by Hannah Kent
‘Eighteen times, is that so?’ Margrét murmured. She desperately wished Snæbjörn would come back to collect his wife.
‘In the stomach and throat.’ Róslín’s face was flushed with excitement. ‘And – oh, the Lord bless us – even in the face! I heard she plunged the knife into his eye socket. Pierced it like an egg yolk!’ Róslín grasped Margrét tightly on the shoulder. ‘If I were you I wouldn’t sleep a wink with her in the same room! I’d rather sleep in the cowshed than risk it. Oh, Margrét, I can’t believe the rumours are true! Murderers on our doorsteps! This parish has gone to the dogs. Worse than the things you hear about Reykjavík. And her, just now, standing in the very spot where my daughters play. It gives me the shivers. See, look at my arms – I am covered in gooseflesh! My poor Margrét, however shall you cope?’
‘I’ll manage,’ Margrét said briskly, bending down to pick up the plate of rye bread.
‘But will you? And where is Jón to protect you?’
‘At Hvammur, with Blöndal. Like I said.’
‘Margrét!’ Róslín threw her hands into the air. ‘It is wickedness for Blöndal to have you and the girls alone with this woman! I tell you what, I shall stay with you.’
‘You will do no such thing, Róslín,’ Margrét said firmly, ‘but thank you for your concern. Now, I hate to set you on your way, but the sheep will not milk themselves.’
‘Shall I help you?’ Róslín asked. ‘Here, let me take that bread and carry it inside for you.’
‘Goodbye, Róslín.’
‘Perhaps if I were to see her, I could gauge your danger. Our danger! What’s to stop her from sneaking about at night?’
Margrét took Róslín by the elbow and turned her in the direction she had come from. ‘Thank you for your visit, Róslín, and thank you for the rye bread. Watch your step, there.’
‘But –’
‘Goodbye, Róslín.’
Róslín cast a backward glance towards the croft, then attempted a smile and trudged heavily back down the slope towards Gilsstadir. Her little girls tottered after her. Margrét stood, gripping the plate of rye bread in front of her, and watched them leave, until they were nothing more than specks in the distance, then she squatted and coughed until her tongue was slippery. She spat wetly upon the grass. Then she slowly stood up, turned and walked back towards the croft.
WHEN I COME INTO THE badstofa I see that the officer who was sleeping is gone. He must have joined his friends; I can hear men talking in a mixture of Danish and Icelandic outside the window. They must not have seen the farm mistress push me back inside. The two sleeping daughters have gone also. I’m alone.
I am alone.
There is no watchful eye, no guard at the door, no rope, no fetters, no locks, and I am all by myself, unbound. I am paralysed by the thought of it. Surely someone has an eye to a keyhole? Surely someone has pressed his body to a crack in the wall, is waiting to see what I will do, waiting to storm the room with a finger pointing like a knife at my throat.
But there is no one. Not a soul.
I stand in the centre of the room, and let my eyes adjust to the gloom. Yes, I am quite alone, and a tremble of exhilaration passes along my skin, like the tremor on the surface of a pot of water about to boil. In this minute I can do anything: I can examine the cottage, or lie down, or talk aloud, or sing. I can dance, or swear, or laugh and no one will know.
I could escape.
A bubble of fear passes up my spine. It’s the feeling of standing on ice and suddenly hearing it crack under your weight – both thrilling and terrifying together. At Stóra-Borg I dreamt of escape. Of finding the key to my fetters and fleeing – I never thought of where I might go. There was never a chance. Yet here, now, I could slip out of the yard and run down the far end of the valley, away from the farms, to wait and escape under night into the highlands, where the sky will cover me with her rough, grey hand. I could flee to the heath. Show them that they cannot keep me locked up, that I am a thief of time and will steal the hours denied to me!
Specks of dust drift in the sunlight coming through the dried membrane fastened to the window. As I watch them, the thrill of escape is sucked away, like water down a geyser. I would only be trading one death sentence for another. Up in the highlands blizzards howl like the widows of fishermen and the wind blisters the skin off your face. Winter comes like a punch in the dark. The uninhabited places are as cruel as any executioner.
