The Greenlanders

by Jane Smiley

  Einar, too, had an unattractive feature which Birgitta saw that others did not see as she did, and this was a habitual squint from reading and writing. Even Gunnhild had not really seen this thing, but a girl does not see with the clarity of a wife, Birgitta well knew. When she herself had been betrothed and then married to Gunnar, she had been aware mostly of Gunnar’s clothes, and the gifts he gave her, and the gifts her father gave her, and her own clothes, and the weight of the sheep against her in the boat as they rowed to Vatna Hverfi, and then again the odd sense of sleeping in a different bedcloset from the one she was used to and the figure next to her that was Margret and not the Lavrans Stead dairy maid, whom she had slept with for some years before moving to Gunnars Stead.

  And for a while she had been filled with hatred for all these folk and their ways, and had longed only for visits from her father, but when the first of these came, Lavrans had told her in hard terms, it seemed to her, that it was necessary and proper for a woman to sleep in bed with her husband, and he had chastised her and then himself, and had been very ashamed of the arrangements that had been made at Gunnars Stead. And Birgitta had learned that this thing that they had done after the marriage, fumbling and painful, was not something folk did once, but often, except that it got less painful and somewhat less fumbling. At the beginning she had been pleased with the relief that being with child gave her, and then she had been indifferent, and then between Maria and Johanna, it had seemed a pleasant thing, though rare enough with Astrid and Maria sleeping in the bedcloset between herself and Gunnar.

  But it was well known that the years it took to settle into a new family and to learn to tolerate the husband and his ways and his say over everything could not be few, and so it was also well known that a girl should begin early, before her own habits were formed. It was not a secret to Birgitta that there had been much gossip in Vatna Hverfi district about Margret Asgeirsdottir, and folk had said more than once that by the time of her late marriage she was much accustomed to having her own way, and so when Skuli Gudmundsson presented himself, she had her own way in that, and after his death, she ordered things so that she continued to have her own way, in spite of her sin. Though Birgitta had not taken part in this gossip, she largely agreed with it, and deplored the way Margret had behaved. In addition to this, it was clear that Olaf would now be a different sort, less cross-grained with everyone, had Margret not fallen into such unrestrained habits. These things, however, were not such as Birgitta could speak of to Gunnhild, for they were beyond the understanding of a child.

  As for Gunnhild, when Birgitta left the steading, she continued to watch over Johanna, and tried to entice her away from the bedcloset and across the room, which was not very big, with smiles and encouragement. Some time later it happened that Kollgrim came into the steading, and whereas Johanna had carefully ignored Gunnhild’s entreaties, she turned as soon as she saw the boy and toddled straight to him, a matter of some four steps. And when he picked the child up and gave her into the arms of Gunnhild, then left the steading again, Johanna began to cry after him, and this led Gunnhild herself to weep.

  Some days later, Gunnar accompanied Gunnhild to Thjodhilds Stead. They rowed across Hvalsey Fjord to the farm of Orm Guttormsson, who lived in a valley on a neck of land between Hvalsey Fjord and Kambstead Fjord. After refreshing themselves and hearing Orm’s news, they walked through the valley to Kambstead Fjord, then along the side of the fjord, and through another valley to Thjodhilds Stead, where Einar, Bjorn, Solveig, the new baby, and some men and servants were awaiting them. This was a journey of about half a day. Solveig offered them further refreshment, including excellent goat cheese, such as Asgeir had been fond of, and sourmilk with honey and berries. After this, Gunnar was put in a good humor, and he began to speak with Einar about his manuscripts and writings. Solveig took Gunnhild away and showed her her sleeping closet and her chest and acquainted her with the other folk about the farmstead. The fields had a northerly slope, and there was much ice to be seen in the fjord.

  Einar and Gunnar sat at a bench in one of the rooms of the steading and Einar took down some of the writings he had most recently completed. They were about the districts of Greenland. Gunnar read slowly aloud as follows:

  “Of these many Greenland districts, one of the largest and most populous is Vatna Hverfi district, which contains some twenty farms in the north part of the district and some fifteen farms in the south part of the district, and these farms are set rather close together, by the standards of Iceland, but the land of this district is so rich and the lakes so numerous that all the farms make a good enough living. This district has but one church, called Undir Hofdi, and this is not one of the larger churches of Greenland, for it was built many years ago and has not been rebuilt or expanded as others have. The folk of this district keep many cows and horses, as well as sheep. Some of the wealthier farmers of this district are Thorkel Gellison, Erlend Ketilsson, and Magnus Arnason.”

