The Weight of Water

by Anita Shreve

  “Listen—”

  “There aren’t even any trees here. Did you know that until recently children who were raised on the island never saw a tree or a car until they were teenagers?”

  “Jean, stop.”

  “I love Thomas.”

  “I know you do.”

  “But it’s been hard.”

  “He makes you worry.”

  I look at Rich, surprised at this insight. “Yes, he does. He makes me worry. Why did you shave your hair?”

  He smiles and rubs his head.

  “Do you love Adaline?” I ask.

  Rich looks out toward the boat. I think that he, too, is wondering.

  “It’s a sexual thing?” I ask.

  He tilts his head, considering. “She’s very attractive,” he says. “But it’s a bit more than that. She’s… Intriguing.”

  “And we’re not intriguing,” I say. “We’re just good.”

  “We’re not that good,” he says, and he smiles. He has perfect teeth.

  I put my hand on his arm.

  He is stunned. I can feel that, the small jolt through the body. But he does not pull away.

  “Jean,” he says.

  I lean forward and put my mouth on the skin of his arm. Did I misread the trickle of sand on the backs of my legs?

  When I look up, I can see that Rich is bewildered. I realize this is the first time I have ever seen him lose his composure.

  “Why?” he asks.

  I study him. I shake my head. Deliberately, I could say. Or, To do it before Thomas does it to me. Or, Before I have absolute proof he has done it to me. Or, simply, Because I want this, and it’s wrong.

  Without touching me with his hands, he bends to kiss me. The kiss is frightening — both foreign and familiar.

  I lift my sweatshirt up over my head. Oddly, I am no longer cold, and I have long since stopped shivering.

  I can hear his breathing, controlled breathing, as if he had been running.

  I feel the top of his head, that smooth map.

  He kisses my neck. Around us, gulls and crabs swoop and scurry in confusion, alarmed by this disturbance in the natural order of the universe. I taste his shoulder. I put my teeth there lightly.

  He holds me at my waist, and I can feel his hands trembling.

  “I can’t do this,” he says into the side of my head. “I want to.” He traces a circle on my back. “I want to,” he repeats, “but I can t.

  And as suddenly as it opened, a door shuts. For good. I lean my head against his chest and sigh.

  “I don’t know what came over me,” I say.

  He holds me tightly. “Shhhh,” he says.

  We stand in that posture, the clouds moving fast overhead. There is, I think, an intimacy between us, an intimacy I will not know again. A perfect, terrible intimacy — without guilt, without worry, without a future.

  Calvin L. Hayes, a member of the coroner’s jury who participated in the inquest held over the bodies of Anethe Christensen and Karen Christensen, took the stand for the prosecution and explained in some detail what he had observed: “We arrived on the island between eight and half-past eight P.M. We landed and proceeded to the house formerly occupied by John C. Hontvet. Upon entering the house there is first a small entry from which opens a kitchen. When we entered the kitchen we found the furniture strewn all over the floor, the clock lying on the lounge face down; clock was not going. I did not look at the face of the clock; it fell evidently from a small bracket just over the lounge in the corner. The body of Anethe Christensen lay in the middle of the kitchen floor, the head towards the door through which we entered. Around the throat was tied a scarf or shawl, some colored woolen garment, and over the body some article of clothing was thrown loosely. The head was, as you might say, all battered to pieces, covered with wounds, and in the vicinity of the right ear two or three cuts broke through the skull so that the brains could be seen running through them. There was a bed-room opening from the kitchen; in that was a bed and trunk, the trunk opened, the contents scattered over the floor. The body of Anethe was placed upon a board upon a table, and an examination made by the physicians who were present. We then proceeded to the other part of the house. The arrangement of the other end of the house was similar to the end into which we first went. We went into an entry, from there into a room that corresponded to the kitchen, out of which another bed-room opened. In that bedroom, face down, we found the body of Karen Christensen. The windowsill of the first bed-room I spoke of was broken off, window in the south-west end of house. The body of Karen Christensen had a white handkerchief knotted tightly around the neck, tied at the back of the neck, so tightly that the tongue was protruding from the mouth. Upon the inside of the sill of the window on the south-west end of the house, was a mark as though made with the pole of an axe, and on the outside of the window-sill, the part that was broken off, there was another mark as though made with some round instrument, as the handle of an axe. The head of Karen Christensen was covered with wounds, but not so bad as the first one. Only one I think broke the skull. I found an axe there.”

  Hayes produced the murder weapon.

  He continued: “I took the axe from the island. It has been in my custody since. I found the axe lying by the side of the first door we entered; it does not now resemble its condition then at all; it was besmeared with blood and covered with matter entirely. In coming from the island the sea was very rough, and the spray washed nearly all the blood off.”

  After Calvin Hayes testified, Dr. John W. Parsons, the physician who performed the autopsy of Anethe, took the stand.

