The Greenlanders

by Jane Smiley

  Helga stepped forward, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Oddny and Gunnhild disappear into Johanna’s bedcloset. She did not know if Ofeig saw this, and so she said, “Ofeig, it is but the beginning of the summer, and such cheeses as we have are old and hard, but I will make up a trencher for you.”

  “You may fill it as you please, as long as it is plentiful and good. I don’t want any garbage, like gnawed bones or offal, and if you give me any, I will jam it down this little one’s throat here, for indeed, she has wandered into my power now, and everything that displeases me will cause her dissatisfaction.” He jerked on Johanna’s arm, and she gasped again, but did not cry out. Now Ofeig twisted her around so that he could see her. “Are you a servingmaid, or what? Tell me your name.”

  “Johanna Gunnarsdottir.” Her voice was firm and cool, though Helga’s had trembled when she spoke. Helga picked a trencher up off the floor, where the collapse of the table had thrown it, and began to go about, looking for what food there was to be had. Johanna said, “My Helga, there is wholesome dried sealmeat in that chest there,” as if they were speaking of their evening meat. Helga lifted the lid of the chest with shaking fingers, and scooped almost all of the meat into the trencher. Then she cut some pieces of cheese, and held the trencher out to Ofeig, who said, “Stand here, and hold it while I eat. Now that I have caught this little one, I don’t intend to let her go.” And he jerked her arm again. And Johanna said, “If you are Ofeig Thorkelsson, then folk say that you are the devil himself, and it must be the case that prayer is our only hope.” And she began to pray in a firm voice, “Hail Mary, Mother of God.” He jerked her arm again, harder, and said, “I like this praying little,” but Johanna continued, “Blessed art thou among women—” until Helga herself put her hand over Johanna’s mouth and stopped her. Ofeig said, “The Devil is a powerful fellow, I have heard, and he doesn’t go from steading to steading, as I do, being satisfied with a bit of this and a bit of that. I will tell you this, that the Greenlanders are a niggardly lot, and I hate them as much as the Devil does. Indeed, it is a poor part of the earth that we live in, bitter cold and waste, and the wind bites the flesh like a dog. Give me some more of that.” And Helga took the trencher and began looking about for other things to serve him. Johanna said, as coolly as before, “There is sourmilk in the near storeroom, a big vat of it, and some pickled blubber and some svid, as well.” He gave her arm another jerk, and this time, expecting it, she made no sound at all. He went on, “And I’ll tell you another thing, I hate these Gunnars Stead folk. I hear they burned up the one, the staring one who used to follow us about. That rejoiced me, indeed. But you must be his sister. I see somewhat of the same stare about you, now that I’ve had something to eat and can look about me. Why don’t you light a lamp here? I’d like to see what’s about the place. Indeed, I hate this steading. I hate every place I’ve ever been in this godforsaken land, and that’s a fact.”

  Helga said, “I haven’t a flint. On these long days, we don’t light the lamps.” She fingered the flint in her pocket, and prayed that Unn would make no sound behind her. It seemed to her that the darkness was her only salvation, and also that she must give up her sister to preserve her daughters, and her heart sank within her so that she could hardly keep on her feet. Johanna seemed to be two people to her—this doomed, pale creature, standing stock-still in the streaming moonlight, and also that sunlit figure of the smooth countenance and firm tread whom she had watched go in and out of the steading all morning long. And it was the case that she repented with all her heart of the annoyance she had felt during the winter and the spring, and she saw that whatever Johanna lacked of softness, she had in extra measure of goodness and grace. Now Johanna said, in her clear, firm voice, “Have you finished eating, Ofeig Thorkelsson? For indeed, I remember something else that might please you, and that is dried capelin with some bits of sour butter.”

  “Now I see that this little one really does wish to please me. It seems to me that I have such a hunger that I could eat you out of this steading, and it has been no little time since I have had such a treat.”

