They thought it was the flu when he got sick. He brushed it off; it was nothing. He still had his liquor every night.
Then came the pain and the vomit. The house filled with bellows from his room. His mother took care of him herself: brought down pails of bile, brought up cold water and a cloth. Sometimes she had to rest, though, and I was to help him then, dry him off and give him water—which was fortunate for me, since he was no longer having that dram at night. I sat by his bed as he slept, pale and sweating, shivering from time to time. His hands did not bother me anymore; they had lost their power. I was paying him back, a grain for each hit.
Soon nobody but me would remember what happened by the lake.
* * *
—
The farm took on a gloominess over the next few days, while Anders lay there shivering. The doctor came and went again. I held my breath while he was with Anders, but he suspected nothing. I could not believe how gullible they were, how sure that no one could touch them. They did not think it possible that someone would dare to raise a fist against them. Prideful. Stupid.
Gurine whispered that the doctor thought it was stomach cancer. Sad, she said, for such a young man.
“But not a good man,” I reminded her, lying in the darkness in our shared bed, listening to the wind outside and the lowing from the barn.
“No, not a good man but a young man, with years to repent and become a little better than he is.”
“That one will never become anything but what he is.”
“No, I think he won’t, seeing that he won’t last another day.”
“I wish I could say I was sorry for that.”
“No.” Her hand patted mine in the dark. “If anyone is allowed not to grieve, it’s you.”
When he did die the next day, it was as if I could breathe again, ever since that night. I walked through that house, through the sounds of his mother weeping; brimming with a delight so strong, I could barely contain it. I helped prepare for the wake and funeral, baked and fried, cooked meals for a hundred people. I saw them file in and respectfully shake the farmer’s hand, dressed in their Sunday best. The farmer’s wife was like a ghost beside him, her haughty face furrowed with grief. I could not help but smile. It was such a small thing, entrusting it to the maid.
Mother came to the kitchen to find me. She and Father had been inside to taste what the big farm had to offer on such a day. Father waited for her in the yard; I could see him through the window. Mother wore her black headscarf and I could smell fermented trout and strong liquor on her breath. Nothing was spared when the farmer buried his heir. Gurine was out with the other maids, carrying silken sour cream porridge and slices of roast for the funeral guests, so we were all alone. Mother sucked her finger and dipped it in a sugar bowl.
“Have your tears all dried up now, Little Brynhild?” She licked the sugar from her finger.
“I don’t know if I had any to begin with.”
“It’s all very sad, him dying like that. Cancer in the stomach.” She shook her head. “I wonder where that came from. Might have been something he ate.” She did not look at me at all, but her eyes kept wandering around the room, to the boiling water on the stove, the sliced meat, the ham and the lefse laid out on the table. Her hand, quick as a rat, got hold of a lefse with sugar and stuffed the whole thing into her maw.
“I don’t think you can get stomach cancer from eating.” I found a piece of cloth in a drawer under the tabletop and placed some pieces of roast and a few sausages and cured meats on it, wrapped it up, and tied it off. I placed the package in Mother’s waiting hand. No one would notice on a day like this.
“You never know.” Mother shrugged, and the package disappeared under her shawl.
“He got what he deserved, that is what I know.” I cleaned my hands on a rag.
“Yes.” Mother was still chewing. “Strange that, how the Lord sees fit to punish sometimes, and other times not.”
“Don’t let the priest hear you talk like that.” I gave her a dark look.
Mother laughed, but there was no joy in it. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
“We’ll see, won’t we, on reckoning day, if your sins are tallied or not.”
“Yes.” Mother gave me a thin smile. “Won’t we just see, Little Brynhild?”
My father called from out in the yard. “Berit!” he bellowed. “Berit!” He was tired of waiting for her. People passed by him, somber-looking as befitting the day, but he did not heed them at all. He held his cap in his hands, stomped his foot, and kicked up dust from the ground. Angry, always angry.
“You better go before he makes a fool of himself.” I passed my mother a final treat, a piece of mutton to chew on.
“Did you see him after he was dead?” she asked before popping it into her mouth.
I nodded. “When he was laid out on the dining room table.”
“Good. That ought to give you some peace, then.”
I shrugged. “It’s of no concern to me if he is alive or dead.”
Mother spat gristle into her palm. “Better dead is what I say.”
“Never let the priest—”
“Oh shut your mouth. He was bad, that man. He’ll go to hell for what he did.” She licked the grease from her lips. I could smell the liquor on her breath from across the table. It made her tongue a slippery thing.
After she left, I watched her make her way across the yard to Father. He had lit his pipe while waiting and used his free hand to smack her head when she arrived; it bobbed on her shoulders from the impact. The farmhands smoking by the barn sniggered. I hoped my parents would leave before they started arguing for real. My mother could hold her ground well enough and delivered blows like a man twice her size. Sometimes it got ugly.
I went back to the work at hand, carving and cutting. Anders was in the ground; his eyes, which had seen me so broken, were gone. Soon worms and beetles would eat them all up, and there would be no witness to my shame.
God will not always punish; my mother was right about that. He might not even help those who strive to help themselves, but I could. For weeks after his death I barely slept; I lay awake beside Gurine at night staring into the darkness, riding that joy as a liquor. I kept imagining his sallow face twisted up in death throes; I touched my aching jaw with my fingers, remembering his blows. I chuckled to myself sometimes—could barely suppress the sounds, and bit into the pillow to contain them. Other times I had to rise, go to the window, and look out on the yard, because I worried that Gurine would wake up from the bed shaking, as peals of silent laughter coursed through me.
It was strong and pure, that joy; it made me feel powerful and happy. I had never felt anything as strong and pure as that. As if I could do anything. As if there were no limit.
I had paid him back.
* * *