Читать книгу The Ice People 36 -Troll Moon - Margit Sandemo - Страница 7

Chapter 2

She was back home. And everything felt different now that she had learned more about the circumstances of her birth. This wasn’t her real home, she felt. Her real home was at Linden Avenue.

Linden Avenue – the place where her mother had grown up.

For this much she knew: the women in the barn had been right. Frank couldn’t be her father – they had nothing, absolutely nothing in common.

As she poured the milk into the various basins she hummed absentmindedly to herself:

Young Lindelo had a sister,

Thin and delicate as grass.

But the fate that befell her was dark,

So too early she ended her life.

“Goodness, Christa!” came Frank’s indignant voice. “How can you possibly sing such an undignified street ballad?”

She started. “Was I? I didn’t even notice it myself.”

“In my house I will have nothing but inspirational songs.”

“But they sing it in the parish hall.”

“They most certainly do not! But speaking of which ... Um, could you come over here so that I don’t have to shout so loud? Speaking of which, Ingeborg will be here soon to fetch you for the meeting.”

“Tonight?” asked Christa, entering the room. She looked at Frank Monsen and felt that there was practically a physical distance between them. It was tragic, yes, but that’s how she felt. How could she ever have believed that she was really his daughter?

Oh, dear, sweet Frank, please forgive me. It’s not that I want to feel this way. Without knowing the truth, you’ve taken good care of me all my life!”

But now Christa was forgetting that it was she who had been taking care of him for several years.

“There’s a meeting at the congregational hall tonight?”

“Yes, have you forgotten? It is an inspirational meeting for young people. I think it’s a little too cold to go out, but Ingeborg will be a respectable chaperone for you. Just make sure that you two are escorted home! I will expect you at ten o’clock at the latest!”

She gave him a somewhat uneasy and perplexed look. Yes, Ingeborg was all right, but ...

But she didn’t want to think about all the things Ingeborg had told her confidentially. There was much of Ingeborg’s gossip that she didn’t understand.

“I have a slight headache ...” she attempted, and it was true. Christa seldom lied deliberately. She felt a slight ache in her shoulders and eyes from looking up at the moon so much.

But Frank would have none of it. “All the more reason for you to get out, then!”

In that house he was the only one who was ever allowed to be sick, and no one else!

At that very moment Ingeborg arrived. She was knock-kneed and overweight, with a face covered with pimples, and greasy hair. But she was full of self-confidence. She would let the parish boys, whose faces were just as spotty as hers, touch every part of her body, and her shrill laughter could often be heard coming from the little side rooms off the meeting hall; it always filled Christa with a vague sense of unease.

Ingeborg was a head taller than Christa. “I’ll take good care of her, Brother Frank, don’t you worry! Are you ready, Christa?”

Christa made a final, desperate attempt. “Father, if I do as you wish and go to the meeting tonight, will you give me permission to go to Linden Avenue tomorrow?”

“What sort of a demand is that?” Frank asked crossly. “How can you possibly compare the two things?”

Because I don’t want to be forced both to miss my grandfather’s birthday party and to go to one of those boring congregational hall meetings, was what she felt like saying.

But such arguments were useless, she knew. And of course, Frank was right – the two things weren’t comparable.

But she wanted to go to Linden Avenue so badly! What was she to do?

Frank sat slumped in his chair. He was now taking on the role of martyr, but Christa was much too naive to see that.

“Dearest child, I don’t understand you at all! You’re so rebellious!”

Dear Frank Monsen didn’t seem to know the true meaning of the word “rebellious”.

“I know I’m a burden to you,” he continued, holding his head in his hands in a melodramatic way. “But I just want what’s best for you. This will be a sacred meeting and at Linden Avenue you will only encounter delusions.”

Christa was actually a pure and simple believer, but the constraints he laid on her were beginning to come between her and her faith.

Now he quickly had her conscience just as he wanted it – it was almost pitch black. But she wouldn’t give up: it meant such a lot to her to be allowed to go to Linden Avenue.

“I must talk to the family at Linden Avenue. There are things I need to discuss with them.”

