The Seagulls Laughter Read online

  As he stepped off the ship, Rasmus found himself surrounded by beaming faces and curious eyes. The men shuffled forward to shake his hand and, he guessed, bid him welcome in their own guttural language that he could not understand. The women watched him with bright eyes, infants peering out from the hoods of their mothers’ skin parkas. The children tugged at his woollen trousers and jumped on the toes of his rubber boots. Rasmus’s heart swelled with elation. He glanced over at Birdie and Snorri, who had disembarked from the ship just after him, and the laughter broke from his lips: Birdie, welcomed in the same way, grimaced down the length of his nose as though he were under siege, recoiling from the attentions of the crowd.

  Their accommodation was an old hunter’s hut on the outskirts of the village. It was impossible to tell how long it had stood uninhabited: the entire structure was in a state of disrepair yet inside the smell of blubber and dried blood still hung heavily in the air. Birdie turned up his sharp nose, made a point of throwing open the door to the hut in a fruitless attempt to air out the place.

  Rasmus delighted in the aroma, was sure that his own nose would grow accustomed to it soon enough. He and Snorri set about unpacking the equipment that they had brought with them for the journey across the ice cap – camera, compass, tent and sleeping bags… the sled and dogs they would purchase here in the village in due course, as well as skin clothing and anything else they might require to survive the harsh conditions they were sure to encounter.

  Rasmus was toying with the idea of trying to light the old blubber lamp – a task requiring some skill, which he was not sure he possessed – when a visitor arrived. A young man with a round face and dark eyes that creased at the corners as he smiled broadly in greeting. His bearskin trousers bristled in the cold air. He held out his hand as he introduced himself in perfect Danish: ‘Qallu. I am to be your guide.’ Rasmus took the man’s hand in both of his and shook it warmly. Snorri, smiling in his usual calming way, did the same.

  ‘Please come to my house for coffee,’ said Qallu; ‘you must be tired after your journey.’

  The pungent atmosphere of the hunter’s hut was left behind as the three of them accompanied the young man through the village. Dogs howled and pulled at their chains, and tore, semi-wild, at scraps of raw meat. Qallu’s sealskin kamiks crunched into the deep snow that blanketed the ground as it did the mountains. Rasmus smiled to himself as the sun warmed his cold-chapped cheeks.

  Qallu lived with his young wife and his sister in a little wooden house not dissimilar to the hut in which Rasmus was staying and which Birdie disliked so much. Stepping inside they passed a bucket filled to the brim with bloodied seal intestines; the skin of the animal lay dejectedly beside it, coloured red, waiting to be cleaned, then sold or made into kamiks. Inside the house the pervading smell of blubber and blood was woven with the aroma of fresh coffee and cigarette smoke.

  Rasmus accepted a cup of coffee and a cigarette, smiling politely at Qallu’s wife, who had made the offer. Her pregnant belly swelled enormously under her clothes; the couple’s first child, Qallu told them. He had caught a polar bear that winter, he went on to say, puffing out his chest with pride, for only the very best hunters possessed the skill to take on the great bear. And his wife had sewed him a new pair of trousers from the bear’s hide. Qallu danced around the small room, showing the guests his wife’s handiwork. His wife and sister howled with laughter.

  The ice had been broken.

  Rasmus heard Snorri chuckle; saw Birdie wrinkle his enormous nose. Perhaps he was simply a little confused, Rasmus thought, for he was unsure just how much Danish the man was able to understand – yet another thing that he did not easily give away. Rasmus had his Danish mother to thank for his proficiency in the language, something that enabled him to communicate with the people of the Danish-governed island. Until, he hoped, he learned to speak the Greenlandic language.

  Qallu often acted as a guide for visiting tourists and researchers, he told them: the reason for his immaculate Danish. He knew the land like the backs of his hands; he could read the approaching weather in the sky, smell a change in the direction of the wind, and navigate his way home through the white-out of a sudden blizzard using nothing but his keen senses. A hunter must come to know his environment, he told them, if he is to be successful.

