Engilbert had learned all this from old Elias of Angelica Cottage. On his way to and from the fox farm every day he would often stop and have a chat with Elias at this tiny cottage lying far off the beaten track under the Angelica Outcrop. Elias, the owner, was a sickly little man who was prone to asthma and frequent attacks of epilepsy, but otherwise agreeable enough and quite talkative.
Engilbert felt irresistibly drawn to Angelica Cottage and those who lived there for other and quite different reasons, too. Elias’ daughters were indeed unusual. Thomea, the eldest, had a face covered with whiskers and was – at least according to Mrs. Lundegaard – in possession of occult powers; and the youngest, a half-grown girl, was not quite right in the head. Then there was Liva, like Engilbert in Opperman’s employment. A lovely creature in every respect. But she, too, was a little odd, for she was a follower of the mad baker, Simon, a devotee of his fire and brimstone sect. And there was a fourth daughter who was no longer at home; she lived in Ørevík at the mouth of the fjord and was said recently to have been widowed by the war. Then there was Ivar, the son, who was in command of Opperman’s Manuela. The family in Angelica Cottage used to live in great poverty, but as a skipper, Ivar was now making a good income.
Engilbert remembered the letter for Liva, and took it out so as not to forget to deliver it on his way down. The mist was again lifting, and the sun rising pure and fresh in the sky, surrounded by hosts of harmless little fleecy clouds. The fox furs in Opperman’s cages darted about like lightning. Engilbert shouldered the creel and set off downhill.
In the yard in front of Angelica Cottage a little group of people were bent over something lying on the ground. Engilbert immediately guessed that it was Elias having one of his attacks. He hurried over. Yes indeed, it was Elias stretched out on the ground in convulsions. He was a pitiful sight, fragile and hollow-chested and with his scrawny hands pressed up under his chin as though he was trying to push his own head off his body. There was a wooden spoon in his froth-covered mouth. Liva and Thomea were watching his movements. Alfhild, the mentally deficient youngest daughter, was sitting on her own and playing with some snail shells, totally indifferent to all the fuss around her.
Engilbert wanted to be useful, and squatted down beside Thomea. Secretly and greedily he observed the three women. Despite her whiskers Thomea was not unfeminine; she was big and strong with a voluptuous figure like that of a young heifer. Liva too, a pretty girl, had a dark shadow across her upper lip, and both sisters had heavy black eyebrows. Thomea’s eyebrows met, the sign of a werewolf. It gave him a curious tingling sensation to have this whiskered girl so close to him… he trembled under the influence of the powerful magnetic current emanating from her person and making the talisman on his chest burn as though glowing with heat.
But then Elias suddenly uttered a hoarse wail, his eyes began to roll and show the whites; his body tensed upwards in a bow so that the back of his head and his heels almost seemed to be all that was touching the ground… and then it fell back; but now his arms and legs began to flail wildly, and this insignificant and inoffensive little man hit out in all directions with all the violence of a hooligan, howling and threatening those around him like one possessed. Liva received a blow to the side and got up, clenching her teeth in pain. Engilbert stepped across and took her place and set about helping Thomea to keep her ungovernable father under control.
In time the sick man fell calm; the attack was over for this time. Engilbert helped the two girls to get him indoors and laid out in the alcove bed in the living room. There he lay, pale and wasted like a corpse, and with splashes of blood around his sunken mouth.
As Engilbert looked around in the tiny living room he saw its woodwork was scrubbed white. A carefully prepared sheepskin lay in front of the alcoves; the ceiling and one wall were almost hidden by ivy leaves, but in the midst of the greenery a space had been cleared for an enlarged photograph of Elias’s late wife. It was a little faint, but it was still possible to see that the woman from Angelica Cottage had been dark-haired, with heavy eye-brows like her daughters.
