Читать книгу The Ice People 21 - Devil´s Ravine - Margit Sandemo - Страница 6

Chapter 1

The hour before dawn. The hour when life and energy on our planet is at its lowest. The hour between night and day, the quiet hour when everything is dormant. Where weakened bodies go into their death throes, the flame of life flickers, and many people have to give up and relinquish life on earth. Men and women get lost in the dark corners of their souls and the mentally sick shout silently for help in the grey gloom of the fading night.

This is the hour when shady beings play havoc: humans with the invisible mark of crime on their forehead. Wolves and wild beasts roam about searching for prey, and their timid victims tremble, hidden among the leaves. Nameless creatures rise from the abyss to mingle with the living on earth. At this hour they can glide around the beds of the sleepers, searching for a prodigal soul that they can seize before day breaks.

It was at such an hour, at the end of a blue-black night, that the smallholder of Knapahult woke and sat up in bed.

What sort of sound was it that he had just heard?

His wife, Ebba, that sinful slut, was sleeping shamelessly after seducing him yet again with her devilishly beautiful body. He had beaten her, as one ought to, as punishment!

All was quiet in the kitchen where their daughter slept.

The sound had come from outside.

He swung his skinny legs cautiously over the edge of the bed – but not cautiously enough. The bed creaked and in the middle of that he heard the peculiar sound again, but so low that he could not quite make it out.

Could it have been a shout?

He wasn’t sure. It could have been a tremulous screech from a fox or an owl. It could have been the ice cracking with a loud noise. But it could also have been something else. Something unknown. Cerberus? Or ghosts that had made their way from the “other side”? The hair on his neck almost began to rise. Karl of Knapahult shuffled on bare feet to the kitchen door, and opened it very carefully. It creaked, but not so badly if you moved it very slowly.

In the kitchen he glanced in the direction of the bench where his daughter, Gunilla, was fast asleep, exhausted after her hard day’s work. Oh, well, he thought brusquely. It does children good to work hard. They have to learn what it is to have a bent back from slogging from early morning till night.

This was Karl’s philosophy of life, which he was very pleased with. Besides, he could turn everything to his own advantage by asserting that God would relish it. It was also the philosophy he used when he bullied his daughter. “Get busy, girl. Laziness leads straight to hell!”

That way, he got a lot of work done on the farm ...

Out in the hall he pulled on his boots. They were still damp from the day’s toil in the oat field, which he was preparing for the summer sowing.

Then he went outside. The few patches of snow that remained shone bluish in the dark night. The stars were out but not the moon. There was a hint of spring in the air, but it was still so cold that he shivered in his thick, homespun underwear.

Far away, the river roared as it always did.

Otherwise everything was still.

That was just what you would expect, the farmer thought grumpily. When you really listen, you don’t hear anything. But he went on standing there because after all he had definitely heard that sound. It had been so unexpected that it had woken him up.

Just as he turned around to go inside, he heard the sound again. He stiffened all over. It was a shout, several shouts, coming from the forested moor that lay beyond Knapahult. The sound came from so far off that he couldn’t hear what was said, but it was also sufficiently close that he suddenly felt very scared.

He could hear the sound again, roaring, in waves, as if it came from a whole chorus of voices.

Good heavens, Doomsday has come, Karl thought, his face turning pale under the stubble. At least I have nothing to worry about, but Ebba, poor soul, won’t be shown any mercy. She’ll go straight to hell, that’s how wicked she is. Nothing can be done about that. The Lord has passed His sentence.

Karl knew his Bible, and certainly the texts that suited his opinions.

Once again, he heard the sound coming from the moor. He could swear that no animal screamed like that. Nor any human being. But now, he mustn’t be too macabre. It was just the bewitchment of night putting grotesque thoughts in his head. Although he was cold he went on standing on the doorstep, but he heard no further screaming. At last he went indoors again.

He stopped in the kitchen, glancing in slight annoyance at the outline of his daughter’s body under the blanket. Women had always been second-class citizens to him, and he still fretted because he had never had a son. He took it out on his daughter, Gunilla, who had to work just as hard as a boy even if she was only fifteen years old and not particularly big.

