Burial Rites

by Hannah Kent

  I will have to think of what to say to him.

  THE FOG HAD DISPERSED INTO the blue of the day, and the wet baubles on the grass had dried by the time the family of Kornsá gathered at the edge of the home field to begin cutting the hay. District Officer Jón stood to one side with the two male farmhands recently returned from Reykjavík – Bjarni and Gudmundur – both with long blond hair and beards, and Kristín, Margrét and Lauga to the other. They were all waiting silently for Steina and Agnes to join the circle. Steina stumbled along the yard, Agnes following her, tying a scarf over her braided hair.

  ‘We’re here,’ Steina said cheerfully. Agnes nodded at Jón and Margrét. The farmhands glanced at her and then at each other.

  Jón bowed his head. ‘Our good Lord. We thank you for the good weather you have sent for our harvest. We pray that you see fit to preserve us in this time, to keep us from danger and accident, and to provide us with the hay we need to live. In Jesus’ name, amen.’

  The farmhands mumbled their amens, and picked up their long-handled scythes. They had been recently hammered and sharpened, and the iron blades shone brightly. Gudmundur, a short muscular man of twenty-eight, tested the edge of his scythe on the hair of his wrist, then, satisfied the edge was sufficiently honed, swiftly turned it the right way round and scraped it against the grass at his foot. He looked up and noticed Agnes watching him.

  ‘Gudmundur and Bjarni,’ the District Officer was saying. ‘You’ll be cutting with Kristín and . . .’ Jón hesitated, then briefly glanced at Agnes. The farmhands followed his look, and stared.

  ‘You’re giving her a scythe?’ Bjarni asked casually, a sallow-looking man. He laughed nervously.

  Margrét cleared her throat. ‘Agnes and Kristín will be cutting with you three and Jón. Steina, Lauga and I will rake and turn.’ She glared at Gudmundur, who was smirking at Bjarni, and spat on the ground near his feet.

  ‘Give them scythes,’ Jón said quietly, and Gudmundur dropped his own on the ground. He turned and picked up another two scythes and handed one to Kristín, who gave a confused curtsey, and then he reached forward to pass the other to Agnes. She extended her arm to take it, but Gudmundur refused to let go. For a brief moment they both stood there, clasping the handle of the scythe together, before Gudmundur suddenly released his hold. Agnes stumbled backwards and the scythe grazed her ankle. Bjarni stifled a laugh.

  ‘Go fetch your rakes, girls,’ Jón said, ignoring the grins of the farmhands and Lauga, who could not help but smile at Agnes’s panicked glance at her leg.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ Steina whispered to Agnes as she walked past. Agnes shook her head, her jaw clenched. Margrét looked at her daughter and frowned.

  I LET MY BODY FALL into a rhythm. I sway back and forth and let gravity bring the scythe down and through the grass, until I rock steadily. Until I feel that I am not moving myself, and that the sun is driving me. Until I am a puppet of the wind, and of the scythe, and of the long, slow strokes that propel my body forward. Until I couldn’t stop if I wanted to.

  It’s a good feeling, not quite being in control. Of being gently swung back and forth, until I forget what it is to be still. Like being with Natan in those first months, when my heartbeat shuddered through me and I could have died, I was so happy to be desired. When the smell of him, of sulphur and crushed herbs, and horse-sweat and the smoke from his forge, made me dizzy with pleasure. With possibility.

  I feel drunk with summer and sunlight. I want to seize fistfuls of sky and eat them. As the scythes run sharp fingers through the stalks, the cut grass makes a gasping sound.

  Suddenly, I know that the servant, the one called Gudmundur, is watching me. He has arched his head around to leer. Perhaps he thinks I don’t notice.

  I was fourteen when men began to look at me like that. Hired on at Gudrúnarstadir, I arrived in March with my belongings in a white sack, and my head sore from tightly braided hair. My first proper employ. There was a young man hired on back then as well. A tall man, with bad skin and a way of watching the servant girls – Ingibjörg, Helga and me – that made us avoid him. I’d hear him touch himself at night – a hurried shuffling under the blanket, then a groan, or, sometimes, a whimper.

