The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [117]
At Easter, Sira Jon broke his fast and celebrated the Resurrection of the Lord in the company of Sira Pall Hallvardsson at Gardar. It happened that after the meal. Sira Pall whispered to Sira Audun that all the folk must go from the table, leaving only Sira Jon, and after a time, this was accomplished. When they were alone, Sira Pall Hallvardsson went and sat close beside the other priest, and he said, “My brother, do you recall the time we rowed the big Gardar boat together to Undir Hofdi church? I sat in the bow, and marveled at the power of your stroke.”
“Young men have pride in their strength as maidens have pride in their beauty, but all forms of pride are sinful. It seems to me that the task of old men such as we are now is to repent of the pride they had in their youth.”
“It seems to me that you repent at the expense of your own flesh.”
Now Sira Jon turned and looked at Sira Pall for the first time, and Sira Pall saw in his face a look of both fear and bitterness. Sira Jon said, “Is our own flesh not the first thing that we must repent of?”
“Even so, it is not possible to live in Greenland without a goodly store of flesh. It is the Lord’s mercy upon His beasts here that He gives them a goodly layer of fat and a pleasant, rounded form. So He is merciful to the men of the place, as well, for they are bigger than other men, and sturdier.”
Sira Jon sat stubbornly silent.
Now Sira Pall spoke in a low soothing voice, and said, “My brother, you are more learned than I am, but it seems to me that the Lord asks two things of men, and one of these is penitence, devotion, and sacrifice, but the other is the wise husbandry of the goods of the world, for the care of His servants and their charges. But the Lord does not ask both things from a single man. Instead He has made room in His church for both St. Francis and St. Augustine, and neither one sits before the other at the foot of His throne.”
Now Sira Jon sat for a long time, at first staring at Sira Pall, and then staring away. Finally, he said, “When meat sticks in the throat, it must be spit out, and when prayers burn within, their smoke must fly upward.”
And Sira Pall said, “Will you not speak to me of what is troubling you?”
And Sira Jon sat silent, and would not speak.
Soon after Easter, the ice broke up in Eriks Fjord, as it always does, in the space of a day or so, and a warm wind off the glacier blew the ice to the mouth of the fjord and out into the ocean. And soon after this, Sira Jon and three Gardar servingmen took the big Gardar boat, and they went to Brattahlid and made a visit to Osmund Thordarson.
Sira Jon went with his men into the farmsteading and the table was set up for them, and several women brought them food. None of these was Margret Asgeirsdottir. Isleif, he was told, was visiting his brother Ragnleif and conducting masses there. Nothing was said of the madwoman. After the eating was over, Marta Thordardottir took the priest to the high seat, and sat him there, then, in her commanding way, she began to quiz him about news from Gardar and the other districts. And this wish he had to know of Margret Asgeirsdottir was so great that he could in no way speak of it. His desire for knowledge of her felt unaccountably so like a sin that even when Marta herself mentioned the name and showed Sira Jon the lovely piece of cloth Margret had woven and decorated in the course of the winter, he could not ask, and Marta did not say, whether the woman had died or had gone away, or was simply not present in the room. The four men rowed back to Gardar after the evening meat, and made their way from the Eriks Fjord jetty to the residence in the dark, and even as they were walking along, it came to Sira Jon how he might have asked after the woman, what his manner might have been, and his words, and he thought of what he would say upon his return to Brattahlid—how he would incline his head and refer to Margret Asgeirsdottir as “that woman you had with you in the