Few were rich,
Many were poor.
Some were serious,
And still more ridiculous,
Most were too young,
Others too doddering,
A few too ugly, a very few a bit more lucky.”
She let go of Alek’s hand.
“To choose someone new,
Say goodbye to the old one.
If you don’t get chosen,
Then choose yourself.
Turn your back on yesterday…”
“Turn your back to me!” she whispered to Alek, and they turned their backs on each other.
“And say hello to today,
And then choose him and her
That you most want to have!”
“Then you choose someone!” she said to Alek, “and I will, too. But we’re not allowed to see who the other person chooses, so you’re not allowed to turn around!”
Thala stood dark and golden between the two blond women. Her eyes shone, and she smiled at him. He walked over and stood in front of her.
“Did you choose?” asked Eidi.
“Yes.”
“Then lead her onto the floor!”
“Now you may think,
You’re made for each other,
But just wait to see,
Who’ll get each other.”
Thala and Ravnar were left in the middle of the floor, while Alek and Eidi each backed into their rows.
Ravnar’s water-combed hair was gathered in a leather cord at his nape, his white linen shirt was gray with wash and wear. He drooped a bit, looking at the ground.
One of the girls giggled, and the snarling man laughed briefly. Ravnar straightened up and looked at Thala. Then it became completely still, while the night breathed through the open window and made the lights quiver.
“You have to kiss each other!” said Eidi.
Thala turned around and looked at her. Then she looked at Ravnar with a smile and a moment later she loosened the golden scarf tied around her waist and placed it in front of her mouth and kissed him gently through the shiny fabric. He stood unmoving and let it happen.
“I went to town to find a sweetheart…”
Eidi began again, while Sigge’s flute raced after and caught up with her.
Ravnar turned on his heel and left the parlor. Thala remained standing with the scarf dragging on the floor. Her smile was gone. Eidi continued to sing while she went over and pulled the snarling man onto the floor so the game could continue.
* * *
Ravnar sat like a dark shadow in front of a small fire. His bent back faced the door and he didn’t lift his head until they had come all the way over to the table. The air was heavy with the scent of tobacco smoke and the smell of tar that must have stuck to the wood. He sat, rubbing his scarred hand, bending and stretching his fingers and finally making a fist with them before he placed his hand heavily on the table.
“I want to row the boat to Crow Cove—together with you two,” he said.
Alek pulled a chair over to the table and sat down. Thala leaned on the edge of the alcove.
“Maybe we’ll be lucky and get a day with a calm northern wind, so we can set the sail.”
He opened his hand and reached for his pipe. He scratched the inside clean and filled it again. The spicy blue smoke mixed with the sour yellowish haze that hung in the air.
Alek walked over and threw open the door. The stars were grains of sand on the night’s dark cloth; a bird’s fine whistling could be heard over the water.
“And then what?” he asked out into the air.
“Then you’ll have a good boat in Crow Cove and I’ll have my cabin to myself.”
Alek made fists of his hands while his toes began to prick. Something spread all the way from down at the underside of his toenails and pressed its way up through his legs and thighs and out through his entire body. His throat was tight with the great pressure from below, and his cheeks burned. Then his feet loosened and he raced back in and threw himself at Ravnar.
It had to come out, that violent, angry red. It streamed through his arms and pounded his fists against Ravnar’s shoulders and back. It grabbed the black, smooth hair and tugged at it. And when Ravnar seized his wrists, it continued to spit and kick to make a place for itself. It had no words, it was without thought, it just wanted.
Then the crying came racing with hollow hiccups. He wanted to stop it, to force it back, but it would not be stopped, it had to come up and out.
“What’s the matter, you crazy kid?”
Alek gasped a mouthful of air.
“You … you’re so dark,” he hacked. “You leave while the game is good. You…” And it took him a while to control his voice: “You won’t have fun.”
Ravnar shrugged uneasily.
“You’re like an old man,” screamed Alek shrilly. “You’re not Ravnar at all anymore.”
Ravnar got up and took his jacket and left the house. The sound of gravel crunching under his feet quickly grew fainter. Thala remained unmoving on the edge of the alcove. Alek went outside and sat down with his back to the brick gable.
A line of white foam separated the black water from the dark beach, and only the teeming stars revealed where the sea ended and the sky began.
There was a roar far away from over the sea, and then it was silent.
Alek shivered and continued to sit, waiting. At first he froze but after a while he no longer felt the cold. When Ravnar finally returned, the sky to the east had taken on a delicate pink color in the crack between night and day.
14
“Now everyone in town knows my name,” said Jona with satisfaction, and stuck a wooden spoon out in front of her.
All the wooden implements had been covered in a paste of pipe clay overnight and now appeared bright white.
Alek sat, scraping a bucketful of the most delicate, small new potatoes. The peel was as thin as the membrane on the inside of an eggshell.
“That was the first thing the magistrate wanted to know: my name.”
Her ruddy cheeks glowed, as they had done every time she talked about it.
“Who would have thought it, when I ran away with the innkeeper from Last Harbor?”
“Ran away?”
“Oh, yes.”
