Burial Rites

by Hannah Kent

  Agnes gave him a careful look, and then nodded. ‘Well, then. The first time I met Fridrik Sigurdsson I was hauling water from the stream. I heard a shout, and saw a red-headed young man and his horse trotting along the mountain path. There was a woman also. Natan peered out of his workshop window at the noise, and didn’t waste time stepping out and locking the door behind him. Not many folks visited Illugastadir, and Natan seemed to prefer it that way.

  ‘Natan introduced the boy as Fridrik, and Fridrik told me he was the son of the farmer Sigurdur at Katadalur, a farm just up over the mountain. He said he’d been away for the winter, and then he introduced his companion, Thórunn, a servant woman with very bad teeth, who grinned at everyone. I noticed that Sigga was anxious when she first saw Thórunn. To tell you the truth, Reverend, I didn’t like either of the pair on first meeting. I thought Fridrik a braggart and a show-off. He talked aimlessly, speaking of how he was going to make his father a rich man, and he’d fought three men in Vesturhóp and given them all black eyes and worse. All the dull lies you’d expect to hear from a boy of that age. I don’t know why Natan bothered to listen to Fridrik’s boasting – he didn’t often care to hear that sort of thing, although he wasn’t shy about trumpeting his own good fortune. But I supposed that he was a mentor to Fridrik, as he told me he was trying to be to Sigga.

  ‘That day Natan invited Fridrik and Thórunn inside. I was not particularly interested in my new neighbours, but I gathered that Fridrik’s family was quite poor. He gobbled down his fish like a starveling. I thought him an odd friend for Natan.

  ‘When Fridrik left, Thórunn trailing like a puppy after him, Natan disappeared. When I found him again, I asked him where he’d been, and he smiled and said that he’d gone to check his belongings. When I asked him why, he told me that Fridrik had long fingers, and only ever called on him to try and discover where he kept his money.

  ‘I asked Natan why on earth he let Fridrik step foot inside his house if that was the case, and Natan laughed and said he never kept his money in the croft anyway, and besides, he liked the game of it. Theirs was not a true friendship, but a strange rivalry with one another, borne out of boredom. Fridrik thought Natan rich and wanted to take a little of what he had, and Natan encouraged him for his own private amusement, knowing all the while that Fridrik would never find his money. At the time I told Natan I thought it dangerous to provoke a man like that, but Natan laughed and said Fridrik was hardly a man, only a foolhardy boy. But it troubled me. I argued that Fridrik was twice his size, and could easily overpower him if it came to it. Natan did not like that. We had our first row, then.’

  ‘What did Natan say?’

  ‘Oh, he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me outside and told me to never speak of him in that way in front of Sigga. I said that I’d only told the truth, and hadn’t meant to embarrass him, and that Sigga only thought the best of him, as did I. This appeased him a little, but I was frightened at the way his mood changed so quickly. I learnt later that he was as changeable as the ocean, and God help you if you saw his expression shift and darken. One day he might call you friend, and the next threaten to throw you into the night if you so much as dropped a pail of water on the ground. As folks say, for every mountain there is a valley.’

  ‘Perhaps if you’d known that you would never have agreed to be his servant?’ Tóti suggested.

  Agnes paused, and then shook her head. ‘I wanted to leave Vatnsdalur,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Tell me about what Sigga is like,’ Tóti suggested gently.

  ‘Well, that night, after Fridrik’s visit, Sigga began speaking of marriage. I asked her if she did not find Fridrik Sigurdsson a most attractive man with such inviting prospects. I was making fun, of course. Fridrik is freckled, and ginger-haired and as mottled as a sausage, and his family are so poor you might call them barrel-lickers. But when I asked Sigga this, her cheeks turned as bright as new blood, and she asked me if I thought Fridrik was engaged to that Thórunn. It was then that I knew she held some hope for him.

  ‘I continued teasing Sigga. “Do you know how much hard work it is to get married?” I asked her. Sigga said: “The work can’t be harder than this,” and I laughed and told her I didn’t mean farm work, but the work a maid like her had to do just for the privilege of giving her life away. I reminded her that the priest must give his permission, the District Officer must give his permission, the District Commissioner must also be on side, and then, Natan must be kept happy, for everyone looks to the master for the final word.

