The Beachcomber

by Ines Thorn

  Inga opened her eyes and saw the tenderness and love in Tamme’s eyes, and nodded. “It’s impossible because I’m already married, but I want to be your wife and the mother of your child, regardless.”

  Dawn was just breaking as Jordis hurried to Arjen and Inga’s house with the redrawn plans folded tightly in the leather pouch and pressed to her chest. She knocked on the door and was only a little surprised when Tamme opened it and invited her in. She had known for a long time that he loved Inga. But when she saw Inga, her eyes grew wide with amazement. Inga’s face glowed in a soft pink that reminded her of an early-summer sunrise. Her eyes shone like the morning dew, and her hair had settled in soft waves around her face. Inga had never been so radiant, even as a bride at the altar.

  “Here!” she said, handing Inga the plans. “Bring these to your father.”

  “What about the Icelander?” Inga asked.

  Jordis thought for a moment and then decided to trust her. “Arjen will take him to Amrum in a fishing boat. From there, he can take a Dutch smak to Amsterdam. In Amsterdam, it should be easy for him to find a ship bound for Iceland.”

  “And you?” Inga asked. “Will you be going with him?”

  Jordis sank onto the kitchen bench. She spread out her hands on the table in front of her and stared at her fingertips. “I don’t know. I still have to decide. I have to decide what will happen in the rest of my life in the next hour,” she said, her voice ringing with uncertainty.

  Inga put a hand on her arm. “Why would you leave?”

  Jordis swallowed. “I love a man who belongs to another. If I stay here and see him every day, the longing will destroy me. If I go to Iceland, I can start anew.” She laughed doubtfully. “Perhaps I’ll find a man there who I can love, and who can love me.”

  “You still love Arjen?” Inga asked.

  Jordis nodded. “Yes. But he’s your husband.”

  Inga looked at Tamme before answering. “And I love another. I’ve known since last night that Tamme is the man of my heart.”

  Jordis laughed, but it rang hollow. “So we both love men we can’t have.” She got up and put the plans on the table. “Bring these to your father, but not right away. Wait until the sun has risen. It would be good if Lian can leave the island before your father sets out for Munkmarsch.”

  Then she got up. “I bid you farewell because I still don’t know what I’ll do. But if I do go to Iceland, I will never forget either of you.”

  Inga got up too, threw her arms around Jordis, and hugged her tightly. “Stay,” she begged her. “It would be nice to have you as a friend. This time as a real friend. Stay here with us. This is where you belong.”

  CHAPTER 16

  When Jordis returned to her hut, Lian was ready to go. He was wearing an old oilskin coat that had belonged to Arjen, his boots, and a pair of sturdy britches. He also wore the kind of shirt that the men on Sylt normally wore for special occasions. There was nothing that indicated that he was Icelandic.

  “Are you ready? Where’s Arjen?” Jordis asked.

  “He’s getting the boat ready.”

  Jordis nodded.

  “And are you coming with me?” Lian asked her quietly, but Jordis felt as though his words rang through the entire hut.

  “Should I?” she asked. “Should I leave Sylt and go with you to the land of my ancestors? I don’t know what to do.”

  Lian smiled at her gently. “I would take care of you. You would want for nothing. That I promise you.”

  “But? I hear hesitation in your voice.”

  “You have friends here. Good friends. And Arjen loves you. A blind man could see that.”

  “But he’s married,” Jordis said pensively.

  “Love will find a way. You can count on that. All that matters is that you love him too.”

  All at once, Jordis’s eyes were clear, and her voice was unwavering. “I love Arjen. I have always loved him and always will, whether I want to or not. You can’t choose who to love, and you can’t choose how long to love either.” She took a deep breath and held her hand out to Lian. “I’m staying. I wish you well.”

  Lian pulled her close and embraced her. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. You saved my life. I am deeply in your debt.” He reached into the pocket of his britches and took out a small leather bag. “This is my futhark. It was blessed by the best rune master in Iceland. Take it.”

  Jordis closed the bag in her hand and stepped back. Lian slipped into the oilskin coat, and then he stroked her cheek with his thumb. “Farewell, Jordis. I will never forget you.” Then he opened the door and walked outside.

  “And I will never forget you,” Jordis said. But Lian was gone.

  A little later, Jordis stood on the crest of the dunes and gazed toward Amrum. The fishing boat with Arjen and Lian in it was a tiny point on the horizon. Longing filled her heart, but also joy. She had made up her mind. She would remain on the island. She belonged on Sylt, even though she had Icelandic roots. She belonged here. By this sea, on this beach, in this village. She would stand here and wait. Wait for Arjen to return. She would stand on the dunes like the sailors’ wives and watch for her man. And while she waited, she would pray that nothing bad happened to him.

