Ice

by Ulla-lena Lundberg

  The operator arms herself with her most official voice when she gets the pastor’s wife on the line, whose voice sounds unusually timid. “This is the operator. We apologize for calling so late. But a question has come up. Is the vicar at home?”

  The west villages have later habits than the east, and there are several men ready to go out with sledges and ice pikes and ropes. Quickly, in single file, the lightest first, they move towards the steamboat channel. Stop often and listen. Quiet now. Was it all in their imagination? A fox howling on one of the islands? Dark as the inside of a sack, you can hardly see where the channel goes, notice it only when their ice pikes hit slush. Then they all back up. They make sweeps across the channel with their flashlights, turn them off in between. Easy to miss a hole if no one calls. But something has made everyone uneasy. Everyone out there on the ice has known someone who fell through and drowned.

  Petter is shouting less now, what explodes from his mouth every time he surfaces is mostly water. He no longer has the strength to hold onto the edge of the ice and soon he’ll no longer have the strength to cough the water from his lungs. He can feel his body only occasionally and then only as burning fire. His arms won’t obey, his legs don’t kick any more like the good swimmer he once was, like a seal, like a dolphin. But his head is clear, despite the pain that chases through it. His ears can hear—the splashing that reveals how terribly slowly he’s moving, the chunks of ice banging into each other and into the edge, the rustle around him of water being splashed up onto the ice and slowly freezing. The wind that blows like deep sighs, which then rush across the ice like a train, carrying the voice from the parsonage out over the emptiness of ice and cold.

  His eyes can see—different degrees of darkness, the coal-black depths of water, the greyer black of the ice, the murmuring, expanding blackness of the sky, with neither moon nor stars. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, he thinks. Darkness shall be as light. Have mercy upon us. Have mercy upon us. He is pushed under the surface and comes back up, has now lost arms and hands, legs, the lower half of his body. A terrible pain in his breast, almost like a wound. His eyes fixed on what has been a bright and living sky. Life that is so hard to relinquish.

  All the things he often says. About the dead who have fought their fight and now rest by the heart of Jesus. About the embrace of the Father. About the ways of the Lord which we do not comprehend but later shall understand. About our earthly vision which is like looking into a dark mirror that only imperfectly reflects the light of heaven. The heavenly light that now, in his dying moments, he sees no trace of. Just phrases. Jesus’s heart is nothing to Mona’s, the embrace of the Father cold and dismissive. His own embrace as a father, which should not be denied to Sanna and Lillus and the other children they’ve thought of having.

  His shouts like bleats across the ice. The effort makes him lose his grip and sink into the water again, his mouth still open. Water in his lungs, an ineffective snorting when he comes back up, a slow hand and underarm laid on the ice like a block of wood. Have mercy upon us. Have mercy upon us. Before he died, Jesus too felt he’d been utterly abandoned. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Left me on the cross, in a hole in the ice, and forced me to be present at my own death in complete darkness and annihilating cold.

  To terribly ill, dying people he often says that perhaps sickness and suffering exist so that we can reconcile ourselves to death and put ourselves confidently in the hands of Our Saviour. When we are no longer capable of anything ourselves. Then we must die. We must let go, we must let go, we must let go. But even when there is no hope, we hope. That Mona will come across the ice with a lantern. Show us thy light.

  To let go of everything. Which death requires. It’s no act of will, it is done to us when we die. First he lets go of Lillus. She drops like a fallen mitten, still asleep. For a little while he fights to hold onto Sanna and Mona. Mona, his deeply beloved, strong and incorruptible and capable, who is the basis of his life and happiness. Left now to her loneliness, no less than his own. Cut off, behind a wall of ice. Sanna, his northern-lights girl, for one moment more on his arm, her cheek against his. Then gone, left in a world no easier than his.

  No body now, just pain, no longer shaped in his image. But a mind that is still attentive and notes that the pain suddenly slides away and that his body returns in familiar form, warm in the sunshine on the granite by the parsonage, full of pleasure in his health, youth, and vigour. With his intellect, he understands that this is what you feel when death steps in, but even if that is so, he embraces the feeling and thinks that he will live.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “No,” SAYS THE PASTOR’S WIFE, her voice oddly thin. “He hasn’t come home yet. Has something happened?”

