Alek Read online

  Everything was ready for departure. Alek ran home to collect the skin satchel Myna had sewn for him. She had greased it with fat to keep the water out and had helped him pack it.

  Now she came into the hallway holding a very small skin pouch, which she hung around his neck. He opened it and peeked inside and saw the glow from a couple of gold coins.

  “So you can manage,” said Myna, “if something should happen—or if someone needs your help. And take good care of yourself ! Don’t trust just anyone, and stick to people who make you feel comfortable!”

  She looked penetratingly at him with her dark-blue eyes, which seemed almost black in the dim hallway. She smiled.

  “I sound like an old woman,” she said, and threw her arms around him and gave him a hug. “Goodbye, little one.” Her voice was hoarser than usual.

  “I won’t be gone that long.”

  “You never know,” she said, and let go.

  Kotka came out of the parlor and took the leather satchel and slung it onto his shoulder, and together they all three went down to the waiting boat.

  When they got there, Sigge took hold of him without a word and lifted him on board, as if he was another sack of socks. Kotka threw Alek’s leather satchel after him and he caught it at the last moment.

  Six hands waved from shore and three from the boat. The men grabbed the oars, and soon they were out of the cove. The sail was hoisted, the wind was at their backs, and Crow Cove disappeared from sight.

  * * *

  Alek was cold and wet when they drew close to Last Harbor. The wind, which pushed the boat along at a violent clip, had sent shower after shower in their wake. Ahead of them the waves boiled around some reefs at the end of a rocky spit that stuck out from land.

  “Last Farewell,” yelled Sigge.

  “Furl the sail!” the first mate ordered, and now they had to use the oars to manage the point.

  The men at the stern pulled steadily through the seething waves and turned the boat out toward the sea. A wave hit the side and water slammed over them. It poured off the men’s beards.

  “Row, you lazy dogs!” yelled the first mate.

  All six struggled, gazes blank with effort. Then one of them began to chant in a deep voice in time with the long pulls:

  “Row to the rolling sea

  Row with the fish below

  Row o’er herring and bream

  Row o’er cod and ling…”

  They rounded the reef, where the waves swirled, exposing the black rock at their base. Alek could feel a light scraping against the side of the boat and pulled away.

  “Sit still!” snarled the man behind him.

  “… row to the cabin

  Row to the old lady

  Row to the bed

  and…”

  “Shut your trap,” yelled Sigge. “Save your vulgar ditties for poorer company than ours.”

  The man fell silent. Everyone grew silent. They had cleared the point and the boat raced along over the calm, protected water beyond it. Two burning tar torches marked the entrance to the harbor, and behind them were golden squares lit in the dusk; a final rain shower hit them from the side and pulled the night along with it. The lights swiftly came closer. On land awaited warmth and shelter and full pots.

  4

  Alek’s legs were stiff; the world rocked beneath him when he finally stood on the pier. The men at once began to empty the boat in the light from a couple of torches.

  Eidi came over to him and Frid, but she didn’t take her eyes off the work.

  “Don’t you want to come home with me? Of course, it’ll take a little while … Watch those geese; those are live animals! But I have…”

  “You’re busy,” said Frid. “We’ll try to find Ravnar.”

  “You can’t. They’re at sea.”

  “Then we’ll try the inn. Let’s go!”

  * * *

  Alek staggered along. Frid put out his arm so Alek could lean on him, but he wanted to manage himself.

  * * *

  There were no other guests in the parlor of the inn. A woman came over to greet them.

  “It’s a quiet night when the boats are at sea. I don’t have all that much to offer, but you won’t go hungry. First you’ll get a warm cup of tea and then I’ll see what I can rustle up.”

  She brought them both mugs of tea and disappeared into the kitchen. A big log crackled peacefully in the fireplace, and a clock on the mantel chimed three slight, crisp strikes. On either side of the clock lay two big pink conch shells, and on the walls hung pictures: colored drawings of strange fruits and, on the wall right next to Alek, a girl with black curly hair, herding a flock of goats on a mountainside above a turquoise-blue sea.

