The Prophets of Eternal Fjord

by Aitken, Martin, Leine, Kim

  We place our trust in the Lord, praised be His name!

  I wish you well, dearest friend of my heart, on your continuing voyage through life. Do not forget us here in the Eternal Fjord! I remain

  Your friend, Maria Magdelene

  People have arrived for prayers, he sees, as he leaves the kitchen with Bertel. The majority of Greenlanders and mixtures of the colony who are christened have come, perhaps a score of people for whom Falck harbours an oddly unhappy and fearful fondness. Unhappy, because their attitude to the colony’s pastor at best would seem to be mild indulgence. Fearful, because in his years here he has been more dependent on them than they on him, an imbalance that may quickly be further tipped in his disfavour, as indeed would seem to have happened. In addition to the colony’s natives are some outsiders wholly unfamiliar to him. According to Bertel they are visitors from the southern part of the district.

  So it is a peculiar congregation that seats itself on the benches of the Mission house parlour, reeking of blubber and skins tanned with urine. The men are clad in linen smocks, probably illegally bartered, the women in their own costumes, breasts visible in the neckline. One of them has pulled down her upper garment at the neck and brought out her breasts to feed a child. She rocks gently back and forth. The faces are foreign in appearance, eyes keen and alert, the children unusually quiet, even the feeding baby, which looks askew upon Falck from the breast. He feels himself to be unpleasantly observed. On one of the rear benches he sees a face he knows, but which ought not to be there. The widow. He gives a start and looks away.

  No! he exclaims in silence.

  The blessed Poul Egede urged him to quickly become skilled in the language so as to be able to hold his services in Greenlandic. It was indeed his intention. But when he arrived in the country and made use of what he had learned at the seminary, no one understood but a croak of what he uttered, or else bizarre and highly embarrassing misunderstandings occurred, befitting some burlesque, whereby the congregation were brought into commotions of roaring and unstoppable laughter. Since then he has employed an interpreter, which is to say Bertel.

  He knows the catechist cannot content himself with merely trans­lating the words, but often elaborates as he sees fit, taking great liberties in the process. Everything considered, he has no idea of how his sermons are received in their translated form, nor of what effect he has on the congregation by virtue of his own person. It is one of countless matters over which he no longer has control.

  The service is held in an immense and almost incredulous silence, most particularly when one of the christened members of the con- gregation comes forward to receive the blessing and the communion in the form of broken-off pieces of ship’s biscuit and a sip of the sour wine Madame Kragsted has given him for the purpose (in a fit of raging hunger he has himself consumed the holy wafers dispatched here by the Kollegium, and has washed them down with the entire stock of altar wine). They conclude by singing two of Brorson’s hymns and a single from Kingo’s book. The congregation loves to sing, joining together so as almost to raise the roof and to make the timber frame tremble in its bed of crumbling mortar, though they hardly understand a word of any verse.

  After the service Bertel goes through the Ten Commandments with the two catechumens who have come, a young girl, a daughter of one of the Danish-Greenlandic seamen, and her unmarried mother. The catechist reads aloud the text and has them repeat it by turn. The out­siders have been allowed to remain seated and observe the instruction. They sit with their hands in their laps and listen and show no sign of restlessness, now and then pinching a louse from their hair and flicking it with practised, playful elegance in the direction of the coal bucket, where it expires with a sizzle. Falck permits himself to drift into a light sleep.

  Amen! Falck jumps in his chair and blinks. Church is over. The people rise from the benches and file out. The stench of ammonia and fermented blubber lingers in the air behind them.

  He remains standing in the empty parlour that has resounded with hymns and prayer. Soon it will all be in his past. He senses the bread and lard moving through his bowels, a thick mash of masticated sustenance on the march towards his terrified sphincter. He feels it pass through his small intestine, seeping into the large intestine on the right side of his abdomen.