  Qallu told them anecdotes from his many hunting expeditions while the young woman Rasmus understood to be his sister handed the guests plates of mattak. Rasmus kept his eyes half fixed on her. He noticed the graceful movements of her body, plump beneath her clothes, and the fall of her raven-black hair down her back. Occasionally her dark, narrow eyes would flicker over to where he sat, or wander over the faces of his companions as they listened to Qallu’s stories, oblivious to her interest. She could not have been much older than a teenager, he thought.

  He chewed the mattak that she offered him, the thick skin of the whale, a delicacy. The raw flesh felt good between his teeth. He rolled the cube of meat around his mouth with his tongue. The taste was somehow primeval. He licked the tang of salt from his lips.

  ‘Ketty is a wonderful cook,’ Qallu said, throwing a wide grin at his sister. ‘Perhaps the next time you come to my house she will prepare a meal for you.’

  9

  Malik

  The city felt no less oppressive the more I wandered its labyrinth. Around each corner could be found a replica of the street from which I had just turned: an unchanging facade of brick walls, concrete roads and distant, unattainable sky. The sheer monotony of it all hounded and chased me until I thought I might go mad.

  It was alarming how much of the sky overhead was claimed by buildings, and how little sunlight – on the rare occasions that the sun showed herself – filtered down to the level of the street. Even the rain seemed to have lost its fierceness by the time it hit the pavement. I was gripped by a strange longing for the elements, which more often than not steered me to the graveyard. There, where the skies were fractionally more open, I would stand before my father’s grave as though in wait.

  Here I was able to think more clearly. I thought about how the decision to accompany the beaked stranger to this place had not been entirely my own; the hands of fate were upon my back, the songs of the spirits in my ears and heart. Their ancient voices were now so distant that I could barely perceive them. Sometimes, thinking I sensed a murmur, I would stop still in my tracks and listen intently, but I could hear only the passionate drum of my heart and the roar of the sea over which I had travelled: far from the familiar embrace of my ancestral home I could not be certain of my fate.

  The graveyard – where the ancestors of this land lay confined in a boxed eternity – offered up no more of a helping hand in my time of need. And although this place of the dead instilled within me a certain peace that could not be found in the rush of the city streets, there grew in my soul a sense of such isolation that it seemed for all the world as though I had been forgotten. I would be left to while away my remaining days in limbo – neither lost nor journeying, neither abandoned nor loved, in a place that had called to me but was not my home.

  After an endless number of days spent negotiating the immediate area yet coming to feel no more orientated than when I had arrived, I began to venture further. Past the graveyard and along more grey streets I came upon an area where the buildings appeared to open up, creating a window to the sky above. I felt horribly exposed as I crept out into the open, like an arctic fox who has spotted a good scavenging opportunity and is reluctant to let it slide, whatever the risks involved. Like the fox I slunk into the square, concrete clearing, head and tail bent towards the ground, checking from side to side for signs of danger as I wound a path around those of the people around me and eventually reached the centre. Here there rose great walled mounds of earth from which shone the sun-seeking, rainbow-coloured heads of flowers; and between them, a bench. I took a seat and a deep breath, for it seemed as safe a place as could be found. From here I could watch as the people went about their b
usiness, without feeling under observation myself. Some rushed about clutching bags in both hands, some walked in leisurely couples sharing stories and smiles, children charged about uninhibited...

  I laughed out loud upon suddenly catching sight of Eqingaleq, who was peering with unbridled interest through one of the shop windows. Perhaps drawn by the glorious array of smells he pressed his crooked nose up to the glass and with slender, painted hands shielded his eyes against the glare of his own reflection. How bizarre he looked – though of course he was visible to my eyes only – dressed in furs and kamiks, his golden-brown skin decorated with black-inked geometric patterns and weathered creases. Perhaps this was how I appeared to those pale-skinned people around us; though only my forearms were inked and my dress was mundane, it was possible that those who shot a glance in my direction saw an exaggerated representation of my heritage.

