The Prophets of Eternal Fjord (26 page)

To his left sits the smith, in conversation with the colony's cook, who is sat opposite him. Bertel grasps little of what they say, though under­stands that it has to do with varieties of aquavit.

My old man was a drunk, the cook says. Færch, his name was, but they called him Jøns.

We have been talking about the drift towards religious revolt, Madame Kragstedt says to Falck. Rumour has it that a whole flock of christened natives have abandoned the true faith and given themselves up to idolatry. Does the Magister know about it?

If it is so, they must either be brought back into the fold or ex­communicated, Falck says. But no, he has heard nothing of any such drift.

He drank himself to death, says the cook. It was the best day of my dear mother's life, God rest her soul. But before he went he managed to get the stable girl up the spout, and when the boy came out she called him Jøns.

Perhaps the good Bertel Jensen might know? says Madame Kragstedt.

At once all eyes are upon him. He swallows a mouthful of cabbage and peas and washes it down with a gulp of water.

Any man partial to the aquavit will always share with others, no matter how little he's got, the cook drawls, only to be shushed.

I know, it's funny, isn't it? replies the smith, who likewise has failed to notice that all attention has turned to the catechist.

Well, says Bertel with hesitation. They say there's a man and his wife – their names are Habakuk and Maria Magdalene – who claim to receive visions and messages directly from Christ. Captain Valløe clicks his tongue. Little more than a handful of wayward natives, I shouldn't wonder. I'm sure it's of little consequence. I've heard say they're attracting followers, says the Trader. It's not healthy for the Trade if too many people lump themselves together in one place, especially if it's far from the colony.

There can't be that many of them, surely? Falck looks at Bertel.

I wouldn't know, he says, and bows his head over his plate.
Naluara
.

Won't it affect the hunting if too many people gather in one place? Valløe asks.

That's what I mean, Kragstedt replies. They say they go off along the coast and steal wreckage. That's enough on its own to warrant chains and the whipping post.

Perhaps it's down to hard times, suggests the Overseer, who has not spoken until now. He is seated to the Trader's right. Every year when we journey out we find settlements with everyone dead to the last man.

How dreadful! Valløe exclaims. Christian people?

No, heathens mostly. The Trade looks after the Christian Green ­landers in times of shortage. It's said the way of the Danish crown in the colonies is exemplary. We make sure people are taken care of. A lot of other nations could learn from us. The English especially are known for hard-handedness in their overseas dependencies. We needn't look any further than the table here. The Overseer nods in the direction of Bertel. In this country we invite them in and let them dine with us.

Laughter ripples around the table. Bertel chews on a piece of meat and wonders how he might make his excuses and beat a retreat as quickly as possible.

They should certainly consider themselves lucky that the Dutch or the English do not rule the country, says Madame Kragstedt.

So very true, my dear, says the Trader. That would be a different kettle of fish entirely, none of your laissez-faire.

One of the seamen from
Der Frühling
addresses Bertel. He enquires as to where he might buy hide or some whalebone.

I didn't hear that, says the Overseer, wagging an index finger at the man. You know perfectly well that all trade with the natives is forbidden.

And yet they leave the Mission and the colony, says Valløe, returning to the subject from before. How does the Trader explain that?

The religious urge often defies common sense, the Trader replies. That's the way it is, unfortunately, even with the savages.

I have some good skins from the winter, says Bertel. Thirty good fox skins. You can buy them off me, if the Trader will permit.

My older brother was a great big hulk of a fellow, says the smith, drawing the cork from the bottle and pouring himself a glass, before passing it across the table to the cook. He never bloody put up with anything.

But they're afraid of the whipping post. That, they are, says the Overseer with a chuckle. No matter that it's hardly used.

Mr Kragstedt, says the seaman. Would the Trader make an exception and allow me to purchase these skins?

Well, says Kragstedt. All right, I shall let it pass.

And how much would he then sell these skins for? the seaman asks.

They cost five marks each, says Bertel.

So then what do you think he did to my old man? says the smith.

He is shushed once more, though seemingly he fails to be aware of it.

