Hannah Kent - Burial Rites

‘Eighteen times, is that so?’ Margrét murmured. She desperately wished Snæbjörn would come back to collect his wife.

‘In the stomach and throat.’ Róslín’s face was flushed with excitement. ‘And — oh, the Lord bless us — even in the face! I heard she plunged the knife into his eye socket . Pierced it like an egg yolk!’ Róslín grasped Margrét tightly on the shoulder. ‘If I were you I wouldn’t sleep a wink with her in the same room! I’d rather sleep in the cowshed than risk it. Oh, Margrét, I can’t believe the rumours are true! Murderers on our doorsteps! This parish has gone to the dogs. Worse than the things you hear about Reykjavík. And her , just now, standing in the very spot where my daughters play. It gives me the shivers. See, look at my arms — I am covered in gooseflesh! My poor Margrét, however shall you cope?’

‘I’ll manage,’ Margrét said briskly, bending down to pick up the plate of rye bread.

‘But will you? And where is Jón to protect you?’

‘At Hvammur, with Blöndal. Like I said.’

‘Margrét!’ Róslín threw her hands into the air. ‘It is wickedness for Blöndal to have you and the girls alone with this woman! I tell you what, I shall stay with you.’

‘You will do no such thing, Róslín,’ Margrét said firmly, ‘but thank you for your concern. Now, I hate to set you on your way, but the sheep will not milk themselves.’

‘Shall I help you?’ Róslín asked. ‘Here, let me take that bread and carry it inside for you.’

‘Goodbye, Róslín.’

‘Perhaps if I were to see her, I could gauge your danger. Our danger! What’s to stop her from sneaking about at night?’

Margrét took Róslín by the elbow and turned her in the direction she had come from. ‘Thank you for your visit, Róslín, and thank you for the rye bread. Watch your step, there.’

‘But —’

‘Goodbye, Róslín.’

Róslín cast a backward glance towards the croft, then attempted a smile and trudged heavily back down the slope towards Gilsstadir. Her little girls tottered after her. Margrét stood, gripping the plate of rye bread in front of her, and watched them leave, until they were nothing more than specks in the distance, then she squatted and coughed until her tongue was slippery. She spat wetly upon the grass. Then she slowly stood up, turned and walked back towards the croft.

WHEN I COME INTO THE badstofa I see that the officer who was sleeping is gone. He must have joined his friends; I can hear men talking in a mixture of Danish and Icelandic outside the window. They must not have seen the farm mistress push me back inside. The two sleeping daughters have gone also. I’m alone.

I am alone .

There is no watchful eye, no guard at the door, no rope, no fetters, no locks, and I am all by myself, unbound. I am paralysed by the thought of it. Surely someone has an eye to a keyhole? Surely someone has pressed his body to a crack in the wall, is waiting to see what I will do, waiting to storm the room with a finger pointing like a knife at my throat.

But there is no one. Not a soul .

I stand in the centre of the room, and let my eyes adjust to the gloom. Yes, I am quite alone, and a tremble of exhilaration passes along my skin, like the tremor on the surface of a pot of water about to boil. In this minute I can do anything: I can examine the cottage, or lie down, or talk aloud, or sing. I can dance, or swear, or laugh and no one will know.

I could escape.

A bubble of fear passes up my spine. It’s the feeling of standing on ice and suddenly hearing it crack under your weight — both thrilling and terrifying together. At Stóra-Borg I dreamt of escape. Of finding the key to my fetters and fleeing — I never thought of where I might go. There was never a chance. Yet here, now, I could slip out of the yard and run down the far end of the valley, away from the farms, to wait and escape under night into the highlands, where the sky will cover me with her rough, grey hand. I could flee to the heath. Show them that they cannot keep me locked up, that I am a thief of time and will steal the hours denied to me!

Specks of dust drift in the sunlight coming through the dried membrane fastened to the window. As I watch them, the thrill of escape is sucked away, like water down a geyser. I would only be trading one death sentence for another. Up in the highlands blizzards howl like the widows of fishermen and the wind blisters the skin off your face. Winter comes like a punch in the dark. The uninhabited places are as cruel as any executioner.

My knees are weak as I stumble to my bed. With my eyes closed, the silence of the room presses upon me like a hand.

When my heart slows, I look over to where the officer slept, the coverlet twisted and the worn mattress exposed. He ought to have replaced the bed board — he’ll have bad luck. Perhaps if the bed is still warm, he is nearby. It feels intrusive to touch the bare mattress, but it’s cold. He’s gone. My bed is made. I run my hands over the thin blanket, worn smooth from use. How many other bodies have lain here before me? How many nightmares have been produced under this cloth?

The floor is boarded, but the walls and ceiling are not, and the turf is in need of repair; slabs of dried sod have slumped inwards and thinned, leaving fissures in the wall and the room prey to draughts. It will be cold in winter.

But I might be dead before then.

Quickly! Push that thought away.

Dead grass hangs sinister from the ceiling like unwashed hair. A few carved ornaments have been arranged across the rafters, and a cross is nailed to the lintel over the entrance.

Do they sing hymns in the winter here? Maybe they recite the sagas instead — I prefer a story to a prayer. They whipped me for that at this farm, Kornsá, once, when I was young and fostered out to watch over the home field. The farmer Björn did not like that I knew the sagas better than him. You’re better off keeping company with the sheep, Agnes. Books written by man, not God, are faithless friends and not for your kind.

I might have believed him were it not for my foster-mother Inga and the lessons she gave me, delivered in whispers as he dozed in the evening.

Near the entrance, close to the mistress’s bed, is a grey woollen curtain that has been nailed to a slat. I suppose it serves as a door to the room beyond. The curtain falls short and in the gap above the floor the legs of a table are visible. They’re slightly splintered, as though someone has gnawed at them.

The badstofa is almost as bare as all those years ago, although little planks have been nailed between the sloping rafters and the wall supports to serve as shelves. They hold the usual things — wooden canisters, sheep horns, a pipe, fishbones, mittens and knitting needles. There is a small painted trunk under one of the beds. An abandoned slipper wanting mending. The familiarity of day-to-day things can be comforting. I once had things like this. My white sack with the dried flowers in it. The stone Mamma gave me before she left. It will bring you good luck, Agnes. It is a magic stone. Put it under your tongue and you will be able to talk to the birds.

That stone sat in my mouth for days. If the birds understood my questions, they never cared to answer them.

Kornsá of Húnavatn District. I was delivered to its doorstep at six years old with a kiss and a stone from Mamma, and now I’ve been dragged here again at three and thirty winters because of two dead men and a fire. I’ve worked at more northern farms than should have been my share. But poverty scrapes these homes down until they all look the same, and they all have in common the absence of things that ought to be there. I might as well have been at one place all my life.