The Hurricane Party

by Klas Ostergren

  The boat heaved and the giant complained. The crew were bunglers. They didn’t know how to row.

  Hymer himself pulled up two whales with a single yank on the line. That should have outdone almost anybody.

  But Thor sat in the stern and surreptitiously baited his line, a bait suitable for the most monstrous of beasts. And it worked. The very Midgard serpent took the hook, the beast that wrapped around the whole known world, where all was ordered and organised, allotted and arranged, deployed for the sake of man and beast. And the whole world shook, it trembled and tumbled in an incomparable duel until the Evil One was clubbed and sank lifeless into the deep. The world grew still once more, resuming its proper course.

  But Hymer was not particularly impressed by this. Maybe it should be explained that he was a simple man with simple pleasures. He could sit in front of a fire with his feet on a footstool and drink beer from an old tankard, completely content. That sort of thing goes a long way for a simple man.

  But he was annoyed. Later, he wanted to put that mother-in-law of his in her place. He picked up his old tankard, it was certifiably solid and strong, in reality unbreakable. He proclaimed a contest to see who could smash it to pieces.

  Thor accepted the challenge, picked up the tankard and threw it with all his might against a rough stone pillar that stood in the hall. The pillar was crushed to bits, but the tankard remained whole. Hymer was pleased.

  Hymer’s beloved wife then took Thor aside and in a whisper advised him to strike the tankard against her husband’s skull. Thor was quick to comply. With all the strength he could muster he slammed the tankard against the forehead of the unsuspecting giant. The crash could be heard far and wide. His forehead held, but the tankard was destroyed.

  Contrary to all expectations, a cherished old possession had been lost. The giant was aggrieved, bitter, angry, and in the end enraged. He wanted revenge and came up with a new challenge; not a living soul stood a chance.

  That was when the brew vat was brought out – the biggest, heaviest and bulkiest item on the whole farm. Hymer challenged Thor to lift it. He himself demonstrated, putting all his strength into the effort. The vat didn’t budge from the spot.

  Then Thor stepped forward, spat on his palms, grabbed hold of the vat and lifted. It rose up from the ground and hovered there; he was carrying it! Across creaking floorboards he carried the vat out through the door and kept on going, heading straight for the woods.

  That was not part of the wager. Behind him was a ravaged farm and soon a band of hostile giants. When they caught up with Thor, he set the vat down and knocked them out, one by one.

  He reached home in good time, and the celebration was saved.

  ‘So that was how the cursed vat ended up with us. And the story has to be told year after year, word for word, and it arouses the same strained sort of merriment each time. People laugh, slap their knees, pound each other on the back.

  Your son had never heard the story before.’

  ‘Did he laugh?’

  ‘Yes, I think he did.’

  Loki was the only one who didn’t laugh. He wasn’t in the mood. He had remained mostly silent the whole time, standing off by himself, not really taking part, barely noticed, drinking toasts and looking generally tense.

  ‘Your son was standing right behind him. That was when he sneezed. Loki may have been the only one who heard it . . .’

  The young chef, the procurer who had won so much acclaim, sneezed, right out into the air, without holding his hand over his face. He even had the impudence to look pleased and delighted.

  Loki looked at him. Offering an apology was clearly not even a possibility. The young man just stood there, beaming.

  No doubt that was all that was necessary for Loki, the airborne, the volatile, the unreliable. Without saying a word, he tossed his glass aside and launched himself at the chef, punching him so hard that any of the blows could have been lethal.

  Maybe the young man was already lost by the time his head struck the floor, hitting the edge of a stone step, sharp enough to extinguish a life.

  At first most of them didn’t notice a thing. It happened so fast, as if off in a corner. But one of the nine sisters had seen it all. She ran over to the lifeless chef, thinking that he could be revived. She slapped his cheeks hard, then saw the blood running out of the wound at the back of his neck; she examined him more closely, found no pulse. He wasn’t breathing.

