Far Afield

by Susanna Kaysen

  But did that mean they had to stand so close? Jonathan the Anglo-Saxon liked to keep a few feet between himself and other people. As he set to stirring and shoveling again—for that seemed the only thing to do, and his pride, which would not let him walk away, was an adequate substitute for will—he had to be careful not to dump shit on their shoes or jab them with the handle of the shovel.

  Now and again one offered a comment: “Tough work”; “Badly clogged”; “This happened to Johan Heinesen over on Nolsoy.” The little boys declined the chance to call Jonathan a shithead, for which he thanked God, or whatever force had inflicted this situation on him. He felt that he was being tested. His patience was certainly being tried. And more and more he felt himself fulfilling—or attempting to fulfill—one of those tasks that in fairy tales win the maiden for the young knight and in myth win the favor of the gods.

  Under their blue eyes, he’d loaded another barrowful. As he wheeled off down the road, he wondered if perhaps he’d return to find Jens Símun stirring for him. An idle hope, he supposed. Indeed, when he got back, nobody had moved. Not completely true, he saw; they had moved the number of inches necessary to accommodate the addition of Jón Hendrik’s thin, cranky body to the circle.

  “In America, you hire people to do this, hah,” said Jón Hendrik in perfect English.

  “In America, we have a sewage system,” Jonathan spat out, in perfect Faroese. He’d been looking up words in his dictionaries (English-Danish, Danish-Faroese) the night before.

  “Now you are here,” Jón Hendrik said.

  “Vœlkomin til Føroyar,” Jonathan said, resuming his shoveling.

  This remark, made in bad temper, was a big hit. Jón Hendrik laughed and stamped his foot on the ground in delight. Jens Símun’s multicolored eyes watered with tears, Petur slapped his thigh, and the unknown man had to lean on Petur for stability while he chortled. Jonathan was so surprised that he stopped working and stared at them.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “You are beginning to understand our country,” said Jón Hendrik. And as if this was what they had all been waiting for, the group dispersed. Even the boys wandered off to stare at somebody else.

  Two wheelbarrows later one of the little boys came back into the yard and said, shyly and very softly, “Papa says you are to come for dinner.”

  “Oh,” said Jonathan. “Where do you live?”

  “There.” The boy pointed next door, to Petur’s house.

  “Your father is Petur?”

  Nods.

  “Is that your brother, the boy you walk around with?” Jonathan figured he might as well get going on a kinship chart.

  But this made the boy giggle. “That’s my cousin,” he said, as if only an idiot wouldn’t know.

  “When should I come?”

  This the little boy didn’t know. “Mom!” he yelled. A woman’s head popped out a window. “The American wants to know what time is dinner.”

  “When he comes.”

  “When you come, we’ll eat,” the boy repeated.

  Jonathan leaned on his shovel. “I think I’ll come soon,” he said. “What’s your name?” The boy didn’t answer. “My name is Jonathan.”

  “I know that,” said the boy. Then he skipped off into his house.

  Twenty minutes later, sponged off in tepid water and dressed in clean clothes, Jonathan was knocking at his neighbors’ door. He could hear voices and kitchen noises, but nobody answered. After a few more knocks he opened the door and walked in.

  He was in a kitchen similar to his own, but with life in it: framed embroidered mottoes on the wall, a row of cacti on the windowsill, a tablecloth, steam from cooking, noise from the conversation of Petur and a number of other people at the table and from the radio blaring in Faroese about tomorrow’s tides.

  “Good evening,” said Jonathan.

  “Jo-Na-Than,” said Petur, intoning it in Sigurd’s fashion. He stood up and began the introductions.

  Maria at the stove was the wife, the nameless boy was Jens Símun, the cousin Jens Símun went around with was Petur, a young man of about twenty was Heðin, another young man who looked a year or two older was Olí, and the girl from Sigurd’s store, minus the toddler, was Sigrid. Jonathan’s head was in a whirl. Petur concluded the introductions by clapping Jonathan on the shoulder and announcing, “And this is the American!”

