The Last Boat Home

by Dea Brovig

  ‘I hear the catch has been meagre,’ said the minister to Johann and took a slurp from his cup.

  The china had been a wedding gift from Dagny’s brother, Olav, a sea captain whose merchant ship had been wrecked in a typhoon in the North Pacific. Else had been a baby when it happened. Sometimes, when she had the farmhouse to herself, she would sneak into the Best Room and flip the lock of the cupboard to rescue a cup from the top shelf, cradling it in her hands. She would trace a fingertip around the outline of a gold leaf on a black sea and try to imagine where it had come from.

  ‘I’ve been having some bad luck,’ her father said.

  ‘There is no such thing,’ said Pastor Seip. He fixed him with a meaningful glare. ‘“Be sober, be vigilant, for your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour.”’

  ‘More coffee?’ Dagny said.

  ‘Keeping vigilant,’ said Pastor Seip. ‘That’s the point.’

  Johann shifted in his chair and a creak filled the room. The minister looked at Else for the first time all evening.

  ‘Amazing what we see,’ he said, ‘if only we open our eyes.’ His gaze fell like an anchor and she stopped herself from trying to squirm out of its way. She thought of Lars’s eyes, of how he had shut them tight when he kissed her. She watched as Pastor Seip deposited a cube of cake in his mouth.

  ‘Another slice?’ Dagny said.

  ‘No, no.’ The minister mashed the crumbs on his plate with his finger before slipping it between his lips. Then he stood and brushed his palms on his trousers. ‘I have other obligations this evening, I’m afraid. Thank you for the fish. It was just as my mother used to make it, which is the best way I know.’

  At the front door, he took his hat and turned again to Else. ‘I trust you have been putting the lessons from last Sunday’s sermon to good use?’ he said.

  Else nodded at her feet.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said her mother. ‘She certainly has.’

  Pastor Seip pulled his hat down on his head. ‘The years after one’s confirmation are a delicate time in every young adult’s life.’ He bent forward at the hips, bringing his eyes level with Else’s. His breath smelled of coffee. ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘you must pray, and you must work. It is always possible, I believe, to work harder.’

  The minister straightened up and strode into the sun. He crossed the yard to the milking barn and disappeared up the hill that would bring him to the road. From the doorway of the farmhouse, Johann stared after him, his jaw clenched and his lips thin. Without a word, he retreated into the Best Room and slammed the door shut behind him.

  Else and her mother washed the dishes in silence. For a long while after Pastor Seip had left, her father sat alone, until the creak of floorboards and the groan of the back door announced his escape. Else knew he would be headed for the boathouse, just as she knew they would not see him again that evening.

  ‘I’ll have to dig up some more onions,’ said her mother and added a chopped bulb to the fish bones in her pot.

  ON A SUNDAY in early September, Else stepped from the ferry at the Longpier and made her way up the harbour towards the church. They were not long into autumn and the leaves of the trees in front of the town hall had just started to turn. The days were contracting in preparation for winter, gathering up their dusks and dawns and giving way to chilly nights – but today, in the late morning, it still felt like summer. Sunlight dripped onto the dock in golden puddles that warmed her ankles as she plodded through.

  ‘Hurry up,’ called her father, who had already reached Dronning Mauds gate. Else’s good shoes chafed her heels as she ran to catch him up. She followed her parents and other stragglers up the hill, climbing towards the outburst of bells which called to them and the town of gravitas and observance.

  In the churchyard, the steeple’s weather vane spun in the breeze, throwing a cartwheeling shadow over the grass. Else shuffled after it to the church’s open door and into the cool air of the nave. They were among the last to arrive and the pews were bustling with people. Women hushed butter-haired children, while their men adjusted suit jackets that some had first buttoned on their wedding day. Halfway up the aisle sat Lars, swivelled around on the Reiersen family’s pew, wearing a glazed expression while he scanned the faces of the latecomers. He grinned when he saw Else, who did her best to ignore him as she settled onto a bench beside her mother.

