They remain standing for a moment in the hall. The Trader’s heavy hand feels warm against his shoulder.
He returns in the darkness. The widow is in his bed in the alcove; he can see the curves of her hips beneath the blanket. He sighs and sits down with the Christiania-Kureren, lights the lamp. The widow clatters in the kitchen with the pots and pans. Go away, he urges wearily.
He pulls out the drawer and takes out the sketches he has made of her by memory. Most are facial studies, an attempt to capture her in as few strokes as possible. There are detailed nudes, too, drawn meticulously and with feeling. He has never actually seen her naked. What he has drawn is what he wanted to see: a wild woman he has captured and attempted to tame. The sketches are not very good. His hands have begun to tremble; his pencil is no longer as sure as before. He tears the paper into pieces and tosses them into the coal bucket, where they flare up and dwindle. Now she is gone. Now there is the bottle and the Christiania-Kureren.
But the bottle is nearly empty. There is not enough for an evening in festive company with himself. Either he must fetch new provisions or else go early to bed. He takes off his clothes and crawls beneath the reindeer skin.
Yet he is too angry to sleep. Angry at whom? He has no idea. The widow, perhaps. Or the Trader. Or himself.
He climbs out of the alcove again, hopping about on one leg as he puts on stockings and boots. And then he is outside. The fire-watcher’s lantern is nowhere to be seen, and no people are about. Most likely they indulged in the Trader’s punch after he left and are now sleeping. The windows of the colony house are dark. Above his head flows a phosphorescent river, an undulating S in the sky, greenly iridescent, blue, white, the firmament meanders and squirms, flicking its tail, as though it has become unstable and is being sucked through a hole, drowning in its own maelstrom of galaxies uncontrollably expanding and dissolving into long, billowing ribbons, utterly silent. He has never before seen it this magnificent. The snow absorbs all light; he is illuminated from below and above, a figure in a magic lantern. He hurries, so as not to be discovered.
He knows the way and would be able to walk the path with his eyes shut, up to the ladder, up to the hatch, to breathe his alcohol fumes into the lock. He stands there now, in the long loft of the colony house. His nerves settle. He closes the hatch behind him and lights the lamp, places it on top of a barrel and listens. But not a sound can be heard from the Trader’s rooms below.
He narrows his eyes towards the long shadows that sway like seasickness upon the planks of the floor, breathes in the smell of the food store and tarred timber. Five heavy barrels stand beneath the sloping walls, three smaller casks of aquavit in front of them, moreover barrels of grain and oats stacked in pyramids, bales of sticky hops and shag tobacco, sweet and aromatic. A pair of hams and a leg of lamb hang suspended from a beam in their sacking of flax. The pungent smell of salted, fat-covered meat makes his mouth water and his stomach rumble ominously. He puts a tentative foot forward. He is directly above the sleeping chamber. One creak from a loose plank may wake the Trader or his wife. But the house is solid. He can hardly hear his own footsteps.
He opens a barrel, scoops a hand inside and tastes, only to recoil in disgust: gunpowder! Now it is spilt and he scuffs it with his foot so as to disperse the substance and avoid its discovery. The loft is full of barrels and crates he recognizes from Der Frühling. He needs a dram to steady his hand and clear his head.
He rummages about, rather casually, as though he were at home, humming quietly to himself as he lifts the lid of a keg and notes that this time he has discovered a spicy aquavit. He considers he might remain here seated on the floor and drink a little; it will leave room for more of it in his flask. He finds the cup on its hook and dips it into the barrel, drinks a few mouthfuls, thinks about the young Miss Schultz, the eunuch, the widow. He thinks about Madame Kragstedt asleep and snoring but a few ells beneath him, about Roselil and the milking girl on the farm back in Lier, the way she glanced over her shoulder at him and laughed, her upper lip curling back to expose the pink flesh of her gums, her squirting milk at him, him catching the jet in his mouth, or else being drenched, her throaty laughter at his injured expression. He fills the cup again, forgets where he is, sits and stares out ahead into the dim light.
