(A sample chapter from novella, The Juniper Tree.)
© 2007 asotir.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
3
I wasn’t supposed to live. I was supposed to die before I was even born. But she gave me her life instead. I got life and she got death.
SO THE MAN buried his first wife under the Juniper Tree. After that the weather turned foul. The sky grew dark and mad. Cold winds came and it rained and the waves shook the Beak.
The rain poured down on White Quill in the woods. The windows rattled and the slate tiles trembled. The lamb hid under the shed at the end of the porch.
When night came the house stayed dark. There was a little light in the upstairs window where a year before the little witch had leaned into the wind.
Night passed into day and the storms followed one another down the coast out of the arctic seas. The Juniper Tree bore the storms patiently. The old tree had weathered many storms in his long long life. Then late one night the wind gave over a little. The rain lessened. When the brightness came before dawn the clouds were rising and a new wind was pushing the tails of the storm-clouds inland toward the mountains.
The Juniper Tree watched the new day climb out of the woods.
In the woods a redheaded woman walked by in a sea-green dress. A big white red eared dog padded at her side. The woman stopped and looked through the trees at the house. She watched the lonely house. Then she stole back deeper in the woods.
Giorgio poked his head out from under the shed. He started grazing on the grass. The grass was long and thick after the rain. Giorgio didn’t even look up when the man came out of the house and walked past. Bjorn still wore the black suit he wore when he dug the grave. His face was beaten and sad. It looked like he had been out in a storm for a hundred years. Already the laugh lines were ironed away. It was like they were never coming back.
He stood awhile at the grave beneath the Juniper Tree. The grass was growing on it already. Nothing lasts for long.
He walked under the Juniper Tree to the landing over the Beak. It was made out of wood and once it had been painted white, but the paint peeled and faded in the wind and salt. Whitewashed wooden steps went down to the rocks below.
The man climbed down the steps. He held onto the rail and walked gentle and the steps creaked and rocked under his shoes.
The thirteenth step down was painted a rusty red and it was loose. The man bent and reached below the Red Step to the ironwork that held the steps to the rock. He twisted the rusty bolt tight. Then he stepped gingerly past the Red Step and down to the shore.
From the top of the Beak the Juniper Tree could see the rocks and the waves along to the next headland. The waves still crashed big and wild from the storm. The waves were so mad they seemed happy, the way crazy people get. The man walked above the waves’ reach. He stepped from stone to stone around the tide pools.
In one pool the man found a dead seal. Just past it the redheaded woman was sitting on a rock combing her hair. Just then the sun broke through a hole in the clouds. The light shone off the water onto her sea-green dress and made its colors dance like flames.
The white dog came and growled at the man.
‘Tang-Tang! Stop that!’ said the redheaded woman.
The dog hunkered down and showed his teeth.
‘Never mind him. Tang-Tang won’t hurt anyone unless I tell him.’
Bjorn stared at her. She held out the comb.
‘Help me?’
He took the comb like an idiot. He started combing her hair.
‘Hi!’ she said.
‘Hello. I’m Bjorn Hansen.’
‘Very nice to meet you. I’m Raynhild, Raynhild Ingebjorg Borgrim. But everybody calls me Rayn.’
She took back the comb and they shook hands. Rayn jumped down and the dog frisked around her. She taunted him with a stick, hurled the stick away and the dog scrambled after it.
‘Do you live around here?’ she asked.
He waved his hand behind him. ‘The house on the cliff.’
‘Well now. I know that one, it’s pretty. I go to university, I’m an exchange student from Norway, do I talk too fast? – that’s what my friends tell me.’
‘Your English is good.’
‘TV – movies and comic books – Superman – Rock and roll! Anyway, I’ve to do only one year more before graduating. Hotel Management. It’s just a glorified study of cooking, housecleaning, and ass-kissing. I want to run a resort somewhere. Don’t you think that’s a good way to travel?’
‘Where do you want to go?’
‘Well now. Everywhere, really. Someplace hot, someplace snowy, someplace strange. I’ll never go back home, my brothers and sisters are so jealous.’
‘Do you have a lot of them?’
‘Six sisters, three brothers. Litters run big in my breed.’
‘And your parents?’
‘My Mommie’s dead.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘My Father’s alive, that’s what you should be sorry about. His money keeps him alive. Well now, but how I chatter on! Tell me about yourself. You must be rich to own such a big house?’
‘I make timber. Boards, plywood, that sort of thing.’
‘The mill up the river? Is that yours?’
‘And some timberland up country.’
‘Well! You’re a regular Money Bags! Does it make you happy?’
