The Whaler (The Island of Sylt Book 1)

by Ines Thorn

  Finja spoke. “We still have enough oil for the lamps, a dozen eggs, and half a smoked side of mutton. Tomorrow I can go to Old Meret’s house to bake bread. We’ll have enough to eat for the next few days.”

  Maren sat listening, though not really hearing what they were saying. She was focused on the sounds outside. Thies still hadn’t come. It wasn’t very surprising, because his house had been badly damaged too. Everyone in Rantum had worked until it was fully dark to clean up after the storm. But couldn’t he have come afterward? Just for a few minutes? To say a few words? He must know that she needed his comfort. His comfort, and more importantly, his forgiveness. She wondered if Antje had even told him that she’d been there that morning. Had he taken it badly that she’d asked Boyse for help? Above all, what did he think about the fact that she’d had to kiss Boyse? Thies was a proud man, and Maren’s heart was heavy with guilt. But the kiss had not been voluntary. It had been forced. It wasn’t her fault. Though, when she thought about the tingling inside of her that the kiss had provoked, she truly felt as though she had betrayed Thies.

  “Maren? Do you have any questions, or anything to add?” Klaas glanced at her, and Finja examined her daughter closely.

  “I’m going to go to the bird trappers’ place tomorrow, right after I cut the reeds. Maybe I can find work there. I could also—”

  She broke off then, because she heard footsteps outside. “That must be Thies,” she cried, jumping out of her chair and hurrying to the door. She grabbed her cloak and raced out into Thies’s arms. “Finally,” she whispered into his warm chest. “Finally, you’re here.”

  But Thies pulled himself roughly from her embrace. “Is it true?” he asked. He didn’t sound angry or enraged, just sad.

  “Please forgive me,” Maren whispered, her head bowed. “I didn’t want to. He refused to give me the money otherwise, and we needed it to survive. Please forgive me.”

  Then Thies sighed, and finally took her in his arms and whispered, “I wish you’d come to me.”

  “But you don’t even have enough for yourself,” Maren said feebly.

  Thies stiffened. “That doesn’t mean my fiancée should let herself be kissed by another man.” Again, he sounded more sad than angry.

  Maren stepped back so she could look him in the eye. “And you went to Grit, didn’t you?”

  Thies made a face. “Yes, I did,” he replied, without further explanation. He still sounded a little hurt.

  “And what was I supposed to do?” Maren asked. “We have nothing.”

  “Still!” Now his voice was hard. “Did you have to go to Boyse, of all people? Wasn’t there anyone else you could have asked for money? You know how I feel about him. If he weren’t a captain, I would have struck him when he proposed to you. I only restrained myself because I wanted to attend his seamanship school.”

  Maren shook her head. All at once, she was as sad and discouraged as she had been that morning. “No one in Rantum has money, only debts, Thies. You know that as well as I do. What was I supposed to do?” She sighed deeply and then added, “You went to Grit for help. So what are you accusing me of?”

  “I didn’t take money from her. I worked for her and got the wood as payment. That’s different.”

  “Well, Boyse didn’t have any work for me,” Maren replied sharply, and stepped away from him again. “Do you think it was easy for me to ask him for a loan?”

  “Your father should have done it. He’s the head of your family.”

  Maren swallowed. “My father didn’t know I was going to Boyse. If he had, he probably would have forbidden me. We don’t even have a roof over our heads anymore. His boat was destroyed, and he can’t even go fishing. I went in secret. No one knew.”

  Maren could tell by the look in Thies’s eyes that he didn’t accept her excuses. She raised her arms helplessly. “Wouldn’t you do everything in your power to help your family?”

  “I would,” Thies answered. “But I’m the head of my family.”

  They stood facing each other, their arms hanging by their sides, their heads bowed. Close together, yet worlds apart.

  “Can you forgive me, Thies?” Maren asked after a little while.