  The woman returned with a big bowl of fish soup for each of them. They ate in silence, the wind howling around the house and the clock chiming at regular intervals. The woman came back and removed the empty bowls and gave them each a plate with lamb chops and a smooth mash of white beans.

  Finally they were served a kind of tart filled with prunes and more cups of strong tea. The woman put three glasses on the table and asked if they would like some warm, spiced wine. Frid said yes, thank you, for them both. The woman got the pitcher and poured.

  She took a glass herself and sat down in a big chair in front of the hearth. She placed her feet with their swollen ankles on a stool and sighed. Holding his glass, Frid nodded to Alek.

  “Now you must be both full and warm,” he said.

  “Very full and very tired,” Alek admitted, and leaned back in his chair and sipped the hot, sweet brew.

  Frid turned to the woman.

  “That was a delicious meal,” he said, and the woman nodded slightly in thanks. “Tell me, do you know a younger fisherman named Ravnar?”

  “Ravnar Heavy Heart we call him,” she answered. “Yes, I know him. He has rented a little cabin from me down on the beach.”

  At that moment there was a faint knock on the window, no louder than the sound of a fingernail or the beak of a sparrow. The woman started, jolting her glass, so a few red drops landed on her white apron.

  “What was that?” asked Alek.

  “People say,” answered Frid, “that if there is a knock on the window three times in a night then a ship has gone down.”

  “The last time I heard that sound someone had gotten lost in the fog. But let’s not talk about that.”

  She got up and went into the kitchen and came back without her apron.

  “Do you have a place where we can sleep?” asked Frid.

  “Yes, you can have the best in the house; you’re the only guests.”

  She threw open the door to a room next to the parlor. There were two big beds with white sheets and a little table between them, two armchairs in front of a fireplace, and on a small sideboard with a marble top stood a dish of soap, a wash basin, and a water pitcher.

  “Should I light the fire?”

  Frid shook his head. So she lit the candles in the candlesticks, wished them a good night, and left.

  “Isn’t this expensive?” Alek wanted to know.

  “Yes,” said Frid as he pulled off his pants. “But then you’ll have tried it.”

  Alek was already lying under the cool eiderdown comforter. The bed lifted him gently up and down like a rolling sea, and behind his eyelids were pictures of South Sea fruits and herding girls and boatmen. Frid blew out the candles and climbed into the other bed.

  Right before Alek fell asleep, he thought he heard a faint tapping on the window, but perhaps it was just a dream that began as the bed rocked him off onto the night’s sail.

  * * *

  The town was checked in black and white: whitewashed houses and black tarred sheds crept up along narrow streets and alleys. The boats had come in, and long rows of women stood cleaning fish on old doors and broad planks resting on sawhorses.

  The gulls dipped and screamed around them, and children put the cleaned cod in big salt troughs and the liver in barrels,
where it would end up as cod-liver oil. The whole harbor smelled of fish.

  Frid asked around—all the boats had come in. The innkeeper had told them how to get to Ravnar’s cabin, and they continued along the harbor up over a cliff and down to the beach on the other side.

  Here you couldn’t see any houses other than the cabin that lay in the inner hollow of the point that stuck out into the sea, the point Sigge had called Last Farewell. A little stream had hollowed out a course behind the cliff and across the beach not far from there. Between the stream and the cabin lay a pile of driftwood.

  The cabin was built of black tarred wood. A whitewashed brick gable with a chimney faced the sea. No smoke rose from the chimney, the roof was covered by worn peat, the small windows were grubby with sea fog, and the cabin seemed abandoned.

  But inside in the sleeping alcove they found Ravnar, asleep and ash-gray with exhaustion in the cold room. On the table lay a heel of bread—which must have lain there for many days, it was hard as rock—and a few slices of sausage, which had curled up at both ends. The milk in the glass was so thick that it had separated.