  And Johanna said to Helga, “In the back of the near storeroom. You can feel with your hands where the butter and the dried sealmeat are. And there are other things, too. Some dried reindeer meat, and some mutton, and a round of cheese.” And Helga went out, trembling, and felt about the storeroom in the dark with clumsy fingers, and returned with what she had found, and then she stood again beside Ofeig, and held the trencher while he ate from it. Now he sat down upon the bench, with Johanna on his lap, with her arm still twisted behind her, and he let out two mighty belches, and then he began to lay his hand upon Johanna’s belly and breasts, and Helga saw her sister close her eyes, and move her lips in prayer. Helga said, “You have eaten much savory food, Ofeig Thorkelsson. Are you not dry, as well?”

  “Give me the day’s milking, for I am dry enough, now that you mention it.”

  Now Helga opened the door of the steading, and reached for a vat of ewe’s milk from the evening milking, for it was the case that everyone had been so weary from the day’s tasks that the vats had not been carried to the dairy, and she brought it into the steading and dipped up two cups full for Ofeig. He took his hand off Johanna’s breast and drank them down, and then two more, and then he let out another belch and put his hand on his belly. And it seemed to Helga that he had eaten a prodigious amount, more than any three men. And now there was a whimper from Unn, a whimper followed by a cry, and Helga stepped back suddenly, and put her hand into the bedcloset. Ofeig began to stand up, Johanna still with him, and he opened his mouth to speak, but then he suddenly clutched for his belly with both hands, and doubled over on the bench. He let out a groan, and now he began to vomit all of the food he had gorged himself upon, and it spewed out everywhere, all over Johanna, and the broken table, and the floor, and a little bit on the hem of Helga’s robe, and Johanna, her arm free, jumped away and grabbed the ax and the knife he had laid down for the tasks of eating and fondling her. And she said, “Ofeig Thorkelsson, you are the Devil indeed, and it is manifest in your hatred and your gluttony, and now you are cast down, through the grace of the Lord and the intercession of our prayers.”

  And now Ofeig began rolling about in the agony of a big feeding after a long fast, which every Greenlander is wary of, and the servingwomen came forth out of the bedclosets, where they had been hiding, and they began to beat upon Ofeig with trenchers and other utensils, about the head and the shoulders. Johanna even lifted the ax, but indeed, he had more strength than they thought, for suddenly he scrabbled to his feet and threw himself out the door, and the last they saw of him, he was running off in the moonlight.

  Through the broken-down roof, Helga saw that the sky was lightening toward dawn. She sat down upon the bench, and looked at the others gathered about her. Gunnhild sat upon Oddny’s lap, and Unn sat upon Thordis’ lap, and Johanna sat with a smile on her face, and with her arm limp at her side, and Helga said, “Your arm must hurt you more than a little, for I fear that this demon has broken it.”

  “We will walk over to Gunnars Stead after our morning meat, and Margret Asgeirsdottir will set it for me.” And that was all she had to say on the subject. And Ofeig was not seen again in that district, although Helga looked for him each night until the return of Jon Andres and the other men. But Johanna did not, and went to bed in faith and trust every evening.

  Now it happened that the end of the seventh day came round, and Jon Andres failed to return, and the end of the eighth day as well, and Gunnar Asgeirsson, too, stayed away, although all of the servingfolk came back to Gunnars Stead, and the result of this was that on the ninth day, when Jon Andres did return, much dirtied and fatigued by the hunt, the tale that Helga had hoped to make of her adventure with Ofeig was stopped in her mouth, and the wish that she had had, to speak of this, and then speak of other things, that were nearer to her heart, was unfulfilled, and the silence between herself and her husband continued unabat
ed. Jon Andres heard the story from Oddny and probed Johanna about it. He was much disturbed by it, but Helga did not mention it, though he gave her the chance more than once. Then he vowed not to speak of it to Helga if she had no care to mention it to him, and so things went on between them for the rest of the summer, and Margret’s proscription was fulfilled, and Helga had nothing to do with her husband that might endanger her life. In the summer, Johanna moved back to Gunnars Stead, and Helga was much cast down to see her go, and she considered Johanna a great friend of hers, although the two women never spoke of this.