Then at once he stiffens. Voices. He hears footsteps, the creak of a door. Someone speaks beneath him. Madame Kragstedt. Instinctively he rises to his haunches, ready to snuff out the light and conceal himself behind a barrel if anyone should venture to the loft. The Trader’s voice replies. He relaxes. There seems to be no alarm. A door creaks again and shuts. The Madame has gone to the privy. He feels the good aquavit warm his blood, pictures with arousal the Madame’s figure bent forward on the lavatory below, her stockings around her ankles, shift drawn up, the spray of her urine.
He collects himself. He is cold. It is time to fill his flask and return home.
He wonders what the Trader wants with so many kegs of aquavit. It is – not to put too fine a point on it – a sin, the vice of greed, to hoard so much provision without sharing it with others. He ought to take the Trader to task, reprove him, lash him with some biblical quotes. His anger returns. He feels it now to be a personal affront that he should be compelled to sneak up here in order to secure his winter sustenance. This time he will take with him enough to ensure that his trips back and forth become less frequent.
The keg is heavy and unwieldy. He tries to hoist it on to his shoulder, only for it to jar against the ceiling, and he realizes he must carry it in his arms. At the same time he needs to hold the lamp and the ham he has lifted from its hook. He staggers somewhat, momentarily unsteadied. The aquavit sloshes inside its wood, the ham slaps at his hip. He veers to the side, but recovers course. A plank creaks underfoot and yet he has no fear of being heard. Stooping forward, he proceeds cautiously towards the hatch. The lamp swings unmanageably in its cradle, striking against the ham. He wriggles his hand, attempting to shift the lamp so that it may hang from the crook of his arm. But the manoeuvre fails, the lamp falls to the floor. He hears a shatter of glass, looks down and sees that the flame has escaped its chamber and now ignites the gunpowder he has scuffed across the floor and which remains on his boot. He dances a jig to stamp it out, but succeeds only in causing it to spread. He pauses, the keg of aquavit cradled in his arms, and tries to focus his thoughts. But the fire spreads like spilled water across the planks, a blue breaking sea. The gunpowder flares, flames rise and crackle, and then he hears voices, downstairs at first, then outside. He recognizes the Trader’s hoarse modulation as he roars out the alarm; the cry of the smith, who has the fire-watch; and he heads for the hatch, the cumbersome keg still clutched to his chest.
Jørgen? he hears below him. Jørgen! It is the Madame: she sounds so forlorn, solitary, as helpless as a captured bird.
Kragstedt shouts back. Return to bed! Hardly the soundest advice, Falck thinks, jiggling his legs to be free of the flame.
The gun! he hears Kragstedt holler. Bring the gun and I’ll give the bloody thieves the fright of their lives! He hears footsteps running, more voices.
Now it’s the whipping post and chains, he surmises, tap dancing towards the hatch. Behind him the fire spreads, flames lick the first barrels, the timber stanchions, then strive towards the hams at the ceiling, and he is cold no more. Orange tongues of fire, flashes of blue, red leaping flame. I know you, he realizes, the eunuch warned me about you.
Below, the Madame calls out again. Jørgen, I smell smoke!
Smoke, indeed, he says to himself, the whole loft is full of it and I am suffocating. But now he is at the hatch, he opens it and is too late, he sees, for the Trader and his men are already ascending the ladder with loaded flintlocks and eyes flashing with rage.
Who’s there? the Trader demands. Halt in the name of the king!
