The Prophets of Eternal Fjord (47 page)

The Tenth Commandment

In the Bosom of the Prophets: Excerpts from the Diary of Morten Falck

(Winter to Summer, 1793)

The Tenth Commandment, as it is most plainly to be taught by a father to his family:

‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid­servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.'

What does this imply?

Answer: That we should fear and love God, so that we may not seduce our neighbour's wife, alienate his domestics or force away from him his cattle; but cause them to remain and do their duty.

Diary, the First Part

.  .  .

Let there be light

.  .  .

And darkness

.  .  .

Who am I?

 .  .  .

I am

Therefore I am God

Therefore God exists!

God's existence is hereby proven

And thereby my own

Give me the widow!

.  .  .

Mother!

Father!

Sister Kirstine!

?

King Christian VII (and the Crown Prince)!

Jesus Christ!

Our Lord!

I am a question mark in the midst of eternity

Who am I?

.  .  .

A

B

D

M

P

F

Morten

Pedersen

Falck

.  .  .

I pinch myself

It hurts!

.  .  .

I am the pen that doth scratch

I am the ink that runneth

The paper that doth absorb

The words

From my hand my spirit

I am the hand that holds the
cock
pen

I am the spirit that leadeth the hand that holds the pen

I am Morten Pedersen
Falck

.  .  .

The passage of light across the floor

The passage of the eye within the socket

The passage of time through a room

One day is seven ells in length

And four ells high

.  .  .

I am Morten Pedersen Falck

I am Morten Pedersen
Falck

I am Morten
Pedersen Falck

I am
Morten Pedersen Falck

I
am Morten Pedersen Falck

I am Morten Pedersen Falck

.  .  .

The light falls so pleasantly upon the floor

It wanders from wall to wall

My wounds

My legs

My fingers

My
member
frame

No pain

But lust

No hunger

But thirst

No repentance

But contrition

My front teeth are quite fallen out but for five that dangle like

    scoundrels of the night from a gallows

R. I. P.

Verily I say unto thee

Rise up and go!

I shall not want

Who am I?

The woman comes with my slops

She calls me
Palasi

Verily I say unto thee, woman, I am priest no more!

I ask for ale

She gives me water

Bright as aquavit

I ask for a kiss

She attends to the warming pan

She takes my night pot

I ask for a smile

She does not smile

Who is she?

She has a comely backside

I must sleep now

.  .  .

My ejaculations are bloody

Nevertheless, they afford me much enjoyment

.  .  .

This night my excrement spoke to me in Latin from the malodorous

    depths of the night pot

The eternal tongue

Hoc est Corpus Christi!

It shouted out

This is the body of Christ

Eat me!

This is the blood of Christ

Drink me!

Small wafers it resembled

I laid one upon my tongue

In order to taste it

And receive the salvation

I drank the bitter altar wine

It tasted of urine

Ugh, how vile!

.  .  .

Music

French horn and lute

Kettledrums!

Blessed tones

The royal musicians play

Master Eckenberg waxes his moustache

And snaps his braces

Performs his somersault

And breaks his neck

.  .  .

My name is Morten Falck

My arsehole it doth talk

It poureth forth with sweet refrain

Resounding farts without restrain

The Lord's praise it doth sing

With arsehole descant ring

O squelching minor key!

O squeaking major chord!

I have not learned to write down music

Though poet may still be within reach

Such a wretch am I!

Who am I?

.  .  .

Rain beating hard against the pane

Is winter over?

Will summer soon be here?

The woman who comes here under pretext of tending to my physical

    needs is a thief(ess)

She takes my night pot

And when she brings it back it is empty

Not a drop has she left!

I believe she makes sorcery with it, and enchantments

I scold her on such account

And impress upon her the sacrilege of which she thereby is guilty

My excrement, I tell her, is blessed

It is the body and blood of Christ!

But she pays me no heed

She washes me with the cold water

Without shame she grasps my nakedness

As though it were the shaft of a broom

And washes around it with her cloth

Who art thou, woman?

Who am I?

I was the priest

More I shall not say

.  .  .

My obituary:

Morten Pedersen Falck

Son of schoolmaster Peder Mortensen, Lier Parish, Diocese of Akershus, Norway, born 1731.

And Gundel, née Olavsdatter, Lier Parish, Diocese of Akershus, born 1741, died 1791, R. I. P.

Morten Pedersen Falck was born 20 May 1756, a vile Thursday, at the schoolmaster's holding by the banks of the Holsford, where grows a birchwood copse and the life is good.

Christened and led to confirmation in Lier Church by the Rev. Mr Clemens.

Latin school at Drammen, graduation with honours.

Theological studies at the University of Copenhagen, 1782–5.

Graduated to the title of Candidatus Theologicus (Third Class), 1785.

Called to the Mission of Greenland, Sukkertoppen Colony, 1787, in his 32nd year.

Magister Falck left his home in the Colony last January and has since not been seen by any member of its crew. He is therefore presumed dead from cold or by drowning.

Loved and missed by his sister Kirstine Gram née Pedersen, Nakskov, and by his still living father, the schoolmaster.

Requiescat in Pace.

In Heaven we shall be united!

.  .  .

The journey here remains as yet all but clear to my memory. My bleating, shrieking, snivelling person was transported over land and water and placed here in the horizontal, being quite without strength and detached from all senses. I recall dreadful visions, white maggots wishing to wriggle into my orifices, small and vile creatures crawling about my body, mice, rats, spiders. It seems to me this continued for some weeks or else an entire year, jolting upon sleds, pitching in the bottom of vessels in choppy waters. Or perhaps merely days. I do not recall it, but see only indirectly images of it, a camera obscura projecting disconnected flashes of memory upon the blurred glass of recollection.

