The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [290]
“I hope in the morning that I will see him in the evening, and I hope in the evening that I will see him in the morning, and my hopes are always fulfilled.”
“But soon you will have your own child, and have to give over your visits to this one.”
“We may yet persuade Elisabet to bring the child to Ketils Stead. But, indeed, it is a hard thing to move her. Jon Andres declares that she looks like a bird but is as heavy as a whale.”
Now Kollgrim said, “Things are not ill for her at Gunnars Stead. There is plenty of food about the place, and warm furs in the bedclosets.” And after this, Birgitta and Helga gave over their talk of Elisabet and the child. Now a procession of finely dressed folk came down the hillside, and the group was comprised of Sigrid Bjornsdottir and some other Solar Fell folk and some Icelanders, including Thorstein the rhymer, Thorgrim, his wife Steinunn, her sister Thorunn, Snorri the ship’s master, and some other folk. All the Greenlanders turned their heads to gaze upon these newcomers, and Kollgrim gazed upon them, too, Helga saw, as if his eyes were starting out of his head, and Helga had not known that he cared so much for Sigrid. She grew frightened, and gripped her mother’s arm tightly. Now the group passed where they were sitting, and Sigrid’s gaze fell first upon Helga and then upon Kollgrim, and she smiled, but as much in embarrassment as in pleasure. Helga saw that her eyes searched Kollgrim’s face for a moment before dropping to the grass. Helga turned and looked at Kollgrim. He looked at Sigrid not at all, but at someone else in the group. Helga could not discover who this might be, for all were bunched together and talking merrily. Sigrid joined them with hardly a hesitation, only the hesitation of her fleeting look at Kollgrim, then at Elisabet Thorolfsdottir, then at the child. The procession passed on. Now Helga looked at her mother, and Birgitta looked as well at her daughter, and it seemed to Helga that some knowledge passed between them, and Helga was much afraid, for Birgitta had a great reputation for sight.
It was the case with this Gardar feast that there were actually two days of eating, as well as four services, for indeed, if many men were to make their way to St. Nikolaus Cathedral, then they must gorge themselves on liturgy and prayer, for they would see little enough of it through the winter, in spite of the efforts of Sira Eindridi and Sira Andres. The cathedral was always full of folk, for folk like to pray in the presence of a relic, though it be only the last finger bone of the least finger. Many offerings were left to this St. Olaf the Norwegian, and folk felt better for it. Larus the Prophet himself spent a deal of time kneeling before the reliquary, and folk remarked at the stillness of his posture and the length of his prayer. Ashild stood nearby, with little Tota, watching him, and when he was finished, she helped him to his feet, and he staggered away leaning upon her shoulder.
Now folk were called into the cathedral for the first service, and they packed in so tightly that they sat upon one another on the benches, and although there was no fire, there was sufficient warmth. Sira Eindridi pronounced the mass, and it seemed to some folk that he filled out the parts he didn’t know with bits of prayers that he remembered from elsewhere, or had made up. As usual, he gave a great long sermon, full of damnation and sorrow, and dire predictions of Hell, where, he said, fire burned like ice, and damned souls eked a bit of rotten cheese out for eternity and their bellies were never full, and always raging with the stomach ill, so that they covered themselves with shit, and suchlike predictions, and during this sermon, as usual, folk began to talk quietly among themselves, which drove the priest to an even greater pitch of anger, so that his face grew as red as ash berries and he had to stop speaking for gales of breath that shook him. But now came the communion time in the service, and men fell quiet and attended to their prayers.
It happened