Two soldiers retrieved Tóvó and shackled him. One of them was Laurits á Bakka. Tóvó was annoyed at the length of chain between the shackles; it was so short that it forced him to stand with his hands folded, as if the skackles had deliberately been made to make prisoners seem like they were begging for mercy. He asked Laurits if shackles were really necessary, and the answer he got was so unreasonable and unexpected that a short laugh burst from his lips. Laurits replied that Tóvó was just as crazy as his mother and that he belonged in shackles.
Hjøstrup was standing next to the Bilegger stove when the soldiers brought in Tóvó, and he immediately launched into a long lecture regarding what a dangerous organization the International Workingmen’s Association was. The scribe sat at the large plank table beneath the window, and every time Hjøstrup paused to take a breath, the hasty scrabble of pen across paper could be heard.
The Association found its members in large cities, the bailiff said. And one should not underestimate them. Oh no. They were just as well organized as the zealots back in Jesus’s day, and they were no less ruthless. Those zealots were just pathetic Jews who despised the Romans with the same fervor as the Association did authority in the modern era. And as strange as it might sound, it was the Jews who headed the Association, and the worst sort of Jews at that, the Ashkenazi. They governed the Association, and they spoke that hateful pipe-valve language, sszzwwhh sounds whistling between their ravenous jaws.
Labor strikes on the continent had become a real plague, and the men on strike had but one goal—power. The Danish politician Estrup knew it, and so did the Prussian Chancellor Bismarck, and as long as he, Ewald Hjøstrup, was bailiff in the Faroes, no one would escape unpunished for trying to demolish what men like Obram úr Oyndarfjørði and the modern Faroes represented.
Hjøstrup took a deep breath and then asked Tóvó how the International Workingmen’s Association sent messages.
“I don’t understand the question,” Tóvó replied.
“I want to know who the courier is,” Hjøstrup said. “Do you get your orders from foreign sailors or perhaps from visitors? Or does the Association simply have a local chapter here in the city that makes independent decisions? That’s what I’m asking.”
Tóvó tried to remember if he had ever heard Habba or Sámal mention the International Workingmen’s Association. His brother-in-law certainly knew nothing about the organization. Habba, however, knew a thing or two about Danish affairs. Still, he could not remember the man ever mentioning the Association or anything that had to do with international cooperation.
He shrugged his shoulders, and said that no one was giving him orders.
“Are you trying to say that you don’t know what the International Workingmen’s Association is?” Hjøstrup inquired.
Tóvó said that he had heard about a labor union by that name, but he had no connection to any union. And certainly not the one organized by Hjøstrup.
Hjøstrup seemed to consider these words and asked where Tóvó had heard of the Association.
“I’ve been a sailor for many years,” Tóvó replied. He might have heard the name mentioned aboard some ship or in some foreign harbor. He could not remember where, though.
Hjøstrup persisted. He asked if it had been in Northern Europe or maybe in some Mediterranean seaport. Or perhaps he had heard of the Association while sailing to New Orleans with weapons.
Even as Tóvó was wondering if he should start feigning ignorance, he was also curious as to why the bailiff had mentioned New Orleans. What was his endgame?
The American Civil War was over by the time Tóvó had first sailed across the Atlantic. He had often sailed to Hamburg, and also to Amsterdam and Bergen, so it was probably in one of those cities that he had heard about the organization. Was it really all that important?
Suddenly, he became angry and asked what the meaning of all this nonsense was anyway.
Tóvó did not know that a few months ago Hjøstrup had been to see the post master, Hans Christoffer Müller, and had instructed him to retain all correspondence that might come for Tórálvur í Geil. The bailiff had also approached the bank director regarding Tóvó’s finances, and was told that while Tóvó was not a rich man, he had more money in his account than most people did.
Hjøstrup was so obsessed with conspiracies that he had already decided that Tóvó was a man the authorities ought to keep their eye on.
The bailiff answered that it was his job to decide which questions were important and which were not. This was an interrogation, and perhaps there was some shred of insanity bound up with it, he could not rule out the possibility. Tórshavn, though, had suffered a strike, that was the real insanity, and everything to do with strikes immediately smacked of the Association.