Which is easier said than done when one’s boots are on fire and one’s arse is as hot as
a frying pan. He senses the rush of air that is sucked into the loft, as though the room were taking a deep breath, and he sees how it causes the fire to blaze up behind him. He sees the carpenter, the abstainer, the soberest man in the colony excepting the natives. Their eyes meet, a millisecond of recognition, perhaps another of bemusement, before the carpenter throws up his arms in front of his face at this sudden encounter with flames and smoke, and Falck is about to speak; to say he is sorry would be the most appropriate utterance, but as he bends down to climb through the hatch the pressure leaps inside the loft, which is now a powder room, and he feels an abrupt force against his back: the hatch is the gun barrel, he the grapeshot, and as the roof is blown from the colony house he is projected high above the snow-clad fells towards the shimmering Northern Lights, out into the universe and inwards into the depths of his own being; he dissolves into the aurora, is torn from his own flailing body, a human cannonball, and his keg of aquavit blown out into the winter’s night, expelled into a place where even the silence has no name.
When he wakes up he is safe and sound in a cot, naked though wrapped in skins. The ceiling is low; he would bump his head if he tried to sit up, which he has absolutely no intention of doing. A lamp burns; the room is warm. It is a tidy chamber, though small, a cosy den. The only thing wrong is that it leans rather drastically to one side.
And now he understands. He is back in his cabin on board Der Frühling. His voyage is incomplete, he has yet to reach his destination, he has dreamed a nightmare of four years. Or is he on his way home? And why does the cabin lean thus? Is the ship about to sink?
The widow leans over him.
Awake?
He moves his lips. He does not know if any sound comes out.
She holds his head and gives him some water. It is the strongest water he has ever tasted. He splutters. The widow laughs.
Spit it out. There is plenty here. A whole keg.
Go away, he breathes. You are not real.
Go away yourself, Priest, if you can. This is my chamber.
He sleeps. When he wakes up she is gone. I knew you were not real, he says to himself. Such relief.
It dawns on him where he is. The Taasinge Slot, the wreck. This must be the captain’s cabin. He must have dragged himself here, half-conscious. He remembers the loft, the burning gunpowder, the boots of the men on the ladder. The darkness. The aurora. And then a deeper darkness that ought to have been death, followed by one of the lower levels of Purgatory, but apparently it was not.
Behind his eyelids the light is removed. He opens his eyes, but still it is dark. He fumbles for the tallow candle, but succeeds only in knocking some objects to the floor. He falls back on to the cot. In reality he is lying halfway up the wall on account of the leaning vessel.
And then the widow is with him again. She sits up against the bulkhead, cutting hunks from a ham and putting them in her mouth. He groans. When will this nightmare end?
Slept well? There is both kindness and sarcasm in her voice. It is a surprisingly delicate dream.
Good ham, says the widow. But the priest won’t be able to chew it with such miserable stumps instead of teeth. Here. She takes a lump from her mouth and puts it inside his. He presses it against his palate and sucks on it. It is salty and tastes of the Trader’s loft.
The widow removes her outer garments, then climbs into the cot with him, shuddering with cold.
Warm me up.
It is you, he says.
I live here, she says. I have lived here for some time.
How have you managed?
My brother looks after me.
I didn’t know you had a brother.
Neither did I. We only just found out.
I see.
Soon we will leave, you and I, she says.
Together? Where will we go?
To Habakuk and Maria Magdalene. They are waiting for you.
I must remain in my calling, he says. My work is incomplete.
You have done enough, she says. The colony house is burned to the ground. The carpenter is dead. The Madame has lost her mind. What more do you need to do?
He says nothing for some time. He allows the information to settle.
Do they know who caused the blaze?
I know, she says.
When his thoughts become clearer she tells him what happened. Every man, woman and child in the colony took part in extinguishing the fire. She saw the charred body of the carpenter, burning hot, the snow melting around it. Constable Bjerg was badly burned, but survived. She saw him come running from the crew’s quarters, pursued by a flaming tail of fire. The smith was unharmed and seemed even to be in his element. He poked at the carpenter’s corpse and said it was as good as fried!
And Madame Kragstedt, says Falck, what about her?
The Trader ran backwards and forwards in front of the burning house, the widow says. He called out for his wife, but everyone was sure she had perished. The house was consumed. No one could get anywhere near because of the heat. Joists collapsed, windows burst in loud explosions. Each time a keg of aquavit went up there was a rushing sound followed by a bang that caused everyone to duck. The Trader stood with his hands at his sides, staring up at the house. The smith said something about intruders in the loft. He was of the opinion some of the natives had been out plundering.
