The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [141]
Some things were changed at Steinstraumstead, and one of these happened as follows: one day when Sigurd was sitting at his meat, he knocked over his cup of ewe’s milk and spilled it into the moss that lay upon the floor of the steading. At once he began to cry, because he was very fond of this drink, and sorry to lose his. Now it happened that Asta, without speaking or considering, took up the other cup of ewe’s milk at the table and placed it in front of Sigurd, and he drank it down. This cup of milk belonged to Margret, and at once Asta realized this, and was stricken with mortification, and she and Margret gazed upon each other’s faces without speaking for some moments. Then Margret smiled, for she was amused, and she said, “Although you are my servant, Asta, it seems to me that you grow to fill every nook of this place, and all things here flow to Sigurd. We spend our days consulting his pleasure as servants do a peevish master. You grow and flourish as richly as a patch of angelica by the side of a clear stream, but it seems to me that I shrink and harden and shrink and harden, and when I die I will be as a small pebble, and this is not frightening to me, but pleasant.”
And Asta, because she had her child beside her, leaning into her so that she could feel the warmth of his body against hers, was somewhat offended by this remark and offered no reply. When Sigurd jumped up and wandered out of the steading, she, too, got up, and went to the vat of ewe’s milk from that morning and dipped up another cupful for Margret. This Margret drank, and all of the rest of the evening, Asta dogged Margret’s steps and helped her with tasks she was accustomed to doing herself and quieted Sigurd or sent him out of the way when he seemed to be annoying Margret, but by awakening time the next morning these things were forgotten, and Asta went back to thinking first of Sigurd in all things. Margret took some cheese and followed the sheep for the entire day, eating bilberries as she went about the hillsides, and this was a great pleasure to her.
At the farmstead, Asta had begun to look for Koll’s visit, for it was at this time of the summer and in such weather, brisk and bright, that he often came to her. This waiting was little agreeable to her, for fear was mixed with eagerness so that she alternately dreaded and yearned for the first sudden meeting. On the one hand, she had grown familiar with and almost fond of Koll’s face, so that it seemed as commonplace to her as any Norse face she knew. On the other hand, she had not gotten accustomed to the smell that arose from his clothing and his hands and his hair, and this came over her like a miasma, freshly each time. Fortunately, however, it seemed to go away after he had been near her for a while. Koll also seemed to share her fondness for Sigurd, whom he called by a name in the skraeling tongue. He always brought the boy exquisite gifts, finer even than those he had brought Asta to win her. The boy slept between two snowy white bearskins and as a baby had been swaddled in a length pieced from the fur of blue and white foxes. There were also carvings of ivory and two lamps of the skraeling style as well as various weapons and tools that Asta thought little of but kept for the boy.
As a balance to this anticipation, Asta had a great fear of Koll’s other fondnesses when he saw her, for he came for the purpose of having intercourse, that was plain to see, and this activity seemed odd and not a little shocking. She had learned at his first reappearance, about a year after the marriage proposal, that to run or scream merely inflamed him and gave him greater strength. And yet the penetration itself,