  I caught precious snatches of conversation from my lookout post. At one point a young couple took a seat beside me on the bench, I perceived somewhat apologetically, and began to talk together quickly and animatedly. I did not feel ashamed for being a party to their discussion for it was entirely bewildering – though I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I was able to catch more than a few words – rather the feeling that welled within me was one of elation. Here was my calling, the next step along the path: if I could understand, if I could converse, the way forward would become clearer to me, and a great deal easier.

  ◆◆◆

  When I arrived back at the house I was, admittedly, relieved to discover that no one else was at home. I shuffled into the kitchen, warily, to make sure that I was indeed alone. Pleased by the lack of human company I approached the wireless radio that sat like some sort of watchful animal before the window. I had seen one of these before, at the doctor’s house in our town, though did not know how to operate the thing. Fortunately, it took only a couple of minutes of prodding at intimidating buttons and fiddling with obscure dials before the box began to emit a loud booming which, once I had located the feature that controlled the volume, transpired to be the voice of a man. I clapped my hands together in glee. Eqingaleq eyed the thing suspiciously from an opposite corner of the room and I rolled my eyes towards the heavens to indicate that some of us must move with the times.

  The hours rolled into oblivion with the day’s last embers as I sat as still as a rock at the kitchen table. I listened enraptured as the wireless’ words wove themselves into stories and images of my mind’s own fabrication; and the four walls dissolved into space and light, and the glow of the sun began to dissipate into expectant twilight. Occasionally I would hear a word, or even a phrase that I understood, though this happened too seldom to allow for comprehension of the particular subject matter. Instead the snippets of meaning combined and grew organically into dream-like trains of thought, mystical and bizarre.

  So absorbing was this experience that I nearly jumped out of my skin when Judith entered the kitchen, followed closely by her son. Automatically I rose to leave – anticipating that this would be the polite way to behave – but Judith only pressed a gentle hand to my shoulder as she passed, in reassurance that I need not be disturbed on her account. The young man dithered a moment in the doorway, having shot a reproachful glance in my direction, but his mother caught his eye. She raised an eyebrow and gave him a look that, although silent, appeared to elude perhaps to a discussion they had shared earlier, of which I had naturally been the subject. I pretended not to notice. The lad sloped over the threshold to the kitchen and proceeded to pour himself a glass of water before stiffly taking a seat, deliberately and painstakingly avoiding my gaze.

  He was introduced to me as “Michael”, and shyly I greeted him; still he kept his eyes down. Had I been asked to guess, I would have said that he appeared slightly younger than me. His face, lacking the grace of his mother’s, yet not entirely dissimilar, had about it a look of late adolescence. His pallid skin was blotched watery red in places and his features were thin and somewhat drawn, as though having recently shed the roundness of youth they had yet to find their true complimentary shape. His hair, a murky brown, was parted in the middle and fell straight and lank to his shoulders in a way not unlike the framing of curtains around a window. His ears were not to be seen. There was a certain lack of harmony about his features which was only exacerbated by the determined pout he had adopted for the occasion, or perhaps wore all the time.

  Preparations for the evening meal were conducted in a bizarre silence, accompanied only by the intrusive blare of the wireless on which I could no longer concentrate. For some time, I sat twiddling my thumbs, heart rate increasing little by little until finally I plucked up the courage to offer my assistance, managing to entreat Judith – who politely insisted that I need not trouble myself – to let me cut up the vegetables. Having located a meaningful task, I could breathe a little more freely. Eqingaleq, similarly, appeared to have found courage. Abandoning his place of safety in the corner he began to poke at the wireless with long, searching fingers, ignoring my hisses of caution. The boy remained in his seat. I could feel his eyes upon my back.

