The Greenlanders

by Jane Smiley

  And when the women went to lay her out, they saw that she was as wasted as folk had gotten during the hunger—with no breasts to speak of, and hipbones sticking up like spoons, and all of her ribs showing, and her knees larger than her thighs, and folk said that what she had died of was starvation, truly enough, just as if there hadn’t been any food at all. Before her seduction she had been such a woman as Thorunn, broad and sturdy. She was buried in the graveyard at Solar Fell, which lies near the shrine of St. Olaf the Greenlander, and folk considered that she was more blessed in this circumstance of her death than she had been in life, for between the fires of volcanoes and the fires of evil seduction, she had gained no peace in her days, and must hope as best she could for her heavenly reward, such as it was.

  It seemed to Bjorn Bollason that he had done all that was possible in these circumstances, and that things had turned out well enough, considering what might have happened, namely that there might have been a pitched battle at the Thing, where many Greenlanders would have gotten hurt or killed, or that Gunnar Asgeirsson might have sought revenge, as he had done in the past, or that the Icelanders might have somehow blamed him, Bjorn Bollason, for the circumstances of the woman’s seduction and death. But Snorri Torfason was more than willing to take Bolli Bjornsson with him, and Thorstein Olafsson was as ardent a suitor as a man could be, and though Sigrid would find herself much farther off than Herjolfsnes, Thorstein had so confused and subdued her that, if she thought of it, she did not complain of it. Back in Iceland, folk said, Thorstein was a well-known man from a powerful family, and might indeed be lawspeaker some day. Of cows and sheep and horses there was no telling how many wandered Thorstein’s three steadings, and of goodly furnishings, well, there were articles from as far off as Damascus and Rome, as well as from Norway and England and Germany and Sweden. Thorstein’s own mother’s brother’s daughter was a waiting maid at the court of Queen Margarethe, or had been some years before, though she might be married to a great Danish lord by now. And Thorstein had that Icelandic way with words that would lead him everywhere, to every success, as it had the great poets of the past, like Egil Skallagrimsson. All in all, Bjorn had never looked forward to the future with such a high heart, and not the least of these pleasures was that the troublesome Sigrid would be off his hands, and in the care of her husband.

  As for Sigrid, it was her secret that once in a while a curious dream came to her, always the same dream. In it, she was standing in the doorway to the steading at Solar Fell, looking down the hillside toward the strand. The turf was green, but the fjord was white with ice, and the sky above the mountains was piled with clouds. These were shot with all colors of red and gold and purple, and looked not as the sky ever looked in Greenland, but as it was said that Heaven itself looked. In the first part of her dream, she only stood there, holding a trencher in her hand, and gazing upon the scene. After this, a man would appear, a stranger, and he would come toward her over the ice, and she would begin to float down the hillside toward him, holding out her trencher as an offering. But though she floated toward him, she was much afraid of him, and of how he would greet her. Even so, she could not stop herself, or turn back up the hillside. He came on skis, but not with the swinging laboring motions of a skier. He, too, was floating. And as he came closer, he did not become more familiar to her. He was always a stranger. Even so, when they met, he always took her in his arms and embraced her, and happiness rushed through her like a strong wind, and of itself, her body pressed against his, and then the dream was over, and she woke up. And this was also the case, that she awakened from this dream elated rather than despondent, and it seemed to her that as long as she held this dream secretly in her bosom, it would return to her again and again.

  She was not unpleased with her marriage to Thorstein. It seemed to her that he had her firmly in his power, and that with him, she was out of danger. In addition to this, her wedding was to be at the loveliest church in Greenland, and her wedding clothes were as splendid as hands could make them—her hands, the hands of Margret Asgeirsdottir, the hands of all the women round about. First there would be the wedding, then there would be a little boat ride to Iceland, then there would be large farms with many sheep and cows and horses and servants, and then there would be such children as her brothers were, obedient, strong, lucky little boys, four or five or six. Snorri Torfason said, sometimes, that conditions in Iceland could not but surprise them, but were not the Icelanders possessed of many fine things? Did they not speak in such a way that pleased the ear? Did they not know more of the world, and of the entertainments of the world, than any Greenlander? And did they not think a great deal of her, Sigrid Bjornsdottir, though she was but a Greenlandic maid?