  ‘“You need more than one man to say I do,” I told her. Sigga took this news very badly. She grew pale when I mentioned that Natan must approve of any engagement, and didn’t say anything more about the subject, not even when I tried to cheer her up by telling her what Natan had told me; about his little game with Fridrik.

  ‘“Do you really think Fridrik is a thief?” she asked, and I said no, I was sure he was a most upstanding fellow.

  ‘Natan laughed heartily when I told him about Sigga’s reaction to the news that he would have to approve any wedding she had in mind. He said that it was a good thing she knew it. I told him that I thought Sigga was soft on Fridrik, and mentioned concern that Natan thought him a thief. Natan said that that is what happens when you put two creatures in a pen together, and we didn’t speak any more of it at the time.

  ‘This all happened around lambing season. The weather was clear, and Natan took the chance to earn money by travelling about the north, calling in on folks and selling his medicines. It happened that Natan was away when the lambing began at Illugastadir. When Sigga and I went outside to feed the cow, we saw that one of the ewes was birthing. Neither of us was strong enough to properly swing any lambs that might come out motionless, and we were worried that Natan would return in a few weeks and find his number of sheep not as high as expected. I told Sigga to run to a neighbour and ask for the loan of a workman, even though Natan had said to not let anyone onto his farm. Sigga fetched Fridrik.

  ‘I was worried to admit him at first, given Natan’s warning, but we needed the help and by the time he arrived more ewes had gone into labour. He was a true farmer’s son, helping us pull the lambs, and swinging them about to get them breathing. When we discovered that one ewe had teats too thick to feed her young, Fridrik fashioned a teat from odds and ends we had about the place and let us feed them ourselves. I liked him a little better after that, but I still wouldn’t let him sleep in the house. I made up a bed for him in the cowshed.

  ‘Fridrik stayed with us for a week during lambing. I made sure he did not set a finger on anything in the house, for I noticed that Fridrik seemed fixed on naming the price of everything. He would calculate the worth of the lambs born, their mothers, the cow we had there, the land, even the silk ribbon Sigga wore in her hair. I put it down to his being brought up poor. Still, I kept my eyes close on his back, especially when I happened upon him digging holes by the front door of the croft. When I asked him what he was doing, he laughed and said it was naught, only he’d asked Natan to keep some money for him, and wouldn’t it happen but that Natan had forgotten where it was buried and he’d never seen it again. I knew him to be lying. Fridrik Sigurdsson didn’t have a coin to his name, and I knew Fridrik had been looking for Natan’s money.

  ‘Sigga seemed blind to the conniving character of the boy, though. That spring I noticed her dote on Fridrik, fetching him this and that as he worked outside and giggling at his stories of fist fights and daredevilry. In the evenings she’d often go out to the cowshed to bring him a little milk and wish him goodnight, and she’d take her time about it too. As I said, she’s a pretty little thing, and I expect Fridrik soon forgot brown-toothed Thórunn. He’s a keen rider, and used to flog his pony to death in an effort to impress Sigga. Even when that good horse threw him for the way he switched its hide all bloody, Sigga fetched him a supper and sat by his side as he wolfed it, sponging his swollen temple and stooping to kiss it better when she thought I could not se
e.

  ‘When Natan came back he saw that most of the ewes had given birth, and he praised us for doing the job so well. Sigga told him that we couldn’t have done it without Fridrik, and Natan asked us why in the Devil’s name we’d let that thieving boy upon the place when he wasn’t home to watch him. Sigga began to cry – she didn’t have the stomach for quarrels – and when Natan continued to rail at her for thoughtlessness, I stepped in and claimed it was my idea to fetch him.

  ‘I told Natan that I understood Illugastadir was not his only responsibility, but that without another man he could hardly expect Sigga and I to manage certain tasks. I told him that neither of us were strong enough to swing the lambs, and that we struggled to do a great many things besides. I told him that for all he had a grudge against Fridrik, that boy had saved a great number of his livestock, and we’d been careful not to let him sleep indoors. I didn’t tell him that Fridrik had been scratching in the front yard for money.

