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enjoyed a good reputation in his years as a shoemaker, but
as a carpenter he was not worth much. As a result,
Martimann got out of bed; progress was made with every
board he nailed fast. He saved the widest boards for the
area around the door; they were up to eleven inches in
length. The floor had been sawed from a piece of driftwood
his father had given him, and on a nice day last summer
they had dragged the tree stem to Tórshavn and got it up
into the boathouse’s loft to dry.
It was the short trip down to the boathouse to retrieve the
boards that proved too much. Martimann became damp
and cold, and when he lay back down on his bunk he fell
victim to all the complications Old Tóvó had constantly
warned him against, and which strong Martimann simply
could not have imagined.
His intestines felt like they had come to life and were
writhing like worms in his gut. Sometimes they squirmed
up into his throat and made him vomit, or retreated down
into his rectum, spraying filth onto the blanket Old Tóvó
had placed beneath him.
Old Tóvó tried to coax him to eat; boiled milk was
somewhat satisfying and was also good at providing
blockage. However, the mites that lived on
skerpikjøt
4
were
4
A well-aged, wind-dried mutton that is a specialty of the Faroe Islands.