Be Still the Water

by Karen Emilson

  “I agree with Lars,” he says. “And since I’ve been put on the spot, I’d have to say, do what is right. That way your conscience will always be clear.”

  There are smiles and satisfied nods in agreement.

  “Olafur?” Solrun says.

  “My turn? Well that’s easy,” he says. “Don’t be hasty.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Kinsmen to kinsmen should be true.

  —The Saga of Ólaf Haraldsson

  The next morning I am dozing on a recliner in my room when Solrun knocks quietly and pushes open the door.

  “This is nice,” Freyja whispers as they come inside.

  There is a neatly made bed, a set of drawers, a small couch, little tables, and lamps. The space along the wall is filled with bookshelves, all the volumes neatly arranged, alphabetical, by author. Photographs of people are taped on the bathroom door.

  I open my eyes and lift the blanket covering my lap over the armrest and rock back and forth. I close the footrest and hoist myself forward and up.

  “You caught me napping.” I rub my eyes and shake off the grogginess. “Night shift is harder than it used to be.”

  “Don’t worry,” Solrun says. “We won’t tell anyone.”

  “Good. We all nap sometimes when we’ve done a double-shift.”

  Freyja watches me. Her unease is the one thing I do recognize, the look of apprehension that people try to hide as they wait to see if they are remembered.

  “How are you today?” I ask cheerfully.

  It is always a good start. Often if people are led in the right direction they are so anxious to avoid embarrassment, they give away clues to their identity.

  Freyja says that she is fine, then waits, watching my expression.

  “Are you having a good day?” I ask, smoothing out the front of my uniform. I hardly recognize myself. Uniforms have changed so much over the years.

  “Wonderful,” Freyja says.

  “What are your plans for later?”

  Freyja starts to say something but then abruptly stops.

  “It was so nice to see everyone again,” she says. “Solrun is such a good cook. She reminds me of Mama that way.”

  Now I look confused.

  “Do you remember who this is?” Solrun asks.

  “Of course,” I say. “We have known each other our whole lives.”

  “Do you know her name?”

  “Thora, my closest friend,” I say, turning to her. “But you are thinner than I remember.”

  Freyja forces a smile.

  Solrun takes a piece of paper from her purse and hands it to me along with a photo. “You can put it on the door with the others.”

  This is Freyja. You can stop searching for her. She is living happily in British Columbia and will come to visit you often.

  I study the photo and the writing. It takes a few moments for the words to register.

  “Freyja? You are home?” I look thrilled, confused, embarrassed.

  “She came home yesterday,” Solrun says. “We were all together.”

  Yesterday means nothing to this Asta. All her days are the same. I rush forward to hug her and cry with joy: “Where in God’s name have you been?”

  “I live in B.C. now,” she says.

  “Where is Bjarni?” I growl.

  “He is dead.”

  “Good.”

  Similar scenarios continued for a week, varying slightly as I remembered snippets of information one day, forgot most of it the next.

  “You are not leaving again?” I say.

  We stand together in the common room. I glance over my shoulder at the residents starting to shuffle in.

  “It is time for Freyja to go home,” Solrun says.

  “Back to Eikheimar?”

  “No, to White Rock. She lives there now.”

  “Why?” I say, turning to Freyja. “You don’t belong there.”

  “It has been a week,” Freyja says cautiously. “I have to go home, my family is there.”

  “We are your family, your home is here with us.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not? I spent my whole life looking for you.”

  Freyja turns away and brings her hands up to cover her face.

  “Asta,” Solrun says, “Freyja will come back.”

  “When?”

  “Soon,” she says. “And she will visit more often.”

  I start to cry. Sometimes they treat me like a child. Everyone makes decisions without me and that is frustrating.

  “Now give me a hug,” Freyja says, wiping her eyes.

  “You will come back this time?”

  “In a month,” she says. She breaks the hold, gently.

  I do not move, simply watch Freyja follow Solrun down the hallway out of sight.

  “Hey, big brother.” Freyja walks into Leifur’s room, goes straight to the window to pull open the drapes. She turns the butterfly latch, pushing it open a sliver.

  “You are a good woman,” he says turning to face her. He is in bed with a sheet covering his naked legs. “It’s too damn hot in here.”

  She takes his hand in hers and they talk for a while. Solrun is in the hallway, speaking with a nurse while her husband sits waiting in the car.

  “Thanks for coming,” he says weakly.

  “Of course.”

  Everything has been hashed out, explained, debated and reckoned with, but Leifur never did confess to anyone else that it was he who lit the fire. Vengeance is wrong, we all knew that, but perhaps Leifur believed that a man reaps what he sows and that Bensi planted nothing but hostility between our families. He had already bankrupted Pabbi once. Only a fool would expect to get away with it twice.

  “I was just a boy,” Leifur says. “You were just a girl. We both made mistakes and suffered because of them.”

  Freyja cocks her head but doesn’t ask. “I’ll stay if you want me to,” she says.

