by Edith Pattou
I shook my head. “I don’t know how to play,” I explained, my cheeks a little red.
“Play,” he said.
“I can’t.” But he just stared at me with those yearning eyes. So I tried.
And though the tone of the instrument was lovely, my playing sounded like two birds of different pitch scolding each other.
The white bear closed his eyes and flattened his ears against the sound.
“Well, I warned you,” I said.
Then he got up and crossed to a polished wooden chest and, using a large paw, pushed the top up. I could see bundles of paper inside, some bound, some tied with ribbon. I knew what the papers were.
“I cannot read music,” I said.
The white bear sighed. Then he turned and left the room.
After he’d gone I went to the chest and sat down beside it, taking out a bundle of the papers with music written on them.
It became my new project, learning to read music. I was lucky to find a book in the chest that showed which note corresponded to which hole on the flauto.
Occasionally the white bear would come into the music room and sit and listen while I practised, which made me self-conscious. But he never stayed long. It was as if he could only take it so long, hearing the music he knew mangled beyond all recognizable shape.
Meanwhile, the night-time routine had taken up where it had left off. My first night back I saw that the white nightshirt was neatly folded at the foot of the bed. I picked it up, shook it out, and then carefully laid it on the side of the bed.
When the lights went out (and I still stubbornly kept at least one lamp or candle lit each night, just in case the enchantment might fail), I felt my visitor climb into bed and pull up the covers. I thought I heard a sigh, the kind of sigh a child would give after a thunderstorm is over, a sound that said that everything was once again all right. My throat grew tight with sympathy, and I felt pangs of guilt thinking of how cold and lonely the bed must have felt in my absence. I wondered if he had worn the nightshirt.
I began to have dreams about my nightly visitor. The first was actually a pleasant dream in which I awoke in the morning to find the white bear by the side of the bed, wearing the nightshirt (which had magically expanded to fit his large frame), and he was telling me he would take me home. So I climbed onto his back and we floated up into the air and flew above the land until I could spy my family’s farmhouse below. We began to descend, too fast I thought, but the white bear said, “You are safe,” and we landed softly in a field of snowdrops.
When I actually awoke in the morning after that dream, I half expected to see the white bear standing by the bed, but in the dim light from the lamps in the hall, I saw only the empty space beside me.
Sometime later I had another dream that was very different. In the dream I had managed to light one of the oil lamps. When I brought the lamp close to the stranger, I saw that its face was green and scaly and had a long, thin tongue that slithered in and out of its mouth while it breathed. I let out a cry and the monster awoke, opening a pair of hideous yellow eyes. Its tongue then brushed across my face and I woke up screaming, this time for real.
Again it was morning and I could see in the dim light that my visitor was gone, but I shuddered. What if it was a monster that lay beside me every night?
Tuki must not have said anything to the woman about our first encounter, for the next morning he appeared in the room where I sat waiting for him.
We went through much the same routine as before, teaching each other new words. I wasn’t at all sure we would ever get to a point where we could actually converse and I could ask him questions about the white bear, but I felt I must try. And I believed the most important thing about my getting to know Tuki was the feeling I was finally doing something.
This went on for several weeks, though I was constantly worried that one day the woman would figure out what was going on and put a stop to it. Tuki seemed to trust me, even like me, and I was growing fond of him. He was so like a child – eager to please, sometimes impatient, and always wishing to be praised and petted.
We ran out of things to point to, and not wanting to upset our routine by shifting to another room, I began to use books, pointing to illustrations in them to continue our makeshift language lessons. Tuki was not a quick learner, but his eagerness to please kept him trying, and he was starting to remember some of the words I was teaching him, like Rose and hello and goodbye.
I found his language difficult but was beginning to understand parts of it. I made a little dictionary, to which I added new words every evening before bed. I kept it hidden in the closet, in my pack from home.
Finally I decided the time was right to introduce the subject of the white bear, and in preparation I went through practically every book in both libraries until I came across a book on animals that had a small picture of a white bear. I took it with me to the room on the second floor.
When we began our game that morning, I casually picked up the book about animals and began to leaf through it. I pointed to pictures of a wolf (“susi”), a beaver (“majava”), a rabbit (“kaniini”), and then finally came to the page with the white bear on it.
“White bear,” I said.
“Lumi karhu,” he said, then added, “vaeltaa.” Then he looked at me a little uneasily. I cast about in my mind for words he might recognize that would help me ask him about the white bear. But I realized that nearly all the words I had learned were objects, not verbs. Annoyed with myself for not being better prepared, I decided I would have to settle for knowing the name for white bear in Tuki’s language. It was a start.
“‘Lumi karhu’?” I repeated. “Or is it ‘vaeltaa’?” He nodded at both, and I got the impression that they were two separate names for white bear. I wished I could press him, but I could tell he was uneasy. To distract him I pointed to more animals and we resumed our game.
