Hannah Kent - Burial Rites

This waiting makes me want to be sick. Why not now? Why not pick up the axe and do the deed here, on the farm. Bjarni could do it. Or Gudmundur. Any of the men. God knows they’d probably like to push my face into the snow and take my head off without ceremony, without priest or judge. If they’re going to kill me, why not kill me now and be done with it?

It must be Blöndal. He means to cripple me with waiting before stretching my neck out. He wants me to break; he takes away the only comfort I have left in this world because he is a barbarian. He takes Tóti, and makes me watch time pass. A cruel gift, to give me so much time to farewell everything. Why won’t they tell me when I have to die? It could be tomorrow — and the Reverend is not here to help. Why won’t he come?

I am sick with finality. It is like a punch in the heart, the fact of my sentence alongside the ordinariness of days at the farm. Perhaps it would have been better if they had left me at Stóra-Borg. I might have starved to death. I would be mud-slick, stuffed to the guts with cold and hopelessness, and my body might know it was doomed and give up on its own. That would be better than idly winding wool on a snowy day, waiting for someone to kill me.

Perhaps next Sunday I could ask to go with Margrét to church. What else is God good for other than a distraction from the mire we’re all stranded in? We’re all shipwrecked. All beached in a peat bog of poverty. When was the last time I even attended church? Not while I was at Illugastadir. It must have been at Geitaskard, with the other servants. We rode there and changed into our best behind the church wall, feeling the nip of the morning breeze on our bare legs as we struggled into our better clothes, free from horsehair. I miss the stuffy warmth from too many bodies in one place, and the sniffing and coughing and the babies whimpering. I want to let the sound of a priest’s voice wash over me, just to hear the music of it. Like when I was small, hired out to backwater farms to wipe infants’ backsides clean of shit, and wash the laundry with ashes and fat; escaping to church to feel part of something. Pure.

Perhaps things would have been different if Natan had let me go to church at Tjörn. I might have made friends there. I might have met a family to turn to when it all became twisted. Other farmers I could have worked for. But he didn’t let me go, and there was no other friend, no light to head towards in that wintered landscape.

Perhaps Rósa and I might have been friends if we’d met in another way. Natan always said we were as alike as a swan to a raven, but he was wrong. We both loved him, for one. And no matter what I tell the Reverend, Rósa’s poetry kindled the shavings of my soul, and lit me up from within. Natan never stopped loving her. How could he? Her poetry made lamps out of people.

We never reached an understanding, although that was her fault as much as mine. As soon as Rósa met me, she made it clear we were on a battleground. She appeared in the badstofa at Illugastadir one summer night, like a ghost. No one heard her coming, or heard the door open. She just appeared, holding her little girl in her arms. She was dressed in black, and the sombre colour set off her skin so that she seemed to glow. Sigga always said that Rósa looked like an angel. But that night I thought she looked tired, world-weary.

I knew more about Rósa than she knew of me. ‘She is a wonderful woman,’ Natan said once, and a little hook of jealousy ripped at the fibre of my lungs. ‘She is a fine midwife, a great poet.’ He was the father of her child! That daughter of hers had his sharp way of looking, never missing anything. But he reassured me. ‘She suffocated me,’ he said. ‘She wanted me to live forever with her and her husband. But I needed to create a life of my own. And here I have it. My own farm. My independence.’

He convinced me that he had sent her letters saying he no longer wanted her. That his love for me had eclipsed that which he’d had for her. He liked the fact that I was a bastard, a pauper, a servant. ‘You have had to fight for everything,’ he said. ‘You take life by the teeth, Agnes. You are not like Rósa.’

Then that summer evening she stood in the doorway with their daughter, and Natan’s face lit up.

Rósa didn’t say anything. Her glance landed on me and her eyes narrowed. She might as well have raised a gun to my face.

‘You must be Agnes Magnúsdóttir. The Rose of Kidjaskard. The Rose of the valley lands.’

Her hand, released from its mitten, was frigid in my own.

‘Poet-Rósa. I’m pleased to finally meet you.’

Rósa looked over at Sigga, then raised her eyebrows at Natan. ‘I’m glad to see you’ve made yourself a pretty little household.’

I did not miss the accusation in her voice. I knew what I was doing when I stood next to Natan. He is mine now.

‘This must be Thóranna,’ I said. The child smiled at the sound of her name.

Rósa took her back into her arms. ‘Yes. Mine and Natan’s child.’

‘Come now, girls.’ Natan seemed amused. ‘Let us be friendly. Sigga, fetch us all some coffee. Rósa, take off your outer things.’

‘No, thank you.’ Rósa put Thóranna in a corner, away from me. ‘I only came to bring her here.’

‘What?’ Natan hadn’t told me Rósa’s daughter was coming to stay. I whispered to Natan, asking why he hadn’t told me this before. Why he hadn’t warned me Rósa would visit. I hadn’t known they still spoke together.

‘It is the least I can do for Rósa,’ he said. ‘Thóranna was with us last winter as well. She is my daughter and it is only right that she come live with us for part of the year.’

Rósa’s words were sharp. ‘I did not realise you consulted with her on everything, Natan? I didn’t know you were so far under her thumb. It’s clear she doesn’t want our child in her home.’

Natan was laughing. ‘Her home? Rósa, Agnes is my servant.’

‘Only your servant, is that right?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘I don’t want her to watch over our daughter.’

‘I am happy to look after Thóranna,’ I said. I was lying.

‘What makes you happy does not concern me, Agnes.’

Natan must not have liked to see his past and present lovers collide. ‘Come, Rósa. Let’s all have some coffee together.’

Her laugh was shrill. ‘Oh yes, you’d like that! All your whores supping together under your roof! No, thank you.’ Rósa wrenched her arm from his grip and turned to leave. But she said something to me before she walked out the door.

‘Please be good to Thóranna. Please.’ I nodded, and Rósa suddenly leant in closer. I felt her hand light upon my arm. ‘ Brennt barn forðast eldinn .’ Her voice was soft, careful. ‘The burnt child fears the fire.’ She left without turning back.

The little girl began to wail for her mamma and Sigga comforted her. Natan stared at the doorway, as though Rósa might return.

‘What have you told her about us?’ I whispered to Natan.

‘I haven’t told Rósa anything.’

‘What was that about the Rose of Kidjaskard? What was that about all your whores?’

He shrugged. ‘Rósa has a way of naming people. I expect she thinks you’re beautiful.’

‘It did not seem a compliment.’

Natan ignored me. ‘I’ll be in my workshop.’

‘Sigga is going to make coffee for us.’

‘Damn you, Agnes! Just leave it for once.’

‘Are you going after Rósa?’

He left without answering.

ONE NIGHT, IN A FEVER, Tóti saw Agnes appear in the doorway of the badstofa. ‘They’ve let her come here,’ he said to his father, who was bent over the bed, silently swaddling his shaking son in blankets.