He would have to get her properly married. Then, maybe, he might see some benefit. Gunilla already had a suitor, but Karl thought: heaven forbid. Erland, that useless pup in Backa, was certainly not going to have her. Karl would jolly well see to that! He was aiming higher. He knew perfectly well who was interested in his daughter. Very innocently so far, but as time went by the estate manager at Bergqvara was bound to discover Gunilla’s charms as she grew into a young woman, and Karl of Knapahult would be a happy man.

But Ebba, that stupid fool, insisted on spoiling the girl all the time. She didn’t want to listen when he said that they should try to get their daughter married above her station. Surely Erland from Backa was good enough?

Bah!

Karl moved into the bedroom and stood for a moment by the bed, regarding his wife’s enticing curves, which he could make out vaguely in the darkness.

That slut! Now she had aroused him again. Even in her sleep, she knew what she was doing. He lifted his hand to slap her but changed his mind when he thought of the shock this would trigger. Instead, he conquered the evil desire she had aroused in him, walked over to the window and looked out. Everything was quiet.

What was it he had heard?

The Knapahult farmer was not a sensitive individual but even he could sense that something strange, something evil, was looming on the moor. Was it the work of the Devil?

His smallholding lay at a little distance from the village, right on the edge of the wide, forested moor. No one else would have heard the screams and Karl wouldn’t for all the world talk about it in the parish. Making an idiot of himself, making everybody laugh at him. He still remembered when he had called down the wrath of the parish sinners by announcing that he had received a sign from the Lord that the Day of Judgement was near and that only the chosen would survive. He even knew the day on which it would happen. When nothing had happened that day, he had been the laughing stock of all the other smallholders. He had saved his honour then by saying – which was true – that it was only his intercessory prayers to the Lord that had saved them all. He wasn’t going to get caught out like that again. If he hadn’t been so grumpy and obstinate but instead had spoken of what he heard on the moor that night, the mystery might have been solved in time. What he had experienced was just the first sign, and his silence only helped the evil powers that had gathered in a ravine out in the wilderness. When others began to realize that something was going on up there, in the place they started to call the Devil’s Ravine, it was already too late. By then, no one could link it with the events that occurred elsewhere in the country at the same time.

Knapahult smallholding wasn’t big but it was well kept. It was poor, but no poorer than most other farms in the parish of Bergunda, near Växjö in Småland. Karl’s wife Ebba stood at the window, gazing out at her daughter Gunilla, who had just fed the animals. Karl sat on the bench by the wall, observing his wife while he reminisced gloomily ...

Knapahult was his childhood home, but as he was the youngest son he had no right to inherit it. This hadn’t bothered him in his younger days. Then he had felt the Spirit in him, and knew that he was predestined to be the people’s preacher. Karl journeyed around with his Bible as an emissary of one of Sweden’s many free churches. He had, of course, joined one of the most radical congregations, because he delighted in telling them what a miserable lot they were.

He travelled widely. He was a handsome young man in those days and it was no coincidence that eight out of ten of those he converted were women. Karl voiced his regret, mortifying his flesh in the face of their temptations. Following violent spiritual revivals, when the praying women had knelt before him and shown him their charms in low-cut dresses, with derrieres pointing invitingly upwards as they lay bent over in remorse and tears, he would whip himself with the birch. This was how he conquered the devilish temptations that Satan sent him.

Then Ebba appeared. Goodness, gracious! Ebba had eyes like flames. She had a low-cut dress, and more to hide in it than anybody else. Her waist was narrow like an hourglass and her hips moved provocatively.

Karl fell head over heels in love with her.

