Hannah Kent - Burial Rites

Perhaps Natan forgot I was there, or else he did not care, but after a time he set his knife on the ground, and wiped his hands on a rag. Then he walked outside the workshop and stood on the furthest fringe of the outcrop, staring out to sea. I followed him.

I slipped my arms about his waist to comfort him and told him I was sorry.

Natan did not pull away from my embrace, but I felt his body stiffen at my touch. I buried my face into the greasy folds of his shirt and kissed his back.

‘Don’t,’ he muttered. His face was still turned towards the sea. I tightened my hands upon his stomach and pressed myself against him.

‘Stop it, Agnes.’ He grabbed my hands, and pushed me away from him. His muscles moved as he clenched and unclenched his jaw.

A gale picked up. It knocked Natan’s hat from his head and carried it out to sea.

I asked him what was wrong. I asked him if someone had threatened him, and he laughed. His eyes were stony. His hair, no longer constrained by his hat, whipped about his head in a dark tangle.

He said that he saw signs of death all about him.

In the silence that followed, I took a deep breath. ‘Natan, you’re not going to die.’

‘Explain the death waves then.’ His voice was low, taut. ‘Explain the premonitions. The dreams that I’ve been having.’

‘Natan, you laugh about those dreams.’ I was trying to remain calm. ‘You tell everybody about them.’

‘Do you see me laughing, Agnes?’

He stepped towards me and grasped my shoulders, bringing his face so close to mine that our foreheads touched.

‘Every night,’ he hissed, ‘I dream of death. I see it everywhere. I see blood, everywhere.’

‘You’ve been skinning animals —’

Natan gripped me harder about the shoulders. ‘I see it upon the ground, in dark, sticky pools.’ He licked his lips. ‘I taste it, Agnes. I wake with the taste of blood in my mouth.’

‘You bite your tongue in your sleep —’

He gave an unfriendly smile. ‘I saw you and Daníel talking about me by the boat.’

‘Let go of me, Natan.’

He ignored me.

‘Let go of me!’ I twisted myself out of his grasp. ‘You should listen to yourself. You sound like an old woman, harping on about dreams and premonitions.’

It was cold. A great, churning cloud had moved in from the sea, snuffing all but the faintest scratchings of light from the sky. Yet even in the near darkness, I could see Natan’s eyes shine. His gaze unnerved me.

‘Agnes,’ he said. ‘I’ve been dreaming about you.’

I said nothing, suddenly longing to return to the croft and light the lamps. I was aware of the ocean, not two steps from our feet.

‘I dream that I’m in bed and I can see blood running down the walls. It drips on my head and the drops burn my skin.’

He took a step towards me.

‘I am bound to my bed, and the blood rises about me until I am covered. Then, suddenly, it’s gone. I can move, and I sit up and look about me and the room is empty.’

He pressed my hand and I felt the sharp edge of his nail dig into the flesh of my palm.

‘But then, I see you . I walk towards you. And as I draw closer I see that you’re nailed to the wall by your hair.’

As he said this, a great gust of wind blew my cap from my head, and my hair was loosed. Unbraided as it was, the long tendrils were immediately lashed about by the wind. Natan quickly reached out and grabbed a handful, using it to pull me closer.

‘Natan! You’re hurting me!’

But Natan was distracted. ‘What’s that?’ he whispered.

On the wind I could suddenly smell the heavy stench of rot, dark and putrid.

‘It’s the seaweed. Or a dead seal. Let go of my hair.’

‘Shh!’

I was sick of his temper. ‘No one is out to get you, Natan. You’re not so important as that.’

I wrenched my hair out of his grasp and turned to walk back up to the croft, but Natan grabbed me by the sleeve of my blouse, twisted me and struck me full on the face.

I gasped and immediately brought my hand to my cheek, but Natan seized my fingers and held them tightly in his own, forcing me to crouch close to him. Even against the chill of the wind I could feel the blood rush to where he had hit me.

‘Never speak to me like that again.’ Natan’s mouth pressed against my ear. His voice was low and hard. ‘I shouldn’t have asked you here.’

He held me for a moment longer, twisting my fingers until I cried out from the pain, and then he released his grip and shoved me away from him.

I stumbled along the outcrop and up the hill to the croft in the low light, tripping over my skirts, the wind aching in my ears. I was crying, yet even over the sound of the wind, and my own ragged breathing, I heard Natan shout to me from where he stood on the knoll by the sea.

‘Remember your place, Agnes!’

I waited for Natan to return to the croft that night, and kept a lamp burning in the hope that when he returned we could make up our quarrel. But the hours crept past like the guilty and midnight came and went, and still he did not come inside. Sigga and Daníel had long undressed and fallen asleep in their beds, but I remained awake and watched the flame of the lamp dance upon its wick. My head pounded. I understood that I was waiting for something bad to happen.

Several times I thought I heard footsteps outside the croft, but when I opened the door it was only to the darkness and the sound of the waves breaking against the shore. A thick fog had come down and I could not tell if Natan had a light burning in his workshop. I returned to my cooling bed and continued to wait.

I must have fallen asleep. I woke in shadows; the lamp had extinguished itself, but I knew that Natan had not yet come to bed. Then I recognised his footfall sounding in the corridor — the rattle of the door latch must have woken me. I held my breath and hoped I would feel his warm hands drawing back the blankets of my bed. I would feel his body as he eased it in next to mine, and in my ear his soft voice would murmur, full of apology.

But Natan did not come to my bed. Out of slitted eyes I saw him sit upon a stool and take off his boots. He pulled down his trousers and slowly lifted his shirt above his head. His clothes lay scattered on the floor. He stood up again, and for a moment I thought I saw him move in my direction. But then he took two soft steps towards the window, and in the poor light I saw him draw back the covers of Sigga’s bed.

I knew then what Rósa meant when she had called us his whores. My body was stiff with the effort of not calling out, of not giving myself away, when I heard his whispered words and Sigga’s muffled response. I bit down on the flesh of my hand as a gauze of nausea wrapped about my stomach. My heart stopped. I choked on its missed beats.

I could hear him grunt as he thrust inside her. I closed my eyes and held my breath because I knew that if I exhaled it would come in a wail, and I screwed my fingernails into the flesh of my arm until I felt a slipperiness and knew there was blood.

I waited until Natan climbed out of Sigga’s bed and turned into his own. I waited until Sigga’s breath grew calm and even, and Natan began to snore. I waited until I knew they were asleep before I sat up and gazed at the blankets before me. My throat closed up with pain, and something else, something hard and inciting and as black as tar. I did not let myself cry. Rage flooded through me until my hands and back grew stiff with it. I could have quietly gathered my belongings and left before it grew light, but where would I have gone? I knew only the valley of Vatnsdalur; knew where it was scabbed with rock, knew the white-headed mountains and the lake alive with swans, and the wrinkled skins of turf by the river. And the ravens, the constant, circling ravens. But Illugastadir was different. I had no friends. I didn’t understand the landscape. Only the outlying tongues of rock scarred the perfect kiss of sea and sky — there was no one and nothing else. There was nowhere else to go.