  A shout, a sudden hush, a silence that spread along the tables. Something had happened. Several rushed over, examined the sprawled body, made clumsy attempts to revive him, gave up. The one they called Fimafeng was dead.

  Loki stood nearby, again with a glass in his hand, drinking. More had now seen what happened, that he was the one who had struck the blow, that he was the one who took the young man’s life. The silence was so complete in the hall that they could hear the murderer swallow.

  ‘Even he looked surprised. He stood there rubbing the knuckles of one hand, peering at the dead man, and looking surprised. As if he were asking the same question himself and trying to find an answer.’

  He said he was disgusted by all the fawning of the others and their pointless flattery, their empty praise of people that they detested.

  Hmm. And? That wasn’t enough.

  Because . . . because that devil had stood there and sneezed.

  Sneezed?

  Yes, sneezed, right out into the air, without apologising.

  Hmm. And?

  That was all. Finito.

  People exchanged glances. Conversations started up again. They shook their heads, frowned; all the expressions and gestures of incomprehension were displayed by one person after another.

  Loki seemed more inscrutable than ever.

  Someone claimed to be tired of him.

  Another had always been tired of him.

  Someone wondered why he was there at all.

  Another asked if he had actually been formally invited.

  Everyone’s eyes turned to the Old Man. He hadn’t yet said a word. He could have answered a number of questions, explained a number of connections, but such old truths meant nothing at the moment, with a murder victim lying on the floor.

  No one could see it as anything other than an act of insanity, a completely meaningless death. Not even Odin, the Old Man.

  He told the perpetrator to go, to get out of his sight.

  ‘I had just come back in when I heard him say that. And he said it with pain, with obvious distress that might seem, well, surprising.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because this sort of thing happens all the time. Shit happens. Especially with Loki. The Old Man has always cleaned up after him. Thrown him out and then taken him back into favour. But there was something different about this time. It was just as meaningless as usual. He saw no point to what had happened, but maybe he saw consequences.’

  ‘And my son?’

  ‘Was put on ice.’ That was no consolation, but at any rate it was a mark of distinction: ‘I included a few pieces of the expensive kind . . .’

  ‘And then what? Was that all?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not. That was just the beginning.’

  Everyone probably would have preferred to see it end, to have the celebration be over after that. But that wasn’t what happened. A death among the rank and file didn’t mean much. It was a commonplace event. No, if in hindsight they would have preferred to see the celebration come to an end after that, it was because of other things. Not because of what had already occurred but rather because of what was ahead.

  ‘Loki was thrown out and he set off for the islet. It was dark outside, and my sister, the one with the bloody hair, ran after him with a lantern. She wanted to make him calm down and come back home with her. She’s the sort who likes unreliable men. No one understands her better than I do. I’ve heard them talk. He’s different then. He’s . . . different.’

  ‘Is it even possible to talk with her?’

  ‘
No, not any more. I don’t know what happened out there. She was gone for a long time, and he was gone even longer. She was nervous and upset when she set out after him, but she was completely crazy by the time she came back. She’s been just as crazy ever since. Nobody knows what he did to her. Maybe nothing.’

  He returned several hours later, calmed by the cold and frightened into submission by the wind – or so one might think. But not him, no. He stepped right up to the door and started bandying words with Eldir, who was actually part of the kitchen staff but who now stood guard.

  Eldir was tense, prepared to block the way and deter that madman. But Loki told him not to worry. He just wanted to know what they were talking about, all those fine guests.

  About the old days, of course. Memories. A lost world. When fellows spat on their palms and people knew their place. The usual topics.

  And what about Loki? What were they saying about him?

  No one, not one, had said a kind word about him.

  He insisted, ‘Let me in. I have to sow discord. Provoke wrath. Mix harm into the mead.’

  Eldir realised how unwise this would be and tried to warn him. ‘No matter what you may get into your head, or how much scorn and derision you may spew, they’re just going to throw it back on you. You don’t have a chance in there.’

  Loki had wrangled with stubborn doorkeepers before.

