The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [254]
“It has not landed ill, Father. We are well, and fed, and very self-satisfied at Gunnars Stead.” Helga smiled at Gunnar, who smiled back. “I am telling you the truth. And you must tell me the truth, also, about my mother.”
“It may be that she longs for you and Kollgrim. It seems to me that she is much afraid, but not more afraid than she has been since the end of the hunger. At least she came to this feast, and folk are making much of her.” Now the two were served more meat, and each, out of courtesy, turned and spoke to the others they were sitting beside.
Some time later the eating was finished, and folk began to take down the benches and tables and go from room to room, speaking with praise of the food. Kollgrim did not move from his high seat, but only gave up his trencher to one of the servingwomen and sat with Birgitta, looking out over the folk who had eaten in their room. Now he moved his hand along the bench and put it over the hand of his mother. Birgitta said, “You have a great reputation as a hunter. Praise of your skill has come to us from three separate quarters this fall.”
“This is how we see that the skills of the Greenlanders have fallen off in late years. I know that I learned but a portion of what Finn had to teach. Game has been plentiful, and my skills appear greater than they are. I spy on the skraelings, as Finn did. They have many tricks.”
“Devilish tricks, folk say.”
“That’s what I think when I cannot mimic them.”
“You got beautiful foxskins for Helga. Her hood catches all eyes.”
“I have others that I would like to give you, my mother. They are the purest white, with only a shading of blue.”
“Nay, white foxes are too bright for old women. Folk would speak ill of me.”
“Let me show them to you. I have them with me.”
“Kollgrim, it is painful to desire what one cannot have. Promise me some suitable sealskins or even some dark foxes next summer.”
Kollgrim squeezed her hand. Birgitta went on, “Now it seems to me that folk are wandering from room to room, and they must wonder why we continue to sit here, gossiping between ourselves and avoiding our neighbors.”
“Must they? It seems to me that folk care little about what one does, one way or another.”
“And yet everyone has always had an opinion of you, Kollgrim, and I am not rebuking you when I advise you to think of this. It pleases me to hear praise of you.”
“After years of blame?” Kollgrim laughed. “Perhaps I wish only that folk did not care one way or another. There are my father and Johanna, and they are looking for you.” Kollgrim gestured across the room, and Gunnar approached.
It was one fault of Hestur Stead that the builders had not had much notion of the flow of air through the rooms, so that after many folk and much food and many seal oil lamps, the steading became close and smoky, and folk began going outside into the snow for fresh air. The sky was clear and starry, and the crusty snow cast the starlight back into the air, so that much could be seen, although the moon was but a slim crescent. Folk spoke to each other about how pleasant it would be to take their skates out on the fjord, or to find sealskins to slide upon down the crusty, slippery hills above the steading, and a leader in this merriment was Sigrid Bjornsdottir. Thorkel, who saw that his feast was going well, fell in with these plans at once, and went to his storerooms and found eight or ten sealskins and some old skates for folk who had not brought their own. Soon there were races and other games, and much laughter and shouting, so that those left inside were moved to put on their cloaks and come out and sit on the hillside in the starlight, talking and watching those who joined in the games. The air was still and not especially cold.
Now Johanna came to Helga and begged to borrow her skates, for she had been inside all day helping with the feast and, she said, her bones ached for some activity, and so Helga gave them to her sister, but with a twinge of regret, for she saw that Jon Andres Erlendsson and Kollgrim and all of the younger folk