The Prophets of Eternal Fjord

by Aitken, Martin, Leine, Kim

  The colony itself is dirty and unproductive, plagued by drunken- ness and libidinous behaviour on the part of the Danish-Norwegian employees, as well as the land’s inhabitants. It would seem they are resolved upon breeding and drinking themselves to death. In truth, he is prepared for such wretchedness. The reputation of the country’s oldest colony has been poor ever since its foundation, when two dozen convicts were dispatched here as cheap labour. During the first ten years, nine-tenths of the district’s natives perished, and old Egede himself returned home disillusioned and without his wife, who succumbed to one of the epidemics. Presumably the place is in better shape than it was then, though this is to say little indeed.

  His gait still unsteady, he pays a visit to the inspector, hoping to find there a modicum of culture, some small measure of homeliness and comfort. But Inspector Rømer proves to be a cantankerous Aalborgenser, heavily burdened by paranoia and a dermatological condition that causes the skin of his face to fall away in white flakes and blights his hands with weeping sores. Morten Falck recognizes that the man is plainly reacting pathologically to the place, both mentally and physically. He smells of damnation and rotten teeth, and is convinced that the colony crew and the natives are plotting to do away with him. He sends Morten Falck a look that is at once hostile and frightened.

  The Magister has spoken to Basbøl, I take it? he says in a voice that is a rasp hardly with sound.

  No. Who is Basbøl?

  Ha, Rømer croaks, lifting his brow as if to say, All right, play your games, but take note that I have seen through you. He coughs, or else he laughs or emits a choked lament, Morten Falck is unsure. Priests have never done anything but cause trouble in this land. They come here with their notions of guilt, their cross and their ministry, and keep the natives from their work. He scratches his eyebrow and a puff of dusty skin descends slowly through the air. Oh, I know perfectly well why you are here, sir.

  And why might that be? I can assure Monsieur Rømer that I merely wish to pay my respects, as is befitting for any new arrival.

  Indeed. The inspector laughs silently to himself and pours himself a brandy, sits and scowls and scratches his eyebrows, until Morten Falck, having given up expecting anything at all sensible from the man, gets to his feet and leaves.

  Later, he learns that the inspector is a hardened alcoholic and is rumoured to lie with small native girls in bouts of drunkenness that he is wont to display, whether the hour be late or early.

  Morten Falck writes letters home to his parents, his sister and to the Bishop Egede. He draws up a more official report to the Mission ­skollegium in which he bemoans, inter alia, the filthy conditions in the colony, and in particular the inspector’s antics, which he finds to be of poor example to the natives. Encountering Rømer at the harbour, he informs him that he has lodged an official complaint.

  The inspector bursts out laughing, though utterly without sound. He shall find his bloody match, he shall, the honourable Magister, he wheezes. Wait until winter, then the Magister’s demons will come crawling from their hiding places. And then it’ll be me reporting him.

  I follow my calling, Morten says, and intend to behave like a decent human being.

  You listen to me – priest! Rømer squeaks. I was here before he came, and I shall be here when he goes again, whether it be in his coffin or as a passenger on ship. I’ve found my modus vivendi, and it’s the only way for white folk in this place. This land is not made for innocent babes such as the noble Magister. Either he grows up in a hurry and trims his sails or else he goes under. Farewell, Mr Falck!

  In the bishop’s residence, which normally stands empty, he greets his colleague in Holsteinsborg, the colony north of Sukkertoppen. Mr Oxbøl is an old man and has been in the country a lifetime. Morten Falck finds it comforting to speak with the old missionary, as the inspector’s predic­tion has put him ill at ease. The old man seems to be bright of mind and body and would moreover seem disinclined to drinking. Yet he is plainly an uncompromising soul, Morten senses, and realizes that he is in for no gentle chat. Nevertheless, the man appears solid as the rock on which he stands, and moreover well clad and proper in appearance.

  However, Mr Seidelin, Godthåb’s own missionary, is clearly given to debauchery and intemperance, for which reason Morten Falck is compelled to pen a second report. His official residence stinks abom­inably, and Morten must enter the man’s bedchamber and rouse him in order to speak with him.

  Have you no help in the house? he asks when Seidelin finally rises to his feet.

  The priest shuffles over to a chair on which stands his night pot. He unbuttons his breeches and passes water with his back to his guest.

  Certainly I have, and many of them, he says, laughing over his shoulder, his urine splashing everywhere except the pot. But they’ve no conception of what it means to keep clean. They’re used to living in filth and disorder.

  Your catechist had to give the service today in your place. You should be ashamed.

  Oh, but I cringe with contrition, says the priest, buttoning his fly. The same goes for us all in this terrible place. He yawns and stretches his limbs. But we have a good time of it, I can tell him that!

