In the Garden of Spite Read online

  The men by the barn were moving now, carrying heavy tools. Anders carried an axe. They were to work on the western field today, mending fences.

  “They are headed up,” Gurine observed with a warning in her voice. It meant they had to pass us by and she wanted me to slip inside the storehouse. I did no such thing. I stayed put, righted my headscarf, and tilted my chin up as they drew closer: a gaggle of filthy men, hair greasy and shirts stained. I could see their muscles working as they walked toward us, how they bulged and strained under their clothes. Their lips were all drawn out in hard smiles.

  “What is wrong with you, Little Brynhild?” Ivar said, mocking me. “You look like you just licked a lemon.”

  “What would you know about that?” I replied. “I’m sure you’ve never even tasted one yourself.”

  Ivar laughed. “They’re fine enough with a little sugar, or so I’ve heard. You should try some of that.”

  Before I had time to reply, a man called Gunnar spoke. “I think she’s gotten enough sugar for a while. Enough that she has started to swell.” He kept his eyes on the ground in front of his feet; a smile played on his lips.

  I drew my breath to reply to him when I noticed that Anders had fallen behind the others. His gaze met mine, as cold as before, but at least he approached me and that was something. “Leave us alone, Gurine,” he said. The old woman got to her feet and gave me a worried glance before she shuffled across the yard with her head bent, leaving the two of us alone outside the storehouse. The men had continued up the hill, though a couple of them looked back over their shoulders. Gunnar was still smiling.

  Anders let his hand with the axe drop down by his side. His brow looked slick despite the chill in the air. His eyes did not meet my gaze. “Have you come to your senses yet, Brynhild?” The axe swung slowly back and forth. “It’s bad enough that everyone knows—”

  “I didn’t say a thing,” I said quickly. I wanted to stay on his good side if I could. I wanted him to be my husband, after all.

  “Women talk.” He shrugged.

  “I don’t.” And neither did Gurine. “I think it’s you who have told them.” I looked after the men.

  Another shrug then. “Be as it might, I didn’t come to talk about slippery tongues.”

  “No?”

  “I wanted to know if you still think it’s mine, that child you carry—”

  “It is! There hasn’t been any other.”

  He swallowed hard and would still not meet my gaze. “I suppose you still think we should marry, then.”

  “I do!” Could it be that he had come around? My heart beat faster in my chest.

  He shifted on the ground before me; the axe still swung back and forth. “Why don’t you come to the dance on Saturday night? We can talk then, down by the lake.” He did not smile, did not look me in the eye. “It will be easier then, when there aren’t so many people around. We can sneak away, just the two of us.”

  I nodded while all sorts of feelings battled inside me: some worry, some hope, and a bottomless want.

  He lifted his gaze; it lingered on my belly, although there was not much to see yet. “I’ll see you on Saturday, Brynhild. Alone.” His gaze slid away from me. He heaved the axe over his shoulder and walked on fast to catch up with the rest, leaving me behind by the storehouse.

  Gurine appeared in the open door to the farmhouse; she had heard every word, of course. She used her bony hand to shield her eyes from the sun as she stepped outside and came toward me while slowly shaking her head.

  “What is it now?” I was annoyed. “Things are finally going my way. He wants to meet me—you heard what he said!”

  “Yes, and I don’t like it . . . Be careful, Little Brynhild.” She took hold of my arm. “I don’t trust that man at all.”

  2.

  Even before my skirt turned wet, I knew that I was bleeding. Though I had never felt it before, I knew what that pain at the bottom of my spine meant. I knew that the child would leave me.

  I do not know if I already bled when he left me by the water’s edge, or if the bleeding began when I slowly tried to rise. I knew I could not faint down there. It was May and the nights were still cold. I had to stand up and move my feet, get myself back home. I would not die, I told myself. I would not die—I would survive. I would survive if only to spite him. He wanted me dead; well, look: I was walking, if slowly and on shivering legs. I was walking in pain, away from the lake and across the dirt track to the safety of the woods. I wiped blood off my face with the hem of my skirt; tears and snot soaked the dark fabric too. A sharp edge was the only thing left where my tooth used to be; another tooth was clean split in half.

