The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [252]
Helga was wearing a thick white cloak with finely woven purplish trim, and a striking hood of blue fox furs that was drawn tight about her face, and then fell over her cloak nearly to her waist. In his pack Kollgrim carried a dozen more fox furs, these nearly white with just a tinge to them of blue the color of twilight. Sigrid Bjornsdottir, he knew, would be at the feast.
Helga carried her skates, for the most direct route from Gunnars Stead to Hestur Stead lay partly across the ice of two Vatna Hverfi lakes. Now it happened that the sun rose, and Helga sat herself beside the ice of Antler Lake. Kollgrim was not far off from her, standing on the ice of the lake and looking across it for telltale dark areas in the snow that would indicate weak or melting ice. Kollgrim shouted to her that the ice looked safe to him, and Helga began to tie on her skates with some relief, for the other route to Hestur Stead, which lay over some hills, was much harder in the winter, without horses, than it was in the summer. Just then it happened that she saw a figure nearby, in the corner of her eye, just where the Devil appears, and at first she was afraid to look, because she feared that the figure might disappear, and then she would know that it was the Devil she had seen, but just then Kollgrim cursed and exclaimed, and Helga looked up, and she saw that the figure was not the Devil himself, but Jon Andres Erlendsson. Kollgrim said, “It cannot be that he, too, is going to Thorkel’s feast.”
“It seems to me that Thorkel would hardly have a feast and fail to invite the greatest farmer in the district. Especially since folk would say that such an oversight was a sign of enmity.”
“But—”
“Indeed, my brother, you must turn away from him, and act as if you have not seen him. I am finished, and we must make our way across the lake.” He stepped over to her and lifted her to her feet, and they began across the lake without saying anything more, but it seemed to Helga that the other man was coming closer and closer to them, that she could feel degrees of heat as he approached, indeed, that she could feel the ice under her feet tremble when he stepped onto it with his servingman. She thought of how she would greet him, as if in surprise, or perhaps more coolly and distantly than that, knowing that he knew that she had seen him. It seemed an impossible thing to be cordial to him, and yet when she stumbled and Kollgrim took her elbow to steady her, she could feel in Kollgrim’s hard, trembling grip that he was much angered, and so at once it seemed to her that it was an impossible thing not to be cordial to him. She wrenched her elbow from Kollgrim’s grip, and they skated onwards, somewhat farther apart. Helga saw that Kollgrim was looking at her, and so she dared not glance back to see where Jon Andres Erlendsson might be. She promised herself that she would see him at the feast.
And indeed she did, for Thorkel made much of him, and he was everywhere in evidence. Even though it was clear to everyone that Thorkel’s regard was partly for the sake of separating himself from Ofeig, it was also the case that Jon Andres Erlendsson was a personable man, and charming even to folk who should have known better, who had suffered from his mischief or lost cases to Erlend’s and Vigdis’ tricky legal maneuvers. Kollgrim said, “How the Devil has the trick of making himself attractive to folk.” It was not a trick that Kollgrim himself had, Helga well knew. “Even so,” she replied, “it would be well for you to dissemble your curiosity before our father, for he is looking for a reason to bring us back to Hvalsey Fjord, and I can see him approaching now.” But indeed, dissembling was no trick of Kollgrim’s either, and the agitation of his spirit was as visible to Gunnar and Birgitta as it was to Helga.
Now Birgitta greeted her children joyfully, and pinched their arms, as mothers do in the winter, to see if they have any flesh, and looked into their faces, and she gazed first