  He presses his hymn book against his stomach and goes outside. Bertel stands and considers him out of the corner of his eye. The widow is beside him and now he sends her a glance. She smiles. He refuses to be thrown by her presence. He is a man of the church, with its entire authority behind him. Moreover, he remains in spite of everything an adherent of rationalism. He ought to be stronger than she. He feels his large intestine writhe like the Midgard Serpent. In a moment he will be stricken with the cramps. Perhaps he should go behind the house and crouch behind a rock. Oh, he thinks to himself, to bend down, draw up the cassock and deposit his load in the heather. No, he will wait! They have a long day ahead of them and he must make himself master over his body, lest it become master over him. He forces himself to approach Bertel. He holds the book in front of him, now against his chest, the embossed cross of its cover turned outwards. The widow retreats, releases herself from her form and runs away like water. He stands and looks as she goes. Bertel stares at him in anticipation.

  Since we have much time before us this day, I will first challenge you to a game of chess, he says eventually. As we did in the old days.

  Bertel nods. I accept the challenge, Magister.

  They walk together to the catechist’s house. It is a solid house built of shale, peat and red-painted planks, with a small and pretty window in a white frame. A chimney from a ship’s stove protrudes from the roof. There is no smoke from it.

  Inside is cold and dark. The place smells of old straw and the bleak­ness of a man alone. The house comprises a room some few paces in length and breadth, yet stuffed with furniture, two large bunks, a table with four chairs, a soft armchair, boxes filled with books, many of them originally from Falck’s own shelves. Bertel finds the board and sets up the pieces upon it.

  Falck flicks through a couple of books. Some illustrations give rise to recollection and he smiles to himself. Do you read? he asks.

  Bertel shakes his head. Not any more. The boy read. I think he read every book in the house.

  Yes, he was bright.

  I wanted that he should become a priest, says Bertel.

  He would have made an excellent one, as clever as he was.

  He didn’t wish it. He said he wanted to be a sea captain. Bertel smiles with bitterness. I was angry with him about it. I should have listened.

  Falck says nothing. He points to one of Bertel’s extended fists. The hand turns and opens.

  White, says Bertel. And I am black.

  Next time you will be white, says Falck encouragingly.

  He who wins has white, says Bertel. It is usually the way.

  Falck opens with a pawn. Bertel moves his corresponding pawn forward so they stand directly opposed. Falck brings his knight into play and Bertel does likewise. He knows that Bertel will continue in such a manner, maintaining symmetry in a battle of nerves. They will direct their pieces forward and back without end, watching each other, brooding upon each other’s moves, retaining a balance that sooner or later, imper­ceptibly, will begin to tip, and then will follow a brief struggle of life and death in which Falck most regularly will be the loser.

  Why did I teach you this game? he says with a sigh as Bertel captures one of his bishops.

  Your move, Magister.

  But I have lost.

  You must play to the finish, Bertel insists. I am entitled to my endgame.

  Falck moves a rook this way and that. Have you heard that Oxbøl, the old missionary at Holsteinsborg, is dead? He looks up at the catechist.

  I have heard.

  They say he suffered an act of violence and died of his
injuries. Have you heard anything about it?

  The catechist shakes his head. Play the game, Magister.

  Perhaps he struck himself too hard on the forehead when realizing what a wicked person he had been, and then died from the concussion, Falck muses out loud. I wonder if they have apprehended his assailant? Anyway, one may be thankful not to be mixed up in that affair, at least, he says with a nervous laugh.

  Bertel emits a sound of impatience. Falck moves his knight to a position where it would seem to be reasonably safe.

  May a person not ask where you have been this last year and a half? Falck enquires.

  That would be my own business.

  Did you visit your old mother?

  Yes, I visited her.

  Then you were at Holsteinsborg, he says triumphantly.

  Only for a short time. I was in many places.

  Did you meet your sister? he ventures to ask.

  Bertel sends him a malicious look.

  Very well, he says quickly, drawing in his horns. In any case, I am glad that we are together again. As long as it lasts.

  Bertel says nothing.