Engilbert remembered the letter again… Surely he couldn’t have lost it in all that kerfuffle. No, there it was up his sleeve; he took it out, smoothed it over and handed it to Liva. She snatched the crumpled envelope from him and turned away with it. He noticed that she put it to her lips before putting it in her bosom. Then she hurried out into the kitchen and began to arrange her hair in front of the mirror.
Engilbert turned to Thomea and said, in an intimate, low voice: “You know remedies for so many things – don’t you know one for your father’s illness?”
The girl looked away and shook her head. He felt an almost irresistible desire to come closer to her and win her confidence, but she was taciturn and unapproachable, difficult to get on speaking terms with. He shook hands with her as he left. He succeeded in capturing her glance, a strange, devastating look that went right through him.
Engilbert accompanied Liva part way down the path, but she was in a hurry and had to take a short cut across the fields so as not to be late in Opperman’s office.
“Good-bye, Engilbert,” she waved. “And thank you for all your help, and for the letter.”
He followed her cheerful tripping figure until she disappeared behind a hill. He could still sense the horny scent of the two downy girls from Angelica Cottage and still had a powerful feeling of being under the influence of Thomea – there was an itch and twitching in one ear and on his chest where his talisman was hanging. And at the same time he felt with a mixture of sensual delight and horror how his desire for the hairy girl was growing into lust. There was no mistaking it: mysterious and dangerous forces were at work, forces which must be opposed at any price because they originated in evil and sought to rob him of the spiritual gains which he had made over the past six months, and to force him into fresh degradation.
This great, bewitching woman was doubtless in league with these sinister powers of darkness which sought to waylay his soul on its way to the light.
“Be steadfast, be steadfast,” he whispered to himself and through his jersey he pressed his talisman close to his heart.
3
Once she was left to her own devices, Liva stopped, took out the letter, and with her eyes closed raised the envelope to her lips. It was from Johan. Although unwilling to admit as much, she dreaded reading it, for suppose he were worse, or perhaps even wrote to say that they had given up hope. She wouldn’t open it until later when she could take her time and read it without risk of being disturbed. She slipped it back into her dress. Then she looked upwards and sighed long and audibly.
Johan had been in her thoughts all morning, for it was the second of August, the anniversary of that awful day when the Gratitude came back with seven survivors from the Albatross, the big schooner from Sandefjord that had been sunk off Shetland.
Only twelve months! It seemed like years since that disastrous morning when Johan came home unexpectedly with pneumonia after being shipwrecked and drifting helplessly for four days in the lifeboat from the Albatross. Those harrowing days as he lay in the hospital hovering between life and death. That unforgettable time of joy and gratitude when he had recovered and regained his strength sufficiently to sit outside in the sunshine. And then once more the distress of the relapse, when tuberculosis forced him back into the sanatorium in Østervaag. The separation. The hope. Until that, too, became precarious.
And although it was this misfortune that had opened her eyes and brought her to Jesus, she could not yet conceive that Johan, her burly, self-confident Johan, really lay there incurably ill, confined to a hospital ward along with a crowd of other pitiful creatures coughing their hearts out.
She had twice made the journey to the capital to see her fiancé. He was able to sit up in bed and was of course in a way the Johan she had always known, despite his indoor pallor and skinny hands yellow as straw. The thought of those waxen hands was enough to force a silent scream deep down inside her. The
re lay her Johan, slowly withering away. Her big, strong, self-assured Johan. Her sole consolation was that he, too, in this dreadful time of trial had found grace and redemption, and that in a brief while they would both be united in that other world that knows no end.
Near the bridge across the Storaa river Liva stopped for a moment and glanced quickly at the half-finished concrete house down by the river mouth, the house intended for her and Johan. It was a nice house, impressive even. But it was without windows and doors, nothing but an empty shell. And it would never be finished. But what did that matter? Better to have an indestructible house in the land everlasting.
