The Whaler (The Island of Sylt Book 1)

by Ines Thorn

  Boyse’s face became cold and hard as stone. Only his eyes gleamed with hurt, and his mouth was pressed into a thin line. He bowed his head a little. “I will respect your decision, Maren,” he said. “But I advise you to think it over once more very carefully before you make your final choice. You are still young, and much can change. I will ask you again in the winter.”

  Maren’s answer was on the tip of her tongue, but her friend Maike tugged on her arm. “He’s right. You should think about it.”

  Maren shook her head. “Reflection and love are not good bedmates. My feelings have decided. That’s the way it will stay.”

  Captain Boyse bowed his head slightly, and then turned quickly and walked stiffly away.

  Finja and Klaas had been watching from a distance. Now Finja went to her daughter.

  “He proposed to you, didn’t he?”

  Maren nodded, still feeling amused. “Yes. Can you imagine?”

  “It’s not a laughing matter, child. He meant it seriously. You need a man who can manage you. Boyse would be a good match for you.” Finja spoke the words, but anyone who knew her could tell that she hadn’t spoken from her heart. There was fear flickering in her eyes.

  “That’s nonsense!” Maren threw her head back. “I can manage myself. Boyse is old. Life with him would be deadly dull.”

  Finja looked at her daughter thoughtfully. “You’re still very young, Maren. Young and impetuous. I wish you’d grow up a little. Don’t do anything that can’t be undone. Wait a year, do you understand me?” Again, her voice was hard and unyielding.

  Maren bit her lower lip obstinately. “I don’t know what you mean,” she lied. “Thies and I just made our promises to each other and swore by the sign of the fire. Why should we wait another year when we’re certain? I don’t know why you’re saying this.”

  “Oh, yes, you do. But I’ll be glad to tell you again. I know that you believe Thies is the man of your heart. I like Thies too. He’s an honest, hardworking young man. But don’t get engaged to him. Neither officially nor secretly. It can only be to your sorrow. If he really loves you, he won’t mind waiting for you for another year.”

  “It’s too late.” The echo of triumph still hadn’t completely disappeared from Maren’s voice. “I’ve made up my mind.”

  “But it hasn’t been announced. You can still change your mind.”

  Maren pursed her lips. She grabbed Thies by the hand and shook her head. Thies, who’d been silent up until that moment, obviously wanted to say something, but Maren gave him a warning glance, and he closed his mouth again. He didn’t look happy. He looked like he didn’t feel comfortable in his own skin.

  “Maybe we should wait,” he said. “We have time.”

  But Maren shook her head. “I want my life to begin!”

  CHAPTER 4

  Even though the winter was harsh and cold, it was much too short, as usual. At least for the women and children. The twenty-second of February, which came after the Biikebrennen, was Petritag, or Saint Peter’s Day. It was a sad day for most of the island dwellers; it was the day the sailors took leave of those they loved. They brought their sea chests to the big gaff-rigged Dutch sailing smaks in the harbor, where they waited for an offshore breeze. The Dutch smaks were coastal transport ships which would bring crew members to their assigned ships in Amsterdam. As they went out to sea, the women and children waved good-bye with white handkerchiefs. The men would return in the autumn. Thies was leaving too, and Maren stood with the other women high on the dunes and waved farewell to her sweetheart. Finja had been able to stop Maren from making her engagement public: it had been easy to convince Thies to wait another year. But for Maren, the promise at the Biikebrennen had been as much of a commitment as a public engagement party to which everyone on the island had been invited. She was Thies’s fiancée, and she would behave that way, no matter what the rest of the islanders might think or have to say about it.

  Thies didn’t want to sign on to Captain Boyse’s brig, because Boyse had a reputation not only for being strict but for returning weeks later than all the other captains, albeit with his ship packed with barrels of whale oil and blubber. Thies had promised Maren he would look for a job on a merchant’s ship, but who knew whether he’d be able to find one?