My knees are weak as I stumble to my bed. With my eyes closed, the silence of the room presses upon me like a hand.
When my heart slows, I look over to where the officer slept, the coverlet twisted and the worn mattress exposed. He ought to have replaced the bed board – he’ll have bad luck. Perhaps if the bed is still warm, he is nearby. It feels intrusive to touch the bare mattress, but it’s cold. He’s gone. My bed is made. I run my hands over the thin blanket, worn smooth from use. How many other bodies have lain here before me? How many nightmares have been produced under this cloth?
The floor is boarded, but the walls and ceiling are not, and the turf is in need of repair; slabs of dried sod have slumped inwards and thinned, leaving fissures in the wall and the room prey to draughts. It will be cold in winter.
But I might be dead before then.
Quickly! Push that thought away.
Dead grass hangs sinister from the ceiling like unwashed hair. A few carved ornaments have been arranged across the rafters, and a cross is nailed to the lintel over the entrance.
Do they sing hymns in the winter here? Maybe they recite the sagas instead – I prefer a story to a prayer. They whipped me for that at this farm, Kornsá, once, when I was young and fostered out to watch over the home field. The farmer Björn did not like that I knew the sagas better than him. You’re better off keeping company with the sheep, Agnes. Books written by man, not God, are faithless friends and not for your kind.
I might have believed him were it not for my foster-mother Inga and the lessons she gave me, delivered in whispers as he dozed in the evening.
Near the entrance, close to the mistress’s bed, is a grey woollen curtain that has been nailed to a slat. I suppose it serves as a door to the room beyond. The curtain falls short and in the gap above the floor the legs of a table are visible. They’re slightly splintered, as though someone has gnawed at them.
The badstofa is almost as bare as all those years ago, although little planks have been nailed between the sloping rafters and the wall supports to serve as shelves. They hold the usual things – wooden canisters, sheep horns, a pipe, fishbones, mittens and knitting needles. There is a small painted trunk under one of the beds. An abandoned slipper wanting mending. The familiarity of day-to-day things can be comforting. I once had things like this. My white sack with the dried flowers in it. The stone Mamma gave me before she left. It will bring you good luck, Agnes. It is a magic stone. Put it under your tongue and you will be able to talk to the birds.
That stone sat in my mouth for days. If the birds understood my questions, they never cared to answer them.
Kornsá of Húnavatn District. I was delivered to its doorstep at six years old with a kiss and a stone from Mamma, and now I’ve been dragged here again at three and thirty winters because of two dead men and a fire. I’ve worked at more northern farms than should have been my share. But poverty scrapes these homes down until they all look the same, and they all have in common the absence of things that ought to be there. I might as well have been at one place all my life.
This is it, then. Kornsá, my last grim corner. The last bed, the last roof, the last floor. The last of everything brings lugs of pain, as though there will be nothing left, but smoke from fires abandoned. I must pretend that I am a servant still, and that these are my new quarters and I must think of all the chores I will do, and how I will make my mistress comment on the dexterity of my fingers. I used to think that if I worked hard I might one day be made a housemistress. But not here. Not at Kornsá.
Kornsá. I
t trips over and over itself in my head, so that I must very quietly say it aloud and feel the sound of it. I tell myself that it’s just another farm, and I softly chant the names of all the places I have lived at. It’s like an incantation: Flaga, Beinakelda, Litla-Giljá, Brekkukot, Kornsá, Gudrúnarstadir, Gilsstadir, Gafl, Fannlaugarstadir, Búrfell, Geitaskard, Illugastadir.
Of all the names, one is a mistake. One is a nightmare. The stair you miss in the darkness.
The name is everything that went wrong. Illugastadir, the farm by the sea, where the soft air rings with the clang of the smithy, and gulls caw, and seals roll over in their fat. Illugastadir, where the night is lit by fire, where smoke turns in the early morning to engulf the stars, and in ruins, always Illugastadir, cradling dead bodies in its cage of burnt beams.
Outside, the officers burst into laughter. One of them is talking about his rich cousin in Helgavatn.
‘Let’s stop and relieve him of his brandy!’ one suggests.