The next time I brought a book of maps I’d found in the library. It was a beautiful volume entitled Ptolemy’s Geographica, and in addition to the maps, which had been wrought in vivid colours and gold leaf, there were detailed drawings depicting the various regions of the world. I had heard of Ptolemy from my father; he was a Greek who had lived centuries before and was one of the first mapmakers. I thought of Father with a pang. How he would have treasured such a book.
I opened to a map of Njord and pointed to the spot where the village of Andalsnes would be found. “Rose from here,” I said.
He stared down at it, shaking his head, mystified.
“Tuki from where?” I asked, riffling through the pages of the atlas, a questioning look on my face.
He smiled to see the pages fluttering and reached over to take the book, wanting to do it himself. Gleefully he thumbed the pages, causing them to cascade down. He did it over and over – fast, then slow. Suddenly something caught his eye, and he stopped and paged back to what he had seen.
With a smile he pointed to a small drawing that lay next to the map of the far northern land of ever winter that lay within the Arktik Circle. In this book the land was called Glacialis. In my country we called it Arktisk. The illustration Tuki was pointing to depicted high ice cliffs amid a frozen landscape of snow.
“Tuki is from Arktisk?” I asked.
He shook his head, not understanding.
“Tuki from a land of snow?” I hugged myself, as if cold.
He nodded enthusiastically, hugging himself and pretending to shiver. “Tuki,” he said, pointing again to the picture of ice cliffs.
Then I pointed to the wind rose at the corner of the page. “North?” I asked, pointing to the N at the top.
He shook his head, again not understanding. I sighed.
That day I learned the words for snow (“lumi”, which explained the first word Tuki had used for white bear) and ice (“jaassa”), and then he came out with the word “Huldre”. I wasn’t sure, but I thought maybe it was the name of the land he was from. And I got the impression that Tuki was homesic
k for his icy home; his face had taken on a sad, faraway look.
Several days later we were looking through some other books I had brought from the library. We came to a picture of quite a grand palace in a book of old tales.
“Jaassa,” he said excitedly, jabbing his finger at the drawing. I was puzzled, wondering if the same word was used for ice and palace in his language.
“Ice?” I said.
“Ice,” he repeated, nodding and pantomiming cold.
Was he trying to tell me he lived in a palace in his icy land? I was becoming frustrated. If only I could ask him straight out what I wanted to know: Where are you from? Who do you serve? Who sleeps in the bed with me at night?
Suddenly I got an idea. I took up a book and skipped to the end, where I found several blank pages. Heedlessly I tore them out, and while Tuki looked on with interest, I found a burned stick in the fireplace. Using the charred end, I drew three stick figures, two female and a male. I pointed to one and said, “Rose,” then to the male figure, saying, “Tuki.” Finally I pointed to the third figure, on which I had drawn an apron, and turned to Tuki with a questioning look.
“Urda,” he said after a moment, a delighted look on his face because he understood the new game I was playing.
“‘Urda’,” I repeated with a smile. Then I turned the paper over and drew, as best I could, a bed. On one side of the bed I drew the stick figure that represented me. I pointed to it, saying, “Rose.” I pantomimed sleeping. Then I pointed to the empty space beside me on the bed.
“Tuki?” I asked, though I knew he could not be my visitor, who was at least my size, probably larger.
He shook his head, mystified.
Then I said, “Urda?” My heart was beating fast. I felt I was on the verge of learning something important.
Again he shook his head.
My finger shaking slightly, I once more pointed at the empty space beside me. “Lumi karhu?” I said. “White bear?”
He looked wary, the way he had the first time I had brought up the white bear.
“White bear sleep with me?” I said, my voice cracking a little.
Suddenly the door swung open and there stood the woman called Urda. She looked at us. Then she quickly crossed the room and took Tuki by the wrist. She pulled him from the room, speaking sharply as she did. She did not give me so much as a backward glance.
She is clever, more so than I gave her credit for. But her efforts to know the truth are fruitless. And I am pleased rather than disturbed by her actions, for they mean that, very soon, her curiosity will overmaster all else and then it shall be over.
He will be mine. For ever.
But she has raised his hopes. Too high. And I cannot help feeling sad for the disappointment he will soon know. (How strange to have such a feeling! If he were still alive, Father would say that is what comes of consorting with softskins.)
But the disappointment will fade; indeed, it will be only a short time before he has no memory at all of the softskin girl he set his heart on.
Father returned home a week after Rose left.
“How is it that you, all of you, allowed her to return to the white bear?” he asked in disbelief.
“She said she must,” I told him. “We could not change her mind. You know Rose when she is set on a thing.”
“Was she bewitched, do you think?”
I shook my head. “She seemed herself, Father.”
“She was well?”
“Yes. A little thin when she first arrived. But Mother fattened her with all manner of good soups and meat pies.”
“Then she is not well fed at this – what did you call it…?”
“Castle in the mountain,” I replied. “She said her meals are more than ample. It was homesickness that caused her to lose her appetite.”
“Then will she not be homesick again? Oh, would that I had been here!”
