Ulla-Lena Lundberg - Ice

From one world to another. Handshake with the postal-boat skipper, quickly up onto the dock at Mellom, a smiling face for the Mellom priest, who has come down to meet him. A rare chance for a meeting with a colleague, a great joy!

Fredrik Berg is only a few years older than Petter Kummel, but he’s had his pastorate for two years and is wise and disillusioned. Soon enough, this young pastor will wake up to his congregation’s less attractive sides. There will be feuds, discord, obstinate silences, letters to the newspaper, ugly messages to the diocese. Just wait. But at the same time he can’t help finding Petter’s enthusiasm infectious, as is the friendship he immediately offers. “I was hoping for that!” Petter says when Fredrik, the older of the two, suggests that they should call each other by their first names, even though they’ve never met before. Fredrik studied theology in Åbo and Petter was at the University of Helsingfors. Nevertheless they have more in common with each other than with anyone else in the archipelago—two young priests strolling from the dock to the parsonage in lively conversation.

They are both nature lovers, it turns out. The beauty of nature makes up for a lot, Fredrik acknowledges, and Petter makes comparisons. The smell is different because of the pines on Mellom; there are no conifers out on the Örlands. For a moment, the scent of pines and their deep green reflection on the water make him nostalgic for the security of the inner archipelago, but at the same time he’s as proud as a child of how wild and salty and windswept the Örlands are. Never green reflections on the water, only dark grey-blue and silver and ash grey, or a bright blue glassy surface like today. “I’ll never tire of that. I’m thinking of staying on the Örlands my whole life,” he declares.

Fredrik Berg has a penchant for sweet-and-sour smiles, but he can’t quite pull one off as he says to his new friend, very cheerfully, “Just wait till autumn. And winter.”

“Oh I will!” Petter says. “I’m looking forward to it!”

They saunter towards the parsonage, two men at leisure, in no hurry, but so young that even a slow walk covers a lot of ground. Soon they’re walking up the parsonage steps. Fredrik looks a little uncomfortable when his wife comes out the door. She is nervously eager to make a good impression and fears she has already failed. “Welcome,” she says. “Did you have a good trip?”

That stops him for a moment as he thinks back. “A good trip? Well, yes, I suppose so. Anything can happen out here. You go out on a little boat trip and get a lecture on pre-Christian thought into the bargain. Post-Anton is unbelievable.” He shakes his head. “Excuse me, that isn’t what we were going to talk about.”

“They’re so fantastically superstitious out here, they all believe in ghosts. There’s hardly a one would dare walk past the churchyard after dark. But now come in, both of you, and sit down at the table. Come in, come in!”

She waves them into the dining room and goes into the kitchen herself. A child peers at them from the stairs, another from behind a door. A third is screaming from the bedroom. The table is set, and Mrs Berg comes in with potatoes and boiled carrots, then comes back with a baked pike, resting golden and beautiful in its own juice. Petter looks at his colleague with interest. “Do you fish?”

“With the greatest pleasure. I caught this one on a spinner. But mostly I fish with nets. I wasn’t raised on it, so I’ve had to learn by experience. Fortunately, there were people happy to teach us when we first came. What about you?”

“Yes, indeed. Papa was from Åland and I’ve been laying nets with him since I was six. And my brothers and I pulled spinners so fast in a rowboat that everyone thought we had a motor. When we got here there were some nets in the boathouse that we’ll set out when we’ve got the time. Big holes. If my highly esteemed predecessor had any that were better, I believe he must have sold them.”

Fredrik laughs heartily at that. “I think you’ve got his number. Our friend Skog never misses a bet. Did he manage to sell you his generator?”

“My uncle Richard bought it at the auction. You mean it doesn’t …?”

“Nope.”

“Good money down the drain! Oh my. There are so many holes I could have mended with that money.”

Fredrik is just glad it didn’t happen to him. In a good mood, he calls in the two self-propelled children and has them say hello to Pastor Kummel. They look at him critically, one curtseys and the other bows. Petter is fond of children and talks to them and asks questions, they twist and writhe and let Mama answer. She urges them to eat before the food gets cold. Petter is hungry, and he can’t praise too highly the island custom of stuffing hot food down the craw of anyone who’s come a great distance. “And this is delicious! Thank you so much for your hospitality.” He looks around discreetly for the salt, but they do things differently here.

There are many conventions to follow, many questions they must ask him, and much for him to report. How they’re getting along, if Mona likes the place, about their little girl and whether she tolerates the constant breeze on the island without getting ill. About their impression of the congregation. “Old scoundrels and cocky youngsters,” Fredrik Berg sums them up. “How are things going?”

Petter, earnestly: “I don’t know what to say,” and then, as if he’d been awarded first prize, “But what a parish! What a joy to work with such people.”

Fredrik is about to say, “Just you wait!” but controls himself. “Well, yes. But I was thinking of the vestry and the parish council.”

“Excellent. Though the organist tells me that the divisions in the community are serious. That’s not really news. All parishes have factions. I think I won’t let on that I know anything but just play it by ear from case to case.”

“Good luck with that,” says the Mellom priest, who decides to wait with his examples until the two of them are alone. The meal is being cleared away, it looks to be a beautiful day outdoors, and both men long to go out. Kummel’s thoughts are already racing as he thanks his hostess. They make their escape with ease, leaving Mrs Berg with her pots and pans. She looks the way Petter recalls that his mother often looked, and fleetingly he wonders if Mona will come to look that way. But Mona’s industrious and strong and a completely different sort of woman!

To begin with they walk with their hands behind their backs, but gradually they loosen up and Petter actually begins to gesture a bit with his arms. “A whole world!” he says. “There’s no branch of science, no academic area that couldn’t find subject matter in such a place. Oddly enough, I’ve grown much more interested in my studies out here than I ever was at the University.”

He observes the plant life with interest, subtly different from that on the Örlands. Pines predominate, even on the south side facing the open sea and the Örlands. Out there the granite is bare, with stripes and grooves from the ice age, great boulders that tumbled from the glaciers and have worn depressions in the granite where they’ve lain for thousands of years. The two men move from botany to geology, an area both know something about. The words “weathering” and “gneiss” are mentioned, and Petter has already learned that parts of Paris were built with granite from the Örlands. Fredrik grows more relaxed the farther they get from the village, even though he did exchange pleasantries with a couple of fishermen they met among the boathouses. But when they’re alone again he says that they’re nice enough face to face, but behind your back they say other things entirely.