Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 11 - Blood Feud

“Well, at least that illness was self-inflicted.”

“Don’t mention the illnesses of shame in our house,” said the woman.

Villemo could hardly eat the food. She felt so terribly sorry for these people who had suffered so many losses.

“Eldar was such a noble person,” she tried to say once more. “There was so much good in him. We wanted to get married.”

Both parents stiffened. Then the mother began to bake once more.

“Don’t sit there and talk nonsense, miss!”

“I’m telling you the truth!”

“Did he make any advances, Miss Villemo?”

“Eldar?” she smiled. “No, he behaved completely honourably.”

Well, that was what she had managed to trick herself into believing. She had been seeing those recent events in her life through rose-tinted spectacles.

The old man got to his feet.

“You shouldn’t have ruined him, miss,” he said in a voice that trembled with controlled anger. “First, pulling him into an uprising and then charming him so that he forgot his station.”

“Me?” Villemo exclaimed. “I had nothing to do with the uprising. It was none of my business. He joined long before I did. And as for ‘charming him’ ... well, that was just how it was. We loved each other so much. That is why it almost seems to me that I belong here in the Black Forest. So please let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

“No, thank you,” the farmer answered coldly. “Enough has been done as it is. But you could ask the landowners why they don’t protect us farmers. We have to watch our loved ones die like flies.”

“Well, er,” Villemo said, perplexed. “Surely the best prevention against accidents is to make things safer and to be more careful in general.”

“Make things safer,” the man hissed. “You haven’t understood anything! You can believe whatever you want to believe. Anyway, I don’t care. It’s none of my business. I couldn’t care less!”

Then he got up and left the house.

Villemo realised that these two old folks no longer had respect for her. They didn’t regard her as a sort of daughter-in-law, but as an upper class girl who had got involved with a man from a lower class, which was unforgivable. She was lower than them now and they looked down on her.

She could do nothing except thank them for the meal and plod homeward with the sinking feeling of having failed terribly that day.

As she was walking along the forest trail, she discovered a piece of rope, half hidden. The rope had been tied to a branch that had been stretched across the path, forming an almost invisible stumbling block. Villemo loosened the rope and the branch swung back swiftly.

“Good God,” she muttered to herself. “Are they putting traps for the animals in the middle of the path? Somebody could have walked right into it and been badly hurt.”

‘Strange that I didn’t notice it,’ she thought. ‘I could have been badly hurt.’

Villemo, unsuspecting, continued walking home.

When she emerged from the forest and the entire Parish of Graastensholm lay before her eyes, she felt an immense emptiness. ‘What’s left?’ she thought to herself. ‘A dream about a man who never became mine? Why am I striving so hard to keep his memory alive? Because I have no one else – and that’s the truth. But any girl of my age would want somebody to think about...’

The memory of Eldar had become too diluted and pale in her memory. Instead of him, she visualised ...No, that was too ridiculous!

Villemo began walking again. She wanted to talk to Irmelin. It had been a long time since she had seen her friend. So she began walking up toward the old, familiar building of Graastensholm.

Chapter 2

Irmelin received her absentmindedly and somewhat indifferently.

“Oh, it’s you, Villemo. Where have you been recently? You weren’t at church last Sunday.”

She was always able to come up with the most incredible excuses for not having to go to church, where she’d just sit and yawn the whole time.

“Anyway, let’s go to my room,” Irmelin said. “I’ve just taken some wheat cakes upstairs to console myself.”

Inside Irmelin’s room, which was brighter and more feminine than Villemo’s, the two of them settled in the window seat.

“Was there something in particular you wanted to see me about?” Irmelin asked.

“No, I just wanted to talk a little. You and I are having a difficult time right now.”

Irmelin sighed.

“I feel as if my life were over.”

“Same here,” Villemo nodded.

Now, was Villemo really being truthful here? Didn’t she have a lot of future dreams inside of her, even though she never let on about it?

“Certainly as far as love is concerned,” she added.

“Yes. Sometimes I just want to put an end to it all.”

“Oh, don’t do that,” Villemo said eagerly. “I’ll admit that I had those same thoughts when Eldar passed away, but we can’t hurt our parents like that. After all, we’re all they have.”

“Yes, I know. That thought is also what’s holding me back.”

They both fell silent.

“Oh, Irmelin,” Villemo said sadly. “I understand you so well!”

Irmelin exclaimed passionately, “Sometimes I wish that we’d done the same thing as Tarald and Sunniva because then we’d have to get married.”

“Have you never done that?” Villemo inquired as she took one of the wheat cakes.

The conversation had turned less tragic now that they had touched upon more exciting things.

“Are you crazy?” Irmelin exclaimed but then the corners of her mouth twitched. “Although we certainly came close to it on some occasions.”

“Eldar wanted to all the time,” Villemo confided. “But I resisted, and now I’m glad I did.”

“Did he ever kiss you?” Irmelin whispered.

Villemo was shocked that she couldn’t remember whether he had or not. That was shameful indeed. How could she forget something like that?

“Of course,” was her offhand remark. “You should have heard it when he was about to die. All those beautiful words he said to me. Oh, it was just so enchanting.”

But Irmelin wasn’t interested in such elevated topics.

“What did you feel when he was close to you?”

“Do you mean when he died?”

“No, no. When he took you in his arms.”

A face popped up in Villemo’s mind, a face which had nothing to do with the matter. A roguish face, shimmering, golden eyes, black eyelashes and dark hair ...

“Er? Oh yes, when he ...”

She was quite unable to remember what she’d felt in Eldar’s arms! After all, it was a long time ago.

‘Go away, stupid face when I want to think of Eldar!’ she thought.

“Well,” she said slowly, “there was one time when I felt something strange as we sat close together. But-”

“Yes, what did you want to say?”

Surely she couldn’t say that it made her weak in the knees to think about someone other than Eldar?

“Nothing. Did you feel anything?”

Irmelin had a dreamy expression on her face.

“When Niklas held me close, placing his cheek next to mine, and I could feel his body against mine ...”

“Yes?” asked Villemo, who wanted to know what it was like.

“Then I felt that if he’d gone further at that moment, I wouldn’t have been able to resist him.”

Villemo began to feel a yearning. She wished that she had experienced something similar.

“So sometimes you were on the verge?”

“Well, yes. Once it very nearly- but I’d rather not talk about it. To me, it’s a sacred memory.”

“I can certainly understand that. No, I never let it go that far with Eldar. He was rather impulsive, you see.”

Irmelin’s face showed that she had never cared for Eldar. Strangely, it didn’t hurt so much anymore. In the past, Villemo would have exploded if anybody so much as wrinkled their nose at him. Was her love for Eldar beginning to wane? Had she really not been more devoted than that?