Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 30 - The Brothers

His eyelids ...

There was an exclamation near him. “Doctor! He’s opening his eyes!”

There was bustle and noise around him.

A voice: “Can you hear me? Can you hear me?”

The voice was irritatingly close to him, shouting in his face. “Can you hear me?” He tried to open his eyes again but couldn’t. Tried to move a finger but the finger wasn’t there.

“He’s moving his lips, did you see? He’s trying to say something.”

“Nurse, bring us something strong! Some schnapps!”

It hurt and burnt his mouth. But it was also a good feeling, because he recognized the taste. He pulled back, turned his face away, suddenly remembering that it was something that was forbidden to him.

He had swallowed a few drops and he coughed. Gasped for breath. Then he came round.

Now it was easier to open his eyes.

A grim, grey ceiling. He had seen that before so he must have been awake now and then. A whole circle of faces stared down at him. They were all unknown to him, but he noticed the stern but kind face of a woman. She wasn’t young but she would understand. He knew that. She showed sympathy for him. The women wore nurses’ uniforms, or were they known as deaconesses?

He tried to say something but his voice was only a hoarse noise. Finally, he managed to speak, all the while gazing at the stern woman: “Where am I?”

She replied matter-of-factly: “You’re in Thisted, Denmark. Are you Norwegian?”

He tried to think. “Yes, I think so.”

They looked at one another. “Oh, Norwegian! The other one speaks a language that is impossible to understand.”

Which other one? he wanted to ask. But now he had no more energy, and he sank onto his pillow. He didn’t feel what they did to him, how they shook him to bring him round again and speak more. A few days passed before he was able to open his eyes again, this time for longer. The stern but kind deaconess came in from time to time, trying to get through to him, but he was too tired, too weak and exhausted.

Then came the morning when she came in, and he could feel how his confused thoughts were beginning to stick in his mind.

There was something he had to ask her about.

“The ... the other one?” he said hoarsely.

“Which other one?” she asked.

He had forgotten what he had wanted to say.

Gradually, the images came back. The anxiety was there. Not anxiety for himself but for the one in his arms, somebody who was about to die. He had to protect that person. Day and night, he had tried to protect ...

The cold, the thirst ...

He had never felt so cold.

A terrible memory engulfed him. Water! Water, water everywhere; ice cold, salty water. He hated it because it would take his dear one from him.

Yet hatred hadn’t been the fiercest sensation. Loving care had been stronger. Most of all, he had felt this for the woman he held in his arms.

“Belinda!” he said in a loud voice.

The deaconess was in the room. She immediately turned around and spoke to him. “What did you say?”

“Belinda! Her name’s Belinda!”

“Who?”

“My wife. I held her in my arms. Where is she? Is she alive, I want ...”

He became very restless, much more than was good for him.

“Now, now, take it easy,” said the deaconess, taking a firm grip on him in his bed.

“The other one? You spoke about the other one,” he gasped as he felt that he was becoming weak again. He was in despair, he just had to know before he lost consciousness again.

The deaconess sat on the edge of his bed, holding him down resolutely.

“Now listen, young man ...”

He didn’t feel all that young; nevertheless he began to relax. He felt it was the best thing for him.

“You came here in a small boat,” said the deaconess in a serious voice. “A dinghy. A fishing boat discovered it floating about off the coast. There were four people in the dinghy. Two were dead. Frozen to death. You and a woman only just survived.”

“Was I holding her in my arms?” he interrupted her.

“I don’t know anything about that. All I know is that she’s in this hospital but has lost her senses. No wonder, after all the hardship you must have suffered.”

Belinda? That wonderful little creature had never been very bright. What it boiled down to was that she was backward. She had never been deranged.

“I must see her!”

The deaconess hesitated. “I’ll try to arrange it. But don’t raise your hopes. It could be somebody else, and you’ll be terribly disappointed at her mental state.”

He nodded eagerly. The most important thing was to find out. He could feel his heart beating so that it was about to burst, and he realized that this agitation wouldn’t be good for him, but he couldn’t help that. If only he could remain conscious now, then everything else was unimportant.

The nurse seemed doubtful as she looked about the room. For the first time, he realized that he wasn’t alone. There were a lot of beds, covered in dark grey, miserable linen, and in them were men, most of them old and beyond any human contact, while others just gazed emptily at him. Someone moaned continuously somewhere in the ward. If you could call this humble room a ward. There was an acrid, penetrating stench over everything, though he didn’t notice it so much because he had got used to it. Almost, anyway. Not even the smell of carbolic acid could drown out that stench.

He could well understand why the deaconess hesitated. Could you bring a woman in here? But he could not leave his bed so he asked her very nicely to bring the unknown woman from the boat.

Finally she nodded and left, saying that she would talk it over with the doctor.

While he waited, he tried to picture himself, tried to visualize himself through the eyes of others. Above all, he wanted to make a good impression. Now he knew who he was. He was Viljar Lind of the Ice People, and the other little creature that warmed his heart and who most definitely needed to be told that he was alive was his son, Henning, back in Norway.

Everything was coming back to him now. He wondered how long he had been lying in bed. His instinct told him that it must be quite a long time. He put his hand to his chin and discovered that he had a long beard, he who had always been clean shaven. He also registered something else. The hand that stroked his chin was badly wounded. He hardly dared to look at his hands. When he finally did so, he felt deep sorrow. Nearly all his fingers were gone. He had lost a part of himself. He would never be able to see those fingers, the ones he had been used to seeing during his long life. It was a very peculiar and odd sensation.

He hid his hands with difficulty under the worn blanket.

The deaconess was taking her time. Wouldn’t they come soon? He was tired and needed to sleep, but the anticipation of seeing the woman kept him awake.

What if it wasn’t Belinda after all? What if she was gone forever?

No, he wouldn’t be able to take it, not after all this!

What if she didn’t recognize him? After all, he had lost such an awful lot of weight, he was just skin and bone. His hair was messy and long, his eyes were big in his gaunt face. He thought he must resemble John the Baptist in the desert, he who had lived on grasshoppers and let his hair and beard grow and his clothes become old and shabby. And now he wanted to look good for Belinda’s sake! It was as if he was to meet her for the first time.

Provided, of course, that it was Belinda.

He tried to remember the others in the little boat. They had been six to begin with. A couple had vanished in the sea. The two who were left ...?

By then he had been so exhausted, so confused from hunger and cold that he was unable to move. All he remembered were his arms that had held the unconscious Belinda. Wasn’t there somebody else in the boat as well? Yes, there was.