  Thies swallowed and finally nodded. “These are hard times. We all have to do what we must.” Then he took her in his arms again, caressed her back with his big warm hands, and pressed his cheek to her hair. They stood that way for a long time, until Thies gently pushed her away from him again. “I have to tell you something,” he said, and Maren could tell by the sound of his voice that it wasn’t good news.

  “What is it?” She felt a cold shudder go down her back. Her heart pounded with fear.

  “The storm changed something else,” Thies began, and Maren’s heart shrank.

  “What do you mean?” she asked in shock.

  Thies avoided her eyes, gazing over at the high dunes. “We have to postpone our wedding.” He sighed, as though relieved that everything was finally out in the open.

  “But why?” Maren put a hand on either side of Thies’s face so he had to look at her. “Why?” she repeated softly. The world had just become a shade darker, and the crashing of the waves droned in her ears. Was this Thies’s way of punishing her because she’d gone to Boyse? No, Thies wouldn’t be so cruel to her. “Why?”

  “There’s no money for a celebration. I need everything I have to repair the house.”

  Maren nodded. She knew that he was right. “What if we don’t have a party? What if we just have a nice meal with your family and mine?”

  Thies shook his head. “No, Maren. It’s no good. We can’t marry this spring. It will have to be in October, when I come home. I want a big party with all our friends and relatives, the traditional way. No one must be able to say that Thies Heinen didn’t give his bride a proper wedding. No one must say that she would have been better off with the captain.”

  She lowered her eyes and helplessly shuffled her feet in the sand, knowing that there was no cure for Thies’s pride. “But you still love me?” she asked in a small, faint voice.

  “Yes. I love you. That hasn’t changed. That won’t ever change. We will be married, but not in spring. In October.”

  CHAPTER 8

  It took the villagers of Rantum months to repair the storm damage, even in the most provisional manner. Wood had to be brought in from the mainland, roofs had to be fixed, nets needed mending, and fishing boats needed rebuilding. Everyone helped one another, and the village rang with the sound of pounding hammers. Fortunately, the weather was kind to the islanders. It wasn’t very cold, the storms blew wide of the island, and even the rain spared Sylt. Goods were traded back and forth: a side of bacon for wooden posts, three smoked eels for a fat bundle of dried reeds to repair a roof, a good pair of leather boots for as much pitch as was needed to make a fishing boat waterproof, and fine delft tiles for a bucket of lime and some clay. The children went to the mudflats to look for mussels, and the herring fishermen went out in their boats, dragging their nets along the ocean floor to catch other shellfish.

  Maren made several fishing nets, but she didn’t get much money for them. She placed every single coin she earned in a small wooden box, planning to bring it to Captain Boyse as soon as it was full. Maren would have liked to stay out of his way, but Sylt was simply too small to hide from such a powerful man. On Sundays in church, he pretended he hadn’t noticed Maren, but when she went to the market in Westerland to buy thread and needles, Boyse somehow always appeared just as she was counting out her small coins. He never spoke to her, never smiled at her. He acted as though she didn’t exist. And though she was still angry at him for the humiliation she had suffered, his contempt for her hurt. Then one day in Westerland, she turned a corner and walked directly into Captain Boyse himself.

  “Oh, excuse me, p-please,” Maren stammered, and quickly bent down to collect her purchases, which she had dropped in surprise. Boyse bent down too. As they both searched the ground for the needles, their eyes met. On
ly briefly, because then Maren let out a cry. She had found a needle the hard way, and the tip of her finger was bleeding.

  “Let me see!” Rune Boyse ordered, taking her hand. He peered at the finger, then . . . then he stuck it in his mouth and tried to stop the bleeding by sucking on it. A wave of heat washed over her from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes. Suddenly the situation seemed extremely intimate; she had almost never felt so close to anyone before. Heated blood pulsed through her body, and what Rune Boyse was doing suddenly seemed to be completely improper. She felt as though she were totally naked.

