The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [332]
And so it happened that she went through the summer, and through the preparations for her wedding and the feast as if spellbound. Sometimes Thorstein loomed near her, and sometimes he touched her, and sometimes he was far off, and she could hear his voice rising and falling, and laughter of folk that always followed him about. Her hands did their work of themselves—making cheeses, weaving, sewing in tiny stitches. They were busy and cozy with one another. Her lips opened and formed words that were suitable to every occasion, also of themselves, and the days passed in a stream. It is the case, her mother told her, that maidens are distracted by thoughts of their weddings, and their new lives. Certainly she had been very clumsy before marrying Bjorn Bollason, dropping everything, losing everything, until her own mother was ready to scream. And surely Sigrid had reason to be more distracted than most, for here she was getting ready to go off—Signy did not quite know what to make of this, her only daughter going off, perhaps never to return, or certainly never to return, and her boy Bolli as well. Signy dropped the spoon she was holding and put her sleeves to her eyes, and Sigrid turned to her, slowly, comprehending only with difficulty the significance of these actions. But now her arm went out, as a daughter’s arm should do, and went about her mother’s shoulders, and she made some noises, the proper noises, and when her mother had smiled again, and turned away from her, and picked up the spoon and gone about her business again, Sigrid forgot everything that had happened, although she could not have said what her thoughts returned to.
And so the day of the wedding came round, and the family and the Icelanders woke up in the priest’s house in Hvalsey Fjord, and Sira Eindridi and Sira Pall Hallvardsson loomed before Sigrid, who found herself in her wedding robe, with the Solar Fell wedding garland on her head, and many trinkets that had been given to her by Thorstein on her hands and her arms and her neck. Now folk took her hands and her arms, and led her across the grass toward the church, and through the doorway, just briefly, she caught a glimpse of Thorstein, her fated husband, and it seemed to her that just for a moment she rose out of the spell that had held her for the entire course of the summer, and she saw the cut of his shirt, and the roundness of his cheeks, and the way his beard grew high on them, and then she saw his eyes turned upon her, evaluating her with approbation, but not, really, looking into her own eyes, and she remembered, just for a moment, how Kollgrim Gunnarsson had met her gaze with his own, and then, just for another moment, the thought came to her that Thorstein’s gaze would always call forth in her thoughts the image of Kollgrim’s gaze, from now on, until death should part her from both of them, and then for another moment, she had the sense to be greatly frightened, and then those who were leading her pulled her forward, and she fell again into the spell of the summer, and went into the church, and the service was spoken, and she was led out again, this time by Thorstein, and she wondered, now, if she was a happy woman at last, or an unhappy woman forever, and then someone spoke to her, and her lips formed a merry jest, and everyone went into the priest’s house for the feast that had been laid for them, and some fifty guests, and more, sat about the tables, and ate their fill, for Bjorn Bollason the lawspeaker was a prosperous and a happy man.
Now the winter came on, and the first heavy snowfall, thick and wet, was on the ground before the cattle on most steadings were byred up, or the sealmeat was thoroughly dried from the autumn hunt. Shortly after this snowfall, a great, unseasonable wind picked up, and carried a deal of sand over the top of the snow,