When men sat with their fishing lines, they sometimes recited the verse that Hølund in his survey called “Winter Hymn”:
Fish swim in tears
tears salty as the sea
the sea deep as sorrow.
Oh, you Sweet One,
give us winter fish.
“Street Hymn” was also popular. In reality, H. P. Hølund later wrote, it was a Tórshavn illiterate who unwillingly introduced a blend of poetic modernism and homegrown lyrics into young Faroese poetry.
Birds fly on the wind
dreams hover in fog
Wind
fog
birds
dream.
The heart beats in the bay
the blood sings in the sky
Geil swaddled in stars.
Ebba routinely accompanied her great-grandfather to the old pillory up on Kák, where he liked to stand. She often retrieved him after one or two hours, but it also happened that he carefully felt his way home. He knew every stone on Geil and around Kák, and if he fell he would just say that his childhood soil was welcoming his old bones.
But he could be fierce, if not to say terrifying, when he propped himself against the half-rotten post and, with the wind whipping his thin gray locks, shouted out over the housetops:
Sarakka, Sarakka, Sarakka, Sarakka
child in the sea
the blue chick.
Sarakka, Sarakka, Sarakka, Sarakka
tread hard
grip fast
crumbling cliffs of a broken moon.
Tóvó worked the perforated ladle beneath the cod heads and tried to transfer them whole from the pot onto the wooden dish. They had shrunk in a bit, and their boiled, lopsided smiles seemed outright friendly. He served potatoes next, and Tóvó remembered his great-grandfather once saying that potatoes housed the light from fallen stars. In any case, he meant that the potatoes, which the Norwegian pastor’s wife had brought to the Faroes, had a gentle and appealing spirit.
He had cut dried fat into a saucepan; and when Ebba suggested it was rather excessive to also melt the sheep tallow, her brother replied that during his years at sea it was the sheep tallow smell that came back to him whenever he remembered the Faroes.
Each ate with his own small knife, working savory pieces from the cheeks and dipping the potatoes in the melted tallow. Cod heads tend to preclude small talk, and Martin smiled at his mother and father’s eager slurping, not to mention Tóvó’s. Twice more Tóvó ladled heads onto the dish, and it was not long before the white bones began to emerge, seeming to have forgotten everything to do with their Atlantic origin.
The real dot over the i, though, was waiting in the fly cabinet. Earlier in the week, Tóvó had asked Baker Restorff to make a layer cake with pudding below and dried plums on the top. Whatever else went into it Tóvó left to the baker’s ingenuity and his craft pride.
He and Restorff ran into each other regularly on the street and conversed on a variety of everyday topics. They always talked about long voyages and foreign customs, and when Tóvó came to pick up the cake this Maundy Thursday, it was no exception.
While Restorff wrapped up the cake, he suddenly said: “Be careful, Tóvó. Obram is a good friend to have, but he makes a terrible enemy.”
“Hmm,” Tóvó grumbled. “Obram needs to realize that the light of free trade doesn’t just shine for him and other layer-cake princes. The light is also meant for workers and sailors.”
“Well spoken again,” Restorff laughed rather nervously. “I remember your great-grandfather. An excellent man.”
Ebba smiled when she saw the beautiful cake. At times she baked crullers and periodically also fancy sugar-bread for special occasions, but she had never even approached such a fine cake. And she told her brother as much.
“Why do you think I asked Restorff to bake this cake?”
“To make your little sister happy, since she’s become such an old woman,” Ebba replied.
Sámal saw her wipe away a tear, but whether it was her brother’s kindness, or perhaps the confrontation in the warehouse basement she had on her mind, that he did not know.
Sámal asked his brother-in-law if he remembered Sára Malena, the Skúvoy witch.
“Are there witches in the Faroes?” Tóvó asked.
Sámal filled his pipe while he told the story of Sára Malena, who a few years ago had been sent to jail, condemned for begging and for stealing knitting yarn. Her first night in jail, a strange thing happened: Judge Øverstrup’s cow died. The next night the judge’s wife went sleepwalking and took a tumble down the attic stairs, breaking one of her legs.
