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False Gods and Unnatural Passions

Asta Hedstrom
Gunnar’s arm was gone—everything below the elbow. Though Erlend’s mama had bundled it in calico bandages, I kept imagining his injury and what he must’ve endured during the accident—the sound of the snap, the jolt of pure agony, the hours he’d likely suffered until Herr Doktor Engen arrived to treat him. Gunnar Fuglestad was my best friend since childhood and one month ago he’d almost died.
The bleeding didn’t do him in, but the septic infection nearly did and now his skin shone pale as a corpse. Gunnar: a corpse. The vision struck me like a rifle-ball to the gut.
I had to sit down.
Near the foot of Erlend’s four-poster stood a dainty slipper chair. Quietly, I pulled it close to the side of the mattress, nearest to where Gunnar lay beneath the quilts. As I settled onto the ornately patterned seat, I wondered why Erlend had asked me to come to his house to resume our theater rehearsals if my scene partner remained not only abed, but also terribly debilitated.
Looking over Gunnar once more, I sighed in relief at the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Though it’d only been a month since the accident, it felt like an eternity since I’d last seen him—the longest we’d been apart since we first became friends. Erlend’s parents, the Fourniers, had taken him in upon hearing about the calamity at the Fuglestads’ farm, but each time I had tried to visit, Fru Fournier insisted Gunnar was quite unwell and quite unable to see anyone. Now, finally, I knew what she meant. Quite unwell meant Gunnar’s arm was quite missing and the rest of him quite unconscious. I wiped my sweating palms on my skirt.
Breeze from the Norwegian Sea usually subdued our summer heat, but this morning’s air settled into an oppressive swelter. Despite the temperature, Gunnar slept beneath a blanket of silk jacquard, his head tilted to the side, his ginger lashes heavy and still. A scab, shaped like a falcon in flight, spanned the width of his forehead; a yellowing bruise marred one cheekbone. Sweat sheened upon his brow and corded his blood-red hair, and yet, somehow, he still smelled like cinnamon and rain.
With my brown huckaback pinafore and Gunnar’s many-hued wounds, the two of us seemed so out of place in the expanse of Erlend’s bedroom—double doors on one side, portière on the other, imported piano, ski medals, rococo mirrors. The refined luxury forced me to find things I hadn’t noticed about Gunnar Fuglestad before: the rough orange stubble on his jaw, oddly precocious for a boy who’d only just turned seventeen, and the hardness that remained on his face even in slumber.
With a steaming forehead and a twinge of guilt, I found myself thinking about the play. If Gunnar were to recover in time, his Benedick would have one arm. It might still work. Much Ado began with men returning from war, so Benedick could’ve lost his limb in battle. Gunnar would likely have a number of clever ideas on how to play the part one-handed. He’d make it brilliant.
The tip, top, tip of Erlend’s slippers echoed through the bedchamber. A flush of heat invaded my chest. Sounds coming from things I couldn’t see always made me anxious as a cornered hen. I was born with an unhearing left ear, so I’d developed a habit of turning to the right until I’d find the source of a sound. Erlend tried to keep me from doing it on stage. An actress needs to face the audience, he’d say. But even after weeks of rehearsals, I still fought the urge to face my castmates. And in real life, where I’d be unrehearsed and unscripted, I’d always turn right, then right again, and right once more until I could finally identify the location of the noise-maker. Twisting in my chair now, I spotted Erlend standing in the doorway, script pages folded in his hand.
Erlend. Glorious Erlend.
Only recently, during rehearsals, did I realize he was handsome. Before, I’d have used other words to describe his face: pleasant, kind, sweet. From his French papa, he’d inherited a deep bronze complexion—an anomaly in this land of sunburn and freckles.
“Thank you for coming, Asta.” His tense gaze landed on Gunnar’s sleeping figure. “Has Fuglestad dozed off again?”
I nodded.
“Hell.”
I turned back to Gunnar. Above his wraps, the short sleeve of his undershirt stretched thin and tight around his bicep. A rumple of pulled-away blankets revealed the beige twill of his trousers. He must’ve dressed prior to my arrival. Perhaps the effort of it had been too much.
“Look.” Erlend shoved the pages into his desk. “I’m sorry. Maybe we shouldn’t rehearse today. Clearly, he needs more rest.”
If only I’d known he was this bad. If only I could’ve done something. I got up and joined Erlend on the far side of the room. Hoping not to wake Gunnar, I kept my voice so quiet I nearly mouthed the words. “Has he been like this since the accident?”
