Sorely tested, they gradually approached more hospitable regions. They descended to milder valleys, saw a herd of oxen, felled one of the animals, dug a pit and began to roast the meat. They were hungry, they were ravenous.
After several hours of impatient waiting, they assumed the meat was ready to eat. They tasted it, but it still wasn’t done. They had to wait. And wait. Finally, after many hours of roasting, they tasted it again. But the meat was raw.
They began to argue. The one who had gathered the firewood must have gathered bad logs. The one who had cut up the meat must have cut it up wrong. In the midst of this hungry and agitated argument a voice was heard from above. It was coming from a tree, and in the tree sat an eagle. A big, magnificent eagle. The eagle said he would see to it that the meat was roasted properly if they gave him part of the ox.
Of course they were prepared to accept the offer. By now they were prepared to go along with anything at all; they were hallucinating from hunger. So the eagle twisted off both the thighs and the shoulders from the ox. Loki flew into a rage and began flailing at the insolent bird with a long pole.
The end of the pole got stuck on the eagle’s back, and Loki refused to let go. He was dragged off, over hill and dale, and was nearly pounded to a pulp before the bird rose up into the air. They were suddenly high up among the clouds.
Loki begged and pleaded to be released. The eagle said that he would let him go under one condition – that he handed over Idun, with the apples.
Loki was scared out of his wits and could do nothing but promise to meet this demand. A deal was struck. He landed unharmed and was finally allowed to eat.
Deals must be kept among gods and gangsters. Loki was forced to fulfil his part of the bargain. He went to Idun and showed her new sides of himself. He was suddenly very interested in her gardening arts, displayed a number of his own skills in the area, knew the names of rare varieties, expressed opinions on various kinds of bees, and was even able to comment on her style of pruning.
It made an impression; Idun was flattered. Her husband, who was a bookish type, seldom showed any interest. He was impractical, by his own admission. Lazy, according to her. Thought he was too good to dig in the earth, didn’t want to get dirt under his nails. It was so easy to get spots on his books. But he did want the fruit.
Loki was more pragmatic. He opened a book the same way he opened a box of tools. Something needed to be done, and for that purpose he needed a tool; whether wielding a sledgehammer or agreeing to a pact, it made no difference. At least that was why he had read up on apples. The little knowledge he had acquired was enough to fool Idun.
When he claimed to have seen in an inaccessible place a rare and hardy tree with dazzling fruit, she was curious. He described it so well that she wanted to see it. He suggested an expedition. And she could take along some of her own apples to compare.
Loki and Idun set off without informing Sideburn; he would just be suspicious. They walked through desolate, frightening tracts. She had never been out there before.
All of a sudden Loki pretended to be unsure of the way, began vacillating back and forth. That was the signal. Then came the eagle rushing in, digging his claws into the one who was both desired and betrayed.
Idun found herself in the clutches of Tjatse, locked up in a remote farm. There the giant would have her all to himself, to enjoy the pleasure of her fruits and stay forever young.
The Clan back home was faced with a crisis. Everyone was shaken, indignant. Idun’s absence was immediately noticed; they felt old, they saw signs of age everywhere, acquired wrinkles, turned grey, felt stiff and tired.
A desperate council meeting was held. A number of sightings had been made, someone had caught a glimpse of Idun on the day she disappeared, accompanied by Loki, on her way somewhere. One thing was added to another, mere suspicions, no proof. But it was enough to arouse anger, a wrath that was nurtured by their fear of ageing prematurely. That sort of anger had to be taken seriously.
Without acknowledging anything at all, Loki hinted that he too had his suspicions. Pretending to be generous and self-sacrificing, he offered to go out and scout around.
His suggestion met with approval. Loki was sent out. He knew where he had to go; he headed straight to the remote farm where Tjatse lived.
He was in luck. Idun was alone. The giant was out at sea, far beyond the horizon. He wouldn’t be back for a long time.
How did she react – a frightened woman who had been abducted and locked up – when she suddenly heard the rush of feathers in the air, a pair of flapping wings, and she turned around to see a handsome man, an inscrutable figure, as satisfied and enthusiastic no matter what he attempted, who straightened out the mess he had made with equal ardour and delight?
What constituted a man like that? Could he play the part of a rescuer – he who had so recently betrayed her?
And what did he see, with his insights about submission and degradation? Could he see what was stirring in her heart, make use of it, exploit it to his advantage? Or was he merely a man who saw a woman who didn’t know whether she should laugh or cry, a woman who may have accepted her fate and had learned to mollify a rough and brutal giant? A woman who had learned the art of survival and had set all honour and virtue aside, accepting what was called a ‘woman’s lot’?
Perhaps he persuaded her to understand it in this way: that it was she who needed to rescue him, that he was the one who needed her.
And they were all alone in the world, in that place, at that moment. They were totally free, able to play whatever role they pleased.
As they were now, standing there looking at each other in the banquet hall, on that fateful evening in the outer archipelago. No one knew what they thought of each other these days.
Idun had turned up again, order had been restored, and all the circumstances had been explained until only one question mark remained: Loki.
