It's sometimes said that the great literature offers two great themes: "A stranger comes to town" and "Someone leaves on a journey." In EYES OF THE RIGEL, Roy Jacobsen weaves together both of these, as new mother Ingrid Barrøy calmly announces she is leaving her island for a while—with her mysterious and calm dark-eyed baby.
It's soon clear that Ingrid is seeking the father of her child. How this little one came to arrive at the end of the long war, how much love is involved, and why her father's gone are mysteries from almost everyone. Perhaps Ingrid herself isn't sure how this journey has come to be. But she is determined to make it, without questioning whether she can complete it and find Alexander.
Yet, aside from rowing away from the island and landing on Norway's mainland, she has little idea of where to go. That is, she doesn't actually know where to look for Alexander. So her initial impetus is seeking signs of his passing. For this, nearly speechless, she holds up the child, Kaja, whose dark gaze is unmistakably his. Others meeting the baby's gaze seem compelled to point to the faint trail ahead.
From this book of slow and evocative revelation, here are some key moments:
[p. 90] They made some food and ate it to the sound of snoring from the next room, in what Ingrid considered would have been an oppressive atmosphere, had they not had Kaja, who was sitting on the table between them and laughing at their playful fingers, she was so serenely marble-white and oblivious to both war and peace that Ingrid was able to reassure herself—once again—that the journey had not only been undertaken because of Kaja, it couldn't even have happened without her, without a child to lug around, this most divine of all burdens.
[p. 106] "You're walking along a road of bad consciences, my dear."
"Hva?" Ingrid said.
Hübner answered—as far as she could make out—that the Occupation of Norway had been of a special kind, in many places it had been more like co-operation, it had tainted people, now they were washing away the stains, the country is cleaning its hands. Yes, even many of those who did do something of value know that they could have done more, and they would prefer not to be reminded of it.
[p. 110] Ingrid ... realized she would have to resign herself to not understanding what she was doing, and not let it worry here, as if it were possible to think in a way which was unthinkable. Or stop feeling what she felt. What are you doing to me, little one, she thought, and pressed Kaja to her body.
The translation by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw evokes the languages of
Scandinavia, but also of isolation and desperation. EYES OF THE
RIGEL—the eyes are those of the child, and the Rigel was a ship that
Alexander served on—offers the most elusive of mysteries, with delicate
clues to their solution, and a finale as wide open as the ocean itself. Readers of mysteries by James Benn, Charles Todd, and Fuminori Nakamura may find much to enchant them in this slowly compelling adventure.
This is the third of a series that Biblioasis brought to America in translation; the previous volumes were The Unseen and White Shadow. When you order Jacobsen's work from a local bookstore, as them to check the Consortium list in the US, or the University of Toronto Press in Canada.
PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.
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