The Black Cauldron

by William Heinesen

  Magdalena was kneeling before him, she took his hands and pressed her lips to them, kissed them passionately, bit into his great knuckles while summoning up all her strength to hold back her tears. Then she got up and in a choking voice said: “I’ll never let you down, Frederik! You are the very one I’ve been longing for. We’ll get married, Frederik … when? Oh, if only it could be this evening.”

  He lifted her up on his knee, their eyes met in a look of total abandonment, and she whispered in his ear: “At least I’m going to have a child with you this evening. We’ll stay here, all night, my dearest. And we’ll get rid of this corpse ashore.”

  Frederik burst into a great trembling laugh: “Yes, my dear, let’s be quick and get the corpse out, there’s no time to lose.”

  Magdalena did not go home that night. Thomea woke up about seven in the morning and saw that her bed was empty. The children were sleeping peacefully. But where was Alfhild? Alfhild had recently developed the habit of getting up early and wandering about outside. One morning she had been right down in the village and came home with a bag of sweets she had been given on credit at Masa Hansen’s.

  Thomea went out into the yard and round the house. The wind had backed to the west, the frost had gone, the air was mild and hazy. There was nothing to be seen or heard of Alfhild. Yes … suddenly she heard her voice quite plainly, but it was a long way away … it sounded as though she was talking to someone and laughing aloud. The sound came from the side nearest the Angelica Bog. And suddenly a suspicion struck Thomea like a flash of lightning: Engilbert! Engilbert, of course!

  For a moment she stood still with her mouth open and her fists clenched. Then quickly but watchfully, she moved off towards the sound.

  It was as she had expected. The backs of two people walking side by side emerged from the mist, none other than Alfhild and Engilbert. He was not carrying a creel. Thomea had heard he was no longer working for Opperman. Nor, apparently, was he any longer living at Mrs. Lundegaard’s. He was simply living rough. Perhaps he was living somewhere up here. Perhaps he was living in the Troll Child’s Cave.

  The two figures merged into the mist. Thomea increased her speed until she caught a glimpse of them again. They were walking quickly. She was about to shout to Alfhild, but something inside her told her not to, not to frighten them, for they might get away from her.

  She heard the foxes crying. And now the first of the three long cages appeared. Alfhild and Engilbert were still there, walking quickly. Thomea was again on the point of shouting. There – now they disappeared behind the cage. She broke into a run, but took great care not to make a sound. At the corner of the cage she stopped. She had difficulty in breathing quietly so as not to be heard. Engilbert and Alfhild had stopped, they were talking in low voices. Then Alfhild said aloud: “But you promised!” And he told her to hush, adding breathlessly: “If you shout like that you’ll not get anything in any case.”

  And then came a slight sound, exactly what Thomea had been expecting: a whimper from a mouth being held closed by a hand. Now!

  Thomea suddenly stepped forward. Engilbert let go of Alfhild and stood staring at Thomea. They looked each other in the eye, unflinching. Alfhild tidied her clothing and wiped some strands of hair from her brow. She went closer to Engilbert and said in an accusing voice: “Now give me what you promised me. Do you hear?”

  “Thomea,” whispered Engilbert. “I knew you were here. I could feel it. I’ve sensed your eyes on my back all the time like a signal.”

  She saw that his eyes were full of lust, as so often before, and he was smiling a little, a smile that said he was sure of her.

  “Go home, Alfhild,” said Thomea quickly. “Go on, girl, straight away.”

  “Yes, but he promised… !”

  “You shall have some chocolate at home if you go straight away,” said Thomea. A fire was raging within her, and her voice was trembling.

  For a moment Alfhild glanced from one to the other, and then she gave a little jump and started to run homewards.

  “Thomea,” whispered Engilbert.

  Thomea bowed her head. He approached her quickly, but she backed away from him, and suddenly she turned round and dodged away.

  “No, Thomea,” he shouted, both plaintively and threateningly. She heard his footsteps just behind her and increased her pace; the ground was squelching and splashing around her ankles … she fell, but came to her feet again before he managed to catch hold of her.

