Daníel said that he’d thrown off Natan’s grip, and offered to bail the water the waves had brought into the boat, but that Natan had only said: ‘Damn you, Daníel. Do you think I’m going to sit here and wait for another wave to drown me? We’re going back.’
Daníel thought it wouldn’t be beyond Natan to drown him in a temper, just to show the truth of the superstition, so he rowed them to shore.
After Daníel had told me all of this, I decided to speak with Natan, even though Daníel told me to leave him be. He said that Natan had got it into his head that he was doomed, and that we should let him come to his senses in his own good time. But I followed Natan to the croft, where I found him shouting at Sigga. She was trying to undress him from his wet clothes, and the soaked shirt had caught about his face.
Seeing that Sigga was upset by his harsh words, I told her to leave and began to undress Natan myself, but he pushed me away and called Sigga back. ‘You forget your place, Agnes,’ he said.
Later that day I followed Natan to his workshop, carrying an unlit lamp I thought he might need. The days had shortened so rapidly over the weeks, and the light was shuddering to a close. The ocean looked uneasy.
When Natan tried the workshop door, he found it was already open. He demanded to know if I’d been in there without his permission, and I told him that he knew I had been tending the fire while he’d gone fishing. I had probably forgotten to lock the door, but he began to accuse me of meddling with his things, of trying to find his money, of taking advantage of him.
Taking advantage of him! My tongue got the better of me then, and I told him that he was the one who had lured me out to his lonely farm with a lie. He had told me I was his housemistress, and yet all the while it was Sigga. I asked him if he’d been paying her higher wages than me, and why he had thought to trick me in the first place, when he knew I would have followed him anyway!
Natan began to check his belongings. It hurt me that he thought I might have taken something of his. What did I want with his coins, or medicines, or whatever else he had hidden in there?
I stayed in the workshop. He could not make me leave. When he was satisfied nothing was missing he took out some sealskins that needed curing and refused to say anything more to me. But it was late in the afternoon and the sky outside was flat and grey, a poor light to be working by. I sulked by the hearth and watched him, waiting for him to turn to me, to take me in his arms, to apologise.
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.’