“Yes, you only learn that from experience.”
“But not from experience alone. It takes a special focus, I think. I’m sure you’ll agree that not everyone can learn to do it. You can live your whole life out here without the slightest idea of how long it takes between islands at whatever speed you’re travelling.”
“A lot of people are good at that. Not many as good as Brage.”
“I’d go anywhere with him. And with you, too. I hear you’ve pretty much seen it all.”
“Well, I’ve seen a bit. But to tell you the truth, before I go out I can see how it’s going to be. When the bays are frozen, for example, I see where the ice is rotten and where the currents are running. I’ve never fallen through the ice, not yet. Because I go where I’ve seen the ice will hold, and I come home all in one piece.”
He sounds, how should I put it, reverential. “You mean you know these parts so well you can see the tricky spots ahead of you?”
“That, too. But also that I can see how it’s going to be.”
“Do you have what they call second sight?”
“Yes, nearly everyone does in my family. There’s nothing special about it. You see what’s going to happen. You can’t change it. I knew my old lady was going to die. Signs and warnings everywhere, but nothing I could do anything about. When I’m going out on the water it’s a little different. Then it’s more active, like a collaboration. I keep my eyes open and I’m told how things are. Then it’s up to me if I pay attention to what I’ve seen or just do what I want.”
Reverence again. “You mean it’s like a higher guidance? Like a guardian angel?”
“Yes, you could say that, yes. I don’t doubt there are guardian angels. But I can tell you that there are powers out here that were old when Jesus was young.”
“How do you mean?” he asks. Not the way you ask in order to keep the conversation going but because he wants to know. We can both see out, so it’s perfectly natural that we don’t need to look at each other, and the watches are long out here so you don’t have to worry that you’ll run out of time.
“I see it like this, that when Jesus was young and out on the Sea of Galilee, there were powers out on the lake that were ancient. The people who’d grown up there knew about them and had run into them in certain situations. Jesus was an outsider. When he saw where his disciples should cast their nets, he thought it came from God, but it was from them, out on the lake. They realized that this man was something special, and they let him see. And he was the sort of man who saw. And who do you think it was who let him walk on water? It wasn’t God.”
The priest stares straight ahead. The bay is as smooth as glass, and the thumping of the engine echoes between the islands. “Have you ever felt their presence?”
“We all did, back in the days when we sailed. Back then, you couldn’t use your engine to outrun the weather, you had to keep your eyes and ears open. The whole world was full of signs. They told you when you should run for home before the storm caught you. They showed you where the fish were. They woke you up so you didn’t oversleep. They were there all the time, but you had to interpret them and understand them.”
“Have you seen them, ever?”
“Yes indeed. Old codgers dressed in hides who stand up on land and signal you to make it home as fast as you can. They warn you about storms. At first you think it’s some old guy from some other village, but when you sail around the island you don’t see a boat anywhere, and the old man has vanished so completely that you think you dreamed it. Nodded off and dreamed it. But several times I put the helm hard over and sailed for home leaving my herring nets to their fate, and every time the seas nearly swamped me before I was back in the lea of my own island.”
The priest looks deep in thought about something, but I go on. “It often seems to me that the ones you can see, they’re among the very youngest. They’re like human beings, and they know what it’s like to be unprotected on the sea when there’s a storm lurking. They know how we live, and they help us. There you’ve got your guardian angels, almost. But the much older ones, they’re more difficult. They don’t understand you, because they’ve been in their world such a long time that they don’t really know what it’s like to be human any more. They’re curious, and you can tell they’re all around you, as if they’d really like to know what it would be like to be in your shoes, but they don’t always understand that you’re about to get yourself in trouble. Sometimes they do nothing, although they could have reached out a hand and saved your life.
“I remember one time when I was out with my herring boat at night. It wasn’t exactly a storm, but there was a heavy sea. Pulling and sucking like mad. I wasn’t worried because my motor was running like a sewing machine, and I was keeping a good distance from those steep cliffs on Klobbar. But there was a terrible power in the waves, and even though I was steering seawards I was being drawn in steadily towards the land. It was pitch-black, but I could hear the way we were getting sucked closer and closer, that horrible gulping sound from the cliffs and the short rattling echo of the motor. I could feel in my gut how the cliffs were pulling me in, in spite of my steering away at full speed.
“The whole time, I felt there was someone right behind me. Curious as hell, the way they are when something’s up, as if he thought it would be interesting to see what happened when we were driven onto the rocks. You can’t talk to them, because I think they come from a time when they didn’t talk like us. They don’t understand what you say, so you have to get them to respond on some other level. I was thinking so feverishly that it wasn’t just language but a cry so primitive that anything could understand it, ‘Now you’ve got to help me to get round that point!’
“Then I could feel how he gave me a push so the boat picked up speed and we made it around Klobbar by a hair and out into open water. ‘Praise and glory!’ I said, but I don’t think they understand stuff like that. The next time I passed that way, in full daylight, I went ashore and put half a loaf of bread on the rocks. I’ve learned from experience that there’s nothing they’re as wild about as bread. The smell of bread is the best thing they know, because it reminds them of something they once loved dearly. That’s what I believe. There’s nothing they like better than bread, and if you want to stay in their good graces, then leave some buttered bread behind when you sit and eat your lunch on some skerry.”
The priest mumbles something about gulls and terns. “Of course,” I say. “Naturally they take those shapes, you can understand that. It’s like in dreams when white birds hover like a cloud above swarms of herring. When they show us where to fish, they take the form of white birds.”
“I don’t know what to say,” the priest says, but I like quite a bit what he nevertheless does say. “What you’re saying is incredibly interesting. You and Brage are the most skilful, most competent boatmen I know. The only conclusion I can draw is that there’s another kind of wisdom than the one we learn about in school and at the university. Call it another kind of sensitivity if you like. Anyway. I respect it and esteem it.”
“I know that a lot of people call it superstition,” I say, gently.