Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 36 -Troll Moon

“Who? Oh, him! The one who’s always staring at one?”

“What? Does he stare at you, too?”

“Oh, no, not much,” Christa answered quickly. She didn’t want to ruin Ingeborg’s joy: she seemed completely engrossed in the boy.

“I’m seeing him after the meeting tonight,” the girl continued proudly.

Ingeborg was a few years older than Christa and it was as though she needed to prove to herself and the other girls that young men liked her. Christa thought she was rather pathetic. She almost felt sorry for her with her hunger for acknowledgment or whatever it was she needed. She squeezed Ingeborg’s hand to give her a little encouragement. Christa had a big heart, with room for the weakest members of society.

“Do you know what?” Ingeborg whispered. “During the last choir practice he stood behind me the whole time. He kept getting closer and closer. I could feel it ... feel that he wanted to!”

Christa looked at her with a puzzled, childish gaze, and wasn’t quite sure what the girl was referring to. Her first inclination was to warn her, but she didn’t know what about. In Frank’s house you didn’t even talk about the birds and the bees. You only talked about all the temptations a young girl might be exposed to, without expressing in words what those temptations were. If Christa asked, Frank would get furious!

So she was rather ignorant about the facts of life.

“Frank says that boys are difficult to control if they are permitted to take too many liberties,” she said faintly.

Ingeborg laughed again. “Oh, God, I think I’m going to die! Believe me, I know how to control them!”

They had now reached the congregational hall and they went in.

Christa sat down uneasily on a bench on the women’s side. I don’t belong here, either, she thought. It’s not that I don’t believe in God, but this just doesn’t feel right! I think religion is a private matter between an individual and God. Priests and their lectures are just in the way, blocking the view.

Ingeborg had climbed up on the podium and had found her place in the choir. Christa saw the girl blush, and sure enough, the young man was standing right behind her. Christa didn’t think he looked all that nice, with his pomaded hair with its straight centre parting, and protruding eyes. At that very moment he met her gaze. She looked away. He had been rather aggressive with Christa one night, insisting on accompanying her home, but she had refused him. She was glad she had done so now, for her sake as well as for Ingeborg’s.

During the coffee break she helped to serve as usual. It was the cosiest part of the meeting, but Christa felt more like an outsider than ever. She had so many things to think about.

In the kitchen, the two women in charge of making coffee were bawling out the inescapable ballad about Lindelo. Christa was just on her way out with a full pot of coffee but she stopped at the door to listen. This was a stanza she hadn’t heard before:

To Lindelo Peder turned:

“You think you are their brother

But your mother knew another man,

So you are only their half-brother!”

Christa went on her way again, smiling sadly to herself. You and I are in the same boat, Lindelo, she thought. Today I learned that my mother knew another man, too. I know how it feels.

Lindelo’s fate had already gripped her, for she had heard snippets from nearly all of the twenty-five or so verses that made up the ballad. She would have to learn it in its entirety someday, she thought.

But she and Lindelo had something in common now. It felt reassuring, she thought, like having a friend to share your grief with.

When she returned to the kitchen, the ladies had finished singing.

“I wonder why the ballad of Lindelo is so popular,” she said with a slight smile to the two older ladies.

“I don’t know,” one of them answered. “Probably because Lars Sevaldsen wrote it. He’ll be coming here soon, in a month or so. It’ll be exciting to see him!”

“How strange,” Christa smiled. I always thought that broadside ballads were like folk songs, and weren’t composed by anyone in particular.”

“Well, folk songs must have been composed by someone at some point,” said the other woman.

“Yes, of course.”

The woman, who was married to the local school teacher, suddenly became preachy. “Broadside ballads are usually based on real events, so they were often topical when they were first published. As far as I know, Lars Sevaldsen makes use of both old and new stories from real life in his ballads. He is greatly beloved in all the villages for his broadsides. There, I’ve cut the cake now. Be sure to give the first piece to the leader of the congregation, Christa! How is your father, by the way?”

“The same as usual, thank you.”

She hurried out with the cake platter.

Abel Gard had arrived. He sought her gaze and went straight over to her.

“Welcome, Christa!”

She murmured something in response. She liked the widower and all his children. He wasn’t that old, she thought, only in his early thirties, but he had certainly been productive during his marriage! He had seven little boys. They said there was something about the youngest, not that there was anything to see, but Abel himself had been the seventh son, and now had a seventh son himself. According to ancient superstition, or the Scriptures, the seventh son of a seventh son was endowed with certain abilities. He would be clairvoyant, they said. He would be able to see into the future and inside people’s souls. Christa wanted to meet him. He must be around two years old now and his name, as far as she remembered, was Efraim. Abel was one of the leading members of the congregation, and all his children had biblical names.

Abel was a handsome man, and undoubtedly virile since he had been able to produce so many children! There were many women in the congregation who would gladly have taken care of him and all his children had he asked them, but it seemed that he was still too much in mourning to notice other women. His wife had died in childbirth. Seven children in approximately the same number of years – had he absolutely no shame?

The last words were Ingeborg’s: that was what she had said when Abel’s wife died.

“Christa ...” said Abel. “Your father just telephoned me.”

“Oh?” said Christa, alarmed. “He isn’t having breathing problems I hope?”

“No, no, it was about something completely different. As you know, I have more than enough to see to at home. I have to go to work every day and have only my old aunt to look after the children while I’m gone. Frank tells me you might be interested in minding the children for a few hours every day?”

At first Christa was speechless, but when she had thought about it she said, in her typically impulsive way: “Oh yes, I’d be glad to! Thank you, Abel!”

“He also said that you were keen to start immediately. So we’ve agreed that you should come at eleven o’clock and stay until six.”

What? Had she said that?

“But tomorrow I’m going to ...” But then she suddenly understood everything. “Oh ... very well, I’ll come.”

How could Frank have done this to her? She could no longer decide how to spend her time, and a visit to Linden Avenue was now absolutely impossible.

“I’ll come,” she said tonelessly. “Thank you for having such confidence in me.”

Abel Gard gave her a slow gaze that wasn’t in any way flirtatious, but rather, expressed surprise that she could be so utterly clueless.

Christa immediately froze. Frank bombarded her night and day with words of praise for the wonderful Abel Gard, and this had made him disagreeable in her eyes.

It was unfair, of course, but psychologically a very normal reaction.