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skylerdeyoung 's review for:
The Mercies
by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
•”Maren speaks Norwegian to Diinna and Diinna translates to Varr, her sentences always shorter, as though they have the better and more exacting words for what Maren is trying to say. What must it be like to have two languages in your head, in your mouth? Having to keep one tucked like a dark secret at the back of your throat?”
•”Maren feels an uneasy rhythm take hold of Vardø, her time finding shape.”
•”She imagines her husband downstairs, the band she placed onto the base of his finger clinking against his glass, perhaps toasting her. And because they will use his customs for naming, she is Mistress Absalom Cornet. Herself, lost inside his name.”
•”She couldn't have guessed at it: this hollow knowledge that wives must carry with them, that their husbands tear themselves a place in their bodies. Is this really how babies are got?
She bites on her hand to keep from crying. How is she to tell Agnete of any of this - how is she to warn her that even with a man appointed commissioner, with a beard that smells of clean snow and who prays hard as a minister, there can be no safety? Beside her, with the first light of morning coming through the thin curtains, Absalom Cornet opens his mouth wide, and begins to snore.”
•”The captain, it seems, is higher than a king, though lower than God. The sea is that to them, giving grace or committing violence, always spoken of in hushed, reverent tones.”
•”There is something unnatural in how she is with him. Maren thinks Diinna watches him with her hooded eyes as a wolf watches another wolf: he is kin, but she is wary. It is as if he takes something from her she doesn't want to give, from her breast, from her arms, with his hands tugging at her hair. She never shouts at him, but watches. There's no cruelty there, but there is also little warmth, other than in the quiet times at night, when through the wall Maren can hear Dinna singing to him, always the same song.”
•”At the harbour side, Pastor Kurtsson is stamping his feet and blowing on his hands. He is always telling them how God's love is the only warmth needed to weather the cold, and it gives Maren a little twist of satisfaction to see him shivering.”
•”Ursa is again prompted to draw a line between Kirsten and her husband: she is so certain of herself, so solid in the middle of the room that Ursa fancies she can feel the air pushing itself backwards to make more space for her.”
•”Most of all she guards it from Ursa, knowing the absurdity of what she feels. But she doesn't pray for it to pass, doesn't pray at all but for Erik and Pappa in kirke. The secret doesn't gnaw at her. Rather she feels strengthened by it, forged into something glittering and rare. She doesn't tell herself she loves Ursa, but knows it is something closer to love than she has ever known. With it inside her, she feels bold as Kirsten in trousers, and though she relishes the feeling, she knows it is just as reckless, as dangerous.”
•”She does not send her mind flying away. She is only her body, and Maren's hand upon her, and in her, and she could weep with the kindness of it, the ache of it. She did not know, she thinks: she did not know it could be like this.”
•”Maren feels an uneasy rhythm take hold of Vardø, her time finding shape.”
•”She imagines her husband downstairs, the band she placed onto the base of his finger clinking against his glass, perhaps toasting her. And because they will use his customs for naming, she is Mistress Absalom Cornet. Herself, lost inside his name.”
•”She couldn't have guessed at it: this hollow knowledge that wives must carry with them, that their husbands tear themselves a place in their bodies. Is this really how babies are got?
She bites on her hand to keep from crying. How is she to tell Agnete of any of this - how is she to warn her that even with a man appointed commissioner, with a beard that smells of clean snow and who prays hard as a minister, there can be no safety? Beside her, with the first light of morning coming through the thin curtains, Absalom Cornet opens his mouth wide, and begins to snore.”
•”The captain, it seems, is higher than a king, though lower than God. The sea is that to them, giving grace or committing violence, always spoken of in hushed, reverent tones.”
•”There is something unnatural in how she is with him. Maren thinks Diinna watches him with her hooded eyes as a wolf watches another wolf: he is kin, but she is wary. It is as if he takes something from her she doesn't want to give, from her breast, from her arms, with his hands tugging at her hair. She never shouts at him, but watches. There's no cruelty there, but there is also little warmth, other than in the quiet times at night, when through the wall Maren can hear Dinna singing to him, always the same song.”
•”At the harbour side, Pastor Kurtsson is stamping his feet and blowing on his hands. He is always telling them how God's love is the only warmth needed to weather the cold, and it gives Maren a little twist of satisfaction to see him shivering.”
•”Ursa is again prompted to draw a line between Kirsten and her husband: she is so certain of herself, so solid in the middle of the room that Ursa fancies she can feel the air pushing itself backwards to make more space for her.”
•”Most of all she guards it from Ursa, knowing the absurdity of what she feels. But she doesn't pray for it to pass, doesn't pray at all but for Erik and Pappa in kirke. The secret doesn't gnaw at her. Rather she feels strengthened by it, forged into something glittering and rare. She doesn't tell herself she loves Ursa, but knows it is something closer to love than she has ever known. With it inside her, she feels bold as Kirsten in trousers, and though she relishes the feeling, she knows it is just as reckless, as dangerous.”
•”She does not send her mind flying away. She is only her body, and Maren's hand upon her, and in her, and she could weep with the kindness of it, the ache of it. She did not know, she thinks: she did not know it could be like this.”