  He returns to Der Frühling and is relieved again to be in the company of decent men, yet is filled with doubt and apprehension. If his own colony is ridden with only half as many ills as he has seen in Godthåb, he will have more than enough to attend to. But he feels far from convinced that he is the right man for the job. He is not even properly devout. Salvation and the liberation of man through the Passion of Christ are to his mind at best metaphors, at worst empty phrases. Prayer cannot fortify him; he finds it to be mere words learned by rote, whose content he does not believe. He must place his faith in detached rationalism, he tells himself. He will sweep the darkness from the colony, from the minds of the heathens and the benighted colony folk. He will teach them, illuminate by common sense and instruction. He sees the pastor Seidelin in his mind’s eye, pissing in his chamber pot as he looks over his shoulder and laughs. Ten years, he thinks to himself, despondently. What will ten years do to me? He lies down on his bunk and picks up his Rousseau.

  The weather is still, though quite damp. Much of the land remains hidden from sight, only the skerries and islets through which they pass are clear. They sail in the sheltered waters, the captain familiar with them from previous journeys on which he has entered sunken rocks and other perilous hindrances on his private charts. There are many birds. The boat is launched and a number are shot for dinner. One day Morten Falck sees the back of a whale curve the surface ahead of the ship, many hundredweight of flesh, bones and blubber passing silently through the sea, leaving behind only clouds of atomized water in the air. The sight gladdens him. The whale is one of God’s creatures; in this, at least, he believes. And life is all around him, even here. There must be a meaning in it. His reading of Rousseau has returned to him some of his vigour and optimism, as it always does. He looks out upon the vast expanses of green that cover the land. After his wanderings at Godthåb they already feel familiar and homely. He longs to be upon them, to lie on his back in tall grass and gaze at the sky. He recalls the Dyrehaven where he lay with Abelone. The sound of humming bees, the swallows that flitted about on high, her happy laughter. He feels a stab of guilt. They come to him still, these pangs of remorse, and always they cause him to yield, and he must cough in order to conceal it should others be present.

  Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains!

  He has read these words so many times they seem almost to have lost substance, as the Lord’s Prayer may become devoid of its content and work simply on account of the ritualized repetition of its constituents, their rhythm and ring. He has made use of the quote quite automatically whenever he has encountered a problem or felt anxious about a matter, and the words have fortified him like a strong dram or a splash of cold water in his face. But now he baulks at them. I
t is as if the sentence dissolves in front of his eyes, to reappear in a new guise. It startles him. He recognizes what it is the words wish to tell him. He has always thought of them as a cynical expression of resignation to life, an interpreta- tion that once fuelled his own blasé cynicism as a young student in Copenhagen. And yet such an interpretation is incorrect, he realizes now. The words are a cry, a fanfare, a direction, full of optimism and joy! Man, be thou free! Cast thy chains away!

  Indeed, he thinks to himself. This is what I have done and what I shall do. The betrothal was a chain constraining us both. I broke that chain and cast it away, as I have wrenched myself from all else in my life, from my family, my homeland. How simple it is! He can hardly comprehend that he has failed to grasp the meaning until now. My entire youth, he muses, wasted on a misinterpretation. It took a sea voyage for me to understand Rousseau’s utterance, to understand myself, why I am here and not in a rectory on Lolland.

  Is the Magister unwell?

  He feels a hand on his shoulder. Captain Valløe. The captain looks at him with concern. It would seem he burst into laughter, or perhaps cried out.

  He turns to face the captain and takes his hand. I should like to thank the captain for all that he has done! he exclaims excitedly. For everything, yes, indeed, everything!

  Valløe smiles. Come down into my cabin, Magister, he says, and we shall drink a toast for a successful voyage.

  Roselil has recovered after the long journey. At Godthåb she was taken ashore and allowed to graze on the rough tussocks outside the colony. She produces a small amount of drinkable milk again, and both he and the ship’s company partake of it every day. As he reminds the captain, they have suffered very little scurvy on the voyage and Valløe cheerfully agrees that such a cow is a blessing.

  They near their destination. A time is drawing to a close. It is the sixteenth of August and they have been underway for two and a half months. The men hang in the ropes and peer into the fog. Morten Falck holds prayers on the deck. He allows the crew to confess their sins. All have been troubled by impure thoughts. They have taken the name of the Lord in vain, have spoken ill of their fellow men and abandoned themselves in self-abuse. All the usual. He demands no more of them. He places his hand on their foreheads and gives them the benediction. Your sins are forgiven, he says, cast away your chains, go forth into the world and do good. They become as children, smiling gently and becoming calm. Their faces light up. The miracle of the blessing. These are good, Christian people, he thinks to himself. And finds it sad that he will soon be removed from them.

  Voices sound in the fog. Women? The laughter of women? One of the seamen shouts and points. Kayaks and skin boats approach. The oarswomen of the latter wear their hair tied up in a knot. Morten finds them a funny sight. They look over their shoulders as they row, faces shining like copper coins. Are they singing? Savages! At last, he thinks, at last he is to meet the true savages, whom he shall guide in the time to come, and turn towards salvation and freedom in Jesus Christ, the Lord. This is quite another matter than the laziness of the hybrids he encoun­tered at Godthåb. He feels overwhelmed with gratitude for having been permitted to be a part of this, for being designated such a role in life, and he must descend into the cabin and lie down to rest one final time on the bunk, where the lice seep forth and mingle with those that inhabit his clothing.