Remember to ask this if ever a person appears with whom one might converse: How long did my journey last? The Lord was in the wilderness for forty days. How long my own cold wandering? But who to ask? There is no one here, only the small woman who silently brings me three meals each day and empties my night pot, whereafter she departs without answering my queries. Perhaps she is deaf, perhaps she is one of the silent keepers of the underworld.

Where is the widow?

Where am I?

I demand to see the widow!

The widow belongs to me!

The widow is to come!

Do I wish to see the widow?

What she has seen, no man ought to allow any woman to see.

She knows me.

I know her not.

And yet I love her.

I think.

Until this hour I have called her only ‘the widow'.

What is the widow's name? Remember to ask!

This place is dim, but warm and comfortable. My bed is a soft mattress of straw, my cover reindeer skins sewn together. They are quite alive with vermin, albeit most likely the same creatures as brought here upon my own person and now multiplied in these new preserves. A tallow candle burns upon a small table. Next to it has been placed a Bible, a volume of Pietistic hymns, writing instruments and some sheets of paper of which a dozen already bear the scribble of my handwriting and a number of obscene sketches, though I have no recollection of having either written or drawn. I dip my quill, I put its nib to the hard parch­ment, I see the ink flow and my hand come trembling to life again. I live!

Lord, have mercy and let me die!

.  .  .

Alas, my wretched, battered body!

Today I rose from the warmth of my bed and took some small and uncertain steps upon the hard wooden floor. The room in which I have been placed is quite small, smaller than Bertel's front room in the colony as I remember it, and no larger than my bleak habitation on board the
Taasinge Slot
, though more comfortable by far. When my legs become strong enough I shall pace out its measurements, but I believe it to be four paces lengthways and some two and a half in width. To the right of the door is a window, quite impenetrable to the eye, though the light shines through it well. The sun is cast down upon the floor, a field of brightness that wanders from wall to wall, from dawn until dusk, and thus approximately I may judge the time of day, though not the time of year. I hear the lapping of water and pebbles clacking at the changing of the tide. Further away the rush of a river. Now and then voices, albeit distant. I have not yet the courage to put my head outside.

Thus proceed my days: I am awoken after good sleep by the small woman, who brings me a bowl of barley gruel. It is the widow. Now I see it. Only now do I see her.

Remember to ask: From where is this barley acquired that does not taste of mildew and rot? Do they do business with the Trade? If so, it is unlawful business.

When this kindly person has gone, which is to say the widow, at least I think her to be the widow, I sit up in my cot and slurp the gruel. Thereafter I read a little in the two books with which I have been entrusted, though both tire me so immensely that soon I prefer to follow the sun's advancement across the floor. When it has reached the right side of the door, the woman, the widow, returns, now with my mid- day meal, usually boiled meat with hard tack which I chew only with difficulty. I ask her where I am, how long I have been here and whether anyone will come and speak to me, but she offers no reply. When the sun has reached the other wall she brings me supper, usually porridge. I observe the bright square of sunlight wander up the wall to the ceiling joists, there to be extinguished, at which time I light my dip and commit my thoughts to this journal.

All is well.

15 April!

A living human, a person with whom to speak! The widow!

She is here. She enters. She sits down on a chair she has drawn up to the cot. She speaks to me. She tells me of the journey here, which was fraught with difficulties and lasted some score of days on account of ice and bad weather. Moreover, I made matters no easier, she tells me, being quite out of my senses, screaming and behaving like a savage. No, worse than a savage! A man who would lift me up received a punch on the nose by my hand, making his blood squirt, another I kicked in the chest, causing him to lose his breath, and only a dousing with a bucket of cold water could bring him back to his senses. I raged like Samson. And like Samson I had to be bound so as not to injure myself or others. Presently I fell into a state of great feebleness lasting some weeks, in which time I ingested only a little soup and water under protest. Everyone, with the exception of the widow herself, she says with a smile, is astonished that I am still alive, and all consider me to be living testament that the Lord protects His own.

And you? I ask. What do you consider?

It was me who looked after you, she says. Not the Lord.

To this I add no further comment. She wishes to take credit for having saved me. She deserves it. God bless her!

I am at the settlement of the prophets inside the Eternal Fjord, she tells me, though I had already assumed as much.

But why? I ask her.

It was wished, she says.

A priest. Indeed, I understand. They have a priest. Who wished it?

Maria Magdalene, the widow replies.

Habakuk's woman? Can I speak to her?

She will come to you when you're better.

I'm better now. Bring her to me! I wish to speak to her.

The widow says nothing. I take her hand. Dearest, I say.

My name is Lydia. Call me Lydia.

What was your little girl's name?

Her name was Milka, the widow replies curtly. We won't talk about her.

What then is my own name, Lydia?

You are
Palasi
. The priest.

But what is my name? I want to hear you say it.

Palasi!

No! I say. I wish to be
Palasi
no longer. I am Morten Pedersen.

People don't choose their names, says the widow Lydia.

Do people not choose what they wish to be?

You are your name, you are
Palasi
. That's why you're here. No one cares for Morten Pedersen.

She rises. Her visit is over.

Another small woman comes in. I look at her.

You! I say. I know you. You are the cooper's wife. Enike.