  Maren squirmed with shame, but soon Rune Boyse let go, pulled a clean handkerchief out of his pocket, and tied it neatly around her finger. Then he stood up and walked away without speaking another word to her. The next Sunday in church when she sought his gaze, he avoided her eyes.

  “Is there something going on with you and the captain again?” Thies asked her.

  “What makes you think that?”

  “You’re staring at him as though you’re waiting for something.”

  Thies’s words made her blush because they were so close to the truth, but she shook her head vigorously. “No, I am not. I couldn’t care less about Rune Boyse. The only thing binding me to him is my debt.” But the truth was Maren felt deeply unsettled in the captain’s presence. She was absolutely certain that he still wanted to humiliate her, and that he hated her because she’d rejected him. But somehow, his hatred didn’t really feel like hatred. When she thought of his kiss, she blushed from the memory of it. She still chastised herself for allowing him to do it. She hadn’t known then that a kiss could be as humiliating as a slap. And then there was her bleeding finger. She truly believed that it was some strange kind of cruelty that had made him do it, and yet, the moment had been precious to her. Precious for its intimacy.

  February came much too soon, and the Biikebrennen and the men’s departure with it. The women remained behind on their own with little to eat, with temporarily repaired houses, and with their fear of the next storm and for the lives of their men on the open sea.

  Now that all the nets had been repaired, Maren worked for the bird trappers who kept their captured wild ducks in a barn between Rantum and Westerland.

  The first time she had been there, old Mr. Lorenzen had explained to her in detail how he trapped the birds. There was a little freshwater pond near the Wadden Sea. Lorenzen lured the birds there with morsels of bait and caught them in his traps.

  “They do it differently in Holland,” he explained. “They drive the ducks through a maze of reeds covered with nets until they come to a dead end. Maybe we should try that method here sometime. But for now, we catch enough ducks in our traps.” Then Lorenzen stuffed ten freshly killed ducks into Maren’s basket. “Bring back the meat and feathers. If you want to keep a little of the meat for yourself, that’s just fine. But work carefully.”

  Maren went home, sat in front of the house with a duck between her knees, and ripped out all the feathers. After a while her arms began to hurt, her hands were smeared with blood, her fingernails were cracked, and her back began to feel as though it were about to break. She would have liked to hurl the ducks away and throw herself weeping into Finja’s arms.

  But Maren continued to pluck the birds with her teeth gritted, and put all the money she earned from Mr. Lorenzen in the little wooden box to pay Boyse back in autumn. Her mother often sat next to her, knitting wool from salt-marsh sheep, wool which was especially weather resistant, into stockings and vests that she sold at the market in Westerland. At the end of the day, Finja’s eyes burned and her head ached, and she lay on her bed in the alcove with cool cloths on her forehead and moaned quietly.

  They made very little money that way, but it was the only way for them to earn anything. Klaas went out to sea every day, but the shoals of herring had moved away. What Klaas caught was barely enough for his own family and a few neighbors. He couldn’t bring in real money with it.

  “What will happen if we can’t pay back the loan?” Finja asked one day.

  Maren shrugged. She’d been thinking about that too, but she hadn’t come up with a solution. “We will pay him back,” Maren finally answered. “We work hard. We can’t do more. The main thing is that Father has his boat again and the house is repaired. We even have a little wood left over.”

  Finja laid her knitting in her lap and stretched her hands, which were covered in knots of gout. She rubbed her swollen joints. “I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep knitting,” she said. “I’m going to collect fuel for the fireplace. At least I can still manage that.”