Bjorn looked out to sea. Rayn teased the dog and watched him.
‘Well now. Did I insult you?’
‘My wife died.’
‘Did you kill her?’
He shook his head. It was like he didn’t really hear what she said. He answered in a faraway voice, ‘I don’t know. I was there. She died. I didn’t do anything…’
‘And you’re alone now?’
‘I have a baby son. At the house.’
‘Well now! And all alone? That’s awful! Come on, we must get you back straight away. Tang-Tang!’
The white dog romped up and they headed back.
He helped her up the wooden steps, up toward the top of the Beak where the Juniper Tree was waiting. She acted scared and made him hold her hand and arms. She leaned against him in the wind and her scarf slapped his face with the scent of her.
When they reached the Red Step he took her by the waist. ‘Careful,’ he told her. ‘It isn’t safe here.’
She curled up in his arms and looked into his face. Her eyes were round and her mouth was open. Her tongue danced over her teeth. ‘Why? What’s the matter?’
‘The bolt under that step isn’t any good. It gets loose all the time. I’d bring a wrench and really screw it down, only it would strip the threads and come out. Here.’
He bent down. She let her legs and hips rub against the side of his face. He reached around her legs and twisted the bolt with his fingers. It went around two turns before it snugged up.
‘That should do it. You go up first, hold the railing, and lean toward the landward side.’
‘No, I’m frightened,’ she said. Her voice was humming like a low fire.
‘You’ll be fine. I’m right here to catch you if anything happens. Only it won’t.’
She sort of wiggled in his arms and took a step up. Then her shoe was on the Red Step, and she rocked back and forth a little, and the whole stairs rocked and shuddered in a sick way like it was about to fall off.
‘Oops,’ she said, and giggled, and pranced up two more steps. She acted like it was an accident. She acted like she was scared. Bjorn looked up at her with the wind flapping her scarf around, and he believed every little thing she wanted him to.
But when she went past the Juniper Tree, she wasn’t acting. She walked by it fast and didn’t look up. She was glad to get onto the terrace, you could tell that much.
Bjorn let her in through the glass doors. Rayn looked around.
‘What good taste your wife must have had. But so big! You ought to have someone look after it while you’re working.’
‘What about you?’
‘Pardon me?’
‘Will you look after us?’
‘Well now! I know just the thing for you, you naughty boy. Let me get you a drink – whiskey, okay?’
Bjorn nodded. He watched her as she walked to the liquor cabinet. He was always watching her. Every move she made was like a show.
‘I knew it – see, I know what you like already.’
She touched her glass against his.
‘Clink-clink. Your health, Mr Hansen.’
‘Skoal.’
They drank some. She had a funny way of drinking. She tilted up the glass and let the drink almost touch her lips. Then she slid out her tongue and lapped at it like a dog. He stared at the way she did it.
‘You haven’t answered me. About staying. And taking care of the place.’
‘But I can’t. I mean, I have my studies.’
‘Take the semester off. I’ll pay whatever you ask.’
‘Money, money, money…’
Bjorn couldn’t stop looking at her. She watched him back. All that time there was a faint sound like mewing from somewhere in the house. At last she looked up and away and arched her eyebrows at him. Then Bjorn came back to himself and heard the crying.
‘That’s him,’ he said. He started toward the stairs but she stepped into his way so he bumped into her. She pressed against him and worked him back and settled him into the dark old Morris chair.
‘You stay. This is woman’s work.’
‘His name’s Falco.’
‘Falco, how pretty!’
Rayn mounted the stairs, and Bjorn watched her from the Morris chair. Her hips rolled as she walked up the steps. At the landing she paused and looked back down at him. She laughed and her teeth flashed fire in the gloom and she went on up where he couldn’t see her any more.
At the second landing the stairs turned again, and a smaller, narrower set of steps led up to the attic. Rayn poked around in the rooms on the second floor. There was a bathroom and three bedrooms, one small, one medium, and one big. The cries came from the big bedroom. She stepped to the doorway and peered in.
‘What a mess!’ she said. She clucked her tongue and opened the windows.
From the cliff where the Juniper Tree stood, her red head showed in the window.
‘It’s better with fresh air, isn’t it, little sir?’
She bent over the crib where the child was lying and kicking his legs and crying.
That was the first time he saw her. He was only a couple months old but he never in his life forgot it. Her face was pretty. Her perfume smelled like a hundred different flowers with oils and herbs and things out of the woods burning, like smoke.
‘I expect you’re hungry, isn’t that it? And starving for affection, poor thing.’
She slapped his face, hard.
For a moment the child stopped; then he started bawling even louder.