Hjøstrup, who had been pacing the floor while he talked, now took a seat beside the scribe.
For a time he seemed preoccupied, now and then glancing at Tóvó. Then he reached for a piece of paper, dipped his pen in the ink bottle, and sketched the European and North American coastlines, after which he asked Tóvó to list the ships with which he had sailed and the ports he had visited.
A smile flitted across Tóvó’s lips. It was the first time anyone had asked him that, and any answer he gave would only be used for, well, he had no idea for what, but hardly anything good.
He said that his life as a sailor began in the summer of 1858. That was when the Norwegian schooner Rosendal put in at Tvøroyri, or rather at Hvalba, since the ship wanted coal. He had been nineteen years old, and since then the bulk of his life had been spent at sea. He had cut his teeth on the Baltic Sea. The miserable dinghies unable to compete with the steamships sailed with timber and fish to Lübeck, Rostock, Gdansk, St. Petersburg, and whatever those other Baltic ports were called. Later he signed on with the paddle steamer Håkon Jarl, which had a fixed route between Bergen and Hamburg. In Amsterdam he got a berth aboard the Thin Lizzy, which sailed between Amsterdam and Newcastle with coal. He had sailed quite a bit between Alexandria and Southampton and also between Southampton and New York.
Hjøstrup interrupted him. Suddenly, it was as if all this maritime talk was beside the point. His expression turned startled as he said that, to his knowledge, there were three murders associated with the person of Tórálvur í Geil.
The scribe handed him a large envelope, and after rifling through the papers for a moment, Hjøstrup found the one he was looking for.
In 1858, he said, a man by the name of Jóakim Nolsøe died in Tvøroyri, and, according to Napoleon Nolsøe, various things pointed to murder. Hjøstrup put down the paper, remarking that the authorities had not done much in the matter, but that a Scot named Ronnie Harrison had been a suspect. He assumed Tóvó knew who Ronnie Harrison was.
Tóvó felt the blood drain from his face; his throat was suddenly dry, but he did not dare to ask for something to drink. He said he remembered Ronnie Harrison, primarily because George Harrison was his father, and Tóvó’s own father and brother had sailed on George Harrison’s ship, the Glen Rose.
Hjøstrup further rifled through the papers, saying that eleven years later, in 1868, that same Ronnie Harrison had been murdered in the basement of a Fraserburgh chapel. The murder shook the congregation, both due to the fact that it had occurred in a house of worship, and that the victim had been a Free Church pastor.
Hjøstrup said that he knew Tóvó was not in the Faroes when Nils Tvibur suddenly died—indeed, there were some who insisted he was murdered. Nonetheless, Tóvó had inherited his house on Bringsnagøta. So, how was all of this connected? Were all these deaths pure coincidence?
“Perhaps I ought to be a little more forthright,” said Hjøstrup. “In truth, I fear you, because it stinks of blood wherever you go. Do you understand me? Let’s put it another way: A hundred years ago this list of names, Jóakim Nolsøe, Ronnie Harrison, and Nils Tvibur—not to mention the fact that you may very well come from a family of sorcerers—would have earned your miserable carcass a deat
h sentence. That’s why I’m asking if all these deaths are pure coincidence?”
Hjøstrup poured water into a glass. The water was the same pale color as the lamplight; he did not pick up the glass. When he was finished pouring, he simply left it to gleam on the table.
“And now the strike, is that also just coincidence? Why is it only now that you all went on strike?”
“I have no idea,” Tóvó answered. “Ask someone else.”
“Who else?” Hjøstrup asked.
“The jail is currently full of workmen.”
“Why didn’t you all strike in the autumn instead?” Hjøstrup insisted. “Back then you could’ve pressured Obram. Or why not earlier in the year, for example, right after the confrontation in the warehouse basement?”
At this point, Tóvó did something he should not have done. He went too far.
Or rather, he went too far in order to escape having to talk more about the murders, particularly the murder of Ronnie Harrison.