  And now it was his turn to stumble; he had one leg down in a pool of mud … and then the other sank in right up to the knee. Thomea got a start on him again and had time to take her bearings: right in the middle of the bog! It was a long time since she had set foot there, but otherwise she knew every inch of the area from her childhood and clearly remembered how to get out to the little firm grassy islet in the middle of the bog without sinking. Snipe Island, it was called.

  She slowed down a little. Engilbert had got on his feet again and was continuing in pursuit. She leapt from tuft to tuft. In one place there was a long flat stretch of firm greensward, where the sheep usually grazed in the summer, but now it was flooded and looked like a lake. She ran straight through it, the water only reaching her knees. Then she danced and jumped on until finally she reached Snipe Island. There she stopped and glanced back.

  It was not long before she caught sight of Engilbert. He had again slipped into a mud hole and was on all fours, struggling to free his legs from the unyielding mud. It was a slow process; he worked his way forward like a swimmer, throwing himself forward and twisting over on his back. But finally … she saw in dismay how he freed himself and got up. She felt a rush of horror and tension throughout her body. She stood there, upright. Couldn’t he see her? She laughed aloud while she thought: “You’ll never get out of here alive. Just you try.”

  Engilbert made straight for her, but he was making slow progress, for there were pitfalls everywhere; he was more careful now, looking where he went and feeling his way with his foot before taking a step. But now he took a run and leapt – a bold leap, but it was all right, he had firm ground under his feet. Another leap. And that was all right, too.

  “Just you wait,” she thought doggedly.

  The mist was becoming lighter, in the east a round rainbow patch was forming. It was the sunrise. Engilbert and Thomea were so close to each other that they could exchange glances. Engilbert smiled, out of breath, and waved arrogantly at her, warm with effort and lust; there were no more than ten paces separating them now. But what divided them was a single big expanse of light green quagmire, and she knew it would not stand a man’s weight, indeed, not even the weight of a sheep. She had once with her own eyes watched a sheep sink here without hope of rescue. She saw Engilbert gathering strength for a fresh jump, he was aiming at a tuft sticking up in the middle of the expanse. He pressed his lips together, bent his knees and jumped. And suddenly he was up to his shoulders in the soft, yielding mud.

  Thomea gave a hoarse grunt, she couldn’t force a sound from her throat. Involuntarily, she threw herself on to her stomach and edged her way out on to the quagmire, but the sinking man’s head had already disappeared, the surface rejoined with a squelch, there was only a black trace left, and that, too, was soon obliterated. Thomea wriggled backwards again, slowly, for she had no strength left, her ears were filled with a wild, mighty rushing sound. Exhausted, she threw herself down on the wet grass and felt herself gradually come back to life. The rushing sound slowly diminished, and there was a ferocious silence. Something was shining bright in the mist before her … a resplendent hole ringed with rainbow light.

  Thomea lay out on Snipe Island until she was thoroughly rested. Then slowly and despondently she made her way home. The shape of the Angelica Outcrop was outlined through the dispersing morning mist. And there the shaggy roofs appeared, silhouetted through a veil of haze and hanging peat smoke. Ever since her early childhood, Thomea had slept up there under the roof, in the eastern gable room, in a deep
alcove right down on the floor, but recently, for the sake of Magdalena and the children, she had moved down into the kitchen. Now she had but one thought, one wish above all others: to get her old place back, to rest there, creep down and hide herself there and be completely alone in the dark alcove beneath the turf of the sloping roof.

  2

  There was a crowd gathered on the harbour bridge when the little motorboat from Nordvík brought the survivors from the Kittiwake back to the Cauldron. It was an overcast, windy Sunday afternoon. Flags were everywhere flying at half mast. Mr. Nikodemus Skælling and his wife had got themselves an excellent vantage point in one of the newly-repaired windows in Mrs. Schibbye’s office. Mrs. Schibbye herself was sitting at the other window, chewing excitedly at a cigar stump while watching events through a pair of opera glasses.

  “Pastor Fleisch,” she chuckled. “Dressed like a polar explorer, with a fur hat and motoring gauntlets. He doesn’t look as though he’s suffered much hardship. But what the hell’s that Japanese flag they’re bringing down there? Can you see it, Skælling?”

