It has been a winter without dependable ice. The post comes rarely, and then only on the Aranda, a ship that can break thin ice. Post-Anton has overexerted himself and torn open an old hernia. He’s had an operation in Godby, where he’s in hospital for a second week. Without the Aranda, there would have been no post at all. Now in early February there’s been a real cold snap, and there is hope that the ice will finally freeze hard. And then just as the weather changes, there are suddenly northern lights.
They’re the first northern lights Petter has ever seen. The family is long since in bed. He blows out the lamp in his office, hardly able to keep his eyes open. But he notices that there is something odd about the light outside, which flames up such that he thinks for a moment something is on fire. But it’s too green, and when he looks out, he sees that the whole sky is billowing. Enormous swatches of greenish light are whirling around in the sky. The northern lights—the actual aurora borealis here on the Örlands! He rushes into the bedroom. Mona is asleep, the girls are asleep. The room is dark, but the northern lights are streaming on the window shades. “Mona!” he says. “Wake up! You have to see this.”
She wakes up with a start and sits bolt upright in bed. “What is it?”
“The northern lights. It’s unbelievable. Get dressed and we’ll go out on the steps and look.”
“Can’t we see just as well through the window?”
“Yes. But it’s completely different when you’re outdoors.”
“The window will be fine for me. Don’t stay out too long and get cold.”
They rarely share each other’s experiences, and now that they can, she doesn’t want to. He wakes Sanna instead, lifts her up in her quilt although Mona hisses indignantly, “For goodness’ sake, let the girls sleep! What do the northern lights mean to them? Nothing.”
But Sanna has awakened in his arms. “Papa!” she says, and knows immediately where she is. “Do you want to come outside and look at the northern lights with me?” he asks. “It’s a fantastic phenomenon in the sky that most people never get to see. Come, sweetheart.” He wraps her quilt around her and carries her like a child, his big girl. “We’ll let Lillus sleep,” he says. “She’s too little to understand what she’s seeing.”
Despite Mama’s protests in the background, they go out, closing the door behind them so as not to let out the heat, and stand silently on the steps. The whole world is aflame in green and white. “It’s a kind of optical phenomenon that has to do with temperature, moisture in the air, reflected light, stuff like that,” he says. “I can’t explain it exactly, I have to find out, but the important thing is that we’re seeing it and will always remember how it looked. It’s one of the wonders of nature.”
“Yes,” Sanna says. If she wasn’t sitting on Papa’s arm, she’d be afraid. The light tumbling above them doesn’t reach the ground, which is pitch-black. It doesn’t light up anything on earth, it’s only the sky that flames and seethes, a huge, cold, burning radiance. But more important than the view is Papa. The warmth in his enthusiastic body, which vibrates when he talks, the feeling of being huddled up so close. The cold air on her back, his warm chest in front, her cheek against his. That they’re out on their own, without Mama and Lillus. Just her, his confidante and assistant in his study of the northern lights.
He himself feels Sanna’s involvement intensely, the firm body under the quilt, the wakeful intelligence in this attentive and concentrated little figure. He feels the grace and joy of this living child especially strongly today, against the background of the sorrow afflicting the Örlands at the moment. The little eight-year-old who was sent to Åbo with a burst appendix several days ago has died of peritonitis. Now once again everyone notes how defenceless life has become since Doctor Gyllen’s departure. He will conduct her burial service once they’ve brought her home and then speak to her memory at a prayer meeting he intends to hold in the west villages. His thoughts are already occupied with what he will say, and Sanna, alive in his arms, makes him think of how he would not be able to bear her loss, while the parents of the little eight-year-old have no choice but to bear their own.
There are a great many people in church the following Sunday. The ice has begun to look more dependable, and people have come on foot, carefully, leaving space between them, without mishaps. A relief after this unusually troublesome winter. Many people, almost everyone from the east villages, attend the burial, the parent’s grief heart-rending to see, the priest powerfully involved because of Sanna.
