The Prophets of Eternal Fjord

by Aitken, Martin, Leine, Kim

  I see. Still, I’m sure you are aware that such a wish may come true even before we anticipate. Life is brief and death is always at the door. Have you prepared for that, Hammer?

  I’m prepared, the smith says. My bones are drawn by the soil. I suppose that’s why I have this confounded arthritis in my hands. Do you not think so, Magister, him being both clergy and physician?

  In my capacity as physician I would say it was more a matter of his trade and the cold of winter, the damp of summer, the heat of the work­shop, and not least excessive consumption of distilled spirits.

  There’s nothing like a wee dram to warm a man, Magister Falck. I know the Magister sets store by it too, now and then.

  You don’t say. Well, there’s a thing or two I know about you as well, Hammer. He would be wise to bear it in mind.

  You know everything about me, Magister. I am a sinner before the Lord, Hammer says with unveiled pleasure.

  Falck wishes to move on, but the smith blocks his way.

  Will the Magister not see the body?

  He looks away. What body?

  The widow. I’ve laid her in the timber store. I thought the Magister might wish to see her one last time, make sure she’s ready to go into the ground like a good Christian.

  He struggles to maintain his composure. Thoughts swirl in his head. My successor will attend to it, he mumbles.

  The smith studies him. Then he nods and changes the subject. Does the Magister know what I’m looking forward to when the ship comes?

  It really doesn’t interest me in the slightest, but let me guess. He looks forward to bartering and drinking and fornicating in the company of the crew.

  That as well, the smith admits. They’re a good bunch of lads and have been a long time away at sea. They’ve not seen an underskirt in months and I’ve not had word from the homeland for a year, so who can blame us for wanting to enjoy ourselves? But do you know what I most look forward to?

  He feels weak and rather poorly. No, what do you look forward to most, Hammer?

  When the ship is unloaded and I can cook me stew with meat that is not musty, the smith says, and he is rapt.

  An innocent wish, indeed, says Falck. If he thought more of the joys of the table and less of fornication it would be a step in the right direc­tion. But now he must excuse me.

  Barley soup with cherries, the smith fantasizes. Pancakes with maple syrup.

  Yes, well, says Falck. He feels as though his bowels are listening in on the transports of the smith.

  Blood gruel, salted goose meat, bread-and-ale porridge with sour cream, matured herring that melts on the tongue.

  That’s enough, Hammer! Get a grip, man! He senses the sweat start out on his forehead and hears the squealing lament of his stomach. At once he sees the Trader coming briskly towards the harbour, followed by his overseer Jens Dahl and two native constables of the Trade. The Trader wields his stick, pointing to left and right, the overseer hastening in his footsteps, pitching in with obsequiousness. They do not seem to have noticed Falck, so he scuttles away, past the smith, ducking between the boathouse and the warehouse, scrambling in a zigzag over the rocks behind, as agile as a spider, sliding down the other side and crouching to wait. He hears Kragstedt’s drawl drift away towards the harbour, Dahl’s chatter and the greeting of the smith. Kragstedt utters some words in a commanding tone and Hammer answers back. They laugh.

  His boots squelching and his coat-tails clinging to his thighs, Falck scurries further, to the flat area where the Mission house lies slightly apart from the main buildings of the colony. Again he crouches and remains in hiding until long after the Trader disappears from sight. And then he is inside. He slams the door shut behind him. Now he is safe. He flops down on the bed and stares up at the ceiling. She is dead. Good, he thinks. Indeed! It is consummated. I am free.

  The Mission house is a sagging, half-timbered building clad with planks. The mortar rots in damp weather, which is to say most of the year, crumbling away at double the speed in the short spells of dryness. In winter the frost cracks branch and diffuse to eat away at the house as it is battered by storms this way and that. In the spring the process of disintegration continues, advancing rather more quickly than the year before. Half-timbered houses are ill suited to this land, as ill suited as the people who inhabit them, little more than ice-cold encasements in which a person can but sit and brood over his wasted life, yet when they catch alight they blaze like tindersticks.

