Barbara

by Jorgen-Frantz Jacobsen

  He stood considering for a while; his face betrayed no feeling. “If we wait until the west flow lessens a little, it will probably be possible,” he added.

  It sounded almost like a chance remark. Only when the law speaker and his sons were on their way back into the house did Pastor Poul understand that these were the last words to be spoken and that the matter had been decided. He stood there alone and could hardly believe he had got what he wanted. He was to see Barbara again that evening.

  But in the law speaker’s home there was a considerable commotion that morning, as the minister could not fail to notice on the expression of the law speaker’s wife. And Samuel Mikkelsen once had to silence his son Samson, who was otherwise never accused of being a coward, but who nevertheless swore roundly at the prospect of undertaking this bloody trip just for the sake of a baggage like Barbara. But the law speaker said they would go for the sake of Pastor Poul, out of pity for him. And Armgard banged the table and her face looked like flint as she said they must go for the sake of the family to ensure that that whore should not be the complete ruin of Andreas.

  It was getting on for midday when Samuel Mikkelsen and ten men rowed off from Sandavág. He himself sat in the stern, steering the boat, and Pastor Poul sat with him. The wind gusted and took them out towards the gap. The sail was hoisted and the great boat was blown along, and all the houses in Sandavág and Midvág quickly receded into tiny, insignificant groups while the mountain peaks above them started to reach their black fingers up above the steep sides that had been hiding them. The knot in Pastor Poul’s heart gradually began to loosen; he was sailing, flying towards his goal. This evening… he did not know whether he should be filled with fear or joy.

  It was not long before they reached Klovning, a sharp promontory, the outermost part of which had been split off from the land and stood out there brooding over the sea. Here, they turned out into the open Vágar Fjord and rowed east along the high-rising land. The wind came from above in unpredictable gusts, and they lowered the sail. The water was smooth and black, the towering rock known as the Troll’s Wife’s Finger rose like a dark spire a thousand feet above their heads, and behind it the perpendicular mountain was still much higher.

  The men rowed. They dipped their slender oars in the waves in short, quick movements, and the boat progressed jerkily and resolutely, the law speaker and the minister nodding involuntarily with each movement. The men spoke in hoarse voices and spat quids out into the water. They kept a close watch on the clouds above them. “The sky’s like a pot of soot,” said one of them.

  He was right. The sky was very dark. And at the foot of the mountain the water was boiling gently. But the law speaker was smiling from the depths of his kindness, his hand resting excitedly on the rudder. His redhead son Samson was rowing like a giant. “So sail the heroes of Norway,” he sang and gave the clergyman a great look and winked. And Pastor Poul smiled back at him. It was as though a healthy current of air was beginning to fill his heavy heart. He wished he had been a man like Samson.

  They had been rowing for an hour and had long been clear of the Vágar coast. The wind was blowing slightly against them from the Vestmanna Sound, but the water was not particularly rough. Then, suddenly, one of the men said: “Listen, isn’t the wind turning more to the east?”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed that,” said Samuel Mikkelsen. “So it’s all the more important to row in close to the Streymey coast. Then we shall be sheltered all the way to Velbestad and even have the east flow with us.”

  But it was still far to the shielding coast of Streymey, and it was both wet and salty, for the wind blew more and more against them, and the water splashed regularly into the boat so that one of the men occasionally had to bail out. But the high prow went doggedly up and down, up and down, and forced its way east yard by yard, while the oars snapped at the waves.

  “So sail the heroes of Norway,” sang Samson once more, laughing through the salty water that was running down over his brow. But Pastor Poul no longer felt happy and was impatient at the slow progress.

  “The wind’s changing, the wind’s still changing,” said the men, concerned that the east wind had now started to turn south. Their senses were alive to nothing but the weather and the current; they looked and looked and took note of countless signs in the flight of the clouds and the movement of the waves. But over the restless surface of the sea, the islands rose like roughly carved blocks. To the south west, Koltur raised its wild head, rearing towards the heavens, and the current before them was like a long row of battlements and chasms.

