Erichsen watched them leave. The sun had circled around the peaks, but it was still lighter than a winter’s day in Copenhagen. It was light enough to paddle.
“Stop it, Ludvig,” Rasmussen said.
“Stop what?”
“Brooding.” Rasmussen nodded as the woman offered them tea. He collected their mugs beneath the pot, smiling as she filled them to the brim. “He will be rested in the morning,” he said, as he handed out the tea.
Moltke sighed as he sat down. “The light is gone, again,” he said.
“Then you can catch up on the eating,” Bertelsen said. He pressed a dried capelin into Moltke’s hand.
“Ah,” Moltke said. “You really shouldn’t have.”
“You don’t like it?”
“It’s an acquired taste,” he said.
“Greenland is an acquired taste,” Erichsen said. He smiled at the frowns on his friends’ faces. “But I like it.”
“That’s the spirit,” Rasmussen said. He slapped Erichsen’s shoulder. “You’re coming around at last. Eat, drink, enjoy the evening. You finished your manuscript. It’s time to relax.”
“I will try.” Erichsen leaned over and plucked the dried fish from Moltke’s hand; it crackled as he bit into it. He licked his lips, reached for his tea, and took a long swallow.
“Well?” Moltke said.
“It’s…”
“An acquired taste,” Moltke said, and laughed. “I said so.”
“Dogs run well on it,” Rasmussen said. “Half a pound per dog per day, or so I’ve been told.”
“Half a pound?” Erichsen said. “Two pounds per day, more likely.”
“We’ll find out,” Rasmussen said.
“We’re taking dried fish with us?” Moltke tapped his mug against Erichsen’s. “Just remember plenty of tea.”
The men laughed and the fire waned. One of the older Greenlanders beckoned for them to come closer as he added the last handful of sticks to the fire. More stories were told as the night waned into morning, darker to the south as the clouds turned anvil grey, with a large blunt point pressing down towards the horizon. Erichsen saw it and cursed under his breath. He tapped Rasmussen on the arm and pointed.
“Storm’s coming,” he said.
“With high winds, for sure.” Rasmussen said something to the older Greenlander by the fire, nodding as the man pointed at the same clouds. “He says it could blow for days.”
“Days?”
Erichsen fidgeted on the grass. His friends swapped glances. Rasmussen shrugged.
“What’s the worst that could happen?”
“The worst?”
“If your manuscript does not reach Copenhagen?”
“Literary ruin,” Erichsen said.
“Bankruptcy?”
“My dear, Knud, I haven’t a penny to my name. Bankruptcy is the least of my worries. But to be barred from Gyldendal… that is an evil fate for a writer.”
“They’ve threatened as much?”
“They didn’t need to. It was hidden in the silence.”
Erichsen let his head droop until his chin was on his chest. He muttered something, and then louder, waiting for a response. But the men of the Greenland Literary Expedition were silent. When Erichsen looked up, when he quizzed Rasmussen with a frown, his friend merely nodded at a figure standing quietly behind them. Erichsen turned to see Taatsiaq, dressed in the same gaitered smock cinched at his wrists. The hood lay flat against his back. He held his paddle in one hand and Erichsen’s manuscript tucked under his arm.
Taatsiaq pointed at the anvil in the sky and said, “Anorersuartoq.”
“Storm,” said Rasmussen. “He wants to leave.”
Part 4
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A skilled qajaq paddler might pick his way along the shore, ducking low in the teeth of the wind, holding the paddle just above the rim of the cockpit, keeping the blades parallel, lifting the opposite end no more than two fists high to dip the blade into the water. Efficient paddling allows for long hours in the qajaq but fighting an evil wind tires the man much like a harpoon tethered to an inflated sealskin tires a whale when hunting. Taatsiaq could feel fire in the muscles of his arms, in his shoulders, in his neck, at the base, locked in such a position that he had to look up to see ahead. The wind threw waves across the skin deck. It slapped gauntlets of cold sea water into his face. More than once, Taatsiaq emptied his lungs with a cough, saltwater streaming over his lips, before he could fill them with air. All the while the manuscript burned in his mind, he imagined the heat of it, if he were to place his naked palm on the leather coverings.
“It is important,” Rasmussen, the half-Greenlander had said. “It must reach the ship.”