  He hears the salute from the shore, a feeble splutter of the colony cannon and voices that cry hurrah. He hears the anchor cast, the rope run over the side. He feels the vessel turn and settle. Boots trample back and forth on the deck above him. The unloading commences. The rowing boat is swung out and gently buffets the side of the vessel. He hears Roselil low at the top of her lungs. The colony bell tolls without pause.

  He lies on his back on the bunk. He has folded his hands. He looks up at the ceiling. This cabin, this ship, is still Danish ground. Invisible threads run all the way back from here to Denmark, and further still, to the home of his childhood. As yet he remains unreleased. There is still a chain. But once he steps ashore it will be broken and he will be free.

  The Assumption (15 August 1793)

  Falck has ascended to a cliff top south of the colony and stands looking out across the sea. It is early morning. All night the fog has had its clammy arms and pasty fingers far inside the fords, but now sudden lagoons of sunlight and clear sky appear, magnificent visions emerge only to vanish again, as surprising as illusions.

  He stands with his telescope directed towards a point in the south where he has spied a two-masted ship, a brig or a ketch, several nautical miles distant. The fog has slipped from it like a silken cloth. The vessel glints in occasional shafts of light and has plainly found good wind, bursting with vigour, its sails full and taut in the sun, blowing her straight towards him. He sees the sparkle of the bow, he sees figures gather on the deck, then disperse in unknown industry. He sees the wake squirming from the aft, foam fanning out and settling. It is as dreamlike as an appari­tion and it dizzies him. He shifts his stance, so as not to lose footing, and then the ship is gone. He seeks it in the telescope, issues a groan of annoy­ance, sweeps the lens from left to right, field by field, systematically searching back and forth. The ship is gone. He lowers the telescope from his eye and squints towards the banks of fog, blinding white reflections of sun. He stares at the place he believes the ship appeared until his eyes begin to water. But there is no ship. Was it a ship? Or was it an illusion, a wishful invention brought forth by accumulated months of need, the need to see a ship?

  His cartographic position is sixty-five degrees and twenty-four minutes north, fifty-two degrees and fifty-four minutes west. By his own calculations and enquiries with various ship’s captains he has arrived at this position and has recorded it in his diary. An intersection of two imag­inary lines, a cross, the furthest outpost of his longings. It is this place close to the colony that affords the best views of ships arriving from the south.

  Below him, restless waves wash on to a stony beach and retreat, wash up and retreat. Gusts of wind nudge gently at his back. To his right eye, the left seeing only a milky haze following a gunpowder accident some years before, he puts the telescope, a dented, tarnished ship’s telescope purchased from an English whaler. By means of the telescope what is distant may be brought near or vice-versa, and in this out-of-the-way place one or the other is generally required. The lens is loose. He has tried to fasten it to the casing with putty, but without success. Therefore it works satisfactorily only when viewing the world from above, which is another reason why he has clambered his way up to the cliff.

  The colony is a quarter Danish mile from the vantage point. One hour of scrambling, groaning and sweating across the rocks, hiking across gurgling stretches of bog. Here he has spent more than half the ten years for which he signed up when he was appointed to his living by the Missionskollegium. He is thirty-seven years old, a man of middle age, as old as his own father.

  Lier, Akerhus diocese, Saturday,

  this twenty-eighth day of August 1791

  My dear son, Morten. It is with sadness that I must inform you that the Good Lord called upon your dearest mother this night and took her unto Him. Your old father is now quite alone on this Earth, as both your sister and your self are gone from the country.

  He shivers in the damp, mild gusts that come sweeping over the fell to enter in through the stitches of his threadbare clothing. He stabs his tongue against a front tooth that will soon yield to scurvy. His intestines are in an uproar. He senses the ominous ripple of diarrhoea in the bowel, the quivering alarm of the sphincter. His feet are soaked in bog water from the walk up. The sensation is a pleasant one, taking the edge off the bodily infirmities that yell all at once as a reminder of his mortality. The tepid water squelches between his toes as he wriggles them inside his leaking, oil-tanned boots. The sense of giving oneself up to decay, of dissolving away, puts his thoughts at rest. To abandon oneself to the
Lord, to dissolve like a crystal of sugar in the great cosmos. He raises the telescope again, puts it to his good eye and gazes out into the fog.

  Where is the ship?

  Sukkertoppen, this fifth day of May 1792

  Most esteemed Dr Rantzau,

  Having during these past years made unsuccessful application to the Trade with a view to securing more comfortable quarters of residence and premises for Service, and since now it has become impossible for me to endure dwelling any longer in this damp and cramped chamber, and therefore to continue to carry out the duties of my position, I am compelled to request that a successor to said position be secured this coming year, as in the absence of such I shall be compelled to leave it vacant. The esteemed Doctor will I trust take into account that five years of existence in such a chamber may outweigh further years in more adequate lodging and with such other comforts as many of my fellow ministers most surely enjoy. Further to justify this humble request is the matter that I have suffered the anguish of scurvy not only all this winter but also and unusually all the summer before, and without respite. And now my teeth fall one by one from my mouth, causing me much difficulty to chew the hard bread available to us in provision.