The Prophets of Eternal Fjord

by Aitken, Martin, Leine, Kim

  They make their way gently north; his head lolls; noon passes, then afternoon, with no change. He sleeps a little, the nodding of his head travels into his dream in which he is seated in a boat that is taking in water and no one else has noticed. He opens his mouth to raise the alarm and not a sound comes out. He wakes and lifts his feet abruptly from the bottom of the vessel. But the boat is dry.

  Falck calls out to Didrik. He points ashore. Bjerg scans the landscape. He sees some nodules on a plateau; they look like molehills. A settlement. Didrik waits for the boat to catch up with him and takes hold of the gunwale. The women rest on their oars.

  No people there, says Didrik. It would be a waste of time, Mr Falck.

  Falck nods and stares at the land. Bjerg wishes they would go ashore; he feels a desperate need to stretch his legs.

  Onward, says Falck. We shall put in soon enough.

  They pass through a narrow sound that runs diagonally to the north­west, and the heavy swell from the open sea presses down upon them. They cross between small islands; the land becomes more varied. Here and there they see dwellings or what is left of them, but no sign of people. Eventually they go ashore on to a small island. All disperse immediately to crouch behind rocks, then assemble again a little further inland. Didrik says something to the women and they light a fire and make tea in which they soak some hard tack. Constable Bjerg stretches out in the heather and observes them. A packet of lump sugar is passed around. The women speak in lowered voices. Their cheeks bulge with the sugar. He is annoyed by their laughter.

  When they have drunk their tea and eaten their hard tack, the men walk along the shore and look at what signs are left of humans: some tent rings, a pair of huts without rafters. No one has lived here for years, says Didrik.

  Have they all gone to join these prophets? Falck wants to know.

  Some, says Didrik. Many are dead. Some have gone north to Holsteinsborg or other big places.

  Dead? Why dead?

  Scarcity. A failed fangst. Hunger. Has the Magister not heard of these things?

  Bjerg detects a derisive tone in the man’s voice. He wonders if it is aimed at the natives’ inability to survive, or the priest’s ignorance.

  Falck pokes at the site of an old fire. It would seem they resorted to preparing their garments as meals, he says pensively.

  It is quite common among the savages, says Didrik. In the winter they eat their clothing; in the spring they must sew anew.

  Ugh! Says Bjerg.

  Falck looks at him. Hunger is a hard master, Constable Bjerg.

  Forgive me, Magister, says Bjerg, but I am revolted by the thought of eating a shoe, even if it were my own feet that had been inside.

  There are many graves on the island, marked by whale bones or decayed planks. Didrik translates the Greenlandic words that have been scratched into them. Rest in peace is popular and probably much welcomed.

  So these are christened people? says Falck.

  Christened and heathens, says Didrik. Death has poor eyesight, as we say. It cannot tell the difference.

  Falck sighs. He takes a box under his arm and wanders up the fell. His botanizing box, he tells Bjerg. I enjoy looking for flowers and all manner of plants, and to make drawings of them in my sketchbook. It is my pastime.

  Rasmus Bjerg walks inwards across the land; the slopes bring him to an elevated position. He turns and looks back. The camp seems very distant now, after only half an hour’s trek; the boat is a mere wood shaving; the people resemble busy beetles. Smoke rises from the fire. From the shore the water stretches upwards and resembles a wall. The horizon extends at eye level. How peculiar! He cups his hands to his mouth and calls out. The beetles halt; they scan the fellside, but cannot see him. He calls again. They wave. He ducks. Spotted! He laughs.

  He descends through a valley, eating berries from the bushes and arriving at the shore a little north of the camp. Here he meets two of the women who are out gathering berries and mushrooms. He gives them a wide berth, has no desire to speak to them. He is not even aware of whether they understand Danish. They straighten up as they hear him coming, shade their eyes from the sun and watch him as he passes. He affords them a formal greeting and walks on. They call out to him. He does not understand what they say, but he can tell they are up to some­thing. He turns hesitantly. They wave him back and he approaches them.

  The flintlock slaps at his thigh.

  What do you want? he demands to know, putting on a severe tone.

  They speak to him and gesture for him to sit down with them. One of them smokes on a pipe made from a piece of hollowed-out animal bone. The smoke smells of heather and herbs. She takes the pipe from her mouth and hands it to him. He sits down. The heather embraces him, soft and warm. The bowl of the pipe is red-hot; he holds the stem and puffs a little, expels the smoke and coughs. The women laugh. They chatter, without including him in any way in their conversation. He allows them to sit and smoke. The smoke has a wearying effect on him; the only thing he feels inclined to do is to sit here and listen to the women’s nattering that sounds like a stream running over a bed of shingle in his mind. An iceberg drifts on the sea. It must be colossal, as big as a palace, he thinks to himself, as big as the white palace of Christiansborg in Copenhagen, which he has seen more than once, most recently on the day he shipped out to Greenland. He draws their attention to the iceberg, pointing and pronouncing the word in Danish: is-bjerg. They say a word in their own language, a word with a rippling ring to it: iluliaq. He tries to say it. They laugh. One of them takes hold of his mouth, presses it together and pulls his lips outwards. I-lu-li-aq, she says. I-lu-li-aq, he repeats. She nods with contentment, or perhaps in resignation.

