Burial Rites

by Hannah Kent

  And when I next woke the blizzard had stopped.

  This is what I tell the Reverend. I try to tell the story in the best way I know how. I let the words come as I knit, and I snatch little looks at the Reverend’s face, to see if he is moved.

  I can feel the others listening. I can feel Steina and Margrét and Kristín and Lauga stretching their ears towards us in the shadowy corner, eating up this story like fresh butter and bread. Margrét and Lauga maybe thinking that it served me right, perhaps feeling sorry for me. Steina thinking I am like her – miserable, ignored. At fault.

  But because I know the others are listening, I can’t ask the Reverend what I want to ask. I can’t say, Reverend, do you think that I’m here because when I was a child I said I wanted to die? Because, when I said it, I meant it. I pronounced it like a prayer. I hope I die. Did I author my own fate, then?

  I want to ask the Reverend if he thinks I killed the baby. Did I hold her too tightly? But there is no right way to ask this question, and I don’t want to put more thoughts into these women’s heads. There are some things they should not hear.

  It seems everyone I love is taken from me and buried in the ground, while I remain alone.

  Good thing, then, that there is no one left to love. No one left to bury.

  ‘WHAT HAPPENED THEN?’ TÓTI ASKED. He realised that he had hardly breathed during Agnes’s story.

  ‘It’s strange,’ Agnes said, using her little finger to wind the wool about the needle head. ‘Most of the time when I think of when I was younger, everything is unclear. As though I were looking at things through smoked glass. But Inga’s death, and everything that came after it . . . I almost feel that it was yesterday.’

  Across the room, a chair scraped. Margrét gave a muffled cough.

  ‘I remember that after Inga died Jón was sent to fetch Björn’s relatives,’ Agnes continued. ‘I can remember lying in my bed, watching my foster-father sit on the stool Inga had used for her spindle work. He was too big for its seat. Kjartan was in bed with me, and he was sleeping all hot and heavy on my shoulder. The wind had dropped and it was suddenly very quiet.

  ‘We eventually heard the clink of harness from the yard outside. Then Björn slowly rose to his feet and stepped towards my bed. He scooped my brother up with one arm so I could sit, and he told me to take the dead baby, wrap its face in a blanket and put it in the storeroom.

  ‘The baby seemed lighter dead than alive. I held it out from me and walked down the corridor in my stockings.

  ‘It was very chill in the storeroom. I could see the fog of my breath before me, and my forehead ached from cold. I covered the baby’s face with a corner of the cloth it was wrapped in and laid it upon a sack of dried cod heads. When I stepped back into the corridor, a blast of freezing air hit the side of my face, and I turned to see the door open, the faces of Björn’s brother, sister-in-law and their servant appearing from the murk outside. Their cheeks were wet and shiny from sleet.

  ‘I remember Uncle Ragnar and Jón carefully carrying Inga down from the loft while Björn was outside, attending to the sheep. It was my job to make sure they didn’t bump her head against the rungs of the ladder. They brought her into the badstofa and set her on the stripped bed. Aunt Rósa was in the kitchen heating some water, and when I asked her what she was doing, she said she was going to clean my poor foster-mamma’s body. She wouldn’t let me watch. She let Kjartan play by her feet, and she ordered me to go upstairs to the loft and help her servant, Gudbjörg.

  ‘When I climbed the ladder I saw Gudbjörg scrubbing blood off the floorboards. The smell made me feel sick and I started to cry. Gudbjörg took me into her arms. “She’s gone to God now, Agnes. She’s safe.”

  ‘I sat on the floor with Gudbjörg’s shawl about me and watched the fat of her arms wobble as she knelt and scrubbed the boards. Gudbjörg wrung out the pinked water from the rag over and over again. She kept shaking her head, and sometimes she stopped to wipe her eyes.

  ‘I told Gudbjörg what Björn had said when I’d screamed that I wanted to die; that he had told me maybe I’d be next. Gudbjörg shushed me and said that Björn wasn’t himself, and didn’t mean it.

  ‘I told her how Björn had given me the baby to look after, and that I had held it tightly and that it had died in my arms, and I didn’t even notice.

  ‘Gudbjörg rocked me like I was a baby myself. She said that the child wasn’t meant for this earth, and that it wasn’t my fault it didn’t live. She told me that I was brave and that God would watch over me.’