The evening is dark, cloudy, perhaps it will snow. So far there has been almost no snow on the Örlands, and in order to make it easier to travel on the village roads, he takes his bicycle and rides it across the ice to the west villages. With the help of the headlight he can follow the path the congregation took, and if he maintains an adequate speed he’ll go straight and true and run no risk of skidding and falling on the slippery ice. On the carrier he has his briefcase with the incessant tracts sent out by the Seamen’s and Heathen’s Mission and the Evangelical Society, which he feels bound to distribute. Quickly and safely he makes it across. It’s not far to the farm, and he arrives just half an hour after leaving the parsonage. He’s early, so he has a chance to chat before they begin. Mostly they talk about the ice, how much easier everything is now that it’s finally freezing hard. The men sit contentedly talking while the women change clothes after the evening milking before joining them.
The temperature rises once the women arrive. They talk about the dead girl and they talk about her mother, how she’s doing, and the pastor says he’s been thinking a lot about his own little girls, how it would feel to lose them. There is no one at the meeting who has not suffered some loss. At such times, the comforts offered by the church can feel meagre and God’s word seem pale.
“But then,” he says, rising to his feet, and they all understand that the meeting has begun. “But then we fail to consider that the words and the promises work in the longer term. They don’t fall unheard to the earth and die, but lie there and sprout in secret, like seeds, and bide their time. Sorrow grows slowly into hope and trust. The words that appear to fall to the ground are not wasted, no more than a life cut short before its time is wasted. Our little Anni rests securely near the heart of Jesus. Down here, she still lives in memory as the songbird of our Sunday school and as the beloved child she was in her home. We grieve with her parents and sister, and we miss her everywhere we’re accustomed to seeing her, holding her mother’s hand, safely beside her father on a pew in church. Her death can seem cruel to us, and God, who permitted it, can seem a heartless God.
“I wish you could see her walk across the bridge of light that leads from our world to the heavenly world. Free from earthly bonds, as we sing in the hymn, with buoyant steps on her way to her heavenly father. We can entrust her to his embrace, free from fear and pain. As a reminder that there is ‘a joy beyond the grave and a future full of song’, as we sing in another hymn, I suggest that we sing hymn 222, ‘In Heaven, in Heaven’.”
That they are all in tears is not a source of pride to him. As they sing, their voices break in the middle of a line and words are swallowed. He himself holds the melody steady, and he knows the words by heart. His voice carries. Their fellowship is strong and warm by the time the meeting is over and coffee, bread and butter appear on the table, the real bread and wine of the outer skerries. Their faces are ruddy, but their tears dry up, and people begin to chat. This is the way people make their way in the world, with talk, with a thousand ways of expressing interest, pleasure, horror, sadness. They are all in very good humour when it comes time to sing “Shall We Gather at the River”.
Most of them leave on foot. Petter is left standing alone with his bicycle beside the house. He has a hard time handing out books and tracts that he doesn’t think his sturdy, lively parishioners will have much use for, and his briefcase is as heavy as it was when he arrived. He ties it firmly to the carrier and walks his bicycle out through the gate.
> “Be sure to watch out for that spot near Kläppar where the current’s made a hole in the ice,” his host calls after him.
“Not to worry,” says the pastor confidently. “I’ll just follow the path you all took this morning.”
The clouds have thickened since he arrived, and it takes a while for his eyes to get used to the dark. He pedals hard to get the dynamo going, but can’t see much beyond the little cone of flickering light produced by his headlamp. The surroundings are gone, the path barely distinguishable from the well-grazed slope around it. Then he comes out onto the gravel road where the wheel tracks glisten with ice. In the middle, his tyres grip well. Soon he’s down by the dock and wheels his bike out onto the ice. Concentrating on his balance and pedalling hard, he keeps himself upright.
It is very dark. He can see neither the moon nor the stars, but the shiny ice gleams in the bicycle headlamp, and when he comes around the point he can see the light in the parsonage window. On evenings when he’s away, Mona puts a lamp in the window towards the bay so it will shine like a guiding star and welcome him home. Now that the ice is in, all he has to do is head for the light and ride until he’s into Church Bay.