She dropped a spoon that she wasn’t satisfied with back into the basin.
“For many years I traveled around with a drunkard. Burd was his name.”
She dried her hands on her apron and pushed her hair away from her forehead.
“I haven’t seen him for several years. I wonder what happened to him.”
“He’s buried in Crow Cove,” Alek told her.
“He is? Well, he had to come to an end somewhere.”
She plunged her hands into the basin again.
“Well, at a certain point we had no more money or food or drink, and then he sold his horse to the innkeeper. Afterward they drank on it and Burd went under the table. Though that did not happen often.
“That’s when the innkeeper asked if I wouldn’t rather stay with him. And I was tired of the wet life and the dry beatings, and I got to be sweet on him, too. When he died, I inherited the inn. So now I’m here and I’m planning to stay.”
“We are going home to Crow Cove.”
“Oh, and I’ve been happy to have you here—and her as well. But Ravnar, he’s coming back, isn’t he?”
Yes, Ravnar was coming back. Alek flung a potato into the water so that it splashed on all sides.
* * *
The sun had been shining since they got up. The wind was fresh and from the north. The cool morning air had warmed by the time Ravnar locked the little cabin.
Alek threw his skin satchel over his shoulder. There was a tinkling sound from the little pouch he carried around his neck. That was all he had to carry; Jona had gotten back her pails and Eidi her blankets.
Up on the cliff, he turned around. The two little windows on either side of the door caught the sunlig
ht and sent it into his face and waved him on.
Jona came out of the inn with a packed lunch for them. The jackdaws flew up onto the roof and stood in the air with flapping wings before they landed again. The gulls scolded a cat that ran across the harbor square with a kitten in its mouth. The kitten whimpered so that you could look straight into its pink mouth. Down by the boat Sigge and Eidi were waiting.
“Are you sure you can manage on your own?” Sigge asked Ravnar. “It’s a makeshift crew you’ve chosen and you’ve got no first mate.”
“It’ll be fine,” said Ravnar. “The wind is with us.”
* * *
It was. When they had rounded Last Farewell, they could set the sail and let themselves be led away from the black-and-white-checked town with the black and white birds that circled in and out of the chimney smoke.
The little cabin appeared and the view of Last Harbor disappeared. The cabin’s white gable turned its back on them while the little windows stared the other way, toward town. The cabin was the last house before Crow Cove.
The sun was high in the sky when they opened their packed lunch.
“Three of each. Love, Jona,” it said on a little note she had placed inside.
Three hard-boiled eggs, three oat buns, and three of each of everything else. They had a jug of water from the stream, and when they had drunk, Thala gave the little orange tree in the bottom of the boat a splash of water.
Rocky cliffs, grassy slopes, inlets, streams, stony beaches, and reefs alternated down along the coast. A flock of gulls followed a school of fish, and high above their heads an eagle circled in large, soft arcs.
“Look,” shouted Thala, when the seals that had been lying and sunning themselves slid into the sea.
The boat smelled of tar and rope. Alek leaned back and let his gaze follow the ragged and undulating line that the hills drew against the sky. The day was drawing to a close, the light had gotten warmer, the air cooler. The boat turned a bit in toward land, and Alek could tell by the water’s whirls that there must be a reef right below the surface. Myna’s house appeared, a little white block against the green hillside behind it. He turned and looked at Ravnar.
He must have sailed here before. Often. This close to Crow Cove. Perhaps it was here that he had turned around every time or perhaps he had sailed a bit farther so that Rossan’s gable had peeked out up along the stream. So that he had also seen the potato house, the stable, and Frid and Foula’s house. And his little brother on the beach.
Ravnar’s face revealed nothing.
In the cove, they had to get out the oars. Glennie came panting from up at the bridge and figures appeared in the landscape.
Frid was the first to reach the beach. He waded out with Glennie barking around his legs and helped pull the heavy boat onto shore.
Then he turned to Thala and gave her his hand. The water poured from the bottom of her long skirt and her cheeks were red with effort.
“What a pretty girl you’ve brought along.”
He smiled at Ravnar’s unmoving face.
“This is Thala,” Alek butted in. “And she’s with us both.”
Glennie raced up the path to meet Myna. Myna’s eyes shone happy and blue on either side of her bent nose. She smiled at Ravnar and hugged Alek.
“Hello to you, little kid.”
She gave him a squeeze, let go of him, and turned to Ravnar.
He nodded at her and then began to walk quickly in the opposite direction of all the others who were on their way down to join them.
15
The next day Ravnar walked up the path that ran by Myna’s house, farther along the stream and then up over the hilltop. Alek and Frid kept him company. At the top they stopped and turned around and looked out across the cove.
The little white houses shone in the sun, and the fields, framed by the light-gray stone walls, looked like large squares with green stripes. White sheets waved at them from the clothesline as did a gold scarf in a hand a bit farther on.
“It’s Thala,” said Alek.
She came running up the path.
“I didn’t get to properly say goodbye,” Ravnar admitted, and went to meet her.