He grew suspicious immediately and gave her a sceptical look. “What can they possibly tell you that you can’t just as well discuss with me?”

“Father, I’m one of them, there’s no getting around it. Both my real grandfather, Ulvar, and my “almost” grandfather are of the Ice People. It is Henning’s birthday, he’ll be seventy-seven years old and there’s no telling how long we’ll have him with us.”

“Oh, I’ll die before he does, you know that. I may die while you’re there, for who’s going to take care of me while you’re gone? I might suffer from shortness of breath while I’m alone in the house!”

“Can’t ... Ingeborg stay here with you?” Christa asked naively.

He looked shocked. But Ingeborg responded immediately. “I’d be more than happy to. Tomorrow night? I’m sure Mother will let me.”

She licked her lips in a determined way, which frightened Frank.

He was caught in his own trap. “There’ll be no more talk of Linden Avenue. Go now,” he said, waving his hand impatiently, “or you’ll be too late.”

“Do you have everything you need, then?” Christa asked caringly.

“Yes, yes, I have everything. Do you think I can’t manage on my own?” he asked aggressively, contradicting himself.

After they had left he felt very tired. But only mentally. It was Christa’s strange new attitude that had confused him.

He would have to think up a new strategy, his subconscious seemed to be saying, but he wasn’t entirely aware of it himself. Just now, he put all the blame on Christa. That stupid girl, he couldn’t believe how persistent she had been with regard to visiting Linden Avenue. The dangerous Linden Avenue!

He didn’t realize that his subconscious was, at the same time, reasoning with itself. The old strategy – “Can’t you see how sad it is for me?” – would no longer work. He would have to come up with something else.

The truth was that Frank Monsen was about to lose his grip on the situation.

On the way to the meeting Christa said, “Doesn’t the moon look strange tonight? It almost seems bewitched.”

“You’re mad!” Ingeborg laughed. “You always say such mad things. You can barely see the moon, it’s practically covered by the clouds.”

“That’s exactly what makes it seem bewitched. So shrouded, so full of secrets. And deathly pale.”

Ingeborg laughed nervously.

They passed the stand for the milk churns, and Christa remembered the strange young man she had seen there. But she didn’t mention him.

“Have you seen the new boy in the choir?” Ingeborg asked confidentially.

“Who? Oh, him! The one who’s always staring at one?”

“What? Does he stare at you, too?”

“Oh, no, not much,” Christa answered quickly. She didn’t want to ruin Ingeborg’s joy: she seemed completely engrossed in the boy.

“I’m seeing him after the meeting tonight,” the girl continued proudly.

Ingeborg was a few years older than Christa and it was as though she needed to prove to herself and the other girls that young men liked her. Christa thought she was rather pathetic. She almost felt sorry for her with her hunger for acknowledgment or whatever it was she needed. She squeezed Ingeborg’s hand to give her a little encouragement. Christa had a big heart, with room for the weakest members of society.

“Do you know what?” Ingeborg whispered. “During the last choir practice he stood behind me the whole time. He kept getting closer and closer. I could feel it ... feel that he wanted to!”

Christa looked at her with a puzzled, childish gaze, and wasn’t quite sure what the girl was referring to. Her first inclination was to warn her, but she didn’t know what about. In Frank’s house you didn’t even talk about the birds and the bees. You only talked about all the temptations a young girl might be exposed to, without expressing in words what those temptations were. If Christa asked, Frank would get furious!

So she was rather ignorant about the facts of life.

“Frank says that boys are difficult to control if they are permitted to take too many liberties,” she said faintly.

Ingeborg laughed again. “Oh, God, I think I’m going to die! Believe me, I know how to control them!”

They had now reached the congregational hall and they went in.

Christa sat down uneasily on a bench on the women’s side. I don’t belong here, either, she thought. It’s not that I don’t believe in God, but this just doesn’t feel right! I think religion is a private matter between an individual and God. Priests and their lectures are just in the way, blocking the view.

