Burial Rites(45)

Across the room, a chair scraped. Margrét gave a muffled cough.

‘I remember that after Inga died Jón was sent to fetch Bj?rn’s relatives,’ Agnes continued. ‘I can remember lying in my bed, watching my foster-father sit on the stool Inga had used for her spindle work. He was too big for its seat. Kjartan was in bed with me, and he was sleeping all hot and heavy on my shoulder. The wind had dropped and it was suddenly very quiet.

‘We eventually heard the clink of harness from the yard outside. Then Bj?rn slowly rose to his feet and stepped towards my bed. He scooped my brother up with one arm so I could sit, and he told me to take the dead baby, wrap its face in a blanket and put it in the storeroom.

‘The baby seemed lighter dead than alive. I held it out from me and walked down the corridor in my stockings.

‘It was very chill in the storeroom. I could see the fog of my breath before me, and my forehead ached from cold. I covered the baby’s face with a corner of the cloth it was wrapped in and laid it upon a sack of dried cod heads. When I stepped back into the corridor, a blast of freezing air hit the side of my face, and I turned to see the door open, the faces of Bj?rn’s brother, sister-in-law and their servant appearing from the murk outside. Their cheeks were wet and shiny from sleet.

‘I remember Uncle Ragnar and Jón carefully carrying Inga down from the loft while Bj?rn was outside, attending to the sheep. It was my job to make sure they didn’t bump her head against the rungs of the ladder. They brought her into the badstofa and set her on the stripped bed. Aunt Rósa was in the kitchen heating some water, and when I asked her what she was doing, she said she was going to clean my poor foster-mamma’s body. She wouldn’t let me watch. She let Kjartan play by her feet, and she ordered me to go upstairs to the loft and help her servant, Gudbj?rg.

‘When I climbed the ladder I saw Gudbj?rg scrubbing blood off the floorboards. The smell made me feel sick and I started to cry. Gudbj?rg took me into her arms. “She’s gone to God now, Agnes. She’s safe.”

‘I sat on the floor with Gudbj?rg’s shawl about me and watched the fat of her arms wobble as she knelt and scrubbed the boards. Gudbj?rg wrung out the pinked water from the rag over and over again. She kept shaking her head, and sometimes she stopped to wipe her eyes.

‘I told Gudbj?rg what Bj?rn had said when I’d screamed that I wanted to die; that he had told me maybe I’d be next. Gudbj?rg shushed me and said that Bj?rn wasn’t himself, and didn’t mean it.

‘I told her how Bj?rn had given me the baby to look after, and that I had held it tightly and that it had died in my arms, and I didn’t even notice.

‘Gudbj?rg rocked me like I was a baby myself. She said that the child wasn’t meant for this earth, and that it wasn’t my fault it didn’t live. She told me that I was brave and that God would watch over me.’

‘Do you know where Gudbj?rg is today?’ Tóti interrupted.

Agnes looked up from her knitting. ‘Dead,’ she said, unwaveringly. She pulled at the ball of wool to loose more thread.

‘When Ragnar, Kjartan and Bj?rn returned from the barn, Rósa called Gudbj?rg and me down from the loft and we all sat in the badstofa around the bed where Inga lay. She looked clean, but still. Eerie still, as when the wind drops and the grass doesn’t move, and you feel left behind.

‘Uncle Ragnar produced a flask of brandy and silently passed it around. That was the first time I tasted liquor, and I didn’t much care for it, but Jón had left on my foster-father’s horse to fetch the Reverend, and there was nothing to do but wait and drink. The hours creaked past, and I felt sick from the brandy and the bones in my legs grew stiff from sitting.

‘Jón didn’t return with the priest until late that night. I let them in. The Reverend forgot to knock the snow off his boots.

‘Gudbj?rg, Aunt Rósa and I served the men food and they ate it off their laps, Inga on the bed in front of them. Aunt Rósa had lit a candle and placed it near Inga’s head, and I kept checking to see that it hadn’t fallen over; I was worried her hair would catch alight.

‘Once the men had eaten their food, the women took Kjartan and me to the kitchen while the Reverend spoke with the men. I tried to listen to what they were saying, but Aunt Rósa took my arm and pulled Kjartan onto her lap, and she started telling a story to distract us. She only stopped when Uncle Ragnar and Jón walked past the open doorway, carrying Inga’s body between them. They’d covered her face with a piece of cloth. I wanted to know where they were taking her and got up to follow, but Aunt Rósa tightened her grip around my arm and yanked me towards her. Gudbj?rg quickly told me that the Reverend had said there was no chance of a burial until spring: the ground in the churchyard was frozen solid, and they were going to keep my poor foster-mother in the storehouse until the ground thawed and someone could dig a grave. We went to the doorway to watch them put Inga away.

‘The Reverend was following Bj?rn down the corridor. I heard him say: “At least it leaves you plenty of time to make the coffins.” Then he suggested that they put her in the barn.

‘“Too warm,” my foster-father replied.

‘Uncle Ragnar and Jón laid Inga next to the dead baby in the storehouse. At first they put her down on a bag of salt, then Uncle Ragnar pointed out that the salt might be needed sooner than we could bury Inga, so they swapped the salt for dried fish, and I could hear the thin, dried bones of the cod snap in the sack, under the weight of her body.’