  She did not hate Kollgrim Gunnarsson, though folk thought she must. She did not know exactly why they had parted, except that it was their fate to do so. One day he had come to Solar Fell, and found her in the steading doing some tablet weaving while the others were out or in other chambers, and he had sat down near her without touching her, but only looking into her face, and she had let the weaving fall from her hands, although it tangled the threads, and she had known without speaking that they were parted, that their marriage could not be, and she had known so clearly that in spite of their wills and desires something was stopping them, she had not even felt grief, only a sort of relief that greater grief was being avoided by this parting. She saw that he knew this, too, and that they were parting as friends. That was in the autumn, and in the winter her fears had been fulfilled with the seduction of the Icelandic woman. How was one to think of that? In spite of what she was told, by Thorstein and Bjorn Bollason and Thorunn, Sigrid held tightly to her incomprehension, and placed it in her bosom next to her secret dream.

  And so it happened that she went through the summer, and through the preparations for her wedding and the feast as if spellbound. Sometimes Thorstein loomed near her, and sometimes he touched her, and sometimes he was far off, and she could hear his voice rising and falling, and laughter of folk that always followed him about. Her hands did their work of themselves—making cheeses, weaving, sewing in tiny stitches. They were busy and cozy with one another. Her lips opened and formed words that were suitable to every occasion, also of themselves, and the days passed in a stream. It is the case, her mother told her, that maidens are distracted by thoughts of their weddings, and their new lives. Certainly she had been very clumsy before marrying Bjorn Bollason, dropping everything, losing everything, until her own mother was ready to scream. And surely Sigrid had reason to be more distracted than most, for here she was getting ready to go off—Signy did not quite know what to make of this, her only daughter going off, perhaps never to return, or certainly never to return, and her boy Bolli as well. Signy dropped the spoon she was holding and put her sleeves to her eyes, and Sigrid turned to her, slowly, comprehending only with difficulty the significance of these actions. But now her arm went out, as a daughter’s arm should do, and went about her mother’s shoulders, and she made some noises, the proper noises, and when her mother had smiled again, and turned away from her, and picked up the spoon and gone about her business again, Sigrid forgot everything that had happened, although she could not have said what her thoughts returned to.

  And so the day of the wedding came round, and the family and the Icelanders woke up in the priest’s house in Hvalsey Fjord, and Sira Eindridi and Sira Pall Hallvardsson loomed before Sigrid, who found herself in her wedding robe, with the Solar Fell wedding garland on her head, and many trinkets that had been given to her by Thorstein on her hands and her arms and her neck. Now folk took her hands and her arms, and led her across the grass toward the church, and through the doorway, just briefly, she caught a glimpse of Thorstein, her fated husband, and it seemed to her that just for a moment she rose out of the spell that had held her for the entire course of the summer, and she saw the cut of his shirt, and the roundness of his cheeks, and the way his beard grew high on them, and then she saw his eyes turned upon her, e
valuating her with approbation, but not, really, looking into her own eyes, and she remembered, just for a moment, how Kollgrim Gunnarsson had met her gaze with his own, and then, just for another moment, the thought came to her that Thorstein’s gaze would always call forth in her thoughts the image of Kollgrim’s gaze, from now on, until death should part her from both of them, and then for another moment, she had the sense to be greatly frightened, and then those who were leading her pulled her forward, and she fell again into the spell of the summer, and went into the church, and the service was spoken, and she was led out again, this time by Thorstein, and she wondered, now, if she was a happy woman at last, or an unhappy woman forever, and then someone spoke to her, and her lips formed a merry jest, and everyone went into the priest’s house for the feast that had been laid for them, and some fifty guests, and more, sat about the tables, and ate their fill, for Bjorn Bollason the lawspeaker was a prosperous and a happy man.

