Читать книгу White Shadow - Roy Jacobsen - Страница 11

Ingrid had a feeling of water. It ran into her ears and filled her thoughts – with words. She felt the weight of eider down and her own body heat; her hands no longer ached, they weren’t even red, her throat was dry, she said nothing and the foreign words continued to stream upwards from down below through the hatch in the floor.

She sat up, thrust her feet into the woollen lugg boots and went downstairs, but not into the kitchen, instead she put on a jumper and went out to fetch wood. The sky was grey, the light snow was falling gently, not a boat to be seen on the sea, but still the sound of birds, and again the screams, they came from within.

She went into the kitchen and the smell told her she would have to wash him once more, she took her time lighting the stove while he watched through a veil of fever and kept repeating the foreign word in a voice that was strangely deep for such a young man, now at least they were human sounds.

When at last she dared to look straight at him he stretched out the hand lacking only nails, and hid the other. She sat holding it until his eyelids drooped again. Then she washed him the way a human should be washed, it took time, she cried, ate, waited, the silence outside, the snow was becoming thicker and thicker, and he slept peacefully.

When it could be deferred no longer, she wound three scarves around her face and went to the south of the island with a sheath knife and one of her father’s old spritsails, followed the sounds and found the first one by the Russian tree trunk, he looked no more human than the body she had found on Moltholmen. She chased the birds away, cut a chunk off the sail and covered him, placed rocks on the corners and wondered what she would do if she found a woman.

The next was on the headland where she had stood watching the moving rocks. She covered him with sailcloth as well. The third lay directly south of the mooring line she used for the nets. She covered him with sailcloth and rocks and walked past the fleet of nets without looking down into the sea and found the fourth outside the Swedes’ quay house. In her schooldays Ingrid had read about mission fields and dreamed of saving the living, now she was saving the dead, husks emptied of their contents by maggots and birds. She wondered what made them float, supposed there must have been a shipwreck, some disaster, that day she was in her grandfather’s room, her ears filled with a sound she had never heard before, which stirred a strange fear in her because she nevertheless knew what it signified.

~

She went to the boat shed and pushed out the rowing boat, gathered the earthly remains in a netting bag and towed them to the quay, winched them up amidst a tornado of birds, then dragged them into the new quay house, where she covered them with old hemp sacking, wondering what would happen if there were prolonged mild weather and what she would do if she found a woman.

She went up to the house, again avoiding the kitchen, found her father’s old Krag rifle, took one of the rugs from her grandfather’s bed and settled into a prostrate position on the ground outside and aimed at the slate boat-house roof, which was black with birds, fired one shot after the other, reloaded and pointed the barrel at the white-headed giant sitting on one of the ridges. A black wing spun into the air and disappeared, a flock of seagulls and ravens and crows swirled into the grey sky, wheeled and dived back down. Ingrid reloaded and fired. Another wing spun into the air, one of a small eagle, two ravens, one black-backed gull; she realised the wind was a westerly, so the reports would be audible on the main island, now she had also shot to pieces the precious slate roof, she continued until she had run out of ammunition, got up and shook the snow off the rug.

When she went into the kitchen he was standing naked on thin, rickety legs, holding the edge of the table with the nail-less hand, and again he hid the other behind his back like a badge of shame – and stared at her in terror.

She showed him the gun, put it in the corner, and realised that she still had the scarves wrapped around her face, she peeled them off and told him to sit down and show her his burned hand.

He seemed not to understand.

She shoved him onto the bench and grabbed his hand, which wasn’t a hand but a black foot with five toes and no nails. She removed the charred fragments from the rug with a cloth and threw it in the stove, fetched some gauze bandaging and ointment, which she applied to his hand, then bound it as he wept soundlessly and stared at the window.

She told him that unless she was much mistaken, an easterly was on the way, so she could row over to the main island to see what had happened, fetch help . . . He repeated the foreign word, like an echo from the morning, and now she thought it sounded like mama.

She caught his eye, pointed to herself and said Ingrid. He nodded and looked down at his bandaged hand. She waited for him to look up, then pointed at him and asked him what his name was. He placed the white bundle against his chest and said Alexander. Ingrid nodded, said Alexander and smiled and repeated Ingrid, Ingrid and Alexander, as if to establish an incontrovertible fact, got up and mixed some redcurrant jelly and hot water and placed the cup in front of him and watched as he balanced the cup between the heels of his two hands and drank and wiped his mouth with the bandage and repeated “Ingrid” with great solemnity, as well as the word she thought must mean mother.

Alexander, Ingrid said.

She said that both his hands would get better, at any rate, he would be able to use them, for something.

He gazed into space, unable to understand.

She repeated what she had said. He nodded and stared at the window pane, which resembled a thin layer of ice. She boiled some more fish and potatoes and fed him when he indicated he couldn’t hold the spoon. She had something to eat herself, and took out the coffee mill, placed it between her knees and for the first time perceived a slight smile on his handsome face, the aroma of precious coffee in a kitchen and the sound of beans being ground. Ingrid had never seen whiter teeth and reflected on the uniform he had been wearing over the rags. She started asking him questions, which he didn’t understand.

She pressed him, he mumbled a few words, and they didn’t sound German. She asked him where he came from and how old he was and heard other words by way of an answer, they too were repeated, so she decided they must mean: I don’t understand.

There could be many reasons for him to be wearing a German uniform. Such as?

Ingrid got up, put the coffee into the kettle and waited until the grounds rose like a gas bubble in black mire and burst, then she lifted the kettle and banged it hard, twice, on the stove rings and poured out two cups, but didn’t place one in front of him. She put her own to her lips and drank, keeping her eyes on him as she asked if he wanted some coffee and heard him answer:

“Da, spasiba.”

She gripped the cup and asked him again if he wanted some coffee, he looked right and left, irritated and exhausted, as he repeated the two words and said something else, which didn’t sound German, either.

She gave him the cup.

He placed his white bundle on the table and knocked the cup over. She apologised, wiped the table and re-filled his cup, squeezed onto the bench, behind him, so that he had to lean back against her and she put the cup to his lips. He twisted his head, glanced up at her in surprise and slurped down some coffee while she became aware of the presence of a man in the house, and that there was no longer the slightest trace of that terrible stench. They sat like this to the sound of staccato breathing, as though she had never been a woman before, and could now allow herself for the first time to be filled with the overwhelming certainty that a different island did exist.