by Ines Thorn
“That’s your last word?”
“Yes, Captain.”
He turned to Finja, who looked pale and tense. “You weren’t able to do anything about this?” he asked her.
Finja sighed. “I wish I could.”
“Well, one day you may have to. And I just hope for all of us that it won’t be too late.” The captain’s words were enigmatic and baffling, and Finja’s hands began to shake. But she remained silent and lowered her eyes.
Boyse sighed and stood up. He smoothed his tunic. “Now everything necessary has been said.” He turned to Klaas. “Thank you for the rum.”
Then he turned around a little stiffly and left the parlor, leaving so quickly that Klaas managed to stand only after the door had already closed behind him.
Maren looked despondently at her mother. “Now it’s been said and repeated and written in stone. He won’t come again,” she said quietly.
“Yes. You’ve decided. I can only pray that you’ve made the right decision.” Finja sighed and then reached for the rum and drank the generously filled glass in one draft, although she didn’t normally like spirits.
Maren saw fear in her mother’s eyes and worry in her father’s, and she herself wasn’t completely at ease either. She had made the right decision; that was clear to her. But would Boyse accept her rejection? He was a proud man, and he was used to people obeying his orders. Now Maren had defied him. She asked herself if it would have unpleasant consequences. There were plenty of girls on Sylt who wished nothing more than to be Captain Boyse’s wife. But so far, he’d ignored all the interest directed at him. Now he was thirty years old, and several of the islanders had already begun to wonder why he was taking so long to get married. Had he been waiting for Maren? No, she couldn’t imagine that. She knew she was special, but also that Boyse had much better prospects. She was proud too and wasn’t about to let herself be talked into something she didn’t want.
She stood up and smiled in spite of the mood. “Thies isn’t rich, but he’ll be a much better son-in-law than Boyse would be,” she declared. “He will provide for you just as well.”
“Oh, really?” Finja looked up. “Will he?”
At that moment, Maren realized that she had truly disappointed her parents. She realized that Finja and Klaas had hoped for an easier life after her wedding. Klaas had difficulty getting out of bed in the morning, and no one knew how long he’d be able to keep going out to fish. There were days his rheumatism was so bad that he could barely bend a finger and every movement hurt him. It would have been a relief for him to know that Maren and Finja would be well provided for when he couldn’t catch herring anymore. Finja was growing older too. Her eyes were becoming worse day by day. How many times had she cut herself recently when she gutted the fish Klaas had brought home? She couldn’t knit in the winter any longer either because she couldn’t see the loops. That meant she wasn’t able to contribute to their earnings. Maren understood all of this, and also that she had to provide for her parents. They had worked as hard as plow horses all their lives. Now that they were growing older, it was her duty as a daughter to take care of them. But how? Her love for Thies wouldn’t keep Klaas and Finja warm in winter or put food in their mouths. And Thies had been right: her fishing nets wouldn’t earn much. But even though she felt guilty about her parents, and although it hurt her to see their disappointed and fearful faces, she still knew she’d made the right decision.
“I really do love him,” she said softly, with her eyes lowered. “I’m sure he’s the man I should marry. And I’ll do everything I can to make life easier for you both.”
Then Finja stood up and stroked her shoulder gently. “I know, Maren. I know.” As she spoke, she sounded unspeakably sad, and a shudder ran down Maren’s back.
Christmas was approaching, and with it came the snow. It wasn’t particularly cold, but it had been snowing ceaselessly for days, and the drifts of snow made the roads unpassable. The dune paths were coated in a thin layer of ice and were so slippery that even people who were steady on their feet needed a walking stick to use them. The landscape looked like something out of a fairy tale. The heather was dusted with white, and the scrubby brown bushes and grasses were coated with a shining layer of silver. The sea looked like a vast mirror that stretched from horizon to horizon. Smoke rose from all the chimneys of Rantum, and delicious smells wafted from the smokehouses. The women baked Christmas confections, and in front of the barns, plucked geese were hanging, although they were very lean.