Ingeborg had climbed up on the podium and had found her place in the choir. Christa saw the girl blush, and sure enough, the young man was standing right behind her. Christa didn’t think he looked all that nice, with his pomaded hair with its straight centre parting, and protruding eyes. At that very moment he met her gaze. She looked away. He had been rather aggressive with Christa one night, insisting on accompanying her home, but she had refused him. She was glad she had done so now, for her sake as well as for Ingeborg’s.

During the coffee break she helped to serve as usual. It was the cosiest part of the meeting, but Christa felt more like an outsider than ever. She had so many things to think about.

In the kitchen, the two women in charge of making coffee were bawling out the inescapable ballad about Lindelo. Christa was just on her way out with a full pot of coffee but she stopped at the door to listen. This was a stanza she hadn’t heard before:

To Lindelo Peder turned:

“You think you are their brother

But your mother knew another man,

So you are only their half-brother!”

Christa went on her way again, smiling sadly to herself. You and I are in the same boat, Lindelo, she thought. Today I learned that my mother knew another man, too. I know how it feels.

Lindelo’s fate had already gripped her, for she had heard snippets from nearly all of the twenty-five or so verses that made up the ballad. She would have to learn it in its entirety someday, she thought.

But she and Lindelo had something in common now. It felt reassuring, she thought, like having a friend to share your grief with.

When she returned to the kitchen, the ladies had finished singing.

“I wonder why the ballad of Lindelo is so popular,” she said with a slight smile to the two older ladies.

“I don’t know,” one of them answered. “Probably because Lars Sevaldsen wrote it. He’ll be coming here soon, in a month or so. It’ll be exciting to see him!”

“How strange,” Christa smiled. I always thought that broadside ballads were like folk songs, and weren’t composed by anyone in particular.”

“Well, folk songs must have been composed by someone at some point,” said the other woman.

“Yes, of course.”

The woman, who was married to the local school teacher, suddenly became preachy. “Broadside ballads are usually based on real events, so they were often topical when they were first published. As far as I know, Lars Sevaldsen makes use of both old and new stories from real life in his ballads. He is greatly beloved in all the villages for his broadsides. There, I’ve cut the cake now. Be sure to give the first piece to the leader of the congregation, Christa! How is your father, by the way?”

“The same as usual, thank you.”

She hurried out with the cake platter.

Abel Gard had arrived. He sought her gaze and went straight over to her.

“Welcome, Christa!”

She murmured something in response. She liked the widower and all his children. He wasn’t that old, she thought, only in his early thirties, but he had certainly been productive during his marriage! He had seven little boys. They said there was something about the youngest, not that there was anything to see, but Abel himself had been the seventh son, and now had a seventh son himself. According to ancient superstition, or the Scriptures, the seventh son of a seventh son was endowed with certain abilities. He would be clairvoyant, they said. He would be able to see into the future and inside people’s souls. Christa wanted to meet him. He must be around two years old now and his name, as far as she remembered, was Efraim. Abel was one of the leading members of the congregation, and all his children had biblical names.

Abel was a handsome man, and undoubtedly virile since he had been able to produce so many children! There were many women in the congregation who would gladly have taken care of him and all his children had he asked them, but it seemed that he was still too much in mourning to notice other women. His wife had died in childbirth. Seven children in approximately the same number of years – had he absolutely no shame?

The last words were Ingeborg’s: that was what she had said when Abel’s wife died.

“Christa ...” said Abel. “Your father just telephoned me.”

“Oh?” said Christa, alarmed. “He isn’t having breathing problems I hope?”

“No, no, it was about something completely different. As you know, I have more than enough to see to at home. I have to go to work every day and have only my old aunt to look after the children while I’m gone. Frank tells me you might be interested in minding the children for a few hours every day?”

At first Christa was speechless, but when she had thought about it she said, in her typically impulsive way: “Oh yes, I’d be glad to! Thank you, Abel!”

“He also said that you were keen to start immediately. So we’ve agreed that you should come at eleven o’clock and stay until six.”

What? Had she said that?

“But tomorrow I’m going to ...” But then she suddenly understood everything. “Oh ... very well, I’ll come.”

How could Frank have done this to her? She could no longer decide how to spend her time, and a visit to Linden Avenue was now absolutely impossible.

