Free The Prophets of Eternal Fjord by Kim Leine Martin Aitken Page B

refreshment.
    Abelone pulls on his arm and leads him to the spring.
    She runs over to her mother to fetch cups, then returns and considers him inquisitively. You really are pale, she says.
    It’s nothing. He blames it on the punch, the long drive, the heat, on becoming faint from standing with his head leaned back. I feel better now. He accepts a cup and stares at it.
    A cup from which no person has drunk , she says. Otherwise the spring water will fail to have effect.
    The area around the spring, which is built up with boards in the way of a well, resembles a camp hospital. The sick and infirm sit about on stools and lie upon stretchers or else they come limping, supported by helpers. Behind the spring, further up the bank, lie heaps of abandoned crutches and bloodied and pus-soaked bandages thrown away by pilgrims ecstatic at abrupt recovery. The smell of sickness and infected wounds pinches the nostrils. Abelone holds a handkerchief in front of her mouth. She nudges him forwards. On the platform above the steps music is played and there is singing and dancing. He sees twirling skirts, hears laughter, the beat of a drum, a bear growling and straining at its chains. He feels dizzy and fatigued, the sun beats down upon his neck as if all of a sudden he were in the circles of the Inferno itself. Abelone tugs on his sleeve.
    Look, it’s our turn now, Magister.
    The attendant of the spring, a peasant woman in a bonnet and a white embroidered apron, asks if they have brought with them a cup from which no person has drunk . They hold out their cups and a boy fills them with water from the spring. Then they are pushed onwards to stand at a short distance to drink. The water tastes rather muddy, as well water often does, and has an unclean appearance. He empties his cup. Abelone dashes hers against a stone, causing it to shatter, and asks that he do the same. He must throw his own cup three times before it breaks. Finally, they each give a coin to the spring, remove themselves from the crowds and stroll, arm in arm, towards the woods.
    Did you remember to whisper a wish? she asks as they walk away.
    Indeed, he says. I feel better already. And you?
    She laughs. Now we are cleansed, Magister Falck. Now we can do exactly as we please.
    They wander along the shore, arm in arm still, though occasionally Abelone lets go and dances across the sand, jumping aside with a little shriek when the waves come lapping in, before returning to join him again. The foam licks away her footprints. She chatters without pause. There is a self-confidence about her now, something playful, challenging even. He is not sure, but she makes him feel ill at ease. What does she want? Does she even know? How does a man do these things, and in what order? Why is there not a handbook on the subject?
    She walks backwards before him. The hem of her dress is wet. She laughs and points. He turns round. Their footprints are a curve marking the border of waves that have come and gone.
    These two people, she says, look like they have just come from the inn, to judge by their uncertain path.
    I am intoxicated, he says. By love.
    But she seems not to hear him, for which he is grateful. What is he to say or do now? Force her down into the sand so that his kisses might wash over her like the waves? What expectations of the choreography of love has her reading of novels imparted to her? He sees the printer in his mind’s eye as he lay with his head in his wife’s lap but a short while ago. His shirt frill was open, he puffed on his clay pipe, Madame Schultz’s fleshy, yet no less beautiful hand rested familiarly on the hair of his chest. When Abelone informed them they would walk along the shore, he raised his glass of punch and winked his eye at Morten. Whatever that was supposed to mean.
    They stand still and look out on the Sound.
    The ships are pretty, she says. Their sails are as white as the gull’s wings.
    Yes, he says. The wind