  The ships disappeared over the horizon after passing Hörnum. The women sighed again, dried the last tears from their cheeks, and tucked their handkerchiefs back into their bodices. But the children had already almost forgotten about their fathers and brothers and were playing happily on the beach.

  And so spring came to the women of the island, and then summer followed with bright, clear days of dazzling light, which became weaker in August and were already a milky autumnal haze by September. When the migratory birds made their way south over the island, the women and children waited on the dunes again and kept a lookout for the returning men.

  Maren had spent the entire time thinking of Thies, envisioning his adventures and imagining his return. She had recalled the magical moment of their engagement again and again. She could still remember the evening as though she were experiencing it anew.

  She had stood a little to the side while Old Meret had made her proclamations. Thies had put his big warm hands on either side of her face, stroked her lips with his thumb, and then kissed her so tenderly that her heart had grown warm.

  “I like you very much, you know,” he told her. And when she was silent, losing herself in the dark fire of his eyes, he asked, “And you? What do you think about me?”

  Then the words slipped out just like that, without her having to think. It made them even more honest. She told him how she felt, without even knowing exactly what it meant. “I love you,” she whispered. And then Thies kissed her. Not just on the lips, like he had before, but a real kiss, with an open mouth, so she could taste him and feel his breath. He pushed apart her lips with his tongue, and Maren, at first a little shocked, allowed it. She had to stand on her tiptoes to reach his mouth, and the entire time she imagined that everyone in Rantum could see her. They would finally understand that she and Thies belonged together. She wished he would never stop kissing her. His mouth tasted good, and the kiss left a languorous, warm feeling in her stomach. Then he let her go, and Maren’s gaze fell on Captain Boyse. She saw him crease his brow, and all at once, she was flooded with a sense of shame. At the same time, perhaps for the same reason, she didn’t want to let Thies go. She stretched again, her lips seeking Thies’s.

  “You’re as impetuous as a young horse,” he said softly, his voice rough with emotion. Maren was confused and ashamed in a way she didn’t understand.

  “But we’re engaged now, aren’t we?” she asked quietly. “I would never do such a thing with any other man. Now you’re going to marry me.”

  Thies laughed again. “Anything you desire, my darling.”

  He’d taken her hand in his and had kissed her ring finger exactly on the place her wedding band would be. And Maren had felt grown up and courageous and magnificent. For half of the evening. Until Boyse had asked for her hand in marriage.

  The autumn storms came, and with the storms came the time of return. First, the men who’d been on the merchant ships arrived, and then the whalers. But not all of them. Peter’s oldest son had lost his life at sea, and Thaken, the helmsman from Rantum, didn’t return either. Grit’s husband, Wilms, had also found his grave at the bottom of the sea. By November, almost all the men had returned home. Only those who had sailed on Captain Boyse’s whaling ship to Greenland were still gone.

  Thies returned in October. Maren greeted him with a cry of joy and fell into his arms, touching his face as though she were touching happiness itself. Her joy wasn’t even dampened by the funerals that she’d had to attend.

  “Where have you been?” Maren asked. “Tell me about your adventures.” Her hands constantly caressed his arms, his face, and his wild hair. She had missed him, had missed their conversations, his warm hand in hers, and the special voice he use
d only when he spoke to her.

  Thies was quieter than usual, but he still allowed himself to enjoy Maren’s attentions. “I wasn’t able to get work on a merchant’s ship, so I went with whalers. We went north to Spitsbergen, but we only caught two whales. It didn’t make me rich. I only hope that the pay will get my mother, my sister, and me through the winter.” Maren knew exactly what he hadn’t said. I can barely take care of my mother and sister. How can I even think about starting my own family? At once, she was filled with fear. Gray, tough, sticky fear. But when Thies kissed her, stroking away the worry lines on her forehead with his fingers, the fear simply dissolved like mist in the sunlight.