  ‘Eventually Natan calmed, and things returned to normal at Illugastadir. He said that he would ride to Geitaskard and hire Daníel Gudmundsson for harvest. He said that he wanted another man with us in his absence, but that he did not want it to be Fridrik.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  13th April 1828

  RÓSA GUDMUNDSDÓTTIR FROM VATNSENDI was asked to appear at court. She declined to give any information about the case, but she said that Agnes came sometime that winter to her and spoke well about her master Natan. The baby that had been in foster care at Illugastadir is now at home with Rósa, being her daughter. She said that the baby is now three years old. She did not think that the baby had been harmed in any way by the murder, but remarked that the baby always says Natan is ‘up in the hills’. This is what the baby was told after the murder occurred. Rósa said that there is nothing unusual she can say about Agnes or Sigrídur as she doesn’t know them well. She said that Natan left Vatnsendi in the summer of 1825 after having stayed there with her and her husband for two years. She said that she knows Natan had at that point a considerable amount of money. She had taken 50 spesiurs from him for safekeeping.

  The spring after Natan left, Fridrik from Katadalur came to Vatnsendi, and called her out for a private conversation in the cowshed. Rósa then said that he started to express how he desired her, and asked her to allow him to stay the night and come to her bed. She said that she rejected Fridrik, walked away from him and asked her husband not to allow him to stay inside even though he later requested it again. After that, she said her husband, Ólaf, came to her and told her that Fridrik had asked to see the storeroom so he could look for the money he thought Rósa kept for Natan. He said that Natan had told him he could take the money if he ever managed to sleep at Rósa’s place. Fridrik offered her husband two or four spesiurs and told Ólaf that his mother had had a dream where the money was stored under a barrel in the storeroom. Rósa said that she told her husband Natan’s stored money was absolutely not in the storeroom and Fridrik could look there for as long as he liked. After that her husband went out and, though she and her workmaid were sleeping, Fridrik went into the storeroom, ripped everything out of the barrel but didn’t find anything. She said he remarked that ‘his mother ought to dream better’. He said he had found a heavy object he couldn’t move, and was going to come back after he had received better information from his mother about where he should look. But he did not come back.

  After this Fridrik was thought to hate Natan because he couldn’t find the money. Rósa said that she gave Natan the money she had stored for him the spring after Fridrik came, but said that she had not heard from him for a long time. She also remarked that while Natan lived with her he would often keep his money buried in the ground inside or outside the farm. No further evidence or information was possible to get from this woman, and she furthermore refused to confirm that what is recorded here is correct.

  Anonymous clerk, 1828.

  TÓTI WOKE IN THE UNLIT badstofa of Breidabólstadur, struggling to breathe. Pushing himself to a sitting position, he felt a feverish rush of blood to his head, and his arms trembled and gave way. He tried to cough; his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

  Across the room his father lay sleeping, his snores catching, his breath pausing for a few stricken seconds, then resuming in a rumbled exhalation. Why is he still sleeping, thought Tóti. It must be morning. I need a sip of water.

  Fighting his light-headedness, Tóti tried to move his legs to the floor, setting his bare feet gently upon the boards. I must have had a nightmare, he thought, feeling his heart flutter in his chest. I’ll fetch some water.

  The pantry air was deliciously cool on his clammy skin. Perhaps I ought to sleep in here, thought Tóti, sinking to the ground. It is so hot in the badstofa, someone has lit a fire beneath us.

  He woke again at the touch of his father’s rough hands lifting him under his armpits.

  ‘Are you trying to catch yourself a cold? Sleepwalking like a madman.’

  ‘Mother?’

  There was a pause. ‘No, son. It’s me.’

  Reverend Jón stumbled back, and then managed to haul his son up against his side. ‘Now walk,’ he commanded, bending down to pick up his candle. ‘Are you still asleep?’

  Tóti shook his head. ‘No, no. I’m not asleep. I felt queer and wanted some water. I think I drifted off there.’

