The Greenlanders

by Jane Smiley

  It happened on the second day that Margret was sitting outside Eyvind’s booth with Freydis after the morning meat, and a tall man with an equally tall son passed close to her, so close that she had to rearrange her robe so that it would not be stepped on, and the man had to excuse himself, and when she looked up, it seemed to her that she saw Gunnar Asgeirsson the man and Gunnar Asgeirsson the child. Now Gunnar said, “Forgive us for stepping on you, old woman, but the ways between the booths are tight this year.”

  Margret nodded, and replied, “Folk have come from as far as Isafjord and Alptafjord. I had not thought there were any folk still living at Alptafjord, in fact.”

  Gunnar nodded, and urged his son before him, and Margret saw that he had not distinguished her, but the boy turned and looked at her in a quizzical fashion, with Birgitta’s gaze in Gunnar’s eye sockets. Now Freydis looked from him to her, and when Gunnar and Kollgrim had gone, she said, “It seems to me that a certain servingwoman is known by many folk.”

  Margret said, “A servingwoman often goes from steading to steading, that is true.”

  Freydis opened her mouth to ask another question, but then sighed and held her silence. Margret looked at her sharply. Finally, Freydis looked up and said in a quiet voice, “It seems to me that such will be my fate, to go as a servingmaid from steading to steading, and follow the children of other folk along the strand, calling to them not to tumble into the water.”

  “Indeed, though, your sister has found herself a healthy fellow and a pleasant farm to settle upon. Perhaps such will be your fate, as well.”

  “But she is the jewel of us all. Finna is humpbacked and knotty-fingered already, Brenna is sick with the coughing ill such as our mother had, and I am of a gloomy turn of mind, and it is clear to everyone that husbands do not care for gloomy wives.”

  “You are but fourteen winters old.”

  “Our mother used to tell our fortunes, and they were never good ones. Eyvind laughed about it, but it is true that she foretold her own death.”

  “I can foretell my own death as well, and so can you.” But at this reply Freydis fell silent, though Margret prodded her gently, and would speak no more of these matters. She was, as she said, of a melancholic tendency, though birdlike in her movements, and deceptively quick to laugh. And now Eyvind came up to them and demanded his morning meat, and so ended their talk, but Margret was glad of it, such as it was, for it distracted her from the painful knowledge that Gunnar had failed even to recognize her.

  Later that same day, when Margret was occupied with Finna in arranging Eyvind’s booth so that certain holes between the reindeer hides would not be any larger than they had to be, two men came to the booth leading Isleif Isleifsson, and sat him on a pile of sheepskins beside the door, and Margret visited with him for a while, exchanging news of each other and of common acquaintances. In reference to his time with Gudrun and Ragnleif, Isleif said, “He that was last shall go first,” with a sly smile, and “He that was lowest shall be lifted up,” and though he laughed, Margret saw that he enjoyed his new state, for he asked her if she liked the stuff of his cloak, and Margret saw that, although it was of a sober hue, it was very thick and warm and finely woven. After this, he raised his feet, one at a time, and felt over his shoes with his fingertips, only so that he might appreciate again the softness of the leather, and then he let his fingers linger upon the weave of his stockings, and Margret saw that there was a figure in them, very neatly done. She smiled, but said soberly, “So it is that we are promised.”

  “It is true, though,” said Sira Isleif, “that Gudrun gave me good gifts and handsome things to wear when the time came for me to leave. Those who do ill do not always intend it.”

  “And those who do good often do it for the eyes of others.” And so they chatted, and Freydis looked on with undisguised interest, for Sira Isleif’s identity was known to all, and it was easy to see that he spoke to Margret as to an old friend.