  Falck’s accommodation comprises one half of the Mission house, a room measuring eight ells on each side, draughty and cold, and with a single window to let in a measure of light, the glass of which, however, is of such poor quality that everything outside appears as indistinct as a painting in which the colours have run together. Which is just as well. Morten Falck appreciates anything that may serve not to remind him that he is where he is.

  The fixtures of this room are as follows: an alcove bed with a mattress of straw in need of replacement, some fox hides and two reindeer skins sewn together, all infested with mould and damp; a small desk with a drawer; a wooden chair whose back he wrenched asunder in a moment of unthinking rage; a leather armchair that looks as if it suffers from psoriasis; five bookcases filled with books, many of which cannot be opened on account of their pages having stuck together. A great mon ­strosity of a wrought-iron stove takes up much of the space. It smokes so infernally that he prefers to fill a bucket with glowing coals from the kitchen and place it on the slate beneath the desk, from whence it gives off sufficient warmth. The ceiling sags in the middle and he has felt obliged to support it by means of a plank jammed between ceiling and floor, taken from the Taasinge Slot. This has been Falck’s home for six years. He is fond of it.

  He rises to neaten himself, expelling all thought of the widow from his mind. He senses again the movement in his bowels. He regrets not having used the privy on his way. But then he would have been like a fox in a trap and Kragstedt would have been waiting for him when he was done, perhaps with the shackles at the ready. And so he endures, he takes off his clothes, tossing his coat, waistcoat, trousers and stockings over the washing line he has drawn between the walls and which may or may not allow his clothing to be dry by morning. He frees his long hair from the hair bag, winds it in his hand and squeezes the water from it. Then he gathers it on top of his head and puts on his hairpiece once more, stands for a moment and looks down at himself. His torso, especially his shoul­ders and chest, are mottled blue and black by the wet garments. He looks like an erect corpse, covered with death spots.

  As he is crouching down on all fours to settle his bowels, naked but for his hairpiece, the door opens and the catechist Bertel Jensen enters. He remains standing and observes him. If he has received word of the widow’s death it cannot be seen by his expression.

  Did the pastor catch the plague when up in the ford? the catechist enquires in a hopeful tone.

  It is only the colour from the wet clothes, Falck says. I was on the cliff and got soaked.

  Ah, the pastor was spying for his ship.

  Close the door, Bertel, for goodness’ sake. Otherwise I shall catch both plague and the pox, as well as a cold for good measure.

  The catechist turns and shuts the door demonstratively. Falck gets to his feet and clutches pensively at his stomach. He raises his hands to the helmet of coarse horsehair that encapsulates his skull, making a slight adjustment. His bowels emit a series of shrill tones of varying intensity. He grimaces, then collects himself.

  My dear Bertel, he says. Are we friends today?

  The catechist spits on the stove. But the stove is cold and the antici­pated sizzle fails to materialize. The phlegm runs down its side and drips to the floor.

  Falck sighs. Be good and help me put on the vestments.

  The catechist glares at him, but nevertheless obediently takes down the cassock from the hook and hol
ds it out ready. Falck retrieves a pair of long, yellowed underpants from the line and feels to see if they are dry. They are not. He puts them on, then finds a fatigued sheepskin doublet and woollen stockings and puts them on, too, hopping from one leg to the other. Bertel stands with the cassock, staring, fishlike, the corners of his mouth downturned. Falck wriggles his way into the garment. It is dry and warm. Thank goodness. Small demons of cold are driven from his body and cause him to shudder. Immediately he feels better and clearer in his head. His stomach settles. He turns to meet Bertel’s gaze and sees a reflection of the transformation he has undergone. Now he is the pastor.

  The ruff, he says. Is it stiff?

  Bertel takes down the box from one of the shelves and lifts out the collar, holding it gingerly in his hands, as though it were of brittle glass. Falck takes it from him, feeling to see if the potato starch is dry. Flakes of the substance crumble away. Dry enough, he decides. He fastens it around his neck, turning it until the button is at the nape, then wiping the stickiness from his fingers.