  Now Gunnar stopped reading and asked Einar if he had written in this way about every district, and Einar said that he had. “But,” said Gunnar, “Erlend has died in the past winter, and you have said nothing of it.” But Einar smiled and said that he was little interested in such tales, about men no one knew. When he came back to Iceland, this is what folk would wish to know, about the size of the farms and the life folk made on them. Now Gunnar sat silently for a while. Then he said, “Formerly, when the bishop was alive, boys at Gardar made parchment and learned to write upon it, but now I fear that only Sira Audun has this skill.”

  “It may be so. Gardar does not seem to me to be a thriving place under the direction of the priest Jon. But it may be that the new bishop will appear soon.”

  “It may be, indeed.” And Gunnar fingered a bit of the parchment. “I have heard that the making of parchment is a difficult thing, asking much skill.”

  “Most men have such skills. They are a farmer’s skills.” He lifted up a roll and put it down. “Forming the letters, this is the skill of a priest. Forming the ideas is a rarer thing.”

  “For now, some would be content to make the parchment.”

  “It is easily taught.”

  And in this way Gunnar was kept from his evening meat, for he passed so much time at Thjodhilds Stead watching Einar stretch a sheepskin by laces onto a frame he had carried with him from Iceland, and then shave it with a handsome rounded knife that he did not return to Lavrans Stead until all the people there had gone to their bedclosets. After this, he got into the habit of going off to Thjodhilds Stead whenever he could borrow time from the summer’s tasks. Gunnhild seemed to him well enough employed. Whenever he saw her, she was going from the dairy to the steading or the storehouse to the dairy, or she was sitting with the baby and the two skraeling children who nursed him, or she was spinning and talking with Solveig about this or that. She knew better than to make much of his visits or to ask to accompany him back to Lavrans Stead, even for a few nights. And so the summer passed quietly, and there were no killings or other disturbances in the district and Bjorn Einarsson stayed home for the most part after the end of the Thing.

  And the winter, too, passed quietly, except that Gunnar was engaged in stretching his own sheepskins over a frame he had made of whale bone, and shaving them with a curved knife sharpened from the shoulder blade of a reindeer, and Gunnhild, who returned at the end of the summer nights, helped him with this work. These tools worked surprisingly well, so that his parchments were smooth and pale and took the merest stroke of bearberry ink, and after Yule he began to write upon them in a large and awkward hand, and the first thing he wrote was as follows:

  “A man named Erlend Ketilsson lived at Ketils Stead in Vatna Hverfi district, in much conflict with his neighbors. All considered him an ill-tempered and quarrelsome fellow. He was a very prosperous farmer, with a large steading and many outbuildings. Through his entire life he fornicated with a servant woman named Vigdis, and when she grew old, he chose another to fornicate with. As a resul
t of his sin, he and his servant and the child of his servant and two others starved to death at a certain Yule season and were partly eaten by their dogs.”

  Gunnar was much dissatisfied with this writing and scraped it off the parchment. As for Gunnhild, she was much dissatisfied with everything about Lavrans Stead, and complained without ceasing of how cramped the rooms were, and how humble all the household arrangements. Tales of Solveig and the baby and Bjorn were always on her lips, so that Helga and Kollgrim tormented her with mockery of the way Solveig blinked and talked and took turns breaking into each other’s conversation with corrections and other remarks, as was Einar’s habit. Even Johanna was unpleasing to Gunnhild, for she greeted her oldest sister as a stranger after so much time, and clung to Astrid, who was a very playful nurse, and fond of games and silliness.

