The Prophets of Eternal Fjord

by Aitken, Martin, Leine, Kim

  Moreover, devotions are performed each Sunday in the church, once again with Habakuk in the role of preacher. The service here consists of questions and answers, whereby Habakuk poses the questions and the rapt congregation replies in an atmosphere of increasing excitement, gradually whipped into a veritable fury of damp-eyed wailing and laughter. However misplaced it may appear, this weeping – and in par ­ticular the mirth and merriment that accompanies it – serves strangely to lighten the mood. I, too, partake in it and feel both liberated and glad­dened by suddenly giggling without obvious reason, as though I were a demon of Beelzebub.

  When this ceremony is over we go up to the churchyard, where we take each other by the hand, dance and sing hymns; for as Habakuk says: We must also be mindful of the dead that they may not be forgotten.

  The procession I saw has not shown itself to me again, nor have I endeavoured to seek it out. It was a powerful vision of the kind to which a man should not be exposed too often. However, I have confided the matter to Maria Magdalene, and she smiled and squeezed my hand and said it was good.

  I now set to work instructing the unchristened, having first made sure to request and receive Habakuk’s permission. He even showed me the kindness of saying that my presence here could be of great assistance to himself and his wife, and also to the population here in general. The widow’s dream of finding salvation in baptism will now at long last be fulfilled. She lies with me upon the bench. Habakuk has assured me that it is not a sin, since the Lord sees the human heart and has Himself bequeathed to man the merciful gift of love. In this I believe him and have asked him to marry us, to which he has agreed, even though such a ceremony can only ever be pretence.

  The widow’s kiss is as sweet as strawberries, and with pursed lips and blushing cheeks she is quite without her usual contrariness. When we entwine behind our curtain we are indeed one flesh! Her gentle breath against my skin when she sleeps. I lie awake and consider her as I write these lines. She is finally mine.

  16 May

  Today my cassock, my collar and wig were returned to me, all quite ruined, though now repaired and laundered.

  Held service in the church today, almost the entire settlement in atten­dance, inside and out, and I blessed the congregation, christened and unchristened alike. Thereafter we proceeded together to the churchyard and sang two of Kingo’s hymns. They rang so finely from the steep fellside.

  Habakuk came to me afterwards and thanked me with tears in his eyes and told me he sensed the presence of the Lord. He is indeed an oddly excitable and soulful man, not at all heavy and immoveable as rock, but light and fluttering like a butterfly.

  . . .

  I am Magister Falck. The people call me Palasi.

  18 May

  A conversation:

  MM: Magister Falck, what happens in the view of the Church to the unchristened relatives of the Greenlanders now to be baptized?

  Palasi: The unchristened do not belong to the Lord.

  MM: So they may not find salvation?

  Palasi: If they come to receive instruction, they may be saved.

  MM: No, you don’t understand, Magister. The unchristened relatives who are dead, what happens to them?

  Palasi: It is a shame, but if a person is not christened he may not find salvation, unless he is a small innocent child upon which the Lord shows mercy. If everyone were to be saved regardless of being chris­tened or not, why then should anyone be baptized?

  MM: But if they who are now to be christened have no hope of seeing their relatives again in the afterlife, how can this be Christian love?

  Palasi: I understand your meaning, dear Maria. But I can do nothing about it.

  MM: But if you told them their salvation might lead to that of their loved ones in Heaven? Could you not tell them that, Morten? Recall Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians: For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. This is support for such a solution.

  Palasi (long silent): I understand. This is a possible interpretation of the Apostle’s words. I think perhaps.

  MM: It has been our practice here for some time now. It is why we dance at the graves and in that way we celebrate our dead. Your own eyes have seen their procession cross the ford into the heavens, Morten. You understand how important it is to remember those who are gone, and to retain hope of seeing them again.

  Palasi: You are right. I shall follow your advice and thank you sincerely for it.

  MM: You are a good man, Morten Falck.

  Her faith is not merely sentiment; she is well-versed in the scriptures and what she preaches is founded thereupon. If I were to stand at St Peter’s gate in the company of this woman, I fear he would first admit her and that my own salvation would depend upon whatever recommendation she might care to whisper in his ear.

  25 May

  Today I was joined to the widow in wedlock. The marriage ceremony was performed by Habakuk in good Christian manner and without the inclusion of any blasphemous antics. The widow plighted her troth to me in front of the church, while the whole settlement looked smilingly upon us. The weather was fine and mild. The bell was rung and must surely have been heard far out over the ford. Afterwards a festive gathering was held upon the rocks, with salmon to eat.

  I am certain the Lord acknowledges this marriage, even though its ceremony was not performed by a member of the ordained clergy.

  Since now we are man and wife, Maria has allotted to us a separate house, which is the small dwelling to which I was brought upon my arrival here and in which we are now installed. The widow lies waiting for me in our common bed, to which I may retire without feeling shame towards the Lord or any fellow dweller. I ask her if she feels happiness, but she will not be drawn out. She is a strange woman.