Falck says nothing.
Then someone screamed. At first the widow thought it was the fire, so inhuman was the sound. Then it came again and everyone turned and looked in the same direction. It was the strangest sight, says the widow. From the steep incline behind the colony house a figure came floating across the snow. It appeared in the light from the flames, twirling like some great flake of soot, but then she saw that the figure was flailing; it screamed again, as hoarsely as a raven. It sought out the house, as though it wanted to go in, and then everyone could see who it was; they shouted to her and the smith ran up and took hold of her, dragged her away and fell on top of her. I kneeled beside her, says the widow, but I could not bring myself to touch her, for she stank so foully and was covered from head to toe in some slimy substance, and then of course I realized what had happened.
The Madame was in the privy when the house exploded, says Falck, and recalls her footsteps below him as he stood in the loft. She was covered in excrement.
She had been on the lavatory reading, says the widow. She would do so often when I worked at the house, sometimes for hours on end. The Madame is fortunate to be such an avid reader, though she did not seem happy.
What book was she reading? Falck asks.
He must have suffered serious concussion; he feels dizzy; his head aches and he is pained by a sense of everything taking place at staggered intervals. His mind is addled by the kind of distraction whereby one finds one’s own utterances to be clear, while others seem to speak in a delirium. Apart from that, he is fine. He discovers the keg of aquavit she has recovered and brought to the wreck. He drinks a little. He offers the widow a cup. She drinks.
I knew you would be glad for the aquavit, she says. It was heavy to carry. I almost gave up.
It was kind of you, he says.
The blubber lamp hangs by a cord from the ceiling, the peat wick burns unevenly; she attends to it the whole time, straightening it with the trimmer. In the evening she gives him boiled stockfish, which he devours ravenously. She chatters away, though he does not understand a word.
This is the new home the Lord hath prepared for me, he thinks to himself. Thank you, Lord.
He is unclear as to whether the matter of Madame Kragstedt and the fire was something he dreamed, so he asks the widow and she tells him the story again, about how the Madame came floating down from the incline like an angel covered in filth from the privy tub.
How awful, he says.
But he does not think it awful at all. He finds it banal a
nd tedious.
Everyone is asking about you, says the widow. You must go back to the colony; otherwise they will find out what happened. Madame Kragstedt is out of her mind; she goes about in the warehouse where she and the Trader are living until the new colony house is built, searching for her things. My brother would like to see you back, too. His son is ill. Perhaps you can help.
Your brother, says Falck. Have I met your brother?
You can meet him later today, she says. He is coming here to collect you.
The captain’s cabin of the Taasinge Slot is warm. The horizon leans like seasickness in the portholes, half the planks are broken away and the gaps filled with whatever materials were at hand. I am content here, he protests. I wish to remain here for the rest of my days.
The widow smiles and shakes her head.
This is my home, she says. Yours is in the colony.
I thought you said you were going to take me to Eternal Fjord.
I will. But the time is not right.
The door opens. A man steps into the diagonal cabin. He stands with one foot on the floor, the other against the bulkhead.
Magister Falck.
Falck lifts his head in the cot and stares at him.
Bertel? Is that you?
Yes, it is me. And here you are, Priest. What a cosy little arrangement.
The widow steps up and kisses him.
Magister Falck, Bertel says again. Everyone is looking for you. I don’t know why you are hiding here, nor do I wish to know. But I think it best that you come home.
He sits up, supporting himself on stiffened arms, and glances from one to the other. Do you two know each other?
I told you, I found out I had a brother, says the widow.
The Eighth Commandment
Questions and Answers (1791)
The Eighth Commandment, as it is most plainly to be taught by a father to his family:
‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.’
What does this imply?
The Prophets of Eternal Fjord Page 37