  “The examination was made on March 8,” he began, “in the city of Portsmouth, at the rooms of the undertakers, Gerrish & Adams. I found upon examination one flesh wound upon the right side of the forehead upon the upper part. The left ear was cut through nearly separating it from the head, and this wound extending down behind the ear an inch or two; flesh wound merely. There was a flesh wound on the left side of the head just above and in front of the ear, under which there was a compound fracture of the skull. There was a flesh wound in front of the right ear, and another almost separating the right ear from the head, and extending down behind it. There were two flesh wounds upon the upper part of the right side of the head, above the ear. There was a small flesh wound upon the left side of the head above the large wound spoken of. There were a few other minor scratches, and wounds about the scalp, but that is all worthy of notice.”

  Dr. Parsons then stated that, in his opinion, a very heavy instrument had to have made the blows, and that, yes, it could have been an ax.

  Rich makes me put my sweatshirt on and leads me back down to the beach. I notice that he is careful to let go of my hand at the exact point the sloop comes into view. We search in the sand for my glasses, and I clean them off. I retrieve my camera bag and lift it onto my shoulder. The sky has darkened and casts a dispiriting light.

  “I’ve never been unfaithful,” I say.

  Rich scrutinizes my face. “I’d be very surprised to hear you had been.”

  “Thank you for —”

  “Don’t,” he says sharply. “I’m not sure you understand. Back there I wanted to. Believe me, I wanted to. I’ve been angry with Thomas for a long time. Angry at his carelessness. Angry at the way he takes you for granted. But it’s more than that. I’ve” — he searches for the word — “admired you since the day I first met you.”

  “Admired?” I ask, smiling.

  “I don’t dare use any other words,” he says. “Not now.”

  “It’s all right,” I say with a small laugh. “Feel free. I can take it.”

  Rich crosses his arms over his chest and gazes out over the expanse of Smuttynose. I think I see, in Rich’s profile, something of Thomas. The long space between the upper lip and the nose. The slant of the brow.

  “Rich,” I say, touching his arm lightly. “I’m only kidding.”

  His face, when he turns back to me, seems momentarily defeated.
Sad.

  “I think you’re beautiful,” he says.

  Fat drops of rain begin to fall around us, making saucer shapes in the sand. Rich looks down at his feet, then wipes the top of his head.

  “The rain is coming,” he says. “We’d better go.”

  Early in the trial, Maren Hontvedt, the only eyewitness to the murders, took the stand. She gave her name as Mary S. Hontvet, using the name and spelling she had adopted in America. She said that she was the wife of John C. Hontvet and was the sister of Karen Christensen. Evan Christensen, she stated, was her brother.

  Yeaton began to question her.

  “How long before this matter at Smutty Nose did you live there?” Yeaton asked.

  “Five years,” Maren answered. “I was at home day before the murder.”

  “Was your husband there that day?”

  “He left in the morning, about day-light with my brother, and his brother. Evan is husband of Anethe.”

  “After he had left that morning, when did you next see your husband?”

  “I saw him the next morning after, cannot tell, but about ten o’clock.”

  “At nine o’clock that night, who were present at your house before you went to bed?”

  “I, Karen, and Anethe. There were no other persons upon that island at that time.”

  “What time did you go to bed that night?”

  “Ten o’clock. I slept in the western part of the house in the bed-room. I and Anethe slept together that night.”

  “About ten o’clock you went to bed.”

  “About ten. Karen stayed there that night; she slept on a lounge in the kitchen. The lounge upon which Karen slept was in the easterly corner of the kitchen, corner standing up that way, and my bed-room that way.” Maren pointed with her hands for the benefit of the court.

  Yeaton then asked her how the door between the kitchen and the bedroom had been left that night.

  “Left open,” Maren said.

  “How were the curtains?”

  “I did not haul them down, it was a pleasant night, so I left them open.”

  “I speak now of the curtains to the kitchen.”

  “Yes.”

  “How was the outside door to that part of the house, fastened or not?”

  “No, sir, it was not fastened. The lock was broke for some time, broke last summer and we did not fix it, it was unfastened. Karen was undressed, bed made; we made a bed up.”

  “Was there a clock in that room?”

  “Yes, clock standing right over the lounge in the corner.”

  “If you were disturbed that night or awoke, state the first thing that awoke you, so far as you know, what took place.”

  There was an objection here by Tapley for the defense, and some talk among the lawyers and the court. Finally, Maren was allowed to answer.

  “‘John scared me, John scared me,’ she says.”

  “Are you able to determine in any way about what time during the night that was?”

  “We woke up. I know about his going and striking her with a chair.”

  “About what time was it?”

  “The clock has fallen down in the lounge, and stopped at seven minutes past one.”

  “After you heard Karen cry out, John scared me, what next took place?”

  “John killed me. John killed me, she halooed out a good many times. When he commenced striking her with a chair she hallooed out, John killed me, John killed me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “As soon as I heard her haloo out, John killed me, I jumped up out of bed, and tried to open my bed-room door. I tried to get it open but could not, it was fastened.”

  “Go on.”

  “He kept on striking her there, and I tried to get the door open, but I could not, the door was fastened. She fell down on the floor underneath the table, then the door was left open for me to go in.”

  “What next?”