“Aap.”
“You do understand?”
Taatsiaq remembered glancing at the Dane – Erichsen was his name – standing beside Rasmussen, before he raised his eyebrows, yes. He understood. The package was important, perhaps the most important thing Taatsiaq had ever carried in his qajaq. The look on the Dane’s face confirmed it.
But now, Taatsiaq was in trouble. He had left too late. He had left too soon. He should have stayed on land. He should never have put his qajaq into the sea.
It is important.
The man’s words, and his friend’s face – they formed in the mist and spray whipped up by the wind on the waves ahead of him.
When the dagger bow of the qajaq lifted on a wave and the wind caught it, Taatsiaq slipped the paddle through his hands, gripped one blade in two wet hands, and pulled a wide stroke through the water, pushing the bow into the wind once more. He did it again, and twice more until he could shift his grip, hold the paddle evenly between his hands, and fight his course along the shore to the point of the island before the next crossing to the mainland.
Taatsiaq stared through the brine dripping from his forehead, stinging his eyes. He knew a crossing in this wind would be the end of him and the end of the Danish man’s parcel. He timed the waves, measured the sets, untied the skirt around the cockpit in the trough of one wave and slid out of the qajaq in the next. The water was cold enough to make him gasp, if he had thought to do so, but Taatsiaq was more concerned with the next wave, as he pressed his feet onto the seabed, and scurried onto the beach, lifting his qajaq just before the sea caught the stern and flipped it out of his hands. He carried the qajaq high onto the beach, tucking it behind a boulder, out of the wind, as he searched for dry roots from dwarf willows. His teeth chattered as he gathered a small pile of kindling, pulled the flint from his sealskin pouch and bent low to strike a spark onto the dried moss he carried in the same pouch. The wind teased each spark away from the flint like short-lived fireflies, until Taatsiaq cradled the tinder and kindling to his body and struck a fire in his lap. When the moss crackled and the roots blackened and flamed, he cupped the fire and placed it on the ground between his legs, feeding the fire with more roots dragged from the ground with furtive handfuls.
What would his father, his uncle, his brother say if they saw him now? he wondered.
They would say nothing, for they were dead.
Drowned.
They would not paddle in this wind, for they would never paddle again.
And neither should he. He knew it, as he shivered, dragging more roots to the fire, coughing in the smoke as the greener leaves and pliant roots resisted the flames. Taatsiaq looked over his shoulder, squinted at the wind, and then scanned the beach for a better shelter, a better place to burn his roots, to make tea, while he waited, while he ate and gathered his strength.
Taatsiaq shuffled the fire ahead of him as he moved closer to the boulder. He pushed the fire into a hollow hidden from the sea. He stoked it, and, when the flames crisped the leaves and the younger roots spat and foamed, he searched for more kindling, stamping his feet and slapping his hands on his thighs until he found more roots. Greater prizes lay on the beach in the form of a splintered crate, and a sea-smoothed length of wood that was t
oo cracked to be shaped into a paddle, but not beyond use – it would burn.
The qajaq twitched on the tough grass beside the boulder as gusts of wind pinched the pointed stern. Taatsiaq placed his hand on it. He looked at sealskin sack lashed behind the cockpit and smiled at the weight of the manuscript inside it. The half-Greenlander had said it was words – very important words – that were of great value. Taatsiaq could not read, but the manuscript was valuable, its weight kept the qajaq grounded, and for that he was thankful. His brother had died when he was separated from his qajaq. His uncle also. No-one knew what had become of his father, but Taatsiaq knew he had died with his qajaq, for he would never leave it. Taatsiaq smoothed his hand across the deck, felt the thrum of the wind vibrating through the hull, and smiled. He pulled the qajaq closer still, as he hid behind the boulder. Soon he would search for lumps of ice clinking against the rocks along the shore. He would melt them for his tea. But first he must warm his legs, dry his kamikker, and rest for a moment longer, one hand on the hull of his qajaq connecting him to the wind, the other hand on the boulder, grounding him.
Grounded and warm.
Warm was often the undoing of Taatsiaq. His father had said so, and his mother knew it to be true. When he was warm, he was restless. Here, safe on the land, as the sea water steamed from his kamikker in front of the fire, Taatsiaq’s thoughts drifted to the Dane’s parcel. It is important. They had said. It was valuable.