  . . .

  The same, evening

  The widow, my wife, which is to say Lydia, as she has asked me to call her, has shown me her crucifix. It is the same one of solid gold that she held up before me when I lay in my sickbed on the Taasinge Slot, but which I then believed to be a fantasy.

  She was the thief, not Bertel!

  Forgive me, dear friend, wherever you may be.

  She had the smith melt the gold and forge this great and heavy cross.

  In what coin, I wonder, did the smith demand his payment?

  She will say nothing of the matter. Unfortunately, the truth is quite transparent. Most likely he moreover took his share of the gold as addi­tional remuneration, besides the services she rendered him.

  But the gold is now once more my own, or rather ours, the crucifix part of our common property, a physical manifestation of our love and alliance.

  Trinity tomorrow.

  10 June

  The instruction of my catechumens proceeds well. The widow is of great help; she is my interpreter and my teacher in the Greenlandic tongue, as well as my devoted wife. With her assistance it is my hope to baptize the first ten within a few weeks, which is not a moment too soon, since before long there will be a deputation from the colony. What will happen then I have no idea, though it will hardly be favourable. Yet if I succeed in finding salvation for these people in baptism I shall not have lived in vain.

  A woman who was in the pains of labour wished to see me, believing that she would not survive the birth. I attended to her and performed some examinations of her gravid interiae et exteriae, ascertaining that the child was in the transverse position, which I managed to correct. Shortly afterwards she gave birth to a boy and was strong enough to rise and find a solitary place to burn her afterbirth.

  This deed of healing has afforded me the reputation of being in more than one sense a man of God. I feel it myself: the Lord was truly with me in this! The child, however, is a result of Habakuk’s excesses, and since he did not wish it to be born, much as he undoubtedly wished its unfor­tunate mother to be taken for good, he has now
once more become resentful of my person, a sentiment that would seem reinforced by the increasing favour I now find among the people of the settlement. He has not greeted me since the birth. Yet I am cordial towards him and hope that we may soon be friends as before.

  12 June

  Two things happened today:

  A young man had fallen unconscious; his fellow habitants could not restore him to life and were resigned to lay him in the grave. Yet when I attended him and called upon him loudly and placed my hand upon his feverish brow he immediately woke and asked for water to drink. He is now already much restored.

  Moreover: I went up on to the fell in order to pray in solitude and sat beneath a rocky overhang, when a number of boulders fell down around my person, just one of which might easily have killed me. Only by pressing back against the rock did I narrowly avoid being struck. When later today I encountered Habakuk outside my house he glared at me hatefully and his face was clouded.

  I confided in the widow and she was at once concerned and fearful.

  She will speak with Maria Magdalene that she might talk her husband back to his senses.

  15 June

  Habakuk left this morning without warning, accompanied by a handful of hunters and their women of pleasure, for what is called the Paradise Vale. There he will remain for some time, the widow tells me. Thus, peace and harmony once again prevail in the settlement and I am able to fully devote myself to my work and to my beloved wife.

  . . .

  She watches the whole night. Only seldom in this recent time have I found her to be asleep when waking up myself.

  Dearest, why are you not sleeping?

  I’m thinking.

  Share your thoughts with me. Am I not your husband?

  I want to die.

  But, my dearest!

  You said I should share my thoughts with you. This is a thought of mine. Now I am sharing it with you.

  But why do you want to die?

  I’ve lost everything. I have nothing more to live for.

  But, my beloved, what have you lost? You have me.

  She says nothing.

  She is a stranger to me, another species, a zoological riddle. I fear it was a mistake and a sin that we wedded.

  Yet the folds and hiding places of her body are full of sweetness, and when my own body is joined with hers we are one flesh and one species, and I know by the Lord that I love her!

  . . .

  She asks me about the baptism, how soon it may take place.

  It will take place when you are ready to stand before Christ, I reply.

  I am ready now!

  The day and the time is for me to decide, I tell her. Be patient.

  She turns away in fury. Never before have I encountered such haste to become christened.

  But Maria Magdalene, too, asks me to fix a date for the ceremony.

  The catechumens are eager, she says. They have waited for this for many years, during which, for want of a priest, they have received instruction only from my husband and me.

  Why such haste? I enquire.

  They yearn for salvation, she replies. They thirst for it. Life is for us uncertain. If you are dead, you cannot be saved through baptism.

  I promise her to intensify my instruction and have given my word that the ceremony will take place before the month of July reaches its end.

  . . .

  July . . .

  O, may the summer never reach its close!

  The ice drifts past upon the ford, fracturing and breaking up in the warmth of the sun’s rays and in the no less balmy gusts of wind that come sweeping down from the fell. The place is alive with the cries of gulls and children at play. The roofs have been dismantled from the peat houses and the dirt and filth of winter is brushed out through the doorways.