  They introduce themselves to each other. Rasimusi, they call him. His surname is impossible for them to pronounce, though in his opinion it is the shortest and easiest surname imaginable. Their own names are Rosine and Amanda, good Danish names they were given at their christening. He knows they have other names, but perhaps they are secret; perhaps they are ashamed of their heathen background. He does not enquire and would have been unable to do so, even if he had been inclined.

  Now we know each other, he says, and hands the pipe to Amanda. Now we are almost betrothed.

  They laugh obligingly, though probably they do not understand a word he says.

  On his way back he encounters Mr Falck, who is returning from his botanical expedition. He seems happy and refreshed from his walk. He shows Bjerg his sketches. Look, he says, and takes out one of the plates. Annual stonecrop. Sedum annuum. Do you see, Constable Bjerg, it was still in flower!

  Bjerg glances at the drawing. Falck has given it colour, a striving green plant with a dozen yellow petals.

  Do you see how it reaches for the light, Constable Bjerg? It strives towards the sun. In the morning it inclines to the east, in the evening to the west, even when the weather is cloudy. In fact, one can look at these plants and tell which direction is south. Provided, that is, one knows the time of day.

  I see, says Bjerg. His mind is elsewhere.

  In the dark months that lie ahead I shall make proper drawings of these sketches, Falck declares happily. I may even produce a gouache painting or two. Have you heard of the Flora Danica, Bjerg? No, of course not, but nonetheless let me confide to you that I intend to prepare a Flora Groenlandica, a comprehensive atlas of botany containing illus­trations of the wild plants that are native to this land. It shall be my life’s work, along with my work in the Mission, of course. I have been in this country a year, but only now have I been able to purchase and have made the necessary equipment that will allow me to journey about as I wish. It is high time I began!

  It’s late, says Bjerg, who understands not half of what the priest has said. We’d best get back to camp.

  They decide to spend the night on the island, though find it unneces­sary to put up the tent. Instead, the
y crawl into the two sleeping bags, the men in one, the women in the other. Bjerg lies listening to the tide, the clacking of the pebbles on the shore. He hears a stomach grumble, appar­ently Falck’s, and the light breathing of the women on the other side of the fire. He thinks of the woman, Rosine, who put her fingers to his mouth to make it pronounce the Greenlandic word correctly. It is the first time a woman other than his mother has touched him there. He embroi­ders slightly upon his recollection of the hand; he makes it caress his cheek and puts his lips to it. The woman, or the girl, Rosine, has at once become visible, has stepped forward from behind her native mask. He cannot understand how he was unable to tell her apart from the three others. Amanda, too, is easily recognizable with her round paddings of fat at the cheekbones, her wide grin, and eyes that slant and seem to tell of cunning. He thinks that if he were to lie with one of them, it would be most uncomplicated to lie with Amanda, who is clearly the elder and more experienced. But it is Rosine he thinks about, Rosine’s hands touching his mouth.

  In the morning Falck holds prayers. He hands out sacramental bread, passes round a cup of wine and bestows a blessing upon them. After that, they sail on.

  Their destination is the settlement at Eternal Fjord and the Christians there, who it seems have embroiled themselves in ignorance and false doctrine, but first they must sail through the rest of the district to see if there are people left at all. The kayak man does not believe it to be worth the effort: everyone is either dead or has joined the prophets. They find several abandoned settlements, tent rings, foundations, recent graves. Most places seem not to have been inhabited this year. In a bay they cross some days later the water is but a few fathoms deep and as clear as bottle glass. Bjerg hears the priest call out and the women stop rowing. And then he sees them. On the light-coloured bed of sand at the bottom are a number of dead, outstretched on their backs, arms spread to the sides, long heathen manes loosened from the bead-studded bands that would normally have held them in place. They rock gently in the current. Their faces are gone. He sees small fish dart into the sockets of their eyes.

  Falck says the Lord’s Prayer and they continue on. Bjerg studies the women, who study him. If they feel the same dread as him, they conceal the emotion expertly. He looks upon the relentless fells, the sky and all that surrounds them with different eyes than only an hour before. What is it we are doing here, exactly? he asks himself.

  Evening. The women have made a fire. Slices of pork sizzle on the pan. Having conducted a cursory reconnaissance, he returns and informs them that the place is suited to their long rest. There is driftwood on the shore, plenty of fresh water, and he believes there will be hare.

  Very well, says Falck. Let us put up the tent and make ourselves more comfortable.

  Bjerg takes his flintlock and follows the river inland to a lake that collects water from three fells. His progress is slowed by small streams and his feet are quickly soaked. The kayak man, too, has gone hunting with his own rifle. Bjerg can see him on the other side of the valley. There are many ptarmigan. He hears them clucking along the esker. He will resort to them if he should fail to catch a hare. He walks on. The silence is monumental, broken only by the sound of running water. The fells are ancient. He looks up at them and feels small, exposed and solitary. They must have been here since the days of Noah, he thinks. Clouds pull themselves from the peaks and drift across the sky. There is something unfathomable about nature, a thing that has always frightened him some­what. To die here must be dreadful; to lie in the open and be decomposed into bones at nature’s own unhurried and inescapable tempo. He thinks to himself that nature may decide to do him harm and prevent him from returning to the camp. The thought is unbearable.

