Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 21 - Devil´s Ravine

“Oh, well. I’d better go inside with these buckets ...”

There was no friend at all. But Gunilla had to invent one, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to stand it all. She was a strange mixture for a fifteen-year-old: she was physically mature but spiritually naïve. Her hair was dark, cut in a stark pageboy’s style with a fringe. No nonsense there! Her face had a golden-brown complexion and high cheekbones. Her eyes were a strong blue behind thick, dark eyelashes and her nose was straight and short. She was a Småland version of Joan of Arc! But slightly confused.

There was nothing she could do about it. Her father’s unjustified punishments induced a sense of rebellion and despondency in her. After all, she did her best all the time! It wasn’t ideal that she was often absentminded but surely that wasn’t a deadly sin ...? It was true that she didn’t care much for the work on the smallholding and she didn’t feel that it was her destiny. She never showed her dislike and she did everything she could to please her father. Maybe that was a fault?

Karl said that she was thinking of boys. Heavens, how would she be able to do that? Who did she have to choose from? Erland of Backa? That ... pup! His yearning glances upset Gunilla, who wasn’t used to that kind of thing. She just wasn’t mature enough; in many ways she was still a child. It was difficult and troublesome that her breasts had begun to develop at the speed of lightning. After all, she still wanted to play with the dogs and turn fir cones into cows by putting sticks on them for legs. Erland’s hands, which shyly tried to touch her, made her furious – something she didn’t understand. She would always run away into the forest, to a secret spot on a rocky ledge. This was where she would sit, dreaming about heroic deeds she wanted to do, which everybody in the village would praise her for. Her horizon didn’t go beyond the village.

Why on earth would she want Erland of Backa? He was such a childish, clumsy fool. His advances embarrassed her. She would never marry. It was so horrible!

Gunilla had a completely different dream. About a friend who was more like a father than a boyfriend. The estate manager at Bergqvara. He was so nice and kind to her! Gunilla felt more comfortable with him. He would understand her. She longed to be able to sit on his lap and listen to his deep, warm voice and be allowed to talk about all her confusing thoughts and not least her joys. He would never begin to grope her or say stupid, unfathomable things the way Erland did.

Erland was a village fool. Everybody knew that.

Not that he was stupid. Gunilla didn’t think that, but he was just so different! So unfinished as a human being, as if he was searching for himself. His groping her made her think of ...

Oh, Erland was stupid!

She came out of her daydreams and began to walk up towards the house with the buckets in one hand and the ladle she had fed the chickens with in the other. She let the ladle rattle against the row of birch trees as she walked past as a small, loud protest against everything. Then she turned round and asked the birch trees for forgiveness.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said remorsefully. “I was being thoughtless again, sorry, sorry!”

As she walked in, she was once again met by that strange, musty smell in the kitchen. As of something ... forbidden? The air was thick with an atmosphere she had sensed many times before but was unable to identify. Something suggestive, perhaps? Gunilla wasn’t able to interpret the signals she picked up.

Her father was there at once. “I must say you certainly took your time, didn’t you!” he said grumpily. “Can’t you do anything properly? Now you can go over to Bergqvara and tell the manager that I can come on Monday if they want me to.”

Karl had an ulterior motive for sending Gunilla off on such an unnecessary errand. He wanted to thrust his daughter before the estate manager as quickly as possible, before the latter had time to find a new wife. He wasn’t exactly a young man any more, and he had been a widower for many years. It was about time he started to notice Gunilla’s good qualities. An estate manager wasn’t to be sneezed at. The daughter of a smallholder couldn’t wish for anything better than that.

Gunilla was pleased to do this errand. The manager was always such a pleasure to talk to. She didn’t imagine for a moment that her father wanted them to become a couple. If she had known, she probably wouldn’t have skipped so lightly along the grassy track from Knapahult!

When Gunilla reached the edge of the forest she had a view of the whole village before her, as well as Bergqvara farm on the other side with its fields and meadows. She stopped abruptly. She could hear the hoarse notes of a poorly shaped wooden whistle next to the track. Everything poor Erland of Backa laid his hands on was a disaster. He couldn’t even figure out how to make a simple wooden whistle!

“Gunilla, wait!” he shouted when she showed that she intended to continue walking. “Come and see!” She stopped, hesitating. She was cross with him after the last time they had met, when he had begun to talk “silly” again.

“See what I found in the grass!”

Curiosity got the better of her.

“I’m afraid I’m rather busy,” she warned, but she came closer anyway. “It’s late and ...”

“See,” Erland said, pointing down.

“Heavens!” Gunilla exclaimed. She was touched and bent down to pick the first, pale blue violet of spring. “I’m glad you didn’t pick it, Erland! It’s so dainty!”

Erland of Backa looked at her with eyes that radiated pride. He was a spotty youth, and so spineless that you would think he was put together with strings. He moved his arms and legs so clumsily and his unrestrained admiration for Gunilla didn’t help his self-confidence. His dull brown hair stuck out and he was growing a beard – sparse, soft, curly hairs that he ought to have shaved off. But his face had a kind look and he had always been a good playmate for her – until now, when he had grown, erotically speaking. Now he had other fantasies while she dreamed, rather childishly, of the heroic deeds she wanted to accomplish. Erland had always been romantic and a dreamer – rather a poetic soul, which irritated Gunilla now because he expressed it in a way she couldn’t accept. She found him immensely nondescript and immature, perhaps because she was comparing him with the estate manager at Bergqvara?

Gunilla needed a father figure. Not a lover. But neither she nor Erland understood that.

“I’ll be leaving soon,” Erland said, his voice trembling.

“Leaving? You? Where are you going?”

He straightened his back. “I’m to do my military service.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, embarrassed. “The estate owner says that I must travel to join the regiment at Eksjö in Småland. Far away ...”

Gunilla was speechless. “Will you be gone for a long time?” she asked finally.

“I don’t know,” he answered, pathetically. “They’re laughing at me in the village. They say that they will never make a man of me and that the reason why the estate owner is sending me away is because I’m not exactly a ray of sunshine or a ball of fire.”

Gunilla was silent. She tended to agree with the others.

“They say I’ll have my own smallholding,” he said helplessly. “Soon.”

“Well, who am I to play with then?” Gunilla asked faintly. “If you go?”

Erland wasn’t listening. He gazed at her with fervent admiration. “You’re so pretty, Gunilla!”

“Oh, don’t start all that nonsense again!”

“It’s not nonsense. You’ve ... never ...?”

“What?”