  The operator pauses for a moment. “Cries have been heard from the ice. We’re trying to determine if anyone is missing.”

  “No,” she says. “Not he. He was at a prayer meeting at Månsas farm. It probably ran late.”

  The operator doesn’t say the meeting ended a long time ago. Her mouth dry, she says, stiffly, “A number of men are out looking. We’ll send a message for them to search towards Church Bay. I’ll call the organist.”

  A deep breath in, a disorganized beginning.

  “Please, Mrs Kummel,” the operator says. “Stay inside with the children. Keep the stove hot, boil water. We’ll call as soon as we know anything. Now I have more calls to make.”

  She rings off and calls the Coast Guard to tell them it’s the priest who’s missing. Now they head out, one to tell the men at the steamboat channel that they’re looking in the wrong place, one to search the entrance to Church Bay where there’s a strong current. The men from the nearest villages have been summoned and are on their way. Hurry, hurry.

  Then she calls the organist. He’s a night owl, and she can hear that he’s still up. He sounds frightened even before she tells him what it’s about. It’s never good news when you get a call this late, when telephone central is officially closed. “No,” he says. “Not the priest. God in heaven, not the priest.”

  “I know you’re a good friend of theirs. Could you possibly? It could be you’ll be needed there tonight. Brage will rouse the verger as he goes by. When we know something, I’ll call Sister Hanna.”

  Neither of them says it’s probably a false alarm.

  Mona opens the door outside, remembers she’s not wearing a coat, puts one on, stocking feet, back in, cow-barn boots the closest to hand. Out, listens. Runs down towards the church dock, nothing. But wait—voices! It must be him coming home, with some companions, talking and talking. She mustn’t let him see how scared she’s been, she must have the tea ready and scold him just a little. She turns and runs back to the parsonage. Lillus is awake, crying and fussing. “Quiet!” says Mama. “Now go to sleep!” Her angry voice wakes up Sanna, too, and both she and Lillus lie quiet as mice, scared to death, and fall back to sleep from pure terror. Mona is busy in the kitchen, then out on the steps. Definitely voices!

  It’s the verger and Signe who show up. “Mona,” the verger says, with his reassuring authority. “They’ve found his briefcase and coat on the ice. A hole. We mustn’t believe the worst. They’re dragging for all they’re worth. If they find him, it doesn’t have to be too late. We’ll do our damnedest. We’ll fight with everything we’ve got.”

  Mona stares at him, but only for a moment. Her teeth chatter when she talks, but she seems perfectly collected. “We learned first aid in home economics. And the Coast Guard can help. Are there many men out?”

  “Five or six. Seven counting Brage. They started searching at the steamboat channel. That was the trouble.”

  “Then we have to make sure there’s hot coffee for all of them. And light the lamps. Dear Signe, can you help me set out cups while I make the coffee?”

  Neither of them finds it unnatural—she needs something to do or anxiety will kill her. While the two women are busy in the kitchen, the verger goes out on
the steps. Voices in the air, then lamps and lights coming up the hill, the steps of people moving quickly and heavily, as if they were carrying a body.

  Once they knew it was the priest they were looking for, it was easy to find his bicycle tracks and follow them across the ice and into Church Bay, too close to the rocks. And there was a hole. Dear God. Dark objects on the ice where water had washed over them and frozen them solid. Boots. Overcoat. Gloves. Briefcase. Good God. Not what we think. Surely he’s pulled himself out and lies freezing somewhere on land. But there are no tracks. Brage is equipped with a coil of rope and two drags. But it’s hard to get close enough without breaking the ice. They stand spread out around the hole and calculate. The water isn’t deep, maybe eight or ten feet, but before they can talk it over, Brage has ripped off his outer clothing and his boots, tied a line around his waist and wrapped the other end around Julle’s arm. He goes down, his body protecting him so well against the cold that he hardly notices, feels around with his feet, finds the bicycle almost at once. The others throw in a drag, he fastens it, and they pull up the bicycle empty. A black skeleton, stone dead, it clatters onto the ice. Brage goes down and searches on. Something on the bottom, soft. A body. He kicks his way up. “Here he is. I’ll bring him up.”

