The Weight of Water (8 page)

I remember that we lay upon the rocky shelf, clasped in each other’s arms, for a long time afterward, and it was only after
many minutes in such a position that I was able to stop shivering.

I think now upon that day and imagine another fate. A fisherman coming upon the inlet and seeing two children, locked together
in embrace, floating just below the surface of the black water, forever free, forever peaceful, and I wonder now if that might
not have been a more desirable end for both of us.

In our cottage by the sea, our mother had hung gay curtains of a red-checked cloth, and on our table, there was always, in
season, a small glass milk pitcher of flowers that had come from the garden that surrounded the cottage, and for many years
after our mother had died, I could not look at a vessel of flowers on a table without thinking of her. I am troubled now that
I have primarily indistinct memories of my mother, whom I loved, but who was drawn in her aspect and often so tired as to
be unwell. She was, like myself, a small woman who had a great many physical tasks to attend to, and who was not, I believe,
of a sufficient fortitude to withstand these burdens. Also I believe that whatever love she did not reserve for her husband,
she felt for her son, and in this she could not help herself.

In the evenings, I might be sent to bed while my mother spoke in low tones to Evan. About these talks, Evan would only say
that they were often stories or homilies about virtues of character and defects of same, and that our mother had shown herself
to be not religious in her beliefs, which at that time surprised me, as Evan and I and also Karen were required to spend almost
all of Sunday in our church.

As to why I was excluded from these talks, my mother must have felt that either my character had already been formed and therefore
such homilies were unnecessary, or that these talks in the night would be lost on a girl who would, by nature and by custom,
submit herself to her husband’s beliefs and character when she married. I am pleased to say that though marriage often constrained
my actions, my character and my beliefs, both of which were molded by influences far stronger than the fisherman who became
my husband, remained intact and unchallenged for the duration of my years with John Hontvedt. I will add, however, that an
unfortunate result of these private talks between my mother and my brother was that I was hard-pressed to disbelieve the notion
that of the two of us, Evan was the more greatly loved, and in some way I could not articulate or account for, the more deserving
of this love, and thus my own affection for my brother was not compromised but rather enhanced by this exclusionary affection
of which I so desperately wanted to be a part.

My mother sat by the table in the evenings when her presence was not required in town, and sewed or made bread for the next
day. When I remember her in this way, I see her as in the thrall of a quiet sorrow, not the dreary if not altogether sour
melancholy that Karen was sometimes possessed of, but rather a weight upon her spirit that she bore uncomplainingly and in
an unobtrusive manner. Perhaps she was not ever really well and simply never told us this. When our father was home, he would
sit near to her, mending his nets or just silently smoking his pipe, and though they seldom spoke, I would sometimes catch
him regarding her with admiration, although I don’t believe the possibility of romantic love between our mother and our father
ever consciously occurred to me until I had occasion to witness our father’s demeanor after our mother had died.

When I was thirteen years of age, and Evan just fifteen, our mother perished, giving birth to a stillborn child who was buried
with her. It was in the worst winter month of 1860, and the environs of Laurvig, and indeed the entire coast region, had been
buried with the snows of that year. On the day that my mother perished, there was, in the early hours of the morning, when
she had just begun her labor, a wild blizzard of snow so thick it was impossible to see out the windows. My father, who had
not been present for the births of his other three children, as he had been at sea during those occasions, did not feel qualified
to attend to such an event, and therefore hastened, even in the terrible storm, to fetch the midwife who lived between our
cottage and the town, and might be reached if the sleigh, belonging to our neighbor, Mr. Helgessen, could be fetched and could
make the passage. Karen, who might have been able to help our mother, was residing that night at the boarding house for sailors,
where it was thought she should stay during the storm. Thus myself and Evan, who were too young to help in this matter, except
insofar as we could put ice on our mother’s brow, wipe her head and arms when it was necessary, and hold her hand when she
would let us, stood beside her listening to her terrible cries. I had had until that moment no experience of childbirth, and
I had never seen such torment in any individual. I remember that in the candlelight Evan stood shivering with fear in his
nightshirt, believing that our mother’s agony was a certain sign that she would die. He began to cry out most awfully, although
he wished that he would not, and I became distraught at the sight of Evan’s crying, since he had always been a strong and
undemonstrative boy, and I believe now that I was more distressed at the sound of his weeping, at least momentarily, than
I was at the unspeakable rhythmic cries from our mother, and that I may have left my mother’s side to tend to him, holding
him with thin arms that barely reached around him, kissing his tear-ruined face to soothe him, to stop his shivering, so that
when, startled by the sudden silence, I looked back at our mother, I saw that she was gone. A large pool of blood had soaked
the bedclothes from her stomach to her knees, and I dared not lift the sheets for fear of what lay beneath them. I think that
possibly I may have closed her eyes. My father could not reach the midwife and was forced to turn back. When he finally returned
to our house, nearly dead himself, the event was finished.

I remember his hoarse shout when he entered the cottage and saw what lay before him. I remember also that I had not the strength
to leave Evan, and that I could not go out into the living room to console my father. When finally our father came into our
bedroom, with his face blasted by the sight of his beloved wife taken from him in such a violent manner, he found Evan and
myself in our bed, holding each other for comfort.

I would not for all the world speak of such gruesome matters except that I have always wondered if I might not have attended
to my mother in some better way and thus perhaps have saved her. And I have wondered as well if my memories of this terrible
night, or my actions, have been the cause of my barren state in my own womanhood, as if I had been punished by God for not
allowing the birth of my sibling.