He had taken her into his room to be converted in private, because the girl was permeated with the evil power of Satan. For half an hour he fumed and raged against her, threatening her with constant pain; he spoke incomprehensible, rambling words about desire and joy, which he would take it upon himself to rid her of. He had taken out his Bible, but then it all became too much for him. Suddenly, he dropped his chin, gasping, with a glassy expression in his eyes, and fell to his knees in front of the sobbing, shocked young girl. His hands wouldn’t obey him; in fact he was powerless, and he began to rummage in her clothes, groaning and snuffling like a furious bull. He searched and fumbled, and Ebba, who understood what all this was leading to, didn’t stop the handsome preacher but simply twisted herself down onto the floor in a suitable position. His desire had such a grip on him it was like a whirlwind. He tore and tugged at his own clothes; his belt got stuck as he whimpered impatiently, moaning and puffing like an organ pipe. Finally, he managed to get out his weapon. Ebba spread her legs eagerly and sighed devoutly. Karl screamed as he took her but Ebba didn’t, because she had tried it before, but he didn’t notice. He was like a wild boar charging, and never would he have believed that the Devil’s temptations could be so unbearably delightful!

Since then there had been nobody else but Ebba. Day and night, if she so much as swayed her hips, he was ready. Admittedly, in his fury he slapped her even on their first night, but never so hard that it became unbearable. Ebba regarded it as part of the sex act, took the bitter with the sweet and was quite satisfied with him. After all, he was so handsome and all the other women desired him.

They got married, and now he could spend more time converting her, extricating her from the chains of sin. He ground away at her, but it simply inflamed his desire every time and he would end up in her ample bosom, then hate her even more intensely. Because it was all her fault, wasn’t it? He was the stronger one, he was God’s man! She was the one who tried to lead him astray and away from the straight and narrow.

Then he received a message from his paternal home. His elder brother had died, and Knapahult now belonged to Karl. They travelled home at once and took over the smallholding. They had their young daughter, Gunilla, with them. She was their only child as they had lost a young son, and that injustice made Karl hate his wife even more.

Of course, he felt that he was just as much of a magnet to women as he had been in his younger days. Often, however, he would detect a disgusted grimace when Ebba’s glance glided down the rolls of fat around his waist. He saw her nostrils flare in distaste at the good smell of manly sweat he emitted, and once she had said that she thought his thin, white, hairy legs were horrible. That remark had made him so furious that he had beaten her. She wasn’t to complain! Had she completely forgotten all those women who had gone down on their knees for him and were moist down below when he just looked at them? “Well, those were the days,” Ebba had dared to say, and then she had had her ears clipped once more.

Of course, Ebba hadn’t got any younger, but it didn’t really show. It would be more correct to say that she had matured. Her buxom body had become even more voluptuous. She was an incredibly striking woman, something she was well aware of. Karl called her a slut and a whore and all the sinful nicknames he could come up with, but it was mostly hot air. He never seriously suspected her because he was so sure of her adulation of him. He had no idea about the tranquil moments she had enjoyed up in the hayloft with itinerant traders and tramps when he was working at Bergqvara.

Ebba wasn’t interested in what her daughter Gunilla knew of them. Or, more precisely, Ebba didn’t want to know about it. She was extremely cautious when she sneaked out of the house for her trysts with other men and decided to believe that her daughter knew nothing. Never would she dream of trying to find out whether Gunilla had seen anything. Ebba blinkered herself deliberately.

Drawn by her silhouette over by the window, Karl got up heavily and went over to her.

“Just look at her, Karl,” Ebba said, prodding her husband with her elbow. “Now she’s lost in daydreams again. She just stares at the sunset instead of collecting the buckets.”

Karl grabbed his wife’s arm just as she was about to tap on the window. “Leave her alone! I’ll take care of her when she comes in. What a slovenly girl!”

Ebba was already regretting that she had drawn her husband’s attention to her daughter. “Leave her in peace, Karl! There’s no harm in looking at the sunset. I think she’s so clever. Doesn’t she do what we ask her to? Hasn’t she slogged since she was five years old simply to please us? Surely there’s no harm in losing herself in dreams from time to time? We have to accept that.”

His rough hands had sought Ebba’s bottom. He fumbled slowly inside her clothes. “She’s spoilt,” he mumbled between his teeth. “You make her conceited with your constant admiration, brushing her hair and dressing her in such gaudy clothes. Sinful, secular vanity – that’s what it is!”

Ebba sighed. She couldn’t see anything gaudy about a homespun skirt and clogs. Nevertheless, she admitted to herself that she liked to cosset Gunilla a bit.