There's not been any problems here since we put up the whipping post last year, Dahl continues.

Five marks, says the seaman with a smile. That would be too much.

It's the going rate, says Bertel. I can't undercut the Trade.

Well, I'll tell you, the smith slurs. He gave him a good hiding. Not long after, he kicked the bucket.

Mine was a brutal bastard and all, says the cook. He beat us with his belt buckle, he did, the bloody swine.

The smith and the cook descend into raucous laughter. The bottle passes between them.

Do be quiet, says Madame Kragstedt. The smith pulls a face and the cook cackles.

The going rate is the going rate, I can see that.

Bertel is sweating. His tongue rotates the tough meat inside his mouth.

You could send a boat up, Valløe suggests. Talk some sense into them. If they won't listen, then bring this Habakuk back here. I'm sure your inspector would sign and post-date an arrest order if we turned up with the sinner in chains.

That may yet be the outcome, says Kragstedt. But as you say, it would require an arrest order from our honourable inspector in Godthåb, and he would need an order from Copenhagen. It would be a very lengthy process.

But if the Trader permits, says Bertel, you can have the lot for ten rigsdalers.

That's a good deal, says Kragstedt to the seaman. You'll save a whole mark per skin.

I had the pleasure of speaking to Inspector Rømer, says Falck.

Hm, says Kragstedt. A pleasant and charming man, would the Magister agree?

Good, says the seaman. I'll buy his skins.

Indeed, says Falck. I mentioned him in a letter to my patrons.

That won't help you any. The man has taken root like lichen on Greenland's rock.

As for these visionaries, says Falck, do you not consider, Bertel, my friend, that it would be best to proceed with caution?

What does the Magister mean by that? the Overseer interrupts across the table.

I would consider it appropriate, says Falck, that I – in my capacity as missionary of this colony – should assume responsibility for the salvation and discipline of these stray sheep, and journey to their place of settle­ment, wherever it may be.

Igdlut, says Bertel. Their settlement, inside the ford.

What ford?

The one the Danes call Eternal Fjord.

And the leader of these people, says Kragstedt, his name is Habakuk?

And his woman is Maria Magdalene, says the Overseer. They call themselves prophets by the mercy of God.

I will travel there, Falck determines. I will speak to them. I'm certain they will listen to me. The Word of the Lord is compelling when prop­erly imparted.

The Magister would do well to take care, says the Overseer. They may be armed with flintlocks and ammunition purchased from the English. And the natives are excellent shots.

The Lord will be with us, says Falck. I am not afraid.

Then good luck, says Kragstedt. I'll make sure you get what equip­ment you need, Magister. Such an expedition requires nothing in writing from His Excellency, so you'll have no problem there.

Prophets, Madame Kragstedt muses. How magnificent it sounds. The prophets of Eternal Fjord. Bertel sees that she takes Falck's hand and holds it tight, as though in a vice.

Now, about those skins, the Trader says to the seaman. I'm afraid I shall have to cancel that transaction.

Cancel? says the seaman.

A soup bowl is no inexpensive item, says Kragstedt. That was good French porcelain, that was. Been in my wife's family for three genera­tions.

The Madame places a hand upon his arm, only for Kragstedt to brush it away unkindly. He gives Bertel a wry smile and leans forward. Thirty fox skins is fair compensation for such a fine bowl. It's in your favour, and you've even had a meal into the bargain.

Captain Valløe roars with laughter. He shakes his head vigorously and holds up his hands in deference. Kragstedt, you old shyster! I wouldn't want to trade with you, that's for sure.

But the skins are mine, says Bertel, and almost chokes on the indi­gestible lump of meat he endeavours to swallow. He glances around the table, appealing for support, and his eyes meet the pastor's own. But Falck smiles fleetingly and looks away.

It's not fair, says the seaman, and Bertel thinks he will come to his aid. I made a deal in all honesty and in the presence of witnesses: the skins are as good as mine!

Yes, but now that they have been transferred, you must bargain with me, says Kragstedt, and the price is still ten rigsdalers.