I remained, for some months after this event, in an agitated state of mind. Indeed, I grew worse and was overtaken by a mysterious
malady. I do not remember all of this time very well, but I was told about it often enough by Karen, who was, during those
long and dark days, in despair over our mother’s death and my illness. Unable to sleep at night, or if I did sleep, subject
to the most excruciatingly horrible dreams, and without any medicines that might be a remedy to me, I became weakened and
then ill, and from there slipped into a fever that appeared to all around me to have a psychic rather than physical origin.
At least that was the opinion of the doctor who was fetched more than once from Laurvig, and who was at a loss to describe
the root cause of my symptoms. I recall that for a time I could not move either my legs or my arms, and it was thought that
I might have caught the meningitis, even though there were no other reported cases in our area that season. Because I was
so incapacitated, I could not feed myself. Karen, having more than her share to do about the house as a result of my being
bedridden, left this chore to Evan, who nursed me uncomplainingly, and I believe that he was in a kind of torment himself,
owing to the events that had occurred on the night that our mother had died.

There were entire days when I could not speak and had to be held up in a half-sitting position just to take a sip of Farris
water, which was thought to be therapeutic. I was moved for the duration of my illness to my father’s bed near to the stove
in the living room, while my father took up residence in the room that I had shared with Evan. My brother made a vigil at
my bedside. I believe he sat there not speaking for much of the time, but he may have read to me from the folk tales as well.
During this time Evan did not attend school.

I was not always lucid during my illness, but there is one incident I remember with absolute clarity, and which has remained
with me in all its wonder and complexity.

I had just awakened from a dream-like state one morning some months into the illness. Karen was outside in the garden, and
there were daffodils in a pitcher on the table. It must have been late April or early May following my mother’s death. Previously,
when I had awakened and was emerging from one of my dreams, I had felt frightened, for the feelings of the illness would flood
into me and I would be visited by the strangest waking visions, which seemed very real to me at the time, and were all against
the tenets of God. But that morning, though I was again beset with such visions, I did not feel fear, but rather a kind of
all-encompassing forgiveness, not only of those around me, but of myself. Thus it happened that in the first seconds of consciousness
that morning, I impulsively reached for Evan’s hand. He was sitting in a wooden chair, his back very straight, his face solemn.
Perhaps he himself had been far away when I awakened, or possibly he had been yearning to go outside on that fine day himself.
When I put my hand on his, he flinched, for we had not willfully touched since the night that our mother had perished. In
truth, I would have to say that he looked stricken when I first touched him, though I believe that this was a consequence
of his worry over my health and his surprise at my awakening.

I remember that he had on a blue shirt that Karen had recently washed and ironed. His hair, which had been combed for the
morning, had become even paler over the past year and accentuated the watery blue of his eyes.

His hand did not move in mine, and I did not let him go.

“Maren, are you well?” he asked.

I thought for a moment and then answered, “I feel very well indeed.”

He shook his head as though throwing off some unbidden thought, and then looked down at our hands.

“Maren, we must do something,” he said.

“Do something?”

“Speak to someone. I don’t know… I have tried to think.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said to him.

Evan appeared to be irritated by this admission.

“But you must do,” he said. “I know you do.” He looked up quickly and allowed his eyes to meet mine.

I believe that wordlessly, in those few moments, we spoke of many things. His hand grew hot under mine, or perhaps it was
simply my own fever, and, just as I could not pull away, neither could he, and for some minutes, perhaps even for many minutes,
we remained in that state, and if it is possible to say, in a few moments, even without words, all that has to be said between
two individuals, this was done on that day.

After a time (I cannot accurately say how long this occurrence took place), I sat up, and in a strange manner, yet one which
on that day seemed as natural to me as a kiss upon a baby’s cheek, I put my lips to the inside of his wrist, which was turned
upward to me. I remained in that position, in a state of neither beginning nor ending a kiss, until that moment when we heard
a sound at the door and looked up to see that our sister, Karen, had come in from the garden.

I remember the bewildered look that came upon her face, a look of surprise and darkening all at once, so that she frightened
me, and a sound escaped my throat, and Evan, leaving me, stood up. Karen said to me, although I think not to Evan,
What is it that you do?
To which question I could no more have made an answer than I could have explained to her the mystery of the sacraments. Evan
left the room, and I do not believe that he spoke. Karen came to me and hovered over my bed, examining me, her hair pulled
tightly back off her head, her dress with its shell buttons rising to her throat, and I remember thinking to myself that though
the wondrous forgiveness I had so recently felt encompassed everyone around me, I did not really like Karen much, and I felt
a pity for her I had not consciously realized before. I believe I closed my eyes then and drifted back into that state from
which I had only a short time earlier emerged.

Not long after that incident, I recovered my health. Never was anyone so glad to greet the lustrous mornings of that spring,
though I was quickly advised by Karen that my childhood was now over and that I would have to assume the responsibilities
and demeanor of a young woman. Around that time, perhaps even immediately after my illness, it was decided that I would remain
sleeping with Karen in the kitchen behind the curtain, and that our father would permanently take up the bed I had shared
with Evan. This was because I had reached, during my illness, the age of fourteen, and that while I had been sick there had
been certain changes in my body, which I will not speak of here, which made it necessary for me to move out of a room that
Evan slept in.

Our mother having died, and our father out at sea for most of the hours in his day, I was put under the care of our sister,
who was dutiful in her watch, but who I do not think was ever suited for the job. Sensing something, I know not what, a reluctance
on her part perhaps, I was sometimes a torment to her, and I have often, in the years that have since passed, wished that
I might have had her forgiveness for this. To her constrictions I gave protest, thus causing her to put me under her discipline
until such time as I did not have so much freedom as before.