The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [325]
When the spring came on, and the ice in Eriks Fjord broke up, and folk began going about in boats again, Margret put together some of her pieces of wadmal, the same number as she had brought with her to Solar Fell during the great hunger, and also a change of clothing, and she went to Signy’s brother, who had a boat, and asked to be taken into Kambstead Fjord, where she could begin a trek to Hvalsey Fjord, for indeed, she longed to see her brother Gunnar with the longing of old people, that despairs, for lack of strength and time, to be fulfilled. Now Signy’s brother went to Signy’s mother, and spoke to her of this, because it seemed to him that the woman was too old to make such a trek, but Signy’s mother said only, “It must be that she knows her own mind, and it is not for us to stop her.” And so the man rowed her the long way around, into Kambstead Fjord, and set her down at the landing where folk begin the trek across to Hvalsey Fjord, which is a short and easy walk, although going around the edge of the fjord is tedious and lengthy.
Toward evening, Margret came to the door of the steading, and saw that the place had been abandoned. She pushed open the door and went inside, intending to spend the night. She was very tired from her long walk, and sat heavily on the bench against the wall of the steading. It was the case that she had depended upon his being here, that through her walk had made up the image of him standing in the doorway, then stepping forward to greet her, in such vivid colors that she had not thought of missing him. It was as if he had been given to her and taken from her all over again. She looked about the walls of the steading, at the broken or worthless objects left behind on the shelves and lost among the rushes on the floor, and then she laid her head down upon her arms on the table, and surrendered herself to such tears as she had never endured before, and as copious as they were, they seemed to be squeezed from her as water might be squeezed from stones, by the greatest crushing might, perhaps by the might of God Himself, from whom she had always turned her face.
Some little time later, Margret crept into one of the bedclosets, and lay there. Now what she had done seemed foolish and impossible to her, and she thought with longing of the round of work that she was accustomed to in Dyrnes and Solar Fell. Gunnar’s face recurred to her over and over, not as it had done, but as she remembered it when he left her on the strand at Steinstraumstead, bitter and disapproving, his blue eyes as cool as water and distant as the vault of the sky. She saw now, lying in his bedcloset, as she had never seen before, that he was her implacable enemy. Always before she had thought of her own love for him as a child, or her annoyance with him after Asgeir died, or her jealousy of Birgitta. Never had she considered his feelings for her, but now as she lay where he had lain for so many nights, his thoughts seemed to be seeping into her, and it was not that he thought of her with antagonism, it was that he had no thoughts of her at all. He shunned thoughts of her. Had not Kollgrim been surprised, at their first meeting, even to be told that she was his father’s sister? He had not even heard her name about the steading, as he would have had she died. It was Kollgrim’s way to accept such things, and not to be curious, and Margret had thought little of his surprise at the time, especially in her pleasure at getting to know him, but now the meaning of such ignorance flooded her, and she shrank before it. It was not that she couldn’t make the trip to Vatna Hverfi district, but that he would turn that same empty gaze upon her when she arrived. Wasn’t she as implacable in her way? Couldn’t she look into her own heart and recall how she had willed everything away—all grief, all desire, all hope—how she had worn herself down to a stone? Seeing that, could she expect any less from Gunnar?
Now she bethought herself