We never saw our minister again after the funeral. For a while we were saddled with that clumsy interloper, and Sundays become an affliction. I made the journeys to Warns with bad grace and on the way back home I would tear to pieces everything that we had been assailed with from the pulpit, every last why and wherefore.
Then another minister came, a long-winded, boring old man. Religion lost all its appeal, and there was no longer any question of floating on high in the church.
A small black and white object is drifting in the waves under a cloudy, threatening sky. Sometimes I can see it clearly, occasionally disappearing until I spot it again a bit further away, bobbing up and down in the swell. Armed with a stick I crouch on the shingle and wait patiently for the tide to bring it in.
It is a kitten, its bulging belly floating on the water like a balloon, its limbs and head drooping down. I try to fish it towards me, thrashing about in the sea with my stick. It must be rescued from the cold water, it must be taken to safety, it must not be allowed to go on endlessly rolling about in the water. Finally it is in reach and I lay it down at the water’s edge, a crumpled coat, limp little paws and a grinning vacant face. I go to look for a piece of wood to carry it to the small beach on the other side of the harbour.
Just beneath the shingle I dig a hole in the wet sand and place the kitten there on a little bed of grass. Miserably wrinkled and creased, it lies on its side, a pitiful little toy. I pray as the minister might have done, using his words and intonations.
When the hole has been filled in again, I go back home to fetch a small paper flower Mem keeps in a drawer, and place it on the grave. On this spot, unknown to anybody, I can hold acts of worship. From here I can send up my prayers for my mother and for the minister’s wife. I can make offerings: pieces of broken pottery, a peeled-off ten-cent postage stamp, the lid of an old slate pencil box. If I am kind to the kitten, my prayers are sure to be heard. That’s the way it is. For a time, it absorbs my attention so much that even my memories of Jan and the afternoon on the Red Cliff become blurred.
Chapter 9
In the morning when I look out of the window with sleepy eyes I can see that the cloud cover is beginning to break up in the distance. For days the sky has been covered with low, dark clouds, like a lid on top of a pan. I had been feeling dejected and listless: the daily journey to school had suddenly seemed an insurmountable obstacle course to us, and the house, so crammed with people and their doings, had felt too small and threatening as if everything had been conspiring to drive me into a corner and curb my freedom.
‘Now we’ve had it,’ Mem had said, stamping her clogs in the stone yard, ‘winter is coming.’
The land lies chill and washed clean under a leaden weight, pools of rainwater sparkling in the grass and the cows moving through the sodden pasture on hooves black with mud.
When we were getting up, Hait had said to me, ‘Today we’re going to take a sheep to Stavoren, in the boat. It looks as if it’s going to be a fine day, so if you want to come along, just tell Mem. You can skip school just this once.’
Besides, it’s Saturday, and if I do go along I won’t be missing anything that matters. Saturday mornings at school seem to be nothing more than preparation for the doldrums of our Sunday rest.
I try to keep my balance as I walk up the wobbly gangplank to the boat where, tied to the rail, the sheep already lies meekly waiting, panting heavily.
It is still quiet in the harbour, a few fishermen are busying themselves with buckets and flat wooden crates, their voices echoing along the quay. A bucket of water, emptied beside a boat, has the tumultuous sound of a plunging waterfall. Though I have been on the boat several times, I have never gone out to sea in it. Either the boat had already left, or I would be missing school, ‘And your parents wouldn’t want that,’ Hait would say teasingly. There was always something to keep me on land. I didn’t really mind, except that Meint kept teasing me with, ‘Never been out? You’ve honestly never been out to sea? Ha, what sort of a man are you?’
All four of us sit down in the protective shell of the clog-shaped boat as, making little plopping sounds, it slips out of the harbour. The water behind us is split open into gently undulating lines that grow wider and fainter the further away they get. Hait is at the tiller, hunched up and looking unexpectedly small, while Popke and Meint are busily engaged with a tangle of ropes and canvas.
I look out from the little seat at the back and note how, all of a sudden, it is possible to take in the village with a single glance and how, faster and faster, first the small houses and then the quay wall, the workshed and then the pier, are being sucked away from us.
Once out at sea, the boat starts to pitch in the waves. My stomach chums. I grip the edge of the boat tight and feel the first splash of water, slap, in my face. The quay wall is far away by now, too far away…
When we swing around towards Stavoren, Popke and Meint hoist the sails. They look like large brown wings filled by unruly powers, time and again catching the wind with violent smacks. The boat lists suddenly and I topple over, to be caught by the sure arm of Hait who looks on calmly from the tiller as we draw a swirling curve of foam through the water.
Shrieking gulls dive behind us, emerging from the surf with fish in their beaks. The harbour has become a tiny doll’s harbour. Small and brown – a stripe, no more – the wooden sea wall follows us up the coast for a while. The large basalt blocks protruding from the water look like toy building blocks, paltry playthings scattered along the coast. The boat rears up more violently and the sea flings yet more waves of ice-cold water over us. I catch my breath and with chilled fingers cling convulsively to the edge. When Hait looks at me I smile back politely, a petrified smile. My boat trip is an excursion into a world of violence, of thrust and counter-thrust, a fight with chilly, flapping demons who are consigning us to the depths of the sea with explosive salvos of laughter. I look back with longing at the safe land.
Already, I think, I want to go back already… Never been out to sea, what sort of a man am I? Gasping for breath I try to talk unconcernedly to Hait, but he pushes me out of the rear seat with a firm hand. ‘Go and sit in the middle and hold on tight. And look out for that sail up there!’
He shouts the last few words, pushing me down forcefully at the same time. With a deafening clatter and the creaking of ropes the boom slams over our heads. The boat almost ships water. Meint, who is standing opposite me, is suddenly high above me, a moment later sinking steeply into the depths with a gigantic swoop. It is as if a pump in my stomach were squeezing the contents down with all its might. Don’t think about it, it is sure to pass, this is fun, this is an adventure… I mustn’t be sick, or they will laugh at me. But I struggle for air and feel the pressure under my throat grow stronger.