Henrietta buttoned her coat as she walked down narrow Klokkaragøta. The night air was brisk and cool, and it was good to get some distance from the events of the night. Night? She could already hear the loud-voiced fishermen over by the Boathouse, and when she paused, she could also hear the ducks and eiders down by the estuary. Man and birds, she thought. God, how good it was to be alive!
Abruptly, she noticed how dark blue the sky was to the north, while a golden layer was weaving its way into the lighter sky to the east. Tórshavn’s church also had a blue vault over it, and seeing that image right at this moment gladdened her. The morning star had nearly vanished, and the moon hung unusually heavy and yellow over Konufelli Mountain. She was astonished how happy it made her that Tórálvur í Geil lay sleeping on the chaise longue in her kitchen. He had asked if he could lie down for an hour or two, and she did not have the heart to refuse him. Especially when she realized he would be spending his subsequent nights in jail.
When she reached Bringsnagøta, she saw that a light was burning farther up the street, and as she approached it, she realized it was coming from Nils’s—now Tóvó’s—Mosque. The blue door stood open, and a soldier stood on the threshold.
She wanted to turn around and go home, but in order to avoid suspicion she kept walking down the street, and when she reached the Mosque, she bid the soldier good morning. She recognized Laurits á Bakkahellu, and remembered that Fióla, her cousin, had once said that she and Laurits had played together as children, and their other playmate was none other than Tórálvur í Geil.
Laurits had also been the cupbearer at her and Pole’s wedding, but this morning he hardly acknowledged her. His clay pipe was lit, and as she passed him, she could feel his probing eyes on her neck.
Tóvó’s story had planted a seed of doubt in her, that was the thing, and the man certainly knew how to state his case. She thought she also recognized his writing style in his speech. Of course, the letters were written in Danish and occasionally in English, but the same dignified tone also lived in his Faroese words.
What he said about the fight that had taken place that night utterly terrified her. What he said about Hjøstrup and the Workers Union, however, was thorough and accurate.
As everyone in Tórshavn knew, there had been only one loser in the strike, and that was Tórálvur í Geil. Everyone but Tóvó was given his job back, and the very next day hammers could be heard ringing from the Amtmansborg.
And the worst of it was that the things Tóvó had said about the bailiff were things she already knew instinctively, but had never put into words. Perhaps she had simply lacked the courage.
But whom could she tell that she thought Hjøstrup was a dwarfish version of Mephisto?
Pætur úr Kirkjubø might know the story of Satan’s lackey, but he was not someone who discussed important matters with women. Such things were beneath a Sunman’s dignity.
The bookbinder, Hans Niklái Jacobsen, was trustworthy, that was for certain, but the man’s reading material extended to his bankbook’s credit columns and the Bible. Henrietta thought of Sunday dinner with lamb on the menu every time she saw him. Over the years his lower lip had come to resemble the spout of a gravy boat, and every time he talked, his words were dark and thick like sauce.
Nonetheless, she liked participating in the meetings surrounding the union, and she also believed it was high time a society had been founded whose purpose was to educate the common man. It was like an extension of the library’s purpose. And education was also the purpose of the newly established weekly newspaper Dimmalætting. However, calling the union a “workers union” was like raising a false banner.
During one meeting, Hjøstrup had told her to read The Red Room by August Strindberg. He loaned her his copy, and judging by all the underlined passages and notes in the margin, the book had both been carefully read by and had provoked its owner. And The Red Room certainly made for difficult reading. But that also applied to Oliver Twist and David Copperfield by Dickens. Not to mention A Doll’s House and other brand new dramas by Ibsen, the brilliant Norwegian.
When it came to realistic literature, the Danes were behind the times. And that was what she told Hjøstrup when she returned the book. Strindberg was a modern man, she said, and he described in detail what his searching and inquisitive eyes saw. One could not blame him if modernity in many ways was ugly and unpleasant.
In that context, she repeated the words that Brandes used to describe Danish literature: It does not treat our life, but our dreams.