  Sira Isleif had much to say of Bjorn Bollason’s household. Bjorn Bollason’s wife, Signy, was a very fine woman, who had previously been married to another man named Hrolf, who was the youngest son of a man named Hoskuld, who was the most important man in Dyrnes. Hrolf had been lost looking for some sheep in a great storm only one winter after he and Signy were married, and Signy had then married, at the advice of Hrolf’s father, his foster son Bjorn Bollason, and Hoskuld had given as a dowry Hrolf’s farm, but this farm was contracted to go through Signy to Hrolf’s son, Hrolf, who was born only a little while after the death of his father, and who went to live with Hoskuld. Then Hoskuld advised Bjorn Bollason to take a boat and look about from fjord to fjord for goodly steadings that had newly fallen vacant. It was on the first of these trips that Bjorn Bollason saw that Ragnvald’s steading at Solar Fell was deserted, and indeed, no skraelings were anywhere about there, and so Hoskuld claimed that giant steading as vacant, and Bjorn Bollason took the place over. All the folk from Dyrnes found Solar Fell much more comfortable than Dyrnes, and were intending to claim more farmsteads in the area, should they become vacant. And so Hoskuld, who was an ambitious man, had seen his ambitions realized, though in Bjorn, not in his own sons, and for that reason he preferred Bjorn Bollason to his own sons, and there was a touch of bitterness between them.

  At any rate, Signy was as liberal and stately as ever the famous Marta Thordardottir had been, and as well dressed, and if anything more courteous, and to meet her a person would never think that she was from Dyrnes, but would assume that she had been raised in Brattahlid or Vatna Hverfi district. Between her and Bjorn Bollason, Isleif declared, was as deep an affection as you could care to see, and in the four years of their marriage they had produced four children, a girl, Sigrid, who was very bright and appealing, and three boys who were very manly little fellows, and played especially noisy and active games, and they were encouraged in this by their mother and father. In fact, Signy and Bjorn Bollason had this habit, that as soon as a child could talk, he was addressed with questions at his meat, questions about what he might do in such and such a case were he seal hunting or reindeer hunting or sailing to Markland or fighting Saracens in the Holy Land, and Bjorn Bollason judged their answers, and those who spoke foolishly were teased by the others. And in this way Sira Isleif passed the morning in Eyvind’s booth, and Margret saw that he was much enamored of everything about the new lawspeaker’s household.

  On the fourth day of the Thing, Eyvind came to the booth in the afternoon, and declared in a loud voice that he had found yet another husband, this one for Brenna, and a man from Vatna Hverfi to boot, but when the man came with his relatives to see the bride and talk about the arrangements, they left again hurriedly without talking for very long. The young man was somewhat lame, but proud withal, and he looked at Brenna in a sneering manner. Margret saw that he was a nephew of Magnus Arnason of Nes, who accompanied him, and stood outside the booth while the negotiations, such as they were, went on. The Thing was nearly over, and Eyvind spent all of the last evening going from booth to booth and chatting about this and that, but the end of it was that Brenna and Finna did not find husbands after all, though Anna’s wedding was set to take place in Isafjord some days before the reindeer hunt, and there was much to be done before it should take place. As they broke down their booth and prepared to leave, Eyvind declared that he had done a deal of work and gotten a fair return for his efforts, and he was very jovial, although his daughters were not so merry. Seeing this, he began to tease them until they went from frowning to laughing to weeping, and then he spoke soberly to them all, saying, “It is not the case that daughters float by magic spells from the steading of their father to the steadings of their husbands but by such effort as all must engage in, for a husband is a bird that must be snared by rich bait or by guile or by great labor, and the first of these is not something to be found at an Isafjord steading.” And so Eyvind went about this job as he went about all jobs, Margret saw, by knowing the task for what it was and taking his loss at the
beginning rather than being taken by it at the end.

  As she was climbing the hill above Gardar, she saw Birgitta Lavransdottir. She saw that Birgitta saw her. Then Freydis came up to her and took her hand and they climbed over the ridge. When Margret looked back, Birgitta was already down beside the Einars Fjord jetty, loading Asgeir’s old boat with their belongings. Margret could clearly make out the distinctive purplish color of the Gunnars Stead wadmal that they wore.

