The Prophets of Eternal Fjord

by Aitken, Martin, Leine, Kim

  He shuts himself in the kitchen, prepares oats and pork, and takes the meal into his room to eat, devours it and wipes the plate clean with bread. His stomach grumbles its disgruntled thanks. The time is just past four; his catechism and instruction are completed; he has no visits to pay this afternoon, unless he is called upon. Previously, the widow would have been at his door at this time to receive his personal instruction. He smiles glumly. It is several months since her disappearance. He has no idea where she might be. He doubts that she has gone to the Eternal Fjord and he is certain that she is not to be found at Holsteinsborg. Apart from that, she could be anywhere. Her christening has been postponed and postponed again, either because some other matter prevented it or because of her own sudden reluctance. Sometimes he wonders if she even wants to become a good Christian.

  Did I love the widow? he asks himself, noting that he already thinks of her in the past tense. Judging by the pain and longing he feels now that she is no longer with him, he did. But what was it, then, that I loved? A sullen, recalcitrant woman who often succumbed to outbreaks of rage. Once, she sliced holes in his mattress with a cleaver, thrashing and tearing at the straw until he was forced to lie on top of her and hold her tight. What are you so angry about? he asked her. Who is it you want to kill? You, priest! she replied in her own language, the language of rage and honesty, a wicked grin curling her lips. Illit, palasi! And with that she wrestled free, dropped the cleaver and left. A mystery. That was what he loved, or perhaps loved. He sighs. The daughter is abandoned in the communal dwelling house, where most probably she is neglected by the natives.

  A light glances the window and is cast briefly against the ceiling. The fire-watcher’s lantern. He hears the man’s heavy footsteps as they pass. The smith. An incorrigible sinner not even twenty degrees of frost and year after year of debauchery can do away with. Inspector Rømer’s words come back to him: I was here before he came, and I’ll be here when he goes again. Apparently, the worst sinners are those who do best in this wilderness.

  He sits skimming through the day’s issue of the Christiania-Kureren, dated 27 January 1790 or exactly one year ago to the day. There is a piece on the previous year’s disturbances in Paris. He has read on ahead, which is not his custom, and has absorbed in disbelief, partially excited, partially horrified, reports of the persecution of the royal family, the annexation of church property, the storming of the Bastille. And now his year’s issues come to an end. Compared to these events the dissolution of the Stavnsbånd in Denmark was little more than a triviality. He wonders where it will end and imagines prison cells full of noblemen awaiting their fate, palaces razed, bodies floating in the Seine, burning buildings and red flags waving on the barricades. A new order, which perhaps will spread to the rest of Europe. The papers seem to expect it will happen, some even hope. In the Danish and Norwegian press it is a time of suggestion. How will life in peaceful little Copenhagen be affected, or back home in Lier? Will there be anything left to return home to? Does he even want to return home? In the summer he felt like a fish in water up here, now he is no longer sure.

  There is a knock on the door. Bertel’s wife, Sofie, who is still employed in the Trader’s household, stands outside with a letter for him. Come in, he says, and close the door, my dear. She enters, looks about her, and he can tell she thinks the priest’s home to be humble and rather sorry compared to what she is used to.

  He tears open the letter and is surprised to see that it is an invitation:

  In anticipation of the approaching birthday of His Majesty, our beloved King Christian the Seventh, and the annual celebrations of such an occasion, it would please Madame Haldora Kragstedt and the undersigned if the Magister would favour us with the pleasure of his person’s presence and company in the Trader’s home this coming Sunday the 29th of January at 12 o’clock noon. Food and wine will be served to the Colony’s Danish contingent, and subsequently a dram of spirits to such Greenlanders as are employed by the Trade. Moreover, at the request of my good wife, and as a novelty this year, treats will be handed out to the Colony’s children. Your humble servant, Jørgen Kragstedt, Commandant, etc.

