Beasts of the Sea A Novel #2
Anna has got her Hampus back, and before long she is expecting again.
The decidua and the villus begin to form inside her, and as she notices the first tell-tale signs, she slumps into bed once more.
Children are a blessing, but do they have to come so soon?
Annie is barely walking, and Anna again finds herself with child.
She blames the doctor who did not have the good sense to tell her and Hampus to abstain from relations, but what can one expect of a man like that?
Nothing, and now she no longer goes into the town even in Hampus’s company.
The stairs leading down the hill make her feel faint, and being so short of breath is dangerous in her condition.
She does not go into the town and moves out of the blue salon.
Her new room is small and dingy, but it is situated right beneath the governor’s office, so she can hear when Hampus leaves his study.
Otherwise, they might not see each other all day, and Anna only seldom leaves her own room, she never goes upstairs, blaming the stairs themselves, and declines to take luncheon with the officials.
She must take care of herself, and to this end she maintains a strict diet: no raw vegetables at all, only soup, meat and some light puddings.
She lies in bed and listens to her husband’s footsteps on the office floor above as he paces around his desk.
She learns to foretell bad news by the way his shoes touch the boards, and when the door creaks on its hinges, she rushes to the foot of the stairs.
If she can catch Hampus before he disappears into his room, she might be able to lure him into the salon for a moment.
Then the worst happens, again. Hampus is drawn away on a new mission.
He intends to open a mine and plans to oversee the initial work in person.
It is naturally unfortunate that yet again he will miss the birth of his child, but his duty is clear, and he informs Anna of his decision, only this time she does not follow the advice of her books but opens her mouth and shrieks.
Never before has she challenged her husband , but this time she has no choice.
She must think about the child floating inside her, and if she remains here, she will surely die.
This she knows with as much certainty as she knows that the sun will rise again in the morning.
Hampus tries to reprimand his wife and remind her of her place, but Anna startles everyone by having such a fit that she has to spend several days in bed, and the doctor fears she may lose the child.
Upon hearing this, Hampus relents. He cannot take Anna with him into the wilds, but he can take her to Kodiak Island.
It was on this island that the former governor had a villa constructed.
In size and splendour, it bears no comparison with Kekoor Castle, but still Anna feels like a schoolgirl on holiday.
She takes walks, goes outdoors for the first time in months and picks flowers on the hillsides in all imaginable colours.
In addition to their own entourage, there are only a handful of fishermen on the island at most. Here there is no need to fear the Indians and she has no social duties, so she can spend long, perfect sunny days with Hampus and take little Annie out into the meadows.
The girl examines the moss, the pebbles, and Anna watches Hampus scoop his daughter into his arms. He seems to like the girl more with every passing day.
They take Constance with them too. She seems peeved, reluctant to leave the collection behind, but when have they ever asked her opinion before, and she packs her few belongings and steps aboard the ship with a scowl.
The island has its benefits, however. There are no social circles from which she needs to be hidden away, and she can wander outdoors to her heart’s content, as long as she takes one of the servants with her in case she has a seizure.
She goes out into the woods and tries to identify different species but finds it hard to see any similarity between her birds and the restless creatures fluttering in the trees.
Hampus spends a few happy days with them on the island, but then it is time for him to leave, and Anna notices that it is easier to cope with their separation here than at home.
In a place like this, even longing assumes a romantic glow, and her sadness is tinged with a wistful pleasure.
She is like the protagonist in a novel, pining for her beloved in the wilderness, surrounded by flowers, only now she has a child in tow.
Annie is learning to speak, starting to call her mother, and Anna tries to believe that she might mean it after all.
On the island, even Constance seems a little easier to tolerate.
In the evenings, they drink tea together on the veranda, the wind blowing in across the sea keeps the gnats away, and Anna chats to her sister-in-law.
Constance’s mind is damaged, sensible conversation is beyond her, but she certainly knows how to listen, and Anna can speak without having to guard her words – for who could a mute girl who only talks of skins and dead animals possibly tell about what she has heard?
And on the evenings when Constance is in pain and does not join her, Anna feels surprisingly upset and lashes out at the servants.
The child in Anna’s womb is growing, and Constance watches her changing body with fascination.
In her room, she reads about mammals, she imagines the placenta and the two separate blood flows inside Anna, and when the time finally comes, she asks to be present at the birth.
To her surprise, Anna agrees. As the contractions come and go, Anna grips Constance’s hand and asks her to pray with her, and Constance prays and thanks the Lord that she has never known a man.
Mammals have a tough lot: ruptured membranes, torn muscles, and blood.
If she could decide, she would choose rhizomes, spores and pollination, but their lot is tough too, and she looks on as Anna pushes the child from inside her.
The midwife swaddles the tiny, bloodied creature and hands it to Constance; she looks at Anna, startled, but Anna does not forbid her, just nods and drifts into sleep.
Soon after the boy’s birth, Hampus returns from his excursion and takes the women home.
Constance is happy to get back to her collections, but Anna feels like a prisoner stepping into a cell to resume a sentence.
On the island, everything had gone as she had planned.
This time the milk comes naturally and she feeds her son by herself, happy and proud.
Otto Edvin is a lively, chubby baby, but Anna is worried that the fumes of Sitka may yet ruin her happiness, and she shuts herself away in the nursery and feeds her son until her nipples bleed.
Hampus summons Anna and Constance into his study.
This is not out of the ordinary, sometimes he is keen to show them the items he has brought back from his trips – skins and Indian handicrafts, animals carved from bones that he brings as gifts for the children – but invitations to the study have been less frequent of late.
Hampus has many things on his mind. British troops are massing in Canada, and the memory of their losses in the Crimea is still fresh.
If the British decide to invade Alaska, it is far from certain that they will be able to defend the territory, and in St Petersburg there is even talk of selling off some of the empire’s overseas colonies.
Would it not be better to extract payment for them than to lose them by force?
But Hampus is reluctant. Is his fate really to become the last governor of Alaska, the man after whose tenure the colony ceased to exist?
He is keen to avoid such a humiliation, and to this end he pens letters beseeching his superiors, he will open mines and harbours, anything to turn their finances around.
Hampus invites his brother to head up the mining project, but this proves to be a grave mistake.
Hjalmar takes after their father. He has grand notions and ideas, he writes clumsy poems exalting the natives and the majestic Alaskan landscape, he visits Indian villages and criticises the colony’s activities – the Company has stolen this land from the savages, put them to work, then taken their innocence too, plundered their beautiful, Edenic environment.
The natives refuse to work underground, and Hjalmar is forced to pay them a very handsome wage, yet when the first cart of coal is hauled up to the earth’s surface, the disappointment is immense.
The coal is of such low quality that they end up selling it at a loss, and eventually word reaches the governor: a delegation has been sent from St Petersburg to draw up an impartial assessment of the state of the colony.
Hampus had hoped to be able to show his superiors a flourishing mining industry, but now he is terrified.
What can he show them but ice and the gradually depleting forests?