  ‘Do you know where Gudbjörg is today?’ Tóti interrupted.

  Agnes looked up from her knitting. ‘Dead,’ she said, unwaveringly. She pulled at the ball of wool to loose more thread.

  ‘When Ragnar, Kjartan and Björn returned from the barn, Rósa called Gudbjörg and me down from the loft and we all sat in the badstofa around the bed where Inga lay. She looked clean, but still. Eerie still, as when the wind drops and the grass doesn’t move, and you feel left behind.

  ‘Uncle Ragnar produced a flask of brandy and silently passed it around. That was the first time I tasted liquor, and I didn’t much care for it, but Jón had left on my foster-father’s horse to fetch the Reverend, and there was nothing to do but wait and drink. The hours creaked past, and I felt sick from the brandy and the bones in my legs grew stiff from sitting.

  ‘Jón didn’t return with the priest until late that night. I let them in. The Reverend forgot to knock the snow off his boots.

  ‘Gudbjörg, Aunt Rósa and I served the men food and they ate it off their laps, Inga on the bed in front of them. Aunt Rósa had lit a candle and placed it near Inga’s head, and I kept checking to see that it hadn’t fallen over; I was worried her hair would catch alight.

  ‘Once the men had eaten their food, the women took Kjartan and me to the kitchen while the Reverend spoke with the men. I tried to listen to what they were saying, but Aunt Rósa took my arm and pulled Kjartan onto her lap, and she started telling a story to distract us. She only stopped when Uncle Ragnar and Jón walked past the open doorway, carrying Inga’s body between them. They’d covered her face with a piece of cloth. I wanted to know where they were taking her and got up to follow, but Aunt Rósa tightened her grip around my arm and yanked me towards her. Gudbjörg quickly told me that the Reverend had said there was no chance of a burial until spring: the ground in the churchyard was frozen solid, and they were going to keep my poor foster-mother in the storehouse until the ground thawed and someone could dig a grave. We went to the doorway to watch them put Inga away.

  ‘The Reverend was following Björn down the corridor. I heard him say: “At least it leaves you plenty of time to make the coffins.” Then he suggested that they put her in the barn.

  ‘“Too warm,” my foster-father replied.

  ‘Uncle Ragnar and Jón laid Inga next to the dead baby in the storehouse. At first they put her down on a bag of salt, then Uncle Ragnar pointed out that the salt might be needed sooner than we could bury Inga, so they swapped the salt for dried fish, and I could hear the thin, dried bones of the cod snap in the sack, under the weight of her body.’

  ‘When did they bury her?’ Tóti asked. He suddenly felt claustrophobic sitting in the badstofa, surrounded by the muffled clicks of knitting needles and the rasp and squeak of wool.

  ‘Oh, not for a long time,’ Agnes said. ‘Inga and the baby were in the storehouse until the end of winter. Every time I had to fetch more lamp oil, or help Jón roll a barrel out to the pantry, I saw their bodies lying in the corner, bundled upon the sacks of dried fish.

  ‘Kjartan didn’t understand what had happened to his mamma. I suppose he forgot about the baby, but he always cried for Inga, sitting on the floor in the badstofa and howling like a dog. His pabbi ignored him, but when Uncle Ragnar visited, Kjartan received a cuff about the ears. He soon stopped crying.

  ‘Uncle Ragnar always seemed to be at Kornsá – talking with Björn in the badstofa, or bringing him brandy
. Björn had grown more silent since the blizzard. When I served him his dinner he no longer thanked me, just picked up his spoon and began to eat.

  ‘And then one day I was told Björn didn’t want me any more. It must have been early spring, I was in a bad temper, and had refused to eat any dinner. My foster-father hadn’t said anything, not even a sharp word to tell me off for wasting food. He was spending all his time with the animals, which had begun to die from the cold, and I was frustrated that he loved them and Kjartan more than me.