Karl gathered up her skirts so that he could find his way with his hand. He was already breathing heavily in her ear. The other hand glided inside her underwear, curling itself around one breast. Her nipple prickled and tickled.

Oh no, not again, you old lecher, she thought, but lifted one leg slightly to make more room for Karl’s hand.

“Gunilla needs to be disciplined. That’s all that’s wrong with her,” the farmer said in a thick voice.

Ebba bit her lip. She knew that Karl was far too strict with their daughter. If he got any worse, then ...

“She’s so peculiar,” he hissed hoarsely while his finger worked its way towards the spot that would arouse Ebba, and so it did this time. She trembled violently, pressing her bottom into Karl. Like a whore, he thought in disgust. Damned whore, now she’s at it again! Karl’s trousers were beginning to tighten dreadfully. He continued with his train of thought, albeit with difficulty. “Other children don’t behave like that! Getting lost in their own thoughts everywhere!”

Ebba rubbed herself against Karl. She looked frightened. “Do you think she knows? Do you think that’s why? That this is what she’s ... pondering about? How is she to know?”

Karl’s eyes flickered. “Nonsense. How would she know?”

“No,” Ebba sighed. How was she to know?

She could feel Karl fumbling impatiently with his clothes. If only he would hurry up a bit. Her stomach was tickling; she pushed her bottom farther outwards and felt stickiness. When she felt the steaming hot thing butt its way forward, she closed her eyes with relish. There! Now it was in place! If only Gunilla didn’t turn around ...

Actually, it made it twice as exciting that they might be seen by somebody who wasn’t supposed to see them.

The farmer moaned quietly at the hassle of the awkward position.

It was probably wrong to describe Karl as a farmer: smallholder would be more correct. Knapahult was part of the big Bergqvara estate, which was now owned by the Posse Family. But Karl’s smallholding had been released from its former dependency and had become an independent farm under circumstances that have nothing to do with this narrative. So Karl’s farm was a bit better than the other smallholdings. That was why he made it a point of honour to maintain a certain standard on his land. They only had their daughter to work for them, but now and then they would ask an old farmhand to lend a helping hand. That was all they had to make do with. The tiny spot on Earth that Karl owned was no bigger than that.

Ugh, how he sweated. Everything seemed wet and slippery to Ebba as she bent forward with her elbows on the windowsill. Gunilla was still looking the other way, which was just as well, because Ebba’s hazy glance and open, gasping mouth, and the ecstatic grimace that distorted her face, would have been bound to startle her. Karl pumped and gasped for breath, slipping out as he muttered something unintelligible and went quite weak in his knees.

“Karl, I want to scream!” Ebba whispered warningly.

“No, please don’t! A woman mustn’t ... feel anything. You know that perfectly well. That’s ... blasphemy. Oh, oh! You whore of Sodom!” He collapsed over Ebba with a low roar. They sank down on the floor and with fingers clenched around the windowsill, Ebba didn’t give a damn about blasphemy or inhibitions. Karl lay over the kicking woman, working like a piston until they both rolled over on their side. Just then, they weren’t bothered about their daughter walking in and surprising them. At last, Karl got to his knees and boxed Ebba’s ear. “Look what you’ve done, you whore! How often must a poor man deny his Lord to satisfy you? Are you completely insatiable? Don’t you think of the salvation of your soul? Do you want to burn in hell?”

“Pull up your trousers,” Ebba said, matter-of-factly. “You look ridiculous with that small, shrunken thing under your fat.”

Karl slapped her again but then got to his feet. Ebba also stood up, shaking her skirts like a hen ruffling its feathers. Then they went, each in their own direction in mutual disgust, but forever united by virtue of their mutual desire for one another.

Karl buckled his belt. If only Gunilla wasn’t so obstinate, everything would be good! Not that she didn’t do as she was told, almost cowed, which was as it should be, but disciplining her was like hitting a wall. For good measure, Karl put her over his knee every Saturday for all the sins she had committed or might commit. Then she was purified and prepared for the Sabbath. Children had to be disciplined strictly, because if you spared the rod you spoiled the child. Of course you did! Nevertheless, Ebba had begun to grumble: Gunilla was too big to be smacked on her bare bottom. What nonsense! The older Gunilla got, the more sins she had to atone for, and it was best to take the bull by the horns right from the beginning. His daughter was certainly not going to be a village slut.

