The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [165]
On the evening after the departure, Gunnar came to himself and felt somewhat better than he had, and he called to Helga to bring him some food in his bedcloset, for it is the effect of the stomach ill to make folk so hungry that some folk call it the hunger ill, and yet however hungry folk become, they dread to eat, for no one can tell beforehand if the food will burn and torment him or not. In this case, Gunnar was pleased to discover that he could indeed eat his broth, which was very hot and savory—guillemot that Finn had snared, seethed with a seal flipper for fat, and seasoned with herbs. While he was eating Helga sat beside him and began to chatter about Johanna, who had gotten into the carded wool and scattered it about the main room of the steading while Birgitta was in the privy, and then, frightened at what she had done, she had gotten out Birgitta’s spindle and attempted to spin it into thread, so that she had tangled everything together, unspun wool and spun wool and dirt. Helga found this very amusing, and Gunnar, too, began to laugh at the thought. After he had finished his food, Gunnar told Helga to send Kollgrim to him, for he had some instructions for the boy, and Helga cast down her eyes, so that Gunnar demanded to know what sort of trouble Kollgrim had gotten into, and Helga said, “None, that we know of, but Birgitta is greatly afraid, for she allowed him to go with Finn on the seal hunt.”
Now Gunnar leaped out of the bedcloset, in spite of the pains in his belly, and began shouting for Birgitta, who came in from the dairy, where she had been cutting cheese curds. And Birgitta, too, cast down her eyes, for she knew the source of Gunnar’s anger. And after this, for the next six days, Gunnar refused to speak to Birgitta, and the two waited in fear for news of the seal hunt. And no knowledge of any sort came to Birgitta, in dreams or awake, and this made her a bit sanguine for a good outcome.
It was the custom of the Greenlanders to row their boats to the mouth of Alptafjord and hide there among the islands until the seals began to appear from the south in their great numbers. Then the boats would move outward in a line, and go among the seals and try to force groups of them into small inlets and fjords, where they could be speared or clubbed and dragged quickly out before they sank. For this work, Finn was not ready to be amused, or to allow any transgressions on the part of Kollgrim Gunnarsson, and it happened that he tied the boy by his hands to the gunwale of the boat and bade him only to watch. And Kollgrim was tied thus for three days, and only let go at night, when boats were pulled out of the water and folk were engaged in butchering and boiling down blubber. And when he let Kollgrim go, Finn only said that Kollgrim should be ready for the boat when the time came to depart, for it was not possible for Finn to wait for him and allow the seals to get far past them. And so Kollgrim was on his own at night.
On one of these nights, Kollgrim was going among the camps of men and looking about, and some folk called him over and asked his name, as often happened. He gazed boldly upon them and said that all who knew anything knew that he was Kollgrim Gunnarsson of Lavrans Stead in Hvalsey Fjord, and that he had been brought along by the hunter Finn Thormodsson, surely they knew of him, to help in the seal hunt. Now the men laughed, and one of them said, “Is your father, Gunnar, then, a famous man, though he dwells on but a poor steading that came to him through his wife?”
“Any man may be tricked out of his patrimony, and that is a fact. Certain folk, who have