Wolf Winter

by Cecilia Ekbäck

  “Forbidden by your priests, not ours. We don’t care about your laws.”

  Antti poked in the fire. “Eriksson,” he muttered. “He was killed in a sacred place. That kind of blood needs vengeance. The spirits will seek someone to avenge.”

  Frederika thought of the tall, erect man in their barn. She tried to swallow. “Why?” she asked.

  “It’s the way it is. Spirits need an instrument, a human being.”

  “How do they pick someone?”

  “They call. Some people hear.”

  Dum. Tataradum.

  The drumming had returned. It was low, but insistent. Could he hear it? How could he not hear it?

  “Then why don’t you do it?” she asked. It came out sounding angry. “Become their instrument, or whatever it is?”

  He was silent for a while before making a face. “I don’t have the gift,” he said.

  She lowered her head and thought of her father. It was hard, desiring something and not having the faculties for it.

  “And the welcoming way Fearless receives you, although you are coming to accuse us,” he said.

  “I think we just wanted to ask.”

  Antti spat in the fire.

  “It was you who complained about Eriksson. And this,” she took out the blue glass piece from her pocket, “was right by where he lay dead … where I found him,” she added, stressing the “I.”

  He looked at the glass in her hand and pressed his lips together. “Eriksson was a bad man,” he said. “He sought out evil.”

  “Elin liked him, though.” Frederika had thought about it as they traveled. Elin had been married to him. She assumed Elin had loved him like her father loved her mother, borne him children. Eriksson couldn’t have been all bad.

  “She came here with the other one, the brother, Daniel. Eriksson stole her, like he did with all other things.”

  She hadn’t known you could steal a person.

  Antti was still looking at the fragment of glass in her hand. “Besides, it isn’t our glass piece but that of whoever we’ve given it to.”

  Frederika was still thinking about Elin being stolen.

  “And that one I gave to Nils,” he said.

  The priest had woken up early. Maija lay watching the dark of his back behind the fire, knowing his eyes would be open. She stared at him until she couldn’t breathe.

  A little longer, she admonished herself. We’ll travel back today. Then he’ll be on his way and we won’t have anything more to do with him. It wasn’t fair. Whatever she was feeling, it wasn’t his fault.

  “Are you awake?” He rolled over.

  “Our women don’t sleep.”

  “What did you think about what Fearless said about the glass piece?” he asked.

  She sat up, pulled on her woolens, and pushed her feet into her shoes.

  “It means it could have been anyone watching when Eriksson was killed.”

  She opened the canvas. It was snowing. A light, sparse sprinkle dancing in the air. The Lapps had hung the flayed reindeer skins to dry. Gray-white squares, like small sails, navigating a red wave spatter. Someone had left wood for them beneath the opening. She brushed the snow off the pieces with her sleeve and lifted them inside. There was still a glow among the embers. She found her knife, pulled bark off the wood, and put the strips close to that glow, blew on it to encourage flame, careful not to suffocate the sparks.

  “Makes it impossible to know what to do next,” the priest droned on.

  Beside Maija Frederika sat up. She wrapped her arms around her legs and shuffled closer. She smelled funny; almost of meat.

  “I guess I ought to speak to the settlers on Blackåsen next,” the priest said. “Though it might still have been a passerby.”

  “Eriksson was evil,” Frederika said. She gave a shiver and then yawned. “He stole Elin.”

  Frederika stood up.

  “Sit down,” Maija said. “What did you say?”

  “That he stole Elin. From his brother.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Her daughter was pondering how much to tell her. “One of the Lapps said it,” she said. “I heard it.”

  Maija turned to the priest. “Did you know this?”

  “No.” He shook his head so his hair bounced.

  “We could have gone to see Daniel before we traveled all this way to blame the Lapps,” Maija said.

  “Don’t you think I would have preferred that too?”

  “Frederika,” Maija said with a stern voice. “If you know anything more, you need to tell us.”

  Her daughter made herself blank until there was stillness and calm water.

  “That was all,” her daughter said.

  As Maija bent down to tighten the ski loop around her foot, the young long-haired Lapp who had accompanied Fearless when they left their goats arrived.

  “A storm is coming,” he said.

  There was no sun. An eerie white sheen filled the morning, but the sky was high.

  “Perhaps,” she said.

  “The first storm of the winter. And it will be big.”

  Frederika gave him a long look as he left.

  So he was the one who had spoken with her daughter about Elin and Daniel. Maija looked toward the sky again. In the mountains the weather changed faster than you turned a hand. They could stay, but she wanted to go home. The feeling was stronger, she had to go home. But now that she knew where the camp was they would take a shorter route, one straight across the large hill that lay between the camp and the marsh. And if the weather deteriorated, it wasn’t as if she and her daughters hadn’t skied in snowfalls before.

  There was less forest on the hill. The snow had drifted unhindered by trunks of trees and frozen in spiky waves. Like a sea caught in time. It was harder to cross than she had expected.

  “I am surprised nobody told me about Daniel and Elin,” the priest said from behind her.