The judge immediately summoned Doctor Nolsøe, and while the doctor examined and bandaged his wife’s leg, he also sent a message to the constable on duty at the jail. He wrote that Sára Malena had spent her last night in Tórshavn and that she should be sent back to Skúvoy as quickly as possible.
“And who do you think stood on the Kongabrúgv with a sack full of sugar, salt, tobacco, and flour for the departing witch? Gerd, Obram úr Oyndarfirði’s wife. Obram had sent his wife with those gifts. Trust me. The man is full of superstition. He wouldn’t dare to trip up a Brahmadella, and certainly not a Brahmadella’s brother-in-law.”
A Toast to Deep Respect
ON GOOD FRIDAY, Hjøstrup heard the entire story of the events in the warehouse basement. The two were sitting together in Obram’s parlor. The evening red was reflected off one of the glass cupboard doors, and coffee cups and cognac glasses stood on the table. Cigarette smoke drifted slowly toward the cracked window, and the only sound to be heard was when the maid knocked, curtsied to the men, and refilled their coffee cups.
Obram and Gerd were childless, and shortly before the holiday Gerd had traveled north to Oyndarfjørður. Aside from celebrating Easter with her mother-in-law, she also wanted to speak to one of Obram’s relatives about bringing the woman’s daughter back to Tórshavn, where she would live with the Obrams while attending secondary school.
Obram told Hjøstrup how he had promised his workers a bonus on the condition they emptied the Haabet before Easter. They had not pulled it off, but in order to show the men that he valued their efforts, he promised them some of the goods from the store.
That was the heart of the matter.
Hjøstrup set down his coffee cup, wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin, and said that he understood that kind of generosity. It was not his job to teach Obram his business, of course. Nonetheless, he was of the opinion that once an agreement was struck between two parties, it ought to be abided.
Not too many years from now, he said, parties in the labor market would enter into written contracts—the practice had already been instituted in other countries—and it was just a matter of time before it came to the Faroes. Of course, a man was a man, and his word was still his word. However, when it came to buying and selling, and that included the buying of labor, legally binding agreements were becoming a necessity. Modern times required it.
Obram repeated the coarse and rather blasphemous words spoken by Sámal á Kák. He knew that vulgarity was a poor man’s delight, as he expressed it, and if the words had been spoken in a larger public space, the man could have expected a rebuke. Sámal was one of the town drunks, and aside from that, he was a member of the obstinate and hot-tempered Kák clan. That family had yet to produce any schoolteachers or church sextons.
These last words were spoken in a conciliatory tone, but the bailiff did not appreciate this kind of consolation.
Founding the Workers Union was only one piece of a larger plan to modernize the hopelessly backward Faroes. And he told Obram as much. All that talk about race and clan struck him as provincial, and he provoked Obram deliberately when he said that it also sounded a little Old Testamentish.
Obram responded with surprise. He viewed himself as a representative of the modern era—did the Old Testament now stand in the way of progress?
The bailiff answered that the Old Te
stament and Mosaic Law were interesting in a cultural-historical context. He stroked his mustache and asked if Obram had ever noticed that whenever more than two Jews put their heads together, be their names Marx, Brandes, or Lassalle, suddenly the resolute urge for a crucifixion hung in the air?
No, Obram replied, he had never noticed that.
Jews are book people, Hjøstrup continued. And as much as possible, book people ought to quietly lead their lives lost in their books. The New Testament’s message of love, as well as the civil laws that saw the light of day in 1849, these were the rails on which the modern man ought to lean for support. Not some squabble between long-dead Jews.