  I let my body swing, I let my arms fall. I feel the muscles of my stomach contract and twist. The scythe rises, falls, rises, falls, catches the sun across its blade and flicks the light back into my eye – a bright wink of God. I watch you, the scythe says, rippling though the green sea, catching the sun, casting it back to me. The servant exhales, swings his scythe, stares in a low way at my bare arms. I flick the grass and the light through the air. I watch you, says the scythe.

  AS PROMISED, REVEREND TÓTI RETURNED to Kornsá early the next morning, well before the sun had risen from its resting point above the horizon. His body ached from the first day of harvest at Breidabólstadur, and he relished the smack of cold air on his face and the fine fog of his mare’s breath as they rode along the track to the Vatnsdalur valley. All the settlements of the district had begun their haymaking the previous day, and the sight of half-cleared fields, the grass gathered into cocks to stop the dew from damping the hay, contributed to a sense of order and prosperity. The lush north, they called it. Everywhere small birds hopped amongst the stubble, picking at the insects made vulnerable by the harvest, and coils of smoke lifted from the slanted roofs of the valley’s crofts and cottages.

  At the large farm of Hvammur where Tóti knew Björn Blöndal lived with his family and servants, on the other side of the river and within view from Kornsá, several chimneys could be seen giving off smoke. The flat wooden face of the adjoined turf huts boasted glass windows that glimmered brightly, even in the weak yellow light of morning. Like eyes, thought Tóti, feeling fanciful. He’d heard that much of the Illugastadir trial had been held in the guest room of the farm, which looked out onto the winding body of the river and its fringe of golden marsh grass.

  I wonder what went through her mind, Tóti mused, peering at the farm from across the river. Sitting there in that room when they told her she had to die. Did she look out of the window and see the ice floe on the river? Possibly the world was too dark to see anything. Possibly they covered the windows with a curtain to block out the light.

  District Officer Jón was outside his home with another man – a farmhand of some sort, thought Tóti – sharpening the scythes. Jón raised his whetstone in greeting and put his cap back on before walking over.

  ‘Reverend Thorvardur. God bless you.’

  ‘And you,’ Tóti said cheerfully.

  ‘You’re here to see her.’

  Tóti nodded. ‘How do you find Agnes?’

  Jón shrugged. ‘Life goes on.’

  ‘She’s a good worker?’

  ‘She’s a good worker, but . . .’ He stopped.

  Tóti smiled gently. ‘It’s only temporary, Jón.’ He gave the man a reassuring clap on the back and turned to go into the house.

  ‘Jón Thórdarson has offered to kill them,’ Jón said suddenly.

  Tóti turned around. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Jón Thórdarson. He came riding up to Hvammur a few weeks back, reckoned he’d play executioner to Fridrik, Sigga and Agnes. Said he’d swing the axe for a pound of tobacco.’ He shook his head. ‘A pound of tobacco.’

  ‘What did Blöndal say?’

  Jón grimaced. ‘What do you think he said? Thórdarson’s a nobody. He has someone else in mind, although there’s some who are against it.’

  Tóti glanced at the farmhand, who was slouching against the smithy wall, listening. ‘Who would that be?’ Tóti asked.

  Jón shook his head, disgusted. It was the farmhand who spoke.

  ‘Gudmundur Ketilsson,’ he said, loudly. ‘Natan’s brother.’

  ‘We can sit inside if you prefer,’ Tóti said, nearly stumbling over the rocks next to the rushing stream by the Kornsá farm.

  ‘I like to watch the water,’ Agnes replied.

  ‘Very well.’ Tóti wip
ed the wet spray off a large rock and gestured for Agnes to sit down. He sat next to her.

  The Kornsá stream offered a good view across the river. It was beautiful, but Tóti could think only of Jón’s earlier words about the executioner. He stole a glance at Agnes’s pale neck against the grey of the rock and imagined it slit.

  ‘How was the harvest yesterday?’ he asked, trying to clear his mind.

  ‘It was very warm.’

  ‘Good,’ Tóti replied.

  Agnes reached into her shawl and pulled out a bundle of wool and several thin knitting needles. ‘You wanted to ask me about my family?’