  Falck broods at length over the letter. He reads it several times. Is its tone to be understood as sarcasm and thereby as a deterrent against presenting himself? Or is it correct and neutral, and perhaps identical to the invitation all others in the colony have received? Has the Trader resolved to let the past lie or has his wife talked him into reconciliation?

  He crumples the letter in his hands and throws it on to the floor. Only then to pick it up and smooth it out. Sofie sits waiting in his arm ­chair, he realizes. Her feet are on the table and she is watching him. He smiles at her. She returns her feet to the floor. I shall attend, he decides. Or rather, I shall not. Hm. I shall write a similar letter to the Trader in reply, in exactly the same tone, and if the Trader’s letter is meant to be sarcasm my reply will appear quite as sarcastic. If it is meant sincerely, then mine, too, will be taken as such. The only problem is that he has no idea what to put. I shall attend, he thinks. Or shall I? No! Or perhaps.

  Thank the Trader for his invitation, he says. I shall be happy to attend, of course.

  She curtsies, a gesture the Madame must have taught her. He has never before seen a Greenlander curtsy. Or is this, too, some form of sarcasm? I spend too much time in my own company, he tells himself. Sofie has gone.

  Say hello to your husband! he shouts after her. And your fine boy!

  A poor decision, if timely, is better than a good one that is not. Some statesman’s motto he has read somewhere, perhaps the Count von Bernstorff’s. He is decided and feels relief. Thank you, dear Count! Now he is alone. Now he may permit himself to drink, though the bottle is as good as empty.

  Again he thinks of the widow. He recalls the lingering smells of the dwelling house in her clothes. Like heathen skin, he thinks, that he ought to have stripped from her body, removing her from her natural state and replacing her into civilized, pale nakedness that he might have covered with his kisses and copulated with in the good Danish tradition as prac­tised by his colleagues, among them Pastor Oxbøl at Holsteinsborg. But then he might not have found her so alluring now. Anyway, it came to nothing, and now he regrets it, as he knows he would have regretted it even more had he done it.

  She had lain with so many men and was not reticent in speaking of it. He allowed her to confess her sins and listened to what he told her of the lusts and vices of her lovers. He absolved her of her sins. She looked at him enquiringly and smiled. Why is palasi crying? I am not crying, he said. Go now and come back in the morning. She could not get it into her stupid head that he was not like the men she told him about in her confessions. At moments of weakness neither could he.

  Two of the large communal houses are inhabited in the winter, besides them some smaller dwellings of peat and planks in which live mostly christened Greenlanders employed by the Trade. According to his most recent survey, the still-heathen count thirty-five souls, children and adults, an improvement on the previous year when the colony was all but depop­ulated. Famine has made people hesitant; they take their precautions and elect for the relative security of the colony rather than freedom in the outlying settlements and the ever-looming threat of hunger.

  He thinks much upon the two prophets inside the ford and their well-organized settlement on the high land. He had been petrified standing in the church and speaking against Habakuk, and the man’s ability to address his people impressed him.

  Morning, the 28th of January. Bertel has laid out the chess set when Falck arrives.

  Brr, such cold! he says. But here is nice and warm.

  Bertel takes the thick coat Falck wears outside his cassock and hangs it on a nail.

  The boy lies on the cot, reading. Sofie has gone up to the colony house to help the Trader’s wife get things ready for the occasion of the king’s birthday. The boy’s breathing is laboured and
punctuated by wheezing, yet he seems wholly absorbed in his reading. Now and then he turns a page.

  Falck and Bertel sit down facing each other and begin to play. On his way here Falck decided on an opening, but some few moves into the game his plans are already crumbling and he is as usual forced on to the defensive.

  I have been invited to dinner, he says.

  Bertel moves a piece.

  At the Trader’s.

  Falck’s move is foolish and Bertel punishes him promptly.

  I’m not sure about it. I feel most inclined to make my excuses.

  The boy coughs.

  Though I should not like to appear inaccessible.

  Your move, Pastor.

  And the Madame may wish to see me. We were once good friends, the Madame and I.