He got away without punishment, but they put the giant to death. The killing became known far and wide. The giant left behind a daughter who was later admitted as a member of the Clan. She was there at the party, standing right there in the room, thinking: someday this has to come to an end.
‘Loki is out of the picture. Everyone despises him . . .’ That was Gefion, the unmarried maiden with the clear eyes.
‘Shut up! I know all about your innocence. And what it cost. Just a few trinkets and you’d lie there spread-eagled.’
The scandal was a fact, the evening had degenerated long ago, but perhaps it was still possible to ward off a total disaster. The Old Man had to intervene.
‘Loki, you’re ill, you’re out of your mind. You know what she can . . .’
‘No doubt much better than you, in any case. You’ve lost your grip, ceded victory to those who are inferior. Who wins at your roulette wheels? Not me, at any rate.’
‘No?’ said the Old Man. ‘At least you don’t have to stand underground milking cows . . .’
‘You yourself have wandered about as a woman, casting spells like a seeress.’
Under other circumstances that would have been enough to incite a brawl. But here, in this protected hall, they had to bide their time. Something was irrevocably over, something was irretrievably lost. Just two men, sorrow-stricken perhaps, indignant and offended. Men who had once had their arms full, but now could no longer remember what they held.
Fate had brought them together, a couple of young survivors constantly searching for food for the day, in a time of chaos, a time without standards.
Everything had been subordinated to survival.
Only the ones who made it were able to demean and be demeaned, affirm and deny with no differentiation, feign complete agreement with a stone-dead god, be a man among men and a woman among women, and occasionally vice versa, without prejudice, acquiring knowledge that the cowardly scorned.
Some lost everything to this misappropriation, others acquired more and more. That was how their power was established, in godlike forbe
arance and through access to the riches of the poor.
And all was well and good.
Until someone discovered a vein that came to light somewhere, a forgotten deposit containing a substance that was valued and refined and mixed into an alloy of substances that had never been combined before. It was given the name of honour.
A rust-free gauge. Honour was weighed, measured and named. Honour was acquired, defended, and when it was occasionally lost, it could be restored with blood and tears. It had its own magic, it couldn’t be seen or heard, it had no scent, but it was as strong as the elements – lethal, idolised, a blessing for one person, a curse for another.
And wherever honour went in, freedom went out. Everything was soon weighed, measured and named. The world was elucidated. A minutely described prison.
This approximate state made people mad. No one wanted to distinguish one person from another, no one was cast in one piece, cut and dried. Everyone lacked contours. The skin was merely a membrane; surrounding each individual was an aura of secretions that made the person indistinct, diffuse, a wandering dust cloud without purpose, without meaning. And so they began to weigh, measure and name this freedom too, and they found it boundless. Someone might regard this truth as unbearable and think that a return was called for, back to the sources, the original definitions.
And that was how things continued. Those who could explain the world could also obscure it.
But now honour was gone. It had been used up and restored so many times that it was simply worn out.
No one knew what lay ahead.
That was the reason for this sorrowful, lost feeling. Loki had flung about his accusations with a strange mixture of surprise, delight and loathing. Like a child who has found a knife and discovers how it’s supposed to be used, but then grows weary when everything around him ends up destroyed.
But it was not ‘whore’ or ‘queer’ or ‘cuckold’ that was the sharp and effective weapon. The words caused no harm on their own. They served only as reminders, and that was the irksome part. They pointed out a hollow where once a fully operational organ had existed, serving a function that seemed more and more expendable until its usefulness finally ceased altogether, which caused the organ itself to atrophy, shrinking into a rudimentary speck of unknown origin.
‘You’re two of a kind, you two. What you did in the past is nothing to crow about.’ The Old Man’s wife Frigg was a tested woman, wise and unafraid. ‘Or go settle it in private, whatever good that will do.’
‘I can understand that you think so. If I had slept with my brother-in-law, I would keep my mouth shut too.’
A slight quiver from an exhausted heart. ‘Balder,’ she said, ‘if only I had Balder here . . .’
‘And what then? What if you did have Balder here?’
‘Then he would put an end to you.’
‘No doubt,’ said Loki. ‘But you don’t have him here.’
‘No. Because of you.’
‘That’s right. I take the blame for that too. Is there anything else? I’ll take the blame for anything. Balder. Okay. He’s on my account.’
Balder, the good guy, loved by everyone. Beautiful, wise and kind. Spreading light, infusing hope.
But for a time he was haunted by evil and menacing dreams.
He told this to his friends, who considered the matter sufficiently serious that they decided to act. He had to be protected, be made invulnerable.
Frigg, his mother, demanded a promise from everything in the whole world that nothing would harm her son: fire and water, iron and all types of ore, stones, earth, trees, diseases, four-footed animals, birds, venom and snakes.
Everything and everyone swore to spare Balder.
He himself was delighted by this invulnerability and challenged his friends to test it. They shot arrows at him, threw things at him, any loose object they could find. But nothing did any harm.