Rayn slapped him twice as hard. That shut him up.
‘You will learn, little sir, that children are liked better when they are seen and not heard. And now I will get you your milk, okay?’
Down in the great-room, Bjorn was sitting listening. The house was quiet for a change. He sighed and nursed his drink, until Rayn came down.
‘How did you get him to stop crying?’
‘Oh, we women have our ways.’
She went to the closet and pulled out his raincoat.
‘Now go to work. Don’t come back until tonight. Then we’ll see, Mr Hansen.’
Bjorn wandered out to the black sleek car. He was holding his case and his umbrella and looking up at the house. Then he got in the car and drove off.
In the big bedroom, Falco heard the car go down the driveway. Then he heard the woman’s shoes on the stairs again.
She filled the doorway.
He stared at her. He didn’t dare cry. He didn’t dare breathe.
‘Well now.’ She smiled and gave a little nod.
‘Now, little sir, the house belongs only to you – and me.’
Bjorn never knew what went on between those two the rest of that day. He didn’t really want to know. Falco knew but later on he couldn’t remember. Some things are harder to remember than others. Some things you don’t ever want to remember.
So Bjorn drove off and left them. He drove down the road and through the trees to work. It was a long time since he felt like working. It was a long time since he felt like he was good for anything. Not since Ari died.
He turned off the road by the river and drove down under the sign:
HANSEN LUMBER
From the mill buildings the ripsaws screamed and sang, eating up the logs fed into them and shaving off their bark. The squared beams were carved into planks. The sawdust flew and spilled in heaps.
Bjorn walked across the yard to the office shed. It was small beside the large buildings with the saws, the stacked and drying lumber, the mountains of sawdust where the big trucks came and went.
He entered a long room all of different strains of wood, with a window overlooking the yard.
His assistant Mary-Louise Cartwright and Arne Anders, his lawyer, greeted him.
‘Bjorn! Welcome back!’ said Mary-Louise.
She hugged him. Bjorn didn’t know how to react to that. It wasn’t the way she usually greeted him. He never did figure Mary-Louise out. So he just asked, ‘Why are you in? It’s Saturday. Isn’t it?’
‘There wasn’t much happening at home. And besides, you’re here.’
Bjorn shook Anders’ hand.
‘Are these what you call lawyer’s hours? We still solvent?’
‘Barely. Hodgekiss wants Tall Pines.’
‘We’ve got to cut them,’ said Mary-Louise.
Bjorn stared at her.
Anders handed Bjorn a sheaf of papers. ‘Here. Look at this.’
Bjorn glanced over them. They were all legal documents. A loan to the mill, with terms and conditions. He frowned.
Mary-Louise said, ‘Hodgekiss will give us the loan. But the terms…’
‘I see.’
‘It’ll buy time,’ Anders said. ‘Three years, say? But if you can’t pay it back – and he’s made damn sure you can’t—’
‘—Then I lose. Okay. So what?’
Bjorn took out his pen and slashed his signature across the papers.
Mary-Louise stared. ‘Bjorn! What brought this on?’
‘I don’t know. I feel like I’ve come back to life again.’
He dove into the business. He talked things over with the foreman, he looked over the schedules of deliveries, payments, inventories. He ate at his desk standing up. Most of the day he was in the sawmills. He breathed in pine resin and sawdust. The screams of the saws shook his bones. The hardhat and earmuffs and face shield felt odd to him at first, after so long away. Then when he picked up a sandwich he was surprised to find he still had them on.
It was dark when he left. The saws were quiet and still. The men had all gone home. Mary-Louise he had ordered home only a half an hour ago. He walked across the yard in a light rain and stood beside his car. He looked back over the mill. Then he got into the long black car and drove up to the road. He sat at the end of the drive and for awhile he stared in the rearview mirror at the lighted sign behind him, the sign with his name on it.
When he got home he found everything tidied, picked up, and polished. Jazz played on the stereo. Rayn welcomed him at the door with a drink in her hand. But the look in her eyes did more for him than the whiskey in his belly.
They had dinner by candlelight.
‘Did you find everything you needed?’ he asked.
‘Of course! But what could be more boring than listening to me talk about dusting and cooking! Tell me about the mill.’
‘Well, the mill itself is one thing, but the big problem is feeding it. You see, it’s owning the right timberland that makes for true wealth in this field. What?’
‘Oh! Nothing. You’re so serious about it, all your money, all the things you take to yourself and own. It’s funny, that’s all.’
After dinner he remembered the child. Rayn took him to the big bedroom and they tucked the child in for the night.