  Now Birgitta, Gunnar, Kollgrim, Finn, and two other servingmen that Gunnar had taken on got into the boat they had brought from Lavrans Stead and rowed out into Einars Fjord. Birgitta seated herself in the boat so that she could gaze upon Kollgrim as he rowed, for he was a handsome boy, and she had lost none of her fondness for him, though it was true as everyone said that he had many faults. The only person about the steading that he did not tease relentlessly was Finn Thormodsson, and from time to time the beatings he gained from teasing Gunnar persuaded him to avoid his father for a bit, but he could not hold off longer than seven or ten days, and then Gunnar would once again find his horses hobbled together or his parchment marked upon with lines that mimicked writing but meant nothing or his neighbors put out because their cows had been driven into the shallows of the fjord. The only rest from these mischiefs happened when Finn took Kollgrim off with him, which he did much of the time. As yet no evil had resulted from these trips, though Gunnar predicted it and Birgitta feared it silently. They never asked Finn where he had gone, but only received the two when they returned and admired the game they had got.

  It was the case that a rift had formed between Gunnar and Birgitta on account of the two children, Kollgrim and Johanna, for each parent was set upon the virtues of one child and the faults of the other. As for Birgitta, the names of Gunnhild, Astrid, and Maria were always in her mouth—Gunnhild had been the most beautiful, Astrid the most lively, and Maria the most affectionate of daughters, whereas Johanna was sober and staring and reserved, not ugly but not beautiful, either, and with the same uncanny radiance that Birgitta had always felt from her. It had happened at Yule time, when Johanna was five winters of age, that the famous first tooth loosened and fell out and Johanna carried it to Helga and showed it to her, and when Johanna then went off again, Birgitta, who was in the room, called Helga over to her and demanded the tooth. But she could not see anything in it. It appeared to be but a tooth. When she struck it, a fragment broke off, and there was nothing under the surface but more tooth, no squirming darkness of demons or worms. Even so, Birgitta took the tooth and buried it far from the house and the fields. She expected to find a change in Johanna, a lightening of sorts, as if a burden had left her, but nothing like this occurred, and Birgitta found herself turning from the child more than ever. When Birgitta chanced to see the child busy with her father or her sister, she saw that Johanna’s manner was different than it was with her, but it pleased her no more, for the child seemed too quiet and attentive, and her eyes searched her father’s face in a seductive way. Or so it seemed to Birgitta. At times she doubted herself and regretted the feelings she had conceived for this youngest daughter.

  As for Gunnar, what he saw about Johanna was a desire to please those who would be pleased by her, and with this a naturally quiet temperament that shrank from loud words or anger such as Birgitta often showed toward her. Where Birgitta said she was sullen and stubborn, he said that she was daunted and afraid to speak or act. Husband and wife could not agree upon these things, and could not speak of the child without anger.

  But such anger was nothing to what they brought to the subject of Kollgrim, who was certainly never daunted or afraid, but indeed seemed incapable of learning such things, for beatings and other punishments and indeed such ill rewards as he earned himself through his actions, as falling through the ice in the lake and nearly drowning, or being kicked by one of the horses so that his chest and cheek turned black and blue, all these went through the boy as if through a sieve, and soon enough he was back teasing the horses or trying his weight on the thinnest ice. The dogs would not go near him, so often had he blown in their nostrils or tied their back legs together or blindfolded them or induced them to eat something foul. But it was the case that he was always deeply remorseful, weeping and cajoling and vowing to avoid mischief, and when Birgitta looked at him, she saw his handsome face and his sincere remorse, and when Gunnar looked at him, he saw a deceitful surface that masked the corrupt depths. So it was that even when Kollgrim sat calmly before his trencher, relating with pleasure and charm his exploits with Finn or simpler events of the day, it seemed to Gunnar that his purpose was to gull everyone into such complacence as would leave the field for mischief wide open. In this way Gunnar saw he was truly repaid for the disappointment he had brought to Asgeir, and for the misjudgment he had shown in not sending the boy out as a foster son, for it was certain that he would have learned better manners at a steading where folk were unmoved by his looks and unafraid to beat him as much as he needed to be beaten. Instead, through laziness, Gunnar had entrusted the boy to Finn Thormodsson, and the outcome of this was still in the making, but it could not be good, for although Finn was a loyal and skillful servant, he was full of tricks and deceits, and was more likely to laugh at the boy than restrain him.

