Margit Sandemo: The Ice People 38 - Hidden Traces

The man had what in legal terms would be known as “inadequately developed mental faculties.” He was of normal intelligence but he couldn’t handle his impulses and desires or his relations with an orderly society.

He began to talk to Karine, who thought he seemed nice. He knew a lot about animals and nature, and the girl became eager. She wanted so much to show him the beautiful meadow full of flowers. He wanted to see it as well; perhaps he imagined that she wanted his company. That type finds it easy to twist people’s motives.

The meadow wasn’t visible from the road. They cycled to a small path, left their bicycles on the grass and walked through the delicate spring grass full of violets and yellow cowslips. Cat’s foot was beginning to appear in the grass, and small insects floated in great swarms like veils in a wind. But there was no wind: it was a warm spring evening with thousands of scents on the air.

“Look,” said Karine. “A ladybird!”

She let it creep up her hand.

“And here we have lady’s mantle,” said the man, sitting down. “Isn’t nature fantastic?”

“Yes, it’s at its best now,” Karine replied. He patted the grass and she sat next to him, still with the ladybird on her hand. “Sometimes, it seems as if everything is so random.”

“What do you mean?”

“So much isn’t fair. There’s so much unnecessary suffering.”

“Such is life,” he said, pretty matter-of-factly. “It’s certainly nice here. Do you know what I would like?”

“No?”

“Just to flop down on my back and stay the night here. Listen to the cuckoo at dawn and see the cobwebs glistening with dew in the first rays of the sun.”

“Yes, so would I,” said Karine with radiant eyes.

“Then let’s do it.”

Her eyes turned fearful. “I’d better be on my way home. They don’t know where I am.”

He laughed. “I didn’t mean all through the night. But we can try for a moment. Now.”

He flopped backwards onto the grass, still laughing. Slightly shy, but excited, Karine did the same.

“Oh, now I’ve lost my ladybird,” she said sadly. As she leaned back, he had placed his arm under her neck. Karine didn’t like that: she who had always sought solitude wasn’t used to physical proximity with strangers. Still, he was very much like her in his joy in nature, so she reluctantly let it happen. She was as stiff as a board, trying to keep a mental distance from him.

He spoke so calmly about experiences he had had with nature, about wild animals he had met, that it made her relax a bit. Lying on her back and looking at the clouds was wonderful. The meadow was surrounded by birch trees, but the soft green branches didn’t move. Everything was so calm, so serene. The world around her disappeared.

The man lifted his head, turned towards her and let his finger glide across her brown, smooth cheek.

He whispered: “Your eyes are so pretty.”

“Are they?” she muttered. She didn’t feel at ease with his tangible closeness. He had turned his body towards her so that his hip lay against her thigh. “I think I had better be on my way home now,” she said in a slightly trembling voice.

“In a moment,” he said reassuringly.

Karine looked into his eyes and thought they seemed as if he was unsure while she also registered a certain self-assurance in his smile.

“I really must be on my way home now.”

He moved his elbow over to the other side of her so that he almost covered her completely.

Karine shouted: “The ladybird! Oh, please don’t put your arm on it, it will be crushed!”

“Never mind the ladybird,” he said, tight-lipped.

But Karine had already managed to wriggle away because he had got up on his hands and knees to make himself ready, and she began to search for the ladybird, crawling on all fours without really understanding the danger she was in.

The next moment, iron arms grabbed her from behind and her panties were pulled off her. She screamed and inched her way out of his grip and crept forward. But he was over her again, holding her tightly to the lower part of his body. Karine gasped in horror, didn’t understand what was going on, just wanted to get away, because this was yucky, yucky. She didn’t want his skin against hers, she didn’t like him anymore.

“Keep quiet, you damn girl,” he snorted.

She managed to crawl a few yards away from him, in her despair asking all the violets to forgive her for flattening them, but he was swifter than her, he overtook her and held her in his iron grip.

“No, no!” she shouted.

The man put one hand over her mouth. That meant that he slightly loosened his grip on her so that she could turn around. But she shouldn’t have done that, because now he had her where he wanted her. She stared up into his wild, ruthlessly determined eyes.

“Don’t kill me,” she sobbed, terrified.

“I damn well don’t intend to kill you,” he snorted.

Then there was a void in her memory. Because what happened was traumatic for Karine, a shock of violence that she managed to banish from her memory. Afterwards, all she remembered was that the ladybird disappeared and then she was lying all by herself in a flowery meadow, abandoned, bleeding and with an almost unbearable pain in her abdomen. She had forgotten what had happened in the meantime.

That was why she said nothing at home. She was probably also too ashamed to say where she felt such a pain; she remembered that she had sobbed and struggled to wipe away all that horrible stuff down there; she had used her panties and there was blood on them and some slime, which she didn’t understand. She was so ashamed and so shaken that she got home very late that evening.

Because she suppressed the incident and because she knew so little about life, she didn’t understand what had happened to her.

Things were much worse when she was twelve.

All the children were to have their photograph taken. But Karine was in a terrible mood, because Mum was forcing her to put on a dress she had never liked. So that morning she dashed out in her overalls and favourite blue checked blouse, and she had to try to get rid of her anger out in the open.

Still stifled with rage, she sat on the mountain ridge with her arms around her knees. She found it difficult to breathe, because she was just so disappointed. Couldn’t she be allowed to be herself? Did she absolutely have to be dressed up in clothes that were far too ladylike and grown-up, just because they were all going to have their picture taken? Then she would stand there framed forever in that horrible dress, which just wasn’t her! It would be so wrong, so very wrong!

“Hi, Karine!”

It was the father of one of the girls in class. He came down from the mountain ledge and sat next to her. She muttered something as a greeting and hid her face against her knees.

“What are you so upset about?”

Karine just sniffed and couldn’t say anything. She wanted to get away, but that would have been impolite.

Then she remembered. “I thought you had moved? Lisen told me that you were about to move ... was it the day before yesterday?”

“You’re right, but I just wanted to take leave of the town while I fetched the last items. Then I caught sight of you walking up here.”

Karine didn’t ask why he had followed her. She wasn’t interested in knowing that.

He asked her quietly: “Has somebody been nasty to you?”

“No,” she mumbled. And then: “They don’t understand me.”

“At home?” the man asked gently.

“They’re kind enough, that’s not the problem. But my mother has such strange ideas.”

He put his arms gently around her shoulders. “Would you like to tell me about it?”