  Now the winter came on, and the first heavy snowfall, thick and wet, was on the ground before the cattle on most steadings were byred up, or the sealmeat was thoroughly dried from the autumn hunt. Shortly after this snowfall, a great, unseasonable wind picked up, and carried a deal of sand over the top of the snow, so that it melted in the sun and crusted, and men had to go about with their bone axes, and chop down to the grass, which, indeed, was still green, for the weather right up to the time of the snowfall had been warm enough. Now folk hurried to get their sheep in from the higher pastures and to slaughter those that would be used for winter meat, and to byre up their cattle, and the season was busy from the work, and unseasonably wet and uncomfortable from the snow. It also happened that around this time, Helga felt the quickening of another child in her belly, and she had suspected this for some time, for she had been ill off and on through the summer. The child did not seem to agree with her at all, and from the first quickening, seemed to roll about in her belly like a skiff in a storm. Sometime later, she began to feel so ill every day that she asked one of the women from Gunnars Stead to come and stay with her, for indeed, she had little strength for working about the steading and running after Unn and Gunnhild. It happened that Johanna came, and Helga saw that the two must learn to live together at last.

  Now the first thing that Johanna did on the morning she brought her belongings around the hill was to throw all of the straw out of her bedcloset, and find herself newer straw. Then she made a ball out of the cloaks and furs that had lain in the bedcloset, and she set this outside the door, and then she laid her own cloaks and furs over the new straw, and she was at this for no little time, until Helga had to bite her tongue to keep from remarking about it. Johanna went about these tasks with hardly a word, and when Helga asked after their father, or their father’s sister, or the others on the steading, Johanna only said, “He is well enough,” and “She is quiet about the place.” After making up her bed, Johanna took the ball of bed furnishings and unrolled it, and took out each piece and carried it into the light of the doorway, and fingered through the hairs of the furs, and some articles she threw down and others she only shook out and laid in a stack beside the door. Helga sat with her feet out of her bedcloset, and it seemed to her that her innards were going to rise up into her throat, but she swallowed hard, and at last she said, “What do you intend about those things, there?” Johanna gave them a kick, and said nothing. Now Gunnhild came into the steading, and her feet and stockings were covered with snow, and Johanna took her by the shoulders and turned her about without a word, and put her out again, and then went out after her, and brushed the sandy snow off her feet. Helga got up and went to the doorway, and saw that her sister held the child by the shoulder in a firm grasp, as if she were holding a sheep, and swept the snow off her with brisk strokes, and when Gunnhild wiggled out of her grasp, her hand shot out and clamped down upon the child, not roughly, but not tenderly, either. And now Helga’s innards did rise into her mouth, and she staggered out the doorway and around the corner of the house to the midden, and vomited for the second time in that day.

  Later it seemed to Helga that she might sit up at the loom for a while, and while she was at this, Johanna came up behind her and stood silently for a few moments. Then, wordless, she sniffed, and turned away, and soon after this, it seemed to Helga that the pattern she had chosen was not so pleasing after all, though she had liked it before, and she got up from the loom and sat on the bench beside the table. All trenchers and bowls and cups and other utensils, that usually lay about in a little disorder, were more than neatly stacked. All corners and handles were aligned on the shelves, and a piece of wadmal had been cut, hemmed, and hung across the lower shelf, to hide such pots and vats as there were there. Things were very neat, but Helga did not care for them. Now Johanna came in from the storehouse, and she was wiping her hands on her robe, as if the storehouse were very dirty. When she saw Helga, she smiled one of her slow smiles, and said, “My sister, have you finished with your weaving already?”

  “My sister, have you finished making over Ketils Stead to your own liking?”

  Johanna said, mildly, “Indeed, there are other things to be done. But it may be that you would prefer that I not do them. When folk set out to please others, perhaps it is the case that they really set out to please themselves.” She smiled her slow smile again.

  “I know not what you mean, but I see that our ways here do not suit you.”