  It happened that a few days before Yule there was a great battle among the three older children, in which all ended up weeping, and it was clear to Birgitta that although Helga and especially Kollgrim were excessively teasing toward Gunnhild, she had brought this upon herself by condemning their ways and their clothes and everything about them for the previous two days, and doing her best to make them seem mean and unworthy in their own eyes. Now when they had all been sent to separate bedclosets, Gunnar came to Birgitta in great anger and complained of the uproar, and of Gunnhild especially. Birgitta took a deep breath, and glanced about the room, at her father sleeping by the fire, and the smoky lights cast by the lamps against the turfing of the walls, and at such cloths and tapestries as they had put up to help keep out the wind. A few stools were stacked in the corner and the floor was a heap of moss and much else that didn’t bear looking into, and she saw these things, it seemed to her, with Solveig’s eyes, and Gunnhild’s, and she sighed. Then she turned to Gunnar and declared that as a child of but fifteen years, Gunnhild could not be asked to keep two things in her mind at once, namely the Thjodhilds Stead way and the Lavrans Stead way. And since one had to make way for the other, it was necessary that the old go out and the new come in. The result of this was that on the feast of St. Stephen, Gunnhild and Gunnar went on skis across the fjord and over the hills to Thjodhilds Stead, and Gunnhild stayed there, as a maiden, and came home no more. And this was also the case, that in the disorder of departure, she never once looked over her shoulder, nor did she see her brother and sisters and mother waving after her, but she only went forward, looking for her new home, and this came to Birgitta as an unaccountable grief, no matter how she prayed and told herself that this was the pain of bearing daughters, and folk must always accustom themselves to it. At midsummer, Bjorn Einarsson declared that he was becoming intolerably restless, and had made up his mind to return to Iceland and Norway. And, as his decision was so sudden, there was no time for Gunnhild’s wedding feast, but Solveig promised that she should have a brilliant one in Iceland.

  And one thing that happened after Bjorn Einarsson, Einar, Solveig, the baby, Gunnhild, and the others left in their four neat ships was that the farmer Orm Guttormsson agreed to take some of Bjorn’s ewes and lambs in trade for a number of sheepskins equal to the number of ewes, but it happened that his seal nets became fouled together, and he was unable to make the trip to Thjodhilds Stead until the day after Bjorn’s departure. When he got there, he expected to find the sheep folded, and he did, but before taking them home, he made up his mind to look about the steading and see if anything else had been left behind that might be useful, for Bjorn and his family had a great quantity of belongings. And he did find something, a nicely carved lamp, of small size, good for lighting, though not for heat. And he also found something else, the corpuses of the two skraeling children who had nursed Solveig’s baby. It seemed to Orm that they had climbed an outcropping overlooking Thjodhilds inlet, and pitched themselves into the fjord. The boy’s corpus floated in the shallows, catching on the strand, and the girl’s was caught by the headdress on some rocks. Orm did not quite know what to do with these corpuses, and so he fished them from the sea and put them in the cowbyre, then a day or so later, he came to Sira Pall Hallvardsson and told of his discovery. These children had been baptized with the names of Josef and Maria, and so Sira Pall Hallvardsson went with Orm and Gunnar and another man and found the corpuses. There was some talk about whether these two children should be buried at the church or not, for it was the law among the Greenlanders that this was prohibited if they had done away with themselves. And so the men spent the greater part of a day walking back and forth around the steading, and looking at the places Orm had found them, and hearing Orm tell his tale over and over.

  “Perhaps,” Gunnar said, “these children merely ran into the water, and were seized by the cold,” for Kambstead Fjord was close to freezing at all times of the year. But no, it was apparent that their bodies were broken from falling, as Orm had said.

  “Perhaps,” said Hakon, the fourth man, “they merely climbed upon the rock to get a last look at the ships as they sailed away.” And it did seem possible that they might have clutched at each other and in this way pulled each other down, but when Sira Pall Hallvardsson climbed the rock, he saw that the ascent was so easy and full of holds and places to stand that no man could simply slip down into the water.

  Now Orm said, “Only I have seen them, and only we have spoken of this. When folk ask, we can tell them that they fell from the rock.” But Sira Pall Hallvardsson looked gloomy, and he shook his head, for indeed, the eye of God sees all, including acts of false mercy. And so these skraeling children, Maria and Josef, were buried a bow shot beyond the homefield wall of Thjodhilds Stead, in sight of the fjord, among some rocks and away from the watercourse that ran down to the steading. Sira Pall Hallvardsson spoke over them, and all of the men were rendered oddly despondent.

  Walking back to Orm Guttormsson’s farm, Sira Pall Hallvardsson and Gunnar fell to talking of Gunnhild. “Never in Greenland,” said Pall Hallvardsson, “can there have been many maidens such as Gunnhild, so fair as to take a man’s breath, and yet withal as modest as an alpine blossom and as skillful at her tasks as a maiden twice her age.”

