Spellbound

by Margit Sandemo

  Silje did not think that she would be able to sleep again so soon, but she was wrong. Dreams came and went. She groaned quietly in her sleep, her arms and legs twitching slightly as if she was trying to escape from something. She was lying in the pasture below the farm where she grew up. The Land of Evening was visible far in the distance – the peaks, jagged and broken, with hidden valleys behind and below them. The sky was a burning crimson.

  Something rose above the mountains; ghostly images in black with great wings spread wide – her demons. In her sleep, Silje shielded herself from them. There were not many – only six or eight perhaps – but they were dangerous. Gliding through the air, searching; but she knew their eyes were already upon her. They were just pretending not to have seen her.

  With a start, she realised that she was naked, but it didn’t matter. It meant nothing, because she knew nobody could see her except these spirits from beyond. She found this knowledge quite satisfying and stretched out on the grass, flexing her limbs with sensual pleasure.

  They were getting closer now. Her heart started pounding. She could see them clearly. They too were naked – all of them male, and their devilish faces held a provocative attraction. Long talons on their hands, their bodies a fusion of man and beast. Indeed, these creatures had been created more like beasts than men – they were so muscular and graceful.

  They saw her and they desired her. Still they did not come to her. They circled above her, keeping their distance, as though holding back, waiting for something. She saw the face of one of them. It was beautiful and noble, despite being twisted and grotesquely deformed – the face of a young man framed in golden curls, with the antlers of a stag. She knew him, and trembled with ecstasy at seeing him again, but even he did not dare descend. The lower half of his body was that of a stag, but his arms had become wings with a mighty span. For some reason she wished he hadn’t been naked – she felt ill at ease. It was his face she adored. She wanted nothing more. Then together they began to move away from her.

  Up from the Land of Shadows soared yet another creature, bigger and more dangerous than the others, but he remained where he was, silhouetted against the fiery sky. Even though the distance was so great, in her dream Silje could see who it was. She recognised his face – attractive yet repulsive, with the sneer of a predator, enticing, tempting – black hair spiralling across his forehead, eyes blazing. But no matter how hard she tried, she could not see his body. She wanted desperately to see into the dark shadows hiding him, but all she saw was a contoured outline that reminded her of a faun or satyr.

  Her body felt tired and heavy and she could not catch her breath. She was strangely ecstatic, and like the creatures she waited, writhing in the grass, drawing her legs up slightly, anxious, afraid, fascinated. His wings moved with a slow beat as he glided towards her. Then she awoke with a scream.

  She lay gasping for air both relieved and disappointed that the dream had ended so abruptly. It was a shock for her to feel the heat of her body, in a way she had never done before. She was confused and shaken, and covered herself with her hands to conceal the shame and the burning inside. But her hands fanned the flame – there was no way back.

  Exhausted, she lay there, thinking she might die from the shame of the indescribable rapture she had just experienced. Simply and naturally Silje had become an adult.

  ****

  Benedikt was not painting the local parish church – he had done that long ago and every inch of the vaulted ceiling was decorated. It was but a short distance to the neighbouring parish, whose church he was presently adorning, and late that morning – Benedikt was not an early riser – he took Silje with him in the pony and trap. Silje noticed his blue-veined nose, a sign of the importance he placed on enjoying strong drink.

  Silje had been sure that everyone would see in her face what had happened last night, but she was mistaken. No one appeared to notice anything different about her and they all spoke to her quite naturally, as though nothing had happened. How odd! It had been a transformation for her and she had felt so disgraced that she could have died. The fact that she was attracted to the wrong man did not help matters.

  Benedikt, lightly holding the reins and guiding the old mare, chatted all the while as they rattled along in the trap, with Silje sitting beside him. He told of his great artistic moments and all the church paintings that he had created. He cursed aloud the priests of the Reformation, who had decreed that all the old most beautiful paintings should be whitewashed over because some of them were considered indecent.