  CHAPTER 17

  A week had passed, and the church was fuller than usual. All the villagers were there because the governor had announced he would come. He wanted to thank the people of Rantum for having played an important role in the Great Northern War. It was rumored that he had a letter from the king of Denmark that would absolve the village of Rantum from paying taxes for an entire year. What was more, all current cases against beachcombers would be dropped.

  Sylt had never seen the likes of it. The villagers of Rantum were amazed, in part because they’d never actually heard of the Great Northern War or their valuable contribution to the war effort. The only part they understood was about the taxes and beachcombing.

  Jordis, Inga, Arjen, and Tamme were together, sitting near the front of the church. Inga insisted that, as the pastor’s daughter, she had a right to the place. The other three would have preferred to sit at the back, where the pastor’s angry gaze couldn’t find them so easily. But they had deferred to Inga. More and more people filled the church. People had even come from Westerland to find out what had happened in Rantum. The harpsichord played, and the old women from the church choir began by singing “Great King of Gods.”

  When the song had ended, the pastor appeared. Usually, he wore a cantankerous expression, marched to the pulpit, and began by shouting his sermon at the congregation. But on that day, he smiled. He even paused to look warmly at his flock, and those who were in the front pews said later that his smile had been kind.

  He went to the governor, who was sitting with his secretary and his honored wife in the first pew. The men shook hands. Then the pastor stepped up to the pulpit. There was a breathless silence in the church. All eyes were on the man who had until that day been nothing more than a hard and unforgiving shepherd.

  “Dear villagers,” he began, “a few days ago, we were able to make a definitive contribution to the outcome of the Great Northern War. Due to the mindfulness of the citizens of Rantum, it was possible to retrieve important documents from the sea and have them sent to the king of Denmark. It was my daughter, Inga, who found the plans. She found them on the beach, half buried in sand, and brought them to me so I could bring them to the governor.”

  The villagers looked around in confusion. Most of them knew nothing about any important war documents, but it didn’t matter to them if the result was an exemption from paying taxes.

  Then the governor stood and read a letter from the king of Denmark, which contained exactly the same information the villagers had been gossiping about on the street corners. After the service, when the first churchgoers were about to stand up and leave, the governor beckoned Inga and Arjen to the pulpit. He shook hands with them and patted Arjen on the shoulder. Then he turned to the congregation. “
These are the heroes of Rantum. These are our friends and neighbors, of whom we can be proud.”

  The villagers broke into spontaneous applause, and some even threw their caps in the air. Arjen smiled a little crookedly and obviously didn’t know what to do with his hands. But Inga stood calmly, and a smile blossomed on her face. The applause ended, and the governor ushered Inga and Arjen back to their pew. But Inga stopped. “I’d like to say a few words,” she said loudly and clearly.

  The pastor, who had just left the pulpit, hissed at her. “Sit down. You have nothing to say here. Not you or anyone else.”

  But the governor held the pastor’s arm. “I’d like to hear what this village hero has to say.” He smiled at Inga encouragingly, and she smiled back. She was nervous. Her lips trembled, and her hands clung to the folds of her skirts.

  “As you all know, I am the wife of Arjen the smith. We don’t have a happy marriage because we don’t love each other. For that reason, we will never have children. I forced Arjen to marry me. I found a way to make him leave Jordis, his fiancée, and marry me instead. He did it to protect Jordis. But he still loves her, and Jordis still loves him.” She lowered her head. There was breathless silence in the church. “The two of them belong together. Here before the altar of God, I wish to free Arjen and beg the pastor to annul our marriage.”

  She had barely stopped speaking when the murmuring began. The women put their heads together and began to whisper, and the men looked around at one another in confusion. Many of them had not married their wives for love. For many, love had grown with time, but in some cases, it had not. The pastor stood at the pulpit, breathing heavily. His red face indicated that he would’ve liked to get his hands around his daughter’s throat. But the governor still stood beside her. “Is that true? You forced him?”

  Inga nodded. “Yes, it’s true. As is that I love Tamme, and he loves me. And if you don’t believe me, ask them yourself.”

  The governor turned to Arjen. “Does she speak the truth?” he asked. Arjen rose from the pew, and with him Jordis and Tamme. Arjen took Jordis’s hand.

  “There was injustice done here in Rantum. Inga is right. We are not happy together because we both love another.” He raised his hand high, so everyone could see that it was linked with Jordis’s. “This injustice can be made right. We beg you to annul our marriage.”

  The governor turned to Tamme. “And is it also true what she says of you?” he asked.

  Tamme lifted his chin. “I love Inga and wish nothing more than to be her husband,” he declared. He cast a brief glance at the pastor, who had gone white with anger.

  The governor turned to the pastor. “A forced marriage is not a valid marriage. When love speaks, the law shall remain silent.”

