was the mortar holding the Sun King’s realm together: smegma, fleas, dingleberries, crabs, menstrual blood in pubic hair, hairline sweat and armpit sweat and sweat between the toes and scrotum sweat and asshole sweat, and black teeth stumps and food particles in beards, back when emptying the chamber pot out the window was a way to bid Paris good morning.
Young and old, women as well as men shit everywhere. Even in cemeteries, shit happened. Loo-shitting was a sign of rank, and having your own personal portable john at sea as well as on the road was a sign of the highest rank of all.
Ludvig’s loo in Versailles was a long box decorated and adorned by the foremost artists. In a space to the right of the door lived Canis Fæcalis, and his job, as mentioned before, was to clean the royal asshole every time His Majesty had a bowel movement.
The shit dog, or the official canine, as he was also called, was blind. Not because he had been born with empty eye sockets, but because his eyes had been scraped out of his head. His teeth had also been chipped or broken along both the upper and lower jaw. This was not done out of malice, but in order to protect the King’s genitalia, or the House of Bourbon, as Victor Hugo wrote in his memoirs. Canis Fæcalis was thus fated to live its days inside the royal loo, and not unexpectedly the most common cause of death was shit-poisoning.
On January 21, 1793, the people of Paris saw for the first time the creature that parents for centuries had used to scare children and about which horny monks had secretly dreamt. Fragile and blind the dog came hobbling across the Place de la République, and as word spread through the crowd what was happening, people silently made way. Occasionally the dog stopped and sniffed, and simply to see this beast, which had had such intimate contact with His Majesty, filled people with disgust, but also with a feeling reminiscent of curious sympathy. At the guillotine, where Ludwig the XVI lay in his white shift, waiting to be beheaded, the dog stopped, and it looked like the animal was hoping someone would make an effort and lift it up onto the scaffold. No one wanted to touch it. Only when the dog began to whine and scrabble, reared up on its hind legs, did an old woman finally take pity; removing her apron, she placed it over the dog’s back and cast both dog and apron onto the scaffold.
The Brahmadells Page 11