  They play four games. Falck almost has the upper hand in the second, but at the same moment he realizes he can win, his nerves fail him and he loses. After that he resigns himself and is beaten twice in a row.

  Thank you for the contest, says Falck as they rise to leave. Bertel puts the pieces away. He nods and smiles smugly.

  Should we go and preach to the savages? he suggests.

  They follow the shore to the communal dwelling house of the natives. The fog shows no sign of lifting, and even if the ship lay at anchor in the bay, he would be unable to see it.

  Some hours pass. The afternoon comes; the light changes within the compartment that is the colony, walled in on three sides by low, steep rock faces. He parts from Bertel’s company and stands on the rock that protrudes between the Mission house and the colony harbour. At least the rain has stopped. Sunlight slants down on the ford, bundles of diag­onal shafts penetrating the clouds. He narrows his eyes in the hope of spying the ship, but sees nothing. He could go out to the point again, where most certainly he would see it, if a ship was there.

  He catches sight of Kragstedt down at the warehouse. He ducks and gallops like a long-legged insect in a wide arc behind the colony and arrives at the colony house unseen from the harbour. He straightens himself up and slows to a more dignified pace. He passes the whipping post that has been unused for a number of years and yet serves admirably as a deterrent, stained with blood and bodily fluids that have seeped into its wood, together with the recollection of the man who last hung there. Falck shudders and gives it a wide berth, continuing around the fence that encloses the vegetable garden where, in a layer of imported Danish soil, the Trader’s wife grows turnips and celery for use in her kitchen, the only vegetables to have proved hardy enough to survive the sixty-fifth latitude.

  He goes to the door and knocks. Madame Kragstedt must have seen him coming. She answers immediately.

  Come in, dear Falck.

  She has appointed him her saviour, a hero who arrives, charging, to snatch her up on to his steed and redeem her from – what? A flood, a blaze, an irate mob? He does not feel himself to be a knight and does not care to be the Madame’s saviour. He has enough to do saving the remnants of his own life. He edges his sick and rumbling organism past her in its encasement of black cassock, making sure to keep one or two paces of distance between them. At least he will not have to speak of the widow with Madame Kragstedt. She is to all intents and purposes without contact with the outside world, and is to his own knowledge unaware of his connection with her.

  She closes the door behind them and the latch clatters loudly. She sends him a radiant, carnivorous smile that fails to conceal the fatigue, the despair and the encroaching madness. Please enter, Magister. I am alone.

  Dear Magister Falck,

  I trust you are well and in good cheer. My husband has now told of what occurred, at least in part. But of this, the least said the better.

  I miss you, Morten! Am I to suppose that you are avoiding me? You have not yet paid me a visit since your return here, although a week and a half has now passed.

  As for myself, I arise each day in solitude, melancholy and slothful, such has become my fate in this place. However, I have now read the book you recommended to me last year, for which reason I hope you will pay me a visit this afternoon, or whensoever you may find the occa­sion and inclination, so that we may talk of the unfortunate woman whose name my pen cannot express without my feeling shame and perplexity on behalf of my gender. But more of this when we meet, Magister Falck. You are awaited with longing by

  Your devoted and most grateful, Haldora Kragstedt.

  He stands in the parlour of the Trader and his wife. He inserts an index finger beneath his starched collar and runs it back and forth against his itching neck. A sticky mixture of sweat and potato starch collects on his finger. He wipes it discreetly on his sleeve. He hears the Madame’s foot­steps behind him, a padding of slippers. She closes the door to the hallway and glides past him like a ship, a rush of red satin, her dress swelling like a sail. As she halts by the tall chest of drawers, an item apparently spared by the fire, her dress shudders with nervous delay before settling.

  I take it the Magister will not decline a little glass in my company? She looks back at him over her bare shoulder and smiles.

  Certainly not, Madame.

  She casts an enquiring glance across the room. How is your eye, my dear?

  It bothers me not. There is nothing wrong with it other than being more or less blind.

  I feel such guilt about your eye, and cannot forget your service.

