Catching the Current

by Jenny Pattrick

  The next day he helped carry peat from the far field, where it had been stacked to dry (Hans a little put out, I think, that my boy could carry twice his own load), and then the four men walked over the hill to the marks of land that had belonged to Magnus. A large area, as I knew well, having grown up there, with a big house, a little separate from the village, its own infield and two drying sheds.

  Hans knew about Otto’s gift — we all did — and had already laid plans for the future. On that land there was coal, which had been mined in the past, and Hans thought the mine could be opened up again. That night Enok, who had no great interest in farming — never had really, though we had forgotten that — entertained us all with crazy ideas for getting the coal out and down to the jetty. Some scheme of pulleys and ropes and brakes — I didn’t understand half of it. He had a clever mind, always leaping this way and that — hit and miss, hit and miss — until he settled on some theory, and then you couldn’t budge him off it. His stream of ideas annoyed my Hans, who has a slower way of thinking. Slow, but steady as a rock. Our boys — Hans’s and mine — are like him: good farmers, hard workers. They will make fine husbands. No wild stories in their heads to draw them away.

  Well, that good time didn’t last. Enok couldn’t settle; day by day he faded. I fed him good barley porridge and sheep’s cheese, but nothing seemed to bring him into himself. It was as if his own hearth-fire had burned too low and threatened to die. He would walk off to the valley, spade in hand, ready to dig peat, but could not point to a single sod cut by day’s end.

  ‘Wake up, man,’ my Hans would admonish him. ‘You have lost the way of working. Daylight is precious and given to us by the good Lord for labour.’

  Enok had begun to look right through you as if you were a ghost. He would shrug and say, ‘I was thinking,’ or, ‘I had an idea.’ Something like that.

  ‘Thinking won’t fill bellies,’ said Hans. He was never really angry with Enok but you could tell he found the boy’s dreaminess irritating.

  After about a week of this I found him — Enok — sitting outside the sheep-drying shed when he should have been inside hanging the new carcasses. He looked out to sea, south, past the island. For a good minute I watched him and he never noticed. Just let the rain soak him while he hummed some soft tune over and over, all the time fiddling with a piece of wood — not carving it, just turning it in his hands. Humming and fumbling his wood like Sørine’s boy on the other side of the valley, who is daft in the head and doesn’t know better. It frightened me to see him like that.

  I spoke quietly, not to startle him, ‘Come inside, Enok. We must have words.’

  He came like a lamb, smiling again. So beautiful, my boy. Taller even than his father and so like him. I wanted to hold him, to rub him dry, but of course he is a man now; it is not done. I feared for him, you see — feared that the darkness that had entered his father would take him too. It is not healthy to approach the dark months of the year with a mind that is also in shadow. It was February his father walked into the sea. So I spoke to him.

  ‘Any mother can see you are unsettled, son, and that is unsettling the whole house-full, so out with it.’

  Enok sat there like a big baby, put his head in his hands and groaned. ‘It is too complicated,’ he said. ‘I cannot sort it all out.’

  ‘Well talk then, you great oaf,’ I said, ‘and perhaps a wiser head can do the unravelling.’

  Enok cast his eyes this way and that, over to the hearth and down at the floor, still fiddling with his piece of wood. His hands were never still.

  ‘Is it a woman, then?’ I asked him, for we were getting nowhere.

  He looked me straight, then. ‘It is,’ he said, ‘and more than a woman. It is two women — or even three — and a death, and two babies, and three marks of land.’

  ‘Is this some kind of riddle?’ I was sharp with him. I am one for plain speech.

  ‘It is a riddle to me.’

  He sighed then, and tried to tell me his woes. It was a woman, all right. A name I couldn’t catch. Ana-something. She was half native, half Danish and some kind of slave, it seemed. Enok told me I would not approve and he was right. She lived in a simple native way but at least she did not eat human flesh, I was pleased to discover. He had heard that she had borne him twin boys, though he had never seen them.