  “When I got the door open I looked out and saw a fellow standing right alongside of the window. I saw it was a great tall man. He grabbed a chair with both hands, a chair standing alongside of him. I hurried up to take Karen, my sister, and held one hand on to the door, and took her with my other arm, and carried her in as quick as I could. When I was standing there, he struck me twice, and I held on to the door. I told my sister Karen to hold on to the door, when I opened the window and we were trying to get out.”

  “Which window was that?”

  “My bed-room window, and she said no, I can’t do it, I am too tired. She laid on the floor with her knees, and hanging her arms upon the bed. I told Anethe to come up and open the window, and to run out and to take some clothes on her, to run and hide herself away.”

  “Where was Anethe when you told her that?”

  “In my bed-room.”

  “Well.”

  “She opened the window.”

  “Who opened the window?”

  “Anethe opened the window, and left the window open and run out. I told her to run out.”

  “Where did she run out?”

  “Out of the window, jumped out of the window.”

  “Go on.”

  “I told her to run, and she said I can’t run. I said you haloo, might somebody hear from the other islands. She said, I cannot haloo. When I was standing there at the door, he was trying to get in three times, knocked at the door three times when I was standing at the door.”

  “What door?”

  “My bed-room door. When he found he could not get in that way, he went outside, and Anethe saw him on the corner of the house. She next halooed, Louis, Louis, Louis, a good many times, and I jumped to the window and looked out, and when he got a little further I saw him out the window, and he stopped a moment out there.”

  “How far from the window was he when he stopped?”

  “He was not far from the window; he could have laid his elbow right that way on the window. Maren then illustrated this gesture for the court.

  Yeaton asked: “Who was that man?”

  “Louis Wagner.”

  “Go on. What else took place?”

  “And he turned around again, and when Anethe saw him coming from the corner of the house, back again with a big axe, she halooed out, Louis, Louis, again, good many times she hallooed out Louis, till be struck her. He struck her with a great big axe.”

  “Did you see that part of her person the blow took effect?”

  “He hit her on the head. He struck her once, and she fell down. After she fell down, he struck her twice.”

  “Well.”

  “And back he went on the corner again, and I jumped out, and told my sister to come, but she said, I am so tired I can’t go.”

  “Which sister was that?”

  “Karen. I told Karen to come; she said, I am so tired I can’t.”

  “You jumped out where?”

  “Out through my bed-room window, and I ran down to the hen-house where I had my hens, and opened the door and thought of hiding away in the cellar. I saw the little dog coming, and I was afraid to hide away there because he would look around, and I was afraid the dog would bark, and out I went again. I thought I would run down to the landing-place, and see if he had dory there, and I would take the dory and draw to some island. I looked down the dock, but I did not find any boat there, so I went around. I got a little ways out from the house, and I saw he had a light in the house.”

  “Go on, and state what you saw or heard.”

  “He had hauled the window curtains down too. I did not haul them down, but he had them hauled down before I got into the kitchen. I forgot to state that. I went down on the island, ran a little ways, and heard my sister haloo again. I heard her so plain I thought she was outside of the house. I ran to find myself away underneath the rocks on the island.”

  “How long did you remain there among the rocks?”

  “The moon was most down, and I staid till after sunrise, about half an hour after sunrise.”

  “What relation are you
to Anethe and Karen?”

  “Anethe married my brother, and Karen was my own sister.”

  Beyond the harbor, the sky blackens and hangs in sheets. The sun, which is still in the southeast, lights up all the boats in the harbor and the buildings on Star with a luminescence against the backdrop that is breathtaking. We can actually see the front moving.

  The rain hits Rich’s face and washes over his brow, his eyes, his mouth. Drops hang on the tip of his nose and then fall in rivulets down his chin. He has to narrow his eyes into slits, and, as he holds the tiller, I wonder how he can see at all. The T-shirt he has so recently dried drags on his chest from the weight of the water.

  I sit with my feet anchoring the poncho over the cameras. I have taken my glasses off, and I am trying to shield my eyes with my hands. All at once, there is a green wall beside us, the hull of the boat. Rich touches my knee. I shake my head.

  A figure looms above us, and a hand reaches down.

  “Give me the cameras first,” Thomas shouts. “I’ll take them in.”

  23 September 1899

  WHEN I FINALLY understood, on the beach, that Evan had brought a wife with him to America, I was at such a loss for words that I was unable to express anything further there on the shore, and it wasn’t until some time afterwards that I had the strength to make a proper greeting to the woman, who, I must say, was possessed of such an astonishing beauty it was an effort to draw one’s eyes away from her. It was a beauty the chief components of which are vibrant youth as well as lovely aesthetic form, and I could not help but observe, even in those first few moments, that my brother was most infatuated with his new bride, and that he was, except for perhaps three or four occasions in his childhood, more ebullient than I had ever seen him. He had worn that day a leather jerkin and cap, over which he had his yellow oilskin jacket, and he stood with an umbrella close to the young woman like a man servant who does not want one foul drop of rain to fall upon his mistress, with the obvious difference being that Evan was the mistress’s husband and was unable to refrain from putting his hands on her in one way or another nearly all the time they remained on the beach and in my kitchen that afternoon. I had the distinct impression that Evan believed that if he did not stay near to his wife she might suddenly vanish.