“I read in the Dimmalætting that the Amtmand receives a yearly salary of almost 6,000 kroner,” he said, “and that you yourself receive around 3,600 kroner. Not only that, but you each get free housing and the use of a farm. In kroner and oyru, you’re worth about ten times more than any workman under Obram úr Oyndarfjørði.”
Hjøstrup laughed loudly. “Does Tórálvur í Geil mean to imply that a workman ought to be measured on the same scale as a royal official?”
“No! Not at all. An official is far too high and mighty and his office far too lazy. The Bible has nothing to say about employees of the Danish king. On the other hand, Luke writes that a worker is worth his wage.”
“I believe I’ve struck a chord,” Hjøstrup said.
“Do you truly believe that Obram úr Oyndarfirði pays his workers enough?”
“Tórálvur í Geil. Let me tell you something. My job is to maintain law and order in this country, that’s the only reason I’m mixed up in this affair. I have no particular opinion about money matters. That’s for the labor market to decide.”
Tóvó reached out his manacled hands. “Why do I need shackles, then, when all you want to do is talk?”
Hjøstrup smiled. “As I said, I’m told you’re from a clan of probable sorcerers. A man must protect himself.”
The bailiff stood up from the table. He was half tempted to thank Tóvó for providing so much material for a fruitful report.
Now he was going home to have a decent meal. And he would take two guards with him. If the workmen were capable of going on strike, they were probably also capable of assaulting authority figures.
Perhaps it was Habba who stood behind the strike, him and that scoundrel Sámal. Habba just seemed so uncommonly stupid, though, and suddenly Hjøstrup giggled. He covered his mouth to conceal the laughter that bubbled up in his chest. The image he had had earlier in the day, of Habba as a great beast that filled the bucket each time it shit, returned to him. The man was nothing but a body, mouth, and bowels, and every time he beat his furry chest, he made the smaller beasts hop.
Hjøstrup pulled on his jacket and told Laurits á Bakka that he could release the prisoners in half an hour.
On his way out he stopped by the stool where Tóvó sat, and he began to sing inwardly: brahmi, brahmadu, brahmaduff. Cheerfully, Hjøstrup continued out the door.
The Fight That Changed It All
THE FIRST OFFICIAL event sponsored by Tórshavn’s Workers Union was a presentation of Heiberg’s musical comedy King Solomon and Jørgen the Hatmaker.
The play took place on February 3, 1883 in the old church built by Pastor Bauer, and at the small reception that followed, Hjøstrup asked Henrietta what she had thought of the performance.
Henrietta answered that Dia við Stein was a treasure on piano, and that many of the songs were heart-gripping. “But if that’s a Danish classic, Heaven preserve me from the rest of them.”
Around midnight she went home. Three hours later she woke.
Someone had been knocking at the door for a while, two small raps, three small raps, again and again, with short pauses.
Finally, she lit the candle, holding it in front of her as she carefully made her way down the stairs. She had no idea that she was walking straight into a modern drama, with a Brahmadella playing lead.
“Who’s there?” she called.
“Tóvó. Tórálvur í Geil.”
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” she asked after a long pause.
“All I know is it’s pitch black.”
She turned the lock and cracked the door open, then thought about slamming it shut when she saw his bloodied face. But Tóvó wedged his boot between the door and the frame, apologizing for the intrusion, but he had nowhere else to go, she had to let him in.
The first thing Tóvó asked Henrietta to do was to help him pop his left shoulder back into its socket. His voice was not particularly threatening, but she still dared not refuse.
Tóvó sat on a step, passed his hand and arm through the bars of the railing, and told her to grip his forearm tight with both hands, and he would put his arm back into place. The first attempt failed, and judging by Henrietta’s expression, she was the one who felt the most pain. The second time went better. Tóvó counted, one, two, three, and while she held his forearm tight, he wrenched his upper body slightly, and the audible click confirmed it had worked.
Henrietta poured lukewarm water from the stove’s hot water tank into a bowl and inspected his face. She said he would need stitches, his ear at least would require two or three, but she could not do it. The bright red flesh visible under the torn skin, and the hair caught in the wound nauseated her.
His nose also appeared to be broken, but she was so sensitive to even the slightest sound that she dared not touch it. The very thought of hearing the minute scrape of broken cartilage gave her chills.
