Читать книгу The Ice People 40 - Imprisoned by time - Margit Sandemo - Страница 6

Chapter 1

“Nataniel! Nataniellll!”

The persistent screams came in a dream, but Nataniel knew that they were nevertheless significant. Even while he was sleeping he tried to focus on them and make a mental note of what he saw and heard.

The dream was strange: he couldn’t quite place it; it moved in spheres he had never heard or known of.

There was a clear blue sky. Something was floating and whirling down from it, but it wasn’t snow. Petals, perhaps?

White petals with a touch of pink or light mauve.

Or perhaps they weren’t petals but women’s faces, pale as snow?

“NATANIEL, HELP! HELP ME, NATANIEL!”

It wasn’t the faces that were screaming but a voice he recognized from real life.

Strangely hard yet quiet sounds from a stringed instrument reached him. “It is a biwa,” said a man’s voice not far from him, though he couldn’t see anyone.

It was petals that were falling, from the flowers of fruit trees – apple blossoms or perhaps cherry blossoms. And as the petals reached the ground they were transformed into the pale faces of women, with red lips and melancholy, almond-shaped eyes. One of the faces floated close to him, then disappeared. But its eyes had looked straight at him, and they conveyed a terrible tragedy. The small mouth was heavily made up, the lips painted to look thinner than they actually were. Sorrow, sorrow, endless sorrow was written all over its face.

He heard the man’s voice again. “We are grieving over Heike,” it said. “Taira is gone forever. Gone at Dan-no-ura.”

“NATANIEL! NATANIEL!”

The deadly, fearful screams were there again. And those screams belonged to someone he knew.

“NATANIEL! HELP ME! I CAN’T GET BACK!”

He woke suddenly and sat up in his bed. Drowsy from sleep, breathless and not yet able to see clearly, he whispered: “Tova! It was Tova! What has she done now?”

For he took the dream seriously. Nataniel had experienced his dreams coming true too often to simply dismiss the strange visions he sometimes had.

Heike? “We’re grieving over Heike.” But you can’t grieve over someone who’s been dead for over a hundred years. At least not with that depth of sorrow. And those faces – they looked practically ancient, and they clearly weren’t of Nordic descent.

“Taira is gone forever. Gone at ...” He mustn’t forget that word, he sensed that it was important. “San” ... no, “Dan-no-ura.” That was it. Nataniel rushed to write down the words he had heard. Biwa. Was that some kind of musical instrument?

He jumped out of bed and fetched an encyclopedia from the bookshelf. Biwa ... it probably wouldn’t be there ... but yes, it was!

“Biwa: a Japanese lute-like instrument with a flat-fronted, pear-shaped body and a fingerboard with four frets and four strings; a plectrum is used to play it.”

Japanese. He would never have guessed that. Then again, he had never heard the word biwa before, he was practically certain of that. But you could never be entirely sure. The brain is able to store words that you might not be aware of.

But what about all the rest of it? “We are grieving for Heike. Taira is gone forever. Gone at Dan-no-ura.” He knew who Heike was, of course, but the other names were completely unfamiliar to him. He couldn’t have heard of them before, for his knowledge of Japan was very limited.

Was it all just nonsense? Perhaps. He had heard the story of the woman who dreamt that she was the guest of honour at a grand ball, and everyone flocked around her and listened to her attentively as she said something extremely profound and highly intellectual. Everyone was in awe of her wisdom. Then she woke up all at once and rushed to her desk in the middle of the night to write down the startlingly wise words she had uttered. In the morning she read the words she had written down during the night. They said, “Hulihu, huligame, men are polygamous. Hulihu, huligame, women are monogamous.”

Perhaps something similar had happened to Nataniel now, with his own dream. Meaningless words to which he had given too much emphasis.

But he didn’t think so. Tova’s screams of anguish had been too heartrending to listen to.

He looked at the clock.

Was it really that late?