“I can’t stand that arrogant Jew,” was Hjøstrup’s only reply.
The King Is a Castrate
THE WINDOWS AND both doors of the former Catholic Bauerskirkju stood wide open after the play and reception. It was as if the church had of its own accord opened itself to the night and begged the wind to purify it of ballads and Jørgen Hattemager’s sarcasm.
The church was dedicated in 1859, and although the souls that Pastor Bauer managed to save from Purgatory’s cleansing fires were fewer than the teeth in Pløyen’s mouth, as Doctor Pole once put it, the church could still fill half its pews. This was on the Sundays when Belgian, Scottish, and sometimes even French fishing vessels lay at anchor in Havnervág.
The moon shone on the dilapidated garden as Obram úr Oyndarfirði sat on a pew by the south door, blissfully ignorant that his testicles would be ripped off this very hour.
It had been a while since the guests had left, and Obram and two women had collected the dishes, cups, and glasses, and had swept the floor. He told the women to go home, and he would turn off the lights and lock up.
Yet even if the windows and doors seemed to beg for a cleansing wind, not a breath stirred. The currant bushes, bare and silver in the pale moonlight, looked cut from the dark itself.
A sudden shriek startled Obram; the hospital was just a stone’s throw from the church. He wondered if he had dozed off and was dreaming, but when he again heard the same shriek, he guessed that it was someone with the Gray Disease who stood cursing at the bars of the psychiatric ward. For a moment he considered going up the hill to see if anything was amiss, but he did not really want to. Nonetheless, he stood up, and when he reached the gate and unlocked it, he found Tórálvur í Geil right outside.
Obram made no attempt to conceal his dismay, and as they stood there staring at each other, the voice again began to shriek. It was a shrill woman’s voice, but he could not tell how old she might be; the voice was as enigmatic as it was ominous. It came from one of the ward’s windows, where the insane were kept, and Obram thought she was calling: wet sweater, wet sweater, which was the curse Sára Malena úr Skúvoy once used. The words’ strength came from the belly and broke from the throat, exploding like a burst of gunfire.
Obram was the first to speak, and he asked in a low voice what a bird of ill omen like Tóvó was doing in this area at night, and as soon as the words bird of ill omen left his mouth, he regretted it. Inwardly, he cursed the fact that he could not better control his tongue, yet before he knew what he was doing, he had blocked the door with his cane, as much to say: I demand an answer.
Tóvó asked if the Workers Union’s newest initiative was to require workmen to pay tolls to enter the city?
Obram replied that Havn would be a better place if the authorities had been better at weeding people out in time.
Tóvó asked him to name some people he thought should be weeded out, adding that, as far as he knew, Obram and his wife were both outsiders.
Obram replied that the only growth Havn had seen over the centuries was the green sprouting from the thatch roofs, and that was where hens sat and cackled and shit over the pathetic city. Now things had changed. Havnarfolk were beginning to stage plays. The sleep had been washed from their sluggish eyes. In Bergen, Leith, and Copenhagen, people now knew the name of a small, but promising north European seaport called Tórshavn.
And then he aggressively added that people who had no idea what duty was had no right to mak
e demands.
“I’m not aware I’d ever wronged you,” Tóvó replied. “It’s a mystery why you and Hjøstrup, and whoever else the new heroes are, can’t leave me in peace. Even Restorff has forgotten that Tóvó í Geil is his nearest neighbor. You ought to remember that my family has always lived in this city, and I certainly don’t need lessons from you on duty. I’ve tried to make myself useful and hard-working since I was seven or eight. I have no idea why I’m being treated like a criminal in my middle age. And I would advise you to move your cane.”
“I ought to give you a taste of it!” Obram replied.
Once again he regretted the fact he had lost control of his tongue. He wanted to assume a more amiable tone, but there was something about this damned Brahmadella that made him question—yes—his own virtue.
