What would I say to Tóti?
Reverend, Natan began to leave Illugastadir at the close of summer, and each time he returned, it was as though he became more of a stranger to me. He’d catch me alone in the dairy, take the scrubbing brush out of my hand and draw me to him, only to ask me if I had kept Daníel warm in his bed while he was out, scraping together a living by luring death out of the bowels of his countrymen. He even accused me of loving Fridrik! That lug of a boy, swinging his fists about and stinking of unwashed wool. Natan’s accusations seemed comical to me. Couldn’t he see how much I missed him? How different he was from any other man I had known?
I imagine Tóti’s face blushing. I imagine him wiping his sweaty palms against the material of his trousers. His slow nod. The light from the candle in the badstofa flickering over his face as he watches me, wide-eyed.
Reverend, I would say, I told Natan that Daníel was nothing to me. That Fridrik was enamoured with Sigga. I told him that I was his for as long as he’d have me, that I’d be his wife if he wished it.
It was those moods of his that took him away. I’d find Natan in the workshop measuring broths, skimming the dirty froth off boiling roots. I’d offer my help, as I helped him when I first came. He began to push me out of his way. He didn’t want me, he said. Did he mean he didn’t want my help, or my presence? He’d direct me towards the door.
‘Go. I don’t want you here. I’m busy.’
Sometimes I’d go to the outhouse and hammer the dried cod heads with a cow thighbone. Just to beat and rail against something. He is falling out of love with you, I told myself. And I began to wonder whether he ever loved me.
But there were still hours when he found me alone by the shore, collecting eiderdown. He would take me beside the birds’ nests, his hands in my hair, his look as desperate as a drowning man’s. He needed me like he needed air. I felt it in his gaze, in the way he grappled for my body like a buoy in the water.
Reverend Tóti, draw your stool nearer. I’ll tell you what it was really like.
I hated being his servant. One night I would be his lover, with the hard rhythm of his breath matching my own. And then, the next, I was Agnes the workmaid. Not even the housekeeper! And his cool commands began to seem like reprimands.
‘Call the sheep home from pasture. Milk the cow. Milk the sheep. Fetch water. Collect the ashes and spread them upon the soil. Feed Thóranna. Make her stop crying. Make her stop crying! This pot is still dirty. Ask Sigga to show you how to wash the beakers properly.’
Do you understand what I am saying, Reverend? Or is love constant for you? Have you ever loved a woman? A person you love as much as you hate the hold they have on you?
I hated the way my mind would turn to Natan throughout the day, until I was sick with the pattern of my thoughts. I hated the nausea that came at the suggestion he did not care for me. I hated the way I kept tripping up over those rocks to his workshop, again and again, to bring him things he no longer required.
It took Daníel to tell me how it really was.
The farmhand was waiting for me one day when Natan was not at home. I stepped out of the workshop, locked the door, and saw Daníel standing on the shore, his scythe in one hand, his hat in the other.
‘What were you doing in there?’ he asked me.
‘None of your business.’
‘We’re not allowed in there,’ he said. ‘Where did you find the key?’
‘Natan gave it to me. He trusts me.’
‘Oh yes,’ Daníel said, ‘I forgot you maids get special treatment.’
‘And what do you mean by that?’
Daníel laughed. ‘Where are my sealskin shoes? Where are my new clothes?’
Natan was generous when the mood took him. ‘You haven’t been here long,’ I pointed out to Daníel. ‘I’m sure you’ll receive a present when Natan returns.’
‘I don’t want something from Natan.’