Seven-thirty wasn’t an unchristian hour to call someone, especially not Vinnie and Rikard.

Vinnie answered the phone, and she may have sounded a little drowsy but he couldn’t help that.

“Hi Vinnie. It’s Nataniel. I was wondering if I could ask Tova something.”

“Tova? She’s not at home. She left for Oslo the day before yesterday. She had to visit a friend, she said, and I couldn’t really stop her. She doesn’t have that many friends and she is twenty-two years old now.”

Those weren’t exactly comforting words for Nataniel to hear. As far as he knew, Tova didn’t have any friends, especially not in Oslo.

“And Nataniel,” Vinnie continued. “We are so grateful for what you’ve done for our daughter. The hours she spends with you are the best she’s experienced.”

He muttered something noncommittal in response.

“But I’ll tell her you called,” he heard Vinnie say.

That might be too late, he thought to himself.

“Do you know where she went, Vinnie? Do you have the address of this friend of hers? It’s urgent, you see. I need her help.”

That was far from the truth, but what else could he say? He couldn’t possibly tell the sweet, worried Vinnie about his concerns for Tova.

Tova ... she remained a mystery to most people, including Nataniel. She concealed her thoughts so well that no one had yet been able to grasp the extent of her suffering.

One hundred and fifty years ago the ancestors of the Ice People had decided that the chosen one, Nataniel, was to have an assistant in his battle against Tengel the Evil. That was why the generations had been staggered, so that two chosen members of the Ice People could be born more or less simultaneously. But there was just one flaw in that arrangement: Tova wasn’t one of the chosen; instead she was stricken – seriously stricken.

However, her parents and the other members of the family had had a good influence on her, and her mission had been impressed upon her from the start. That did, of course, have an effect on her. It brought out her gentle, soft side and showed that she was able to feel for those she cared about. She stood up for them and was willing to make sacrifices for them, especially her parents, Rikard and Vinnie Brink.

But like many of the seriously stricken she was also very cunning. She had a completely different side to her, which she never revealed at home or at school. This was the true Tova, daughter of the ice and the darkness, relative of Tengel the Evil.

Her resemblance to the sixteenth-century witch Hanna was striking. They both had physical disadvantages in that they were both small and square, with short, stubby legs and ungainly figures, heads protruding directly from their shoulders, dishevelled, colourless hair and coarse features. They both had small eyes and broad noses, and their faces were covered with pale birthmarks.

Vinnie had cried many a tear over her oldest child, whom she loved so dearly. She had feared sending Tova to school. But the girl, taciturn as she was, had never mentioned anything about being teased by her schoolmates. “Good” Tova had always responded whenever Vinnie had asked how her school day had been.

Neither Vinnie nor anybody else knew what Tova actually did to the children who disassociated themselves from her, shouted abusive words at her, looked down on her or teased her in other unpleasant ways.

Tova took revenge on them. Quietly and cunningly. She was as skilful as a medieval witch at performing magic. Take, for example, her first day at school. Tova wanted to sit by the window in the last row. But another girl was already sitting there. Tova half-shut her eyes and concentrated for a moment, and the girl suddenly raised her hand and said: “There’s a terrible draught here, Miss.”

The teacher immediately went to where she was sitting to see for herself. “Indeed, there is. You can’t sit there. But ... there aren’t any other empty seats ...”

Tova interjected right away, her voice gentle and shy: “I don’t mind sitting there, Miss. A little cold air doesn’t bother me.”

The teacher gave her a perplexed look and then nodded. “How kind of you ... erm, Tova.”

Oddly enough, Tova never felt the draught. She was perfectly content sitting in a spot with such a nice view.

And when it came to the teachers, she also managed to separate the sheep from the goats. The form teacher was nice, but she could be naive and wasn’t always able to grasp things. Tova was left in peace. The headmaster, on the other hand, whose mouth was always distorted in his frowning face, muttered, “Goodness gracious,” the first time he saw Tova. At once he developed acne on his face that wouldn’t go away. Once, at the height of his acne outbreak, Tova passed him in the school yard. “Goodness gracious,” she muttered, in a tone full of loathing and sympathy, whereupon the headmaster blushed deeply.