  ‘Listen, no matter what you think – just forget it. Shut your trap and open the door.’

  Eldir had no desire to lose his job as a chef. He had to relent. Loki went inside.

  The fine guests were not so far gone that they didn’t see what was happening immediately. Loki was back.

  A hush fell over the hall once again.

  When everyone suddenly falls silent at a celebration like that, the silence seems enormous. Loki controlled himself, showed no rancour. He was unobtrusive, almost tactful, but received everyone’s attention even so.

  ‘I’ve been outside for a long time . . . I’m thirsty. All I want is a drink.’

  A modest request. In the eyes of a drunk it might even seem like a sign of remorse or humility.

  But the room was still silent.

  The practice of silence has had its interpreters, observers who long afterwards have seen both a short-term tactic and a more long-term strategy in this art. There were masters who had grown up with it, sensing it long before they understood the words that occasionally broke through. Someone who was expert at keeping silent was a shaman who could summon any sort of phantom, a sorcerer who could banish or inflict pain, a king who could control an entire people with the enervation of absence, of neglect, of being passed over.

  Sitting there, in Egil’s golden hall, were just such masters of the art of keeping silent, both men and women. One demonstrated the silence of yearning, another that of reproach; one knew the silence of the insulted, another showed a sample of satisfaction; one mastered the silence of surprise, another that of satiety; one knew the silence of accusation, another that of envy.

  Loki had been subjected to this before, but that made it no less troubling. ‘Why are you all so silent? Haven’t you got tongues in your heads? Just give me somewhere to sit, or else you can throw me out for good.’

  Finally, in any case, someone was forced to speak. Bragi was drunk but considered a good speaker when something had to be said. He shared the Old Man’s affection for the skaldic art.

  Now, in hindsight, anyone can see that he ought to have chosen to keep quiet like all the rest. But he spoke out, loudly and clearly, saying that they wanted nothing more to do with Loki.

  It was not great oratory, but the intent was plain and no one objected. It seemed to be an expression of the general opinion.

  But Loki did not deign to offer any defence. He turned at once to the Old Man, stepped forward, and said: ‘We are blood brothers, you and I. You said that you would never accept a beer unless one was offered to both of us . . .’

  The Old Man could not deny this. It was an insidious truth. Everyone knew what it meant. And even though he would have preferred something else, he had to stand behind it and take the consequences. He asked his son Vidar to stand up and make room for Loki. A conciliatory measure, to lighten the mood. For the good of everyone.

  The silent man got up from the table, offered his seat to Loki, and poured him a drink. Loki, in turn, had a chance to enhance his subdued behaviour, to drink, keep quiet, behave himself, and see how things went.

  If he had done that – complied, accepted this offer of peace and reconciliation – everything would have turned out differently. A different story would have been told, carried forward to a different end.

  Loki was thirsty so he drank. The conversation around the table resumed. He was allowed to sit there. If the Old Man had ordained it, then so it must be. It was actually a golden opportunity. He had the chance to do simply nothing, silently exceed his own limitations, break with his habits, defy all expectations.

  But Loki was true to himself and followed his own destructive nature. At all costs he had to offer a toast. ‘Skål, all you highborn and holy.’ He managed in his inimitable way to make it sound like he was saying ‘you fucking highborn and holy hypocrites’. ‘Skål,’ he said, ‘all you highborn and holy. Except for Sideburn . . .’

  A new stone in the air, a new torch lit. Even so, Bragi, with his side-whiskers, raised his glass. He had seen the looks cast in his direction, heard the hushed rebukes. He had understood them; he was supposed to be conciliatory, like the Old Man.

  ‘Here,’ Bragi said. It was a ring, a big, greasy ring that he wriggled off his finger. ‘This is for you. Take it. I have a number of weapons that you haven’t seen. You would like them. I’ll give them to you. Take whatever you like, just don’t cause any trouble.’

  Loki picked up the ring, looked it over and tossed it aside. ‘Fucking bling-bling. You’re such a chicken-shit!’