Taatsiaq thought about this.
His qajaq had value. He could travel long distances in it. He could catch whales from it. He could hunt seals from it. It had value. It was valuable. This he understood. Like the paddle, the harpoon, the dog sledge, the rack used to dry seal skins, the soapstone bowl used to burn blubber for heat and light. The whale and the seal that provided that same blubber, and the meat which warmed his belly. Taatsiaq smiled at the value of such things as he reached into the sealskin pouch for a handful of dried whale meat. It warmed his belly. It had value. But the half-Greenlander, the one they called Rasmussen had said that the parcel contained words, and that they were valuable.
Taatsiaq unlashed the sealskin sack from the deck and dragged it into the lee of the boulder. He opened it and took out the parcel. It was heavy. It was the paper, he wasn’t stupid. The paper was heavy, but the words on it were valuable. How? What purpose did they serve?
He untied the cord and unwrapped the first layer of skin, and the second. He saw the first piece of paper; it was the same colour as the blubber of the seal, a yellow-cream. When Taatsiaq unwrapped the last layer of skin, the wind licked at the first few sheets, just as Taatsiaq frowned at the spidery lines of ink scrawled and scratched across the page. He was curious. Like the wind. He wanted a closer look, as did the wind. As Taatsiaq peeled back the flap of the last layer of skin, the wind tore the first seven sheets out of his grasp and across the grasses, past the boulders, away from the beach.
Taatsiaq snapped the skins over the manuscript and tucked it under the boulder as he raced across the grass, snapping at the papers as they blistered in spirals like Little Auks evading the Greenlanders’ nets.
If only he had a net.
One sheet of paper crackled across a patch of dried lichen, the corners catching in the crisp black grip of lichen fronds. Taatsiaq flattened the page against the rock with his palm, and then slipped the paper inside his sealskin smock. He pressed his arm against it as he dashed after another piece of paper. It fluttered and flapped above his head. He jumped, but it was beyond his reach.
If only he had a net, a harpoon at the very least. He might spear the page, and pull the paper to him, much like a tired whale is pulled to land. But the page flapped, until a brief lull in the wind snapped the page towards his forehead, creasing Taatsiaq’s skin. He slapped his hand to his head and dragged those restless words out of the wind’s grasp and inside his smock, beneath his arm, pressed to his body, out of the reach of the wind.
Taatsiaq chased the last pages across the grass, much like the gypsy children chased greased paper kites across the heaths of Jutland, between the dunes and along the beach. The wind snapped at the tallest grasses, flattening the thinnest, and teasing the pages further and further from the boulder and the qajaq.
It was an evil wind.
It had forced Taatsiaq from the sea. It had pressed him to the land. He had sought warmth, heat from the fire, and his mind had wandered, tricked into restlessness, and he had opened the Dane’s important package, releasing a trickery of words into the wind. The letters were magic, the words were spells, and they dragged him, tugged him, tricked him from one side of the island to the other, until each page was pressed beneath his arm, under his smock, the magic spent, the words silent.
Taatsiaq laughed as he walked back towards the boulder – he could just see it, and the waves beyond. The words did have value after all, he thought, as he wiped his brow. He was as warm as if he had eaten a whole plate of seal meat. His blood coursed, pumped and charged his body, from the thin tips of his fingers to the blunt ends of his toes.
Taatsiaq untied the cord drawing the sealskin hood around his face. He pulled off the hood and let the wind tease his hair into long wild locks. Like the baleen in a whale, his hair filtered the sand blown from the beach, and the salt dried on his scalp.
He was warm again, invigorated. The pages, those words, they had value after all.
In more ways than one.
Taatsiaq remembered the weight of those words, how they had weighed down his qajaq, until he had unlashed the sealskin sack, until the moment he had unwrapped the first layer, and then danced across the island, chasing magic words.
Only it wasn’t magic, it was a curse. The words were cursed and now his qajaq was gone.
Taatsiaq ran to the boulder. He searched the high grasses. He ran on to the beach, slipping in the sand as he darted left and right. He didn’t want to look to the sea, did not want to see his qajaq darting through the waves, or slipping beneath them. The pages fell from beneath his arm, slipping down his skin as he pressed his hands to his head, gripping his hair as he shouted into the wind. And then the papers flew, twisting around his legs in a cyclone of curses as he cursed himself.