  I did not feel that pain yet.

  I could not stop the violent shivers, or the deep sobs that came ripping from my chest. Hoarse noises poured from my throat as I lumbered along like a wounded bear. The nosebleed stopped, so perhaps it was not broken, but my jaw was swollen and tender to the touch. Then it was the real pain—the only one that mattered. Before long, it came in ripples and aches as my belly convulsed to rid itself of the damaged cargo. I leaned against a spruce, pressed my shoulders to the rough bark, and tried to breathe through the contractions like women in labor do, although this was no birth. When it eased up some, I stumbled on and lifted my gaze, but there was nothing to see except for more trees, heavy branches crowded with lichen, ghostly white in the pale night light. The thick moss that covered the ground looked blue and the air smelt of wet soil and sap. Størsetgjerdet was still miles off, the way home steep and hard. I thought I might die before I made it that far.

  I held on to trunks as I walked, careful to keep out of sight from the farms. No one was to see me like that. I would not let anyone laugh at me, even if it meant I perished in there, hidden by the trees. I paused again as more pain ripped through me, and my thighs were slick with fresh blood. I lay down on the mossy ground, folded my elbows under my chest, and spread my legs. Perspiration washed the blood from my brow, hot and thick, as I lay there panting, bleeding. The convulsions lasted for hours, maybe—minutes, I could not tell. It was fast, though, as births go. Anders had been thorough in beating the child out of me. When the cramping finally stopped, I fell over to my side and lay there for a while, gazing skyward. Every breath I took was a struggle as my ribs ached and burned. When I had gathered enough courage, I looked down on the mess on the ground. I could not tell it with my eyes, but I felt it was a girl, curled up in the hot blood.

  The beginning of a daughter of mine.

  Now it had come to nothing.

  I used my hands to rip away moss and dig a hole in the soft, cool dirt. I was not sure how much good it would do, but I wanted to protect her from scavenging foxes. It did not get very deep, as I had no strength to give. I pulled off one of my woolen stockings, the cleanest piece of cloth on my body, and wrapped my daughter in it. My belly had just started to curve so there was not much to wrap. It felt slippery in my hands, though. Slippery and warm. The scent of iron was strong and fresh—it was animal scent, the scent of slaughter.

  Down in the hole she went. Into the fragrant soil, next to a coiling root. As I pushed the damp dirt back on top of the remains, I marveled at the way it covered her up, smooth and soft, as if the girl were erased by blackness.

  As if nothing were down there at all.

  I smoothed the earth on top of the grave, but I did not weep, oh no—he had kicked all the tears out of me too. “If I put it there, I better get it out again,” he had said before his foot hit my belly. Then he grabbed hold of the little bit of lace I had on my blouse—the very best I had—and yanked me from the ground to plant a fist in my jaw.

  No, I would not weep for that man.

  After I buried my daughter, I lay still for a little while longer, bleeding, while I looked up at the tall pines moving uneasy against the pale sky. Clouds came drifting with the dawn: wisps of slate gray
that chased one another and snapped at one another’s tails. Like wolves, those clouds, rushing across the sky, waiting for the red sun to rise. I waited for it too, down on the ground, curled up, ruined and empty inside.

  This was what we were worth, the dead child and I. We could be torn asunder, cast away and laughed at while we bled. We were nothing but vermin and stains to those people. I wanted to be a wolf too, to snarl and bite and tear apart, and taste the blood of those who laughed.

  Instead, I staggered to my feet and stumbled on. I did not even look back.

  I would rise, if only to spite.

  Vermin always survive.