  “That is not what I was thinking. But I, too, have certain ways, for after all, I lived for a long time at Hestur Stead, and Jona’s reputation was well known to all. I mean only to do as you wish.”

  Now Helga sat back and looked at her sister for a long moment, and then she smiled, and said, “Indeed, I do not know what I wish after all, except to feel myself again.” Now she sighed, and looked about, and that was the first day that the two spent together, and it was a long time before they ceased to be uneasy with one another, for they were not only different in their habits, but also in their concerns, and for Helga’s children Johanna cared not as Helga herself would, but with less tenderness and indulgence.

  It happened that Helga felt her pains just at Yule, although she had not thought to feel them until nearly Lent, but they came on, and lasted for more than a day, and in the morning of the second day she was delivered of a boy, and toward the evening of that day, she was delivered of another boy, and where the first was tiny, the second was yet tinier, and neither of the two lived through the night. Helga herself gave forth much blood and other humors, and lay greatly weakened for many days, so weakened that she could barely speak or open her lips for nourishment, although Margret came every day around the hill to Ketils Stead, and made the girl strengthening drinks from herbs she had gathered the previous summer. Through this nursing, the women were much thrown together, and one day after Helga was able to sit up a little, Margret said to her in a low voice, “My Helga, it seems to me from this confinement and from what folk say of your confinement with Gunnhild, that you are little made for childbearing. You are like unto Helga Ingvadottir, your namesake and my mother, and you must take care that you preserve your life.”

  Helga whispered, “It is always a mischance and a peril to have twins.”

  “For most folk, the peril is to the children, not so much to the mother.”

  “Even so.” She paused for a long moment. “Even so, such is the lot of wives, is it not?”

  “They may stay apart from their husbands.”

  At this, Helga turned away her head, and Margret fell silent, and these words lay between them for the rest of the morning.

  It seemed to Helga that Margret might take it upon herself to speak of this matter to Jon Andres, and so when the two were about the steading at the same time, she looked after them, to see if they were having talk with one another, but they did not appear to exchange more than friendly greetings, and truly, her father’s sister was as silent as she was reputed to be. Still, after the exchange about childbearing, Helga was eager to have the older woman off th
e steading, and so she made herself sit up and smile, and throw her feet over the side of the bedcloset, and then to stand, although the color rushed out of her face, and she had to sit down again with a thump. She also forced whatever drinks and dishes that were offered her down her throat, whether they piqued her appetite or not. The result was that her strength seemed to return, as if by the power of her will, and she was up and about in the second week of Lent, and Margret stopped coming around the hill so often, and Johanna spoke once of going back to Gunnars Stead herself.

  Helga saw it was the case that Jon Andres, whether he had been spoken to or not, was keeping much to himself. All winter, before Yule, and after he was certain that Helga was out of the danger of death, he had gone off many days and nights, and he said only that it had to do with a certain business that he and Gunnar Asgeirsson were carrying on together. It was also the case that he had named the two small boys, although they had lived but the shortest length of time, and were unbaptized, and the larger of these boys he had named Erlend, as was proper, and the smaller he had named Kollgrim, and he spoke of them a few times by name. When he was about the steading, he stayed apart from Helga, and had little to say to her, although also he was as kind to her as he could be. And Helga wondered what had parted them, after all her care. One day it happened that she awakened in the bedcloset, and felt that he was awake beside her, although it was very early morning, as yet before dawn. She lay quietly, as if still asleep, breathing deep, slow breaths, and allowed her hip to relax into his side. Now he let out a low, almost soundless groan, that seemed to Helga to be full of some sort of pain, and she could not keep herself from turning to him, but at once he stiffened in her arms, and sat up, and got out of the bedcloset in his shirt, and pulled on his leggings and went out of the steading, and so Helga thought that Margret must have spoken to him after all, outside, or in some moment when she, Helga, had been asleep, and she was bitterly disappointed, and angry with her father’s sister, for she saw clearly that whatever the consequences were to be, she could not stay apart from her husband as long as she had breath in her body.