  Maija thought about what Frederika had said. Daniel might still have loved Elin. After God knows how many years. And his poor wife—poor Anna. Had she known all that time that her husband loved another woman? Would Maija have known, if it had been Paavo? Oh yes. At least before. They’d been so close. The idea that he might love somebody else now felt strangely absurd.

  “I spoke to a few individuals before coming here,” the priest said. “They said the two brothers weren’t speaking, but they didn’t say why. Then again, these individuals I am talking about might have arrived after this happened and not known. Though it is the kind of event that people would talk about for a long time. Yes, I am surprised.”

  There was wind now. Currents from the east, bringing with them a cooling of the air. The sun showed itself, but it was colorless behind a layer of white. This high up they were visible at the horizon, dark clouds building fast, consuming the land as they advanced.

  It wasn’t far back to the Lapp site. Maija clenched her teeth.

  No, she decided. It was downhill from now on, the journey would go faster. Besides, it would take them almost as long to return there as to continue on home.

  “Can we have a break?” Dorotea asked.

  “No.”

  Above Dorotea’s head Frederika’s eyes were serious. She too had seen the clouds.

  However, going downhill wasn’t any easier. The hill was icy. Maija created a flat zigzag trail. The sky came upon them and it began to snow. The flakes were large and wet. Soon they came in such abundance, her eyes were full of water. She blinked and blinked.

  “Wet,” she shouted.

  “Awful,” the priest shouted back. Then there was only the hushing of their skis.

  The wind grew. It was icy. The limp flakes froze and began to insist. They drove in fierce waves and smattered at her front.

  “We need to press on,” she called, but her voice was stolen by the wind. She stopped, shuffled with her back against it, and made signs for her children and the priest to come near.

  “We’re not far from the marsh, bu
t it will be hard. Ski close to each other so you don’t get lost.”

  They looked at her to see if there was more, but the wind shoved flakes in her mouth. She shook her head, turned, gestured for them to follow.

  She skied head down, but the gusts still hit her face with ice. Every couple of strides she half-turned to make certain Dorotea was behind her. Dig a shelter, a voice inside her said. Dig it now. They ought to, but she hadn’t brought a spade. She half-turned again. Dorotea was still there.

  For hours they skied straight into a wind that drove so strongly, she felt it might wipe them off the mountain. Maija leaned into its force and pressed her legs forward one after the other, and still she was not certain she had moved. It was too late for shelters—they were sweaty and their clothes were frozen.

  It was night by the time they reached the homestead. Maija fell on her knees to help Dorotea and Frederika take off their skis. She pushed on them, and they flung themselves toward the porch.

  “Hurry. Undress in the hallway.” She called the words but didn’t think there had been any sound.

  She crept on her knees until she found the priest’s skis and undid his. He tried to speak, but she waved: Go in. Go inside.

  Dorotea stumbled against the table as she tried to sit. Frederika was building a fire. The priest had bent beside her and was handing her wood. Maija grabbed the stones. Her eyes were burning. Her fingers shook so she had to let go of the flint stones and shake her hands to try to get some mobility into them. Try again. Knock, knock, knock. Fire. She bent forward and blew on the dried grass. Her lips quivered. With trembling fingers she put splinters of wood close to it. Careful. Don’t ruin it.

  “Get all the skins and blankets,” she said and didn’t recognize her own voice. “Put them here.”

  She put a blanket over Dorotea. The girl was shaking. Frederika pushed her sister backward and lay down beside her and hugged her.

  We could have died, Maija thought. Her head felt muddled and thick.

  We didn’t die, she thought.

  She removed her woolens—the clothes were wet and her movements slow. She lay down beside her daughters in front of the flames that were licking the stone of the fireplace.

  Snow whirled up, and with the sound of a handful of pebbles, it threw itself against the window panes.

  “We are going to have to shovel the porch tonight,” Maija said. “Take turns.” She made as if to sit up, but beside the fireplace the priest shook his head.

  “I’ll start.”

  “Look at the window. An inch on the windowsill and you’ll have to shovel. Wake me up when you’re tired.”

  She lay down again.

  “What is it with you and the Church?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “For some reason you hate the Church. Or priests. It isn’t just me.”

  At once Jutta was there. By the fire. Her back toward Maija, erect. Listening.

  “I mean …” he said.

  “I know what you mean,” she snapped. That she had the strength surprised her.

  Beside her, Dorotea stirred. “I know what you mean,” Maija repeated, more quietly. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I am a priest,” he said after a while. “You can talk to me.”

  Though we don’t do confessions any longer, she thought.

  We could have died, her head insisted.

  But we didn’t.

  Their toes. Get up, she thought. Get up. She forced herself. She reached for Frederika and removed her socks. Lifted them off. Pink toes. Five. Ten. Pink.

  She would never have forgiven herself.

  She pulled the blanket over Frederika’s feet and found Dorotea’s. Dorotea’s legs were hopping underneath the blanket. Maija put both her hands on her daughter’s legs as if to try to still them, then removed her hands and pulled off Dorotea’s socks.

  Her baby’s feet looked unreal, as if made of yellow wax. Her middle toe still a little bit above the others in an imitation of the foot it had once been, for now the foot was hard.