  * * *

  —

  Daylight had long since arrived when I finally made the last, slow climb up to Størsetgjerdet, my father’s small tenant farm. A sour smell of wood smoke greeted me, and the bleating of our single goat. Just a few steps left and I barely made it—it felt like crossing a mountain. Crusted blood striped my calves, my clothes were stiff with it, and yet I was still bleeding.

  The single room inside the small house was dark, the ceiling low. Mother was out, but Father was there, sitting by the stove. He had his knife in his hand and whittled chips of wood into the flames. The scent of thin coffee reached me by the door and made my aching stomach convulse.

  My father looked up, his gray beard thick and tangled. He took me in, top to bottom. “What mess have you gotten yourself into now?”

  I found the pail by the door and threw up, heaved and sputtered into it.

  “Looks like she’s rid herself of the mess.” Olina’s voice sounded behind me. I could hear her uneven steps on the floor as she came to gloat. Her fingers grasped my stiff skirt, tugged at it almost gently. “Not so haughty now, are you?” Her voice was not as spiteful as I had expected. She was tall like me but slender and spindly; her left leg was stiff as a twig. There was nothing to do for that. My sister would never leave home.

  Bright light flooded the dark, smoky room when Mother arrived, carrying water. My head was still curved over the pail as I did not trust the heaving to be over, but I heard her familiar shuffle behind me and my shoulders sagged with relief. The floor shook when she set down her heavy load, and then I felt her fingers splayed on my back. “Can’t you see she’s sick, you fools?” She pushed Olina back and my sister made a complaining sound. “Standing there like a cow,” Mother snapped at her. “And you”—to my father—“is that all you can do? Sit there whittling while your daughter is bleeding?”

  “She’s no child of mine,” he said, as he always did when displeased.

  “Olina, help me get her on the bed.” Mother did not hear him. I cried out when their hands came to touch me and force me away from the pail.

  “Good God, child, who did that to you?” Mother paled when she saw the state of my face. Even Olina’s eyes widened and she bit her lower lip. I tried to answer, but fresh pain was throbbing at my temples, and my swollen jaw made it hard to speak.

  “Get her on the bed, on the bed, bring the pail.” Mother barked orders while she and Olina forced me to move my legs and cross the floor. They took me to the bed in the corner, the one I shared with Olina. I slumped down on top of it, smelled the musty hay and sour sweat, blood—always the blood. Mother went to heat water; Olina sat on the three-legged spinning chair, staring at me, her mouth hung open as if she had never seen an uglier animal than me. Then suddenly there was a thudding sound and the quiet hum of steel.

  My father had risen from the chair and thrown his knife across the room. It was embedded in the timber above my head, stood there, quivering. A curse.

  Father had made his opinion known.

  * * *

  —

  The first few days were a haze. I remember wet cloth on my face and an aching all over, a searing pain in my back and belly. Something was wrong in me. I could taste it as a bitter cloying on my tongue; I was festering from within. The blood on the rags Mother brought me turned from red and black to pink and yellow, and it reeked.

  I often lay awake, too weak to talk but not to listen, staring at the ceiling. I knew the patterns and swirls of the timber by heart, just as I knew every inch of that room. The awkward angle of the small cooking stove, haphazardly installed. The open shelves on the wall above the table with cups, plates, and tins filled with printed psalms and letters. A large chest under a window for storage. The narrow stairs to the loft where we slept as children. The rickety spinning wheel placed in a corner. The four mismatched chairs with flaking paint. There were three clotheslines strung across the ceiling, heavy with musty garments. Two beds. One bench. Oh, how I loathed that place, and even more so when I found myself trapped there, too sick to move an inch.

  Listening in on my family did nothing to soothe my pain.

  “She won’t last,” Father said from his place by the stove.

  “Don’t you have any work to do?” Mother was sitting by the table, preparing moss for drying. It would help soak up the blood. “She will or she won’t. It’s up to God now.”