  When a snow shower suddenly blocked out everything the boat all at once seemed terribly cut off. All that could be heard was the falling tops of the waves between the oar strokes. The law speaker fumbled to take out a compass and guided the boat according to it. The wet snow whipped him angrily in the face, but he showed no sign of concern.

  “It’s changing, it’s changing,” he was thinking as he watched the trembling compass needle.

  “Barbara, Barbara,” thought the minister, desperately peering out into the snow.

  It had been Samuel Mikkelsen’s idea that they should make the entire journey in the lee of the high mountains of Vágar and Streymey, which would shelter them from the strong north-easterly gale, and at the same time he would let them drift south on the east flow through the Hestur Fjord. Now he saw this plan come to nothing. In the course of half an hour, the wind had turned to the south east and was now blowing up along the Streymey coast, exactly in the opposite direction to the flow of the waters. This was the worst thing that could have happened.

  When the snow shower had passed, they could all see it. They were below the mountains of Streymey, but out in the fjord the gale had already taken a fierce hold of the rough waters of the east flow. They themselves were moving against a strong wind, but close to land the current was not so strong. Few words were spoken. They all knew it would be risky to turn round; it was just a matter of creeping slowly forward and keeping close to the coast in the teeth of the gale and hoping they could land at Velbestad. But that village was still three miles away.

  They had now been rowing for over three hours. The huge Konufjall suddenly appeared out of the clouds like a petrified roar. Remains of mist were still flying past this mountain ruin, hiding the gigantic rock faces and revealing them again, wrapping themselves around cliffs and releasing them again, dancing, fuming and rising like smoke up through wet chasms and abysses. It was like looking up into some gigantic organ playing silently but with tempestuous, visible reverberations.

  The law speaker kept the boat as close to land as possible. They rode over the tops of the waves on the edge of the surf, and it often looked as though they were about to be thrown on to the rocks. But on the other side of the boat, the east flow was foaming, whipped up by the gale blowing against it.

  Pastor Poul sat looking at the wet shoreline. Its brown seaweed was bared deep down in the gaps between the waves. This is the island Barbara is on, he thought; it is only a couple of yards away. If only I could get ashore, I could hurry over to the place where she is. He thought no further than this. He did not know what would happen subsequently. And so he thought much too far ahead. The law speaker was thinking no further than Lambatangi, which they were soon to pass. It was renowned as the pincer-like meeting point of two currents.

  “Aye, aye,” thought Samuel Mikkelsen, “the east flow is certainly at its highest now. But there was a half moon yesterday. That means the current is at its weakest. Although… the moon is at its closest to the earth at the moment. It’s not likely to be entirely smooth.”

  Samson was rowing like a wild man. A vein in the middle of his forehead stood out. It was swelling like those in Roland’s neck as he blew the horn Oliphant at Roncesvalles. All ten men rowed and clenched their teeth. The boat crept forward, yard by yard.

  “We’re like a fly on a tarred stick,” sighed one of the men.

  “Aye, just like a fly on a tarred stick,”
groaned another. And they worked their way forward at that moment in the great cleft immediately north of Lambatangi.

  “A bit breezy today,” commented the law speaker calmly to Pastor Poul.

  Immediately afterwards the first wave caused by the meeting of the two currents rose before them, its foaming crest rising above their heads. The law speaker grasped the rudder and said rather louder than was his wont:

  “Keep going.”

  The men dipped their oars in the water. It was as though they were whipping the boat on towards a foam-capped death.

  “Now – now – now – row – row – keep going – row – now,” groaned an old man in time with the oar strokes. The law speaker steered the boat straight into the middle of the surf; it reared up in the turbulent waters, veered and took in water on both sides while everything disappeared in foam and froth, and salt water descended on them in torrents. The minister sat there deathly pale and held tight. A melody was going round in his head all the time. Suppose he did not find Barbara this evening?