  He grabs the wool sweater and pulls. The priest comes easily, limp, just a short way, and then Brage feels a tug on his own line as the men give a hand and get them both up quickly, Brage lively as a beaver and the priest dead, a white face in the dark, wet hair, a motionless body. Brage tows him to the edge of the ice and gives orders in rapid gasps—the sledge first, the lightest man behind it, the others behind him ready to pull back. Here. Take him. Back away all of you. Brage himself gets out with almost no help, crawls a ways behind the dragged body, tests the ice, stands up and slides forward, turns the priest on his stomach and tries to get the water out of his lungs.

  Someone throws a coat over him, his boots come skittering. Julle shouts, “You need to get somewhere warm, both of you. Run Brage, you’ll freeze to death!”

  At the same moment, the organist approaches on his kick sledge, having risked his life at full speed all the way from the southern tip of the west villages, with his ice pike and his sheath knife ready to hand. “Is it him?” he shouts.

  “Watch out!” Brage yells. “I’m not going to drag up anyone else today!” They all laugh, a short, voiceless guffaw which is more frightening than a call for help.

  “We need to get him up to the parsonage,” Julle says. “Lucky you’re here, since you know his wife. Grab hold and let’s go.”

  They leave the sledges, ropes, and drags by the church dock and then they walk quickly with the body between them and their flashlights twinkling, while Brage half runs up the hill, swinging his arms to beat his body. Knows as well as the priest knew how to keep warm if you’ve fallen in the water.

  The verger comes to meet them. “No. We’ll put him by the stove and do everything we can.”

  The priest’s wife in the door. “Is it him? Thank you, all of you. Carry him into the kitchen, it’s warm there.”

  It’s now midnight. The priest lies in front of the stove as if he were sleeping. Soaked through, but they’ve seen him that way before. Brage rolls him onto his stomach and starts working on him. Water spurts from his mouth, there is hope. “Let me take over,” the organist says. “You need to dry off and get something hot into you. Then we can take it in turns.”

  “Of course,” the priest’s wife says. “I didn’t see. Change clothes by the tile stove in the dining room, it’s warm. I’ll get some of Petter’s clothes, although he’s wearing his warmest things.” To the others she says, “Signe will give you coffee. Please sit down. You must be frozen stiff.”

  Signe shoos them out of the kitchen with the coffeepot in her hand, Mona runs to the bedroom and grabs trousers, underwear, a shirt and sweater and gives them to Brage. “Thank you,” she says. “Without you, this could have ended badly.”

  They all look at each other, then into their coffee. Does she think …? Or is she just trying to persuade herself. But she knows. You know, but you hope. When she’s back in the kitchen, they go to the study, close the door and make phone calls. To the hospital—drowned and dead. Is there nevertheless something they can try? Brage comes in when he’s dressed and talks. The hospital confirms what he already knows to do. However pointless. Must anyway try. They also talk to the operator and confirm that it was the priest and that he is dead and leave it to her to spread the news. Brage comes in again and asks them to call the homecare aide. “Tell her I’ll come and get her in the morning, early. They’ll have to find someone else for the Bergfolks, where she is now.” They also call their families to tell them they’ve found the priest dead and will soon be home, there’s nothing more they can do. Then they greedily drink more coffee, which Signe has kept hot. Those who feel superfluous start pulling on their coats, look in at the kitchen where the stove and the oven are spreading warmth. The priest on the floor, limp in Brage’s hands, the last time they’ll see him, they all think. “Goodbye then, and thank you for the coffee,” they mumble to his wife.

  “Goodbye and thank you,” she says, smiling appreciatively the way people do when they say thank you. The organist has taken over from Brage and is working like a smith at his bellows. “Thank you for coming,” she remembers to say. “Are you tired? Should I take over for a while? How do you think it’s going?”

