Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 36 -Troll Moon

She reluctantly turned away from the window. She felt that she had been in very good communication with the moon, but she went into the living room. She would never have dreamed of answering its call, “Yes, what is it now?” She never had impatient thoughts of that kind, that wasn’t her style at all.

“Yes, Father, what is it?”

Frank Monsen was sitting in the best chair of the house with a blanket covering his legs. His nose was red, as though it were chronically cold, and it glowed in contrast to his pale face. He seemed so old that he looked more like a grandfather than a father.

“I couldn’t ask you for a cup of coffee, could I? I hate to be a burden, but ...”

“Of course!” she answered eagerly and fetched the coffee pot.

His old hand with its prominent veins reached out, trembling, to receive the cup. “Thank you, my dear, how very kind of you. What would I ever do without you, my beautiful child?”

She looked at him absentmindedly. Poor Father, he was much younger than the robust Henning at Linden Avenue, yet he was already a wreck. And he had been for as long as Christa could remember. Always a wreck, always demanding compassion. Of which he got more than enough from her. His health had been destroyed all those years ago when he had been to the East.

It never occurred to Christa that Frank might have given up a little too easily. That one day when he had been in pain he had just sat down in a chair and stayed there. He wanted an excuse to be waited on by others. It had happened gradually, almost imperceptibly. There had been a time when he would at least go out. He had taken her with him to revival meetings in the Free Church to get her involved in what he considered to be his life. He had accompanied her to and from school and kept a careful fatherly eye on her.

But as the years passed, it seemed that Frank became increasingly sure that he wasn’t going to lose her any time soon. Or was it the other way around? That now she had reached adolescence she had to be kept at home? It was hard for an outsider to determine whether he had calmed down now or had grown more suspicious. And Christa never had thoughts of that kind at all. She accepted everything Frank said and did. She had never had the feeling that his love and compassion for her might be a deliberate form of control on his part.

It’s nice of him to say that I’m beautiful, but is it true? She had often wondered to herself, with a slight touch of concern. Fathers always think that about their daughters, but what about others? I don’t have anyone I can ask and, besides, it’s not something you ask about. But I would so much like to know!

How can two people be as different as Father and me? She thought as she brought him more cakes. He accepted them, apologizing once again for being such a burden. We don’t have a single facial feature in common, she reflected, and we resemble one another even less in the way we think. I try to be as meek, gentle and good as him but I’m probably much too thoughtless and impulsive.

“Oh, Father,” she sighed. “I would so much like to go out to Linden Avenue tomorrow. Can’t we go?”

Frank Monson shifted uneasily in his chair. “You know that I won’t refuse you anything, dear child, but it just doesn’t suit me to go this time.”

Christa thought with sadness that it had been a long time since he had wanted to go to Linden Avenue.

“But it’s Henning’s seventy-seventh birthday and he is in a way my grandfather.”

“He most certainly is not! He was married to your grandmother, but that’s different.”

She had always considered Henning to be her grandfather but didn’t want to contradict her father. “They invited us both ...” she attempted.

“I can’t go, you know that! And it wouldn’t be appropriate for you to travel alone.”

Christa couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was that made her feel uneasy. It didn’t occur to her that it was his whining tone that jarred in her ears.

Then he tried to appeal to her. “You know that I can’t manage without you any longer. It is the great tragedy of my life to have to burden you, my beloved child, but if you leave me I may develop breathing problems.”

That really made her feel guilty! It was true that he sometimes suffered from shortness of breath: she had seen it happen several times and it was terrible. The fact that it was psychosomatic was something she knew nothing about. And it didn’t make the attacks any less serious, either for him or for her.

“And Linden Avenue isn’t a fit place for you. Their faith in God is not sincere enough.”

“They are the best and finest people I know,” she answered impulsively.

Frank gave her an uncomprehending and sorrowfully reproachful look. “My child, you are seventeen years old. That’s a dangerous age, full of traps for young girls. I can’t allow you to travel alone.”

He had been talking about “a dangerous age for young girls” ever since she was thirteen. But she swallowed it whole. Her father was the authority, the one who knew everything.

“Another thing, Christa ... I noticed in one of your books that you had written ‘Christa Monsen Lind of the Ice People’. I don’t want you to do that. Your Ice People descent is shameful!”

Once again she felt a sense of unease run through her. That was a book that she kept by her bedside. Had her father really been ...?

But, of course, he had a right to. It was his house after all.

However, there was something else that preoccupied her more, which made her blurt out rashly: “Are you ashamed of Mother? She was one of the Ice People.”

“Your mother was a good woman, although her faith was a little weak. She couldn’t help being born into the Ice People. She was very beautiful and took good care of me.”

“Oh, I do try to be like her, I really do try to take good care of you, Father. But I understand why you feel you can’t trust me, I’m so thoughtless.”

“Naturally I trust you, dear child. But the world is full of temptations, and the road to Linden Avenue is paved with the dangers of the Devil. Would you be so kind as to hand me the newspaper, please?”

In complete innocence and naivety, Christa said: “You are having a difficult day today, aren’t you, Father? I mean, you are having difficulty moving around. But on other days it must be a little bit easier for you, I suppose. I mean, you must have felt all right when you managed to get all the way up to my room without help. So there’s still hope, isn’t there?”

Frank Monson stared at her. But her expression was completely neutral and didn’t show a trace of irony. His face began to turn red.

The disappointment that they weren’t going after all affected Christa deeply. In order to conceal just how sad she was about it, she murmured something about fetching milk from the dairy and went out to the kitchen.

The moon shone down upon her. It was almost full but completely veiled by a thin covering of cloud, making it shine a little less brightly. The moon was so mysterious, as though it were hiding terrible secrets that it had witnessed on earth and had therefore wrapped itself in a veil.

Frank sat in the living room, insulted and alone. He was in a bad mood and wanted Christa to understand that, but she had gone now.

Christa looked at her own reflection in the battered little mirror in the kitchen. Her black hair was pulled tightly back from her face and rolled up into an ugly bun at the back of her head. That was how all women of the Free Church wore their hair, so Frank wanted her to do hers that way as well. So it must be nice-looking, I guess, Christa thought. She was the only one who couldn’t see it.

Her secret dream was to be allowed to cut her hair short, as most girls did these days. The ones who weren’t part of the congregation, that is. But of course, she couldn’t ask for permission to do that, it would be completely out of the question!