  Suddenly, all was quiet. They lay rocking on an expanse of foam. The two men at the rear of the boat were bailing out, and the rest were pulling on the oars for all they were worth. It was only for a brief moment. Suddenly, the law speaker shouted:

  “Row all you can!”

  This time he did shout, and his voice was quite broken. A green wall of water was rising in front of them, arching and cautiously starting to burst into a broad and elaborate crown of foam lacework at the top.

  “Mercy on us,” said one of those in the prow.

  The wind dropped suddenly. They were in the shelter of the wall of water; it hung over them so they could see the green daylight through it; the oars complained bitterly against the rowlocks. Then the boat rose and reared until it was almost upright.

  They were surrounded by a prolonged rumble as if of thunder. Pastor Poul felt a rush of icy water against his thighs and was blinded by the foam. The furious profile of Koltur and the Konufjall, like some gigantic organ issuing steam and foaming clouds, was the last thing he saw. He felt a scintillating, icy pain and a delight as though of immeasurable quantities of splintered glass, and he thought: Is this the end? And he went on to think, relieved and free, that this was what it was like. And at that moment he saw the prow rise defiantly out of the water and saw all the men with the sea pouring from their beards.

  They tore the lids off their food boxes, tipped the contents out and started to bail as though possessed. Samson bailed out with such energy that the water formed something like a thick jet out from the boat, and when a young man from Sandavág complained, “Jesus, we are finished. And all for this,” Samson even had time to shout: “Shut up, you chicken, and keep bailing.”

  And they all bailed and rowed and bailed again like mad. Even the law speaker bailed, little though his body equipped him for it, and Pastor Poul also found a tin with which he could bail. The water washed around their legs; flatbread, legs of lamb, knives, sheaths and other equipment from the boathouses floated about, but the boat, which for a moment had rested as though dead, came back to life; the prow rose and again attacked the waves, and the law speaker now told them for God’s sake to row and they would soon be out of danger. It was not long before they escaped the current, just as a fresh chalk-white wave burst into flower and spread right over the black waters.

  “Oh, you were scared this time,” laughed Samson putting his hand gleefully on the shoulders of the young man he had been scolding. But a farmer by the name of Justinus, who was one of those in the boat, spoke in a quiet and very subdued voice when he said to the law speaker: “I thought we were going to be wrecked this time.”

  “So did I,” replied Samuel Mikkelsen. “Lambatangi is a terrible place.”

  “God won’t take us until He is ready for us,” commented another.

  But Pastor Poul noticed that the same melody continued to circulate in his head. It had been there all the time. It was a minuet. He remembered it from the day when the Frenchmen had danced on Tinganes.

  A shower came on and hid all the mountains and inlets. The boat struggled its way along the coast of Streymey. Like a fly on a tarred stick.

  The breakers on the submerged rocks near Velbestad shone through the dusk as they finally reached the place. The waves were breaking right up into the grass, and there was no possibility of landing there. The law speaker tried to approach the coast in various places, but had to give up. They could see there were men on the shore shouting to them, but they could not hear them. They spent over half an hour at this place, and it gradually became quite dark.

  “I can’t see any alternative now but to try to make it to Kirkjubø,” said the law speaker.

  This expression “try to make it” had an ominous sound. It was something you only attempted when you were in serious trouble. To land twelve men on a spot where no one ought to have been did not appeal to the mariner Samuel Mikkelsen. And what about their mission! What would the people of Kirkjubø think of them splashing around here like monkeys on such a stormy day – the law speaker himself! – in order to row a desperate parson whose wife had left him? Would it not be better to wait for the west flow and a calm sea and then to raise the sail and hurry home with both current and wind behind them? No, there was nothing else for it. This poor man had to be put ashore somewhere on Streymey, otherwise he would surely go out of his mind.