  EPILOGUE

  THE NORTH FRISIAN ISLAND OF SYLT, 1714

  Autumn had begun. The sailors’ wives stood on the dunes at dawn, watching for the Dutch smaks, the coastal transport ships from Amsterdam and Hamburg carrying those men who had been aboard the whaling ships: husbands, brothers, lovers, and fathers. They had left Sylt in February on Petritag, Saint Peter’s Day, after the Biikebrennen festival, and had sailed all spring and summer, as far as Spitsbergen and Greenland, searching for whales. They had braved storms and drift ice. They had hunted the enormous creatures in small rowboats, risking their lives to cast harpoons at the behemoths. They had towed the slain whales back to the mother ship, balancing precariously on top of the creatures’ carcasses to cut away the blubber. They had sweat, laughed, cursed, endured freezing temperatures, and now they were elated to be coming home at last. There was a buoyant, joyful atmosphere on board the smaks. The men had money in their pockets and their sea chests were full of gifts, and they were looking forward to spending the winter by warm hearths with their wives and children.

  Jordis and Inga had joined the other women on the dunes. They stood side by side, and Inga carried a cooing baby on her hip. “I can’t believe she’s already almost half a year old,” Jordis said. “She’s gotten so much bigger.” She stroked the child’s cheek with her finger. Inga had finally become pregnant in the summer of the previous year with the child she had desired for so long.

  “Yes, she has,” Inga replied proudly. “Tamme will be amazed at how she’s grown these last few weeks. When he left with Arjen for Amsterdam, I was still nursing her for every meal. Now she can take a spoonful of gruel every now and then.”

  Jordis nodded. “I hope our men will bring back plenty of orders. Unless the work in the smithy is too much for Tamme . . .”

  “Don’t worry about that. Tamme likes working with Arjen. There are things he can’t do, but he can hammer dents from cooking pots, make door knockers and other small things. And of course he helps with the sextants.” She took Jordis’s hand. “I’m so glad that everything worked out this way. I’m so glad that Tamme can work with Arjen so we don’t have to depend on beachcombing any longer. I don’t know how to thank you enough.”

  Jordis shrugged. “Arjen says Tamme is an excellent smith. He can’t imagine working without him anymore.”

  “We have Lian to thank for that,” Inga said as she stroked the child’s head.

  “Yes. If he hadn’t sent us the correct plans after arriving in Iceland, Arjen and Tamme wouldn’t have been able to build the new navigation device. It still took them quite a bit of time to work out the difficulties in the manufacturing process, though. And then they had to make enough so they could sell some and take orders for more.”

  Inga nodded. “I still don’t understand how exactly the sextant works, but Tamme is so excited about it that some evenings he talks of nothing else. I’m sure our husbands will have sold more than a few in Amsterdam. And they will probably return with ledgers full of orders for more.”

  All at once, a ripple of excitement went through the group. The women who were standing on the dunes all began to speak at once. A Dutch smak had appeared on the horizon. Some women took combs out of their pockets and pulled them through their windblown hair. Others smoothed their dresses. Young mothers wet handkerchiefs and cleaned their children’s faces. Old women straightened their backs and narrowed their eyes, trying to see the ship in the distance.

  Inga reached for Jordis’s hand and squeezed it. “I’m so glad that life is like I always dreamed it would be, now.”

  Jordis squeezed back. “I am too.” Then she put a hand on her rounded belly and stroked it.

  “Do you know what you’re going to name your baby?” Inga asked.

  Jordis nodded. “If it’s a girl, she will be called Nanna. If it’s a boy, we’re going to name him Lian.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 2016 Jochen Schneider

  Bestselling author Ines Thorn was born in Leipzig, Germany, in 1964. Beginning her literary journey as a bookseller’s apprentice, she later went on to study German, Slavic studies, and cultural philosophy at the distinguished Goethe University.

  In the year 2000, Thorn published her first novel while working in a hospital library. By 2003, she was able to devote her time entirely to writing and has been creating unforgettable historical fiction ever since.

  Today she lives in Frankfurt am Main and works as a full-time freelance writer. The Whaler, the first installment in her popular series The Island of Sylt, is her first book to be translated into English for the American market.

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  Photo © 2011 Alex Maechler

  Kate Northrop grew up in Connecticut and later studied music and English literature in the United States and the United Kingdom. Her travels eventually led to the German-speaking region of Switzerland, where she’s lived with her Swiss husband and their two bilingual children since 1994.

  Today, she works as both a professional translator and lyricist, with credits that include songs signed to major labels and music publishers. With more than fifteen years of translating experience, Northrop now runs her own literary translation business, Art of Translation. Visit her at www.art-of-tran
slation.com.