The letters are in a bundle in her suitcase, dated, from the first ones all crumpled and brittle-worn to the last, which she barely read. His handwriting is neat, each letter planted faithfully on the paper. There is a year in those letters. An ache. A childhood faith.

Home, once, when she was a child: gleams of silver running cold among the flat stones on the beach. She raced down to the harbour with the basket of coffee. Her body was light and hollow, like a tin can. She remembers the silver in a wet fish scale. 71

The oil in the blood on practised hands.

A black-rimmed thumb split the fish’s belly with a plop.

The village lies at the bottom of the deep fjord.

The mountain river cuts straight through.

Redcurrant bushes grow in the gardens behind the low stone walls, snagging on the wind. The view over Mykines. The island is feigning sleep at the end of the fjord. She pictures it. It grows slowly smaller against the horizon, gliding, then jerkily.

At first the blood is ridiculous, like she’s wetting herself.

The warmth seeps into the nappy, greasy in her pubic hair. She laughs fiercely with her teeth clenched. It’s the relief. Now all she has to do is live or die.

Time’s pouring now. A stream of black and warm.

She’s conscious but scattered. Small tussocks, which emerge glistening from the breakers, are sprinkled, go under, rip themselves free and become one with flesh-coloured foam. There are tufts of the flesh-colour between the labour pains. The blood and infection flow out of her. The nappy is getting heavy and wet.

Marita bares her teeth in the dark. Bends her knees. Lifts the small of her back and pulls off the nappy. The small pockets are bundled into the tablecloth.

Saliva trickles from her lips. She vomits into her mouth. Swallows. The cramps jab in all directions, white and stiff, then orange. Small explosions on the inside of her eyelids, evil berries bursting. 72

Keeping her limbs under control beneath the blanket.

Calling her muscles to her like dogs.

A sea bird gleams past in the blackness above. The sky is woollen, the sea still. It’s that hour, that deepest hollow of the night, when land is a question of faith.

Marita stands doubled-over in the raw air and lets the fever drip off her skin. The bundle slips noiselessly over the railing, splattering dark and grey against the boat until it disappears.

Nor are they any wiser, the birds. Some of them are bound to miscalculate and flop into the sea. She pictures the seabed like that. Strewn with small white bodies.

Marita feels the blood, only trickling now. She feels the warmth from within, stamping and trudging in her muscles. That the fever is like hot wine, that her legs will bear her.

73

AEOLIA