The handicrafts teacher also fell into disfavour. She had the unfortunate habit of saying, “Poor, poor child” over and over again whenever she caught sight of Tova. Tova took her revenge by touching her hair as she passed her, and the teacher’s hair began to fall out. Soon her pink scalp became visible. “Oh, poor, poor you!” her colleagues would say to her in sympathy. Tova smiled maliciously when she heard them.

She also knew how to handle her stupid, malicious classmates. An extraordinarily large number of students were absent due to sickness, an extraordinary number broke their arms or legs and an extraordinary number of teachers and students suffered fatal diseases. And Tova was behind all the strange events that took place at the school. But who would ever have suspected that?

Her big dream in life was to serve Tengel the Evil. However, she hadn’t yet dared to contact him. The thought of her family – her sweet parents and her other relatives – had held her back.

So everyone assumed that she was on Nataniel’s side and wanted the best for the Ice People family.

Like all other normal children, she grew up, became a teenager and eventually left school. She experienced the pain of unrequited love on several occasions, which resulted in her avenging herself on the pretty girls. And also on the boys, if they acted unpleasantly towards her and said unkind things.

But so far, no one had been able to see through her.

Then she met Olav Nilsen, a drifter from the big city, and immediately fell head over heels in love with him. He actually talked to her. He called her a good companion when she gave him money and got him out of jail.

Which was why it hurt her so terribly when he called her a scarecrow and a dwarf-like witch with the world’s ugliest nose, and told her to go to hell.

She couldn’t even pull herself together to take her revenge on him, she had been much too hurt.

But that episode was over and done with now: it can be read about in the book Silent Voices.

All that spring Nataniel and Tova collaborated as they had agreed to do up in the Valdres Mountains. They tried to empower one another in the areas where they seemed to have weaknesses and would give each other difficult tasks to accomplish.

That is, Nataniel assumed that was what they were doing. But after a while he began to suspect that Tova wasn’t collaborating with him at all. On the contrary, she was making a fool of him.

Once Nataniel came to realize just how much of the evil legacy the poor girl had inherited he knew that she could become very dangerous. It was always she who had the last laugh, making him accomplish the most impossible tasks. He was the one who had to learn to cope with her overwhelming drive, her explicit lack of consideration and her cunning. In return, he needed to provide her with some of his determination to conquer the evil. He was the kinder of the two, the one who spoke of goodness, which was often an ungrateful task. It was easy to come across as preachy, and Tova wasn’t exactly open to preaching.

It was when she had inspired him to write an opinion piece in the newspaper that he realized how dangerous she could be. He should write about the many hard workers in society, she had said, the ones who cared for their old parents or in-laws without receiving a penny from the government and without ever having any time to themselves. It was a commendable topic, Nataniel thought, and with Tova’s help and frankness he managed to write a concise article to his great satisfaction.

Fortunately, however, he happened to read the article one last time before delivering it to the newspaper, because that was when it became apparent to him.

Her devilishness emerged there as well. Had the article been published, it would undoubtedly have offended every single elderly patient in need of care. Because in it they were portrayed as a group of egocentric and demanding old fogeys who sucked all the life out of their humble caretakers.

And it was all because of Tova’s clever formulations. Nataniel would have been embroiled in a huge dispute with the municipal authority if that article had been published in the newspaper.

He tore it up and realized that he couldn’t handle Tova’s upbringing alone.

He turned to Benedikte and requested that she invoke Gand.

Benedikte was eighty-seven years old but just as clear-thinking as ever. “Why don’t you do it yourself?” she asked.

“Me? I couldn’t possibly do that!”