Alek could see that he held her around the shoulders and bent down toward her. They stood like that for a while before he let her go and came up again. This time he didn’t stop. Frid hurried after him and gave him his hand.
“I’ll say goodbye here,” he said. “It was good to see you again.”
“Likewise,” said Ravnar, and hurried on.
Alek ran after him. When he was right behind him, he reached for his belt.
“What are you doing?”
“Holding on.”
Ravnar tried to reach him but Alek wriggled from side to side and avoided his hands.
“Let me go!”
Ravnar got a grip on his wrist.
“Not before you say you’ll come again.”
Ravnar tried to pull his hand away, but Alek swallowed the pain and clung on even tighter to the narrow strip of leather.
“Let me go now!”
“When I know when you are coming back.”
Ravnar turned around with such power that Alek was flung into the cliff wall. The belt snapped and flew off the pants. Alek still had it in his hand when Ravnar helped him up. He let go of it and made fists.
“Crazy kid,” said Ravnar, and pulled him close and threw his arms around him.
And Alek let himself be embraced and leaned his forehead against Ravnar’s coarse, sun-warmed shirt in exhaustion.
“I’ll come at midwinter.”
Ravnar grabbed Alek’s hair and pulled his head back and looked into his eyes.
“I promise you.”
* * *
But now it was summer, rip-roaring summer, with white days and the smell of hay.
Thala’s boat was large enough for three, so Alek could start fishing with Tink and Kotka, and every time they went out they came home with a full load.
The cow gave milk, and the cream was thick and the butter smooth and yellow. Little red strawberries shone on the hillsides, ripe for picking.
The sunshine lured out new smells. Alek thought the skin on his arms smelled of fresh-baked bread, and even the bare cliffs took on a new, unfamiliar scent of warm stones.
All the animals were out; only the hens used the stable to find hiding places for their eggs. Outside, the manure pile spewed out black clouds of flies, and horseflies bit into your browned skin and made the horses flick their tails.
In the kitchen garden, the onions lay in long rows, drying in the sun, before Thala and Foula braided them into garlands that were hung up in the attic along with bunches of dried herbs. The potato knobs spilled out of the black dirt when you turned it. Everything was bounteous.
Only Thala wasn’t really happy. Over and over her gaze sought the path where Ravnar had disappeared.
“He’s coming at midwinter,” said Alek.
But Thala didn’t know what midwinter was.
* * *
Then it was harvest time, and Eidi came sailing with boat and boatmen to trade goods and bring Crow Cove’s excess to the big fall market in Last Harbor. She hadn’t seen much of Ravnar. He was sailing for a new skipper now and seldom showed himself in town. She thought his hand was as good as it was going to get.
Before she left she promised Foula that she and Sigge would be in Crow Cove for Dark Night.
* * *
The wild geese made their way south, and Myna’s flock of geese craned their necks at them and flapped their clipped wings. Alek laid his head back and followed the wedge of birds with his eyes until it disappeared behind the roof.
Glennie put her front paws on the ground, so that her wagging tail was the highest point of her, and then she jumped up and danced around him and stuck her tail into the air again. Up on her legs, a bit up the path, back and wagging her tail; come on, oh, come on!
Alek laughed and followed her.
The mornin
g was cool and clear, and the cold water from the stream washed the last thick sleep away while Glennie ran off the night’s stiffness. The sun shone straight into his face when he reached the hillcrest.
Glennie chased a guinea hen that flew, harvest-heavy, out over the heather. The landscape flamed in gold and orange. Little blackberries stained hands and lips and crunched bittersweet between the teeth.
The path snaked up and down and in and out, and the stream flashed silver between the hills. The black bog holes lay like silent graves in the midst of the vivid life.
Glennie stood stock-still over a small field mouse and managed to hit it with her paw and place the little warm body before Alek’s feet. He pushed it out to the side and Glennie pounced on the animal one more time and swallowed it in a single mouthful. Alek turned his head away and caught sight of a figure that sketched a black shadow against the shining, pale-blue sky.
“Who’s that?” he asked Glennie, pointing. She followed his hand and raced along with the same speed she otherwise used only when the summer-wild male lambs needed to be rounded up.
It was Ravnar. He was both tired and happy when he caught sight of Alek. He had walked all night because it had been quiet and starry and the moon had been full.
Alek danced around him just like a dog and threw little punches at him.
“What are you doing here? You weren’t going to come until midwinter. Go ahead and turn around.” He laughed happily.
Punch, punch. Then he let his fists fall. Ravnar threw his arm across Alek’s shoulders, and they walked on. Up there on the hills they could make out the sea far away, the water and the light shining against each other and intensifying their blue.
“It’s no fun being alone when you’ve gotten used to better,” said Ravnar.
He let go of Alek and let him lead the way down the steep path.
* * *
Alek picked up the split oar and carried it over to the pile of driftwood. All along the coast lay light-gray piles. All the pieces of wood that in the course of the year had been tossed farther up onto land so that the waves would not take them back were now gathered together to be ferried home to Crow Cove.
“There’s less than usual, and we are more,” said Myna.
“Rossan says that we have to start digging peat.”
Alek Page 6