  At Gunnars Stead, Johanna found things to be much the same as they had been for many years; that was, it seemed to her now, very elderly. At Ketils Stead, she had conceived an affection for Gunnhild and Unn that she had not felt before. It seemed to her that children must wear into one, that a bit of fellowship with them was more than enough, but constant fellowship with them was less than enough. She was some twenty-four winters in age, not so much past the time of marrying for a Gunnars Stead maiden, and it occurred to her that her father might take her to the Thing this year, or might go himself, and seek about for a husband for her, but when she thought of this, it was not just any husband or any establishment that she felt this bit of longing for, but what was to be found at Ketils Stead, and so she held her peace. Gunnar and Margret were pleasant to her, and her footsteps about the place, and her pauses to look upon their work, one at her loom and the other at his parchment, were refreshing to them and long missed. Gunnar saw that she was his favorite child, as untroubling to him and as pure as water from tarns high in the mountains, and it also seemed to him, since her defeat of Ofeig, that she must outlive him, for which he felt simple gratitude.

  At the spring seal hunt, Gunnar and Jon Andres had listened to many men, to many complaints of the absence of Kollgrim Gunnarsson, that issued from the mouths of men who themselves had tossed some wooden trinket upon the pyre that burned him. Gunnar and Jon Andres had nodded, had recalled, once in a while, how Kollgrim once killed forty-two seals in an afternoon, how he rowed his boat as quickly and as agilely as a skraeling, how he had preserved the life of Hrafnkel Snaefelsson when his boat was lost, so that he barely got his legs wet. Indeed, they had an ally in Hrafnkel himself, who was something of a blowhard, and always ready to tell the tale of his near drowning, and how he had felt himself all at once lost and saved, with Kollgrim’s arm, “like a roof beam, that big and hard, about my arms and chest.” The Icelanders, when they were about, cast a silence over the Greenlanders, a silence in which the cheerful tones of Bjorn Bollason and his sons rang like bells. The seal hunt had not been so prosperous as some, not so meager as some. No boats had been lost and no man killed. After it, the Thing came on, and then the rest of the summer, and folk went about their work as they had always done, in Greenland, and it seemed they would always do.

  One day shortly after the next Yule, Snorri Torfason got out of the bedcloset where he had established himself for most of the previous four years, and he said that he would like to see his farms in Iceland, and after he said this he was as a demon of energy. That very day, he took some of his men and went on skis to Gardar, where their ship was drawn up on rollers, and pulled off such coverings as were over it and surveyed what damage there was to be repaired. There were a few staved-in boards, and some rot along the keel, and the steppings for the mast were split. These difficulties, which had seemed too tedious to rectify when Snorri didn’t really want to return to Iceland, now seemed inconsequential. Snorri went straight to Sira Eindridi and began quizzing him that evening about such resources as were available for the repair of the ship. After that, the Icelanders went around on skis, trading for such wood as they needed, and seal oil, which is not so good as pitch for spreading over the outside of the ship, but must do where there is no pitch to be had. The short case of it was that as soon as the ice broke up and blew out of Einars Fjord after the feast of St. Erik, the Icelanders, with Sigrid Bjornsdottir and Bolli Bjornsson, were gone. And one day after this departure, Gunnar Asgeirsson and Jon Andres Erlendsson went about Vatna Hverfi district and Hvalsey Fjord and called witnesses to hear that they were pressing a case at the Thing, against Bjorn Bollason the lawspeaker, for the untimely death of Kollgrim Gunnarsson. And most Greenlanders who were the least bit knowledgeable of the law said that they had never heard of such a case being made against the lawspeaker himself, but indeed, folk may press any case that they wish, if they can make the judges hear it.