  It was two miles by water from Velbestad to Kirkjubø, still directly against the current. The law speaker’s men rowed, groaning on their oars, biting their teeth and pulling back in their seats with all the weight of their bodies. And the boat had to be bailed all the time. The veins stood out on Samson’s forehead. He made one more attempt: “So sailed… the heroes… of… Norway”

  But his voice was hoarse and his eyes lifeless. They rowed on in silence. Only a minuet continued to play in the parson’s inconsolable mind. Then – far into the evening – the law speaker suddenly turned the boat into the shelter of Kirkjubø Holm. Through the darkness, they could just make out where they were – the great farm and the ruins of the cathedral. Soon, the boat was safely drawn up ashore, and Samuel Mikkelsen and his men, who were all wet, went quietly to the farm, almost as though they were a little embarrassed.

  The Kirkjubø farmer received them with generous hospitality and immediately explained to Pastor Poul that in former times this had been the seat of the Bishop of the Faroe Islands. He pointed to the great cathedral, the empty windows of which stared out at them, black and eerie. But Pastor Poul had no sense for antiquities; he refused even to dry his clothes, and he scarcely had time to have a bite of food. The farmer did not believe he was serious in his intention of reaching Tórshavn that evening in this dreadful weather and with night approaching. But the law speaker quietly drew the farmer aside and told him that there was no point in talking to people when that madness was upon them.

  That madness – the farmer understood that. Aye, what was that woman not capable of bringing about! Now, today she had almost been the cause of twelve men’s deaths; there was no getting away from that. The Kirkjubø farmer pulled at his white beard. He said nothing. Nor was that necessary: men like Samuel Mikkelsen and him could well exchange thoughts without saying anything.

  However, there was no discussing this: if Pastor Poul insisted on reaching Havn that evening, he should be provided with a good guide. The farmer sent his best fell guide with him. They had to go across the fell known as Kirkjubøreyn, the Kirkjubø Ridge. For, there were no rivers in flood there, no bogs and no marshes.

  They started on their way shortly after this, both carrying small horn lanterns, the dim ring of light from which glided across greensward and rock. Pastor Poul walked quickly, hurrying restlessly up the steep path. Only on reaching the most difficult passages on the steep mountain side did he let his guide go first. A minuet was playing constantly in his mind, though he was not aware of it; he was not thinking; he was only longing. Short of breath to the very extreme as a resul
t of the steep climb and constantly being interrupted by hindrances, he moved on still with this melody playing in his head. It became the theme of his suffering; it led him on; and like a sleepwalker he clambered over the cyclopean rock faces up to the edge of the great, rock-strewn expanse.

  “Now we must make sure that we don’t lose sight of the path,” said his companion, “Otherwise we shall be in trouble in this darkness.”

  The path was an insignificant trodden track that twisted its way over gravel-strewn surfaces and between piles of boulders. The guide wanted to go forward carefully, taking note of each tall cairn they passed, but Pastor Poul was running ahead all the time, and they only found each other again thanks to the light from their horn lanterns. Then it happened that the minister’s lantern was blown out by the wind. This was in the middle of an open area strewn with huge boulders. Pastor Poul did not immediately notice his misfortune; he merely went on, grim and dull. Then he heard his guide shouting and saw him swinging his lantern. He had obviously clambered up on some boulder. Pastor Poul turned around and made for the place, but the light suddenly disappeared. The shouts continued, and Pastor Poul also shouted. But he ran as though he was lost. And in this way the two men wandered around in the pitch darkness of the evening, each with an extinguished lantern, hopelessly shouting for each other among great boulders and smashed rocky fastnesses. The sound of their voices blew away in the powerful gale. They did not find each other again. But Pastor Poul followed the course that his sleepy mind prescribed for him, and he walked and he fell and he got up again and tramped on through jumbles of stone and great rocky screes without being able to see a hand in front of his eyes.