“Ah, my Lord and Creator,” sighed Liva, and hurried on across the bridge. The world was racked with misfortune and terrible events. Just think of the Evening Star that struck a mine on its way to England and sank with all hands. Her brother-in-law Oluf, Magdalena’s husband, was among those who perished then, a strong, healthy man with a wife and three children. And Simon the baker lost his two sons, Erik and Hans; they were no more than seventeen and nineteen years old. Aye, a lot of ships were going down these days, leaving widows and orphans behind. And the war raged on with no end in sight; the time of evil and waste was come upon the world.
The memory of other misfortunes and sombre events passed through her mind. She almost derived a certain consolation from them now that the last days, bringing the end of human life, were approaching and the great hour of judgement was at hand. There was Opperman’s wife, lying incurably ill in her attic room. And Benedikt Isaksen’s five children, all carried off within a single year by galloping consumption. Alas, such was life: death and misfortune threatened at every turn. But a lamp had been lit, a mighty lamp – lit in the midst of gloom and despair, lighting the way for all who would open their eyes.
All that mattered was to hold tight on to this lamp, always keeping it with you in your thoughts and never letting anyone snatch it from you – in the words of the hymn:
Take hold your lamp, oh timid heart,
It lights the way so clear,
Bids evil from this world depart,
For now the night is near.
She hummed the tune to herself; it was a wistful melody with a long refrain twisting and twining, urging, admonishing:
For now the night is near,
For now the night is near,
Take hold your lamp, oh timid heart,
For now the night is near.
Liva became aware of a little group of people in summer clothes coming towards her along the road. It was the young shipowner Poul Schibbye, together with Olsen’s lanky son Spurgeon and a third man who was a stranger to her.
“Now what have we here, the darkest rose in the world,” shouted Poul Schibbye, gaily approaching Liva with his arms held out wide as though to embrace her. “How are you, my flower? How do you get on with Croesus down there?”
“Fine, Pjølle,” said Liva, making to hurry on, but Poul Schibbye stopped her and took her hand.
“Aye, you know the Rose of Stambul, of course?” he said by way of introduction. “Liva and I are bound by unbreakable bonds; we were baptised and confirmed in the same water, and we should have been married in it, but she didn’t want to… Fancy, she turned me down. Isn’t that right, Liva?”
“Yes, Pjølle,” said Liva, unable to help a smile.
Pjølle contorted his fleshy face and surrendered himself to a feigned sob. He threw himself on his knees at Liva’s feet and clutched her hand to his cheek.
“That’s enough, Pjølle,” she scolded, freeing herself and blushing; she smiled apologetically at Spurgeon and the stranger.
“No, you are in a hurry, Liva”, said Pjølle, getting up. “Well, then, fare thee well, in the name of God, and give my regards to Chiang Kai-shek, and God bless you, my own little ducksie.”
“Aye, isn’t she a delight?” he said, turning round to watch her go. “She’s the one I ought to have had. And now she’s gone and joined the Bun Sect! Lost to the world.”
“Yes, but she gave you a sweet smile, Pjølle”, said Spurgeon.
“She loves me.”
Poul Schibbye tossed his walking stick up in the air like a spear and caught it again. “I’m still her Romeo. That was pretty obvious, wasn’t it, Spurgeon?”
He waltzed around a turn, cooing and sobbing gently, with his hand on his heart: “She lo-ves me.”
4
As Engilbert left the steep path leading to Angelica Cottage and stepped out on to the road, he was met by a strange sight: two young seamen were approaching along the road, singing at the top of their voices and pushing a large, fully-laden handcart in front of them. It was Ivar from Angelica’s Cottage and his friend Frederick. On top of the load, staring around with melancholy eyes, sat – a monkey.
The men blocked Engilbert’s path and offered him a welcoming drink. As he held up the bottle in greeting, Ivar was singing in a subdued, fervent tone:
All flesh, it is but grass,
The prophets all did say,
This earthly life will pass,
Whenever comes the day.