  ‘If we weren’t sitting here . . .’ Bragi was surly, offended.

  ‘If we weren’t . . .’

  ‘Yes? If we weren’t what?’

  ‘If we weren’t sitting here . . .’ Bragi was having a hard time switching gears, going back to the hostile scenario. He had started out there but had been forced to retreat. Now he wanted to return there, but it was taking time. He was drunk. Drink makes some people fickle and volatile, others sluggish and fixated. He belonged to the latter. The drastic threats, the malicious phrases that could so easily provoke laughter, seemed to be at the other end of the table. He couldn’t reach them. ‘If we weren’t sitting here I’d be out there with your skull in my hands . . .’

  Loki whistled. ‘Oy.’ Scornfully he ran his hand across his throat. ‘If only . . . oh, yes. If only. Just sit here and do your boasting. How brave you are sitting in a chair, Sideburn. A fucking chicken-shit. A brave person doesn’t sit and think.’

  Perhaps Idun could have persuaded Loki, as she’d done before. If only she had turned to him, given him a look that promised something, a pledge, or the false support that the wife of a humiliated man might express. But she turned instead to her husband. ‘Stop it. Be still. Think of the children!’

  Loki no doubt took that as an insult, a form of disrespect, that she considered it pointless to speak to him directly. He was furious. ‘Be still?! You man-crazy cow! Think of the children?! How can you say that?’

  But he didn’t succeed in rattling her composure. Now she turned to him and said quite calmly: ‘I have no intention of quarrelling with you tonight. Just so you know that. So back off.’ She knew what was going to happen: her husband was drunk, it could lead to a fight and still more bloodletting.

  A reasonable assumption. Loki looked at her for a long time. She stared back without hesitating or wavering. His contempt was unmistakable, it radiated from him, giving off a strong and unpleasant glow. She stood there in the light, not saying a word, sipping her drink, shrugging her shoulders, shaking her head in a knowing way.

  Yet another effective form of sil
ence.

  They stood there looking at each other, and he muttered, ‘Forever young . . .’ in a way that was not only sarcastic but also contained a sorrow and a melancholy that at least those who didn’t know him might regard as genuine and honest.

  There was a good deal of information available about her. Idun grew apples. She had many different kinds, but one was particularly valued: a big golden apple. If you ate it you would stay young.

  Anyone who has ever eaten a sweet, juicy apple knows that time stops, or in any case you sense its passing in a different way. You can devote a good amount of time to eating that one piece of fruit, taking a bite now and then, prolonging the pleasure, closing your eyes and surrendering to the tricks that your senses can play. You may feel yourself transported to another time, another life, maybe to the other side of a great sea, to another country. You may steal an apple from someone else’s garden, crouch down behind a bush and eat it in secret, hidden from the rest of the world – stolen fruit, stolen time.

  But you can’t draw out the experience too long. After the peel is pierced, an irrevocable process begins; the surface where you take a bite soon turns brown, it oxidises, becoming ugly and unappetising. You have to learn to observe the pace of consumption, always one step ahead of decay. This is an elementary lesson added to many others gained from an apple – memories, knowledge, dreams, everything that has such a vitalising effect on the ability to feel sorrow and melancholy: two hints of brown from the place where the fortunate one has taken a bite.

  Idun was there in her garden, in an ordered part of the world, an esteemed cultivator, precious to her friends and . . . desired by those who had never tasted her fruit, those who were not authorised.

  Odin and Loki, the blood brothers, were once out wandering at the beginning of time, far from home, out in the wilderness. On mountains and plateaux above the tree line, as close to the sky as it was possible to get, in tracts swept bare by the wind and harsh cold, punctuated with glaciers and blocks of ice, an inhospitable region. They were cold and hungry, they longed for home but clung to these rugged realms, enduring severe hardships in their will to conquer something. Not land or riches, not gold or honour, it was something more lasting than that, a dearly-bought experience, an insight into the human condition.