Although Obram did not have much to say about Tórálvur í Geil, it was actually the part concerning Tóvó that Hjøstrup found most interesting. He told Obram about the time he gave Tóvó the deed to the old corporal’s house on Bringsnagøta. In the first place, Hjøstrup was amazed to see an ordinary Tórshavnar walking about in foreign clothes, and with the delicate hands that characterized the saints in El Greco’s paintings. And Tóvó was reserved, but it was not for lack for words. Exactly the opposite, Hjøstrup said. Words were precious, and what was precious must be guarded, something a type like Tórálvur í Geil knew well. And the man was always so watchful, that was what was so strange, indeed, utterly suspicious. The thought had crossed Hjøstrup’s mind, and he would gladly stand corrected, if he were mistaken, but he was convinced that Tóvó had the frightened eyes of a shrewd criminal. Hjøstrup raised his index finger, and his nostrils flared as if he had caught the scent of a lurking fiend as he added in a low voice that perhaps Tórálvur í Geil was one of the secret members of the International Workingmen’s Association.
Even though Obram was irritated at the mention of Greco, and all the other foreign names Hjøstrup liked to insert into the conversation, he listened to everything the man said with great interest.
All that Obram knew about Tóvó were things other people had told him. He knew that Tóvó had left Tórshavn in 1852—he remembered the exact date because he and Ludda-Kristjan had built the Doctor’s House in Tvøroyri over the spring and summer of that same year. Back then Tóvó was just a wretched kid, and since ’57 or ’58, and for the next quarter century thereafter, he had been away from the Faroes, at least as far as Obram knew.
Obram did not want to discuss Tóvó’s family, and certainly not Crazy Betta. He remembered her well, though, from his apprentice year in Tórshavn.
Lunatics terrified him, and for that matter, so did imbeciles. You knew them by their dreadful words, which sent cold shivers down your spine. It was like their eyes saw right to your heart, that was what was so frightening; and if you had any stain of conscience on your heart, they knew it. Luckily, the Landkirurg had begun sending such people to institutions in Denmark. No, he had no wish to discuss Crazy Betta, and although he had nothing unfavorable to say about her son, neither as a stonemason nor a work companion, he had been shaken by Tóvó’s schooled and hard words Wednesday evening in the warehouse basement.
There was a reason, however, that Obram tended to avoid the subject of lunatics. His whole childhood north in Oyndarfjørður, Obram watched how his father was plagued by what his mother termed the Gray Disease, and Obram still considered the nights when his father lay there screaming, with men from the town coming to tie him down, to be the worst period of his life.
He was thirteen years old when he left home; he would have left sooner if it had been possible. Ludda-Kristjan apprenticed him, and the fact that Ludda-Kristjan had pitied such a young, country boy was a kindness Obram would never forget. Therefore, he could not bring himself to fire the mudslinger Sámal á Kák.
Hjøstrup asked if the rumor were true, that the Brahmadells were some kind of local family of sorcerers.
Obram replied that the Geil family were reputed to know more than their fair share.
Hjøstrup digested the answer, then asked if he could pose Obram a personal question.
“Of course,” Obram replied.
“Do you believe sorcery to be an actual force in society?”
Obram laughed. He raised his hands to his cheeks and rested his head in his fists. “I wouldn’t discount the possibility, at any rate,” he answered.
“Hmm,” Hjøstrup said. “If it turns out that Tórálvur í Geil is an agent of the International Workingmen’s Association, and that he is secretly planning to organize a strike, would you hesitate to exercise the authority given to you by the Penal Code of 1866?”
“No,” answered Obram. “I wouldn’t hesitate for a second. Nonetheless, I must admit that I have a kind of strange respect for these people.”
“Isn’t that a medieval mentality?” Hjøstrup asked.
“Tell that to the young mothers who take their newborns to visit Old Tóvó’s grave. They recite his strange verses, and they take home a blade of grass or maybe a small flower from his gravesite. Talk to them. Do it. Hello, you there, yes, you, young lady. You’re living in the Middle Ages. Tell them that. Or go the pastor and tell him that idolatry is being practiced in the Svínaryggur churchyard.”
“Are you saying there’s a Brahmadella sect here in the city?”
“Old Tóvó was 105 when he died, and even though he had a church burial and the pastor spoke over his body, people held another ceremony some time after that. I heard it from my old master Ludda-Kristjan. You can call it medieval or whatever else you want. But there’s a deep respect surrounding the Brahmadells.”