“I’ll come,” she said tonelessly. “Thank you for having such confidence in me.”

Abel Gard gave her a slow gaze that wasn’t in any way flirtatious, but rather, expressed surprise that she could be so utterly clueless.

Christa immediately froze. Frank bombarded her night and day with words of praise for the wonderful Abel Gard, and this had made him disagreeable in her eyes.

It was unfair, of course, but psychologically a very normal reaction.

“I’ll accompany you home tonight,” said Abel. “Then you won’t have to cross the plain alone.”

Christa looked around nervously. “Ingeborg was supposed to come with me. And I must be home by ten o’clock.”

Abel smiled almost imperceptibly. “I think Ingeborg has other plans for the evening.”

Christa caught sight of her. She was in the middle of a very intense and seemingly intimate conversation with the young man from the choir.

“I’ll tell her,” said Abel. “And if you’re to be home by ten we had better go now.”

“Yes, but you’ve only just arrived.”

“I came to talk to you. And the meeting is almost over anyway.”

Christa meekly resigned herself to her fate. She felt that she was completely at the mercy of other people’s wishes.

And that was when Lars Sevaldsen showed up unexpectedly. He was received with a round of applause, which he lapped up. Actually it wasn’t so strange that he came: he didn’t live far away and he belonged to the same Free Church congregation.

The leader of the congregation rushed over to greet him, even though he had been there many times before, and as Christa put on her cloak and scarf she listened to the questions people asked him and to his responses.

“How do you come up with your lyrics?”

Lars Sevaldsen pointed to his head with a sly expression and laughed. He was a rather smooth and impersonal man, impossible to describe. His only outstanding feature was his grizzled hair. Other than that, he was just ordinary.

“Do you mean to say it’s all just based on your imagination?”

“No, no, it can be old or current events that I retell in my simple ballads.”

Though his ballads were simple, he nonetheless expressed himself with such false modesty and smugness that it was clear that was not how he himself felt about them.

“How long have you been writing ballads?”

“Oh, for about thirty years.”

“What about the ballad of Lindelo?”

“That’s new. And it was instantly popular.”

In fact it was the only one of his ballads that had become really popular.

He stood rocking back and forth on his heels with a nonchalant expression of self-satisfaction.

“Yes, it certainly did become popular,” said the head of the congregation, smiling ingratiatingly. “Is it based on a true story?”

“Yes, it certainly is! But I’m not satisfied with it. I’ve thought about reworking the last part.”

“Are you working on anything new?”

Lars Sevaldsen once again looked sly. It seemed the idea was that they were supposed to guess the number of masterpieces he was currently working on.

“Will we have the opportunity of hearing one of your ballads tonight?”

One of the ladies from the kitchen came out to find Christa, and quietly discussed with her a few details about the catering for the next meeting. By the time they had finished talking Lars Sevaldsen was already well into the ballad of Lindelo.

The evil Mr Peder

Has sullied our mother’s name.

I swear to you most solemnly

I shall avenge that shame.”

Yes, if only I could stop the malicious rumours about my mother, Christa thought. One thing she couldn’t understand was how the exceedingly smooth Lars Sevaldsen could write with such compassion about Lindelo and his fate. She didn’t care for the idea. She felt that Lindelo was hers.

Abel Gard carefully placed his hand on her arm. “We’d better be going.”

“Oh, yes.”

They went out into the late winter evening.

The moon had now wandered far up in the dark blue sky and shone bright and strong, no longer shrouded by clouds.

The shocking secret had now been revealed. It no longer had anything unpleasant to communicate to her.

Christa’s thoughts revolved around what she had heard in the cowshed. It had only been a few hours ago, but it felt like an eternity. And not being able to talk to anyone at Linden Avenue made her feel utterly helpless. She felt that she had been manipulated and cornered. Did she really not have the right to decide anything for herself?

It was the first time the cheerful, accommodating Christa had felt a sense of rebellion within herself. Her previous conviction that her father was always right had now been turned upside down. And when she thought about that, it was her discovery that Frank wasn’t her real father that was the determining factor.