  Yes, Mr. Skælling could most certainly see the curious flag. It was white with a red circle in the middle, and in the circle there was a cross. Presumably the bun sect’s banner, for it was being carried by Benedikt Isaksen from the hospital. So the bun sect was having some sort of parade. Or the crusaders, as the daft lot called themselves. Mr. Skælling could not help thinking of the enormous wooden cross he had recently seen in Markus’s workshop … a good job they hadn’t brought that with them out here today, not that it would have surprised him.

  “I think there’s going to be some sort of demonstration,” said Mrs. Schibbye, and spat the cigar butt on to the floor. “That poor little Lydersen of mine’s there as well, good heavens, the silly little man. Listen, now they’re singing.”

  She opened the window and the sound of singing poured in.

  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.

  “Maja, what’s wrong? You’re not ill, are you, dear?”

  “Oh, it’s all so strange.”

  Mrs. Skælling closed her eyes and raised a handkerchief to her lips.

  “No, it’s not exactly pleasant,” admitted the editor. “Ugh. But all these sectarians think of is proselytising, isn’t it. And this is a unique opportunity for them. Their prophet is returning from a shipwreck!”

  “Like Jonah from the belly of the whale,” shouted Mrs. Schibbye with a loud laugh.

  Someone knocked heavily on the door, and Dr. Tønnesen entered in high spirits. Mrs. Schibbye reached out her left hand to him without putting down her opera glasses: “Here, Doctor, bring a chair over to the window! So you can’t resist it either!”

  “No, it disturbs me somewhat,” admitted the doctor. “For this madness is assuming epidemic proportions. I foresee that it can’t be long before the authorities have to take it in hand. Why don’t you write something about it in the paper, Skælling? There’s something to get your teeth into here, I would have thought. Apply the brakes, apply the brakes, for God’s sake. What do you think they’ll get up to next? Walking on the waters, or something of the kind, I’ll bet. Mass drowning. Or incendiarism. Or human sacrifice. No, quite seriously, have you ever heard anything like it? And all the preconditions you need are present here: unhappy, desperate people thirsting for a miracle, and then a couple of imaginative fanatics like Simon Simonsen and our well-known death’s head of a porter. Fundamentally a nice man, not afraid of anything in the world. But as time goes on he’s going a bit far. Do you know what he got up to yesterday evening? Well, he cured a girl with paralysis. She’s a nerve patient, a seventeen-year-old we were just about getting on the right road again, for the paralysis was clearly hysterical in origin. Arise, take up thy bed, and walk, roars Benedikt. And of course, the girl got up and started shaking the sides of her cot for all she was worth. And now a girl like that’s totally convinced that there’s been a miracle and that the Day of Judgement is at hand and together with her mother and her siblings and the entire family and neighbours she becomes an unswerving member of the bun sect …”

  “Good God!” exclaimed Mrs. Skælling.

  “See. Now the hippopotamus is going to pee!” shouted old Mrs. Schibbye, eagerly adjusting her opera glasses. “Yes, that’s right, Pastor Fleisch, hurry ashore, for otherwise, God help me, we’ll be thinking you’ve been bunned as well!”

  Simon the baker had taken up position near the prow of the boat.

  “Selah!” came the shout. “Selah! Selah!”

  The doctor and the editor exchanged glances and shook their heads.

  “Jesus Christ preserve us,” said Mrs. Skælling timidly.

  The square outside had fallen silent. Simon’s voice could be heard loud and compelling … Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent, saith the Lord. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. Yet some of you have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy. He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life …

  “Selah!” shouted a loud woman’s voice.

  “That’s Liva Berghammer,” said Mrs. Skælling. “The girl whose fiancé …”

  Mr. Skælling secretly nudged his wife. That was all that was needed. Maja started sobbing nervously.

  “There, there,” said the doctor, a little fretful at having been disturbed in his observations.

  “Good Lord, Maja,” said Mr. Skælling irritably.