  Once I had reduced all the vegetables to tiny, neat cubes and Judith was adamant that I could contribute no more for the moment, I asked, in my now customary array of bungled words, self-conscious gestures and apologetic smiles, if I might go outside into the garden until the food was ready. Of course I might, was the accurate impression I received in response, there was no need to ask permission.

  I slipped through the door, framed by yellow and white check curtains, and quietly pulled it to behind me. Immediately my long bated breath escaped my lips in a sigh of relief: to be free from the silence, uncomfortably saturated with too many things unsaid, and Michael’s eyes upon my back, colouring my ears a deep, burning red. I could hear the lowered voices of the kitchen’s two remaining occupants, silence abandoned, locked now in strained conversation amidst the endless rambling of the wireless. Occasionally the young man’s voice would leap up in volume, only to be hushed back down by the reasoned words of his mother. My heart twisted in my chest and pained me, for I could not understand their words. Had I been able to understand, perhaps I would have suffered more.

  The birds reeled their dainty dances in the early twilight that followed the sinking of the sun behind the house and lent a strange unearthliness to the stillness of not-yet-evening. The light fell like that of the midnight sun: she who, in my country, sinks only fractionally below the horizon at this time of the year, bathing the broken fjords in a perpetual late-summer gloaming, to go no further until she rises for morning from the east once more.

  The garden, resplendent with the darkening heads of flowers and fruit bushes, stretched before me in deepening shadow, yet I saw that the sun still illuminated the roofs of the surrounding buildings. There showed a patch of bright, open sky above, coloured with a pink-orange hue that hinted at a glorious sunset. My heart ached that I should be denied this sight, hemmed in by unassailable walls which towered over my head like low clouds wherever I ventured; trapped.

  Judith’s voice spoke to me quietly from the doorway, inviting me back inside.

  I strove to conceal my misted eyes as we ate – sunk once more in a suggestive but not wholly unpleasant silence – awaiting the time at which I could politely excuse myself without appearing ungrateful. Having washed my plate, I hastened upstairs to the room in which I was staying but could not call my own. I stripped the blankets from the bed and, with the help of the bedposts, a chair and a corner of the dresser, constructed a passable tent in which, surrounded by pillows and a rug borrowed from another part of the room, I was able to sit comfortably, safely even. I drew one of the blankets down over the “door” and brought a comforting semi-darkness to my hiding place. The only sound was my laboured breathing, growing gradually more regular as the outside world retreated.

  I was roused by a gentle knock at the door to the bedroom. My mind was clouded, as though I had been sleeping, yet I realized th
at I was still sitting upright in my almost-meditative position. It had grown darker still; a face peered out at me from a murky corner of the makeshift tent, and my heart leapt painfully into my throat before I recognised it to be that of Eqingaleq, almost the same colour as the surrounding twilight. His black eyes gleamed wondrously with some unseen light.

  I scrambled out of the tent and opened the bedroom door to find Judith silhouetted against the waiting brightness. She apologised as, embarrassed, I blinked at her in the electric light – perhaps she thought she had woken me; perhaps she had – before handing me a slim book whose title, in the blurriness of my newly-adjusted state of consciousness, I could not read. From her careful explanation I understood that the speech which had emitted from the wireless earlier that evening had concerned this particular book, a poetry book. I recalled the glorious rhythm of the words I had heard spoken, those which, though obscure, had woven threads through my imagination. I understood, and thanked her. It seemed that she smiled, but did not immediately move away. After a moment’s hesitation she asked me, in a way that tugged alarmingly at my heartstrings, if I was keeping well. I swallowed, and replied yes, thank you. Then I repeated the last two words again, so that she would know I meant it.

  10

  Rasmus

  Qallu taught Rasmus how to lash the dogs to the sled and drive them over the inland ice. As they ran, their eager squeals carried far through the clear air, their panting breath rose in clouds above them; they wound in and out between each other, entangling their skin leashes into intricate webs.