If only she had been a boy! This was his great sorrow and embarrassment, and it haunted him constantly. After all, they had had a baby boy. They had only been allowed to keep him for a few hours before he was taken from them. Karl never got over it ... deception was his word for it. All he got instead was a girl! Life was so cruel and unfair!

He gazed reproachfully out of the window. She was still hanging about, that unworthy creature! Women had no place in God’s congregation! They were a necessary evil, which the superior male had been given in order to test the strength of his faith. What were they worth to the Lord? Nothing!

How could God let him down like that? Karl of Knapahult was his most loyal servant, who had saved so many souls and sentenced so many to damnation!

And all he had got was a daughter!

Gunilla stood with the buckets in her hands, forgetting time and place. She was composing poetry.

Oh, green moon ...

No, that didn’t sound quite right. Maybe yellow moon, then? No, that wouldn’t do either. Oh, silvery moon, which shines and illuminates ...

Oh, why did it have to be so difficult? Gunilla laughed, a little embarrassed by her efforts as a poet. She gave up the moon, addressing her friend instead.

“Oh, well. I’d better go inside with these buckets ...”

There was no friend at all. But Gunilla had to invent one, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to stand it all. She was a strange mixture for a fifteen-year-old: she was physically mature but spiritually naïve. Her hair was dark, cut in a stark pageboy’s style with a fringe. No nonsense there! Her face had a golden-brown complexion and high cheekbones. Her eyes were a strong blue behind thick, dark eyelashes and her nose was straight and short. She was a Småland version of Joan of Arc! But slightly confused.

There was nothing she could do about it. Her father’s unjustified punishments induced a sense of rebellion and despondency in her. After all, she did her best all the time! It wasn’t ideal that she was often absentminded but surely that wasn’t a deadly sin ...? It was true that she didn’t care much for the work on the smallholding and she didn’t feel that it was her destiny. She never showed her dislike and she did everything she could to please her father. Maybe that was a fault?

Karl said that she was thinking of boys. Heavens, how would she be able to do that? Who did she have to choose from? Erland of Backa? That ... pup! His yearning glances upset Gunilla, who wasn’t used to that kind of thing. She just wasn’t mature enough; in many ways she was still a child. It was difficult and troublesome that her breasts had begun to develop at the speed of lightning. After all, she still wanted to play with the dogs and turn fir cones into cows by putting sticks on them for legs. Erland’s hands, which shyly tried to touch her, made her furious – something she didn’t understand. She would always run away into the forest, to a secret spot on a rocky ledge. This was where she would sit, dreaming about heroic deeds she wanted to do, which everybody in the village would praise her for. Her horizon didn’t go beyond the village.

Why on earth would she want Erland of Backa? He was such a childish, clumsy fool. His advances embarrassed her. She would never marry. It was so horrible!

Gunilla had a completely different dream. About a friend who was more like a father than a boyfriend. The estate manager at Bergqvara. He was so nice and kind to her! Gunilla felt more comfortable with him. He would understand her. She longed to be able to sit on his lap and listen to his deep, warm voice and be allowed to talk about all her confusing thoughts and not least her joys. He would never begin to grope her or say stupid, unfathomable things the way Erland did.

Erland was a village fool. Everybody knew that.

Not that he was stupid. Gunilla didn’t think that, but he was just so different! So unfinished as a human being, as if he was searching for himself. His groping her made her think of ...

Oh, Erland was stupid!

She came out of her daydreams and began to walk up towards the house with the buckets in one hand and the ladle she had fed the chickens with in the other. She let the ladle rattle against the row of birch trees as she walked past as a small, loud protest against everything. Then she turned round and asked the birch trees for forgiveness.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said remorsefully. “I was being thoughtless again, sorry, sorry!”

As she walked in, she was once again met by that strange, musty smell in the kitchen. As of something ... forbidden? The air was thick with an atmosphere she had sensed many times before but was unable to identify. Something suggestive, perhaps? Gunilla wasn’t able to interpret the signals she picked up.