  On the floor lay his clothes, greasy and heavy with seawater, making muddy puddles. Frid found an old canvas sack in a corner and gathered the clothes in it. Then he went through the cabin and took all the laundry he could find.

  “The sheets will have to wait until he wakes up.”

  He gave Alek the sack and asked him to take it up to the innkeeper to see if she knew a washer-woman. He would stay behind and light a fire and clean.

  “And then stop by Eidi’s and buy tea and sugar and candles, and a bucket of soap and a scrubbing brush, bread, butter, and cheese and whatever else you can think of.”

  He handed Alek a gold coin. Then he lifted a pipe from the table.

  “And a little pouch of tobacco—and a jug of beer. Can you carry all that?”

  “Easily,” answered Alek, and he hoisted the sack on his back and hurried to town.

  5

  All life took place in the harbor; up here among the houses and cabins you didn’t see anyone except an occasional housewife behind a polished window or a glimpse of a rat rounding a corner.

  The innkeeper had sent Alek to the middle of town, where she knew a washerwoman. He found her by sniffing his way, because a strong smell of steam and soap came out of the building and down the lane, and the courtyard was covered with clotheslines and sweet-smelling sheets, flapping in the wind.

  He handed over the heavy sack and followed the road along the stream down toward the harbor again. Small steps, carved into the cliff, led to the water, and on the other side lay a long row of houses. Several of them were built together, gable to gable, so only the chimneys revealed where one ended and the next began. A flock of jackdaws chattered above his head and a cat streaked across the road with a small, silvery fish in its mouth.

  A bridge crossed the water, and he walked to the middle of it and looked up at the stream, until the sun made him close his eyes and throw his head back and enjoy the warmth on his skin. Somewhere a baby began to cry, then fell silent a moment later.

  He finally found Eidi’s house by the road that led to the harbor square. It was a long building with living quarters at one end and the store at the other. It was taller than the other houses because it had a basement with windows at street level. Behind it lay stables, sheds, and storage rooms. A staircase led up to the store.

  Eidi was alone when he stepped in. She stood at a desk writing numbers in a fat black book. Her hair was put up in a bun at the nape of her neck, and her dress was light brown with a pattern of little rosebuds and leaves and a cream-colored lace collar.

  A small gold pin held the collar together, and on her little finger was a gold ring with a green stone. She looked so grownup and elegant. When she saw him, she smiled and came over.

  “I need to buy some things,” he said, searching his pocket for the gold coin and placing it on the counter.

  “That’s a big coin, but you don’t have to pay for this,” she said, and offered him a hard candy from a tin.

  He took it in his mouth and gave up on talking for a while because it was so big that there was no room to move his tongue. He looked around.

  He had never seen so many different things gathered in one place. Dress fabric, knitting supplies, rope and fishing lines, knives, hooks, pots, pans, barrels of herring and salt pork, sacks of flour and sugar, oats and potatoes and …

  “Did you find Ravnar?”

  He nodded.

  “It’s a hard life.” Eidi’s brow furrowed in a small horizontal line. “Wouldn’t you rather stay here with me?”

  He shook his head. The furrow grew deeper.

  “What was it you needed?”

  Alek ground the candy between his teeth to free up his mouth. At that moment the door opened and Sigge stepped in. Eidi’s face lit up in a smile. He came over to the counter and placed a wooden case before her.

  “Can you use this?”

  The chest was made of light, reddish yellow wood with a large E worked into the lid in an almost black wood and with a rhombus in whitish yellow mother-of-pearl on either side of the letter. She turned the key in the lock and opened it. The inside was divided into a row of small and a row of large compartments.

  “For money, I was thinking,” said Sigge.

  “You’re right about that,” said Eidi, and let her hand glide across the lid.

  “Then it’s yours.”

  Sigge lifted his knitted cap and disappeared out the door.