  Check, says Bertel.

  Is something the matter? Falck asks.

  Yes, your queen is in danger.

  Falck leans over the board. They play, silent in the light of the lamp.

  What are you reading? Falck asks the boy.

  He holds up his book. Falck nods and smiles. It is one of the volumes he has given him from his library.

  The lad is clever, he says to Bertel. He will make a fine catechist like his father.

  He won’t be a catechist.

  So you say.

  He is to be a priest. Bertel makes an assault from his right flank.

  Priest, indeed. I must say. Or bishop, perhaps? Falck smirks.

  Why should a Greenlander not become a priest? Bertel says rhetorically.

  I suppose it is possible, says Falck peaceably, though he senses that his look is one of doubt. A priest, is that what you want to be? he asks the boy over on the cot.

  The lad looks up from his book and shakes his head. A ship’s captain.

  Ah, a ship’s captain. You wish to journey out and see foreign lands?

  He nods earnestly, then returns to his reading.

  Checkmate, says Bertel.

  Falck laughs.

  They go to the communal house together. To enter they must descend on to all fours and crawl. Morten has drawn his cassock up to his chest and holds it gathered in one hand to save it from becoming dirty, which is to say dirtier than it is already. Everything becomes dirty so fast. Bertel crawls in first. From the ceiling in the entry hang remnants of clothing and skins, curtain by curtain, and various objects of bone, wood and metal. Hunting implements, perhaps, or heathen amulets. The entry is long and narrow. Morten follows Bertel’s boot shafts and concentrates on the words of his Lord’s Prayer.

  Shrill laughter greets him as he pokes his head into the dwelling-room. Immediately it ceases again. Eyes watch him in the dim light. Their laughter has always scared the wits out of him. But it is not him they are laughing at, it is a secret mirth, most likely unfit for other ears, and in this instance he is grateful that his poor Greenlandic spares him from grasping their obscenities.

  He seats himself on the strangers’ bench and pulls off his coat, though still he is too warmly dressed. The long room is dark, thick with the stench of filled urine tubs, human odours, sizzling oil lamps, flesh boiling in dented pots over the fire. He knows these houses; he has become used to the smells and the nakedness, the sound of squelching breasts and hands slapping at lice. But the heat is hard to endure when clad in a wool cassock.

  Faces lurk behind the lamps, cheekbones shine like copper. There must be some thirty people at least. They sit tightly beside each other, behind each other, women, men, children in a naked, perspiring huddle. He greets them unspecifically. A number return his greeting in a friendly manner. Kutaa, palasi. Hello, Priest. His eyes adjust to the dark. He sees the naked bodies glistening, copper-red in the light of blubber lamps. Some are occupied eating soup from bowls of tin; women comb each other’s hair; men sit cross-legged outermost on the benches and are deloused by their daughters. The pots boil vigorously, bones protruding from the scalding liquid; steam fills the room with moisture. Falck wishes he could take off his cassock, divest himself of his priestly dignity and merge naked and perspiring into the midst of these bodies. But he knows he cannot, that it is not possible.

  They were indulging in something when he and the catechist arrived, he senses it and can tell by their faces, something that hangs yet suspended in the air above the benches. He knows it still takes place, especially when visitors come from outside. New blood, new flesh. Lamps are extin­guished and bodies come together in the dark, fresh seed is sown. A mixture of entertainment and necessity. The priests have fulminated against it ever since Egede’s day, but the practice is seemingly imper­vious to such criticism. Combating it is perhaps inadvisable. Falck at least has no intentions of opposing such an entrenched feature of their lives. He pretends it does not exist.

  Let us speak of the Baptism, he begins uncertainly. Let us speak of why Christian people have devoted themselves to the Lord.

  Bertel translates. A silence ensues.

  Why should we be christened? says one of the unfamiliar men who sits scraping the sweat from his upper body and arms with the broad blade of a woman’s knife.

  So that you may become good people, Falck replies, and so that you may know God and find peace through Jesus Christ.