Her father was there at once. “I must say you certainly took your time, didn’t you!” he said grumpily. “Can’t you do anything properly? Now you can go over to Bergqvara and tell the manager that I can come on Monday if they want me to.”

Karl had an ulterior motive for sending Gunilla off on such an unnecessary errand. He wanted to thrust his daughter before the estate manager as quickly as possible, before the latter had time to find a new wife. He wasn’t exactly a young man any more, and he had been a widower for many years. It was about time he started to notice Gunilla’s good qualities. An estate manager wasn’t to be sneezed at. The daughter of a smallholder couldn’t wish for anything better than that.

Gunilla was pleased to do this errand. The manager was always such a pleasure to talk to. She didn’t imagine for a moment that her father wanted them to become a couple. If she had known, she probably wouldn’t have skipped so lightly along the grassy track from Knapahult!

When Gunilla reached the edge of the forest she had a view of the whole village before her, as well as Bergqvara farm on the other side with its fields and meadows. She stopped abruptly. She could hear the hoarse notes of a poorly shaped wooden whistle next to the track. Everything poor Erland of Backa laid his hands on was a disaster. He couldn’t even figure out how to make a simple wooden whistle!

“Gunilla, wait!” he shouted when she showed that she intended to continue walking. “Come and see!” She stopped, hesitating. She was cross with him after the last time they had met, when he had begun to talk “silly” again.

“See what I found in the grass!”

Curiosity got the better of her.

“I’m afraid I’m rather busy,” she warned, but she came closer anyway. “It’s late and ...”

“See,” Erland said, pointing down.

“Heavens!” Gunilla exclaimed. She was touched and bent down to pick the first, pale blue violet of spring. “I’m glad you didn’t pick it, Erland! It’s so dainty!”

Erland of Backa looked at her with eyes that radiated pride. He was a spotty youth, and so spineless that you would think he was put together with strings. He moved his arms and legs so clumsily and his unrestrained admiration for Gunilla didn’t help his self-confidence. His dull brown hair stuck out and he was growing a beard – sparse, soft, curly hairs that he ought to have shaved off. But his face had a kind look and he had always been a good playmate for her – until now, when he had grown, erotically speaking. Now he had other fantasies while she dreamed, rather childishly, of the heroic deeds she wanted to accomplish. Erland had always been romantic and a dreamer – rather a poetic soul, which irritated Gunilla now because he expressed it in a way she couldn’t accept. She found him immensely nondescript and immature, perhaps because she was comparing him with the estate manager at Bergqvara?

Gunilla needed a father figure. Not a lover. But neither she nor Erland understood that.

“I’ll be leaving soon,” Erland said, his voice trembling.

“Leaving? You? Where are you going?”

He straightened his back. “I’m to do my military service.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, embarrassed. “The estate owner says that I must travel to join the regiment at Eksjö in Småland. Far away ...”

Gunilla was speechless. “Will you be gone for a long time?” she asked finally.

“I don’t know,” he answered, pathetically. “They’re laughing at me in the village. They say that they will never make a man of me and that the reason why the estate owner is sending me away is because I’m not exactly a ray of sunshine or a ball of fire.”

Gunilla was silent. She tended to agree with the others.

“They say I’ll have my own smallholding,” he said helplessly. “Soon.”

“Well, who am I to play with then?” Gunilla asked faintly. “If you go?”

Erland wasn’t listening. He gazed at her with fervent admiration. “You’re so pretty, Gunilla!”

“Oh, don’t start all that nonsense again!”

“It’s not nonsense. You’ve ... never ...?”

“What?”

Her sharp tone made him lose courage. His hands, which moved about like moths close to her, fell loosely to his sides once more.

“Nothing.”

“Speak up! What was it you wanted to say?”

“Please sit down for a little while.”

“I haven’t got time,” said Gunilla, but she sat down nevertheless, carefully avoiding the violet. Erland lay down close to her, resting on his elbow. He looked at her without saying a word.

She was beginning to be irritated. “What is it you want to say?”

“I’ve got hair on my chest.”

“That’s a lie,” she exclaimed, childishly curious.

“No, it’s true. See for yourself!”