  Forget it, he says. I am trying to.

  She turns round again. She is becoming when seen from behind, when the observer is relieved of looking upon her tired face with its scar that runs across her cheek like the flaming trace of a hand. She is tall, half a head taller than her husband, and the measure of Falck himself. Her shoulders and arms, which apart from the straps of her dress are exposed, are pale and freckled. But the arm at which he looks bears the mark of the accident too, he notes now, the skin seeming almost to have been crum­pled down to the elbow. Apparently she sees no reason to hide her scars, perhaps because they serve to draw attention away from others that are much worse. Her hair, which has grown out again, is chestnut brown and displays a lustre: even in the semi-darkness of the colony house parlour it captures the tiny gleams of light from the gaps between the curtains, and is loose about her shoulders, according to the style of the day. He knows that the Madame frequently receives catalogues from Paris, richly illustrated, and small paper dolls that parade the latest collections. Presumably she spends no small part of her husband’s income following fashions practically no one in the colony understands or appreciates.

  You stare, Magister, she says, turning towards him with two glasses filled with a liquid the colour of tea. Surely not at me?

  She blinks like a mechanical doll, her head moves jerkily and he imag­ines he hears the ticking of clockwork. Her eyes scintillate: their lustrous shine resembles something applied by means of a varnish brush.

  He bows gently. Why, yes, dear Madame. At you indeed. He takes a glass and downs its contents, then hands it back.

  Madame Kragstedt has put down her glass, she has taken only a small sip. Another, Mr Falck?

  Only if you insist.

  They are finding their former tone. He feels the familiar diffusion of warmth inside him, the serenity, the apathy. This is where he wishes to be. He had completely forgotten.

  Her satin rushes and swells. He is handed a full glass, downs half the dram and seats himself at the dinner table, which he sees must have been knocked together after the fire. He empties the second glass. The Madame disappears behind a screen. He hears a spla
shing of water before she appears again. Washing her hands seems to have soothed her.

  The Trader’s brand-new house, built of solid Norwegian timber, is dry and warm. The colony crew resides in a pair of rooms at the other end: five men who drink and bawl and piss out of the windows, carousing until well into the night, to the considerable detriment of the Madame’s highly strung nerves. The living is cramped on this colossal coast. The parlour smells intensely of camphor and other ethereal oils, which the Madame, on his recommendation, either imbibes or else applies to her exterior in order to prevent the unwanted displacement of bodily fluids and to assuage her irksome nerves, the unmanageable ebb and flow inside her mind. A solid tiled stove takes up one end of the room. Under the windows, on the south side of the house, stands a long bench, also new, and in front of it a table with six chairs, no longer those of before, which were upholstered with ox leather, but thin and rickety, made from what materials were available. New furniture is presumably on its way with the next ship.

  Here at this long table the crew eat dinner each day, and it is where Falck has seated himself. The curtains are drawn, as heavy as Persian rugs. An unpleasant grey light bristles in through the cracks at the sides, fanning dustily out over the surface of the wall. Previously, no less than eight medallion-backed Louis Seize chairs stood lined up along the opposite wall, four to the right and four to the left of a tall grandfather clock, the echo of whose tick he still hears. Now all of it is no more, a considerable fortune gone up in flames on account of his, Morten Falck’s, carelessness. Fortunately, the Madame is unaware of the fact, her husband likewise. The only person who knew is dead. A small ship’s chronometer has replaced the grandfather clock and hangs on the wall, ticking frenet­ically.

  Behind the colony house still stands the small annexe that saved the Madame’s life last winter, entered through the same door in the corner of the parlour as before. Everything is disconcertingly as he remembers it, though in a bare and roughly hewn variation. The annexe was built so as to preserve the lady’s modesty, that she may be spared the men’s latrine and their lecherous looks and fantasies. Is there a slight whiff in the air of the parlour, a faint odour of female evacuations issuing from the concealed privy? Hardly. And yet he senses himself sniffing the air as he sits, imagining the Madame’s effluvium.