  He grasped his father’s offered arm and together they stumbled back to the badstofa. ‘Sit yourself down on your bed now,’ his father said. He took a few steps back, watching as Tóti swayed uneasily on his feet. His eyes were unusually bright, his hair slick with sweat in the candlelight.

  ‘You’ve exhausted yourself, son. It’s all your travelling to Kornsá in this unfit weather. It’s addled you.’

  Tóti looked up at him. ‘Father?’

  Reverend Jón caught him as he fell.

  THE DAYS ARE DWINDLING NOW. There is time enough for everything; too much time, and so the family of Kornsá have gone to church to kill the miserable hours that creak about on a Sunday morning. The mountains are covered in snow and the water in the cowshed iced over last night. Jón sent Bjarni out to crack it with a hammer, and now it is just we three, Bjarni, Jón and me, waiting until the others return.

  I wonder where the Reverend is? I have not seen him in many days. I thought he might come for my birthday, seeing as he knew of it from the ministerial book, but the day came and went and I dared not say anything to the family. The November days are now crawling past, and still he does not come, with no letter, no message to sustain me. Steina asked me if I thought the weather might be keeping him away: there was a blizzard a week ago that almost snowed us in. Perhaps he is too taken up by pastoral duties, and is travelling around his own parish with the soul registers, writing countless names down so that history will not forget them. Or perhaps he has had enough of my stories; perhaps I have said something and he is now convinced I am guilty, that I must be abandoned and punished. I am too godless. I am distracting him from his dedication to Christian thinking. I make him doubt his belief in a loving Lord. Perhaps Blöndal has summoned him again, told him to stop listening to me. Either way, it seems cruel to leave me without warning, without an assurance that he’ll come back. Without his visits the days seem longer, even as the light flees this country like a whipped dog. I’ve less and less to do, and the waiting for him keeps me on a knife-edge. Every boot knocking off snow, every cough in the corridor makes me think he has come again. But it is never him. Only the servants, returning from feeding the stock in the evenings. Only Margrét, spitting into her handkerchief.

  This waiting makes me want to be sick. Why not now? Why not pick up the axe and do the deed here, on the farm. Bjarni could do it. Or Gudmundur. Any of the men. God knows they’d probably like to push my face into the snow and take my head off without ceremony, without priest or judge. If they’re going to kill me, why not kill me now and be done with it?

  It must be Blöndal. He means to cripple me with waiting before
stretching my neck out. He wants me to break; he takes away the only comfort I have left in this world because he is a barbarian. He takes Tóti, and makes me watch time pass. A cruel gift, to give me so much time to farewell everything. Why won’t they tell me when I have to die? It could be tomorrow – and the Reverend is not here to help. Why won’t he come?

  I am sick with finality. It is like a punch in the heart, the fact of my sentence alongside the ordinariness of days at the farm. Perhaps it would have been better if they had left me at Stóra-Borg. I might have starved to death. I would be mud-slick, stuffed to the guts with cold and hopelessness, and my body might know it was doomed and give up on its own. That would be better than idly winding wool on a snowy day, waiting for someone to kill me.

  Perhaps next Sunday I could ask to go with Margrét to church. What else is God good for other than a distraction from the mire we’re all stranded in? We’re all shipwrecked. All beached in a peat bog of poverty. When was the last time I even attended church? Not while I was at Illugastadir. It must have been at Geitaskard, with the other servants. We rode there and changed into our best behind the church wall, feeling the nip of the morning breeze on our bare legs as we struggled into our better clothes, free from horsehair. I miss the stuffy warmth from too many bodies in one place, and the sniffing and coughing and the babies whimpering. I want to let the sound of a priest’s voice wash over me, just to hear the music of it. Like when I was small, hired out to backwater farms to wipe infants’ backsides clean of shit, and wash the laundry with ashes and fat; escaping to church to feel part of something. Pure.

  Perhaps things would have been different if Natan had let me go to church at Tjörn. I might have made friends there. I might have met a family to turn to when it all became twisted. Other farmers I could have worked for. But he didn’t let me go, and there was no other friend, no light to head towards in that wintered landscape.