Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 15 - The East Wind

On the fourth day Corfitz Beck came.

He wanted to talk to Vendel. In private. He looked fierce and pent-up.

They went into the empty workshop.

She can’t come alone, that’s obvious, Vendel thought. It wouldn’t be suitable. That’s why she’s sending Captain Beck who is a friend of the family. And naturally, Corfitz Beck doesn’t care to be used as a messenger in this way. It’s too bad, but that’s the way it is.

The captain turned round and stared at him coldly, “Listen Vendel, you’ve got to stop this immediately!”

Vendel’s heart sank like a stone. “Stop what, Captain?”

“Running after Maria like a lovesick tomcat. She’s very upset about it and her father is enraged. The whole thing is utterly embarrassing for me, don’t you understand?”

Vendel felt dizzy. But he fully intended to defend himself, and the love he felt was worthy of defending. “But Captain, I am serious!” he said defiantly, determined to stand his own ground.

“Serious? Just what’s got into you? Who do you think you are? You ... a common lackey!”

It had been years since Corfitz had referred to him in that way. They had been as good as equals for the past few years, and now ... ?

“When I took you with me to their house that time it was out of kindness, because your mother asked me to keep an eye on you. And this is how you repay me? By exposing her to unpleasantness like this ... it’s not something I ever expected of you, Vendel!”

“I haven’t offended Miss Maria in any way,” he answered, feeling a nasty lump grow in his chest. “On the contrary, I’ve acted completely properly and stayed in the background. I have never accosted her.”

“Oh, no? What exactly do you call this then?”

He slammed the purse on the table. It felt as if a bullet had been shot through Vendel’s heart.

“Maria thanks you for your kind thoughtfulness,” Corfitz said brusquely, “And quite frankly I think it was noble of her to say that.”

Vendel shut his eyes in agony.

“I had planned that with time, as I gained more wealth, I might ask her for her hand,” he managed to stammer out.

“Have you gone mad? Maria is engaged to me! And here you come, my maid’s son, and ... no, it’s just too much!”

Vendel stood completely frozen and felt himself slowly dying inside. His voice was like a whisper: “It won’t happen again, Captain.”

“No, I certainly hope not! Now,” Corfitz went on in a milder tone, “behave yourself in the future and choose your little crushes according to your class!”

Then he turned on his heels in military fashion and left quickly, having to bend as he walked through the low doorway and slamming the door behind him.

Vendel was left standing there with all his dreams shattered. Mechanically, he picked up the purse with one hand. He lifted it and examined it with both hands, as his young tears fell upon it. Then he wandered like a sleepwalker out into the blazing sun. It felt as though it was laughing scornfully at him.

There was now only one thing that Vendel longed for in his heart: to get away from Tobolsk and back home to Scania. He couldn’t face bumping into Maria or Corfitz Beck again, he couldn’t look them in the eye. The thought of death crossed his mind many times. How was he going to live on now that he couldn’t have Maria Skogh? But his survival instinct was stronger than that and he wanted to see his home again. He had had enough of war; King Karl was going to have to manage without him. There was, incidentally, no one in Tobolsk who knew where the king was at that time. The last they had heard of him was that he was stranded in Bender in Turkey. But that had been years ago.

At the beginning of their time in Tobolsk, Vendel had made a few sporadic attempts to escape. But it seemed impossible to get past the guards so he had given up before anyone discovered him. He wanted more than anything to avoid being sent farther east. So he had kept his head down and made sure that the Russians weren’t even aware of his existence.

That was before he met Maria.

The night after Corfitz Beck had crushed Vendel’s wistful hopes of love with what felt like a single sword slash straight through his heart, a fire broke out in the town. This was not an unusual thing, so no one took much notice of it. But they all ran to watch, thanking their lucky stars that it wasn’t their house that was burning.

But Vendel didn’t care about the fire. His soul had died. He went in exactly the opposite direction, down towards the River Tobol, which flowed past the town. Farther along he could see how it joined with the larger River Irtysh. He stopped and looked down at the fishing boats crossing the Tobol. They were on their way to do the night’s fishing.

Vendel had grown up to become a gorgeous young man of the blond Viking type: he was lean, tanned and had intense blue eyes. His thick golden hair was just as beautiful as always, and there was still a clear openness about his gaze. Except that now, of course, it was dimmed by sad and heavy thoughts.

As he stood there he was reminded of the fact that the Swedes weren’t the only prisoners in Tobolsk. There were also Russians who had fallen out of favour with the tsar and had been sent to the wilderness of Siberia as slave labour. He could hear a song in the quiet evening, a ballad that cut through his heart because it fitted his own situation. He couldn’t tell where the singing was coming from, but it was probably from one of the houses close by. A lonely soul had gone outside that summer evening and was expressing his gloomy state of mind.

Vendel translated the words in his mind as the singing went on:

Down in the valley the nightingale sings,

But I am a poor boy in a strange country

And am forgotten by everyone.

Forgotten, forgotten at so early an age,

An orphan am I,

My fate is so cruel.

Down by the river, on the beach, a young fisherman was struggling with his net. It looked as though he couldn’t untangle it and Vendel could almost see his anger. On the other side of the Tobol stretched the endless plains, not exactly a cheerful sight for Vendel. The sun was about to set, and he knew that the Ural Mountains were in that direction, but they were so far off that he couldn’t possibly see them. All he could see were the few farms that lay on the far bank, scattered clusters of trees in the outlying area of the taiga, and then the plains. Dry, barren and stony. Endless and eternal.

As he stood there lost in his own thoughts, he hazily registered that the song was still continuing, and his gloomy state became even gloomier.

Vendel felt more and more sorry for himself, more than he wanted to because he didn’t normally fall into self-pity.

I will die here, and be buried

and no one will know where

my grave is.

No one will ever visit my grave

but early each year

the nightingale will start to sing there.

Vendel let out a sob.

“No,” he thought, “No, I won’t die here. Mum, who was so distressed because I had to leave ... she must know that I’m still alive. She hasn’t deserved to suffer like this for so many years. Mum will be starting to get old. I want to see her again. I want to see all my friends back home, and the Scanian sky that is so clear and beautiful.”

He breathed heavily, as though he was trying to push his gloominess from out of his chest. His thoughts and will to live seemed to return to him. For a moment he looked back at the city with an almost wild look in his eyes – the flames still lit the sky but with a dull glow now. Vendel had no hope that there would be fewer guards so getting out of the town was out of the question, and anyway what was he going to do once he got out? The mere thought of the endless trek that would lie ahead through the plains and the taiga and on towards the Urals, which were teeming with wild animals, and then having to cross the mountains and walk through the never-ending Russian landscape wasn’t exactly alluring. Blond and with a distinctly foreign accent, how would he be able to manage? There were, of course, blond Russians, but not in these parts. Out here, people tended to be small and dark, a beautiful mixture of people of various origins.