  But every day, Birgitta saw signs of improvement in the boy, and the real beginnings of adulthood. And it soon came to be that Birgitta and Gunnar could not talk about the simplest thing without talking of these two children, even if neither name was actually spoken. Of Helga there is little to say; Helga was a good and virtuous child, attentive to her duties, courteous toward everyone, and devoted to Kollgrim.

  Now they rowed swiftly along in the quiet water, and from time to time Birgitta looked at Kollgrim, and from time to time she looked at Gunnar, and after they had been rowing for a while, Birgitta spoke. She said, “It seems to me that the best course for Johanna will be to go out next spring, when she is of the proper age, to the steading of your cousin Thorkel Gellison, for he is a wealthy man and Jona Vigmundsdottir is a skilled housewife.”

  Gunnar replied, “The bird has not sung such a tune about her other nestlings.”

  “Folk say that it is better for a girl not to become too attached to her parents’ steading, as Helga has. It will be with her as with Margret Asgeirsdottir.”

  And now Gunnar let go his oar and struck his wife a blow upon the cheek, and Birgitta fell against the gunwale of the boat, and seeing this, Kollgrim turned toward his father with a cry, and was only restrained from returning the blow by the actions of one of the menservants. These things set the boat to rocking so that much water came into it and drenched the packs lying on the bottom, and so all of the folk became quiet for a time, and the servant and Kollgrim exchanged places, and they rowed on in this way. And no more blows were exchanged, but when the party returned to Lavrans Stead, Birgitta moved her things to her father’s bedcloset, and Gunnar and Birgitta had little to do with each other from this time forward for many years.

  The winter that followed this great Thing was notable for bad weather—ice storms, followed by rainstorms followed by freezing weather, and the result was another serious hunger during Lent, and this time all over the settlement, not in isolated districts, as had been the case with the last hunger. And now folk remembered with disbelief the good luck of Bjorn Einarsson, that had been so great that it had radiated out from him, and from Kambstead Fjord to Hvalsey Fjord to Dyrnes and Brattahlid, so that the nearer folk were to him, the better their hay crop, the healthier their sheep and cattle, the more plentiful their stock of seaweed and bilberries. So, too, had the seal hunts and reindeer hunts been especially good in those years, and folk recalled how the seals had swarmed into Kambstead Fjord and even up onto the sands there, and the reindeer had come down from the north in herds and gathered near to Kambstead Fjord so that folk from those districts had not had to drag them far to get them home. Such was the talk that went back and forth during this famine, along with talk of the Northsetu
r, and the weather of earlier times, and the size of sheep in the days of Erik the Red and the quantity of seed that Thorleif had brought in his ship, and the good hay this seed had produced. And another thing folk remarked upon was the way in which, in these present days, especially good luck seemed to produce just enough to get through the winter on, while the usual run of luck produced less hunger or more at the end of the spring. Their fathers, folk recalled, had sometimes ended the winter with a small stack of hay left, a little mound outside the byre for the cows to chew over. At the end of recent winters it was the case that steadings that once had ten cows and five horses now had three of the one and one or two of the other. Steadings that had once had five cows had none. Folk had many more goats, and this was always considered a sign of bad times in Greenland.

  Not so many folk had died, and it was said that those who died, died of fear, for when they saw their stores dwindling and their sheep starving, they were possessed to eat up everything they had, even if it made them sick, and then when they crept around to their neighbors, who had husbanded their provisions more carefully, there was little or none to share with them, and they were driven off, and some died and some did not, and at any rate these events caused bad blood in every district. And it caused also the abandonment of more farms, for indeed, this was the last thing that folk had to offer their neighbors in exchange for food and life, and though Sira Pall Hallvardsson and Sira Audun and Sira Isleif spoke against this practice, folk who had any surplus of food at all were not slow to accept such a trade. In this way, Vigdis of Gunnars Stead came into possession of two more large farms, and now, with Ketils Stead and Gunnars Stead, she was the most powerful farmer in Vatna Hverfi district, and Jon Andres, her son, was a man of many friends.