“My dear Nataniel,” Benedikte sighed despondently. “Your flaw is that you are much too modest. Have you ever even tried to invoke our ancestors? Or Gand, or Imre before him?”

“No, I thought ...”

“Do you have any idea of the kind of powers you possess?”

“No, to be honest, I don’t. I probably get that from my mother – she doesn’t think we should use them too much.”

“No, Christa is reluctant because of Abel. But you ... No wonder Tova is leading you up the garden path and amusing herself at your expense! Why the specially chosen one should be so utterly meek and compliant is beyond me. It was the same with Tarjei – as you probably recall, he was the chosen one before you. He never stood up against evil precisely because he didn’t know the power of his own strength. Please don’t let the same thing happen to you, Nataniel, promise me that!”

“But don’t you think it is important to maintain a pure and gentle frame of mind in one’s battle against Tengel the Evil?”

“Yes, of course, but not to that extent! Just try to forget all that modesty of yours and build up the courage to invoke Gand. Or better yet, our ancestors. And start with Linde-Lou: he hasn’t exactly been utilized during the time he has served you.”

“Can Tova take part as well?”

Benedikte thought for a moment. “Yes, I think she can. She might learn something from meeting the Ice People’s original forces of goodness. But be careful! She’s standing with one foot – at least – in the other camp!”

“Well, that’s what we’ll do then. When and where should it be?”

“Let me see ... It’s not that cold outside right now. Dress yourselves warmly and go to the cemetery; it’s easiest to meet them there. Tomorrow night, when there will be nobody else around.”

“Will you join us, Benedikte?”

“Me? No, I’m much too old for evening strolls in the autumn.”

“But Linde-Lou isn’t buried there.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be sure to find Linde-Lou. He must have been waiting impatiently to be invoked. And you ...”

“Yes?”

“That article you just told me about ... the idea was far from stupid. Rewrite it on your own terms, not Tova’s, and formulate it in such a way that you don’t offend the elderly. The lonely, hard-working caretakers around the country could probably use a little encouragement.”

Nataniel considered what she had said for a moment. “Well, I still have the draft, and the authorities could use a little shaking up. They never hold back from encouraging relatives to care for their loved ones. I think I’ll do it. I’ll write an article that will singe them in all the right places.”

“Good! So the two of you will go to the cemetery tomorrow? Thank goodness, something is finally beginning to happen again. It has been so unbearably quiet on all fronts for a while now. I’ll call Tova.”

Tova was ecstatic at the thought of meeting spirits in the cemetery.

“Think of all the pranks you could do here!” she chirped.

“Don’t you dare,” said Nataniel, feeling like a stick-in-the-mud again. Why was he the one who had to be so sensible all the time?

They were standing in the appointed spot as the late twilight of the autumn evening settled over the old cemetery, surrounded by bare black trees. Tova, who only reached up to Nataniel’s waist, giggled elatedly.

“Are the evil stricken ones buried here as well? Yes, Ulvar must be here.”

“I truly doubt that you can invoke him. And try to keep quiet now,” Nataniel said warningly. “Leave the invocation of our ancestors to me. I don’t know how bad a relationship you have with them.”

“The worst, I hope.”

He felt like asking whether it was really necessary for her to act so devilishly but decided against it.

He was also irritated with himself. He knew that he didn’t have to live a flawless life, not like Shira who had had to be put through so many hard tests back then. Nataniel could indulge in just about anything; he could vent his anger on other people if they stood in the way of the battle that lay ahead of him, but he just couldn’t get himself to do it. There was something gentle and soft-hearted in his character that prevented him.

Just like Tarjei. And Tarjei had been killed by Tengel the Evil’s disciple, Kolgrim.

That was something that Nataniel had to keep in mind. He needed to be on his guard and make sure that his civilized manners didn’t play tricks on him one day.

They stopped near the graves of Tengel the Good and Silje. Nataniel felt very solemn as he said in a low voice: “Linde-Lou, I’m asking for permission to meet you now. And if there are others of you who would like to come and greet Tova and me we would be very honoured.”