Even though they were from the same small city, this was the first time Henrietta and Tóvó had been in the same room. She had seen him occasionally, and she had also spied after him from the kitchen window with the—oh Jesus, that old telescope was the connection between Tóvó and Pole. She had observed him because he was one of the few men in the city who wore foreign clothes. And now she saw that he was also handsome, and like many sailors he wore a gold ring in his earlobe, and his mustache was well groomed. She might have spoken to him when he was a small child, but she had no memory of it. Vaguely she recalled that the Geil family’s dog had gotten into their henhouse once or twice.
The memory of Betta, on the other hand, was crystal clear to her, particularly Betta as a young woman. She had been so lively and nurturing, and she was widowed during the tragic years. Suddenly, Henrietta remembered that on that same August night in 1847, she and Betta had both feasted with the Danish officers, and she nearly burst into laughter when she again saw before her her own suitor, the one whom she had “assisted” in the garden.
For Betta, though, it had been more than a festive night. Those officers had ruined the woman, or what was left of her. Pole had told Henrietta that more than once.
Oh Jesus, Henrietta sighed, remembering the letter from the former Landkirurg Claus Manicus. That had been in 1840 or ’41. Old Tóvó had asked her to read the letter aloud to him, and she remembered his quiet sobs as she read with a trembling voice that Gudda, his daughter, was dead. And then Henrietta’s mother forbade her to return to the Geil house. Oh, Mama, Mama, she thought. Your dreadful snobbery.
Though Henrietta tried to keep a modest distance between them as she washed Tóvó’s face and neck, his masculine scent was alluring. His skin was so hot that she had the urge to dribble a tiny, clear droplet of spit onto the pale skin, to watch the moist trail as it sizzled or burst, just like water on a hot stove.
Get a hold of yourself, Henrietta, she thought.
The most remarkable thing, however, were the tendons along his neck. Not that she was an expert in necks, but nonetheless she had never seen so nice a pair of tendons. She w
anted to touch them, but held herself in check. The tendons, which looked like rope ends, could be used as a jump rope or a church-bell pull.
She retrieved the make-up mirror from her Italian handbag and gave it to Tóvó. For a moment he inspected his nose. Then he squinted his eyes, grasped the bridge between his thumb and forefinger, and very carefully moved the broken pieces back into place. For a moment he sat there with his eyes closed. Then he said that Pole used to deaden the pain with gin.
Henrietta clapped her hands and apologized for not having thought of it sooner. She hurried to fetch a port wine glass and fill it with gin. The first glass went straight to his heart. She filled it again, and as Tóvó again drank, he tested his teeth with his tongue. He smiled to find none broken. At the same time, he swished the gin between his teeth and along the gums.
Henrietta pointed to his ear and said she did not have the skill to sew it up. Tóvó said that was no problem. He had doctored wounds more than once aboard a ship.
While Henrietta was in the old consultation room hunting for needle and thread, Tóvó caught sight of Pole’s old chaise beneath the window. Even though it had been reupholstered, he recognized the twisted legs and the rounded seat back. Just like home in Tvøroyri, he thought.
However, it was obvious that Pole’s widow felt uneasy.
“I’m not dangerous,” Tóvó said when she had returned to the kitchen with Pole’s old doctor’s bag.
“What else do you call someone who forces his way into someone’s home at night?” Henrietta asked.
“Fair enough,” said Tóvó, threading the needle. “I need to sew this up first, though. Can you hold the mirror for me?”
Suddenly, he smiled. “You were married to a doctor, after all, and thirty years ago that same doctor was my foster father.”
Henrietta nodded and touched his cheek. For a moment, she considered telling him that she had also read the letters he sent Pole, and that they were both beautiful and curious. But he might resent her for that. He probably would. The letters were so personal that Pole had never even mentioned them. It was only after his death that she found them in a desk drawer. The stack had a red ribbon tied around them, and the fact that Pole had kept the letters hidden meant they had been important to him. Tóvó should have the letters, Henrietta thought, as she did what he asked and held the mirror so he could see where to put the stitches.
The Brahmadells Page 19