Maren had a special gift for Thies. She was knitting a pair of stockings for him, but they weren’t just any stockings. They were stockings made of women’s hair. Her own hair. Since Maren was a small child, Finja had regularly cut off a few locks of her daughter’s long hair and saved it, as was the tradition on Sylt. And now Maren had cut her hair very short and had spun fifteen years’ worth of growth into a fine, soft yarn. She smiled at every loop, because she was proud of her gift. Stockings and gloves made of women’s hair were very special on the island. They not only kept the wearer warmer than sheep’s wool but were also better protection against moisture. But the girls and women prized their long hair, so it was considered evidence of great love to sacrifice her hair to knit something for a man.
Finja had been against it. “Do you really want to do that? Even before you’re married? What if something happens? Who will take you to wife with short hair?”
Maren only smiled. “What could possibly happen? I’ve made up my mind.”
“You’re not only willful, you’re stubborn as well,” Finja said accusingly. But Maren just reached for the scissors and cut off her blond braid. But if she were honest with herself, she had to admit that perhaps she hadn’t made the sacrifice for love alone. There was a feeling inside her that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Because she had refused Boyse, her parents couldn’t approach their old age without worrying about survival. Maren was still plagued with guilt about that. That was why she had to prove that her love for Thies was the greatest that the island had ever seen. The sacrifice of her hair was the proof of it.
Then it was the morning of Christmas Eve, and Maren made her way over the dunes to bring Thies her gift. She also had small presents for his mother and sister in her pockets: a pot of heather honey for his mother and a prettily crocheted collar of fine yarn for his sister to attach to her dress.
Maren smiled all the way to the Heinen family home, full of anticipation and full of pride in herself. She knocked, and the door opened. “Oh, it’s you,” the mother said in greeting. “We weren’t expecting you.”
Maren’s brow creased in confusion at the obvious coldness. “Have I come at a bad time?” she asked, slightly amazed.
“No, no. It’s just that we’ve already had a visitor today.” Finally, the mother stepped aside so Maren could enter the house.
“Who is it now?” she heard Antje call from the kitchen.
“Maren,” Thies’s mother called back.
“Oh, her,” his sister replied, sounding a little disappointed.
Thies rushed joyfully from the work area and took her into his arms. “Merry Christmas! I was just about to come visit you and your parents.”
“Am I one step ahead of you again?” Maren was glowing now. She reached into her basket and pulled out her gift. Thies unwrapped the package and looked thunderstruck. When Maren finally pulled the hood off her head and he saw that she’d sacrificed her hair, he gasped, found no words, and silently held her close and planted countless kisses on her short locks.
Then, his sister, Antje, entered the small living room. “What happened to you?” she asked, aghast when she saw Maren. “What happened to your hair? Did the lice eat it off your head?”
Thies held the stockings up for her to see. “She made these out of it for me,” he explained with pride.
“Hmm,” Antje said. “I liked it better on her head. Now she looks like a cabin boy.” The mother laughed too, and Maren ran a hand over her head in e
mbarrassment.
Then Antje took a pretty scarf which had been woven from brightly colored wool from her shoulders and held it up for Maren to see. “Look! This is what I got for Christmas.” She was almost bursting with pride. “Feel it. It’s as soft as a lamb’s coat.”
“Antje, stop. No one wants to know that.” Thies made a move to grab the scarf away from his sister, but Antje quickly hid it behind her back.
“Oh yes? I think Maren would be very interested to know who gave me the scarf, and where Mother got the two delft tiles in the living room. You want to know, don’t you, Maren?” Antje asked.
Maren nodded. She was already feeling a little betrayed, but she didn’t know exactly why.
“Grit.”
“Grit?”
“Yes. Grit Wilms, the widow. You’re surprised, aren’t you? You know, she can afford to buy nice things and doesn’t have to cut her hair and walk around looking like a cabin boy.”