  But we are good without knowing God, the man retorts, flicking his wrist to send a fan-like spray of perspiration from the blade, causing a blubber lamp to flicker and sizzle. The acrid stench of steaming sweat claws at his nostrils.

  Indeed, he says accommodatingly. But some of you are not good. You live in sin. You commit evil deeds. You kill defenceless children and women.

  Unruffled, the man continues to scrape the sweat from his skin; there is something affectionate about the way he proceeds, as though it were a form of self-satisfaction. Falck cannot look away from it.

  But the Christians in the colony, do they know God?

  Yes, they are christened, they know God and the Saviour, His only begotten son. Falck knows what comes next.

  The man smiles. But these people are bad. They drink and curse and are lecherous, and they too kill others who are innocent. Is this not right?

  It is true, some of them are bad. God has forsaken them.

  They have children by our women, then want nothing to do with them.

  They will be punished in the life to come.

  Are all people like this in Denmark?

  The discussion is not proceeding in the direction Falck had wished, but he knows from experience that it does not pay to evade an issue or lie. One must forge ahead, concede what must be conceded, and hope to emerge unvanquished. Many are, he says. Man is weak. But there are many good people, too. Our king is good.

  The man looks at him attentively, not unkindly. He is on his own terri­tory and feels secure. He has raised an eyebrow. Falck senses he is up against a highly astute man who is amusing himself. Perhaps we should send some of our people with your ships to Denmark, to evangelize in your country and teach your king to turn his people to righteousness?

  If first they would be christened, then indeed, Falck replies slyly. Then they could go to Denmark and teach the people there to be good Christians.

  But Priest, the man counters, flicking the blade once more and causing the lamp to spit, many have journeyed to Denmark and have never come back. What has happened to them?

  I don’t know.

  They are dead. Are they not?

  Yes, I’m afraid they probably are.

  Greenlanders cannot tolerate the air in Denmark, says the oldermand in the corner. It is like poisoned water to them, and since they cannot help but drink it, they become sick and die. With the Danes it is much the same. They cannot abide the air in our country. They become maddened by it; they drink and whore and die like flies. You do not look so well yourself, Priest. Why is this so? Did God make us so different?

  We are
all equal before the Lord, he says half-heartedly.

  Bertel says something to the oldermand, who says something to his wife, who in turn spoons a portion of soup into a bowl. She comes over and places it on the floor in front of him. He can see that the soup is full of barley groats, indicating to him that Kragstedt has shown mercy upon the natives and is sustaining them with Danish groceries.

  Eat, Priest! says the oldermand. You look like you need it.

  Both he and Bertel scoop the soup into their mouths.

  It’s unfair of him to judge Christian people on how the colony folk behave, he says to Bertel when presently they sit digesting the meal.

  Why? says Bertel.

  Because they are scoundrels, says Falck.

  Exactly, says Bertel.

  Hm, he says. Are you not supposed to be on my side?

  Is the priest not supposed to be on our side? Bertel retorts.

  Of course, he says. You know I am.

  Danes look after Danes, says the catechist. That’s how it’s always been.

  Instead of discussing matters of theology and arguing with Bertel, he tells a story from the Bible. The natives always have good appetite for a story. The scriptures speak to everyman, such is their divine nature. They are all ears, and watch the priest attentively as he speaks in Danish, then turn to Bertel when he translates.

  Today it is the story of Jonah. He makes the most of the unwill- ing prophet’s arguments with the Lord, he waves his hands, alters his voice and play-acts. The natives laugh. On the floor a flock of children sit, open-mouthed, gaping up at him. Then Jonah flees from the Lord. He runs back and forth, stooping beneath the low ceiling, sweating grotesquely in his cassock. He sails upon the great ocean and a terrible storm begins to blow. His arms flail like the wings of a windmill; the wind blows from his mouth. This is something they know and understand. What kind of boat was it? they want to know. Was it a rowing boat or a sailing boat? Was the wind onshore or offshore?