  Gunnar smiled a little, thinking of Gunnhild’s quarrels with Helga and Kollgrim, but said only, “Birgitta Lavransdottir has taken her going much to heart, for indeed, we packed her things up and gave to her sisters what she did not need as if she were going to the grave. We must not hide from ourselves the knowledge that we are likely never to see her again.”

  “It may be that Bjorn will return, or Einar.”

  “Folk say that.”

  “Bjorn himself said it. Perhaps he will go to Norway and gain the ear of the king and queen. They would surely let him come back, for it is not every revenue officer and ombudsman who wishes to come here.” And the two men smiled at the memory of Kollbein Sigurdsson.

  “Perhaps,” said Gunnar, “but Bjorn himself told me that it is common knowledge among sailing folk that the seas get more treacherous every year. He said that twenty ships used to leave Bergen for Iceland each summer, but now Bergen is much shrunk, and those who send the ships, as folk have said before, are uninterested in Iceland or Greenland, for they are Germans, not Norsemen.”

  “It is true that Germans care little for the sea, though they care greatly for trade.”

  “Perhaps folk will see what Bjorn carries back from Greenland and long to have it themselves. That has happened before.”

  “Perhaps,” said Sira Pall Hallvardsson, “Bjorn will long to have more.”

  Now Gunnar cast him a glance. “Did you not see in the last half year of Bjorn’s stay that look of a man who has eaten his fill? Who turns from the table half-disgusted at the dishes still remaining? Birgitta Lavransdottir says that Bjorn is a man with a great appetite for new things, not so much for accustomed things.” He sighed. “Nay, it is best for those such as ourselves, who send our children after what we once wished to have, to make up our minds to give these children up.” Now he spoke in a lower voice. “And even if Bjorn or Einar did return, it is the
lives of married women that are the most slippery.”

  “Then,” said Sira Pall Hallvardsson, “we must satisfy ourselves with the knowledge of our heavenly meeting.”

  “We must, indeed. But it seems to me that this thing is hard for a father to do, and for one reason, that much of what draws me to them is the manner in which the passing days flit across them, so that they are themselves and yet not the same as they were. When we put off our flesh and appear in the raiment of our eternal souls, perhaps we shall long for this earthly quality.”

  “It is promised that we shall long for nothing.” And Sira Pall Hallvardsson spoke with such longing that Gunnar glanced at him sharply, and when he came home he declared to Birgitta that Sira Pall Hallvardsson was in love with Gunnhild. But Birgitta was more interested to hear of the skraeling children, and she pondered what Gunnar told her of them for a long time, and then, as they were getting under the old bearskin in their bedcloset, she said, “It seems to me that even such grief as theirs was hardly great enough for this event, and I am frightened.” But Gunnar did not know how to answer this remark, and said nothing.

  After the departure of Bjorn Einarsson Jorsalfari, it fell to Osmund Thordarson to take up his position as lawspeaker again, and he did this with the help of his nephew Isleif. On the one hand, folk didn’t care for this unorthodox procedure, but on the other, it was easy to see that Osmund was on his last legs and ready for death, and there was no other farmer of the Brattahlid district who wished to take up the position of lawspeaker. Fridjon, the son of Gizur, the former lawspeaker, had never learned the laws, and was too old to begin, although he was a prosperous man, and Ragnleif, the brother of Isleif, considered that he had too much work to do on his steading, although folk said he had no more than any other man. It was easy to see that the position would fall to Isleif, and soon, for Osmund was old and Isleif knew the laws, but Isleif was a priest, and nearly blind, and without powerful friends in other districts. Osmund called a special Thing in the autumn after Bjorn left, and on each of three days, with the help of Isleif, he spoke one-third of the laws in a weak, reedy voice. There were twenty farmers and their servants and men there to hear him, all of them from Brattahlid, Vatna Hverfi, and Dyrnes districts. Sira Jon was there, along with Sira Pall Hallvardsson and Gunnar Asgeirsson, who came on the second day. And just after the ending of the Thing, there was a storm in Eriks Fjord, and the boat carrying the three farmers and their servants from Dyrnes district was capsized and broken up, and all the men were drowned and all the wood of the boat was swept out of the fjord by the winds and lost.