Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 32 - Hunger

What am I to do? she thought in quiet despair. What is to become of me?

She wasn’t actually afraid of dying, for what did she have to live for? But she didn’t want to die in such a pitiful, lonely and abandoned way, and she risked having to lie there for a long time before anybody eventually came and found her corpse – for one thing she didn’t want to smell bad when they found her. But she also faced a possible eviction, she suddenly remembered ... and so her thoughts would run round in circles like that, because she was unused to thinking of her life in relation to other people.

After the lonely and agonizing hours of the night had passed she finally managed to fall asleep as daybreak approached. And then she dreamed that her father was still alive, ordering her around and lunging at her with his cane as she rushed about to obey his orders ... and then she woke up.

“Thank you, dear God, it was only a dream,” she whispered out loud. She sighed heavily, feeling faint and dizzy.

A new pang made her double up again. Since she hadn’t had anything to eat for so many hours that she couldn’t keep track of them anymore, her stomach was completely empty, yet still her stomach muscles contracted in a merciless wave of nausea.

This won’t do at all, she thought as she tried to stand upright. She swayed as she stood, with her hand firmly gripping the edge of the bed. She was seriously ill now, she realized. The gravity of the situation seemed to be mocking her in the distorted glass of the wardrobe mirror.

What am I to do? she thought for the umpteenth time, though panicking slightly now. The situation had become truly serious now – she had waited much too long in the hopeless belief that things would improve, that perhaps a letter would arrive from America.

I’m going to have to ask someone for help. But I don’t dare, I can’t speak to anyone, I don’t know how to associate with other people anymore.

Oh, I just want to die here!

But an hour later she had managed to pull herself together. Practically crawling around on the floor, she had managed to collect a few of her belongings together in her berry pail and, with great pain, coaxed it over her shoulders. She couldn’t bear to touch her stomach and it felt as though her clothes were cutting into her body, causing her such agony that she could hardly breathe.

Then she started walking. That is to say, she staggered from tree to tree, tottering or crawling, and had to rest at every tree. She didn’t once turn around and look back at Svelten, didn’t even consider it. She didn’t have the energy and just needed to concentrate on remaining conscious.

She had thought of going to the nearest neighbour, who lived at the far end of the bog to the east. She didn’t dare venture down into the village, and anyway it was too far, she would never be able to manage it.

It was late autumn, or rather, the beginning of winter. The ground was bare and frozen, the air was cold and crisp and the sky was blue. A few clusters of rowanberries still glowed against the blue, and Marit thought with longing that there was food to be found here! But she was unable to reach the berries, couldn’t even straighten her body.

The bogs. She had now reached them, she could tell by the empty space before her. Her eyes were shrouded by fever and pain, making the white frost on the delicate blades of grass across the bog shine like diamonds in a fairytale.

Don’t go out on the bog when you can’t see properly! Go around it! But it will be such a long way ... Marit’s legs would no longer carry her, she had to crawl all the time now. The consequences of her undernourished state were becoming increasingly evident. Without realizing it, she had grabbed hold of a cloudberry tuft, she had instinctively been able to recognize its rust brown leaves. With a primitive reflex she put the whole thing in her mouth. She woke up when she started crunching the dry leaves.

But what am I doing? she thought in despair, spitting and coughing out the leaves. Have I really reached that point?

She started to cry. Dry, deep sobs that singed like fire in her aching body.

That ache consumed her last energy. Without being able to prevent it, she felt her consciousness gradually beginning to fade. Her arms gave way, she collapsed and lay in a deep torpor.

Her last thought was so unclear that it could hardly be described as a thought. But it was something like: “There was no room for me in the world. It didn’t want me.” In a brief flash a swift plummeted down behind her closed eyelids, then ascended with a joyous, swirling warble to heaven. And an endless sorrow flared up in Marit’s chest. But everything was so hazy that it could have been a dream, which disappeared so swiftly that not even its memory would remain.

Two children found her. They had been sent out to gather moss. They had gone far from home and the day was at its brightest when they saw a woman lying motionless at the edge of the bog. She was covered with white frost and looked dead.

At first they were afraid and wanted to run away, but then the older one grew curious and they noticed that her chest was slowly and strenuously moving up and down.

“Goodness, what are we to do?” the younger one asked with big eyes.

The older one had already started to shake Marit. “Hello! You have to wake up! It’s cold out here!”

But Marit didn’t move.

They looked at one another. “Well, she can’t just lie here. And we can’t carry her! We’ll have to get help!”

The children were from the village, and didn’t know where to find the closest smallholding. There was Svelten, but they knew they would find no help there. So they ran as fast as they could back down the long road to the valley. The moss they had collected spilled out of their baskets as they ran and lay like white balls on the snow.

Since it was downhill most of the way, they got down fairly quickly. They ran so fast that they weren’t always able to slow down enough at the corners and ended up landing in the undergrowth from time to time.

They were siblings, a boy and his little sister, and never had they experienced anything so horrible and exciting!

Out of breath, their eyes wide open with excitement, they reached the first house in the village. Their own home was a good way farther down, but the market was nearby and that was where the boy headed. His little sister tagged along behind him, for she always did exactly what he did. They were staggering now for they had run more than walked, and running downhill is hard on the knees and tendons.

Normally the children would have been shy of the market people, but the drama of what they had just experienced made them overcome their shyness. Anyone could see that they had something important to say, so everyone quietened down and listened.

“There is a ... woman ... up on the bog,” the boy gasped.

“We thought she was dead but she wasn’t.”

“Where on the bog?” the stallholder asked.

The children pointed eagerly. “Way up by the ridge.”

“Can you show us the way?”

The children’s eyes grew uncertain. Would they be able to do that?

“I think so,” the boy said meekly.

“Who is it?”

“We don’t know her.”

“Is she old?”

“Yes.”

Children never have a clear sense of age.

The grown-ups conferred with one another for a moment. Of course they would have to go up and help the woman in distress. But who should go? The road up to the ridge would take at least an hour, and no one had the time to be away for that long. Getting back down would probably take even longer.

And what if she was already dead once they got up there? The thought scared them all quite a bit, then one of them had an idea.