At heart he had always regarded himself as a philanthropist, and it bothered him that the strike in August had blemished his reputation among Havnarfolk. He had never stolen anything from anyone, and when someone came to his office to ask for an advance or a favor, it would never occur to him to show them the door.
His dignity was nonetheless wounded. A new and uncomfortable atmosphere existed between him and Gerd. He could not mention either the Workers Union or Hjøstrup without provoking his wife, and sometimes she expressed herself so violently that he was forced to laugh from shock.
She castigated the fucking Dane who was always going around sniffing his onanist fingers. Obram asked what the devil she meant, and she replied, no, she hissed, that Hjøstrup had a woman’s eyes, and she would not be surprised if he had a cunt between his legs.
While these thoughts raced through his head, he remembered Sára Malena. Was everything so confounded that at this late hour she had actually come to the aid of a Brahmadella? He was attempting to brush away this ridiculous thought when the shriek came again, and that was when the situation truly spun out of Obram’s control. He glanced toward the hospital, and at that instant Tóvó grabbed Obram’s cane and broke it across his thigh.
And that was all it took. The next moment they were at each other’s throats, an unexpected rage burning in their fists. The fight took them toward the river, and with every step and every blow Tóvó had to acknowledge that his grand plan of forgetting Havn’s troubles was shot. The other thing clear to him was that he was fighting a better opponent. Tóvó had the advantage of speed, but he needed more than just speed. He realized this when Obram grabbed him by the collar of his sweater and the waist of his pants. He lifted Tóvó over his head and was about to throw him in the Rættará, when suddenly he lost his footing. Tóvó got a thumb in Obram’s eye, and in the blink of a moment the man lay stretched out on the grass. However, he recovered quickly. Like a wounded bear he staggered back to his feet, and he fought and forced Tóvó to the ground with fierce blows.
Deep down Obram hoped the Tórshavnar would be smart enough to beg for a truce, and Obram would not hesitate even half a second to grant it, because he both feared and hated the situation in which they found themselves. Yet not a word crossed Tóvó’s lips, as with clenched teeth he allowed himself to be beaten and thrashed, though periodically he did succeed in injuring his opponent.
Perhaps because they were so different in strength, but eventually the fight grew dirty. They kicked, punched, and bit. Blood dripped from Obram’s chin—not because a tooth had been knocked out, but because he had bitten Tóvó’s ear and torn the top part off. At one point, Tóvó was able to grab a fist-sized rock, and with bashed it into Obram’s knee. While Obram was down, Tóvó did what some bird species do when threatened—he vomited onto Obram’s face while trying to force open his mouth.
A moment later, while Tóvó lay groaning in the grass, the tables turned. Two kicks to the side had robbed Tóvó of air, and on the third kick, Obram’s foot met Tóvó’s shoulder, and he thought he heard the pop of the arm leaving its socket.
Obram was at that point on the verge of begging Tóvó to forgive him, because he could see the pain he had caused. It was also clear to Obram, however, that his actions had set him in a strange land ruled by foreign laws, and that he was now damned.
That is what he later told the Scottish preacher William Sloan. He said that when Tóvó rose from the ground with incredible strength, he was half man and half devil. That was the only way he knew how to describe what had happened. His handsome, bloody face, the jacket hanging torn from his shoulders, it was like he had stepped out of some terrifying painting—he could not remember the name of the painter, though, Greco or something—anyway, that bloody man stood there prepared to smash the hourglass of Obram’s life that had started running in Oyndarfjørður fifty-two years prior.
With the Bauerskirkju’s open windows still beckoning the wind, as the Rættará River flowed silently toward the bay and the moon hung brightly in the sky, Obram felt merciless fingers close around his testicles. He pleaded for himself. Shamelessly, he pleaded for his manhood, but the time for mercy was long past. Suddenly, he was a pathetic beast caught in a trap; in his mind’s eye he could dimly make out the great plains where the herds mated, and could just catch the rutting scent of thousands of exhilerated bodies.