  “Where were we?” asked Eidi, but the smile remained in her eyes. Alek began.

  She found the items for him and suggested he also buy six freshly laid eggs that she had received that same morning and a piece of freshly smoked bacon.

  “He needs something warm. You have to come here to eat one night—next time he’s in port.”

  “But he’s in port now.”

  “They are going out again the day after tomorrow.”

  She carefully packed his purchases in a canvas sack and gave him the eggs in a little basket.

  “Do you have anything to sleep on?” Without waiting for an answer she got out two blankets, which she rolled together like a sausage and gave him tied together with rope to go across his shoulder.

  “You can return them when you leave.”

  He staggered toward the door.

  “You need your change,” she yelled after him.

  “Can’t I leave it here with you?”

  “Of course,” she said, laughing, and ran after him and stood on the staircase.

  “Do you need help?”

  “No,” he called without stopping or turning around, though he was sure that she was still there waving to him.

  “Goodbye,” he yelled before he turned the corner, but by then she must have shut the door.

  * * *

  Late in the afternoon, the heat and the smell of bacon and soap finally got Ravnar to open his eyes. He stuck out his head and looked around in confusion before he caught sight of Frid and Alek.

  “I didn’t expect a visit,” he said, and pulled his head in again.

  After a while, he said from behind the curtain, “Why are you here?”

  Alek didn’t know how to answer and Frid apparently didn’t either. Then Ravnar appeared again and looked around one more time.

  “What have you done?” he asked.

  “Cleaned,” said Alek. “And shopped and gotten your clothes washed. They’re hanging there.”

  He pointed at the line that was strung from wall to wall in front of the hearth.

  “How are you going to get them dry by tomorrow morning?”

  “They are almost dry. They’ve been hanging there for hours.”

  “Hmmm,” Ravnar noted doubtfully. “And what about now?”

  “Put on a blanket,” Frid suggested, and threw one of Eidi’s thick blankets over to him.

  He caught it and threw it back and turned around and dug his own worn
one from the alcove. Then he sat down in the chair by the table.

  Frid handed him a plate with fried bacon, two eggs sunny-side up, and a big slice of bread, and Ravnar wolfed it down. It was all gone in an instant.

  Then Frid served Alek and himself, while Ravnar continued to eat whatever was on the table. He washed down the food with one mug of tea after another. He didn’t stop eating until there was nothing left.

  “That’s the best meal I’ve had in a long time,” he said, and offered Alek and Frid something that might have been a tiny smile.

  “Do you mind if we stay here for a few days?” asked Frid.

  “If you want to see me, you might have to stay more than a few days.”

  He ran his hand through his longish black hair.

  “Then that’s what we’ll do,” said Frid, and pushed the pipe and a little pouch of tobacco over to him.

  And while Ravnar sat in front of the hearth with his legs up on a stool and let the bluish smoke rise in long spirals, Frid and Alek constructed a broad, low bed in the corner by the hearth. They collected bone-dry seaweed high up on the beach and placed it under one of the blankets as a mattress; they’d cover themselves with the other one.

  Frid sent Alek up to the innkeeper for a pail of warm soup. Ravnar ate a single bowlful and drank a mug of beer. Then he disappeared behind the curtain and a little later they heard him breathing deeply.

  Frid sat staring into the fire. Alek glanced at him. He looked so serious. He turned his head and looked at Alek.

  “Well, should we see about getting some sleep?”

  * * *

  Alek couldn’t remember ever having slept with Frid. He smelled different, a bit harsh like tarry soot, and he was big and heavy so that the boards bent when he turned over.

  Alek lay awake for a long time and stared into the darkness, listening to the two sleeping men, before finally drifting off.

  6

  The rocks were white with cod and the intense and sour smell blew across the town. Alek was on his way home with the heavy sack of sheets that he had picked up from the washerwoman. He crossed the little bridge and continued down past the inn. The innkeeper appeared in the door as he went by.