‘Yes! And his wife and daughters!’ another shouts. They laugh again.
Will someone stay to make sure I don’t run away? To make certain I don’t light the lamps, in case I dash the flame upon the floor. To make sure I keep my hands clean, and my tongue still, and my legs together, and my eyes down.
I am the property of the Crown now.
I hope they all leave today.
As I strain to listen to the officers’ conversation I notice that something has been hidden under the bed across from me, something shiny. It is a silver brooch, a strange thing to have in a room so stripped of luxury. Was it stolen? It wouldn’t be so strange in this valley, where people can catch sheep and slice the marks from their ears before the flock scatters, and men grow their nails long to better pick up coins. There’s many a thieving farmer and servant who has felt the law’s whip in these parts. Even Natan bore the scars of his own youthful brush with the birch rod.
I pick up the brooch. It’s unexpectedly heavy.
‘Put it down.’ A slender young woman is standing with her legs apart, her arms raised from her sides. ‘That’s mine.’
I drop the brooch and we both flinch as it hits the floor. The girl is fine-boned and small, with pale lashes striking against the dark blue of her eyes. Her head is covered with a scarf. There is a slight bump in her nose.
‘Steina!’ The girl hasn’t moved, only regards me from the doorway. She is scared of me, I think.
Another girl steps through the doorway. She must be her sister, only she is taller, with brown eyes, and the skin over her nose is clouded with freckles. ‘Róslín and her brood are –’ She stops when she sees me.
‘She was touching my confirmation gift.’
‘I thought Mamma took her outside?’
‘Me too.’
They stare. ‘Mamma! Mamma! Come here!’
Margrét hobbles in, wiping her mouth. She sees the silver brooch on the floor by my feet and the blood drains from her face. Her mouth slips open.
‘She was touching it, Mamma. I caught her.’
Margrét shuts her eyes and passes a hand over her lips as if in pain. I want to touch her on the arm. I want to reassure her. She comes towards me, furious now, and I hear the slap before I feel it. A neat crack. A tingling rush of pain.
‘What did I tell you?’ she cries. ‘You will not touch a thing in this house!’ She breathes heavily, her hand pointing at my face. ‘Consider yourself lucky that I don’t report this incident.’
‘I’m not a thief,’ I say.
‘No, you’re a murderess.’ The blue-eyed girl spits the words out, dimples flashing in her cheeks. Her headscarf has slipped and a lock of white-blonde hair falls onto her forehead. Her face is flushed.
‘Lauga,’ Margrét warns, ‘take Steina and go into the kitchen.’ They leave. Margrét grabs my sleeve. ‘Follow,’ she says, dragging me out of the room. ‘You can prove your penitence by working like a dog.’
REVEREND TÓTI WOKE IN THE early hours of the morning and could not return to sleep. Today he was expected at Kornsá again. Reluctantly rising and dressing, he walked out into the crisp clean air of the morning and started to complete chores about the farm and church. He rounded up the small flock of sheep belonging to his father and milked them with exaggerated care, whispering to them by name and running his fingers over their furred ears.
Mid-morning came and went, and the sun bled into the sky. Tóti fed and watered their cow, Ýsa, and then started to take the laundry off the stone church wall where his father had laid it out to dry.
‘You don’t need to do that,’ Reverend Jón said, walking towards him from the croft.
‘I don’t mind,’ Tóti said, smiling. He picked a grass seed out of a sock.
His father shrugged. ‘Thought you’d be over Vatnsdalur way.’
Tóti grimaced.
‘Why are you fussing with the laundry when you’ve her to see?’
Tóti paused, and looked at Reverend Jón, who was flapping a pair of trousers in the wind.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said, then paused. ‘What would you say to her?’
His father smacked his shoulder with his rough hand and glared at him. ‘Get on,’ he said. ‘Who says you’ll need to say anything? Go.’
MARGRÉT TAKES ME ACROSS THE yard to show me the small plot of lovage and angelica, and then I assist her with the milking of the sheep. I suppose she does not trust me to be alone again. The small boy who arrived earlier has already rounded up the animals. Margrét points him out to me as Páll, but does not introduce us, and he does not come near me, although he stares, open-mouthed.
