The Weight of Water

by Anita Shreve

  21 September 1899

  I HAVE BEEN thinking this morning upon the subjects of story-telling and truth, and how it is with the utmost trust that we receive the tales of those who would give them to us.

  Not long after our mother had died, and I had recovered from my illness, Karen became, as I have said, the mistress of the house, and Evan and I were sent out to work, me to a neighboring farm, and Evan to sea. This was not such an unusual occurrence, not in that area and in that time.

  Our father, having grown older and grieving for the loss of his wife, was going to sea fewer days than he had before and not for long journeys as he had done in the past. Thus he did not have a surplus of fish to sell or to dry. All around us at this time, there were other families in failing circumstances, some far worse off than we were, families in which the father had drowned, and the mother and the eldest son had the responsibility of feeding many young children, and also families whose livelihoods had been reduced by the economic troubles of the region and, indeed, of the entire country at that time, and there were many indigent and homeless persons as a result. By contrast, I remember very few occasions when our family actually had no food in the pantry, although I do recall at least one and perhaps two winters when I had only one dress and one pair of socks to see me through to spring, and we could not get wool to spin to make another pair.

  The decision to send Evan out to work was, I believe, an easy one for my father, since Evan was a tall and strong boy of sixteen, and there were many youths of the same age in the environs of Laurvig who had been working for some time. It was thought that Evan would make a better wage as a hired mate to someone else than he might by selling the herring and the cod he would catch with my father; but because there was very little fishing work in Laurvig Bay in those years, Evan had to go to Tonsberg, which was twenty kilometers north of Laurvig. There he was told about a man named John Hontvedt, who was looking for a mate and who lived in a house with six other fishermen, one of them his brother, Matthew. From that day forward, which was 12 October 1860, until such time as Evan and John entered into partnership, Evan worked with John Hontvedt on his fishing sloop, the Malla Fladen, and lived in that house for six days a week.

  As for myself, I stayed one more year at school, and then was hired out to the Johannsen farm. This was a grave time in my father’s life, and I believe the decision to send his youngest child out to work was a wrenching one for him to make. Karen could no longer go to the boarding house as she was needed at home, and since I was only fourteen and my father did not think it suitable for me to work in similar circumstances, he inquired about work for me elsewhere, where the conditions might be more gentle. As it happened, it was Karen who was advised of the position with Knud Johannsen, who was a recent widower himself, and she urged my father to send me there.

  Knud Johannsen’s dairy farm lay six kilometers back from the sea, an uphill climb on my way to work in the morning and, of course, a downhill slope in the evening, which was just as well, since I usually was so very tired then that I needed gravity to propel me forward to our cottage. My hours at the Johannsen farm were long and difficult, but generally, not unpleasant. During the time of my employ at that household, which lasted two years and eight months, Evan and I did not have many opportunities to see each other, and almost never alone, and this was a sorrow to me. Because of Evan’s hard work and prosperity, however, our family’s fortunes did gradually increase, so that I was allowed to discontinue my work for Mr. Johannsen and re-enroll in school, where I stayed for one year and seven months, entering a course of preparation for further study, though sadly I was not ever to go on to university. It was my good fortune, while in school, however, to put my whole heart and mind into my studies and thus command the attention of Professor Neils Jessen, the headmaster, who then took upon himself the bettering of my language skills so that I subsequently found pleasure in the study of rhetoric and composition. I trust that while I was lacking in certain rudimentary prerequisites for this challenging task at hand, I acquitted myself passably well, as Professor Jessen spent many hours with me after school in hopes that I might be the first female student from the Laurvig School to attend the university in Kristiania.

  As it happened, however, I was not able to go on to university, owing to a lack of sufficient funds, even though my brother regularly sent to us large portions of his wages, and so I applied for and was given a position as clerk at the Fritzoe ironworks, which I held for two years. And then, in the winter of 1865, John Hontvedt and his brother, Matthew, moved to Laurvig, and shortly after that, the direction of my life changed quite dramatically.

  A house in the Jorgine Road had become vacant and was to be leased at a low price, and Evan had spoken highly of the area to John these several years. Because of his hard work and cleverness, John Hontvedt had done well for himself in the fishing trade, and with him Evan had earned enough money to put some by. The two men, with Matthew Hontvedt, thus entered into a partnership aboard a sloop which they purchased and which was called the Agnes C. Nedland.

  John Hontvedt was not a particularly tall man, not when compared to our father and to Evan, both of whom were well over six feet, but John gave the impression of strength and of size nevertheless. He had brown hair of a cinnamon tint that he wore thick and long, combed across his brow, and he had as well eyes that hinted at a gentleness of spirit. They were hazel, I believe, or possibly gray, I cannot remember now. His face was not narrow, as was Evan’s, but rather square in shape, and he had a handsome jaw. I suspect he had been thin as a boy, but as a man, his body, like his face, had filled out. His chest was round and formed like a fish barrel. He had no fat on him at that time.