He’s moving well, singing “Shall We Gather at the River” as he pedals. He isn’t thinking much about where the congregation walked, because suddenly, when he’s already into the bay, the ice breaks under him, a crashing of glass and a hole that swallows him and his bicycle. They go straight to the bottom, and he kicks his way upward and breaks the surface and swims.
At first he feels only intense embarrassment. Goes hot with shame in the ice-cold water. He’s muddled, half his head is throbbing where he hit it on the edge of the ice or on the handlebars. He wants to laugh at himself—it’s actually the first time he’s gone through the ice. It’s in the summer when the water is pleasantly warm that he likes to capsize his sailboat, and even then only occasionally. He can hear Mona lecturing him, relieved that it wasn’t worse, telling him he should have walked his bicycle and felt his way forward instead of zipping along as if he were on a road. The last thing the verger said as he left was that the ice wasn’t safe. Yes, yes, but this isn’t so bad.
His body is warm and he’s a strong swimmer and he knows what to do. As he treads water he twists his way out of his coat and gets his boots off, first one and then the other, and heaves them up on the ice. The effort required is unexpectedly great. Until you’re in the water, you don’t realize how low you are, and suddenly he’s tired, as if his strength had run out all at once. With a jolt in his aching head he remembers his briefcase tied to the carrier, full of tracts, a Bible, a hymnal, and a copy of The Songs of Zion. If he can get them out of the water quickly, perhaps they won’t be completely soaked and can be saved. It’s a question of money, quite a bit, which he will feel obliged to replace. He makes the quick dive that he likes so much—swivels like a seal and kicks his way downward. Searches a little along the bottom; yes, there’s the bike. On its side, handlebars sticking up, and then the carrier, his briefcase firmly in place.
He has to come up for air, dives again and comes straight down to the bicycle, starts working on the twine, remembers how he tied it. It seems to him that his hands are warm and supple, but they are oddly stiff. It feels hopelessly difficult, but you mustn’t lose courage over a little setback, and he swims up again to get a breath and then back down. He picks at the knot without result, pulls and the whole bike moves, lets go and swims up for air. He’s winded and exhausted, though he figures he’s been in the water fifteen minutes at the most. Dives again. Doesn’t try to pick at the knot again but puts his foot on the saddle and drags and pulls on the briefcase. This doesn’t seem to work either, but then something gives, the briefcase jerks free and comes up with him. He’s been down too long and taken a mouthful of water, and he flaps his arms wildly when he gets to the surface and snorts and almost vomits. The briefcase weighs him down like an anchor, but with a great effort he gets it up on his shoulder and heaves it onto the edge of the ice. The movement strains his shoulder, and his arm feels unusable, harder now to pull himself up.
Funny that you can get so tired. He’s really looking forward to getting up on land, can see himself running up the hill so he doesn’t freeze solid. Then through the door. Whew! Mona’s horror, the warm tile stove. How nice it is to peel off the heavy wet clothes and get help towelling himself dry. Warm pyjamas, wool socks and wool sweater, fire in the kitchen range, the heat streaming straight out, boiling water in a pot. Hot tea. “Let me catch my breath first and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Now all he needs to do is find an edge of the ice that will bear his weight. Then he just has to heave himself up, pull himself forward, roll until he dares stand up and walk. But he finds that it is more difficult in practice than in theory. It ought to be a simple matter, he thinks, to break the ice until he comes to an edge that bears, but it goes slowly and his movements are strangely languid and his limbs are heavy. Again and again he has to rest with his arms on the ice. And when he’s come far enough that he dares to lift himself up, he can’t, and because of his sore shoulder, he lacks the strength to pull himself forward.
