Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 29 - Lucifer´s Love

Anna Maria replied: “If I can remember it, because it’s such a long time since I read it. That was at home in Skenäs, ages ago ...”

Saga smiled. “Now, now, don’t exaggerate.”

Anna Maria collected her thoughts and went on. “In the time when Lucifer was still the angel of the Lord and had the task of watching, trying and punishing humans, he saw a beautiful woman on earth. This is where the myths differ, as they often do, because according to the original myth he was plunged into the abyss before human beings arrived. Either the beautiful woman was a djinni, or Lucifer remained an angel for some time after human beings had been placed on earth. But that’s enough quibbling – after all, it’s just a fairy tale. They say that Lucifer fell very much in love with her.”

Saga nodded. It sounded romantic.

Anna Maria continued: “However, the angel couldn’t consort with humans on earth. He could only gaze at her in silence, without her knowing anything about it. Then, when he was plunged into the abyss, he could no longer even see her. One of the archangels had noticed Lucifer’s love for this woman while he was still among them. The angel asked the Lord for mercy for his former friend.

“The Lord was adamant – He would permit nobody to challenge Him! But when all the archangels prayed for the fallen angel, the Lord gave in, knowing that it wouldn’t make a big difference.

“This was because the Lord had decided that Lucifer was to walk on the earth once every century. Take note of that, Saga: in this legend Lucifer isn’t the Devil who can insinuate himself among human beings as he wishes. He really is ‘the fallen one’ – one who can exist only in the abyss. Or Gehenna, as it is called in the Bible.

“Now it’s a fact that Gehenna is a dry, barren valley southeast of Jerusalem. It was the site of a topheth, a place where the ancient Jews sacrificed children to the god Moloch. Later, it became a place where they burned the bodies of criminals and dead animals, which is why Gehenna came to mean hell, the place of the doomed after death.”

“I see,” said Saga slowly. “So the mystery of hell’s existence is no more than that.”

“No,” Anna Maria said, “but it’s good for the priests to frighten people with. The legend goes that Lucifer walks about on earth for a short time every hundred years. He never saw the woman he desired again, because how could she have gone on living, let alone maintained her youth, for so long? Yet the Lord let him keep his yearning and his pain, knowing that his wanderings would forever be in vain. That was how the Lord sought to take his revenge on Lucifer.”

Anna Maria had finished her narrative. She got up to put away the stockings. Saga remained crouched in the chair. Night was falling and Anna Maria lit lamps all over the house.

“Mother,” Saga shouted “Why is it that nothing is happening with me?”

Anna Maria entered the room again. She knew exactly what her daughter meant.

“Shira was also one of the chosen. And she had to wait for a very long time. When she was summoned, she knew exactly what she was to do. She was no longer in any doubt.”

Anna Maria went over to Saga, who was staring into the dying flames of the open fire. She put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder: “Are you scared?”

Saga looked up. “Scared? No, not at all. Just rather impatient. I don’t want to be old before it happens.”

Anna Maria smiled. “I don’t think you need to fear that. I believe that your father and I are more scared than you are.”

Saga took her mother’s hand, where it lay on her shoulder. “You mustn’t be. My task can’t possibly be more difficult than Shira’s. If she could handle it, I ought to be able to do the same.”

“But we’re terrified of Tengel the Evil – that you may have to fight him. Heike once said that he didn’t think you were the strong person that the Ice People are waiting for. He believed that your task would be a different one. But you just don’t know, do you? Have you never had any contact with our dead relatives in the way that Heike and others have had? Our guardian spirits?”

Saga replied: “I’ve never experienced anything out of the ordinary. I must be the most boring member of our whole clan.”

Anna Maria smiled: “That’s something you’re not, but you’re definitely the most enigmatic member. Neither your father nor your mother knows you.”

“That sounds very amusing,” said Saga with a wry smile, getting up from her chair to make herself useful. She thought for a while about the legend of Lucifer’s love and laughed at herself. After all, she had thought that it was all very romantic: the dark angel ... who was so tragically plunged down into the abyss, suffering eternal longing for a woman he would never be able to have because she had passed away thousands of years ago.

What if Lucifer wasn’t Satan, but merely a fallen angel? Then he would still be just as handsome as he had always been.

He was bound to be immensely handsome.

Romantic as she was by nature, Saga began to fantasize about consoling the dark angel. Making him forget that woman from a bygone age. Descending into a gloomy abyss would be nothing to Saga. She was already there in her thoughts – where Lucifer crouched with his hands over his sad face. Then she would come and gently remove his hands and look him in the eyes with all the love that she was capable of. And his face would brighten; he would regard her incredulously, letting his hands glide over her face as if he couldn’t believe that she was real.

Then she would say to him: “I’ve come to be with you. If you want me?”

“Here?” Lucifer would reply. “Among these fearsome crags?”

“Yes. I don’t want you to be lonely any longer.”

“Saga, you are the one I’ve been awaiting for thousands of years! Welcome!”

“Saga, will you help me lay the table for supper? Your father will be back shortly.” Her reverie was interrupted and she shook her head as if to convince herself that she really was back in her humdrum, everyday life. “Yes, of course, Mother. I’ll be right there!”

She chuckled as she was laying the table. Anna Maria asked her what she was laughing at.

Saga replied: “Oh, nothing. I’m just so surprised at how silly and stupid I can be sometimes.”

“That’s only natural,” said Anna Maria.

Chapter 2

Divorce ...

To Saga, this word meant defeat. Nevertheless, she saw no other solution. There was no other way. It hurt terribly. It wasn’t so much the thought of leaving the man who had never appreciated her, but returning to her mother to tell her that she – her only child – had been considered useless. Unwanted.

Father was dead now. It was only to be expected, since he had already been an old man when Saga was born. Yet she grieved deeply. The sorrow would remain with her for a long time. And her mother, Anna Maria, was no longer the woman she had once been. She was feeling her age, and looked increasingly frail every time Saga saw her. Kol’s death seemed to have robbed her of her zest for life. She, who had been so happy because Saga had made such a good marriage!

The wedding had been only two years ago ... Saga was twenty-two then, and she heard repeatedly how friends and acquaintances congratulated her parents on her beauty and told them how fortunate Lennart was to have such a bride!

Lennart had been a good match – a pleasant, young politician and career diplomat. Friends of the family had brought them together, and Lennart had fallen immediately for Saga’s exquisite, cool beauty. He called her his Ice Queen, and Saga would smile absentmindedly, thinking that what she felt for him was undoubtedly love. Afterwards she had realized that she had confused her emotions with gratitude. A stupid and humble gratitude that a man like him wanted her! She had thought that they were happy because she knew no better. She did all the things a good housewife ought to do in her home; she was loyal and always there when he needed her.