The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [341]
“Now I see that this little one really does wish to please me. It seems to me that I have such a hunger that I could eat you out of this steading, and it has been no little time since I have had such a treat.”
And Johanna said to Helga, “In the back of the near storeroom. You can feel with your hands where the butter and the dried sealmeat are. And there are other things, too. Some dried reindeer meat, and some mutton, and a round of cheese.” And Helga went out, trembling, and felt about the storeroom in the dark with clumsy fingers, and returned with what she had found, and then she stood again beside Ofeig, and held the trencher while he ate from it. Now he sat down upon the bench, with Johanna on his lap, with her arm still twisted behind her, and he let out two mighty belches, and then he began to lay his hand upon Johanna’s belly and breasts, and Helga saw her sister close her eyes, and move her lips in prayer. Helga said, “You have eaten much savory food, Ofeig Thorkelsson. Are you not dry, as well?”
“Give me the day’s milking, for I am dry enough, now that you mention it.”
Now Helga opened the door of the steading, and reached for a vat of ewe’s milk from the evening milking, for it was the case that everyone had been so weary from the day’s tasks that the vats had not been carried to the dairy, and she brought it into the steading and dipped up two cups full for Ofeig. He took his hand off Johanna’s breast and drank them down, and then two more, and then he let out another belch and put his hand on his belly. And it seemed to Helga that he had eaten a prodigious amount, more than any three men. And now there was a whimper from Unn, a whimper followed by a cry, and Helga stepped back suddenly, and put her hand into the bedcloset. Ofeig began to stand up, Johanna still with him, and he opened his mouth to speak, but then he suddenly clutched for his belly with both hands, and doubled over on the bench. He let out a groan, and now he began to vomit all of the food he had gorged himself upon, and it spewed out everywhere, all over Johanna, and the broken table, and the floor, and a little bit on the hem of Helga’s robe, and Johanna, her arm free, jumped away and grabbed the ax and the knife he had laid down for the tasks of eating and fondling her. And she said, “Ofeig Thorkelsson, you are the Devil indeed, and it is manifest in your hatred and your gluttony, and now you are cast down, through the grace of the Lord and the intercession of our prayers.”
And now Ofeig began rolling about in the agony of a big feeding after a long fast, which every Greenlander is wary of, and the servingwomen came forth out of the bedclosets, where they had been hiding, and they began to beat upon Ofeig with trenchers and other utensils, about the head and the shoulders. Johanna even lifted the ax, but indeed, he had more strength than they thought, for suddenly he scrabbled to his feet and threw himself out the door, and the last they saw of him, he was running off in the moonlight.
Through the broken-down roof, Helga saw that the sky was lightening toward dawn. She sat down upon the bench, and looked at the others gathered about her. Gunnhild sat upon Oddny’s lap, and Unn sat upon Thordis’ lap, and Johanna sat with a smile on her face, and with her arm limp at her side, and Helga said, “Your arm must hurt you