  Tóti cleared his throat and watched her fingers move as she began to knit. ‘Yes. You were born at Flaga.’

  Agnes inclined her head towards the farm in question, a slouched croft to the left of Kornsá’s border. It was close enough that the voices of its servants, calling to one another outside, could be heard on the wind. ‘The very one.’

  ‘Your mother was unmarried.’

  ‘You learnt that from the ministerial book?’ Agnes gave a tight smile. ‘The priests always make sure they write the important things down.’

  ‘And your father, Magnús?’

  ‘Magnús was unmarried too, if that’s what you mean.’

  Tóti hesitated. ‘Who did you live with as a child, then?’

  Agnes gazed about the valley. ‘I’ve lived in most of these farms.’

  ‘Your family moved about?’

  ‘I don’t have any family. My mother left me when I was six.’

  ‘How did she die?’ Tóti asked gently. He was taken aback when Agnes laughed.

  ‘Does my life seem such a story of tragedy? No, she left me for others to deal with, but I suppose she’s still alive. I wouldn’t know. Someone told me she’d gone into the blue. Just upped and left one day. That was some years ago now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about my mother. I wouldn’t recognise her if I saw her.’

  ‘Because you were only six winters old when she left you?’

  Agnes stopped knitting and looked Tóti squarely in the face. ‘You have to understand, Reverend, that the only things I know about my mother are what other people have told me. Mainly what she did, which, you’ll understand, they didn’t approve of.’

  ‘Could you tell me what you were told?’

  Agnes shook her head. ‘To know what a person has done, and to know who a person is, are very different things.’

  Tóti persisted. ‘But, Agnes, actions speak louder than words.’

  ‘Actions lie,’ Agnes retorted quickly. ‘Sometimes people never stood a chance in the beginning, or they might have made a mistake. When people start saying things like she must be a bad mother because of that mistake . . .’

  When Tóti said nothing in response she went on.

  ‘It’s not fair. People claim to know you through the things you’ve done, and not by sitting down and listening to you speak for yourself. No matter how much you try to live a godly life, if you make a mistake in this valley, it’s never forgotten. No matter if you tried to do what was best. No matter if your innermost self whispers, “I am not as you say!” – how other people think of you determines who you are.’

  Agnes stopped to take a breath. She had begun to raise her voice, and Tóti wondered what had provoked this sudden gush of words.

  ‘That’s what happened to my mother, Reverend,’ Agnes continued. ‘Who was she really? Probably not as people say she was, but she made mistakes and others made up their minds about her. People around here don’t let you forget your misdeeds. They think them the only things worth writing down.’

  Tóti thought for a moment. ‘What was your mother’s mistake?’

  ‘I’ve been told she made many, Reverend. But at least one of those mistakes was me. She was unlucky.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She did what any number of women do harmlessly in secret,’ Agnes said bitterly. ‘But she was one of the unfortunate few whose secrets are made visible to everyone.’

  Tóti could feel the hot creep of a blush appear on his face. He looked down at his hands and tried to clear his throat.

  Agnes looked at him. ‘I’ve offended you again,’ she said.

  Tóti shook his head. ‘I’m glad that you tell me of your past.’

  ‘My past has offended your sensibilities.’

  Tóti shifted his seat on the rock. ‘What about your father?’ he tried.

  Agnes laughed. ‘Which of them?’ She stopped knitting to study him. ‘What did your book say about my father?’

  ‘That his name was Magnús Magnússon and that he was living at Stóridalur at the time of your birth.’

  Agnes continued to knit, but Tóti noticed that she was clenching her jaw. ‘If you spoke to certain people about these parts you might get a different story.’

  ‘How is that?’

  Agnes looked out across the river to the farms on the opposite side of the valley, silently counting the stitches on her needle with her finger. ‘I suppose it doesn’t matter if I’m honest with you or not,’ she said coldly. ‘I could say anything to you.’

  ‘Indeed, I hope you will confide in me,’ Tóti said, misunderstanding. He leaned closer in anticipation of what she would say.

  ‘Your book at Undirfell ought to have said Jón Bjarnason, the farmer at Brekkukot. I’ve been told that he is my real father, and Magnús Magnússon is a hapless servant who didn’t know better.’