“Good,” said Hjøstrup. “Let us toast to deep respect.”
Their glasses met with a delicate sound. A trimming had been etched just below the rim, and while the lovely brown cognac wet their tongues and slid slowly down their throats, it occurred to Obram that the crafty devil had just tricked him.
The Strike and the Treacherous Crew Member
FOLLOWING ST. OLAF’S Day in 1882, two representatives from the work crew, Habba av Velbastað and Sámal á Kák, met in Obram’s office. They had come to demand a higher hourly wage.
What neither Habba nor Sámal knew was that Obram was already well acquainted with their errand. He knew that the two spoke for the men in this matter, and he also had a reasonable idea who the crew’s more tractable members were. The old man from Hvítanes, who informed on his crew members, had spoken quite candidly, but Obram thought he also had a good sense of the men who depended on him for their bread and butter. What Habba and Sámal could not possibly know was that their boss and the bailiff had already discussed it. And not only that. They had also developed a plan in case the men actually took the major step of going on strike.
After Habba had said his piece, Obram offered each a quid of tobacco.
The cordiality was unexpected, and before Habba knew it, he had accepted the offering. Obram asked Sámal how the Geil family was doing, and Sámal said it was business as usual. However, he quickly added that he did not see what his family had to do with the matter at hand.
Obram smiled and told him not to be so defensive. Then he stood up from his desk and accompanied the men outside. He looked at Habba and then he clapped Sámal on the shoulder.
“Go back to work,” he said amiably. “I intend to forget what we’ve just discussed, and that’s the message you can take back to the others.”
They were utterly confused as they walked along the new Amtmansbrekka. Two weeks ago the rafters had been raised and laths installed, and it was now apparent how truly imposing the building was. Neither Habba nor Sámal said a word. In the face of that colossal structure, they realized their insignificance.
Before this meeting, the men had agreed that if the negotiations with Obram proved fruitless, work would stop. And after Habba had told his associates about the dubious and strange meeting with Obram, their resolution was set in motion.
Most men remained at the building site, though some went to help with the hay harvest in the outfield, and others made their way home. That was around nine o’clock in the morning. At abo
ut noon, however, a boy leaned out of an open window and said that soldiers were on their way. Two minutes later the stamp of boots could be heard in the yard, and then ten armed soldiers came tramping over the temporary floorboards with Hjøstrup at their head. The bailiff was wearing a long coat and had buckled on his saber. He took charge immediately.
In wartime, he said, it was fitting to threaten the enemy. However, there was no war in Tórshavn, and the city had not seen war since Captain Baugh and the Spectacled Man plundered the city in 1808. Hjøstrup ordered the men to return to work and to be quick about it. They should also keep in mind that Obram úr Oyndarfirði was no enemy. On the contrary, it was thanks to men like him that Tórshavn had entered the modern era.
Habba replied that it was not a crime to suggest that 18 oyru was too low an hourly wage. In Copenhagen, stonemasons received 32 oyru an hour for the same work. The salary demand was not unreasonable, when one took into consideration that they had large households to support.
The bailiff did not seem to hear his words. He simply looked at Habba, and saw before him only a great proletarian beast that filled the bucket every time it shit.
He signaled with his left hand, and suddenly the soldiers assumed position, their legs astride, rifles by their right feet, and hands on the barrels.
The bailiff said he was not here to negotiate. He was here as the highest representative of the law, and he wanted to remind the crew that disobeying him would be taken as a sign of insurrection.
Confusion seized the men. The bailiff’s message had caught them off guard.
The first to yield were the father and son from Hvítanes. His neck bent, the son trailed his father across the supporting beams, and given the threat, a few others also returned to work.
The rest were conducted to Skansin’s prison.
Even though Habba and Sámal had spoken for the crew and carried the wage-hike demand to Obram, they were not the ones brought into the guardroom for interrogation around ten o’clock the evening of the arrest.
The Brahmadells Page 18