‘He won’t stay quiet long,’ Bjorn warned her.
‘Well now! We’ll see about that. Mr Falco and I are reaching an understanding, aren’t we, little sir?’
They closed the door until it was just ajar. They stood out in the hall. Rayn pushed open the door to the small bedroom.
‘I took this old room, I’ll send for my things later – it’s all right, isn’t it, Mr Hansen?’
‘Yes…’
She leaned against the doorjamb, humming. Her eyes were bright.
‘So, you will stay?’
‘If you’ll take me, Mr Hansen.’
‘Don’t call me Mr Hansen, please, you make me feel older than the trees.’
‘All right.’
He didn’t know what he was saying anymore. It all sounded like nonsense in his ears, like something in a language he never learned. He breathed her scent, like wood-smoke. She was smiling at him but he didn’t know if she was saying anything or not. He took her head in his hands and kissed her.
Her glass dropped and ice cubes scattered down the stairs.
‘I’ll get that.’
‘No. Leave it. Leave it, Rayn.’
‘Well now. Mr Hansen. Well now.’
He kissed her again. Or maybe she was kissing him. She was the one who broke it. She leaned back again breathing hard.
‘Whew! One gets so out of breath.’
He nodded. He was breathing hard too.
She looked up at him from the corner of her eye. It was a shy sly smile. It was almost a leer. She tugged on his hand and he came. She drew him into the little room and he went.
Outside in the darkness the Juniper Tree kept guard. Through the high window it could see the little bedroom was dark but in the big bedroom a night light was burning. In the crib, the child kicked his legs and whimpered.
THE NEXT DAY was Sunday. The man and the redheaded woman didn’t leave the house. They didn’t get dressed, either. When the darkness came back the redheaded woman turned on all the lights except for the big bedroom upstairs. She didn’t wear much and neither did the man. They went at each other on the couch, on the floor, on the counter in the kitchen, and in the antique Morris chair.
The lights stayed on all night.
Two weeks later, on Wednesday, a hearse drove out of the woods.
Two mill-workers got out, walked to the back and slid out onto the gravel a Trunk. It was made of wood and iron and painted like Danish furniture from hundreds of years ago.
Rayn stepped onto the back porch in a green blouse and tight blue jeans.
‘Oh! It’s here, Bjorn, come and see!’
The man came out. He wore old slacks and a fisherman’s sweater.
The mill-workers waved to him and drove off. The white dog barked and jumped around the chest.
‘What is it?’
‘‘What is it?’ Money Bags says. It’s my Mommie’s Trunk, silly, it’s her chest with all her things in it, her wonderful, special things!’
‘From your father?’
‘It’s all that’s left of her since she died.’
‘See, your father isn’t so bad.’
She crouched down and kissed the Trunk, lots of little pecks.
‘He’s horrible, I hate him. I do.’
‘He sent you the Trunk.’
‘He can afford to. As if he could make a present out of something that belongs to me anyway! And after he practically drove her into her grave.’
‘It looks heavy.’
‘Well now! Will you stop teasing and carry it in – quick, before it gets wet!’
Bjorn hoisted the end of the chest onto his back. He staggered under the weight. He started up to the porch.
And the rain started for real.
Rayn held the door open for him.
‘Wait.’
He went in and Rayn took a turn about the porch, nodding to the dog.
‘Yes! Yes, silly puppy! It’s here! We have it back again!’
Bjorn stepped back out.
‘Now let’s do it properly, shall we, Mrs Hansen?’
‘By all means, Mr Hansen.’
He carried her over the threshold.
That night the redheaded woman went through the Trunk. Bjorn had set it in the middle bedroom and stood in the doorway watching her rummage through her things. Little lace underthings were the first things she pulled out. They filled the atmosphere of the room with their perfumes, smoky and deadly. Bjorn got a little dizzy from their intoxication.
The Juniper Tree shuddered in the wind.
Bjorn stuck his head out the window to the big bedroom and closed the shutters.
He closed the window. Now there was only his shadow crossing the slats in the shutters.
Inside the room, Bjorn stepped over to the crib. When the child saw his face again, he couldn’t help it, he had to whimper a little.
‘Oh, Rayn will see to you, just wait.’
Bjorn carried him in the crib across the room out into the hall.
‘You can’t go on crying forever, Falco.’
He shut the door behind us and locked it. He stood for a moment, looking at the door. Then his hand closed over the key and pushed it deep into his pocket.
‘Good-bye, Ari,’ he said.
He picked up the crib and went up into the attic. Falco swung in the crib, looking back down as the door to his Mother’s room disappeared down the stairs.