  ‘I cannot get her out of my head,’ said my son. He seemed puzzled, though any natural man would think now and then of two sons he had never seen. ‘She is there all the time. Waiting. I promised I would go back.’

  ‘Well, that is one woman,’ I said, now we were getting to the nub. ‘I trust the other two are closer to home.’ I was hoping he would mention Clara Haraldsen, who would be a very good match, and words already spoken between Hans and her father.

  ‘Clara Haraldsen,’ he said, reading my mind, ‘is a sweet and lovely woman.’

  Enok smiled at me then, some of his cheekiness returning, I was relieved to see, and told me he thought Clara preferred him over others.

  ‘Over who?’

  ‘Over my cousin Otto Dahl, who says he is betrothed to her.’

  ‘What rubbish!’ said I. ‘I have not heard any announcement. In fact her father, Haraldsen, has spoken a favourable word in the ear of your stepfather just last week.’

  That Otto Dahl was always a slippery boy — and more slippery than I had imagined when we came to the third woman.

  ‘The third is whoever I must marry to hold the marks of land here on Su∂eroy. Otto has stipulated that my wife must be from here or the deal is off.’

  I had to close my mouth and think about that piece of news. Naturally, a good Su∂eroy girl would be easy to find — several suitable and no doubt willing candidates sprang to mind. But Enok had education and travel in his life, as did Clara. The two were better suited. Also, that young puppy Otto Dahl should not dictate to his elders on the matter of marriage.

  ‘Your stepfather will sort the matter out, count on it,’ I said to my poor mooning boy. ‘Otto Dahl does not enjoy the status of his grandfather. Hans Høgnesen is a senior priest and a landowner of importance. He has stood up to Dahls all his life and is not about to stop now.’

  In all this talk of marriage, which is naturally a topic of great interest, I forgot about the death in his riddle. Finally Enok told the tale, and a sorry one it was. How he had had some stupid notion of freeing his native sweetheart and how his ruse backfired, causing the death of Napoleon Haraldsen. And how I was the first he had told. And how his conscience troubled him that he had not owned up. By the time the tale was told, the big lump was in tears, as well he might be.

  ‘Enok of Su∂eroy,’ I said, ‘it is past time that you must stop all this dreaming and storytelling and settle to a man’s life. You were right, mind,’ I said quickly, ‘to keep the truth from the Haraldsens. It would do more harm than good and cause more pain. But it is good that your stupid act is off your chest and we will bury it together. Is that agreed?’

  He seemed to accept my words. Certainly the next days he whistled at his work and brought home good catches of fish. There was a keenness in his eye again and a strength in his step as he walked over the hills. Unburdening your heart to another will untie knots that seem impossibly tangled to a single pair of hands. I began to plan for a wedding. June, I thought, or even St Olaf’s, although that festival might hold memories too dark for Enok.

  As I expected, Hans thought nothing of Otto’s demands.

  ‘Sign the paper, lad,’ he said, ‘but put a line through the part about the marriage. We will see who carries more clout if it goes to the Løgting for settlement. If Haraldsen and I join forces we will not be beaten by a boy, even if he is a Dahl. After all, you also are a Dahl, and should inherit, whether your cousin says so or not.’

  On the matter of the kvæ∂i, Hans was less encouraging. Naturally. He knitted his brows at the news that Enok had learned the third section.

  ‘All the verses? From a book? How can you know it is righ
t if you haven’t learned from Finnur of Bor∂oy?’

  Enok sighed and said he had heard it all before from old Niclas Patursson.

  ‘Well, and isn’t he right? That great man.’

  Enok was never one to give in when words were involved. He said that the book was respected, that his version might be a little different but why not? That he had brought to his memorising the skills learned from the other two.