We were having this conversation in Father’s workshop, just the two of us. Suddenly the door flew open and there stood Mother, pale and breathing hard.
“I have done something… Oh, Arne…” And she sank to her knees, weeping.
I stared at her in confusion while Father crossed the room and bent over her. “What is it, Eugenia? What has happened?” His tone with her was gentler than I had heard in a long time.
“You will never forgive me. I will never forgive myself,” she gasped between sobs.
Father pulled her up and led her to a chair, where she slumped, clutching at the handkerchief Father gave her.
“Oh,” she moaned, “why did I not give her only a handkerchief, and a bit of toffee candy? Fool that I was…”
“Stop this, Eugenia.” Father’s voice was still kind, but it held authority. “Tell us about it. From the beginning.”
And she embarked on her tale.
As I knew, Mother and Widow Hautzig were regular visitors to Sikram Ralatt, the new shopkeeper in town who sold potions and charms in addition to his regular merchandise of soap and herbal infusions. Mother had purchased a handful of charms from him, such as the one she’d wanted Father to tie around his ankle before one of his journeys.
“When Rose was home, Neddy,” Mother said, wiping her eyes, “I happened to overhear the two of you talking. It was about her sleeping arrangements at the castle. When Rose said she was sleeping next to some unknown creature night after night, I became frightened for her. I was afraid it might be some hideous monster, or a wicked sorcerer, or…a troll…” She looked at both of us beseechingly.
Father opened his mouth to speak, a confused look on his face, but Mother plunged on.
“I knew that if I spoke to Rose about it, she would brush me off, saying there was nothing to worry about. I was so upset that I confided my concern to my good friend Widow Hautzig, and she advised me to go straight to Sikram Ralatt, to see if he had some charm that would protect and help my dear Rose. So I did – I told Sikram Ralatt about someone close to me who was in danger, who slept in a room that because of some spell or another was impossible to light. I asked him what could be done. And it was then he sold me the flint and the candle.”
We stared at her, Father in complete bafflement and I in horror.
“I…I gave them to Rose,” Mother went on. “I said nothing to her, leaving it to her own inclination whether or not to use them. But I confess that I hoped she would. That her curiosity would lead her to light the candle and look at who was beside her.”
“Well, Eugenia,” Father said, still perplexed, “perhaps it was not well to meddle, but I do not see…”
“You haven’t heard the worst of it, not yet,” Mother interrupted, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I…I went into the village today and found that Sikram Ralatt is gone, disappeared without a trace, his shop cleared out, empty. As I went about, inquiring after him, I learned that he vanished the very day after Rose left. And what’s more, there are all sorts of terrible rumours flying about the village. That he was…he was…” Fresh sobs shook her shoulders. “Oh, what have I done, what have I done?!”
After the woman called Urda snatched Tuki away that morning, I rarely saw him. When I did it was only in glimpses, and despite my friendly greetings, he kept his eyes averted. The only indication that he heard me at all was that his white skin turned a pinkish colour, especially around the ears. Urda acted the same as always, not angry or hostile, just blandly indifferent.
To make matters worse, I had had a new nightmare. In it I was able to light the lamp, and when I brought it close to the face of my visitor, I saw that his head was turned, facing away from me. His hair was a rich gold, and I tapped him on the shoulder, to awaken him. The head turned to face me, and when it did I saw there was no face at all, just a great gaping hollow. I screamed.
This time when I awoke, the scream raw in my throat, it was still pitch-dark in the room. I heard a rustling and then some hurried footfalls. I didn’t dare reach over to see if my visitor was gone but tiptoed across the room, feeling my way in the darkness, an
d found the door ajar.
She dreams.
Cries out.
In fear.
I dream.
Of peace.
An end.
Finally.
To tell her.
Soon it will be over.
Freedom.
Because of the nightmares I dreaded the time when the lamps in the halls were extinguished. But in contrast with the nights, my days with the white bear were happy ones. There was an ease between us, like that of close friends who could read each other’s moods in an instant. And the humanness in his eyes seemed to be almost always there now. I looked forward to his arrival in the room with the red couch. I would sit on the rug before the fire, a book in hand, and he would come and settle beside me. While I read aloud he would rest his head on his massive paws. Oftentimes he would close his eyes while he listened; I could tell he was not asleep because when we came to a twist in the story or a climactic moment, his eyes would open. He also made small noises that told me he was alert to every word – a rumbling, purrlike sound when the story was particularly satisfying, or a grunting when the tale took a more unbelievable turn.
The stories I read to him were good (some were wonderful), but at times they were almost beside the point. It was the companionship that mattered, especially when we would laugh together at something funny. (Although the sound of an enormous white bear laughing out loud is not for the faint of heart; the first time I heard it, I had to fight back a strong urge to flee the room.)
There was one story in particular that made us both laugh. It was an old Njorden tale about a crotchety husband who always complained about how easy his wife had it, how he had to go off every day to the fields while all she did was sit around the house. The wife grew tired of his complaints and one day said to him, “Do you think you could do the work at home better?”