  Bjorn Bollason did not quite know what to do about this. He went to his friends in Brattahlid district, and talked to them about it, and to Sira Eindridi, but all said that he was the lawspeaker, and therefore had the laws at the tip of his tongue, and so he must make up his own defense, which, indeed, did not seem as if it would be so hard to do. And Gunnar Asgeirsson had never won a case at the Thing in his life, and Jon Andres Erlendsson was not a litigious man, having only had to defend himself once, and never having pressed a case. But still the lawspeaker was flurried and dismayed, for the Icelanders were gone, and he saw that those friends among the Greenlanders that he had once had were somewhat more remote than he remembered them being, and he regretted that he had not cultivated his status more industriously in late years. After going to Brattahlid district, he went to Dyrnes and spoke to folk there, but Hoskuld, his foster father, had died in the previous year, and Hoskuld’s own sons, who were powerful men as folk in Dyrnes go, were also a bit reserved, with, they said, difficulties of their own. Bjorn Bollason saw that, indeed, they were in some sense his enemies, because while they would not lift a hand against him, for the sake of long acquaintance, they would also not lift a hand for him, for Hoskuld had lifted his hand to help Bjorn Bollason perhaps too many times in the past, at the expense of his own sons. A man need only to sit across from them at evening meat, and watch the way they glanced out the door or across the room whenever Bjorn Bollason looked them in the face, to know this. And so he came back to Solar Fell, which was after all not really in any special district, but set off by itself, somewhat cast down.

  Now the Thing came on, and it was thickly attended, for everyone in all the nearest districts wanted to see how these men acquitted themselves. All thought well of Gunnar Asgeirsson, but considered that he had always had ill enough luck. Bjorn Bollason was spoken of as the lesser man with the greater luck, and it was said that such distinctions between the two might never have been made if this case had not come up, for it is in these conflicts that the worth of men is measured by their neighbors. And that is why the Greenlanders always chatter of the concerns of others, for it is in the nature of folk to ask of themselves as well as of the Lord, how is each man to be judged? And when there are few enough men and women about, as there are in Greenland, then each one is seen more often, but the wealth of opinion is so diverse that no man is seen whole, or, indeed, seen as he wishes to be.

  Jon Andres Erlendsson set up his booth, which was a rich one, in the very center of the Thing field, and about his booth, in a great wheel, were some twelve other booths, larger and smaller, from Vatna Hverfi district and Hvalsey Fjord district. Booths from the other districts were scattered about these, so that men had to walk through these in order to get to the others. The flaps of these twelve booths were always open, and men and boys, some of whom hadn’t been to many Things before, or any, were always milling about them. And if they hadn’t many provisions, then Jon Andres had food for them, as Bjorn Bollason had always fed everyone who came by in the early days, when he was just become lawspeaker. Gunnar Asgeirsson set up his booth in his usual spot, a little ways above the Thing field, and he had nothing to say at all.

  Now Bjorn Bollason began, on the first morning of the Thing, to say out the laws, and this lasted almost until the end of the day, with some repetitions and muddlings, but indeed, few enough of the older folk knew to correct even one or two of these. There were six cases to be decided, with the case against Bjorn Bollason, and these were as follows: A man in Herjolfsnes cla
imed driftage rights over some wood that came to his strand, and then drifted off in the night and came to his neighbor’s strand, and he had beaten a servant of his neighbor’s when the servant had begun to carry off the wood, so that the servant had lost use of his arm and shoulder, and was therefore of less value to his master. Two fishermen, who were brothers, had built a boat together, and then fallen out, so that each claimed the boat. A man from Dyrnes had set to beating his wife, but had ended up killing her instead of chastising her. Two boys from the southern part of Vatna Hverfi district had gone about stealing from various storehouses, so that they amassed some thirty-six whole rounds of cheese, and instead of eating it, they had broken it up and left it to rot in Antler Lake. A man and his wife from Brattahlid laid claim to a farm abandoned by their brother, although the brother himself had made a present of the farm to his concubine. Such were the cases that occupied the Thing in this year, and as usual, many complained that most of these disputes might have been settled in the households, or the districts. In this way the Greenlanders were accustomed to complain of their long journeys and the trouble they had in setting up their booths.