  Hontvedt had a habit of standing with his hands hooked around his belt, and of hitching his trousers sometimes when he spoke. When he sat, he crossed his legs at the knees, as some women do, but he was never feminine in any other of his gestures. Occasionally, when he was tense or anxious, he would hold his elbow with one hand, and swing the free arm in an exaggerated manner, an odd gesture, I always thought, and one I came to think of as belonging exclusively to John. He had lost one finger of his left hand as a consequence of having severed it in a winch.

  I believe our father was, at the time I met John Hontvedt, apprehensive for his two daughters. Certainly this was true as concerns his responsibilities toward Karen, who, at thirty-three, had lost her youth and seemed destined to remain a maid. It was a shame upon a father, then as now, if he could not marry off his daughters, and I shudder to think of all the young women who have been so unsuitably given away, only to live out lives of utter misery simply to assuage the public strain of their fathers.

  I will not accuse our father of such base desires, however, for,

  in truth, I do not think this was so, but I believe that he was, after having watched his eldest daughter turn herself into a spinster, anxious to see me well married. Also, I must add here that my father had not recently met a man in these parts who was of so good a fisherstock and who had prospered so well as John. And I believe my father had reason to be grateful to John Hontvedt for his having taken on our Evan, and in that way gradually changing the fortunes of our family.

  One evening, after Hontvedt had been to our table for dinner, he suggested that he and I go out walking together.

  I had not actually wanted to go walking at all, and certainly not with John Hontvedt, but I did not see how I could refuse such a request, particularly as it had been made in front of my father. It was a mild night in early October, with long shadows that caused the landscape to take on a heightened clarity. We walked in the direction of the coast road, toward town, John with his hands in the pockets of his trousers, mine folded at my waist, as was proper for a young woman then. John took up the burden of the conversation, talking, as I recall, with great ease and volubility, although I cannot remember anything of what he said. I confess it was often this way between us, as I frequently allowed my thoughts to wander whilst he spoke, and, oddly enou
gh, he seldom seemed to notice these absences of mine. That evening, when after a time I did begin to attend to what he was saying, I noticed that we were quite far from the cottage. We were standing on a headland that looked out over Laurvigsfjord. The ground was covered with gorse that had gone aflame with the setting sun, and the blue of the water below us had reached that deep solid sapphirine that comes only late in the evenings. We were admiring this view, and perhaps John was addressing me, when I noticed that he had moved closer to me than was strictly comfortable. Nearly as soon as I had this observation, he put his hand lightly at the back of my waist. This was a gesture that could not be misunderstood. It was, I believe I am correct in saying, a somewhat possessive gesture, and I was then in no doubt as to its intent. I think I may have moved slightly away from him, but John, who was dogged in his pursuits, moved along with me, so that he had no need to remove his hand. As we stood there, I recall that his fingers began to inch even further, so that he was able to circle my waist. I thought that if I did not speak to him at that moment he might take my passivity as an invitation for further intimacies, which I did not want, so I moved abruptly away from him then.

  “Maren,” he said, “there are things about which I must speak to you.”

  “I am feeling quite tired, John. I think we should go back to the cottage.”

  “You know,” said John, “that I have given some thought to emigrating to America. I have been much impressed with reports of the American customs and views, particularly the idea that there is no class distinction. That a man pays only a little tax on the land he actually owns, and is not filling the pockets of the idle, who do no work at all.”

  “But would you leave all that you know behind and go to a country in which if you do not have money you must remain where you are on the coast?” I asked. “I have heard tales of the large sums that are necessary to travel to the interior, and even there the land is already being twice-sold so that the original owners reap enormous profits, and cheap land can no longer be had by newly arrived immigrants. I have also heard that commodities are very expensive there. A barrel of salt costs nearly fifty orts! And coffee is forty skillings a pound!”

  “Since I would want to remain on the coast,” he answered, “I do not see the worry about having money to travel inland. But I do understand your point, Maren. One must have a stake with which to begin a new life, for a house and supplies and transportation and so on.”

  “Would you truly settle there, on the coast of America?” I asked.

  “I might if I had found a wife,” John answered.

  At the word wife. John looked at me, and my eyes turned toward his, even before I had understood the suggestion in his declaration. It was the first time such a thought had clearly presented itself to me, and I confess I was at first quite shocked.

  “I’m sorry, Maren,” he said. “You seem distressed, and this was not at all my intention. Indeed, my intention was quite the opposite. In all my days on earth, I have never met a sweeter woman than you, Maren.”

  “Really, John, I am feeling quite faint.”

  “Whether I should go to America or remain in Norway, I am of an age now, and happily of sufficient means, that I may think of taking a wife. I trust that I may be worthy enough in my character to ask…”

  I have never appreciated women who resort to histrionics or who show themselves to be so delicate in their constitutions that they cannot withstand the intense images that words may sometimes conjure forth, but I must acknowledge that at that moment, standing on the headland, I was so sorely exercised in my futile attempts to convince my companion to cease his conversation and escort me back to the cottage that I was tempted to feign a swoon and collapse in the gorse at his feet. Instead, however, I spoke to John rather sharply. “I insist that we return or I shall be ill, John,” I said, and in this way I was able, for a time, to stave off what seemed to me to be an inevitable request.