This provoked a general sense of satisfaction, except in Loki. He had a different view of the arrangement. No one really knew why. Perhaps it was just that he had to be different, at all costs. He differed so much that the very act of differing became his trademark. As soon as a line was drawn and then breached, you knew that Loki had been there.
Disguised as a woman, he now went to the home of Frigg to obtain information. This required trust. To achieve this, he was forced to reveal some secret of his own, a secret that he had been strictly forbidden to tell, though it could be about anything at all. Then he would be given a secret in exchange. It would be a sort of factual inconsistency, which is something that characterises many human interactions and tends to be the sole province of women. Men prefer solid facts and solid truths, and thus become more irrational, clumsy and ineffective when they are faced with the more nebulous concepts and emotions of women. But Loki, with his godlike ambivalence, could play the whole field.
In this way he found out that everything on earth had sworn an oath to spare Balder, everything except for one lowly plant. A mistletoe, so small and humble that Frigg hadn’t bothered to approach it.
Loki promptly went to the nearest mistletoe, cut off a branch, and shaped it into an arrow. Then he went to the site where the boorish men were still plying the invulnerable Balder with crude weapons. Balder stood there untouched, grinning his sunniest grin.
At the very edge of the group stood Höder, Balder’s blind brother.
Loki asked him why he wasn’t taking part in the game. Höder said that he would just miss and might end up hurting someone else, an ordinary mortal.
Loki offered to remedy that. He took out a bow and the arrow made from mistletoe and helped the blind man take aim.
‘He himself had a brother who was blind. I once heard him talk about him. That was the kind of thing my sister fell for – who wouldn’t fall for something like that? They had gone out into the world, two little boys. Loki had described everything to him, all that was beautiful, dangerous, good to eat or poisonous. He had given a name to everything they came across, both living and dead, so precisely and properly that the blind brother thought he understood the very nature of each thing and knew how it looked. Loki had even made the blind man bring down a bird in flight.’
Now he helped Höder aim the bow and shoot his arrow. It hit the mark and passed right through Balder. He dropped to the ground dead.
It was a great sorrow. The greatest to ever occur, according to some.
‘Do I need to describe the despair?’
‘No.’
‘Do I need to explain that they wanted the dead man back, that they were prepared to bargain with Hel in the realm of the dead?’
‘No.’
Hermod rode down, northwards all the way down into the realm of the dead. There he found Hel with Balder sitting in the high seat. Hermod presented his case. Hel listened and understood. She was prepared to release Balder and allow him to live under one condition: that everything, both alive and dead, would weep for him. Absolutely everything. If even one refused to shed a tear, he would have to stay where he was.
Word was sent out around the world that tears would bring Balder back from the realm of the dead. Everything wept – the trees, the stones, the grass. Every living thing wept.
Except for one, an ugly old giant woman sitting in a cave. Her name was Tökk. Her eyes were dry.
She too was another of Loki’s guises.
Balder was lost.
And so Loki assumed responsibility, admitting it to the very face of the dead man’s mother. She herself was weighed down with guilt, since she had neglected one small, lowly plant, barely big enough to carve into a stick.
An explanation was demanded of Loki, of course. He was pressed against the wall, but he merely shrugged his shoulders, perhaps at a loss what to say, perhaps being secretive, like an inscrutable idiot.
Wise and benevolent people – those who didn’t flinch from difficult or troublesome cases – had asked: Do you begrudge love a face?
He merely shrugged – maybe so.
<
br /> Others asked: Do you believe, in all your stupidity, that the love Balder enjoyed would remain without an object and then end up bestowed on others?
Once again he shrugged – maybe so.
Their patience wore thin, and the benevolence of those who were wise gave out. Loki was let be. His value was debated. Only the Old Man insisted that Loki actually had some worth. As if it were much too vexing for an ordinary mortal to appreciate.
Freja, ever prone to tears, who knew what loss was, stepped forward to defend Frigg. ‘You’re out of your mind! No one wants to hear about it, don’t you realise that? She knows exactly how things stand. But maybe she doesn’t feel like talking about it right now.’
‘Because she’s smarter than you are.’
‘And who was it who stood right here a short time ago, complaining that no one was talking? And now, when people have plenty to say, and quite clearly, then you go crazy and scream at everyone to shut up!’
‘He’s never satisfied,’ someone said.
Loki turned to find out who had said that; he saw nothing but cold, hostile eyes directed at him. He looked around, from one person to the other, and started laughing and sneering with scorn.
‘There’s not a single devil in here that you haven’t slept with. Every one of them has screwed you.’
‘So what? At least I don’t tell lies.’
‘What am I lying about?’
Freja hesitated, tried to look as scornful as he did.
‘Tell me one thing that I’m lying about,’ said Loki.
‘You’re a phoney,’ she said ‘A horrible phoney.’
That was everyone’s opinion. Perhaps even his own. But if it had ever bothered him, he could no longer remember when.
That was simply the way he was. Everything straightforward and unambiguous was foreign to him; he preferred to be true to himself, and for some reason he chose to be true to himself more than ever before, right now, in the middle of all this shamelessness.
The Hurricane Party Page 16