  Jonathan sat down and smiled feebly. He was hungry, tired, and puzzled by what all these people were doing in Petur’s kitchen. Everyone had a plate, so they were all staying for dinner; the question that interested him was whether they ate together every night. Plunging headlong into anthropology, he asked, “Are you all related to each other?”

  Heðin or Olí—Jonathan had mixed them up immediately—said, “In America, you don’t have such big families?” Then everyone laughed.

  But Petur, in the same sober way he had explained to Jonathan where to dump his wheelbarrow, outlined the connections meticulously.

  “Heðin and Jens Símun are our sons, and Petur is Jens Símun’s son, my brother—”

  Jonathan interrupted here. “You and Sigurd and Jens Símun are all brothers, then?”

  “Yes. And Sigrid is Jens Símun’s daughter.”

  “Your niece,” said Jonathan.

  “Yes.”

  “Petur’s sister.” Jonathan wanted to be sure he had everything straight.

  “Yes. And Olí is working on the boat with us. He’s from Streymoy, from Vestmanna; he’s Maria’s little brother.”

  One thing bothered Jonathan. “How do you tell little Jens Símun from big Jens Símun, and little Petur from you, big Petur?”

  “We just look at them,” said Petur. Everybody laughed again. Jonathan gritted his teeth and persisted.

  “When you are talking about them, I mean.”

  “Oh. Yes. My Jens Símun is Jens Símun hjá Petur, and Jens Símun’s Petur is Petur hjá Jens Símun. You see?”

  Jonathan nodded. He saw. Hjá was the Faroese equivalent of chez. He saw also that this could be a long evening. Information was lurking everywhere, teasing him, urging him to work when what he wanted was dinner and company.

  Maria was concerned that he wouldn’t like the dinner. “It’s livurhøvd,” she said. “You know what that is?”

  Jonathan remembered that Eyvindur had given this dish bad press. “I’ve heard of it,” he said. He hoped it would be edible.

  It was extremely unpleasant: boiled cod heads stuffed with cod liver, unseasoned, gelatinous, contents and container reduced to soft masses distinguishable by color only. He poked at it. Luckily, there were lots of potatoes, also boiled, and some shredded red cabbage that tasted of a can. Heðin, who was sitting beside him, noticed he wasn’t eating the pièce de résistance.

  “It’s not a good thing to give a stranger for dinner, Mama,” he said. “You would have to be Faroese to like this.” He smiled at Jonathan. He had terrible teeth, stained and crooked, and a wonderful, wholehearted smile. He removed the livurhøvd from Jonathan’s plate with his fork. “I’ll eat it. You don’t have to eat it.”

  Maria stood up. “I’ll make you an egg,” she said, opening a cupboard and taking out six eggs.

  “No, no,” said Jonathan. “Really, I’m happy with potatoes.”

  “Nonsense,” said Petur. “You worked hard today. You must eat.”

  “How many eggs?” Maria asked.

  “Two. Two is fine,” said Jonathan. “But please, wait until you have finished your dinner. You know, I can cook them myself.” He stood up.

  “No.” She moved in front of her stove to guard it. “You are my guest. I will make you some eggs.”

  All of this was making Jonathan uneasy. He was an impolite foreigner who disdained local cuisine, he was causing extra trouble and mixing up what should have been a simple family meal. It was taking away his appetite, already compromised by the livurhøvd.

  “You should eat more than two eggs,” Petur said.

&nb
sp; “Mama, I don’t like livurhøvd either,” said little Jens Símun. “I want eggs.”

  Jonathan waited for a storm to break over Jens Símun’s head: You eat your dinner, you just want to be special like the American. Instead, Maria asked how many eggs he wanted.

  “I want three eggs,” said Jens Símun.

  “Give me your livurhøvd,” said Heðin.

  “You have the American’s,” Olí protested. “I want it.”

  “Okay,” said Heðin. Okay, Jonathan noticed, had passed unchanged into Faroese.

  “Sigrid, do you want some eggs?” Maria asked.

  “I like livurhøvd,” Sigrid said.

  “I think usually men like it better than women,” Petur said, to nobody in particular.

  The eggs were ready. “I made you three,” said Maria, as she served Jonathan, “because you worked very hard today.”

