The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [172]
“The relics in the church?”
“Those stolen from Gardar when Bishop Arni died. That’s why they lived so long. They kept the relics in their bedcloset. The bedcloset glowed from the holy radiance. Many people saw it. But then some mice carried off the relics to their nesting site away from the steading, and the vomiting ill came on, and they were as mortal as anyone, the demons.” Now he began to laugh.
“These tales seem to me to be rumors inflated by the passage of time. It is true that Sira Nikolaus and his wife lived in poor conditions and to a great age, but everything folk say about them is not truth.”
“Indeed?” Sira Jon smiled. “Well, it is a habit of yours to tell me what is true and what is false, and to correct me at every turn, and to contradict everything I say, with that respectful tone, and to deny me. False humility and priggishness are sins, as well.”
“As well as what?”
“No doubt you would like to know, for it is generally thought that you are a nosy fellow.”
“Would it soothe you to have confession, or to pray with me?”
“Even the boards were rotten, and chewed away by mice. And listen to this. The dogs were gnawing on their bones.”
“Sira Nikolaus didn’t keep any dogs.” And so the conversation went on in this vein, sometimes about Sira Nikolaus and sometimes about how Pall Hallvardsson had betrayed Sira Jon at every turn in the last twenty-five years. What seemed most peculiar to Pall Hallvardsson was not the other priest’s manner, or even, in the end, his nakedness, but the persuasiveness of his case against himself, for indeed, he saw now that his secret sin for all these years had been the pleasure he took in setting the other man right, in undermining his self-confidence and stature among the Greenlanders. Even, perhaps, in seeing him go wrong with them and then turn away in amusement. At last Sira Jon asked Pall Hallvardsson what he was lingering for, and Pall Hallvardsson went off to find Sira Audun.
Now when he had knocked twice upon Sira Audun’s door without any response and was turning away to seek him elsewhere, Olof appeared and said to him in a low voice, “Indeed, he is in there, but he will say that he was sleeping, or he didn’t hear you knocking so softly, or he was sunk in his work, or he was at prayer. You must beat upon the door so that in the end he cannot stand it any longer and knows that he can’t wait you out.” And she approached the door and struck it with great force over and over, and after some two dozen blows, the door opened a bit and Sira Audun peeped out. When he saw Olof, he opened his mouth to speak, but when he saw Pall Hallvardsson, he stepped back and allowed him in. When Olof looked as though she, too, might enter, he closed the door hastily in her face.
Sira Audun’s was a cell Pall Hallvardsson had not visited before, and, though small, it was very neatly contrived, with a small lamp for light, a large lamp for heat, an old door set up as a desk, and a pleasantly carved three-legged stool beside it. The dirt floor was covered with two layers of reindeer skins, and more furs were piled in the corner for a bed. Some hooks had been made of antler pieces, and Sira Audun’s other robe and some additional clothing hung from these. In a line on a shelf that occurred naturally in the stone wall were a series of figures carved out of walrus teeth. These numbered thirteen, and Pall Hallvardsson could see that they were Christ and His apostles, each carrying his particular emblem, two crossed keys, a winged lion, but they were dressed as Greenlanders. Pall Hallvardsson stood admiring them. It soon became apparent that each man wished the other to speak first. At length Sira Audun said, “I was sleeping, for I have been to the churches of the