He should never have opened the parcel, should never have looked at the words – words he knew he could not read, words that would never reach their destination, because his qajaq, the one thing he valued above all things in his wide world, was gone.
They were separated, and now he would die, like his brother, like his uncle.
It was an evil wind indeed that coursed and cursed across the fjord.
Part 5
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Magic is like a precocious child with a temper, a seal pup with tiny sharp teeth. Young, fresh and new magic might never mature, might never be still, unless the conjurer, or better yet – the shaman, might wrestle the magic with a distraction, a toy for the wild child, a fish for the wilder seal. There was a shaman in Taatsiaq’s village, an older man, wise in the ways of the sea. If he was on the island, if the pages danced around his feet, he would collect them before they created more mischief. He would wrap them inside the skin sleeves, and he would tie them tightly with the cord. He would place the parcel back inside the sealskin sack before he did anything else. Then, and only then would he search for his qajaq.
It was a struggle to do so, but Taatsiaq did what the shaman would have done. He replaced the magic pages, those reckless words, even though thoughts of his qajaq burned in his mind, more furious than the warmth in this belly and the fire at in his fingers and toes. He would need that fire to keep him warm on the search.
They said his brother died looking for his qajaq, that the wind had taken it, that he was stranded on a tiny island – bare rock, surrounded by a chill sea. His brother could not swim; Taatsiaq did not know anyone who could. They found his brother’s body on the island, curled around a boulder, pale and hungry, cold and dead.
His uncle’s death had been more violen
t, wrenched from his qajaq when the mother whale twisted at the end of his harpoon, flicked her tail, upended his qajaq as she protected her young. He might have rolled the qajaq had he not been so close to the whale. His body was never found, but the qajaq drifted onto a nearby shore while Taatsiaq was still mourning the loss of his brother. Taatsiaq’s father went missing before the first ice of the same year.
Three men were lost, but only one body and one qajaq were found. Taatsiaq liked to believe his father was still at sea. It had happened before. There were tales of hunters drifting into the big water, the deep sea off the coast of Greenland, and drifting into the white man’s land. Perhaps his father was one of those men? Taatsiaq didn’t know, but the thought tugged him around the island as he walked from one vantage point to another to look for his qajaq. It was at the last point, and with his last hope, that he saw a man paddling a qajaq just off the shore, in a bay in the lee of the wind. The qajaq bobbed in the water as if it had no weight, and the man faded in and out of Taatsiaq’s vision. Taatsiaq slipped his hand under his sealskin smock, wondering if the whale meat was bad, or if the warmth from the words had upset him.
He was upset, but the sight of the qajaq, with or without the paddler gave him hope. Taatsiaq thrashed into the sea, felt the rocks slope away from him, just a paddle’s length from the qajaq. He pushed forwards, swallowed a mouthful of sea water, and spluttered to the surface, one hand inside the qajaq, clinging to the cockpit. Taatsiaq kicked for the shore, he lifted the qajaq out of the water, drained the sea out through the cockpit and then wiped salt and tears from his face. He would not die. He would not be parted from his qajaq, although the gash along the bottom of the hull was a worry, something that had to be fixed.
Taatsiaq shivered all the way back to the boulder. He secured the qajaq to the roots of a dwarf willow with lengths of seal cord. He built up the fire, and he searched within his sealskin pouch for a length of sinew. He needed a needle. He found one along the beach, breaking the beak of a bird from a dried skull; he cut a hole for the sinew with the flint. Taatsiaq sang as he turned the qajaq over and lapped the hole in the hull with a patch cut from his pouch. He used all the sinew, knotting the last stitch, but leaving a gap the size of his little finger. He looked at the sea. Even if he plugged the hole with more skin, he would have to empty the qajaq every mile, more often if the waves continued. He would have to stick close to the shore, and the wind, that evil wind, would blow him into the surf zone, where the waves crashed upon the boulders and rocks, where a fragile qajaq would be nothing more than skin and splinters if he was caught in the frigid surf. It would be a long journey, against the wind, all the way to Sukkertoppen.
The Fjord of Evil Winds Page 3