  With Jens Símun and Jonathan reprovisioned, dinner continued. Jonathan was glad he had three eggs; now that the livurhøvd was off his plate and the atmosphere calm, he realized he was remarkably hungry. They were right: he had worked hard. Probably tomorrow would be the same. He’d tried the toilet handle before coming to dinner, and it still resisted his touch. Another eight hours of shoveling awaited him. Jonathan found something comforting in this: one day, at least, was scheduled for him.

  Sigrid cleared the plates and brought everyone tea in mugs. Maria took a bowl of cookies from the cupboard and put them in front of Jonathan. And Petur went into another room to fetch an item Jonathan hadn’t seen for a good many weeks: a bottle of liquor.

  “Aquavit,” he said with reverence. This also came to rest in front of Jonathan.

  Jonathan took a cookie, which he didn’t want, and passed them to Heðin, who took two. Petur was waving at him to drink, but he couldn’t figure out whether he was to put the aquavit in his tea or drink it from the bottle. “Drink,” urged Petur. Jonathan opted for the direct approach and took a swig. Fiery stuff. He wiped the neck with his hand, having seen this in cowboy movies, and passed to Heðin.

  Heðin was impressed with Jonathan’s drinking method. “We put it in the tea,” he said. “That’s how you drink in America?”

  “Sometimes,” said Jonathan. His throat hurt from the liquor. “Or in glasses.”

  Heðin drank in the American way: “Too strong.” He shook his head. “Try it, Papa.”

  Petur declined. “I’ll just put it in my tea,” he said.

  The aquavit went around the table and into everyone’s tea, even little Jens Símun’s. Jonathan too infused his cup, though he wondered first if they’d think him greedy, second, if he could survive such an amount of aquavit. His limbs, tired and puffy-feeling from the day’s exertions, began to sing and twinkle from the alcohol. He would get drunk—he was gettting drunk. He realized he wanted to be drunk. He took a great gulp of tea to speed the process.

  “So, so, so,” said Petur, breaking the general silence that had accompanied the drinking of aquavit. “You are a hard worker.”

  “Thank you,” said Jonathan.

  Petur said “So, so, so” again and put his hands around his teacup. They were huge hands, the hands of a man who was a hard worker, who’d had a life full of hard work. “Will you come out to drive sheep with us?”

  “Yes.” Jonathan was pleased. “When is that?”

  “When you finish your job”—here Petur grinned—“we’ll go.”

  “And what do you do when you drive sheep?”

  “We must shear them now, before their wool gets too thick, and decide which ones we will kill in the fall. We have to bring them in from the outfields. It’s not easy.” He looked at Jonathan. “Can you run?”

  “Yes.” Jonathan considered himself a good runner; his only genuine participation in the anthropology department had been on the softball team, where his running was appreciated.

  “Sometimes you have to chase them. But we have dogs, too. You know”—Petur paused and sighed—“sheep are not so intelligent as cows. Cows know the way home. Sheep never learn this.”

  “How many sheep have you got?” Jonathan asked.

  “Five. This year I have five.”

  “Oh. Then it won’t take very long to chase them in.”

  “No.” Petur shook his head. “We are driving in all the sheep—everybody’s sheep—because it’s time to shear them.”

  Now Jonathan was confused. “Are you the head of sheep driving?”

  “Everybody’s driving in sheep—at least, everybody who’s here, who’s not out fishing.”

  “And I’m going out fishing,” interjected Heðin. “I hate to drive sheep.”

  “You can go,” Petur said. “We have Jonathan.”

  Jonathan was startled to feel tipsy tears in his eyes. He was an asset—here, in this peculiar country that he didn’t understand. Doubtless, anyone who could be enlisted to run after sheep would be considered an asset; still, something in Petur’s voice—a proprietary sort of approval—had given Jonathan the feeling that he was, finally, welcome.