  The priest met her eyes. He did not turn away.

  “Dorotea,” she said, and pressed her nail down deep into the flesh of her daughter’s foot. “How do your feet feel?”

  “Fine, Mamma,” Dorotea mumbled.

  Maija closed her eyes, opened them again. “Snow.” She rose. “We’ll rub the skin with snow.”

  The priest grabbed her arm. “No. I’ve seen it in the war. It makes it worse.”

  He bent to cover Dorotea’s feet.

  “We wait,” he said.

  Maija lay down again. She pressed with her fingers and thumb into her eyelids. As she held herself so, she became aware of the silence. All this time it had been concealed beneath the chores, the changing seasons and weathers; beneath all words, all thoughts, it was there.

  Like a block of ice, it pressed against the window, waiting to break in.

  They alternated. Took turns to sit by the kitchen table and, as the snow climbed another inch up the pane, to dress, force themselves outside and shovel the white hell away, and then wake the other one up. Sleep like the dead.

  “We have to keep the porch clear,” Maija repeated.

  At first the priest didn’t know why, but then, on one occasion, when he waited that little too long—oh God, he was so tired, just one more minute—he wasn’t able to open the door and then with a jolt, he understood. He was certain he had seen more winter than she. Nothing could be worse than what they’d had in Russia. But this she had foreseen, and he had not.

  Frederika appeared by his side. She began to throw her shoulder against the wood at rhythmic intervals. He joined her, and together they edged the door open.

  “Thank you,” he said, although “Don’t tell your mother” was what he wanted to say.

  The light from inside turned the snowfall into a wall in front of him, a wall crawling with life. He stepped out, the door shut behind him, and he was inside that life. All was dark. He was totally alone.

  Toward morning the little one began to moan. It was her flesh thawing. Muscles, ligaments, blood vessels, and nerves, waking up to discover the damage. The next time he and Maija looked, Dorotea’s feet were swollen and purple. The blisters weren’t far away.

  He must have been sleeping, because the sound of breaking glass made him sit bolt upright. The little girl had been lying so close against him, she rolled into his space.

  “Sorry.” Maija lifted her hand with the ladle. “The drinking water has frozen.”

  His heart beat fast.

  “Is it still snowing?” he asked, although the winds pounded the cottage so hard he had to raise his voice.

  She nodded. Her eyes seemed large.

  “We don’t have much firewood,” she said. “It’s in the woodshed. I didn’t bring enough in. I didn’t think …”

  He rose and walked to the window. The floor was glacial. He shifted from one foot to the other as he bent to peer out. It was black outside. Impossible to see anything.

  “We’ll wait until there’s some light,” he said, “and then we’ll get it.”

  She nodded. In the circumstances and for the moment there was some sort of truce between them.

  Her mouth was a thin line in her face. “Her feet are not black,” she said about her daughter and nodded several times, as if she had decided something for herself.

  The priest didn’t say anything. He had no solace to give. They wouldn’t know the extent of the damage done to the girl’s feet for many weeks, perhaps months.

  At daybreak they saw the face of the storm: the snow battering down, the rush of flakes driven sideward by the squall. He could not see the trees or the outbuildings, although he knew they were right there.

  “Well, the longer we wait, the worse it will be,” he said.

  “Frederika, see to your sister,” Maija said.

  When the priest opened the door, the wind snatched it and threw it against the wall. He grabbed it and pressed it shut behind them.


  They pushed across the yard, leaning against the wind. With each step he took, he sank to his knees. She was there, beside him, behind him, a shape, a shadow. Yet he’d never felt more lonely.

  She leaned forward and pointed: the woodshed. When he reached it, he supported himself with his hand against its wall until he found the door. It was already half-covered. He began to shovel. For every spadesful of snow he removed, the storm seemed to throw two back at him. Rather than seeing the whole, he centered himself on that one scoop, then the next. He found there was silence in the midst of tempest. She took the shovel from him, and he rubbed his fingers against the heels of his hands inside his mittens and wriggled his toes inside his shoes to keep hot blood flowing.

  After a while he took the shovel from her.

  He didn’t know how long they worked like this. It might have been hours, but then it might not. When they could open the door, he continued shoveling, knowing now it wasn’t only about getting inside but about keeping ahead of the snowfall.

  Inside, the mound of wood reached the roof. He exhaled in relief. Someone had done good work.

  As they left, Maija looked further away. They had to do the same for the food storage. He touched her shoulder, nodded, but then shook his head: Later. They’d do it later.

  They came inside, and the little girl was screaming.

  Once upon a time there was a small bird …

  “What kind of a bird?”

  The priest stroked the younger daughter’s head. It was clammy. “Think of something different,” Maija had shouted at her in frustration when she kept screaming. Not so easy. He stroked it again, combed the blonde locks stuck to her forehead away with his fingers.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “One of the usual ones. Small, gray …”

  The bird was ravenous. It rummaged in the soil for worms, but found none. In the sky, high above it, a hawk floated an airstream. Oh, if I had eyesight like the hawk, the little bird thought, then I would see to find worms when they hid from me.

  God heard and gave it the eyesight of the hawk.