  “We’ll find a way. There’s always a way,” she said, nestling against him. “I can make fishing nets the way my mother taught me.”

  Thies hugged her close and sighed into her hair.

  “What’s wrong?” Maren asked.

  “Nothing. Nothing that can be changed.” He looked at her and pushed a strand of hair away from her small face with its big sea-gray eyes.

  “It’s good that you can make nets. But they won’t fetch very much. There aren’t many herring fishermen left on Sylt. Your father is one of the last in Rantum. The shoals of herring moved away long ago.”

  “Don’t worry so much!” Maren said dismissively. “It will be all right.”

  Thies became even more serious. His eyes darkened. “It’s not as easy as you think. I’ve been thinking about it all summer. This winter, I could attend Boyse’s seamanship school. I’m already a good sailor. At least, the mate I last sailed with told me so. He even gave me a recommendation and a book to study, to prepare myself.” He showed Maren the book, The Art of Navigation, by someone called Nahmen Arfsten, about the basics of seamanship.

  “Seamanship school,” she repeated. Many captains and ship’s officers spent their winters teaching the young men of the island the art of seamanship. They learned to read charts and even to draw them, to discern the direction of the wind, and to handle all the tools of the trade. The young men learned what it really meant to guide a ship through a storm between sandbars, icebergs, and rocks. They learned everything about the trimming of sails and even how to keep a crew’s spirits up when they were at sea for months. Shortly before Saint Peter’s Day, several of the students who had learned enough went to the mainland to Tønder, the nearest city that offered the officer’s examination. Maren knew that each year there were very few who passed the exam, but Thies, she was sure, could be one of them. So far, he’d worked as an ordinary seaman and had earned the correspondingly low pay. As an officer, he would earn far more. But that wasn’t all.

  “But then you’d have less time for me,” she said quietly. Then you will be with Boyse all the time, she thought. And she didn’t like that thought at all, although she didn’t actually know what bothered her so much about it. Boyse was the best teacher on Sylt. Young men practically lined up to study with him, even though he was strict and unforgiving. Since he’d proposed to her, Maren had avoided Boyse whenever possible. If she met him in Rantum, she kept her head bowed, but she couldn’t stop her heart from beating a little faster. He had confused her, and he confused her more every time she encountered him. Before he’d proposed, her world had been clear and orderly. She had been happy about marrying Thies and about their future together. It was as though the captain’s proposal had taken away a little bit of her love for Thies. She hated him for it, and she hated, too, that Thies depended on his school.

  “Yes, that’s true. But you can use the time to embroider your trousseau,” Thies answered.

  She took his hand and leaned her cheek on it, relieved and happy at his words. “Do you love me?” she asked.

  Thies nodded.

  “Do you love me so much that you believe the two of us can take on the world together?”

  Thies swallowed and avoided her gaze, but then he nodded again. “Yes. I believe in you and me. I believe in the power of our love. We’ll be able to do anything we set our minds to.”

  CHAPTER 5

  When she heard the knock, Maren knew who was at the door. She looked pleadingly at her mother, who was sitting on the edge of her chair looking pale and thoughtful.

  Finja hadn’t broached the subject of marriage since the Biikebrennen. Only recently, once all the seamen had returned to the island, had she brought it up again. “So, have you thought about it?” she had asked Maren.

  “There’s nothing to think about. I love Thies, and that’s all that matters,” Maren had replied.

  “And when you have no firewood and can’t afford to buy milk for the children? Does love still matter when you’re hungry and cold?”

  Maren bit her lip. “Love can overcome anything.”

  “No, my dear, it can’t. But you won’t believe that until you’ve experienced it for yourself. There are things more important than love. Respect, friendship, and strength, for example. Thies is a good man, but he’s not strong.”

  Maren thought of Thies’s broad shoulders, his powerful back, and his strong hands. “Of course he’s strong.”

