Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 36 -Troll Moon

“I’ll accompany you home tonight,” said Abel. “Then you won’t have to cross the plain alone.”

Christa looked around nervously. “Ingeborg was supposed to come with me. And I must be home by ten o’clock.”

Abel smiled almost imperceptibly. “I think Ingeborg has other plans for the evening.”

Christa caught sight of her. She was in the middle of a very intense and seemingly intimate conversation with the young man from the choir.

“I’ll tell her,” said Abel. “And if you’re to be home by ten we had better go now.”

“Yes, but you’ve only just arrived.”

“I came to talk to you. And the meeting is almost over anyway.”

Christa meekly resigned herself to her fate. She felt that she was completely at the mercy of other people’s wishes.

And that was when Lars Sevaldsen showed up unexpectedly. He was received with a round of applause, which he lapped up. Actually it wasn’t so strange that he came: he didn’t live far away and he belonged to the same Free Church congregation.

The leader of the congregation rushed over to greet him, even though he had been there many times before, and as Christa put on her cloak and scarf she listened to the questions people asked him and to his responses.

“How do you come up with your lyrics?”

Lars Sevaldsen pointed to his head with a sly expression and laughed. He was a rather smooth and impersonal man, impossible to describe. His only outstanding feature was his grizzled hair. Other than that, he was just ordinary.

“Do you mean to say it’s all just based on your imagination?”

“No, no, it can be old or current events that I retell in my simple ballads.”

Though his ballads were simple, he nonetheless expressed himself with such false modesty and smugness that it was clear that was not how he himself felt about them.

“How long have you been writing ballads?”

“Oh, for about thirty years.”

“What about the ballad of Lindelo?”

“That’s new. And it was instantly popular.”

In fact it was the only one of his ballads that had become really popular.

He stood rocking back and forth on his heels with a nonchalant expression of self-satisfaction.

“Yes, it certainly did become popular,” said the head of the congregation, smiling ingratiatingly. “Is it based on a true story?”

“Yes, it certainly is! But I’m not satisfied with it. I’ve thought about reworking the last part.”

“Are you working on anything new?”

Lars Sevaldsen once again looked sly. It seemed the idea was that they were supposed to guess the number of masterpieces he was currently working on.

“Will we have the opportunity of hearing one of your ballads tonight?”

One of the ladies from the kitchen came out to find Christa, and quietly discussed with her a few details about the catering for the next meeting. By the time they had finished talking Lars Sevaldsen was already well into the ballad of Lindelo.

The evil Mr Peder

Has sullied our mother’s name.

I swear to you most solemnly

I shall avenge that shame.”

Yes, if only I could stop the malicious rumours about my mother, Christa thought. One thing she couldn’t understand was how the exceedingly smooth Lars Sevaldsen could write with such compassion about Lindelo and his fate. She didn’t care for the idea. She felt that Lindelo was hers.

Abel Gard carefully placed his hand on her arm. “We’d better be going.”

“Oh, yes.”

They went out into the late winter evening.

The moon had now wandered far up in the dark blue sky and shone bright and strong, no longer shrouded by clouds.

The shocking secret had now been revealed. It no longer had anything unpleasant to communicate to her.

Christa’s thoughts revolved around what she had heard in the cowshed. It had only been a few hours ago, but it felt like an eternity. And not being able to talk to anyone at Linden Avenue made her feel utterly helpless. She felt that she had been manipulated and cornered. Did she really not have the right to decide anything for herself?

It was the first time the cheerful, accommodating Christa had felt a sense of rebellion within herself. Her previous conviction that her father was always right had now been turned upside down. And when she thought about that, it was her discovery that Frank wasn’t her real father that was the determining factor.

That wasn’t fair, she knew. Frank was the same person he had always been. He clearly knew nothing about Vanja’s indiscretions, which Christa herself desperately wanted to learn about. It felt undeniably strange to be suddenly fatherless.

Her real father must be out there somewhere.

Did you feel just as helpless, Lindelo? When Mr Peder flung those words in your face?

“You are very quiet tonight,” Abel Gard said cautiously.

She started. She had practically forgotten him. “Yes, I’m sorry. I was just lost in my own thoughts.”

“Yes, so it would seem,” he said, smiling.

Farther off on the moonlit plain she caught sight of the cowshed at the crossroads. When she had passed it earlier in the evening she had been completely ignorant of what she was to hear there. She remembered the strange young man’s gentle smile and realized that she had actually been thinking about him all night. It had gone straight to her heart.

She wanted to ask Abel Gard who the strange young man could be, but she realized that question might potentially be, if not downright hurtful, then at least unwelcome. He probably wouldn’t want to know that she was taking an interest in a younger man.

Once again Christa felt that she was being cornered.

She cared for Abel Gard. But that was the sort of thing she wanted to decide for herself. She didn’t want Frank to be able to say in the future: “You’re grateful, aren’t you, that I provided you with Abel Gard as your husband?”

If things turned out that way, that is.

Why did everything have to be so terribly complicated? She felt that she was being horribly contrary in the company of the friendly, appealing, and even handsome man who trudged along beside her in discreet silence.

“How are your boys?” she asked, for she would soon be taking care of them. She didn’t mind that. She liked children.

“Yes, they are well,” said Abel, smiling, warmed by her interest and his own love for his sons. “Jakob is doing well in school and Josef is good at skiing. Joakim and David have had colds but they’re feeling better now, and Aron ... yes, Aron draws really well. Adam is a little difficult at the moment but he likes you, so it will be fine. And Efraim is more or less potty-trained by now.”

“Efraim,” Christa said, smiling. “He’s the seventh son of a seventh son, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Abel said, laughing slightly. “But I must say that I haven’t noticed any occult talents in him.”

“Well, that might be asking too much if he’s only just been potty-trained.”

“True! But it’s all just superstition. God reigns over us all and the number of brothers one has doesn’t really count.”

Christa could have said a lot about the occult phenomena that were connected with the Ice People, but she knew that Abel was much too God-fearing to accept any beings more supernatural than angels, so she decided against it. But this train of thought gave her the courage to say: “Would ... would it be possible for me to start looking after the boys a day later? I was actually supposed to attend my grandfather’s birthday at Linden Avenue tomorrow.”

“I thought your grandfather died after your mother was born?”

It was truly incredible how well informed this man was! How much had he and Frank talked about?

Confounded Frank!