  My wise husband was very doubtful. He saw the pitfalls. ‘Are you ready to sing this section, lad?’ he asked in his serious, careful way. He pointed out that the earlier stories dealt with heroism and dragons, with treasure and battles. ‘That is your strength,’ he argued. ‘You are quite brilliant at reciting heroism. But the third tells of love and betrayal. Of subterfuge and death. This section is more subtle. I would not judge you old enough yet.’

  Enok argued all night but got nowhere. Until he mentioned that he had promised Clara that he would sing, and had asked her to arrange a house for the performance. To my mind, naturally that put a different flavour on the project. Before the kvæ∂i a betrothal would be announced. Afterwards a betrothal feast. Very suitable and proper.

  Later, when we were alone, I made my suggestion and Hans was swayed a little, I could see that. Haraldsen had no son now. A union between our families would be highly advantageous for both. In the end he suggested to Enok that he devised a táttur and sang that instead of the kvæ∂i. A satirical piece ridiculing Otto and the way he was unfairly undercutting other merchants, he suggested, would not go amiss. Make them laugh, he said, and you are halfway to destroying your rival.

  Enok received this clever suggestion strangely. I expected him to argue again but he nodded in a quiet, thoughtful way — unusual for Enok — and walked straight out of the house, up the priest’s path to the east. Everyone knows there are strange mist-folk up there among the cliffs. No man should walk there alone in winter. All that day until darkness set in I saw him on the skyline, pacing back and forth. That boy is so reckless! He knows the story as well as any, that if you walk between certain stones you will not live out the year or will grow suddenly old — wrinkled, white-haired and wasted in a matter of hours. But Enok was the kind who could not resist tempting fate. I would have sent Hanna up to drag him to his senses but the wool needed carding and fish cleaning and splitting for drying, not to mention food prepared for the evening meal, so I prayed to the good Lord and left the watching to Him. Enok came back the same age, at least. Do not laugh. These things happen.

  SO we had our Christmas in Sumba, a good family time with candles and roast sheep. My husband preached a fine sermon about the three wise men and how their wisdom came from careful study of ancient prophecy and how they recognised the truth of the new event — the birth of Jesus — because they were wise in the old ways. I fancy the homily was pointed in Enok’s direction, but we all took good advice from it.

  Hanna, who had been even quieter and slower than usual since Enok returned, surprised us all on Christmas Eve. There we all were, warm and full of good food and listening to Hans read the Bible. A good peat fire glowing on the hearth. Perhaps it was the beer loosened her tongue. We had all drunk a mug of beer, which is a treat Hans allows on Christian feast days. For the past three years he has forbidden strong drink in the house as a general rule, to set a good example to the village, where more than one family are known to drink themselves silly far more often than is proper.

  Well, after the Christmas hymn and a sea-song or two from Enok, Hanna suddenly asked her brother about going to New Zealand! Could a woman with no passage money and no husband go? she asked. That certainly brought a silence to the proceedings. Hanna — who could not settle to any husband for fear of leaving the family home; who would sit happily all day on her backside, growing fat while her mother toiled, if she were not prodded into action ten times a day. Naturally, I suspected the drink. Enok humoured her (as I thought then); said he thought there was a way. Some nonsense about a scheme to pay the passage of Danish girls who would marry Danish men-settlers and help to start up a Scandinavian colony there in that wild, savage country. Fool that I was, I laughed at the far-fetched idea and thought no more of it.

  So the day came, twelfth night, when we set out for Tórshavn — Hans and me, Enok and Hanna — to hear Enok sing and to arrange a wedding. The boys preferred to stay with Dorthe and her family and enjoy our own island’s festivities.

  The few hours of daylight were blessedly clear, both the wind and the current in our favour.

  ‘God is smiling on our endeavours,’ said my good husband, who loves to sail, even though he is a priest and of Danish stock. ‘We will easily make the harbour before nightfall.’

  Enok smiled too, the wind in his hair and his face always set to the horizon. He spoke little on the voyage.

