Fritz says nothing. He forgets to inhale through his nose. The air tastes sour and infected. He can see the polar bear’s heavy body in the water now, the way it’s gliding in the direction of the boat with smooth, powerful strokes. The animal dives, its white head vanishing and breaking again above the surface, steadily closer, water pouring from its jaws.

Jegvan whistles again, raising an invisible rifle. Slowly, with a hunter’s leisurely shoulders and back, he positions the barrel, locks his joints, takes aim. His face is shining. Transfigured. He fires with a click of his tongue. Fritz feels his legs disappear beneath him. He hears the bang, then everything goes black.

* * *

41The greyish thicket below deck is more an impression of light. A dingy materiality. There’s another bang. The noise is sharp and comes from the back of his head where it smacked against the deck. He can feel it. The sponginess. A taste of metal. Or there is a bang. Maybe. Again? The animal could still be there, it could be its mate they’re shooting at, or the skipper shooting birds for bait. Fritz is blissfully indifferent.

Now, as he moves a little, the back of his head throbs with a sweet and heavy pulse. This isn’t his bunk, it’s one of the outer ones. He’s lying with his boots poking over the edge where they heaved him onto the bed.

That was decent of them. Good men, yes. Sterling men.

The boat rolls. They’re probably dipping their jumpers into the seawater up there now and letting them freeze, like icy armour against the wind. Fritz pictures them. They’ll always stand like that, stand like that for all their lives, frozen solid. Fritz doesn’t want it. He stays lying in the dark. In his own smell. Tears catch in his throat. The gentle rolling of the boat envelops him.

42

GREAT-AUNT INGRÚN

‘Why did abbe emigrate to Denmark?’

It seemed like a good time to ask.

The midnight sun was maundering in my veins, and I could see it had got to the Tarantula as well. Those shiny eyes, electricity in the whites.

I didn’t dare ask, how do you migrate? What do you do about all the things that quiver?

Probably no one at the table could answer that question. Who were we? The Faroese, those who stayed, and us, the blood guests, biological seeds sown by migrants?

From the harbour came music and clinking bottles.

The June night was a happy, overcharged battery. Midsummer’s Eve, Jóansøku, is something special in Vágur. People come together, including from the other islands, for boat races, midnight songs, dancing.