Engilbert put the bottle to his mouth and took a hefty swig of the aromatic liquor tasting of angelica. “I’ll give you a hand if you like,” he said.
They pushed the cart a little way up the path, as far as it would go, and then each of them shouldered part of the load. Thomea and Alfhild came to meet them. The seamen put down their heavy sacks, and in transports of joy at their return Alfhild threw herself at her brother and Frederik, smothering them in kisses and caresses. Frederik offered Thomea a drink from his flask, and to his amazement Engilbert noticed that she took a hefty swig.
Ivar was more than a little tipsy. A blissful smile lit up his weary eyes, and he broke into song. The lad from Angelica Cottage was a big, muscular chap, dark and with a strong growth of hair like Thomea. Frederik appeared to have drunk less. He told of their journey home: on this occasion it had been unusually difficult, and off the Orkneys their ship had been attacked by a whole two planes at the same time; they had lavished no fewer than seven bombs on the little boat, but they had all missed. But then the beasts had taken to their machine guns and shot at them like mad things; the wheelhouse had been riddled full of holes like a sieve and the sandbags torn to shreds. But then a British fighter had turned up, and the two marauders had made off with their tails between their legs.
They struck with might, they struck with zeal,
Like gallant knights at play,
Bright flashed the blades of shining steel
When sword met sword that day.
So sang Ivar. He put Alfhild down, swung his sack up on his shoulder and made a clumsy attempt to dance the steps of the ancient ballad as he moved on:
So tight he clasped his jewelled hilt,
The blood burst from his vein,
So quick the mortal blow he dealt,
He cleft his foe in twain.
Thomea went down to the cart to help carry their belongings. Alfhild walked along with her brother, boundlessly happy; Engilbert observed her in amazement, for the crazy girl was behaving less like Ivar’s sister than a young girl-friend madly in love with him. Her brother had difficulty in keeping her at bay.
Frederik had the monkey on his shoulder; it sat wiping its snout and looked as though it was weeping. Alfhild was afraid of it and clung on to Ivar.
“He’ll not hurt you,” Frederik assured her. “He’s so sweet-tempered, and happy as the day is long. Look, he’s smiling again now.”
Finally, the entire load was under cover. The three men settled down in the grass outside the house while Thomea prepared the meal. It was party food; eggs and tasty biscuits, meat, herring and some elegant tiny cream cheeses in silver paper, and there were no fewer than five crates of beer in little red tins. Another box contained clothing, and there was akvavit in a third. The bags contained flour, corn and concentrates for the animals. Then there was a box with brooches and finery and a curious little xylophone to play t
unes on with a wooden mallet. Alfhild had a wine-coloured necklace of glass beads around her neck and was sitting in ecstasy running her lips over the shining beads.
Ivar and Frederik laced their coffee with gin and stretched out ravenously for the food. Engilbert, too, made free with the splendid repast, meanwhile eyeing Thomea as she went to and fro.
After the meal the two seamen were overcome by drowsiness and wandered outside to have a nap in the sunshine in front of the barn. The monkey clambered up on the gable end of the barn and sat there staring into space like some strange figurehead on a ship.
Engilbert could not remember where he had left the empty creel. Thomea helped him to look for it. For a moment he was alone with her behind the barn; he took her hand and said in an earnest voice: “Why do you pursue me, woman?”
She tore herself away and turned towards him with a wild look in her eyes and her mouth open ready to scream. He sought to calm her down and said in a tone at once hushed but warm: “Let’s be friends, Thomea. Come, we must talk.”
The girl disappeared without replying. Engilbert felt as though he was cocooned, enclosed in the silvery curtain of a powerful magnetic field; every pore in his body was tingling, and he sensed how he was being drawn to this mountain temptress, this massive she-calf. There was a crackling sensation in his body, as though he had been eating fibre glass, and he could long feel her eyes fixed like clamps on the back of his head as he wandered down the path.
The Black Cauldron Page 2