  The crucifix.

  Bertel finds the brass cross and holds it out with the chain taut in his hands. Falck bends down and puts his head through the loop, feeling the intimate weight of the cross against his chest. He puts on his buckled shoes. Last of all, he retrieves the Holy Scripture and Pontoppidan’s catechism. Both straddle the same clothes line, spine upwards, so as to remain dry.

  Now he is ready. The catechist stands empty-handed and stares at him, tensely silent, as though the sight of a pastor in full vestments awakes sentiments inside him that Falck is unable to fathom.

  Is there anything wrong, dear Bertel? You are very quiet today.

  A rare smile curls the catechist’s lips like a ray of sunlight and is gone again. You reminded me of someone else, he mutters, and averts his gaze.

  Falck is glad of this kindness, a straw at which he may clutch. He commits the error of grasping it, whereby it naturally snaps. Another pastor, perhaps? he says. One with whom you have worked in your long service?

  Naluara. I don’t know. It is one of the few words Falck cannot help but recognize, he hears it said so many times each and every day. He is familiar, too, with its true meaning: You can kiss my arse!

  What a lot has happened since we first met, says Falck with a sigh. And you were away for how long, a year and a half? Where were you in all that time, Bertel?

  Here and there, Bertel says.

  I thought you were dead.

  I thought the Magister to be dead. I thought the cannibals up the ford had devoured him. Bertel cannot suppress a malicious grin. Falck senses now for the first time the anger that is brewing inside him.

  We shall speak no more of it, he says.

  Is the Magister sent home now?

  Yes, my time here would seem to be over. The place has need of new blood.

  Bertel considers him, then nods, turns and goes out. Falck follows him.

  Are my catechumens gathered?

  You mean we are to catechize today? Bertel enquires, his expression exaggeratedly sheeplike.

  Indeed, says Falck vaguely. I should imagine so. Are we not?

  Bertel shrugs. Naluara. I am not the pastor.

  Falck stands to consider his catechist and wonders if indeed he knows of the widow’s death. He can hardly avoid learning of it before the day is over. Once we were good friends, he thinks to himself, and could speak with each other on any matter. What went wrong?

  Bertel Jensen is in the region of thirty years old, a man of fair, freckled skin and an insipid gaze. A so-called mixture, a people frowned upon by natives and Danes alike. It has occurred to Falck that it is perhaps the fair aspect of his being, his Danishness, that he despises so, in the way all others seem to despise the mixture of blood. The two genealogical features of the catechist’s appearance, the Danish and the Eskimo, seem layered upon each other in staggered arrangement like some racial palimpsest. The white man, his father, has scrawled upon the pure and splendid Eskimo heredity and thereby, besides the fair skin and the freckles, allotted him a meagre, round-shouldered appearance, spindly, disharmonious arms, bandy legs and an angular, fox-like face with narrow, shifty eyes. In Denmark he would promptly be taken for some unspecific member of the common class, most certainly not a man of the Lord.

  He has now worked with the catechist for six years. That is to say that for the last year and a half he had vanished, only to reappear a fortnight ago without wishing to say where he had been. But Falck himself has been away from the colony for most of the past year. With the exception of a couple of family members, Bertel is the person with whom he has enjoyed the closest, lengthiest and most regular relationship in all his life. So much more does it hurt him, then, that they cannot become friends again as they were in the beginning.

  Is there any reason why we should not catechize today? he enquiries warily.

  Why should there be?

  Has something happened? Speak to me, Bertel.

  What should have happened? The catechist is neither to be led nor driven.

  Very well. Naturally we are to catechize, Falck decides. We shall continue our usual work until my departure. We shall pretend it to be a day like any other and we shall put this gloom from our minds for an hour. What do you say?

  The catechist nods, then turns away.