The cemetery was completely quiet. Not a leaf stirred.

Tova poked Nataniel. “Don’t forget Imre.”

“Tova would also like to meet Imre, if he can hear us. I know this might be difficult since he has been succeeded by Gand, who belongs to the living, and we don’t know if Imre is still alive.”

Then they waited. The graves remained just as they had for centuries. The graves of the Ice People, which had never been levelled.

“This isn’t going to work,” Tova whispered, “Probably because I’m here. They probably don’t want to meet me.”

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” Nataniel muttered. “Maybe we should fetch Benedikte after all.”

“No, don’t bother,” Tova snorted. “Why would I want to meet those stone-dead old guys anyway? I’ve managed perfectly well up until now without them, haven’t I? So they might as well stay in their graves. Who needs them? Ulvar!” she shouted. “Can you hear me? Why don’t you come out instead of ...”

Nataniel put his hand over her mouth so that the rest of what she said emerged as an incomprehensible, semi-stifled mumble.

“Are you mad? Do you want to ruin everything?” he hissed as he removed his hand. “I should never have brought you with me, you’re crazy!”

He noticed that Tova stiffened. “Nataniel ...”

And then they emerged! Out of nowhere, until they were standing before Nataniel and Tova, just as real as if they had been living human beings. But Ulvar wasn’t included in the group, and Nataniel hadn’t expected him to be. Exactly where the evil stricken went after death was something no one knew for sure, but they had never actually emerged before the living.

“Linde-Lou,” said Nataniel, smiling at a fair young man with warm eyes. “Thank you for coming!”

“We’ve been waiting for your plea for help,” said Linde-Lou, smiling shyly.

“You have?” Tova asked aggressively and defiantly. “Mine too?”

“Of course!”

“Oh, no!” she said. She didn’t truly believe that the others took any real interest in her. She spun around to the figure she was sure was their leader. “And you must be Tengel the Good,” she snorted sarcastically, emphasizing the last word.

“I am,” he answered with the serenity of a patriarch. “Here we are, a small select group, come to meet you: Sol ... Dida ... Heike ... the Wanderer ... Ulvehedin, Shira and Mar. And Linde-Lou, who is Nataniel’s helper.”

“And ... what about mine?” Tova asked, as defensive and aggressive as before.

“Gand is on his way. It just takes him a little longer.”

“Not Imre?”

“No, Imre has withdrawn. But he will stand by your side when the time comes.”

“Bah, that old greybeard. He was already an adult in 1910, when Christa was born!”

They looked at her with gentle, sad eyes but said nothing. Tova attempted desparately to maintain her aggressive attitude, but she sensed the power emanating from them. Oh, no, she thought angrily, don’t think you’ll get me over to your side just by looking at me with your sorrowful eyes. I won’t fall for that one!

No one knows my inner thoughts, she continued, thinking to herself. No one knows what I intend to do when the showdown comes. No one knows whom I really serve!

But when she saw their scrutinizing gaze, she lowered her eyes.

Then Heike, the authoritative, grotesquely attractive, ugly man, began to speak. “We know your problem. And Tova, I want you to know this: Ulvehedin and I and many others before us have fought the same battle you’re fighting. Evil attracts you more than goodness does. But we’ve chosen the difficult path of goodness and have never regretted it.”

Tova was silent, but Nataniel had an idea of what she might be thinking.

“I was probably the worst of them,” Ulvehedin interjected. “To this very day I can’t fathom how Villemo and Elisa and the others managed to lure me over to the right side. I was like a wild animal. Love was probably the decisive factor. Elisa’s love. I understand you, Tova. The only thing we can hope for is that you, too, will someday encounter love. And that it will happen to you soon!”

“That’s easy enough for you to say,” she exclaimed. “You’re a man and don’t have to think so much about your looks. Girls always fall for men anyway. But have you ever heard of a man falling for an utterly hopeless-looking woman? How did Hanna fare, I wonder? And don’t tell me that men don’t care about appearances, because I won’t buy that. Experience has already taught me that much.”