  On the flat expanse in front of the church we play a ball game. A seal­skin has been stuffed to form an egg-shaped ball some one ell in length. At each end of the playing area a small cairn of stones has been piled and the object of the game is to topple the cairn with the ball, the method being to run with it under one’s arm and to overcome one’s opponents. I participate often in this game, and today I succeeded in hitting the cairn and causing it to fall, whereupon I threw my arms triumphantly in the air and ran back to my own camp in jubilation. Unfortunately, I had toppled the wrong cairn and everyone laughed heartily on account of my embar­rassing error.

  Another game, the wandering ring, is a singing game in which a number of participants – men, women and children – form a circle, draw­ing out between them a long strip of leather on which is threaded a small ring. The person who stands in the middle must guess where the ring will wander, while a taunting rhyme is sung, and where it will stop when the singing comes to an end. Lately I stood for a long time in the middle and tried to ascertain where the ring might be, but was unable, and for this reason I had to remain there while everyone sang and taunted me, though with faces full of kindness and love for their silly palasi.

  The widow is dearer to me than ever before, and she is happier now, too, I believe. I made her laugh this evening when I said that I would take her back to my own country so that my elderly father might greet his daughter-in-law. She was quite surprised to learn that my father is still alive, and this was most probably the reason for her laughter. She con ­siders me to be an old man, although I am only thirty-seven years and one month.

  But still she does not sleep. How long can a person go without sleeping?

  . . .

  I no longer know what time it is, nor do I care.

  Baptized twenty-two of my flock yesterday, among them the widow. The Lord let the sun shine down upon the ceremony and only a mild wind from the fell was felt. The whole settlement was gathered in front of the church, and the crisp tone of the old ship’s bell rang out across the land and sea, and must surely have been heard for miles around. The font was a tin plate and the water in it came from a small tarn at my own direction, since it is found at the place where the deathly procession I witnessed appeared to have its source, for which reason I blessed its waters in extenso.

  Many come to me to be healed of physical defect and infirmity, now that the Lord has given me this gift. I have become ashamed to think upon the primitive and inferior medical science to which I formerly subscribed and which I practised. How feeble it is compared to the power given by the Lord to he who believes in Him. Thus I say to the cripple: Rise up! And he rises up and walks. And I say to the barren wife: Be now with child, and it occurs. With the blessing of my wife I have already impregnated a number of the settlement’s native women – with good result, I am certain.

  I have discarded my vestments. During service I wear now only a white tunic, which the widow has sewn according to my instruction. I have thrown away my wig and allow my locks to hang freely about my shoulders, this being of much benefit to them, for they are now more manifold and thicker than since I was a lad with flowing mane, leaping over the rocks at the shore of the Holsford. Since my exile upon the Taasinge Slot my beard has grown quite without intervention and fringes my chin and mouth, as dark and coarse as sheep’s wool. The scurvy by which I was afflicted last year bothers me still, though less so now, which undoubtedly is due to the many physical diversions life with the widow presents to me. I wish to write a thesis on the subject: the detrimental effects of accumulated sexual fluids and suppressed lust. But who would publish such a monograph back home? It would be seen only as a lapsed clergyman’s mad fantasies! So much the more fortunate for me that I have made this discovery and found the source of youth before it is too late.

  The lice have left me. I commanded them to go, to depart from me in the name of the Lord, and I pointed to the door. They went! My body has in truth become a temple of cleanliness.

  Madame Magdalene says likewise that I have become as a young man, and indeed I f
eel myself to be strong and youthful and in the prime of my manhood, which the widow, my spouse, must also acknowledge at hours both early and late. Life inside the ford has transformed me. May the Lord be praised! I shall now climb into my bed to lie with my lovely wife and ask her to spread her delectable legs, for these latter words have caused my fluids once more to stream towards their purpose.

  . . .

  All formerly unchristened are now led to salvation by virtue of instruc­tion and subsequent baptism. In total: 57 adults and 22 children. A number of infants remain, but shall be taken to baptism in proper and orderly manner these coming Sundays, on which occasions those recently baptized shall moreover be confirmed. Thereby this place is quite del­ivered from heathens and has become an oasis of true Christians in the midst of this savage continent of Greenland!

  I thank the Lord each day for having brought me here.

  Healed an elderly woman yesterday who suffered from a most dread ­ful dermatological condition, scabies or scrofulosis. I placed my hand against her brow, without fear of my own contamination thereby, and bade her go to the consecrated tarn upon the fell, there to take off her clothes and wash herself from head to toe, and to pray to the Lord her Saviour. This she did, and returned with the purest and most delicate skin! In the night she came to me and the widow gave up her place beside me, that the woman might express due gratitude for her healing and I bless her reborn corpus femininum.

  . . .

  I grasp the ankle of my spouse with one hand and draw her closer to me in the cot. I look into her eyes: they are dark and indifferent, as though she were a detached observer of this union of our flesh. The sweeping line of her foot is a thing of beauty, its arch is elastic and resilient and rather wrinkled by tiny horizontal grooves, which with bated breath I follow with the tip of my thumb.