Before Gunilla could prevent it, he had unbuttoned his shirt and showed his slim, pale chest.

“Well, where are they then?” she asked mercilessly.

“Can’t you see them? Here ... no, where are they? Yes, here they are, see.”

“I’m impressed,” she said wryly at the sight of two almost invisible wisps of hair in the middle of his chest. “How yucky!”

Erland buttoned up his shirt. He was hurt. “Have you also ...?”

“Of course I have!”

“I didn’t mean that!”

Gunilla stared at him. Then she flew up, filled with disgust. “Oh yuck, hell, you’re horrible! Just go away and become a soldier and never come back!”

Erland jumped up almost as quickly. “No, Gunilla. Please. I promise not to talk like that any more. I promise!”

“Let me go!” Gunilla snarled, trying to break loose from Erland’s grip on her arm. “I’m going over to the estate manager on an errand for my father. The manager is much nicer than you. You’re so stupid, so stupid, so stupid ...”

“That old man?” Erland exclaimed incredulously. “Surely you can’t compare him with me!”

Gunilla said: “He’s not an old man!”

Erland replied: “Yes, he is!”

Realizing that the conversation had gone astray and that he was losing her interest, he quickly changed the topic. “Gunilla, is it true that your father has heard strange sounds coming from the moor?”

She still kept him at arm’s length and answered aggressively: “Oh, that! That was last winter! Or spring!”

“Yes, but hasn’t he heard them since?”

Gunilla thought for a moment. “Perhaps. He whispered something to Mother. I don’t know what it was about but I think it may have been that.”

“Does he know what it is?”

“No, do you?”

“Nobody else has heard the sounds. But I intend to look into it.”

“Really?” Her voice breathed contempt.

“When I’m back,” he said hurriedly. “Right now, I don’t have the time.”

Gunilla looked serious. She didn’t like the idea that her only playmate was leaving, even if he was a bit of a handful.

“Then you had better hurry up if you don’t want others to beat you to it,” she said as she ran away from him.

This was an ambiguous answer, which he couldn’t interpret. “Gunilla,” he shouted, but his shouts fell on deaf ears. She was already far away.

“Damn,” said Erland, because this was a word he would have to use when he was a soldier. He added remorsefully: “Forgive me, God. I didn’t mean it!”

Gunilla was late so she hurried through Bergunda towards Bergqvara Farm in the late spring dusk. She had heard that Mr Posse, who was a member of parliament, planned to rebuild the old farmhouse. The drawings were already done and the timber was drying out in piles in the yard. It occupied quite a lot of space. When she saw all that new timber, which smelled so nice, she thought that the house would look impressive once it was finished.

She went over to the estate office. Nobody could drop by just like that without an appointment. Councillor Arvid E. Posse was much too important a man for that. But the manager, or inspector, which was another of his titles, was easygoing: he always had a kind word for everybody who visited him.

He wasn’t there, and Gunilla didn’t like to be fobbed off by having to tell her errand to his assistant. She wanted to see him in person, because there was nobody in the whole world she liked more than him. So she went over to the stables, where he was discussing the production of milk with the farm manager. The good, warm sounds of calm cows and milk splashing into buckets made her feel relaxed and happy. She saw the manager talking to two other men. None of them noticed the young girl walking quietly down the middle aisle between the lowing cows. Gunilla was always delighted to visit the farm at Bergqvara and she admired the way it was run. Imagine that something so big could be so light, clean and well kept. She was embarrassed when she thought of their own two cows, standing in a shed so tiny and dark that their horns nearly hit the roof.

She stood there for a while, gazing at the men who were deep in conversation. The manager was a handsome man, youthful to look at but with experience etched in his tanned face. The other two were more robust, glum, sullen and unimaginative.

At last, the manager caught sight of her. His face brightened. “Well, here is Gunilla from Knapahult! What can I do for you?”

Oh, she really did like this man a lot! He even recognized her! She dropped a deep curtsey. “I’ve a message for you from my father, Inspector Grip!”

Arv Grip of the Ice People, Örjan’s son and Vendel Grip’s grandson, smiled at her. “Well, then let me hear it, Gunilla!”