The important thing now is not to panic. Rest for a while, then try again. Don’t rest too long, however, for then he risks freezing to death. Try again. No. Recalls that the Örlanders always say that the first thing to remember when you’re going out on the ice is to have something sharp, an ice pike, a knife in your belt. Why doesn’t he have anything sharp with him? He admires the Örlanders for all they know and can do, but he’s learned nothing from them. If he dives back down and breaks a mudguard from his bicycle, he’s got a chance. But he knows he no longer has the strength for such an extended effort under water.
Only then does it occur to him to call for help. It’s embarrassing, it’s humiliating, he who’s the eldest and an example for others. He should not put himself into such situations, he’s behaved like a complete idiot, and the fewer who know it the better. Nevertheless, he now hollers “Help!” and hears for himself how feeble it sounds. The parsonage is near, but of course the windows are closed and sealed. Unless Mona goes out on the steps and listens, she’ll hear nothing. He needs to make a bigger noise. It’s hard to get his voice to carry from down so close to the water, but it’s absolutely necessary. If he yells and moves around, maybe he can stay warm a little better. If he’s to get out of this ice hole, someone has to hear him.
“Help!” he shouts, louder now. For heaven’s sake, his big booming bass must carry far enough for someone to hear it. Anyone! Mona going out to listen for him, the verger on the other side of point with something to do outdoors and stopping to listen to the wind. Someone he hasn’t thought of, out on the ice on some late errand.
And above our earthly troubles, God in his heaven who sees to us in his mercy and feels our plight. Between his calls for help—which carry better if he doesn’t try to form consonants but just brays, aaaaah aaaaah—he prays. To God who lets no sparrow fall to earth, to the God of compassion, the God of mercy. Send me your angels, send Mona on swift feet, feather-light across the ice, the verger out to test his sledge. Maybe the wind will carry his voice to the east villages. Maybe someone will hear. Dear God.
The pain boring into his head no longer feels quite as strong. It’s as if his shouts were deadening all pain. He shouts steadily, repeatedly now, like a foghorn, with brief intervals to catch his breath. Everything is going black, he slides down and gets a mouth full of water, which wakes him up and he coughs and shouts. Have mercy upon us. Deliver us from evil. It occurs to him that he is dying.
In the parsonage, Lillus has a cold, she’s snivelling and fussing and can’t sleep. Mona has her hands full—warm honey water, turpentine on her chest, a scarf and a knit cap. Blow! In between, she wanders around and scolds herself for being so uneasy. Petter should have come by now, his endless evening meetings can drive a person crazy. But it really is terribly dark. What if he’s lost, what if he’s ridden up on some
rock and knocked himself unconscious! If he’s not here in fifteen minutes, she’s going to call central and ask if they’ve heard anything. She goes out on the steps and listens but hears nothing. Not his whining dynamo, not the creaking and squeaking of his bicycle, nothing. She goes back in and is mad at herself for being so scared. She tries to sit down but can’t get anything done. The minute hand on the clock doesn’t move.
In the east villages, a man has heard odd sounds across the ice, but as far as he can tell they’re coming from the west villages, and if someone there has fallen through the ice, they can pull him out themselves. He’s on his way back in but takes a swing around the boathouses, and there’s another man standing and listening. “Could that be someone in the steamboat channel?” Both are struck by the same awful thought: the Aranda passed by yesterday, and the thin ice that’s frozen in its wake could be a death trap for anyone who didn’t know it was there. Now there are three of them gathering ice pikes and ropes, but the voice is coming less often now and sounds hardly human. Maybe an animal, but what animal sounds like that? In the houses, people have started calling around, and the central switchboard operator sends the message onward. Is there anyone who hasn’t come home this evening? Has anyone ventured out near the steamboat channel? Is there anyone out on any kind of errand who hasn’t yet come home?
It takes a while for this message to get out. It’s late, many have gone to bed, and there are many to call. There is discussion and speculation in every household. Could it be . .? But tonight? No, I don’t think so. The operator calls the villagers, relatives. The parsonage isn’t on the unofficial list, but then, finally, the host of the prayer meeting remembers. “My God, the priest was here! No! He must have got home a long time ago! Do we dare call the parsonage and disturb them?”
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