Beasts of the Sea A Novel #6
Constance slumps. She was keen not to show Wolff quite how exhausted she was or how great an effort it required to come to the workshop on bad days when her body was crying out for darkness and sleep, but now she has finally got her collection back, finer than ever before.
Von Nordmann will get his sea cow, but until the arrival of the delegation, it will remain here for their amusement.
Hampus has asked the carpenter to construct a plinth, and Constance arranges the bones on top of it.
The plinth is positioned in the middle of the room so that the other animals look as though they have gathered round the sea cow to admire it, and Constance fetches the collection catalogue and adds the great mammal to the list, writing its name in Swedish, Russian and Latin, careful not to smudge the ink, and in doing so she experiences something warm and heavy, something for which she does not have a name.
She opens the glass cabinets, takes the birds and mammals from their shelves one at a time, first the water birds, the gulls, swans and geese, and only then notices her cold sweat.
She is not even close to the mammals. Bad days, one after the other.
She closes her eyes and continues, the surf scoter and the blue-winged teal, then the birds of prey, but then she senses a metallic taste on her tongue.
She leaves the birds and heads straight for the sea cow, wipes the pock marks gathering dust on the skull.
A servant wakes Anna in the night. One word, Constance, and Anna knows.
A massive fit has befallen her, and Anna wraps a shawl around her shoulders and hurries to her sister-in-law’s side.
The sight is every bit as horrific as she had feared.
The spasms seem almost to rip her limbs from their sockets, her mouth is frothing, but Anna holds her sister-in-law’s head, and her hands are neither sweating nor trembling.
She does not know where her fear has gone, but there’s no trace of it; when Constance loses consciousness, Anna drops water into her mouth with a spoon, and as the terrified doctor prepares to perform the bloodletting, Anna rolls up her sleeves.
She keeps watch over Constance, but Hampus cannot bear to see his sister like this and heads into town, telling them that he will not return until later that evening or perhaps even the following morning.
Anna kisses Constance’s sweaty brow, sings and prays and feels the girl’s racing pulse in her fingertips.
The doctor lets her blood again. Constance’s lips turn blue, her hands become cold, and in the early morning her life comes to an end.
Anna does not abandon Constance to Sitka’s austere, sodden graveyard and the stink of rotting crosses riddled with mould.
No, Constance will be buried somewhere beautiful, lowered into a rich, green grove in the shade of the willows.
It is so early in the spring that they cannot find any flowers for the grave, but Anna fills the vases with branches, and when given water they sprout tiny leaves, and they place the branches under Constance’s head.
Two weeks have passed, but Anna still sees her sister-in-law, still hears her footsteps behind the closed door of the collection, and she orders a wrought-iron fence to be erected around the grave.
At first, she plans to lock the gate – she does not want the Indians to visit the grave and incant their godless words, sing of a raven that flies between the realms of the living and the dead, but she begins to wonder whether the thought of a soul bird might please Constance, her strange, wondrous sister-in-law.
She leaves the gate open and weeps for the woman who was always in her way, but who leaves behind an endless grief now that she is gone.
Though it is midday, the sky is dim. The sun only barely squeezes between the cloud curtain, and they have had to light the lamps first thing in the morning.
Twelve days of unrelenting rain, and Governor Johan Hampus Furuhjelm is standing amid his zoological collection.
He has just bidden farewell to the delegation, and all he was able to show the inspectors was a crumbling village in decline and forests devoid of animals.
Their report will be damning. He spoke truthfully, presented all the correct figures, though he knows this will not give a favourable impression of his tenure.
He also explained that there are rumours that gold has been discovered in the north and says that he believes the earth still contains unknown riches, that one can learn to live alongside the natives.
He even suggested that they could commandeer Alaska’s great woodlands, start foresting and shipping timber to America, but in St Petersburg people are tired of the colony’s constant demands and dwindling returns.
The governor stands amid his collection and looks at the sea cow.
In the yellow light of the lamp, the creature appears to shimmer quietly, and he places a hand on its forehead and strokes it.
So much promise – a creature that was supposed to feed Siberia, a colony that was supposed to produce endless riches – and all that is left of both are some tall tales and a skeleton.
Anna has already ordered clothes for the children for their return journey. She is finally going home where she can live the life she has always dreamed of: five children, a beautiful manor house, and an enviable societal position.
She dies at the respectable age of fifty-eight, surrounded by family and friends, and in that same year Kekoor Castle burns to the ground, taking the governate’s collection with it.
A group of polite but nervous men have gathered in the room.
Through the door we catch a glimpse of an opulent ballroom, but more important is this study, the mahogany desk and the maps laid out upon it.
Hanging from the ceiling are the star-spangled banner of the United States and the two-headed eagle of Russia, and at the left-hand side of the painting a worried-looking man proffers a piece of paper to a self-assured gentleman.
The worried-looking man is one Frederick Seward.
He has just offered to buy Alaska, and listening to his offer is the Russian diplomat Eduard Andreevich Stoeckl.
Stoeckl is about to place his hand on a great atlas, his hand casts a shadow over the north, and the men reach a deal.
Russia sells Alaska and the Aleutian Islands to the United States for a total price of $7.
2 million, four cents per hectare. After reaching this deal, Stoeckl receives Tzar Alexander II’s personal thanks, a significant reward and a pension, and after this he moves to Paris, where he lives a most pleasant life.
Seward, however, is the butt of much derision.
The deal is nicknamed “Seward’s folly” – and what a folly indeed, to buy but snow and ice, a land devoid of furs.
Professor Alexander von Nordmann picks up his letter opener and slices open the envelope.
The letter is dated in December, but in Helsinki it is already July, the swallows are nesting in the eaves, swooping down from their nests and flying past his windows.
The letter has taken a long time to arrive, but it was well worth the wait.
The Governor of Alaska has granted the professor’s wish: he has acquired a full skeleton of a Steller’s Sea Cow.
The governor has sent it to the professor together with some other specimens, reserving space for them aboard the ship of Capt.
Lars Krogius, due to arrive in Helsinki in August. The professor reads the letter, closes his eyes for a moment, then instructs his assistant to fetch a bottle of the finest champagne.
List of specimens bequeathed to the Imperial Alexander University in Finland by Johan Hampus Furuhjelm:
Two skeletons of the white-tailed deer, one male, one female; female removed from the collection on 3rd July 1960, male leathered and stuffed in 1955
Two North American porcupines, one stuffed, one skeleton (sex unknown)
One Steller’s Sea Lion, stuffed (sex unknown)
One Dall sheep, stuffed ram, declared missing in 2016
One mountain goat, stuffed (sex unknown)
One American marten, male, stuffed, upon arrival erroneously listed as a sable
One Steller’s Sea Cow, skeleton (sex undetermined)