  “Yes, I know,” she replied meekly. “I couldn’t help it … I’ll soon …”

  Renewed sobbing. The doctor shook his head: “There you are, nothing could be more obvious, it’s simply infectious.”

  He went and stood in front of Mrs. Skælling and said: “My word, you are susceptible to atmosphere, aren’t you, my dear? Just you listen to my advice and keep right away from scenes like this. Read good books and listen to good, healthy music.”

  “Yes, Doctor,” replied Mrs. Skælling with a slight curtsey as she obediently dried her eyes.

  Her husband was very flushed. Maja was getting a good telling off there, all right.

  “Selah!” came the shout down there again, and the Japanese flag was raised and lowered. Simon stepped ashore, followed by Liva and the three sailors.

  And now the crowd, all dressed in black, moved off singing.

  “There are quite a few of them, by Jove,” commented Mr. Skælling.

  “I suppose we must assume there were a few inquisitive onlookers among them,” said the doctor. “But even so, there’s no doubt the epidemic’s spreading at an enormous rate.”

  He relit his shag pipe. “You know, it’s very interesting from a purely psychological point of view,” he said. “In its own little way it’s something of the same sort of thing that’s happening in Italy and Germany, mass suggestion and demagogy; it’s typical of these times in general. But in practical terms it’s all up the pole … What shall we do about it, Skælling?”

  “You write an article for the paper, Doctor,” suggested the editor.

  “Hm, yes.” The doctor reflected for a moment. “Something on the lines of a warning, you mean. You know, from a medical point of view. ’Mental hygiene’. But I quite seriously fear that it won’t do any more good than a … I almost said a baker in Hell. We need a more drastic vaccine. Something like a religious counter-movement. Or a rationalist counter-epidemic, like they’ve got in Russia. But no Oxford Movement, for heaven’s sake.”

  He shot a peppery glance at Mr. Skælling.

  “Yes, your Oxford Movement ended on the rubbish heap, didn’t it,” chuckled Mrs. Schibbye and put down her opera glasses with an amused look in her eye.

  The editor could not suppress a slight blush.
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br />   “Well, Maja,” he said and passed it off. “Now you’ve heard the doctor confirm what I have so often impressed upon you: good books, good music. Dostoyevsky. Mozart.”

  “Mozart’s all right. But for heaven’s sake not Dostoyevsky,” the doctor corrected him, showing a couple of unpleasant corner teeth that otherwise seldom came into view.

  Mr. Skælling blushed again.

  “Have a drink?” suggested Mrs. Schibbye with a loud yawn.

  “No, thank you.” The doctor was busy, and so was the editor.

  “You really mustn’t expose me to your hysterical excesses,” he said irascibly to his wife as they hurried home. “A person of culture must always be in command of his feelings.”

  “Oh, you and your self-control,” she snapped, letting go his arm.

  “Go on, start all over again … it’s so delightful.”

  She sighed heavily. “You don’t seem to understand how serious it is,” she said.

  “What do you mean? Serious?”

  “Just that. It’s a bit different from that silly Oxford Movement of yours.”

  “Oh, that,” said her husband scornfully.

  “Yes,” Maja went on. “For this is a case of men and women in distress.”

  Mr. Skælling slipped his arm back under hers. “I suppose you’re right, Maja,” he said. “They are people in distress.”

  “Yes, don’t you agree?” she said animatedly. Suddenly, she clutched at his arm. “Nikodemus. Just look. No, up there … near the memorial mound.”

  “The memorial mound. Good God … !”

  Mr. Skílling came to a sudden halt. Up near the memorial mound for shipwrecked mariners a huge crowd had gathered, and in the midst of it all towered the cross … the boatbuilder’s enormous cross.

  “But this is too bad,” he groaned. “How tasteless. Maja, you stay where you are. Do you hear, Maja … ?”

  But Maja was already on her way up there, there was no stopping her, and in any case … he himself felt it totally impossible to stay away and not be moved to hurry up the hill. Mass suggestion, indeed. The suggestion of a crowd. You couldn’t avoid it. A basic instinct had been awakened. It was ridiculous. It was dreadful.