  Leifur shakes his head no. “One thing I need to know before you leave—”

  Freyja is nodding slowly. “I have already decided. I need to be buried here. My husband was born and raised in Gimli and when the time comes, he wants his body flown home. He will understand.”

  Leifur relaxes. “Lawyers,” he says. “They plan everything.”

  Freyja throws her head back and with the laughter comes tears.

  So strong. Leifur was always so strong.

  “Well you’d better go.”

  She bends down and kisses his forehead. “I love you, Leifur.”

  He watches her turn, her face knotted in sadness, to sneak one final goodbye, then closes his eyes.

  “Ready?” Solrun asks.

  Freyja raises her finger, then hurries back down the hallway. She peeks in the common room where Bjorn and I are at the table playing chess. She watches us for a few moments, catches his eye and waves, then slips away.

  Solrun and Freyja stand on the platform at the airport, her suitcase on the ground between them.

  Solrun smiles softly. “Are you ready to tell me now?”

  Freyja stares at nothing, lowering her eyes as if she’s just been caught in a lie.

  “You remember how it was.” She bites her bottom lip. “Unmarried girls didn’t keep their babies. Men didn’t want to raise another man’s child. I have regretted it my whole life.”

  “That was not Bjarni’s decision to make.”

  “I know,” she says. “The hospital staff were not very sympathetic, either. I carried the baby to term. When I was in labor, the nurse convinced me it was the right thing to do. She knew of an Icelandic doctor in the city who arranged adoptions. She assured me the child would go to an Icelandic home.”

  “A boy or girl?”

  “I don’t know. They said it was for the
best. All I remember is how the baby cried when they took it out of the room.”

  “Oh Freyja.”

  Freyja clenches her lips together. “It was not for the best,” she whispers, picking up her bag and backing away.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  Good it is to end a stout life with a stout death.

  —The Saga of Magnús Barefoot

  Fifteen years later

  June 17, 1980

  “Asta, you have opened your eyes,” Solrun says.

  I know exactly how they must look, glassy and dark, with no remnant of the ego left to question or mislead. These bottomless pools she peers into, searching for some semblance of me, are now the space between this world and the next.

  She leans in. “You are trying to tell us something, what is it?”

  There is still an inkling of life left in me.

  Solrun stares hard and listens close, watching my lips.

  I want to tell them how to find Freyja’s firstborn child, but the only sound that escapes is a tiny sigh.

  “It is alright, dear sister,” she whispers. “You can go now. Everyone is waiting for you.”

  She lovingly strokes my hair.

  Another face comes into view and I recognize Freyja. The sister whose absence I mourned my entire life.

  “It is alright, go in peace,” she whispers. “I am so sorry, Asta, so very sorry.”

  They begin to sing, high and sweet, the Icelandic hymns I loved so much as a child. Their voices fill the room.

  Lars sings beside them, staring at his folded hands.

  Now, I am ready to die.

  The last breaths come.

  Forty, then sixty, and finally ninety seconds apart, until . . .

  No longer trapped within the confines of my faulty brain I see everything clearly and now I am looking down on the aged body that served me well for so many years. A light above the bed transforms the warm flesh tones to a rigid gray and the body left is shockingly inanimate and I no longer care what happens to it.

  My sisters stand by the bed. Solrun. Freyja.

  My brother Lars. He can see my spirit hovering. Amma’s gift?

  I want to tell my sisters to stop crying, to feel the message I am sending to their hearts, that I am elated to be on my way home.

  Lars can feel it and nods in understanding.

  Everything I came here to do is accomplished.

  I must leave.

  What lies waiting at the end of the light? So powerful. Its warmth pulls me out of the room towards the heavens. This is different than travelling to the past. Nothing grounds me, there is no pulling me back, not now.

  Mama is the first to greet me. Pabbi next. Amma, Signy, Leifur, and all the rest. How I always remembered them, in their prime. Being together again fills me with unspeakable joy. There is so much love I can’t even begin to describe it.

  Pabbi’s spirit speaks without words and I understand we will have much time together, but there is something I must do. He takes my hand and places it in another.

  He is smiling, just like on that day we met. We are young again. It is time for us to go back to Siglunes. How light we feel. The air smells of coffee and kleinur. Though we shared much sadness on earth, we are elated, travelling like one soul back to the land where we feel the life in everything that grows.

  Up the road to Eikheimar, dust swirling behind us. Life has changed here but it still feels like home. Amma’s tree has thickened, grown taller. A man jumps down from the tractor and hurries to the house where his wife is baking buns for their son’s wedding.

  We travel to Vinðheimar, where all that is left are the remnants of a foundation where the majestic house once stood. It is called Skuli’s Bay now, after J.K. and Gudrun’s youngest son: the place where fishermen still set nets in November. A restless spirit is pacing along the water’s edge and it is Finn.

  Come with us.

  Finn hesitates, but the moment he relents I feel his relief and he lets us pull him along, past Bensi’s bush, along the shoreline.