Then we burn my dress.
I made it two years ago. Sigga and I made one each, a working dress, blue and simple from the cloth Natan gave us.
If I had known that the dress I laboured over would be my only warmth in a room that reeked of sour skin. If I had known that the dress would one day be put on in the night, in a hurry, to be soaked with sweat as I ran through the witching hours to Stapar, screaming fit to raise the dead.
Margrét gives me a little warm milk from the pail, and then we go into the kitchen where her daughters are building up the fire with dung. They shrink back against the wall when I enter.
‘Take the kettle off the hook, Steina,’ Margrét says to the plain girl. Then she gathers my soiled clothes from the corner and throws them on the fire without ceremony.
‘There.’ She sounds satisfied.
We watch the woollen dress smoulder until our eyes water from the smoke and Margrét coughs, and we are forced to go and work elsewhere while my clothes burn. The daughters go into the pantry.
That dress was my last possession. There is nothing in the world I now own; even the heat my body gives out is taken away by the summer breeze.
The herb plot of Kornsá is overgrown and wild, surrounded by a rough stone wall that has toppled to the ground at one end. Most of the plants have gone to seed, frostbitten roots rotting in the warmer weather, but there are tansies, and little bitter herbs I remember from Natan’s workshop at Illugastadir, and the angelica smells sweetly.
We are weeding, finding the tufts of grass creeping about the healthier plants and pulling them from the soil. I relish the give of the roots and the gum on my fingers as the stalks burst, although my lungs ache. I have weakened. But I don’t give myself away.
There is a pleasure to be had in squatting with my skirt bunched about me, and the smell of the smoke from the dung fire in my hair. Margrét works furiously and breathes heavily. What is she thinking? Her nails are black with soil, and she scrabbles in the dirt urgently. Her eyes are red-rimmed from the smoke in the kitchen. When she clears her throat I hear the rattle of phlegm.
‘Go back to the croft and tell my daughters to come out to me,’ she says suddenly. ‘Then shovel ashes from the hearth and dig them into the dirt.’
The officers are saddling their horses in the yard when I return unaccompanied to the homestead. They’re silent. ‘Are you all right?�
� one of them calls to Margrét, and she reassures them with a wave of a soiled hand.
The door to the croft is open, probably to let the foul smoke out. I pick my feet up over the door ledge.
I find the daughters in the pantry, skimming yesterday’s milk. The youngest sees me first and nudges her sister. They both take a few steps back.
‘Your mother would like you to join her.’ I give a small nod and step aside to let them past me. The younger slips out of the room immediately, her eyes never leaving mine.
The elder girl hesitates. What is her nickname? Steina. Stone. She gives me a peculiar look, and slowly sets down her paddle.
‘I think I know you,’ she says.
I say nothing.
‘You were a servant here in this valley before, weren’t you?’
I nod.
‘I know you. I mean, we met once. You were leaving Gudrúnarstadir just as we were moving there to take up the lease. We met on the road.’
When would that have been? May, 1819. How old could she have been then? No more than ten.
‘We had a dog with us. A tan and white one. I remember you because he started barking and jumping up, and Pabbi pulled him off you, and then we shared our dinner.’
The girl looks at my face searchingly.
‘You were the woman we met on the way to Gudrúnarstadir. Do you remember me? You plaited my sister’s hair and gave us an egg each.’
Two small girls sucking eggs by the road, hems damp through with mud. The blur of a thin dog chasing his reflection in the water and the sky broken grey and wide. Three ravens flying in a line. A good omen.
‘Steina!’
The walk from Gudrúnarstadir to Gilsstadir in a freezing spring. 1819. One hundred small whales come ashore near Thingeyrar. A bad omen.
‘Steina!’
‘Coming, Mamma!’ Steina turns to me. ‘I’m right, aren’t I? That was you.’
I take a step towards her.
The farm mistress bursts in. ‘Steina!’ She looks at me, then her daughter. ‘Out.’ She grabs the girl’s arm and yanks her from the room. ‘The ashes. Now.’