  ‘Indecent!’ he fumed. ‘There’s no such thing as indecency in love, Silje. Everything is natural and beautiful. It’s the minds of those bigoted old men that are indecent!’

  His words comforted her a little, but not enough.

  ‘Fortunately, there were sensible priests as well, who managed to halt this moral hysteria with the words of Gregory the Great, who said, ”Through pictures shall they learn, they who cannot read the Scriptures.” He understood what ecclesiastical art was worth! Wait till I show you my Judgement Day angel, Silje. Oh, what a masterpiece! I used Heming as my model.’

  Her cheeks reddened. ‘I’m sure he was an excellent model,’ she muttered.

  Benedikt laughed. ‘His body, yes, but hardly his soul! Anyway, how would you like to be the model for my Fallen Virgin – in the Judgement Day scene?’

  ‘No!’ she replied fiercely.

  ‘Oh, please! With your lovely golden-brown hair you would be perfect. Naturally, you would have to remove your clothing!’

  ‘No – certainly not!’ she gasped.

  He laughed again. ‘I was only teasing you, my dear. Though you may have the soul of an artist, you are far from broad-minded enough – a parochial upbringing?’

  She was not going to listen to any more of this, so she clasped her hands firmly and expressively in her lap and stared down at them. If she had turned her head only slightly she would have been able to see the mountains. But she did not look, even though they enticed and called to her – today more than ever. Perhaps the creatures were hovering there in the sky. Maybe the largest of them was …

  ‘Is that the church over there?’ she shouted, too eagerly.

  ‘Yes, it is. But it’s nothing to get worked up about.’

  ‘No. I was just ...’ She didn’t finish the sentence. She could not describe her imaginings and yet now, shamefully, she began to feel moist again – just as she had last night.

  As soon as she could, she jumped down from the trap and wandered idly about inside the church, avoiding the stands and ladders, admiring Benedikt’s work. Some motifs were subjects she recognised – the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, for example. Another pictured a wandering group of plague victims and another, the ravages of war. To one side, a half-finished figure of Death. And there! Oh yes, there was Heming, the Judgement Day angel – somewhat stylised, but there was no doubt it was him. She sighed wistfully.

  She was full of praise for everything she saw and her honest admiring comments delighted Benedikt.

  ‘Look at this – look at this!’ he said excitedly, ushering her along. ‘What do think of this one?’

  ‘Well ... yes.’ She hesitated. ‘But why have you drawn a woman churning butter? And a devil behind her?’

  Benedikt sniggered. ‘They always want something like that! A little naughty fun is allowed. The priests, vergers and the congregation all enjoy a bit of fun.’

  ‘I don’t quite understand,’ she said naively.

  He stared at her, open-mouthed. ‘Do you mean you don’t understand the symbolism? Have you never watched someone churn butter? Never done it yourself?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but ...’ At that instant she felt her cheeks begin to burn bright red and she quickly turned away from him. It was so common – so vulgar!

  Benedikt was full of remorse. ‘You are a puzzle to me, my passionate young maiden. Yes, you’re certainly passionate; anyone can see that!’

  They walked in si
lence for a few moments. ‘Perhaps you would like to help me paint?’ he asked, his generosity a response to her previous words of admiration. ‘You can colour in this vine. Have you painted before?’

  She hadn’t, but she was itching to try. He showed her the colours. Caput mortuum was a red-violet colour, lamp-black was to be used sparingly or the picture would be drab, and she was on no account to mix it with the other colours. Yellow ochre, white of lime, copper powder that turned to blue-green, and ultramarine that became light blue – she was allowed to mix all these, so long as she did not mess up his pigments.

  Anxiously she took hold of the brush. It took her a quarter of an hour to colour in the first vine-leaf, because she was so worried about painting outside the shape and spilling her colours, but after that she worked more quickly. They chatted enthusiastically about art, while all the time. Benedikt was suspended beneath the vaulted ceiling working on Adam and Eve, who were both protecting their virtue behind large fig leaves. Gradually Silje made progress with her vine. She knew nothing of painting, so Benedikt took the role of teacher, one he seemed to enjoy. Suddenly he asked, ‘Am I boring you?’

