Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 30 - The Brothers

Viljar was afraid. How would Belinda manage on her own without him? They needed to get home very soon, and here he was, completely helpless! He couldn’t even speak. Nevertheless, he felt that she was his responsibility. The two of them together were really quite touching.

The deaconess had thought the same. She often speculated about them now, wondering how they were getting on, and wanted so much to see them. However, there were far too many patients who needed her in the hospital, and she never had a spare moment. Every poor soul who was admitted had his or her own life story, his or her own fate, his or her immense tragedy. The deaconess was supposed to have a heart and an ear for them all. So she had to force herself to forget the Norwegian couple, who lived much too far away for her to be able to take time off to journey out to them.

Jepsen wouldn’t be going back to his house. Going into hospital had been such a tremendous upheaval that he had died from the shock. Or perhaps he thought that he had gone to heaven, blissfully asleep? Anyway, Belinda and Viljar weren’t told anything about his fate, and they felt, of course, that they were living in somebody else’s house, which is never a pleasant feeling.

Finally, one day, Viljar felt strong enough to speak again, which he hadn’t been able to since he was in the hospital.

“Belinda,” he whispered hoarsely.

She jumped up and turned to him. She stared at him with surprised eyes and said: “Sssh!”

He couldn’t explain that they were man and wife, or anything of that sort. He felt that he had to save his energy.

“Belinda, you must write home.”

Oh, how the thought had tormented him during all this long time when he hadn’t been able to move a finger, or utter a sound.

She just stared at him, utterly confused.

“I ... just haven’t got the strength to write, Belinda. I can’t, because I have nothing to hold a pen with. You must write to Henning, our little boy, so that he knows that we’re alive!”

Belinda shook her head vigorously, holding her hands over her ears as if she couldn’t bear to hear what he said.

“Dearest Belinda, you do remember Henning, don’t you?” he asked earnestly.

She did, albeit in the wrong way. “Henning’s too small. He can’t read, surely you understand,” she answered, and those were Belinda’s first words in a normal language.

“Henning is eleven years old!”

She was terribly frightened. “No, no,” she gasped. “You mustn’t say that. He’s only a baby.”

Viljar closed his eyes. “And who am I, Belinda?”

“Little child.”

“No, no, no, now you’re really imagining things. I’m Henning’s father, and you’re his mother, Belinda. Why are you doing this? What is it you’re frightened of? What is it you don’t want to admit?”

She didn’t reply, but her face was sad.

“Well, then. Write a letter to Saga,” he said wearily. He could hardly be bothered to speak any more.

Now Belinda was profoundly surprised. “Saga? Who’s Saga?”

Oh, God, how was he to reach her? “Dearest friend, can’t you just write a letter? Without so many questions?”

At first she stood like a drooping flower. Puzzled, baffled and sad. Then at last she said something intelligent: “I haven’t any paper.”

Viljar shouldn’t have become angry; she couldn’t help her confusion. But he opened his mouth because he wanted to shout that she should damn well get hold of some paper. Then something went wrong in his lungs and he began to cough very badly. Afterwards, he could only remember fragments – Belinda’s horrified expression, the blood on the linen cloth she was holding in her hand – then everything was dark around him.

His final thought was extremely dejected.

We’ll never get home.

The deaconess looked at the priest with delight when he visited the hospital.

“Are you going to Norway? Really?”

He gave her a smile. They knew each other well. “Are you pleased to be getting rid of me for a while?”

“No, of course not, but I’d like to ask you to do me a great favour ...”

“Of course, you know I always listen to your small requests.”

The deaconess wrung her hands. “This isn’t a small request, but it’s something that’s been on my mind for so long now, and it’s been a heavy burden.”

“Tell me,” said the priest in a friendly tone.

Then the deaconess told the vicar about the Norwegian couple that she had had to send away from hospital and that she was so concerned about. They were unable to take care of themselves really, but what could she have done? Would the priest be prepared to take them with him to Norway? They had some money, but she didn’t know whether there was enough.

The priest looked concerned. This wasn’t quite what he had expected, but he would soon be on his way to Norway and so felt he couldn’t turn down the request. He was to go by boat from Frederikshavn to Christiania, so the first leg of the journey would be by coach. And with two sick people ...? And then on board a boat, which was much worse! On top of that, he supposed that he would have to see to it that the couple reached home – wherever that was – safe and sound. His careful travel plan wasn’t working out.

With an audible sigh, the priest said: “Of course, I’ll take care of them.”

He was horrified when he arrived at Mr Jepsen’s house. Were these the people he was supposed to take with him? A dying man, with a serious lung infection, and a totally confused woman? What would his fellow passengers say, not to mention the captain? Perhaps they would have to turn around on the quay?

But in for a penny, in for a pound, he thought. He had the right attitude to his faith and undertook this journey as a cross he would have to bear. He felt that God was testing him, to see how faithful and humble a servant he was.

Travelling by horse and coach across the Jutland moors would be unpleasant and take time. Viljar had recovered from his violent haemorrhage by now, but it had left him so weak that he was unable to speak. The effort of whispering was too much of a strain, so he stayed silent. But he had grasped what the kind priest had said: they would be on their way to Norway! Could anybody have come up with a happier piece of good news? He had given up trying to make Belinda understand that she had to write a letter. He was too scared to raise the subject of Henning again. He could see that she wasn’t quite so confused as before. Now at least she was speaking fairly intelligibly.

The journey to Norway didn’t register with her. Her world was limited to the fact that she went on treating him as a baby, but she didn’t burble quite so badly now. Viljar felt that this was a big step forward.

They reached Frederikshavn one evening in spring, and drove the horses right down to the harbour because they had been woefully delayed by all the stops they had made on the way for Viljar’s sake. In the harbour came the next shock. The ship was there, ready to leave the next morning. However, when Belinda understood that they were about to embark, she screamed like crazy.

“No, no! Not for anything, never on a boat! Never!”

The priest’s assurances that if they were to reach Norway they had to go by sea were lost on Belinda.

“Never, never!” she yelled, and people crowded around them. Viljar understood her perfectly well. She wasn’t as robust as he was, and he also felt extremely nauseous, a deep, underlying protest at the thought of embarking on a ship and having to face the cruel, cold water once more.

He wanted to tell her that spring was just around the corner and that it wasn’t quite so stormy and cold any more. But he couldn’t speak because his lungs couldn’t cope.