Margit Sandemo: The Ice People 34 - The Woman on the Beach

He was immensely proud of his car. Admittedly, he had to share it with his father, but this was the maiden journey for the car and for André. There were probably only five hundred cars in the whole of Norway, and when two of them belonged to the Ice People, they could be said to be well off.

To begin with, André sang aloud behind the wheel because he felt so happy and elated. He was a king, he ruled the road, and the whole world was his oyster. As time went by, he became a bit subdued, because it wasn’t always easy. The roads were terrible in places. And then he feared that he might run out of petrol. There had also been a slight problem with the engine once, but André’s technical skills had helped him there. He had been out in the wilderness near Dovrefjell, and had repaired the fault himself. That had boosted his self-confidence.

It was fun to cause a sensation along the small village roads.

Sør-Trøndelag ...

The Valley of the Ice People.

No, André didn’t have to search for that, he had no yearnings in that direction. Especially after what Vanja had told him about it. All the Ice People should stay away from it ... until the right one came along.

But naturally, André kept an eye out to the west! Might it be there? Or there?

He didn’t see any mountains that were high enough.

When he reached Trondheim the first thing he did was to go to a hotel. Since he had a new (albeit dusty) car, he was greeted with bowing and scraping and given a nice room. Throughout his journey, André had discovered how useful it was to have a car, and not just on the road. A car meant status. And his mother, Benedikte, had seen to it that he was nicely dressed, which also added to the good impression he made. André’s trustworthy personality and his openness did the rest.

There was no need to tell anybody that he was only twenty.

After he had taken a bath in the bathroom at the far end of the corridor, which had wooden boards on the floor and a high-sided bathtub with lion-claw feet and gurgling water pipes, he put on clean clothes and ate a good lunch in the almost empty dining hall. On a podium in the corner, surrounded by potted palms that tickled their hair, a sad-faced trio was mangling a Viennese waltz. When André arrived, the players tried to satisfy his youthful taste with a rendition of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”. André had never heard anything played with such a miserable rhythm.

After lunch, which was really good, he asked the way to the municipal offices and thus began his search for Petra Olsdatter’s family tree. Or that of her stillborn child.

He spent a while being sent to various branches of the town council before he arrived at the right place. A woman in a black, high-necked dress and a dangling lorgnette greeted him. André, who had respect for ladies with the courage to do a job like hers, treated her politely, which she liked.

“I’m looking for a distant relative of mine,” he said. “In order to make headway, I need to start with an interview that took place in the courtroom here in Trondheim in 1899.”

“I see. What was this interview about?”

“A young girl, Petra Olsdatter, committed suicide down on the beach on 14 July 1899. My second cousin, who was present, tried to save her unborn child, but in vain. However, young Petra managed to say a few words that indicated that either she or the unborn child was part of our family.”

The lady, whose age was difficult to establish, was already turning the pages in the record book.

“But both of them are dead, are they?”

“Yes, but it has to do with an inheritance,” lied André. Or maybe that wasn’t a lie because it did have to do with the evil legacy. “I need to find out whether there are other relatives. I need to unravel Petra’s or the child’s genealogical lines.”

Now the lady had clearly found the court record, because when she had read a bit, she looked up at André, baffled. He could read her reaction in her face: could this well-dressed, polite young man really be related to such a simple character as Petra Olsdatter seemed to have been?

André answered her unspoken question: “We can’t always decide our own fate.”

“True, true,” she muttered. “But perhaps you would care to read for yourself what it says?”

“Yes, please.”

“That’s fine, provided you sit at the table over there and the records don’t leave this room.”

“Thank you. Is it all right if I take notes?”

“Of course.”

In the quiet hall, where all that could be heard was the scraping of the secretary’s steel pen and scattered remarks from a couple of low-voiced visitors, André went over the entire tragic incident once more. It was a strange, sad feeling seeing Vanja’s name written there: it was mentioned several times.

He knew most of what was written in the records, but he searched eagerly for any new information he could get hold of.

He found Petra’s last address and that of her childhood home. Good! And even better, the name of the baby’s father was mentioned. Egil Holmsen. His address was also given. All this was helpful. There was even a brief reference to Petra’s earlier trouble: “She had got involved with one of the well-established and reputable gentlemen of the town.” André frowned. Of course, his name wasn’t mentioned. Oh well, he wasn’t important, because it wasn’t his child that might be a stricken member of the Ice People. André needed to get in touch with Egil Holmsen, the father of the second child. And, of course, Petra’s relatives. The genes might have come from the mother. It seemed an extremely difficult task: André’s search would have to go back to the 1700s, or rather the early 1800s, because if Christer Grip was born in 1774 he must have lived well into the following century.

André started when the sombrely dressed woman spoke, and he realized that he had been staring into space for many minutes.

“Sorry,” he muttered, “I didn’t hear what ...”

“Did you find anything?”

Despite her strict dress and extremely reserved expression, there was something pleasant about her. Perhaps in her voice or movements? No, both were equally awkward and serious. He looked at her more closely. He guessed her age to be between forty and fifty. She was probably not married. Her grey-blonde hair was combed back a bit too tightly and arranged in a knot, and her features were by no means special but quite refined. There were signs of wrinkles around her eyes, and small downward lines at the corners of her mouth. Not a person you would look at twice.

“Thank you, now I have several addresses that I can use,” he replied.

Her voice sounded more genuine than her words: “If I can be of any help, then ...”

“Thank you, but I can’t take up your time on this.”

She grimaced slightly. “Oh, my work here isn’t all that exciting.”

So she was human after all, was she?”

“Well, in that case ...” André smiled quickly. “May I ask you a question?”

“Certainly.”

André showed her the notes he had made at home. “Look, it says here that little Petra mentioned something about her first child. ‘At the or ...’ What does that mean?”

The woman was quick on the uptake. “Undoubtedly the orphanage.”

“What sort of place is it?”

“It’s a home that takes in neglected children. A place with a very bad reputation. As a matter of fact, I don’t know whether it still exists because there were plans to demolish it. It’s called a children’s home now, but the old name sticks to the horrible place. There’s an error here.”

“What? Really?”

She pointed with her index finger at André’s notes from Linden Avenue. “Here it says that Petra Olsdatter was seventeen years old when she died.”