Sigrid kisses a brass dog
“Oh, you big silly stupid slobbering cat-dog!” Sigrid cooed as she grabbed Kottr’s floppy jowls in her hands and shook his big head playfully. This time and the last, she had chosen to fuss over the dog, who ran ahead of his master, rather than look up at Eirik as he arrived. Thus the dog saved her much embarrassment.
She had only seen Eirik once since the first time he had surprised her on the log, but it was not for lack of trying. The weather had been rainy for May, and kept her indoors much of the time; and on the sunny days she had come, and he had not. But of course, if he asked whether she had waited for him, she would say she hadn’t…
“Good day, Sigrid,” Eirik said softly, but his eyes were intent on her face as he sat beside her without awaiting an invitation.
“Good day, Eirik,” she said politely and released Kottr’s head. “But you may call me Sigi,” she said. “Everyone does.”
Eirik frowned slightly. “No, I shall not. If everyone else does, I don’t like to. And, so, Sigrid is a good Norse name, you should not change it because everyone is too lazy to say Sigrid.”
“I don’t think it is only a Norse name,” she said timidly. “I knew Danish girls named Sigrid.”
“Tsss!” he scolded. “These pirates, they steal our names. These Danish girls, they are called Sigrid for the same reason my dog is called Cat. It is because they are not! And I think it is a funny joke.”
She smiled hesitantly.
“But you, you are half-Norsewoman, so that is fine. I don’t complain, because my mother was Dane, so together we are one Norse and one Dane. You can be called Sigrid because you are a Sigrid, and you may borrow my Norse half if you need to justify it.”
She giggled.
“So? I tell you I am a stupid pig-dog the more I talk.”
“No, no,” she said. “Only funny.”
“And, so,” he continued, “if I feel too lazy, I call you Siri like we do in my country. Not Sigi, because that is not pretty, and you are, but Siri, because it is. Does anyone call you Siri?”
“No.”
“So! I call you Siri now, because I shall be the only one. May I?”
She blushed, although she couldn’t say why. “If you like.”
“Do you like?”
“Yes.”
“So! I call you Siri when we are alone, and cousin when we are not, or Sigrid. So, no one will know. And so, when people ask me, what are you thinking, Eirik? I say, oh, I am thinking about Siri again, and they don’t know.”
“You won’t say that,” she blushed.
“Won’t I? Perhaps not to young Sigefrith and Hilda, because they know how the Sigrids are called in my country. And I don’t tell my sister, because she would be jealous. To them, I say, oh, I am thinking about my dog again,” he winked. “We just hope they don’t ask my dog what he is thinking,” he sighed and shook his head regretfully. “He think about you all the time. He always ask me, when do you take me to see that pretty girl who pull my ears? And I tell him, not today, because I have too much things to do. Not fun things, but, so. And he say, I go by myself, I don’t need you. And I say, no, because then I am jealous of my dog, and that is too bad for a man.”
She sat smiling at him, mortified at her inability to find anything clever to say.
“And so, stupid pig-dog yet?” he grinned.
“No!” she laughed.
“So, I must try harder. I think it too bad, I tell you things and you never believe me.”
“I don’t believe you are a stupid pig-dog!”
“Stupid chicken-dog?”
“No!” she giggled.
“Stupid donkey-dog?”
“No!”
“You never believe me!” he sighed in exasperation. “You don’t think I’m a pig-dog, but you must think I’m stupid.”
“Neither!”
“So, I don’t know why you don’t believe me, if I’m not stupid. I can see you don’t believe my dog talk to me. And you probably don’t believe me, too, when I say I think about you.”
“I don’t know,” she blushed.
“Ah! Maybe she do believe that. That’s fine, don’t you think, Kottr?” he asked the dog, who wriggled and barked at the attention. “You see? He think it fine. And, so, he want me to ask you whether you think about him sometimes.”
“Oh, of course,” she said and patted the grinning animal. “I like dogs.”
“And stupid pig-dogs?”
“I don’t know any,” she giggled and kissed Kottr on the top of his blond head.
He laughed. “Now I know why she don’t believe me,” he said to his dog. “She don’t believe I exist at all.”
Kottr yipped.
“He say he don’t believe it, too,” he said apologetically to Sigrid. “So I suppose I’m wrong. I imagine myself.”
She laughed. “No, I think you’re real.”
“How do you know? Did you ever touch me?”
She blushed and sat with her mouth open, hoping that it would cause words to come.
“You like to pet my dog. It do make me wish I was a real cat-dog and no imaginary pig-dog.”
“But you’re not a pig-dog!” she cried.
“Cat-dog, perhaps?” he asked hopefully.
“An Eirik-dog.”
“That’s funny,” he laughed. “You know another way to say dog in Norse? We say rakki. Sound a little like Eirik backwards. Or… no, rik, rak, something. Eirik, but wrong,” he laughed. “Oh! And eir-rakki, that mean brass dog. That’s closer. You believe me if I say I am a brass dog?”
“I don’t know,” she giggled. “It sounds almost right. Eir-rakki.”
“See, I told you I teach you some Norse. Now you can say brass dog, and so, you can go far with that.”
She laughed.
“Do you like brass dogs?”
“I suppose I do,” she blushed, and took advantage of Kottr’s head to hide her cheek.
“I see you like cat-dogs better. Next time I don’t bring this big fool.”
“Oh, no! You must bring Kottr. Besides, I thought it was Kottr who brought you,” she dared to tease.
“Only the first time. Now I come to see you.”
She smiled and hugged Kottr’s head.
“You make me jealous of my dog,” he said softly. “Just what I didn’t want.”
Sigrid clung to Kottr’s neck, frightened by how her heart beat, and how her mind was blank. She didn’t know how she would ever be able to let go of him now.
Eirik sat quietly for a while, and she thought he must have been watching her. Such a fool she must have looked! hiding behind the head of a big, panting dog!
“He tell me it’s too bad for me,” Eirik sighed. “He say he see you first.”
“It’s true, he did,” she giggled and sat up, but she continued petting the dog.
“He didn’t though. I saw you at Emma’s birthday. But I thought you don’t like me then, because you never looked at me.”
“I must have a little.”
“I don’t think so. I always watched you. And now you don’t look at me, too.”
She looked up at him, and he smiled. “So: Siri,” he said softly, as if to practice the word. “Now I like to say that.”
“Eir-rakki!” she giggled.
“Oh, no! Oh, Kottr, now I wish I never teach her that word! Now she call me brass dog all the time. But it’s better than stupid pig-dog.”
“You’re not a stupid pig-dog.”
“But I am a brass dog?”
“Yes!”
“Hmm. But you like brass dogs?”
“Yes.”
“Better than cat-dogs?”
“I believe I do.”
“But you aren’t certain, because you pet cat-dogs all the time and never a brass dog.”
She realized she was trapped then. She was sitting up on the log, facing him, and did not already have her arms around the dog to give her something to do with herself. She did not feel that she could throw herself at Kottr now, and so she sat, unprotected, and stared at him. Meanwhile her heart tried to pound a hole through her chest so that it might flee in a terror that felt, nonetheless, a little like delight.
He leaned closer to her and said gently, “So, I tell you something perhaps you don’t know about brass dogs. They never, never bite.”
She smiled and swayed a little, as if that information came as a relief.
His head continued in its slow descent towards hers, and his eyelids drooped closed as it came, until he was close enough that she could feel the heat of his breath on her face, and then his lips on hers.