  It was only the next day that my father himself broached the subject. Evan had gone off to bed, and Karen was visiting the privy in the back, so that my father and I were alone. He wished, he said, to see me settled with a family. He did not want me to be dependent upon himself, as he did not think he had many years left. I cried out at this declaration, not only because I did not like to think upon my father’s death, but also because I was cross at having twice in one week the necessity to fend off the prospect of marrying John Hontvedt. My father, brushing aside my protests with his hand, spoke of John’s character, his healthy financial situation, and, finally, though I thought his priorities misplaced, of Hontvedt’s apparent affection for me, which might, in time, he said, develop into a deep and lasting love. I was greatly vexed by having to think upon these matters, but I hasten to tell you that in Norway at that time, it was seldom the place of a young daughter to criticize her father, and so it was that I had to hear my father out at length on the subject of my eventual marriage. Dutifully, I said that I was grateful for his concerns, but that it was too soon in my life to take such a large and grave step, and that it would only be with the utmost care and consideration that I would do so.

  I thought the matter at an end, or at least held in abeyance for a time, when, due to an impulsive gesture on my part, which I was later deeply to regret, I myself caused the subject to be brought up again, and finally resolved.

  It was some four weeks later, in mid-November, and the weather was quite bitterly cold, but in the late afternoons a strange and wondrous phenomenon would occur on the bay. Because the water was considerably warmer than the air above it, great swirls of mist would rise from the sea, like steam lifting from a bath. These swirls, due to the light and angle of the sun at that time of year, would take on a lovely salmon color that was breathtaking to behold. So it was that the bay, which was normally thick with fisher-traffic in and out of the harbor, had that Sunday an entirely magical quality that I do not believe was reproduced anywhere else on earth. It was a natural occurrence that Evan and myself had sometimes observed on our journeys as children along the coast road, and it had never failed to halt our progress as we stood in rapt worship of such a simple, yet magnificent, accident of nature. That afternoon, I asked Evan if he would like to accompany me out to the cliffs, where we might better observe the bay. I thought this would be a good opportunity for Evan and myself to speak with each other apart from the others, which we rarely had occasion to do. Evan was at first reluctant, since I believe that he was particularly exhausted from his arduous week (for a fisherman’s work is invariably made more difficult in cold temperatures), but I persisted in my invitation, and I daresay I talked him into it.

  We walked for some distance without speaking. My brother seemed rather preoccupied that afternoon, and I was somewhat at a loss as to how to begin our conversation. As Evan walked beside me, I could not help myself from making a close observation of him. Already it was apparent that, at the age of twenty-two, the sun and the sea had begun to take their toll, as he had tiny lines around his eyes and mouth and on his forehead. His brow seemed to have knit itself together in a permanent manner, and I thought this the result of a constant squint on the water. His skin was weathered, with that texture seamen get that resembles nothing so much as fine paper. The blisters and rope burns on his hands had long since turned to calluses, but I could see the scars of many hook tears on his fingers. Additionally, I observed that Evan had attained, during his absence, his full growth, and I may say here that he towered over me. He was not, as I may have mentioned earlier, built broad in the shoulders, as John was, but rather was sinewy in his structure, though he gave off the appearance of great strength. I think that partly this was due as well to his character, which was extremely reserved and not given to much foolishness.

  After a time, we passed a few pleasantries between us, but spoke of nothing that might be of a difficult nature, at least not immediately. I had dressed that day in my heavy woolen cloak, and my face was wrapped in a long scarf of a fine pale blue, the wool of which I had sent
for from Kristiania.

  “Do you remember,” I asked when we had reached the cliffs and were gazing out at the bay, from which rose what appeared to be a miasmic wall of coral and rose and pink, “all the walks we used to take along this very coast road?”

  He looked surprised for a minute, and then he said, “Yes, I do, Maren.”

  “And the day you climbed the tree, and I took off all my clothes and went up after you?”

  “It seems so long ago.”

  “And how you saved me at Hakon’s Inlet?”

  “You would have saved yourself.”

  “No, I’d have drowned. I’m sure of it.”

  “It wasn’t a very safe place to play,” he said. “If I saw children there now, I’d chase them off.”

  “We never thought about safety.”

  “No, we didn’t.”

  “Those were such good times,” I said.

  Evan was silent for a moment. I assumed that he was, like myself, contenting himself with the fond memories of our childhood, when suddenly a great sigh erupted from him, and he turned himself away from me.

  “Evan, what is it?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer me. I was about to ask him again what the matter was, but I was silenced by the sight of tears that had, at that moment, sprung to his eyes. He shook his head violently, so that his hair swung about. Indeed, he was shaking his head in the rough manner of men who wish literally to throw out of their heads the thoughts that lodge there. I was so frightened and appalled by this sudden show of emotion and of intense hatred toward himself that I fear I cried out in the most desperate way and flung myself to my knees, for I have never been able to bear signs of grief or of sorrow on the face of my brother — and indeed, these signs triggered in me memories of the night our mother perished, a night on which Evan, and thus myself, had nearly lost our senses.