The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [201]
“And your mood?”
“No mood has come to him today. He has eaten nothing in three days. He is especially good.” Sira Jon always referred to his earthly corpus as if it were another man, unruly and capricious. Sira Pall Hallvardsson had seen him denounce this corpus in the roundest tones, vividly depicting the hellfire it was bent upon achieving.
“Surely he has had a drink of water?”
“The merest mouthful. And then he pissed it away at once.”
“May I feel his arm?”
“His arm is indeed thin, but not too thin.” Sira Jon’s eyes widened, and he began to breathe heavily. “You may not feel it. It is not too thin. I am watching him closely.” They fell silent. Sira Jon regained his composure, and after a bit said, “I see you have let these Greenlanders get by you. They are a devilish lot, indeed.”
Sira Pall Hallvardsson smiled and said, “How have they gotten by me, then?”
“How should I know? There’s no telling. You are a simple fellow. They play upon your sensibilities though they have none themselves.”
“They are starving.” This was the first Pall Hallvardsson had spoken of the famine to the other priest.
“If that were true, it would be good for them. But if they tell you of it, it can’t be true.”
“They creep into church and their arms and hands are like birch twigs lashed together, and also their faces are without flesh.”
“These Greenlanders can do as they please with their flesh. It is not so long since I myself have seen them turn into devils and fetches. They may come to you all honey soft and full of prayers, but when they round the corner of the cathedral, those who crept along stand up straight and those who sucked in their cheeks let them out again. I have seen it enough. I don’t have to be there to know it is happening. I am reminded of something that Bishop Alf saw when he was a boy in Stavanger district.”
Pall Hallvardsson settled himself for the tale, as the fantastic adventures of Bishop Alf often formed a theme of Sira Jon’s talk, even though Pall Hallvardsson happened to know that the former bishop had lived a life that was dry and bureaucratic in the extreme before coming to Greenland. But the mad priest kept silent, perhaps meditating upon his tale, but not telling it. He said no more, and Sira Pall Hallvardsson went off a while later.
The bishop’s stores of food spread like a balm through the eastern settlement, from Isafjord to Herjolfsnes. Some folk spoke of the largess of the bishopric, but more folk talked of how Bjorn Bollason had looked on as the men brought out the stores, and how he had made certain that men from every district got a share equal to the numbers of folk they estimated still to be alive in that district, and when some men from his own district of Dyrnes had attempted to steal more for themselves, Bjorn Bollason himself had taken it from them and given it to the party from Hvalsey Fjord. At the last, when the food was loaded into the sledges and the skiers were about to set off, Bjorn Bollason had gone around to each sledge and greeted everyone by name, for he had a prodigious memory for names, and he had reminded everyone of the thanks that were due to God and the bishopric, for these provisions were the belongings of God Himself, and therefore especially wholesome, and this was generally considered a fine sentiment.
While Eyvind and the men from Isafjord were away at Gardar, Brenna Eyvindsdottir died in her bed of the coughing ill, and Freydis and Margret carried her corpus out of the steading and put it into a snowbank. Freydis was much cast down by this death, for it seemed to her that if Eyvind had