  He looked at the faces around the table. None were beautiful, though the children—Jens Símun and Petur—had pale, translucent skin that was appealing. Sigrid, on the cusp of adulthood (Jonathan figured her to be about fifteen), had lost that baby clarity but had not attained the comforting solidity of the grown-ups. Petur and the two young men had rosy cheeks, perhaps enhanced by aquavit at this moment, and the dreamy gaze that Jonathan was learning to associate with fishermen. Petur’s brother Sigurd didn’t have it, being a land-bound shopkeeper. This gaze looked through and far beyond whatever was at hand; it was panoramic and comprehensive and nonjudgmental. And it was a strange vein of abstraction in otherwise concrete characters. Petur in particular emanated rootedness and dependability; his speech was to the point, his movements economical, slow, and confident, and yet he was at moments awash in the away, in the elsewhere, in the featureless, ever-changing country of ocean where everything was reduced to nothing, or at least to nothing much, and where an innumerable series of nothings—wind, current, temperature—combined to create the vast frothy something that was the Atlantic: Petur’s office. Heðin and Olí, though twenty years younger, had already been affected. Jonathan coveted that gaze, because it seemed to him the look of peace.

  Also desirable—though not as fascinating—was their firmness, what Jonathan thought of as their thereness. Maria and Petur seemed more adult than adults in America—as if they had become what children always imagine adults to be and are always disappointed to find they are not, when they become adults themselves. Petur and Maria gave Jonathan the impression that they understood life and how to live it. How had they done this? Had they, in fact? Jonathan tried to look beyond his wishes and his cultural blinders and his happy aquavit haze and determine what these people were like. He saw in a flash: they were like trees. They were, actually, the trees of the Faroes. They grew from this soil, they gave shelter and comfort, they were useful, and he—Jonathan—could make a little house in their branches and call it home.

  With this he realized that he was well and truly drunk. He had a long day ahead of him. It was time to go. He stood up, a bit unsteady. “I think it’s time for me to go to bed,” he said.

  “Let’s look at your hole,” said Petur. “Maybe you’ll finish tomorrow.” The entire family followed Jonathan out the door.

  In the greenish half-light of midsummer night, his hole was mysterious and bottomless, and the wheelbarrow resting atilt on a hump of earth with the shovel laid across it looked phantasmal—as did the seven people grouped in the yard. Not a star was in the sky, not the faintest trace of moon. Jonathan felt himself waking up, partly revived by fresh air, partly by the endless light. He had the urge to get back to work. He could probably finish by tomorrow morning—by the time the sun shone yellow again.

  Jens Símun said, “Puuh. It smells.”

  “What do you expect?” said his father. He peered in. “You’ll finish by tomorrow evening,” he told Jona
than.

  “What a beautiful night,” said Maria. “Well”—she sighed and turned to go back to her house—“soon we’ll see the stars again.”

  “Soon?” Jonathan missed them.

  “By August. We start to see them again then.” She took Jens Símun by the hand. “Then you won’t stay up so late, will you?” She wiggled his arm, and they both laughed.

  “Oof, I could sleep all winter,” said Olí. “Because you make me work so hard all summer,” he went on, turning to Petur. Petur grunted and kept looking in the hole.

  “You might need a longer shovel,” he said. He took the hose, which was lying on the ground, and put it in the hole. “If you leave this in overnight, it’ll soften more. But just a trickle, because you don’t want shit soup in the morning. Then you’ll need a bucket.”

  “So, so, so,” said Heðin. The signal to go.

  Without saying goodbye, they all trooped back into the house. Jonathan stayed in his smelly yard admiring the world. Five minutes later, young Petur—Petur hjá Jens Símun—came out of the house and set off down the road, an elfin eight-year-old on his way back home at midnight. He walked slowly, kicking stones and singing to himself as he went. Jonathan could just make out the words, thin and sweet in the thin, clear air:

  When I get big, it’ll be good,

  Oh, how I’ll be happy.

  I’ll go to sea day and night,

  As a fisherman.

  Here is the land that suits me.

  “Petur, wait for me,” called Sigrid, running out of the house. But Petur scuffed along, still singing, speeding up a little to tease his sister. As Jonathan turned to go into his house, he heard the song still, and Sigrid still, saying “Petur,” in the voice girls reserve for their younger brothers. He shut the door. The song persisted: Here is the land that suits me.