All at once, the crocheted collar seemed cheap to Maren, and the heather honey seemed pathetic. She considered leaving them in her pocket; better not to give anything at all than such paltry things. But her pride won out. “Everyone gives what they can,” she said with a defiant undertone, and handed them the honey and the collar. Then she straightened her shoulders proudly and gave Antje and her mother a challenging look.
Antje blushed but thanked Maren kindly, and the mother was suddenly very busy preparing a comfortable place by the fire for Maren to sit.
When Maren was alone with Thies at last, she said, “Is what they said true? Did Grit really come here to exchange gifts?”
Thies nodded and looked down at the floor, looking ashamed.
“What did she give you?” Maren asked.
“Nothing. Just a little thing. It’s not important.”
“Then it shouldn’t be a problem for you to tell me.”
Thies fidgeted in his chair and shook his head.
“Tell me!” Maren demanded.
Thies sighed. “She gave me a pair of women’s hair stockings. But she didn’t make them out of her own hair. She ordered them from the mainland.”
“Oh!” Maren had made the stockings with such pride. Now her gift seemed worthless. She ran a hand over her short hair again and suddenly felt stupid, pushy, and ugly.
“Oh!” she repeated. “I didn’t know that.” Then she jumped up, feeling humiliated and sick. She pulled up her hood, wanting to leave the Heinens’ house as quickly as possible, but Thies held on to her tightly.
“I’m so happy about the stockings you made for me, and I don’t care about the ones from Grit,” he said quietly. “I’m extremely happy about yours, actually. It’s the most wonderful gift I’ve ever received. I will treasure them for the rest of my life. Thank you so much.”
But Maren was still unhappy. “But you still have Grit’s stockings. They’re surely softer. She probably ordered the finest hair on the mainland.” She ran a hand over her head under the hood. “My hair is quite ornery,” she said with a sigh.
“To me, your hair is the softest in existence.” He gave her such a gentle, tender kiss that a shiver ran down her back. She leaned against Thies’s chest and sighed, feeling at least partly mollified. “It’s just that your mother and Antje didn’t seem to be very happy about my gifts.”
“Hmm,” Thies said.
She freed herself from his embrace and looked into his eyes. “We promised at the Biikebrennen that we’d always tell each other the truth. So please don’t just say ‘hmm.’ I’d like to know why they suddenly seem to be so unfriendly toward me.”
“What do you want to hear, Maren? Sometimes the truth can hurt.”
“I don’t care. I’d rather hear the truth directly from you instead of letting my imagination run wild and come up with things that are much worse in the end.”
“They’re not happy about our engagement.”
Maren’s brow creased. “So suddenly? I thought they liked me.”
“They do. But ever since Grit has made it known that she’s expecting a proposal from me, my mother and Antje can only think of the money that she’d bring into the marriage.”
Maren grew angry. “Then Antje should marry a rich man. She should take Boyse, if she’s dreaming of being rich.”
“Don’t be cruel, Maren,” Thies said pleadingly, and Maren was immediately ashamed. He was right. It had been cruel to speak of Antje marrying, because she never would. She’d had polio as a child, and since then she could barely walk. What’s more, she wasn’t especially pretty, and she was poor. On an island where the women outnumbered the men, there would be no husband for her.
“Please forgive me,” Maren whispered. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Now it’s time for me to give you a gift.” He smiled at her, and Maren saw the same look of joy and pride in his eyes that she’d come to him with.
“What is it?” she asked, feigning curiosity to make him happy. She didn’t want to get a present now. Not after she’d heard about Grit’s gifts.
He gave her a package that had been carefully wrapped in well-used tissue paper. “Open it.”
Maren opened the paper and found a beautiful cap made of sealskin. “Oh!” she said. “How beautiful!” She rubbed the soft fur against her face and smiled at Thies happily. But then her face darkened. “Oh, Thies, it must have been terribly expensive! Where did you get it? It’s so beautiful!”
