The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [334]
“My sister, have you finished making over Ketils Stead to your own liking?”
Johanna said, mildly, “Indeed, there are other things to be done. But it may be that you would prefer that I not do them. When folk set out to please others, perhaps it is the case that they really set out to please themselves.” She smiled her slow smile again.
“I know not what you mean, but I see that our ways here do not suit you.”
“That is not what I was thinking. But I, too, have certain ways, for after all, I lived for a long time at Hestur Stead, and Jona’s reputation was well known to all. I mean only to do as you wish.”
Now Helga sat back and looked at her sister for a long moment, and then she smiled, and said, “Indeed, I do not know what I wish after all, except to feel myself again.” Now she sighed, and looked about, and that was the first day that the two spent together, and it was a long time before they ceased to be uneasy with one another, for they were not only different in their habits, but also in their concerns, and for Helga’s children Johanna cared not as Helga herself would, but with less tenderness and indulgence.
It happened that Helga felt her pains just at Yule, although she had not thought to feel them until nearly Lent, but they came on, and lasted for more than a day, and in the morning of the second day she was delivered of a boy, and toward the evening of that day, she was delivered of another boy, and where the first was tiny, the second was yet tinier, and neither of the two lived through the night. Helga herself gave forth much blood and other humors, and lay greatly weakened for many days, so weakened that she could barely speak or open her lips for nourishment, although Margret came every day around the hill to Ketils Stead, and made the girl strengthening drinks from herbs she had gathered the previous summer. Through this nursing, the women were much thrown together, and one day after Helga was able to sit up a little, Margret said to her in a low voice, “My Helga, it seems to me from this confinement and from what folk say of your confinement with Gunnhild, that you are little made for childbearing. You are like unto Helga Ingvadottir, your namesake and my mother, and you must take care that you preserve your life.”
Helga whispered, “It is always a mischance and a peril to have twins.”
“For most folk, the peril is to the children, not so much to the mother.”
“Even so.” She paused for a long moment. “Even so, such is the lot of wives, is it not?”
“They may stay apart from their husbands.”
At this, Helga turned away her head, and Margret fell silent, and these words lay between them for the rest of the morning.
It seemed to Helga that Margret might take it upon herself to speak of this matter to Jon Andres, and so when the two were about the steading at the same time, she looked after them, to see if they were having talk with one another, but they did not appear to exchange more than friendly greetings, and truly, her father’s sister was as silent as she was reputed to be. Still, after the exchange about childbearing, Helga was eager to have the older woman off the steading, and so she made herself sit up and smile, and throw her feet over the side of the bedcloset, and then to stand, although the color rushed out of her face, and she had to sit down again with a thump. She also forced whatever drinks and dishes that were offered her down her throat, whether they piqued her appetite or not. The result was that her strength seemed to return, as if by the power of her will, and she was up and about in the second week of Lent, and Margret stopped coming around the hill so often, and Johanna spoke once of going back to Gunnars Stead herself.
Helga saw it was the case that Jon Andres, whether he had been spoken to or not, was keeping much to himself. All winter, before Yule, and after he was certain that Helga was out of the danger of death, he had gone off many days and nights, and he said only that it had to do with a certain business that he and Gunnar