A good deal, says the Overseer and laughs. Several of the other men join in. A toast to our Trader!

Bertel fetches the skins the next day and delivers them to the ware­house. The Overseer receives them, examines their quality one by one, indicates an occasional flaw and writes out a receipt. Bertel stands with his cap clenched in his hand and accepts the worthless piece of paper in return.

The Third Commandment

A Wrought-iron Gate (1788)

The Third Commandment, as it is most plainly to be taught by a father to his family:

‘Thou shalt sanctify the Sabbath day.'

What does this imply?

Answer: That we should fear and love God, so that that we may not despise the preaching of the Gospel and His word; but to keep it holy; willingly to hear and learn it.

Some two years following her arrival in the country, Haldora Kragstedt decides she will have a vegetable garden. She has made mention of it to her husband before, only for him to laugh incredulously.

A vegetable garden? Why not a wheat field or an apple orchard?

Glancing up at her, he thought better of his facetiousness. My dear, a vegetable garden? Come, let me show you something.

He took her outside, made her wait in front of the house and fetched a spade from the warehouse. He handed it to her.

What am I to do with it?

Dig a hole, said Kragstedt. For your vegetable garden. He laughed. Don't look so glum. Let me.

He lifted the spade and thrust it down into the ground. A metallic clatter sounded out, whereupon he stepped up on to the edge of the blade and pressed it down with the full weight of his body. It sank a couple of inches. Then he angled it upward, wrenched away a small edge of peat and thrust the spade into the ground once more. The same occurred.

You see? he said, stepping back.

Stones, she said.

No, not stones.
Stone
. The bedrock of Greenland. How will you bring forth a vegetable garden in a land in which one can hardly bury a body?

The wilderness should be cultivated, she said. Isn't that what we are doing here?

We?

We, the white people. Is that not the purpose of all this? She nodded her head in the direction of the warehouses.

Not even white people have solved the problem of cultivating rock.

Then we must order some good Danish soil, said the Madame.

Have you lost your senses? her husband spluttered.

Not yet. But you must remember, dear husband, that I am a woman. It is my task to make things germinate and grow. She passed a hand across her abdomen and said in that gentle and instructional tone that always made him feel so ridden with guilt: As long as I have no child to care for I must find pastimes, or else I fear I shall indeed lose my senses.

And now, but two years after this exchange, she still has no child to care for. But the soil is there, having sailed with the good ship
Der Frühling
, along with some bags of assorted seed. As soon as the frost leaves the ground, she has the good-hearted cooper dig up some score cubic ells of peat and fill the hole with the soil. Afterwards she stands beside him at the edge of the black rectangle. Her heart races in her breast with excitement. The cooper, too, is touched by the moment.

We have moved a piece of the homeland to this place, he says.

Indeed, she echoes. We should put up a flagpole.

I'll ask the carpenter to make one, says the cooper. We shall raise the flag and sing songs.

And see the cabbage sprout, says Madame Kragstedt.

Pastor Falck approaches. Well, I never, he says and is clearly impressed. He fetches his Bible and holy water and blesses the vegetable patch. Madame must make sure to fence it in properly, says Falck, so that my cow does not trample her plants.

She and the pastor sow the seeds: turnip, beet, celery, carrot, garden cabbage and kohlrabi. They water the ground and remain standing and look upon it in reverence. Madame Kragstedt enjoys the sensation of sticky soil between her fingers and the natural fatigue that has settled in her muscles.

The next day she has the carpenter make an enclosure of fencing. By evening it is done. Will the Madame want it painted?

Yes, the Madame will want it painted.

The carpenter bows. He promises to begin the flagpole as soon as possible.

I haven't felt as happy in years, she confides to the pastor, who is now seated in her parlour.

You have found your calling, he says and smiles.

We had a vegetable garden at home in Køge. I suppose that's why such feelings arise in me now. The muscles of her jaw tense; she is about to cry. But instead of holding back the tears, she releases them. The pastor can surely endure some snivelling. She feels her cheeks warmed by the moisture. She laughs and dries her eyes with a handkerchief.