  The bells stopped tolling. In their wake, a shrill hum passed onto the air which the organist took up in a string of slow tones. The congregation stood and launched into the hymn that was chalked up on a board below the pulpit. While they sang, Pastor Seip thumbed through the pages of his Bible, glancing up now and then as if to measure their progress. Next to Else, her mother’s voice lifted and soared to the psalm’s final note.

  ‘May the Lord grant you mercy, and bless you,’ said the minister. ‘Welcome, all, to this Sunday’s service. We gather here in fellowship to praise Almighty God and to offer thanks for His wisdom and guidance.’

  As Pastor Seip’s greeting rang out in the church, Else ran her thumb over the weave of her psalm book’s cover. She fidgeted on the bench that was too hard under her thighs and waited for her thoughts to carry her away. She felt cold in spite of the sun that fell from the window onto her back and shoulders. It skimmed the sails of the model schooner that hung from a ceiling beam at the foot of the altar, quickening the bronze of its hull, lending it the illusion of movement.

  Pastor Seip began the first reading from the Book of Proverbs. ‘“I have taught thee in the way of wisdom,”’ he said, ‘“I have led thee in right paths.”’ The minutes became elastic as he spoke, like wads of chewing gum pinched at either end and stretched. ‘“Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.”’ In the portrait nailed to the wall behind him, Jesus spread His arms in Gethsemane, beseeching the heavens with mournful eyes while His disciples slept. ‘“But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.”’

  The parishioners stood for the next hymn and Else read the words on the page, though she could have recited them with her eyes closed. She sensed movement across the aisle and, when she peeked at Lars, saw him rocking on his shoes. His mother placed a hand on his elbow and continued to sing. Karin Reiersen’s soprano aspired to the high notes. Her hair was tucked behind her ear, showing off a pearl as plump as a berry.

  When the psalm was over, Else took her seat. The New Testament reading passed her by in snippets of scripture.

  ‘“Destruction and misery are in their ways,’” said Pastor Seip and she wondered at how, after a summer spent anticipating her start at a new school, her journey to the Gymnasium on Elvebakken each morning had already come to feel ordinary. It no longer seemed strange to see Lars every day, nor did she notice the absence of those of her classmates from the old schoolhouse who had entered into apprenticeships. At the Gymnasium, students could come and go as they pleased in the breaks. So far, she and Lars had not ventured from the grounds.

  ‘“And seeing the multitudes,”’ began the Gospel reading, ‘“He went up into a mountain: and when He was set, His disciples came unto Him”.’

  Else thought of Lars’s hand warm in hers as he led her into the caretaker’s shed, where they tended to stay until classes resumed. There, pressed against the grit box with Rune and Petter standing guard outside, they were safe from the prying eyes of teachers and townspeople alike.

  ‘“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”’

  They had come a long way from the days when her mother used to bring her along to her luncheons, when the women would smoke American cigarettes in Karin Reiersen’s parlour and Else and Lars would collect conkers behind the house. On afternoons when it rained, or when the snow was so wet that i
t seeped through the down of their winter suits, they would hole up together in the basement playroom that always smelled as if it had just been scrubbed with soft soap. She and Lars would dig in the toy chest for tracks for his train set or play Yahtzee or Ludo until they were bored and restless. Then they would sneak upstairs to admire the ‘treasure’ on display in glass cabinets: crystal figurines, silver platters and bowls.

  The organist keyed a fresh chord and the congregation heaved themselves to their feet. Else flipped through her psalm book, only finding her place when the hymn’s first verse had come to an end. During the second, Pastor Seip stepped down from the altar and climbed the stairs to the pulpit, his vestments sweeping the floor as he went. He studied the parishioners from this height until they were silent, his eyes watery worlds on the brink of brimming over.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Picture yourself dead,’ he said, ‘while the family who mourns you knows that you are damned to hell. Picture your husband or wife, your children, your parents, each weeping by your coffin for your forsaken soul. Some of you know that the path you have chosen is bound to lead you here at the end of your days. Others will look to your neighbours and deem yourselves absolved. But we are all of us sinners.