  Finja shook her head. “I’m not talking about physical strength. I’m taking about strength of spirit. Will Thies stand by you in good times and bad? Will he be a dependable friend when the passionate flames of love have burnt low? Poverty can make people self-centered.”

  Maren’s forehead creased with confusion. What kind of questions were these? And how was she supposed to know the answers? She only knew that before Thies’s father had died, his parents had fought with each other every day. The father had constantly berated the mother because he’d given up another good potential partner for her, and the mother had accused the father of not being able to provide for his family. They’d spent many dreadful years together until the father had finally died. To this day, long after the father’s death, the mother resented him because he’d left her with nothing. But Thies was different. Maren knew that. Thies would take care of her. In good times and bad. She spread her arms wide. “We love each other. Why shouldn’t that be enough?”

  Finja tilted her head doubtfully. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Love doesn’t necessarily last forever. A few years ago, Grit and Thies were inseparable. And then, as she was already embroidering her trousseau, he turned his attentions to you.”

  “He was still a child when he promised to marry Grit. He grew up.”

  Finja shook her head again, as though she wasn’t particularly convinced. “You still have a little time. Look deeply into your heart.”

  Now, when the knock sounded a second time, Klaas got up and opened the door. There stood Captain Rune Boyse. “You know why I’ve come?” he asked tersely.

  Klaas nodded. “Welcome to our home.”

  He walked ahead into the good sitting room. Maren and her mother were already waiting there. While Maren sank into the big comfortable armchair, Finja sat on the edge of her chair, sliding back and forth nervously. Just yesterday, when she’d heard Rune Boyse had returned to the island, she’d questioned her daughter again.

  “Have you thought about marrying Boyse?”

  Maren had raised her eyebrows. “You can ask me as often as you wish. My decision stands.”

  “I think you’ve made the wrong decision.” Finja had looked concerned. “If you think carefully, you’ll understand. Thies already has difficulty providing for his family. You know that yourself. Boyse can give you everything you need. Not only now, but also in the future. You could have children without worrying that they’d go hungry. They would sleep in warm beds, and when they got sick, a doctor would be called. It’s not only about love; it’s about much more. It’s about your entire life.”

  Maren nodded wearily. “You’ve told me all this. But I won’t change my mind. Thies and I will marry. What is life worth without love? In winter, he’ll attend the seamanship school and then go to Tønder for his examination. Next year, he’ll go to sea as an officer and will earn enough to support us.”

  Finja sig
hed. “I would forbid you to see Thies, but I know you. If I did that, you’d elope with him. I can only pray that you won’t regret your decision.”

  Now, Boyse stood on the threshold and examined the room carefully. There were only a few delft tiles—a sign of wealth and status on the island—decorating the walls. There was a shelf full of clay crockery, simple vessels, though decorated with a beautiful pattern. The high-legged sofa, upholstered in a soft green material, was threadbare. There was no clock and, under the window, only a single chest that was covered by an old sheepskin. The rough floorboards were bare, and there were no curtains at the windows to keep warmth in the room.

  Klaas slipped past the captain and poured two glasses of his best rum. “Come and sit down, Boyse.” He asked Boyse about his time at sea and about whaling. But then Boyse, like Finja, began to slide nervously toward the edge of his chair.

  “Enough pleasantries,” he finally declared. “You know why I’ve come.” He took the glass in hand, took a deep swallow, and then looked Maren directly in the eye. “Have you considered my proposal?”

  Maren nodded and gazed down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. She didn’t dare look him in the eye.

  “And?”

  Maren took a deep breath and looked at him. “I can’t be your wife.”

  “Why not?” A small smile was playing over the captain’s lips.

  “It has nothing to do with you. It’s . . . I just . . . can’t. Because . . . I love someone else. But I already told you at the Biikebrennen.” When Maren had finally gotten the words out, she sighed with relief.

  “Still Thies Heinen?”

  Maren nodded. “We’re in love.”

  Boyse grimaced. “Love? You still believe in it?”