  The colony bell sounds over by the colony house. Together with Bertel he stands outside the Mission house and observes the crew come walking up from the harbour: the smith, the new cooper and carpenter, who came with a whaling ship in the summer, the constables, the Trader’s overseer, all cap in hand to honour Madame Kragstedt, the colony manager’s wife, who stands, pale and stiff, in the doorway to bid them welcome. They stand on the step and bow deeply, receive a curt nod in return and step inside. Falck feels sorry for the Madame. He knows Kragstedt insists she maintain the role of first lady of the colony, and he knows that she would do almost anything to escape it.

  After the Danish men come the Greenlandic constables and servants. They stand likewise clutching their caps, though below the step. With her maid, Madame Kragstedt steps down to them and spoons up small portions of porridge into bowls. They devour, then bow humbly and retreat. The two women retire into the house again. Falck sees the door close behind the Madame. He swallows his spit.

  He turns to Bertel. Are you hungry?

  Yes? the catechist replies inarticulately, a rising interrogative as though he cannot quite comprehend that Falck should ask such a ridicu­lous question. I haven’t a crumb to eat at home.

  Falck smiles at him. Well, a crumb or two ought to be within my capabilities.

  They go into the tiny kitchen where the stove stands cold and covered with soot. Falck finds a hunk of bread and cuts away paper-thin flakes of it until all the mould is gone. Then he divides what remains in two and hands the larger piece to Bertel. Each takes a knife and scrapes lard from the jar. It is salty and burnt, and quite rancid. They spread it onto the bread, thick embankments of it which they devour, and then more. Falck senses his stomach settle with the fare, yet he knows his intestines soon will wreak havoc again. His head feels heavy. Bertel licks his fingers, meticulous as a cat, then wipes his hands on his breeches. Falck pours ale from the jug into two cups, which they empty in long gulps.

  That was the last of my soft bread, says Falck. Now we must make do with hard tack.

  My son was fond of hard tack, says Bertel. He enjoyed it with train oil and crowberries. Or syrup, if we could get any.

  Falck is embarrassed by the mention of Bertels’s son. He has no idea what to say and therefore says nothing.

  And your wife? he says. Have you heard from her?

  I should ask the pastor himself, says Bertel and looks at him directly. He was the last of us to see her.

  Sofie was well when I saw her, says Falck. She and the little one. They are taken well care of th
ere.

  Whatever did happen? Bertel then says, a visible struggle with his pride.

  Yes, whatever did happen? says Falck. What happened was what might have been expected. He sighs. But I hear no one has suffered unduly. I don’t think you need to be worried.

  I shall go there, says Bertel. As soon as I am finished with my matters here. They say the Magister corresponds with the prophets, that he has a whole bundle of letters from them.

  Oh, one or two, perhaps, he says. Maria Magdalene wrote as recently as a fortnight ago.

  Igdlut Settlement, Eternal Fjord,

  this twenty-ninth day of July 1793

  To Magister Morten Falck

  Sukkertoppen Mission

  Dearest Morten, my friend and confidant,

  Alas, how sadly it all has ended. Nevertheless, we are in good spirits and no one among us is worse off for being relieved of earthly goods we cannot in any circumstance take with us into the hereafter.

  I am, however, more concerned for you, my dear friend, than for any other following these events. As you surely have learned by now, your wife departed for Holsteinsborg in the company of my own husband. What may have happened to her there, I know not. Perhaps you have reports of such. She is an unhappy person.

  My dear husband is now returned to me. He has humbly asked my forgiveness, which I have granted him, since the Lord has spoken, as He has a habit of speaking to me, and has told me I must forgive him. He is my husband. I love him. May it also be an example to you, Morten, that so must you also forgive, as He has forgiven you. But who am I that I should instruct you in what to do and what not? The Lord will guide you!

  People were spread to the winds, but some are already returned. We now live once more in our old peat dwelling at the shore, where we can hear the babble of the stream, and we are both pleased by these circumstances. Who knows, in some years we may even be in number again. Our cause is good and just. Neither blunderbuss nor grapeshot nor chains may stop it. Sooner or later, the Dane, who stole this land away from us, will recognize this!