  ‘No, no!’ she replied excitedly. ‘This is really interesting. I have never known such conversation.’

  He grinned. His almost unbroken monologue could hardly be called a conversation.

  Finally he came back down. The day’s work was over – and they had completely forgotten to eat the food they had brought with them.

  ‘Now just look at that!’ he said admiringly. ‘I knew you could do it. You’ve really brought the leaves to life. How did you know about shadows?’

  ‘I didn’t.’ She was puzzled, but very proud of her efforts. ‘I just tried to remember what they looked like.’

  ‘You must come with me tomorrow as well,’ he said eagerly. ‘The old women can take care of the children, they know what to do.’

  As he strode out of the church ahead of her, she wondered how she had grown so fond of this old man in such a short time. Most importantly perhaps, she had found something inside herself. Silje, the black sheep, not suited to life on the farm, had found a different world. Maybe this was where she belonged.

  Chapter 4

  Silje was unable to return to the church the following day because one of the sores on her feet had become infected and she was told to rest. Instead she spent the time playing with Sol and doing small jobs that allowed her to remain sitting and talking to the two old women.

  Sol was a funny child, very impulsive and straightforward. She was also unpretentious. When she was angry, she was very angry, but equally, when she was happy, it showed and she ran to hug them each in turn. No one could understand a word she said, but they thought that she could not be more than two years old.

  The next morning Silje’s foot was looking better and she accompanied Benedikt once again, but this time, to unburden the women, they took Sol with them. The girl ran wildly around in the church, her unbounded energy driving them to despair. Time and again Silje had to fetch her down from the pulpit or the gallery Time and again the child tried to climb up to where Benedikt was working. In the end they decided to tether her with a rope in the chancel, which lay empty.

  As before, they painted apart from each other. Silje was given a slightly more difficult task this time, that of painting the halos around the heads of some of the angels. She did them well.

  ‘You’ve got it in you,’ Benedikt said. ‘Come, you can see what I did yesterday, while you weren’t here.’

  She followed him into one of the side chapels. Under the small vaulted ceiling, he had painted some scenes from the Day of Judgement, but Silje knew at once what he had wanted her to see. It was a half-finished image of the Fallen Virgin. She blushed and turned away.

  Benedikt laughed loudly. ‘Yes, she’s a good likeness of you, isn’t she? Her face, I mean. I had to imagine the rest of course, but it wasn’t difficult.’

  Silje was lost for words. She felt affronted. The woman in the picture did not look like her. Her stomach was much flatter and she had more above the waist than that – thing!

  ‘I look nothing like that,’ she yelled.

  ‘You’ve only got yourself to blame,’ he chuckled, good-naturedly. ‘You didn’t want to be my model. But I’m happy to change it, just you tell me where I’ve gone wrong.’

  Of course the right thing would have been to turn and walk away with a show of indignation. Yet she could not bear the thought of her face perched on top of that pear-shaped body, so she made a few swift, embarrassed gestures over the painting. Benedikt looked her up and down, comparing her with his painting.

  ‘Yes, you’re right. You’re one of those full bosomed maids, slim from the waist down. That’s easily changed. Then we need a devil behind you as well. No matter, it’ll have to wait while I finish Field Marshall Death!’

  Silje went to the church every day, despite her foot not being healed. Sol was not allowed to go with them because she was far too difficult to look after. Every day she wore her fine blue velvet cloak. On one trip, Benedikt remarked, ‘You caress that cloak as though it was a lover.’

  She was startled. ‘It’s only that the velvet is so soft.’

  ‘It’s the way you wrap yourself in it – breathing in the sensual fragrance of it – has that anything to do with the quality of the cloth?’

  She drew herself upright. ‘I have never owned such a beautiful garment, that’s all! ’ she mumbled, embarrassed. On the fourth day Benedikt told Silje that he thought her painting was so good that he would give her a more important task. There was only a little time left in which to have the church ready, as services were soon to be held there once more. He would not be able to finish it all by himself. Could she paint the devil seducing the virgin, if he drew the outlines?