  Tóti was perplexed. ‘Why would your mother name you Magnús’s daughter if that were not the truth?’

  Agnes turned to him, half-smiling. ‘Have you no idea of how the world works, Reverend?’ she asked. ‘Jón of Brekkukot is a married man with enough legitimate children of his own. Oh, and plenty like me, you can be sure. But it seems a lesser crime to create a child with an unmarried man than one already bound in flesh and soul to another woman. So I suppose my mother picked a different sod to have the honour of fathering me.’

  Tóti considered this for a moment. ‘And you believe this because others told you so?’

  ‘If I believed everything everyone had ever told me about my family I’d be a sight more miserable than I am now, Reverend. But it doesn’t take an education in Copenhagen or down south to work out which bairns belong to which pabbis in these parts. Hard to keep a secret to yourself here.’

  ‘Have you ever asked him?’

  ‘Jón Bjarnason? And what would be the good of that?’

  ‘To get the truth out of him, I suppose,’ Tóti suggested. He was feeling disappointed with the conversation.

  ‘No such thing as truth,’ Agnes said, standing up.

  Tóti stood up also and began rubbing the seat of his pants. ‘There is truth in God,’ he said, earnestly, recognising an opportunity to do his spiritual duty. ‘John, chapter eight, verse thirty-two: “And ye . . . ”’

  ‘Shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Yes, I know. I know,’ Agnes said. She bundled her knitting things together and began to walk back down to the farm. ‘Not in my case, Reverend Thorvardur,’ she called to him. ‘I’ve told the truth and you can see for yourself how it has served me.’

  IT WON’T BE ANY GOOD for the Reverend to read ministerial books, or any book for that matter – what will he learn of me there? Only the things other men think important about me.

  When the Reverend saw my name and birth in the church book, did he see only the writing and understand only the date? Or did he see the fog of that day, and hear the ravens cawing at the smell of blood? Did he imagine it as I have imagined it? My mother, weeping, holding me against the clammy warmth of her skin. Avoiding the looks of the Flaga women she worked for, knowing already that she’d have to leave and try to find work elsewhere. Knowing no farmer would hire a servant woman with a newborn.

  If he wants to learn of my family he’ll have a hard time of it. Two fathers and a mother who seem as blurry to me as strange
rs departing through a snowstorm. I have few clear memories of her. One is the day she left me. Another is when I was young, watching her in the lamplight of a winter night. It’s a silent memory, and one, like the others, I can’t quite trust. Memories shift like loose snow in a wind, or are a chorale of ghosts all talking over one another. There is only ever a sense that what is real to me is not real to others, and to share a memory with someone is to risk sullying my belief in what has truly happened. Is the Reverend the person of my memory, or is he another altogether? Did I do that, or was it another? Magnús or Jón? It’s the glaze of ice over the water, too fragile to trust.

  Did my mother look down at her baby daughter and think: ‘One day I will leave you’? Did she look at my scrunched face, hoping I would die, or did she silently urge me to stick to life like a burr? Perhaps she looked out to the valley, into the mist and stillness, and wondered what she could give me. A lie for a father. A head of dark hair. A hayrack to sleep in. A kiss. A stone, so that I might learn to understand the birds and never be lonely.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Poet-Rósa’s poem to Agnes Magnúsdóttir,

  June 1828

  Undrast þarftu ei, baugabrú

  þó beiskrar kennir þínu:

  Hefir burtu hrífsað þú

  helft af lífi mínu.

  Don’t be surprised by the sorrow in my eyes

  nor at the bitter pangs of pain that I feel:

  For you have stolen with your scheming

  he who gave my life meaning,

  and thrown your life to the Devil to deal.

  Agnes Magnúsdóttir’s reply to Rósa,

  June 1828

  Er mín klára ósk til þín,

  angurs tárum bundin:

  Ýfðu ei sárin sollin mín,

  solar báru hrundin.

  Sorg ei minnar sálar herð!

  Seka Drottin náðar,

  af því Jésus eitt fyrir verð

  okkur keypti báðar.