  I do not like to remember the day of the performance but it must be told: it is part of his life. To me a good story is one you know already, from the Bible or from the Viking sagas, and if the ending is a sad one at least there are no surprises. That day of the twelfth night in Tórshavn took one strange twist after another until I didn’t know whether I faced north or south and I longed to be home before my own hearth, living the straight line of my peaceful life again.

  My husband said he had every reason to believe that the betrothal would be acceptable to all parties. Clara’s father was in favour, but being a modern man with education he left the final word to his daughter. And everyone said she had eyes only for Enok. I could not get a plain word out of Enok on the matter, however cunningly I worded my questions. He smiled and said wait until after the singing. But there was a secret in his eye, which I thought meant he and Clara had come to an agreement and were teasing their elders by drawing out the moment. So I began the day cheerful and busy helping with the food. The head teacher had offered the school, which was generous in size but to my mind not as cosy as a house would have been, but we did our best with a warm peat fire and oil-lamps against the dark day. Icy snow rattled at the windows and froze the pathway, but a good and cheerful crowd gathered.

  Enok would perform last. First there was poetry by this modern poetry club they have in Tórshavn. The good Lord spare us another. Let us get that Clara down to Su∂eroy quick, I thought, in front of her own hearth and with babies at her side. Clearly she has too much time on her hands. The men were no better. Not a good tale among them — no story, nothing to stir your blood. Don’t ask me what they were about, those poems: it was all a blur of high hopes and scenery in fancy words which they said were Faroese but which I would never use in a year of plain talk. Well, best forgotten quickly, like their newspaper, which has already gone out of print, they say. We are not ones for reading like the Danes and it is wasted time trying to force us against our custom. It is the same story as the plough.

  So we came to Enok. He stood at the front of the classroom, splendid in the scarlet waistcoat I had embroidered for his father and his coat with its silver buttons, silver at his knees too. He stood easy, the fingers of one hand tracing the treasured ring on the other, smiling at them all. The whole roomful, who had been fidgeting through the poetry, were suddenly silent. Old Niclas sat in the corner, leaning on his stick, frowning at our boy as if willing him to do well. He looked frail, poor old soul: the winter is hard for the old ones.

  So Enok signed for the circle to form and sang an introduction that was not like any kvæ∂i nor even a táttur — more like one of his sea-songs. The chorus he gave us was different too. Not right, somehow. Old Niclas tapped his stick on the floor as if calling the dancers to their senses, but up they jumped, eager to begin. I thought to myself, these young things with their poetry and their newspaper and their fine words about holding on to the old ways do not always know as much as they think they do. There were a few smiles from the elders.

  Hans and I let the young ones start; we would join the line later. I wanted to watch Clara, anyway. Otto took his place in the circle next to Clara, which did not please me
, but her sweet smile was for Enok, which did.

  Lend ear to the saga of Sjúr∂ur and his Brynhild,

  Of their ill-fated love in far-flung land,

  sang Enok, his voice strong and warm.

  New in its forming, nor sung e’er by man

  Now hear this sad tale, join heart and hand.

  Of course this was the next surprise. Who could tell whether that stubborn boy was singing a kvæ∂i or a táttur? Sjúr∂ur and Brynhild’s ill-fated love is at the core of the third Sjúr∂ur kvæ∂i, but a new tale sung by none before? That would be a táttur. Old Niclas’s head was wagging back and forth in disapproval but Enok was away and you had to listen.

  The story started well enough, in the old style. A saga, no doubt of it. I have heard Finnur of Bor∂oy sing it once when I was a child and Enok captured the style wonderfully, from what I remember. No doubt Niclas Patursson would disagree. So we had Sjúr∂ur journeying far, in search of adventure, forgetting his love for Brynhild. And we had those wicked Nibelungs plotting with their wile and guile to kill that hero. All in the room were well into the swing, the circle of dancers grown until it broke and began to snake around the room.