Thies waved away her concern. “I just had to buy it, because the color of the fur reminds me of the gray in your eyes. Another whaling ship brought it from Greenland. Put it on!”
Maren did as he asked. She pushed back her hood and put the cap on her head. She could see from the look in his eyes how well it suited her, and suddenly she was happy, after all. She took both of his hands and held them against her chest. “We belong together, don’t we?”
“Yes,” Thies said. “Thies and Maren, Maren and Thies. Now and forever.”
CHAPTER 6
The sky had been covered with thick gray clouds all day. A few heavy drops of rain fell every now and then on the last unmelted patches of snow. The wind was cold, but that was nothing unusual. Klaas sat in front of the house smoking his pipe and looked up worriedly.
“What’s wrong?” Maren asked.
“We’re in for a squall. A big one.”
Maren looked up too. “The sky is almost always gray in winter. And the wind blows every day. How can you tell?”
Klaas blew a smoke ring, and he watched it rise. “I can feel it in my bones, child.”
Maren’s mouth twitched doubtfully, but she didn’t say anything.
“Come. Let’s tie down anything that could blow away. Then you can help me get my fishing boat up past the high-tide line. And tell your mother she should take the washing in and close the shutters tightly.”
Maren looked up again. It looked like a normal January sky. Nothing indicated that a storm was brewing, but Maren didn’t argue with her father.
By that afternoon, the wind had picked up, sweeping the fine sand from the dunes through the air, forcing it through every little crack around the windows. It caught in hair, stuck to skin, and burned in eyes. The sea reared up and cast six-foot breakers onto the beach, hissing and spitting like an angry cat.
Maren had forgotten to take in a couple of fishing nets. She went out but was unable to hold the door against the gale; it was seized by a gust and crashed shut behind her. She took a step forward, leaning against the wind. She had to gasp for air through the sand blowing into her mouth and nose. She saw her mother at the window and wanted to call to her, but the wind ripped the words from her mouth. The nets had taken on lives of their own. One hung on the fence with bits of heather stuck in it, sticky with sand and salty ocean spray. Maren tugged on it while the wind pulled at her skirts, lifted them up, and threw her pinafore over her face. When she had finally freed the net, she braced herself against the wind. The door of the barn flew from her grip and crashed against the wall. Maren hurr
ied in, threw down the nets, and rushed back into the house.
It was dark indoors. Finja had closed all the shutters over the windows. Only an oil lamp with five wicks, two of which were lit, threw twitching shadows over the room. Maren’s mother sat at the kitchen table with her hands folded, and Klaas sat across from her. Maren shook the sand from her hair and clothes, rinsed her mouth with water, and rubbed her eyes.
Her mother sighed. “It’s going to be bad today.”
No one replied, but Maren’s fear was growing. The wind had become a storm, its howling competing with the sound of the crashing sea, tugging at the shutters, shrieking and shaking in the chimney. The fire flared once more and died. Hot ashes blew into the kitchen. Maren cried out and pulled on her mother’s arm, though Finja sat motionless as she was struck with the flying embers.
“Come away!” she shouted, and Klaas, too, leapt out of his chair by the fireplace.
“I met Old Meret yesterday,” Finja said softly.
“You shouldn’t listen to her,” Klaas replied.
“But her prophecies come true. You know that too.”
“Yes. Sometimes she’s right. And sometimes she’s wrong. We still can’t change anything.”
Maren had never seen her mother so fearful. Finja’s face had gone completely gray, and her eyes flickered darkly. They sat silently around the kitchen table, with their shoulders hunched, and listened to the wailing storm throw sand against the door and windows. The wailing grew louder; the storm had become a hurricane, blustering with uninhibited rage over the island. Maren’s mother pressed her fists against her mouth and prayed silently. Her father paced nervously around the kitchen. Then the rain came, drenching the house with immeasurable force. It went on that way for hours.
Eventually, Maren, Finja, and Klaas settled into their sleeping alcoves, and although they were tired, no one could sleep. They lay tensely in the darkness and listened to the storm.