For the first time since he was a small boy, he lost control of his sphincter and emptied his bowels. He was still conscious, or at least he thought he was, when Tóvó’s hand came free of Obram’s body, and his testicles followed.
“You can own the most beautiful mountain fells. You can become the world’s greatest man and fill the stars with sheep and cattle and lighthouses, which cast light upon your sublime name. But the king is a castrate.”
Obram was uncertain whether he heard or dreamed these words before everything became hazy, and he collapsed to his knees and lost consciousness. Still, he vaguely remembered someone putting him on a stretcher, and being rushed to the hospital. It did not take long before Landkirurg Hoff figured out what had happened, and Hjøstrup the Bailiff was summoned.
God Will Give Thee Strength
A FEW DAYS before St. George’s Day, 1883, Tóvó was found guilty. He was sentenced according to § 204 of the new Danish criminal code from 1866: Should one person maim another, rob him of sight or hearing or visit on him any other injury such that hand, foot, eye, or any other equally important limb is rendered useless, or his powers of body or soul are weakened to the extent that he is incapable, permanently or for an indefinite period, to carry out his duties of employment or tend to the activities of daily life, he will be judged guilty, if he intended the injury or if it must be regarded as a logical and not improbable result of his actions, and will be punished with up to twelve years of hard labor.
Hard labor is more precisely defined by § 11 of the criminal code: Hard labor is either convict labor or correctional labor. A person is either sentenced to convict labor for life or for a period of at least two years and not to exceed sixteen years.
Tóvó received the most severe sentence. He was forty-three years old, and for the next sixteen years the new prison at Vridsløselille, west of Copenhagen, would be his new home.
Laurits á Bakka told him that Vridsløselille was a new type of prison. The prisoners were forbidden from talking to each other, and the guards were also banned from addressing the prisoners. Being an inmate there meant total isolation. The Almighty was the prisoners’ sole consolation. The prisoners also wore hooded cloaks to church service, and they occupied small, solitary cells. Laurits said the one chance a prisoner had to see his own face was to try and catch a glimpse of his reflection in the water of the tin cup from which he drank.
A strange event occurred while Tóvó was waiting to be transported to Denmark, which many Havnarfolk associated with rumor of the Brahmadells’ sorcery.
One morning, the daughter of Obram’s relative, the girl who had been brought to live with Obram and Gerd and attend school in Havn, was found dead in her bed. The couple had been planning to adopt her and they treated her like their own child. She had gone to bed healthy and happy, but never
woke.
Obram was not well enough to attend the burial. His wife represented the household, and after the pastor had cast dirt on the coffin, the bailiff was among those who approached Frú Gerd to offer his condolences.
Gerd stared at him aghast. She glanced at his outstretched hand, looked at his face, but did not say a word. For two or three long seconds his hand hung in the empty air, but Frú Gerd refused to accept his condolences. Slowly, Hjøstrup’s hand sank, as did his confused expression, and as he turned on his heel to go, his hand disappeared into his coat pocket.
Two days later the Scottish preacher William Sloan was in the bailiff’s office, and he had come to ask permission to visit Tórálvur í Geil.
Hjøstrup asked why Sloan wished to visit the condemned.
Sloan replied that Tórálvur í Geil might want someone to pray with him, and besides, Sloan’s wife and Tórálvur were second cousins.
There was also a third reason, but he had no desire to betray it to the bailiff or to anyone else in the city for that matter.
The bailiff sat a moment stroking his mustache. He liked the gentle spirit that radiated from the preacher, and the man had those striking blue eyes. He offered Sloan a seat and then asked whether he believed the Brahmadella clan was involved with sorcery.
Sloan replied that evil was certainly a real force.
Hjøstrup leaped from his seat. “That’s not what I asked you. I’m talking about the Brahmadells.”
“Evil doesn’t dwell within families,” Sloan answered. “Evil dwells in the individual soul.”
The Brahmadells Page 20