  Maren knew that her mother also had serious back pain. She got up too, put the freshly plucked duck back in the pannier, and got a willow basket. Then she followed her mother to where the sheep grazed. Twilight had come, and the light had become weaker, so it was difficult to collect the sheep dung. They’d dry it to burn later in the winter. Maren found it disgusting to pick up manure, but it was a feeling she couldn’t afford. She helped her mother until both baskets were well filled. They cleaned their hands by rubbing them with sand and snuck guiltily back to their house. It wasn’t forbidden to collect dung, but the sheep’s owners felt they had a right to it. The Luersens owned only two ewes, which hadn’t lambed that year. They didn’t produce enough dung to heat the fireplace even once, so Finja and Maren had no choice but to collect the dung of other sheep. Maren also went to the beach every morning to collect any driftwood that had been washed up by the tide during the night. She was not the only one. That meant the goal was to rise earlier than everyone else, in order to be the first one on the beach. As soon as the darkness had faded enough that the first delicate silhouettes of the day could be seen, Maren got up. She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, climbed over the dunes, and walked down the empty beach to collect flotsam. Some days, she made a good haul: one or two pieces of wood, and even a splintered sea chest once. Other days, she came home with nothing but a bundle of seaweed to dry. She didn’t wish disaster on anyone, and yet, she hoped every day that a ship would sink right in front of the island. There was even a prayer for it, which was whispered every morning by the beachcombers:

  We beg thee, O Lord, not that ships sink in the howling of the storm down to the floor of the sea, but if you see fit to let them founder, then, O Lord, please guide them to our beach, so the poor people of the coast may be sustained.

  When Maren finished collecting driftwood or dung, when there were no ducks left to pluck, and all the housework had been done, she sat and embroidered white linens with monograms for her trousseau. With every stitch, she thought of Thies. She missed him, but she would never admit it. Women on Sylt were accustomed to being alone for months on end. None of them complained about it. Why would they? It wouldn’t help anyway.

  When a shipment from the mainland arrived in Westerland, everyone who had ordered something met the ship in the harbor. One day, Maren went to collect a few things she had ordered for her wedding. Grit was there too, and she eyed Maren and smiled. But the smile was in no way kind. It was gloating. The wares were unloaded and distributed, and the women waited until their names were called.

  “What did you order?” Grit asked.

  Maren answered reluctantly. “Embroidery thread and a little lace for my wedding dress.”

  Grit laughed derisively, throwing her head back. “Do you actually believe that you’ll use that lace?” she said tauntingly.

  “Of course,” Maren said, raising her chin. “I’ll marry Thies in autumn. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Grit replied. Then her name was called, and Maren had to watch as Grit received a small ball of the very best Belgian lace. “Here, would you like to feel it?” Grit asked as Maren stood there with her simple, now almost coarse-seeming lace in her hands. “Mine is soft. So soft that a husband could really nestle up against it.” Grit smiled again.

  Maren stiffened. “Maybe you need lace f
or that,” she said. “But I have a body that a husband would prefer to nestle against.” But actually, she felt deeply ashamed. At first, her lace had seemed beautiful to her. But now that she’d seen Grit’s, she felt tatty and unrefined holding her simple trim.

  Grit’s face twisted into an ugly grin. “We all know that you have a body men like to nestle up against. I’ve even heard that you can earn money with it.” Grit laughed scornfully, and Maren’s face burned. She couldn’t just let the insult stand. She would have liked to tell her rival what had really happened, but she already knew that nothing would change Grit’s opinion. So she didn’t bother. But then something occurred to her. “Why do you need lace from Brussels anyway? Are you planning to marry again?”

  “Of course,” Grit answered sharply. “Whatever you do, I can do better. And as you know, I’m a widow. Soon my year of mourning will be over, and I’m not planning on staying alone for the rest of my life.”

  “Who are you going to marry?” Maren said, probingly.

  “You’ll find out soon enough. But you can be certain that you’ll be more than surprised by my choice.” With those words, Grit spun on her heel.

  Old Meret had been standing nearby and had heard every word. Now she came to Maren. “I don’t know what she’s planning, but I fear it isn’t good. Just yesterday, I saw a flock of wild geese flying over her house. Take care, Maren!”

  “What could possibly happen? We’ve just survived a terrible storm. I think we’re safe from bad luck for a while. Lightning never strikes in the same place twice.”