  ‘Winter had turned and on this day there was a little light, so when I left the table I decided to go outside. No one stopped me. I stormed down the corridor and picked up the shovel that stood within the doorway, and began to dig out a path from the croft, relishing the feel of snow flecks upon my hot cheeks. Once I had cleared a way out, I threw the shovel aside and began to dig in the snow with my hands, taking huge armfuls and throwing them as far as I could. I worked until I had dug quite a large hole. When I paused to catch my breath, I looked up and noticed a black smudge in the distance: it was Uncle Ragnar on another of his visits. He greeted me and asked what I was doing covered in snow. I explained that I had begun to dig a grave for Mamma. Uncle Ragnar frowned and told me I shouldn’t call her Mamma, and wasn’t I ashamed of myself, thinking to bury her near the doorstep where everyone would tread on her, and not in the holy ground of a churchyard.

  ‘“Wouldn’t it be better to keep her warm in the storeroom until she can sleep in peace in consecrated ground?” he asked me.

  ‘I shook my head. “The storeroom is as cold as a witch’s tit,” I told him.

  ‘Uncle Ragnar said: “Watch your mouth, Agnes. Ugly words show an ugly mind.”

  ‘That night he told me that Björn was going to give up the lease for Kornsá and go to Reykjavík to work at the fishing stations. The winter had killed my foster-mother and her baby, as well as over half of Björn’s flock, and without a wife, and with nothing to pay the wages of another farmhand, Björn couldn’t afford to keep me. Kjartan went to live with his aunt and uncle, and when the weather warmed I was thrown on the mercy of the parish.’

  ‘And that is how you came to be an urchin,’ Tóti said.

  Agnes nodded, pausing in her knitting to stretch her fingers. She rested the sock on her lap and looked up at him through the darkness. ‘That is how I came to be a pauper. Left to the mercy of others, whether they had any or no.’

  I HAVE WOKEN EARLY, AND the badstofa is still heavy with shadows. I thought someone was bent low to my ear and whispering, Agnes, Agnes. The whisper severed me from my dreams, but there is no one here, and a cold dread suddenly drips through my heart.

  I could have sworn someone was calling me.

  I lie still and try to listen to the others breathe, so as to discern whether another is awake. Reverend Tóti is in the bed closest to me, having decided to sleep at Kornsá because of the lateness of the hour. But I know it wasn’t him who woke me. A priest would not wake a prisoner by whispering in her ear like a lover.

  Minutes pass. Why is there so much darkness in the room? I can’t see my hands, although I hold them above my eyes. The gloom encroaches upon my mind, and my heart flutters like a bird held fast in a fist. Even when I force my eyes shut, the darkness is still there, and now, too, there are awful tremors of flickering light. Are my eyes open or shut? Perhaps it was a ghost who woke me – how can I explain these lights appearing in the murk before me? They’re like flames peeling off a wall, and Natan’s face is before me, his mouth wide in screaming, and his teeth bloody and shining, and his burning body dropping flakes of charred skin on my blankets. Everything smells of whale fat and Fridrik’s knife is deep in Natan’s belly, and a scream jerks from my chest as if it had been pulled from my gut by a rope.

  The lights vanish. Was I dreaming? It seems as if no time has passed.

  ‘Reverend Tóti?’ I whisper.

  He turns over in his sleep.

  ‘Reverend? May I light a lamp?’

  The Reverend does not wake easily – he lolls like a man addicted to drink. I shove him harder than I’d like. He’s embarrassed, I think, to wake and see me in my underthings.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I had another dream.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘May I light a lamp?’

  ‘The light of Jesus is enough for any true Christian.’ His voice is sluggish with sleep.

  ‘Please, Reverend.’

  He has not heard me. He begins to snore.

  I return to my bed then, uncomforted. I can smell smoke.

  My Mamma is dead. Inga is dead.

  She is lying in rags in the storehouse while the snow and ice clamp their jaws about the earth and forbid the digging of holes, the digging of graves.

  So cold she has to wait to be buried.

  So lonely I make friends with the ravens that prey on lambs.

  I close my eyes and I am creeping down the corridor with the flickering light of my lamp and I am shaking, terrified. I hear the wind howl into the night outside and I think I can hear my foster-mother claw at the storehouse door where she is bundled and waiting to be nailed in the box and buried come spring. I stop walking and I listen hard, and under the wind I think I hear scratching, and then my name – Agnes, Agnes, calling to me. It is Inga calling me to let her out. I’m not dead, I have returned, I am come alive, I need to be let out of the storehouse, not kept like butchered meat, drying in the stale air. Kept with salt and whey and flour crawling with Danish weevils.

