Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 24 - Deep in the Ground

Adrian’s pleasant voice awakened her from her daydream. “My family and I so much enjoy coming out here at this time of year,” he said lightly. “The city can be so claustrophobic and gloomy in this season. I am partial to Ytterheden, I must admit. It’s as though it’s my project. I have concentrated all my efforts on the mine ever since I got it.”

“What kind of metal is being extracted?”

“Iron,” he answered, so quickly that Anna Maria couldn’t help wondering.

Then he started talking about something else. But it was clear that he found her agreeable, he was incredibly attentive and kind to her.

Anna Maria thought about this as she plodded home in the twilight. It was almost as though he were sizing her up and evaluating her.

As what? As a teacher, or ...?

Well anyway, his presence cheered her up here at Ytterheden. Anna Maria wasn’t used to the attention of men. While she had been talking to him she had felt terribly shy and had barely dared to look up. But now that she was alone, her chest was bursting with the utmost joy and sense of expectation.

This blossoming new interest in a man! It was so new! It was so wonderful! And so indescribably exciting!

The gentle, sheltered little Anna Maria, who had lived such a lonely life for the past two years during her mother’s illness, now experienced the release of hitherto unknown energies, and needed an outlet for everything that had lain hidden within her. The ones who are quiet and patient, the ones who wait in utter silence, knowing nothing of the primordial forces within them, experience everything twice as strongly at the moment they give in to their urges. Anna Maria wasn’t fully aware of what was happening, but she could sense that she was facing something pivotal in her young, lonely life.

It was a wonderful, magnificent, tingling and exciting sensation.

“Well?” Adrian’s sister Kerstin asked eagerly as he stepped through the door of the grand house on the hill. “Is she coming?”

“Yes, she’s coming.”

“Wonderful! She is perfect for you, Adrian! You must make a pass at her!”

He hung up his coat with an impatient gesture. “Look here, Kerstin, Anna Maria isn’t the kind of girl you just ‘make a pass at’. She is much too refined for that. And if I were to do anything like that it would have to be of my own accord, and not because you want me to further your shady plans. The way you’re pressuring me has made me dislike myself. She is sweet and very lovable and I like her. But I will choose for myself the kind of relationship I wish to have with her!”

The outburst had made his cheeks turn red.

“Yes, yes, of course, Adrian, don’t let us upset you. We only want what’s best for you. But we won’t utter another word about finding a suitable bride for you, I promise.”

“No, I certainly hope not,” Adrian muttered between his teeth as he went into his room.

Kerstin watched him with a satisfied smile on her lips. The plan had succeeded – he had started to become interested in Anna Maria Olsdatter.

So it was less important now whether he or they pursued it.

In his room, Adrian stood with his hands covering his tormented face.

“Confounded women!” he whispered. “The whole house is filled with meddling women! Can’t they leave me in peace?”

On Saturday Anna Maria had a free afternoon. Even though the weather was rather autumnal she took a walk in the brisk wind to see more of the village and its surroundings – something she hadn’t had the chance to do until now, as she had been so busy preparing her lessons.

The wind was blowing harder than she had expected but at the same time it gave Ytterheden a touch of magnificence. The beautiful house up on the slope enlivened the landscape. It must look impressive in the sunlight. That was where she was going tonight ...

It was a comparatively new mansion, with a lot of carving around the gables and the veranda.

From this prominent house the owner of the mine could look across his domain.

No, she was at it again! She had never perceived the upper classes in this light before. It was because she now had the opportunity to see society from the bottom up, so to speak, from the workers’ point of view, that her view had changed. But it wasn’t fair to Adrian, who was a very fine and modest man.

But what was his family like?

He was a widower, but he had a mother and two sisters ... she remembered Kerstin only vaguely as a tall, loud woman who had definite ideas about things but was not unsympathetic by any means.

But she was considerably more domineering than Adrian, who had a quiet sense of authority.

Over there lay the workers’ barracks and the road to the mine. She slowed down, as she still had an unpleasant experience from the night before fresh in her memory. She had been awakened by the sound of something knocking against the window. Thinking that it was one of the schoolchildren, she had got out of bed and opened the curtains. But she had seen the silhouettes of four or five men and heard eager giggles. She had closed the curtains again and gone straight back to bed. She had ignored their persistent knocks on the window, afraid that Klara might hear it and get cross. Eventually they left, shouting obscenities and loud remarks.

No, she didn’t want to pass the barracks: she didn’t want to meet anyone there now. This was to be her own little journey of discovery.

Instead, she climbed the hill until she had a view of the moor and the ocean.

Ugh! The strong wind grabbed hold of her so that she almost fell over backwards. The ocean was roaring and thundering and the grass on the moor was bent horizontal.

How changed everything was compared to the day she had arrived there! The colour of the heather had faded and it looked more like ash than anything else. The ocean was as dark grey as the sky, but with white crests of foam. It was baring its teeth.

The lonely houses looked even more exposed now, if that were possible, as though they might be swept away by the next blast of wind. There were two small farms, almost smallholdings, as far as she could discern, and farther off there were two more houses, more or less sheltered among the twisted pines. She could barely see one house while the other was half hidden in the trees.

She wondered how small Egon’s home was. She hoped he lived on the nearest farm so he wouldn’t have such a long walk to school in the mornings. On the other hand, that farm also looked like the best of them all, and Egon did not seem to have an easy time of it at home.

She wondered why his parents had allowed him to go to school. There was something about Egon that didn’t quite add up.

He looked as if he was beaten every day. And he looked so skinny and miserable, as though he never got any food.

And then they sent him to school! From out here of all places, where no one ever kept track of whether or not the children attended school.

She would have to remember to check his lunch bag and see whether they gave him any proper food to bring with him.

The sight of the enormous ocean increased her feeling of loneliness. The feeling that always came whenever she was forced to think back on the past.

It was impossible for her to stay up there on the cliff any longer. Her ears and cheeks were turning blue. The wind chilled her to the marrow. So she turned around.

On her way back, in a hollow between the cliffs she suddenly started. Three men were walking towards her.

She could see they were miners.

It wasn’t a good place to meet them. No one would be able to see them from the houses in the village.

Anna Maria was uneasy.

Two of the men were young, the third was older and kept a little in the background. He didn’t seem too intelligent and was constantly laughing nervously.