“There, there,” Heike smiled. “Though I’ll admit that your battle is twice as hard. Have you ever considered that a kind and gentle disposition makes people forget a person’s appearance, however repulsive?”

“Ha,” Tova snorted. “I couldn’t care less about my appearance, as long as I have a strong and robust mind. That’s the most important thing for ...”

All at once the cemetery was lit up by a faint glow. The spirits retreated and greeted an ethereally handsome young man with dark red, shiny curls and a posture that conveyed his superior status.

Tova felt an unbearable sense of sorrow envelop her heart.

Gand smiled at her. “Do you think you could make do with me as Imre’s replacement?”

She had to swallow in order to prevent the tears from trickling down her cheeks. Her jaws were tightly clenched.

“Well, there you are!” she said vehemently. “So are you supposed to ‘protect’ me? That won’t be easy for you!”

“Don’t worry, we’ll become friends soon enough,” he said calmly, still smiling kindly at her.

“No ... we won’t ... ever,” she blurted out, and then she just couldn’t stand it any longer. She spun on her heels and rushed away as fast as her short legs would carry her, tears streaming down her face.

“That jerk,” she sobbed furiously. “He’s not to think he’s anything special, just because he’s handsome and has a gentle voice. He’s not to think that he can win me over. And if he thinks I’m going to fall for him he can think again! I want a man who tears me apart body and soul, who frightens and dominates me and whips me mentally and ...”

There was just the small problem that Gand actually lived up to all her requirements, because there was no denying his air of utter authority.

“Damn!” Tova sniffed “Damn! Damn! I don’t want to see Nataniel anymore, either! Because he’ll just make more of an effort than before to get me on the narrow path of virtue. And now he’s got all those stick-in-the-muds to support him! But it’s not going to be that easy for him! For little Tova is going to stage an outright rebellion, and then they’ll see who her real ally is!”

Nataniel stood alone in the cemetery surrounded by the spirits of his ancestors. He sighed.

“We can see that things aren’t easy for you,” said Tengel the Good. “But don’t give up. That little girl could turn into a treacherous enemy if she gets into the claws of Tengel the Evil. But I don’t think that he’s discovered her yet.”

“Hold her at bay,” Sol warned him. “You know that when the time comes you’ll be fighting an inhuman battle.”

“Yes, and when will it be?” Nataniel asked.

“Gand has asked us to wait.”

“I’ll be sure to tell you,” said Gand.

“And you need more time, Nataniel,” said Ulvhedin with a concerned look on his face. “You need more strength and self-confidence. You’re much too sensitive.”

“I know,” he said, nodding. “And I’ve never properly tested my resources. A week in a burial chamber isn’t enough to show how much resistance I have.”

“No, it isn’t,” Dida admitted. “You’ve shown that you can handle a difficult situation without panicking. You also have the empathy required when facing suffering souls. But there is still a long way to go.”

Nataniel thought for a moment. “My friend and relative, Rikard, has asked me to solve a case in Western Norway. He’s a police officer, as you know, and Tova’s father. Do you think I should take it on?”

“Why not?” asked Tengel the Good. “Whatever can toughen you up will be useful to you. And take Tova along with you – you shouldn’t let her out of your sight for too long.”

Nataniel wasn’t pleased to hear that. He had other plans, but he nodded anyway. “I’ll be sure to take Tova along.”

“Excellent,” said Tengel. “And when the time has come for the big battle we’ll let you know, as we’ve promised.”

Then all the figures faded away, and before Nataniel could manage to say thank you he suddenly found himself all alone in the cemetery.

So he took Tova with him to Western Norway. But all this had happened before he woke up from the dream full of floating, sorrowful faces and Tova’s cry of despair.

First, they had to get through the frightening events concerning Stella.