  I am anxious to see the castle. The mill is long gone and, as Asi predicted, the land is filled with grazing cattle. Inside, the house has been modernized. The little room where I once stayed is now filled with shelves and a filing cabinet. A heavy desk sits under the window.

  One last look at the kitchen. Though the faces have changed, life here is much the same. A woman is making dinner for the men who are on the lake barging cattle to Ghost Island. She feels a cool draft when we pass and shudders.

  Outside, the island appears. Stefan’s spirit waits where the lighthouse once stood and I implore him to come with us, but he refuses. He is waiting for Freyja, for the chance to explain.

  It is November, 1914. Stefan is mushing his dogs toward us across the ice, not far from shore. He is smiling, heart pounding with love and happiness. He has already read his letter from Freyja and has Mother’s in the satchel. He can hardly wait to tell everyone the news about Freyja and his unborn child.

  Tomorrow he will find a way to bring her home.

  But then the heavy sleigh breaks through the ice and it drops like a stone, dragging the string of dogs backwards into the water. He must fight his way to the surface, but the dogs are desperate and he can only hold his breath for so long.

  Stefan surrenders, his body floating gently to the lake bottom, and is taken with the current. The satchel slips off his shoulder and all that is left now are memories; and a few rusted buckles buried in the silt off Ghost island.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I owe a debt to my passionate early readers: Dawn MacFarlane, Mickey Reid, Dianne Johnson, Dayna Emilson and the late Claire De’Athe who each pointed out flaws in the early story and offered encouragement. Special gratitude to Ólöf Baldwinson-Hardy and Debra Walger who met with me more than once, read the manuscript twice and offered many valuable insights and gentle suggestions.

  To the pros: Jóhanna Gunnlaugsdóttir for her advice on Icelandic word usage and spelling; to Sabrina Parys and Editor Michael Kenyon whose fine hand and keen eye cleaned up my mess. W.D. Valgardson for jumping in early to write a review and to Lisa Friesen, designer extraordinaire, for presenting this book in such beautiful form to the world.

  The story I tell in these pages—though a work of fiction—was inspired by real events experienced over the years by the early settlers at Siglunes. I want to thank Baldrun Paetkau for a most precious gift: the idea for my story. Gratitude to Lorna Tergesen, Nelson Gerrard, and W. John Johnson, who assisted in my research. Posthumous thanks go to Oli Johnson who wrote extensively about early life along the lake in Taming the Wilderness; and to the late Geirfinnur Peterson whose text, The History of the Icelandic Settlements at the Narrows, Manitoba, published in Lögberg-Heimskringla - 1969-70, gave me insight into life in those early days. Thank you to his descendants for granting me permission to re-print a portion of his writing in this book.

  Gratitude to Scott Forbes for his continued efforts toward raising awareness about the hardships imposed on the farmers, fishermen and cottage owners along Lake Manitoba and for graciously reading the manuscript and agreeing to write an essay on flooding printed in the end pages of the book.

  I am forever thankful to friends and readers who haven’t lost faith in me during this inexcusable dry spell. Friends and readers are a blessing, names too numerous to mention—but you all know who you are. Your unwavering support reminds me of Amma’s oak.

  Warm thanks to the wonderful tribe that is my family—Snivelys, Unraus and Emilsons—all those related by blood, marriage or circumstance who have offered unfailing support and encouragement over the years.

  And finally to my husband, Harold Unrau, a man who doesn’t mind eating nachos or hot wings in front of the television while I fight my way through one final scene before calling it a night.

  Love to you all.


  P.S.

  Insights,

  Interviews,

  and more...

  About the author

  Meet Karen Emilson

  About the book

  Q & A with the Author

  Essay by Scott Forbes

  Reading Group Guide

  About the author

  Meet Karen Emilson

  Karen Emilson was born and raised in southern Ontario, the daughter of Irish immigrants on her mother’s side; and an eclectic mix of Swiss, German and English on her father’s side. She spent all her free time as a child reading books and writing stories, dreaming of one day becoming a writer.

  In 1982 she came to Manitoba as a young bride, settling at the Nordheim farm in Siglunes. Karen spent little time in the hayfield or on the lake, but instead worked as a rural newspaper reporter and wrote feature articles. Inspired by David and Dennis Pischke’s story, she wrote and published the Canadian bestsellers, Where Children Run, in 1996 and its sequel When Memories Remain in 2001. For years after that she worked for the Manitoba Beef Producers Association, typeset the Icelandic Connection Magazine, and spent time as a consultant with Lögberg-Heimskringla.

  When Lake Manitoba overflowed its banks in 2011—flooding out the farmland at Siglunes—she was inspired to finish a story started 10 years earlier about the immigrants who carved out a living there. Be Still the Water is her first novel.

  Now she lives in Grunthal, Manitoba with her husband, Harold Unrau, and little dog, Scooter. She writes full time.

  You can find her online at:

  www.karenemilsonwrites.com

  www.facebook/karenemilsonwrites/

  about the book

  Q & A with the author

  It states in ‘About the Author’ that you started this book 15 years ago. What prompted the story idea and why did it take so long to write?