  ‘“For all have sinned,”’ said Pastor Seip, ‘“and come short of the glory of God”. Think on Paul’s words in his Epistle to the Romans. Temptation takes many forms. Consider the unbeliever who rejects Christ, who turns away from the path of the righteous and instead embraces debauchery. It is easy, is it not, to name a man’s transgressions against God when he flaunts them for all to see. But what of the man who indulges in a glass of brandy after a good meal? What of the women who draw their curtains before a game of cards on a Sunday evening? Are they not also sinners? Do their sins count for less because they keep them hidden from their neighbours and friends?’

  Else nibbled her gums and thought again of the caretaker’s shed. She remembered Lars’s lips against hers, his fingers on the small of her back. Behind the bus depot. Behind the oak at the public dock. She tried to empty her head and focus on Ivar Blåsmo’s bald spot in front of her. Her mother shifted on the pew.

  ‘The Lord bears witness to all,’ said Pastor Seip, ‘He sees into our hearts and knows our intentions. In today’s Gospel reading Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount, telling His disciples to be meek, to be pure, to hunger and thirst after righteousness. His instructions for entering into Paradise are clear, as is His warning to those who fail to heed them. “For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Who here can claim to be on the path of the righteous? And who amongst us has chosen a path to hell? There are many paths to hell, but only one way for the righteous. And there is no place for the sinner among the saved.’

  A shiver darted up Else’s spine. As guilty as she was, she let her gaze stray across the aisle to the Reiersen family’s pew. Lars was watching her. He poked out his tongue. The skin at the nape of her neck prickled.

  ‘The path of the just is as the shining light. The way of the wicked is as darkness,’ said Pastor Seip. ‘Search your conscience and ask yourself truly, which path am I on?’

  This time when Else looked for Lars, his grin poked dimples into his cheeks. She dug her nails into her palm, but could not help herself from returning his smile. Lars winked and a giggle tickled her throat, until a pain in her leg put an end to her daring. Else tensed against the fingers squeezing her muscle. The curve of her father’s wedding ring pressed the flesh through her skirt. In his urgency to scold her, he stretched across her mother, who leaned back to make room for him. His cheeks were flushed and his jaw worked to contain his displeasure.

  ‘Submit yourselves to the will of the Lord,’ said Pastor Seip. ‘Serve Him. Fear Him. Enter not into temptation, for temptation is the Devil’s summons.’

  Else sat on her hands for the rest of the sermon. She dropped her eyes to the floorboards between her shoes and traced the grain of the wood long after her father had let her go.

  When the service was over and the members of the congregation had advanced down the aisle to receive the minister’s blessing, they gathered outside between the church doors and the gate, eager to exchange news of the week gone by. The sun was high above them, warming the crowns of their heads and toasting the lawn and the neatly sown graves. Else tailed her parents down the steps as her mother greeted their neighbours. She knew each face; week in, week out, they never changed.

  Dagny met Karin Reiersen and Solveig Haugeli in the shade, while Johann wandered down the path to a huddle of fishermen on the grass. Else stayed with her mother, nodding politely when she judged it appropriate and biding her time until she would be able to slip away.

  ‘Hasn’t the weather been mild?’ Solveig said. ‘Do you know, yesterday afternoon Ole picked half a litre of blueberries behind the Aaby farm. Half a litre, this late in the season! They were a little bloated, but still good.’

  ‘What did you make of the sermon?’ asked Karin.

  ‘It was very strong today,’ Dagny said.

  ‘But did you see Øystein Stormo?’ said Solveig. ‘Sitting straight as a flagpole next to poor Astrid. With all of that man’s carrying on, I don’t think he even flinched.’