That wasn’t fair, she knew. Frank was the same person he had always been. He clearly knew nothing about Vanja’s indiscretions, which Christa herself desperately wanted to learn about. It felt undeniably strange to be suddenly fatherless.

Her real father must be out there somewhere.

Did you feel just as helpless, Lindelo? When Mr Peder flung those words in your face?

“You are very quiet tonight,” Abel Gard said cautiously.

She started. She had practically forgotten him. “Yes, I’m sorry. I was just lost in my own thoughts.”

“Yes, so it would seem,” he said, smiling.

Farther off on the moonlit plain she caught sight of the cowshed at the crossroads. When she had passed it earlier in the evening she had been completely ignorant of what she was to hear there. She remembered the strange young man’s gentle smile and realized that she had actually been thinking about him all night. It had gone straight to her heart.

She wanted to ask Abel Gard who the strange young man could be, but she realized that question might potentially be, if not downright hurtful, then at least unwelcome. He probably wouldn’t want to know that she was taking an interest in a younger man.

Once again Christa felt that she was being cornered.

She cared for Abel Gard. But that was the sort of thing she wanted to decide for herself. She didn’t want Frank to be able to say in the future: “You’re grateful, aren’t you, that I provided you with Abel Gard as your husband?”

If things turned out that way, that is.

Why did everything have to be so terribly complicated? She felt that she was being horribly contrary in the company of the friendly, appealing, and even handsome man who trudged along beside her in discreet silence.

“How are your boys?” she asked, for she would soon be taking care of them. She didn’t mind that. She liked children.

“Yes, they are well,” said Abel, smiling, warmed by her interest and his own love for his sons. “Jakob is doing well in school and Josef is good at skiing. Joakim and David have had colds but they’re feeling better now, and Aron ... yes, Aron draws really well. Adam is a little difficult at the moment but he likes you, so it will be fine. And Efraim is more or less potty-trained by now.”

“Efraim,” Christa said, smiling. “He’s the seventh son of a seventh son, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Abel said, laughing slightly. “But I must say that I haven’t noticed any occult talents in him.”

“Well, that might be asking too much if he’s only just been potty-trained.”

“True! But it’s all just superstition. God reigns over us all and the number of brothers one has doesn’t really count.”

Christa could have said a lot about the occult phenomena that were connected with the Ice People, but she knew that Abel was much too God-fearing to accept any beings more supernatural than angels, so she decided against it. But this train of thought gave her the courage to say: “Would ... would it be possible for me to start looking after the boys a day later? I was actually supposed to attend my grandfather’s birthday at Linden Avenue tomorrow.”

“I thought your grandfather died after your mother was born?”

It was truly incredible how well informed this man was! How much had he and Frank talked about?

Confounded Frank!

Christa discovered to her horror that she was developing an increasing sense of aversion towards her so-called father. That mustn’t happen! It wasn’t like her either. She had always had a positive attitude towards most people. She tended to see the best in everyone and looked at the bright side of life. She loved the world, life, humans, animals, plants, rocks, beauty in nature, all of it!

This evening had changed many things. Including her attitude to life – yes, her whole state of mind.

It was frightening. She didn’t want that to happen.

When Abel began to give her a worried answer, she had forgotten what it was she had asked about. Oh, yes, whether she could wait a day before going to his house.

“I don’t know,” he said, drawing it out a bit. “I was actually supposed to leave tomorrow so I can’t take the day off work. And my aunt has caught the boys’ cold and is in bed ill.”

She grasped that his trip was important to him.

“Don’t worry about it! I’ll come!”

He looked relieved and grateful.

I must telephone Henning, she thought. To explain why Frank and I aren’t coming. And to wish him happy birthday, of course!”

But how was she to ask Henning about the circumstances of her birth over the telephone? While Frank was listening in on the conversation – which he always did – as well as the operator at the telephone exchange, from where news leaked out as if through a sieve?

It wouldn’t work.

That night she went to bed in low spirits. She didn’t see the cloud making its way across the sky. Didn’t see how it seemed to search for the cold glow of the moon. Didn’t see how it covered the disk of the moon, shrouding it in darkness.

The black moon.