  “Will he hang if she dies?” Olina was stirring the pot of gruel. She would want me to taste it later. The thought of it made my stomach churn.

  “No one will hang.” Father sucked his pipe.

  “Maybe we should tell someone,” Mother muttered.

  “Tell them what?” The pipe came away. “That she has made a fool of herself and gotten herself in trouble? We reap what we sow in this world.”

  “What did you sow then, to have such a grand life?” The bitterness coiled like smoke in the room.

  “You knew what I had when you took me. If it’s not good enough you’re free to go elsewhere.” He spat on the floor. “You and the changeling both.”

  Mother laughed then, loud and shrill. “Oh Paul, you can’t talk your way out of that one.” She would be nodding in my direction. “She is yours; just look at that nose.”

  “The changelings can look like anything they want; what do I know if you’ve been seeing some troll?”

  “When would I have had time for that with your brood hanging in my skirts?”

  It was Father’s turn to laugh, a hard-edged chuckle. “Too late for regrets now, isn’t it?”

  “You should talk to someone, though.” Mother’s voice again. “If she dies, someone will have to answer.”

  He took a while, seemed to consider it. “We’re losing income, that’s for sure.”

  Mother sighed. “You should let her keep what she earns or she’ll never get far.”

  “We feed her, don’t we? Clothe her?”

  “Barely. She saved up for that lace with what little you left her. Now I don’t see how I can get the blood out.”

  “They say she was beaten by Selbu Lake.” Olina had been out then, down in the valley. “They say it was he who did it—he who put that child in her.”

  Mother gave another sigh. “I’m just glad he didn’t drown her, then.”

  “He was about to”—Olina’s voice rose with glee—“but then someone came and he lost his nerve.”

  Do you want to sleep in the lake tonight, Brynhild? That was what he had said to me down by the lapping water. I’ll help you get in there, don’t you worry. You and your bastard both!

  “They have never been very good to us, the people down in the valley.” Mother’s voice was hard as rock. “They always looked down on us, even those with little to their name.” This was an old and worn complaint. I knew what she would say next: “We ought to keep ourselves to ourselves.”

  “If Father weren’t so mad all the time—” Olina stopped midsentence; there was a scratching sound and a loud smack. He had gotten off his chair and stopped her foul mouth.

  I heard him sit back down again, the creaking of his chair. “Perhaps it’s better if this is the end.”

  Mother sucked in her breath. “Shame on you for saying such a thing. She
is your own flesh and blood, and a blessing.”

  “Doesn’t look much like a blessing to me, lying there bleeding in the hay.”

  “Have you no heart?”

  I heard Father filling his cup from the bottle; strong fumes mingled with the smoke and sickness in the air. “The Lord gives and the Lord takes.”

  “And we ought to be grateful for every small gift he gives.”

  I opened my mouth then. Lips dry and split, and spoke my very first words since that night: “Or I could leave.”

  The room fell quiet; only the flames crackled and sputtered. Then there was a flurry of motion as my mother and sister crossed the floor and came into my vision, Olina with an angry red mark on her cheek.

  Mother’s dry hand landed on my forehead. “I think the fever has broken.” She sounded surprised. I was not. I had sworn to live, if only to spite—and that was what I would do.

  * * *

  —

  My brothers Peder and Ole came by, delivering letters. They had already heard about me; I could see it on their faces when they entered. None of my siblings but poor Olina with her limp lived at Størsetgjerdet anymore. All had thought Peder would take over when Father grew old, and perhaps he would, but not yet. He was a tenant on another farm where he got more land to work for himself. Ole, far younger, stayed with him. Father complained about that; he would rather have Ole at home. My brother was happy to escape, though. Peder was not an easy man either, but he had a wife and young children. It was livelier there.

  Peder nodded in my direction when he saw me. I was no longer in bed but sitting on the spinning chair with a cushion of moss between my legs. It did not smell as bad as it had. The blood had cleared up some, trickling pink.