  While Solveig shook her head, Dagny frowned over her shoulder at Else, who excused herself and melted into the crowd. She aimed for the outer ring of graves but walked the long way around so as to avoid the horse chestnut tree, where Lars whispered with Rune and Petter. As she wove through the parishioners she picked up scraps of conversation, much of it carried over from the previous week. There had been more reports in the papers about tankers put out of commission by rising oil prices and the reopening of the Suez Canal. Unwanted ships were dropping anchor in fjords and bays along the coast not far from here. Then there was the usual talk about the North Sea oilrigs.

  ‘We’ll be like the Arabs,’ said Atle Aaby, who grinned when Esben Omland predicted that oil would make them rich. Esben was fixing to send his application in to Phillips. With the oil companies setting up offices in Stavanger, there would be worse places to raise a family.

  The collective thrum of chatter followed Else to the relative peace at the rear of the church, where fallen leaves crackled under the soles of her shoes. She read the epitaphs chiselled into slabs of granite. To her left, a mound of earth marked a recent grave. Eva Bruskeland had been buried between her husband and the Tenvik children, whose two tiny plots were trimmed with autumn daisies. Both children had died before Else was born, though her mother had told her their stories several times. The first, a baby girl, had gone to sleep one night not long before Christmas and never again opened her eyes. The boy had pulled a pot of boiling water from the stove over his young body. A week later, he breathed his last in a hospital bed.

  Else strolled to the cross at the centre of the Second World War plot and read off the names that had been cut into the marble. Gregor Sundt. Carl Hansen. Per Henrik Wiig. She stopped at the headstone that had been raised ‘by grateful friends’ for an English soldier, studying the dedication until Lars was in front of her.

  ‘That was one hell of a sermon,’ he said.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘I wanted to check you were all right. Your father looked angry.’

  ‘We can’t talk here. You know that.’

  ‘All right, then,’ Lars said. ‘What if I picked you up after dinner?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Else said.

  ‘How does five o’clock sound? I’ll wait for you on the road. Just find an excuse to leave the house.’

  ‘Lars …’

  ‘Five o’clock,’ he said.

  ‘You know I can’t meet you. It’s Sunday.’

  ‘Heaven forbid,’ he said and stepped close to press warm lips to her cheek. Lars was slow and self-assured when he moved away towards the church, keeping his pace steady even when Pas
tor Seip appeared from behind its wall. Else turned back to the marble cross and reread its names. Gregor Sundt. Carl Hansen. Per Henrik Wiig. The minister must realise she and Lars had been together. She hoped he would leave, but was not surprised when she next looked to discover him standing there still. Pastor Seip watched her from his spot among the tombstones. Lars had already strutted from sight.

  Else started across the grass with her eyes on her shoes. The minister called to her as she approached.

  ‘Was there something of interest back there?’

  ‘I was looking at the memorial cross,’ she said.

  ‘What were you doing with Lars Reiersen?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said.

  ‘Is that so?’

  With an impatient wave of his hand, Pastor Seip dismissed her and Else hurried out of his way to the front of the church. The crowd was thinning as the parishioners set off for home. She found her parents by the gate.

  ‘There you are,’ her mother said.

  ‘Where did you get to?’ said her father. ‘We’ll miss the ferry.’

  He led them onto the street, where a shadow fell from the trees at the roadside in long fingers that reached for the cars parked opposite. Lars was climbing into the back seat of his father’s Cadillac, whose chrome and glass seemed alive in the sun. Reiersen leaned an elbow on the roof above the driver’s door and fanned his face with the brim of his hat. Karin Reiersen smiled in the passenger seat at Dagny.

  ‘See you on Thursday for the luncheon,’ she said.

  ‘See you on Thursday,’ Dagny said.

  Else trailed after her father down Dronning Mauds gate, glad to put distance between her parents and the minister. As they walked, the sound of an engine grew louder behind them. Reiersen’s car raced by in a haze of churned dirt.

  ‘Damned dollarglis,’ said Johann of the Cadillac. He sucked in his cheeks and marched on to the Longpier, where the ferry was boarding.