“He looked better this morning,” Erlend whispered. “That’s why I sent for you. Fuglestad insisted—he wanted to start rehearsing again.”
Gunnar insisted? How could he insist on anything? The poor boy lay still as a carcass.
“Erlend”—I spoke as softly as I could—“what happened to him?”
What little I knew came from town gossip: Something occurred up at the Fuglestad farm; Sigrid died and her two boys, Fred and Gunnar, were injured. When the Fourniers ventured up there to see how they could help, they came home with Gunnar, who lingered near death for almost a month while Fru Fournier tended to his sickness—clearly the result of his mysteriously mangled limb and Herr Doktor Engen’s befouled amputation.
“Erlend?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
There were a million other questions I wanted to ask, but the strained look on Erlend’s face dissuaded me—for the moment, at least. While I liked to think of Erlend as my friend, being the theater’s director separated him from the rest of us. Maybe it was the mystique of his family’s wealth, the precision of his tailored garments, or the way he seemed so much older than his eighteen years, but something about Erlend Fournier remained beyond reach.
Watching me, Erlend bit his lip. “His mama was killed.”
“Yes, I’d heard that.” It was what everyone in town had been saying, but no one would tell me how. Now, Erlend’s unease suggested he didn’t know anything more than I did. He’d gone to their farm, though. Surely he had to have seen something.
“And his younger brother?” I asked. “They say he was injured as well.”
“Papa and I told him he’d be welcome to come here, but the boy maintained he needed to stay at the farm and tend to the animals.”
All this uncertainty surrounding the Fuglestads pulled my insides into knots. I needed Gunnar to be safe, forever—away from whatever tragedy unfolded at his family’s place up on Old Viking Road.
Erlend would protect Gunnar. Of that I had no doubt. But what about Erlend’s parents? They were wealthy and generous, but that didn’t mean they’d be interested in taking in this ginger-haired heathen as their permanent ward.
“Will he stay here?” I pressed. “Will you get to keep him?”
“Keep him?”
“He can’t go back.” Though I’d never been to the Fuglestads’ farm and didn’t know much about their family life, I did know what everyone said about Herr Fuglestad—that the man was a drunk. Was he violent? Had his fury been what injured Gunnar? I made my voice firm. “He can’t go back to his papa.”
The rustle of bedclothes stopped me from saying more.
“Asta.” Gunnar’s deep voice rattled like pebbles inside a tin can. “You’re making me sound like an orphaned kitten.”
I rushed back across the room and to his bedside.
“Baby kitten!” I squealed, attempting to pet him, attempting to bring a smile to his bruised and sleep-swollen face—attempting to quell my own worry.
He shielded himself with a pillow as I pawed his head. “Yes, and this kitten”—the pillow muffled his words—“has caused the Fourniers too much trouble.”
Erlend stepped closer. “You’re not the trouble, Fuglestad. It’s Pastor Odegard. He’s the troublemaker.”
“Odegard wouldn’t be making trouble if your parents hadn’t brought a heathen into their home.”
Smiling now, I lowered myself back into the seat. Gunnar’s family never attended church and, much to the town’s dismay, didn’t hide their pagan practices. “Making trouble?”
“Since Mama’s been taking care of Fuglestad,” Erlend explained, “we haven’t been to church and Odegard’s been saying things about the theater.”
My smile fell. Anything Odegard had to say about the theater wouldn’t be good. With its opulent fittings and spacious foyers, the Fourniers’ playhouse was the only structure in town made of white stone rather than wood. During the warm seasons, enormous planters of red roses lined its portico while a cast-iron fountain dribbled melodiously upon the shaded terrace—such a contrast to the surrounding plain houses, which weren’t adorned with anything more elaborate than a few small window boxes stuffed with myrtles. Had it not been for Herr Fournier’s fortune and unending desire to provide his only son with such spectacular indulgences, the theater would’ve never been built, much less produce enough kroner to remain in operation. Was the pastor’s dissatisfaction over the extravagance of its appearance, the antics of its players, or the fact Erlend Fournier—the eighteen-year-old theatrical genius who’d served as our leader for the past five years—favored art over hunting or fishing, and made no effort to hide his interest in literature while other boys engaged in roughhousing and team sports. With Odegard knowing Erlend’s influence on so many of us, the pastor once remarked on the dangerous trend toward...