The pastor remains seated and studies her. He waggles his foot and sips at his glass. The Madame yearns for home, he says.

What it needs now, she says, is a gate.

A gate? For the vegetable patch?

At home in the apothecary garden there was a wrought-iron gate that made an entrance to the vegetable patch. Do you think the smith will make me one, Magister?

I suppose it is his job, says Falck.

A wrought-iron gate? says Niels Hammer, the smith. What would the lady want with such a thing?

To open and close, she says. When going in and out.

Indeed, I am familiar with what a wrought-iron gate is used for, says the smith. But why not an ordinary wooden gate? Iron isn't exactly in abundance in this place.

She has made a detailed drawing of it, together with Pastor Falck: a stylized vine wreathed around her family crest and motto.

The smith studies the drawing and snorts.

I'm aware it is a complicated pattern, says Haldora. Do you think it exceeds your abilities, Mr Hammer?

The smith snorts again. Presently, however, he begins work on the gate, all the while muttering about how meaningless it is to waste iron of prime Norwegian quality on a gate leading in and out of nothing in the middle of a wilderness.

We are civilizing the wilderness, she instructs him.

All well and good, but I fear we shall need more than soil and a gate.

She comes to the workshop every day to see how the work is progressing. She sits on a chopping block and watches the smith as he stands, bare-chested, clad only in his apron hide, pounding at the iron, making the sparks and slags fly. Curious, she asks him about the things he makes, and he explains to her, hesitantly, about barrel hoops, rivets, lugs and hinges, pots and pans to be hammered out, guns to be mended, bullets to be cast, the many iron parts of the blubber boiler to be repaired; among them, he says, fixing her with a malicious gaze, the heavy chain in which the unfortunate Magister Krogh hanged himself. And as if that were not enough, I'm now making a wrought-iron gate for the Madame, so that she may go in and out of the wilderness and close the door behind her.

Haldora laughs. The smith does not. He swings his hammer. A shiver runs down her spine as she thinks about the fact that he is also the colony's executioner, he who punishes the mutinous with the cane or pinches them with glowing tongs, in the worst cases chopping off their limbs or even releasing their souls from their bodies. Not that she has seen him in that function yet. Her husband, the colony manager, is a patient commandant who prefers to resolve conflict amicably.

The smith endeavours to negotiate with her to simplify the pattern of the gate, but with a smile she insists it be made exactly as indicated. She sees immediately whenever he tries to cut corners and is upon him with a wagging finger and admonitions issued in a tone of sarcasm that clearly annoys the smith excessively, much to her delight. She enjoys being in the workshop, taking in the foul smell of iron as it is made malleable in the furnace, to be twisted and shaped like caramel; the sizzle and hiss of the water when the iron is hardened; the fire; the flickering shadows; , the body of the smith bent over the glowing metal.

What do these letters mean in the middle? the smith would like to know.

Semper felix
, she says. It's Latin and means always happy.

I see, says the smith. And all the letters are to be in place, even though none but the lady understands them?

All of them, Mr Hammer.

The man and the hammer, the iron and the fire. The rush of heat whenever the door of the furnace is opened is almost unbearable, yet she does not turn her face away from it. Her eyes seem almost to draw in the fire and something inside her that needs to be scorched is set alight. She is aware of the impropriety of her being here so often. And yet it is hard to distract oneself from it and she must keep an eye on the work of the unwilling smith. Mr Kragstedt, her husband, is away most of the time in the summer months. As far as she knows, he is presently at Holsteinsborg, the wealthy neighbour colony to the north. He harbours dreams of founding a similar guild of whale hunters in the Sukkertop district, for then they would soon be prosperous indeed, he says. It is a matter to which he is highly devoted. She wonders what he will say when he returns home and sees her vegetable garden. She looks forward to showing it to him and hopes the gate will be finished and that some of the seeds will have begun to sprout when such time comes. It would seem to be feasible. It is well known that the ancient Nordics, besides keeping animals, cultivated cereals and vegetables further south in the country, albeit well inside the sheltered fords, though they were never in posses­sion of genuine Danish soil.

