The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [317]
“Nay, my son. I have no curiosity at all.”
“Evil has gone on here. We may at the least bring a case.”
“Against whom?”
“That is what we will find out by careful gossip.”
“This seems an ill course to me. I have never had luck in the law courts.”
“But I have.”
Gunnar said, “I will say to you what Greenlanders always say to each other, which is that you will do as you please in this as in all else.” Now they sat quietly for a while, until the wife from a nearby steading brought them some bits of food for their morning meat, and then the Thorkelssons and Sira Eindridi got up, and the fragments of bone were cool, and these were placed in a sealskin bag, and buried among the remains of the unbaptized near Thjodhilds church, and the place of the burning was left through the summer, for no one cared to approach it or pick over the ashes.
Now Gunnar and the others went in the Gardar boat to the landing place that sits on the Eriks Fjord side of the Gardar neck, and they walked over the hill, and then Gunnar and Jon Andres and the Thorkelssons got into the Thorkelssons’ boat, and set off down Einars Fjord, and the weather was calm and clear. None of the men spoke much among themselves, only to mention icebergs that were floating near, or such items of business that no one cared to hear about. It was the case that the sight that he had seen both recurred to Gunnar’s thoughts and did not. The familiar snowy peaks and gray slopes with their skating black shadows passed on either side of the fjord in stately progression, apart from the effort of the rowers, who heaved and sweated just in front of where Gunnar was sitting. It occurred to Gunnar that such an event as had overtaken Kollgrim had never happened in the sight of these slopes before, for all the dangers of the hunt, and for all the pleasure Greenlanders took in fighting and killing each other, and for this reason it seemed not to have happened, in fact. Certainly he felt little grief and less anger. The punishment had fit the crime fantastically, like a huge man’s robe on a tiny child. Gunnar knew not how to think of it, or to feel it, or, for that matter, to speak of it to Birgitta. Such were his idle thoughts as the boat slid nearer and nearer to the Ketils Stead landing. And it seemed to him that he felt the parting with his son-in-law and former enemy more than he felt the parting with his son, for indeed, tears came into his eyes to see the familiar supple figure and the well-known curly head turn away from the boat and begin to climb the grassy slope that led to the steading.
Now Gunnar took his place at the oars, and the mountains, darkening with nightfall, began to recede from his gaze and disappear, leaving only the light of the water and the glow of the icebergs floating here and there. Skeggi Thorkelsson said, “Gunnar, the long day is ending, and my father Thorkel will be pleased if we bring you to Hestur Stead for what remains of the night.” But Gunnar refused this offer, and so some while later, they put him down at the landing, where folk who do not care to row around the wide spit of land that folds about Hvalsey begin their trek through the valley that leads to Lavrans Stead. And when they put him down here, the sky was as dark as it gets in midsummer, but light enough for him to see his way.
He was an old man, some fifty-six winters old, and he had repeated every step he was making myriad times before, and yet he was born like a baby into a new life, and each step toward Lavrans Stead was unsteady and frightening. Each glance ahead into the night was an effort to see into the future, which men cannot see, though they think to themselves that they can make familiar furniture out of the shapes before them. He stopped and looked about. A great storm of grief was waiting for him at his steading that he must lean