  She was lost for words. Was she to be allowed to do a complete figure? Yes, she knew she could. She had known all her life that she had it in her to draw, but had never had the chance.

  ‘Yes – yes please! I think I should like to try,’ she stuttered eagerly. ‘But what if it’s wrong or not good enough?’

  ‘Then we’ll paint over it. But I’m certain you can do it.’

  Silje threw herself into her task with heart and soul. She was working alone now, in the side chapel, and they could only shout occasionally to each other. However, she was so deeply engrossed in her work that she frequently forgot both Benedikt and her surroundings.

  Towards evening he came down from his labours. He had looked in on her once about midday to see how she was progressing. Now she had almost finished, with only the devil’s hoof that showed from behind the woman’s legs left to paint.

  ‘You haven’t eaten a thing all day,’ he called as he came through the nave, his footsteps echoing. ‘Daylight’s fading. We’ll have to stop now.’

  He came to a halt suddenly and she stood to one side so that he could see what she had done, anxiously awaiting his verdict.

  He stared. ‘In God’s name, girl, what have you done?’

  At that moment she realised what she had painted, seeing it through his eyes. The devil stood behind the woman, as Benedikt had sketched, but she had done much more. The claw-like hands clasped the woman’s breasts and her head was thrown back against the devil’s shoulder. His long tongue stroked her throat – and his face …

  ‘Oh!’ she gasped, putting her hand to her mouth. ‘I hadn’t noticed that!’

  No one who had ever seen the man in the wolf-skin would ever be in doubt as to where the image had come from.

  ‘We must get rid of it,’ said Benedikt with alarm.

  Silje was about to paint over it, but then he took her hand, saying, ‘No, don’t. I’ve changed my mind. It’s far too good to be destroyed. You’re no master painter and much of this is clumsy, but you have given it such power! Let’s hope the King’s soldiers never have cause to enter here.’

  Then, his voice sounding shocked, he continued, ‘Young lady, I would never have thought that
you, who seem so virtuous, could create a coarse and vulgar picture like this. Look at the devil’s greedy grasping hands! Look at his stance! It is as if you yourself knew what was happening behind that poor woman’s back.’

  Silje was aghast. ‘I can’t understand it. I never realised I had painted it like that. It must have created itself!’

  ‘Either you are under a spell or quite simply, you have the soul of an artist and you have been working as if in a trance. Yes, that’s what happened. An artist is often unaware of what he is doing once inspiration takes hold. But I thought you had lost your heart to young Heming!’

  So he had discovered her secret.

  ‘And so I have!’ She was angry and confused. ‘I have! I cannot understand how this face has come out of the wall.’

  Benedikt began to laugh, softly at first, then more heartily ‘Well, you couldn’t have chosen a better specimen to copy! Dear Lord, what a thing to happen! Momentous! But no one must know of this. It’s good that it is dark in this corner.’

  They set off homewards. It was warmer now, and the small amount of snow that had fallen had melted away. The sky was grey and oppressive. They well knew that this warmth was deceptive. For the sun rose later with each day and winter was tightening its grip, its frozen claws digging ever deeper. This had been a wretched autumn.

  ****

  Silje had been at Benedikt’s farm for ten days before Sol became ill. Flushed with fever and crying, she lay on her bed in their room. Silje sat with her the whole day, changing her clothes and keeping her warm.

  After taking a look at the child the barber, who was one of Benedikt’s drinking friends, gave his verdict. ‘No, there’s no doubt, I’m afraid. You must keep the infant away from her. We others will be all right – we have survived so far. Has she been baptised? It would be well to ask the priest to call.’

  ‘He is dead,’ said one of the women. ‘A new one has not yet come. Alas, he was a good man, our last priest. He visited all the sick before he himself was taken. But the girl is so big she must have been baptised.’ She choked back a tear – they had all grown to love little Sol.