Morten Falck is also gone away. The only person with whom she feels able to converse, and then only barely meaningfully, is the cooper, Carl Dorph. But he is of strong faith and wont to spout nauseating pieties and complaints that he has not yet received licence to marry the native woman with whom he shares his bed and who is mother to his child. She tells him she will put his case when her husband returns home; perhaps there is something he can do. Then she goes down to the workshop and seats herself. The smith stands, working the bellows. He scowls. The muscles in his back tense beneath the sheen of sweat that glistens like oil upon his skin.

She withdraws. She goes up to the vegetable garden that has yet to show sign of life. Then she walks back to the colony house and sits at the window, reading one of the novels Falck has lent her from his book collection. She finds her writing implements and notes down some matters to remind herself that she is to discuss them with the pastor on his return. He has become a good friend and she considers that he must be somewhat in love with her. She can tell from his eyes when she opens the door for him and he enters her parlour. Sooner or later, most likely this coming winter, they will end up kissing each other and inflicting upon each other a slight harm. She often finds amusement in imagining how it will happen and what will be said. She will pour him aquavit and it will loosen his inhibitions. Swiftly, rather desperately, he will draw her towards him and kiss her. Thus! She will push him away, admonish him. He will be ridden with guilt. They will act out their roles. And then she will lend him her lips again. His hand will brush against her breast and she will take it and press it to her bosom. The hand will cup, it will clench and squeeze, and tingling pleasure will radiate from within, downwards, upwards, inwards into the very core of the obscure seat of woman's desire. But the pastor understands and relieves her of her shame.

No more fantasies now! She returns to her novel. After a time, her new maid arrives. She is at some loss as to what use to make of the girl in the middle of the day, apart from the fact that she usually reads a little of the catechism for her. It was Kragstedt's decision to take her on as a sort of chambermaid alongside Sofie, who is their regular help, or perhaps rather as a kind of pet whose purpose it is to keep her company while he is away. She has not yet become entirely used to her. Today she amuses herself by reading aloud to her from her novel. The girl sits, nonplussed, wearing an inward-looking expression, and clearly does not understand a word. Afterwards, she asks her to help her loosen her corset and undress, whereafter she retires to bed and sends the girl away. She reminds herself that tomorrow she must remember to ask her name and whether she has any family. Falck recommended her. She launders for him and cleans in the Mission house, a job that is quickly done, and the rest of the time she is at the Madame's disposal in the colony house, though she must not clean or launder and thereby encroach upon Sofie's domain, and Sofie plainly dislikes her. Servants, she thinks to herself. They are no easier to manage here than they were back home in the apothecary's residence in Køge.

The next day is Sunday and the smith has rested his hammer in obser­vance of the holy day, or rather to avoid being fined, so that particular pleasure is denied her today. The chambermaid comes and helps her dress. As the hours pass, she sits and reads, goes for short walks, considers the peat dwellings of the natives that are left empty for the summer. She hears the screaming of gulls and watches as they fly against the wind, suspend themselves in the air, then release to dip down and sweep over the waves in full control, before ascending in a single extended arc to hang suspended once more. If one were a seagull, she thinks, one would be free.

When she returns to the colony, she sees the smith standing talking to the pastor's cow, which is called Roselil.

I see you have found a sweetheart, she says teasingly.

The smith turns slowly to face her, but says nothing in reply. She notices the empty bottle in his hand and feels a stab of unease.

Later, when she is down by the vegetable garden, studying the black earth that still is devoid of shoots, the smith appears again. In the corner of her eye she sees him walk up and knock on the door of the Overseer's house. He holds the same empty bottle in his hand. Overseer Dahl comes to the door. The smith has pulled his hat from his head and stands with it clasped in his hands.

What does he want? Haldora hears the Overseer enquire.

The smith holds up the bottle.

No, I cannot and will not give him aquavit today, Hammer. How many times do I have to tell him?

The Overseer did not give the full half-pint yesterday, says the smith, his voice meagre and pathetic.

Then why did he not come and complain straight away? It would be most unlike him to let such injustice pass without comment.