  I stand still and I shake, scared. Then, Mamma, Mamma! I take a step to the storehouse and push open the door – there is no lock. I push open the door and I hold out the thin light of my lamp, and I see the lump of her body on the floor, her head resting upon a sack of dried fish-heads, and I weep because it is worse to know that she is really dead. Oh, my foster-mother is dead and my own mother is gone. And I sit on the floor, my legs buckled with the pure, ripe grief of an orphan, and the wind cries for me because my tongue cannot. It screams and screams and I sit on the packed earth floor, hard with cold, and smell the fish-heads, sickening, lacing the bland scent of winter with its stench of salt and dried bone.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE MURDERER FRIDRIK SIGURDSSON was born at Katadalur here in the parish of Tjörn on the 6th of May 1810, and was confirmed by my predecessor here in this parish, Reverend Sæmundur Oddson, in 1823. He was described then as being in possession of ‘a good intellect’, and a good knowledge and understanding of the catechism. However, his behaviour did not answer to this knowledge and education. He girdled himself in blatant disobedience of his parents, so that they complained to me in the autumn of 1825. It was through speaking with them that I learnt of his greatly unbending character.

  How his upbringing has been obtained I cannot sufficiently attest to with certainty – I have not, except for four years, been a priest in this parish. However, such is my opinion that he has been raised with too much freedom.

  The testimony of the Reverend Jóhann Tómasson.

  5th of September 1829

  Rev. T. Jónsson

  Breidabólstadur, Vesturhóp

  To the (Assistant) Reverend Thorvardur Jónsson,

  I write to enquire about your progress with the criminal, Agnes Magnúsdóttir. I recently met with Reverend Jóhann Tómasson of the parish of Tjörn, who deemed it so good as to supply me with a report concerning the spiritual advancement and improved behaviour of the criminal Fridrik Sigurdsson, whom he is supervising. I consider it necessary to meet with you also. Once you, similarly, give me an account of what has and continues to transpire between you and the criminal, I might comprehend to what degree religious instruction is collectively bettering the condemned.

  Please present yourself to Hvammur next week to give an account of your transactions with the criminal, and what counsel you have hitherto supplied.

  DISTRICT COMMISSIONER

  Björn Blöndal

  ‘THANK YOU FOR COMING, AS
SISTANT Reverend Thorvardur,’ Björn Blöndal said, stepping out of the farm door of Hvammur. He had dressed in his official regalia, his red jacket open to reveal a clean, cream shirt. Tóti, who had only met the District Commissioner on a few occasions, mostly when he was a boy travelling with his father, paused in awe at the spectacle of his uniform, and his rather imposing figure.

  ‘Greetings, District Commissioner Blöndal.’

  Tóti dismounted and gave the reins of his horse to a servant man. Hvammur, he noticed, was crawling with people, all going about their chores in the wide yard before the house. A man was gutting trout, caught that morning from the river, on a rock to his left, and two women were spreading clothes out to dry in what slender sun the day afforded. He noticed another servant, a young woman wearing the national headdress of cap and tassel, leading a huddle of four or five children outdoors.

  ‘Hello,’ they called brightly, nodding their heads in Tóti’s direction.

  ‘You have a pleasant home,’ Tóti said, smiling, walking up to meet Blöndal.

  ‘Indeed. Welcome, Reverend. I trust your journey was not too arduous. Please, come inside, and mind your step.’

  An older servant woman led Tóti through the labyrinth of corridors to a small guest room. Blöndal followed closely behind and watched in the doorway as she sat Tóti down on an upholstered chair and deftly removed his riding hat and coat.

  ‘Have you been here before?’ Blöndal asked, as he waited. Tóti realised that he had been gaping at his surroundings.

  ‘Only as a boy,’ Tóti blushed. ‘This is a very fine quarter. I see you have several etchings.’

  Blöndal sniffed and removed his plumed hat, brushing the feather absently. ‘Yes,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘We’re very fortunate here to enjoy the luxuries usually only afforded to those on the mainland. Although it is my wish that, within the century, more Icelanders will come to know the benefits of glass windows, wooden panelling, iron stoves, and so forth. I am of the opinion that a drier home allows better circulation of air, and is therefore better for the health.’