  “We’ve got out a lot of water,” the organist says. “That’s good. Now we’ll turn him over. I’m going to see if we can’t get his heart going, that would be best of all. Forgive me, I have to press so hard his ribs will creak.”

  Mona tries to concentrate on finding a pulse. Nothing at his wrist. Not on his neck. His temples are still. Then she sees the terrible black-and-blue bruise on his forehead. “Oh my. He hit his head badly. But otherwise he doesn’t look so bad. Not rigid from the cold.”

  The organist is working intently. He doesn’t need to say that below the surface, where Petter lay, the temperature is above freezing. And then you don’t go stiff. And it’s too soon for rigor mortis.

  When Mona searched for a pulse, she also looked at his wristwatch. Half past nine. That’s when he went through the ice, and cries were still heard a little more than half an hour before he was found. He wasn’t on the bottom for long, there’s still hope. He’s young and strong. “Are you tired?” she asks again.

  He thinks maybe it would be good for her to work on him herself, to feel for herself that there’s no life in his body. They got his airways open a long time ago, they’ve been fighting to get his heart going for more than an hour, but there hasn’t been the tiniest response, not even a spasm to indicate that some nerve impulses are still functioning.

  She knows her first aid, no question about that. She labours by the hot stove until the sweat is on her brow, she groans the way he would groan from her treatment of him if there was the least life left in his body. But he reacts to nothing they do. After all their efforts to bring him back to life, he now looks much more dead than he did when they carried him in. Brage has braced himself with a cup of coffee and a sandwich in the dining room, telephoned the hospital, and comes back into the kitchen. “Let me,” he says.

  Again she sits on the floor beside him, trying to find a pulse but then just sitting, holding his hand. His hand that has been so warm. Torn by the sharp edge of the ice and his struggle with the bicycle, but not a drop of blood. Nothing still alive in that body.

  Brage is now working just for the sake of appearances. Mostly he looks at her, and she sits quite still, apparently calm. Looks at the organist, sitting at the kitchen table with his back turned, his shoulders heaving. The verger and Signe crying at the end of the table. He lets the body lie quietly on the floor. “I don’t think there’s anything more we can do.”

  “No,” she says. “I know.” The last time they will sit this way, united. Never again. “I’m going to sit here for a while. Forgive me.
You must be very tired.”

  The whole kitchen is crying, all of them, except her. She is the only one of them who can express a complete sentence. “There’s a great deal we have to deal with in the morning, but for now I’ll just sit here.” On the wet, crumpled rag rug by the stove. Beside him for the last time.

  Signe remembers that they usually have tea in the evenings, and she pours a cup for the pastor’s wife, who actually drinks it. “Thank you,” she says. “I was thirsty.” Signe fills her cup again, and she drinks it again. The body tells us what it needs to replace its losses. No groaning from her about how she wants to die. She knows perfectly well that she has to live, take care of her girls, provide them with a living, a home when they’ve left the parsonage. Work, work, work. For the last time now, quietly by his side. Time and the clock run on and on, except the one on his wrist, which has stopped.

  In bits and pieces, the organist tells what they’ve arranged. “Brage is going to pick up the homecare sister early in the morning. I’ll call the priest in Mellom, who will certainly phone here. We’ll come back in the morning and carry him down. To the shed. What we’re going to do about everything—we’ll work that out tomorrow. But now you have to go to bed and get some sleep before your little girls wake up. The verger and Signe and I will stay here till Hanna comes.”

  “No,” she protests. “Not at all! I’ll manage all right. You should all go home now.”

  They look at each other. Brage stands up. “There’s nothing more I can do here. But my God if only we could make this not have happened!” He gathers up his clothes, which lie in a wet pile in the dining room. In the hall, his overcoat is still soaked, the priest’s sports jacket on a hanger looks pretty thin. He goes to the study and calls the Coast Guard, which can certainly come and pick him up in their light icebreaker after everything he’s done this night.