  When he gets back he says he has pains in his stomach and lies down beside the fire. He had imagined that Rosine would give him tea and sit with him to keep him company, and perhaps teach him some more words in her own language. But she is not there. In the evening Didrik returns with a clutch of hares. The women, too, have returned. They skin the animals and put them on spits of wood and roast them over the fire. Falck, who suffers from chronic stomach trouble, advises him to stay away from the meat and instead to eat a portion of the thin gruel he has boiled. The priest hands him a plate whose contents he sups before lying down to sleep in order to forget how hungry he is.

  From the sleeping bag he watches Rosine, who is seated with the other women, meticulously turning a hare bone between her fingers. She sucks on it, her tongue darting forward, pointed and pink, teeth flashing, mouth glistening with fat. She glances across at him, he smiles, she says some­thing to Amanda, who comes over with some meat. Disappointed that Rosine would not come herself, he devours it greedily.

  But she watches him. Her dark eyes study him. Amanda says some­thing to her in a harsh tone. It sounds like panik, perhaps her Greenlandic name, he thinks to himself. She lowers her gaze.

  They pass Old Sukkertoppen, the original site of the colony. A handful of houses, whose relocation proved unviable, remain, but the Danes are all gone. A few Christian families of mixtures and a small number of heathens live there still, from fishing and small-scale hunting, and a very elderly catechist and his wife. Despite this score of inhabi­tants, the European slant makes the place appear even more forlorn than the abandoned settlements they have seen on their way. Grey, timeworn cladding, blind window holes, crumbling stone foundations, sagging roofs, a churchyard, a whole field of white crosses. There are names on them: Jens, Peter, Søren, Kristian, Maren, Gunhild, Karoline, Olga. Rest in peace. The words sound more like a heathen invocation now than Christian piety. The grass has grown up around the crosses and is buffeted by the wind.

  Further north they encounter some small groups of individuals, people from Holsteinsborg who have begun to seep southwards in search of a place to spend the winter. The hunting is good, they say, and there is little competition. Bjerg finds them a sorry sight, they look more like they are heading south by compulsion than free will. Falck tests their knowledge of the Saviour and the good Word. Yes, they know of it, they mumble. The pastor at Holsteinsborg has preached the Gospel to us and many have been christened. But it is not for us, they say, there are too many problems in the colonies and they prefer to try their fortunes on their own. Perhaps they will enter the Eternal Fjord, if all else fails. It is said they know no shortage there.

  Falck warns that they should stay away from the so-called prophets and their game. His Majesty the king, who owns this land, has heard tell of their antics and has been much grieved and angered by what has occurred. The blasphemers of Eternal Fjord are soon to be consigned to history. Habakuk says it is the pale faces in our country who will soon be gone, they rejoin, laughing in a mocking manner that offends the priest.

  They are now at the northernmost margin of the district. A light, sandy brink projects from the shore; behind it, a round valley and jagged peaks. Bjerg points out that there is at least one tent at the place. Falck is gladdened. Let us hope for no more of these inveterate transients from the north, he says, but for people with whom one can speak of the Saviour and the love they may find in Him. He jumps over the side and wades ashore, squelching in the soft clay bed into which the boat glides with a sigh.

  Bring the tent and pack, Falck commands from the brink. I will go and greet the inhabitants. He disappears from sight.

  The women are disgruntled. They are tired of all this travel to no avail. They cannot be bothered with any more heathens, living or dead. They will not go ashore. Bjerg has no idea what to do to make them fall into line. Fortunately, Didrik steps in and speaks to them; his voice is soft and kind. After a short while they climb out of the boat and drag it on to the land in unison.

  The women carry their items ashore, while Bjerg and Didrik follow on after Falck. From the brink they can see him outside the tent. He paces back and forth.

  It seems no one is home, says Bjerg.

  Didrik gives him a
look. He laughs. Perhaps the priest does not find it agreeable inside.

  A path has been trodden down in the heather between the brink and the camp. In front of the tent lie the remains of a kayak and a kone boat, both relieved of their skins, the frames bare and white.

  So, did our priest say hello to the inhabitants? says Didrik as they approach.

  Falck shakes his head. He draws the opening aside and steps back. Bjerg bends down and enters, then Didrik and Falck likewise.

  Thee are four people in the sleeping area. They lie neatly, head to toe, arms at their sides, almost like the negroes on the slave ship. All substance has dissolved away under the skin and there is an intense austerity about the parchment-covered cheekbones, chins and foreheads. These are faces Bjerg imagines might await him on Judgement Day.

  Poor, unenlightened heathens, says Falck. This is what comes of trying one’s own fortunes. Why on earth did they not come to us? We could have taken care of them.