Ulla-Lena Lundberg - Ice

Adele should have had such a husband—masculine, good-looking, richly gifted, intelligent, responsible. Competent, effective. His only weakness Francine, who would actually have suited Elis better. Elis is a nice person, good-hearted, friendly, interested in much, but without the organist’s industry and drive. In a different world, they might have made a quiet trade, but in this world that’s not possible. You’re married to the person you married, and that way, Adele thinks, you never have to worry that maybe he doesn’t want you. No growing disaffection, no disappointment need ever intrude upon her relationship with the organist. Best that way, but oh! Nevertheless, he goes home to Francine when he’s tired and worn out from work. He comes to the store before the day has sucked the life out of him, looks into the office on some errand having to do with the upcoming Co-op board meeting. Followed by discussions about the final clean copy of the minutes and the never-ending need for further meetings. His hand has held the paper and pen, his dear writing covers the page like his voice, and when he has gone, it lies open on her desk like a bright light all through the busy day.

Francine, on the other hand, after all these years, still feels as if she were living in a strange house, and sometimes she sneaks into her childhood home, desolate now that everyone is dead. So cold she can see her breath, the stove rusty, the beds empty. No one comes here, unless she stays too long and they start looking. She is expecting another child and knows it won’t go well. She’s too old, and she’s embarrassed to say anything. She doesn’t know what she thinks, it’s as if she lay floating under the ice, her hair adrift, her memory adrift. What she’s supposed to think and believe adrift.

He has such good words, he touches her so well. She thought at the time that with him she could live a good, protected life. As she grew up, she could never stand to watch the cow calve, and when her own time approached it was no better. And there was nowhere to hide. She’s heard her mother-in-law say that Francine’s deliveries haven’t been especially difficult. What does she know about it? And then baby after baby, she who wanted to remain a child herself. But once the misfortune has occurred, she can let him come to her without anxiety, for now things are the way they are.

The organist tells her that the pastor’s wife is presumably in the family way as well, though the pastor has only hinted. This news is supposed to be encouraging, but the pastor’s wife is young and healthy and strong and spirited. For her, bearing a child is a dance she’ll do quickly and well, the way she does everything. What does she know about what it will be like for Francine? Just one good push and the baby lies there, that’s all there is to it.

Francine is not entirely mistaken, for the pastor’s wife rarely thinks about being pregnant, and she’s not really worried about the delivery. The former pastor’s wife went to Åbo and sat there for weeks, waiting, but Mona Kummel hasn’t the time for that. Moreover, the midwife on the Örlands has a degree in gynaecology, although her qualifications are formulated in Russian, and there is a homecare sister on the Örlands who can be engaged for the first week. In other words, all the arrangements are made and the pastor’s wife has other things to think about. The household, for one thing, and being constantly prepared for unexpected guests, and the cow barn, where the first-class hay has kept the cows in fine form, their milk as good as it was in the autumn. Mending and darning, writing letters, the church choir created and led by the organist, where the pastor’s wife sings first soprano and the pastor bass. Thanks to the incomparable ice this winter, it’s easy for everyone to get to church. The two halves of the community have an equal journey. The choir members practise their parts as they kick their sledges, and when they get to the church, they and their voices are already warm. They sing a few verses to hear how they sound in the fine acoustics of the church, but then they all move to the parsonage, where they rehearse in the parlour. The whole hall is full of their coats and furs, and the parlour is full of song.

Then Sanna bursts into tears, and Papa senses that what she’s feeling amidst this sea of coats and the choir’s mighty singing is a deep loneliness, which can affect anyone who stands outside of it all—ice, church, song. He picks her up and tells her not to feel bad, and then he whispers a secret—this summer she’s going to get a little brother or sister and won’t that be fun!

The church choir sledging its way home across the ice has figured out the truth. In fact, it’s hardly news, for the rumour began spreading through the villages even before she was pregnant, but now it is confirmed—her breasts, the barely discernible swell of her belly beneath her skirt, her whole demeanor a bit more serene, as if smiling to herself just ever so slightly.

The evening light lingers a bit longer now, and during the day the sun eats at the ice, which softens towards afternoon, making runners sink deeper and sledges move more slowly. During the night it freezes hard, and in the morning the kicksleds run normally. But the sun gains a bit every day, and there is unease in the air. Far out in the sea there is open water, and you can come across seals behind piles of ice. Several hunting parties are on their way out with specially built rowboats on skids. In among the islands, especially where there’s a current, the ice has begun to bulge and turn blue. It’s only a matter of days before small children are forbidden to go out on it. Older, more sensible people go nowhere without an ice pike and a knife in their belt. It is hardest for Lydia Manström to say farewell to the ice, because she must be a role model for the schoolchildren, even though the ice could support her for several more days. Several weeks if the weather turns cold again. But maybe not. Now both the sun and the villagers are bending every effort to hasten the breakup of the ice. People put their shoulders to it and shove, and the ice shows wet patches and dark areas of rot. It is soft and treacherous, and beyond the lighthouses the seal hunters can hear the roar of the open sea. Rifts and fissures open up right under them, and those who aren’t light on their feet and can dance like a crane may easily fall in. That’s as it should be, and the man who takes sensible risks can collect a pile of bloodily slaughtered seals at the edge of the ice. The state pays a bounty for the jaw, the boatyards buy the oil, and you can cure the skins yourself and sell them in Åbo. You can make blood pudding and cook the meat. Those who’ve tasted it say that the meat of seal pups is a delicacy.

For several months, the pastor had his congregation together and available. Now the people he’s looking for are often away, unclear when they’ll be back. The boathouses are seething with activity although the smaller bays are still covered with ice. Tracks from the skids on rowboats lead out and back. For all that was going on in their winter world, it seems like a long sleep compared with the activity now. Everyone has woken up and stretched, and the pastor must learn that Easter is no big holiday on the Örlands. People are in too much of a hurry. The pastor’s wife has forced a crocus in a pot that stands blooming on the altar, the verger has changed the liturgical colours as prescribed, and the pastor stands almost alone in the church draped in mourning on Good Friday and not much less alone at High Mass on Easter Sunday as he proclaims the risen Christ. Christendom’s holiest observance and most joyful festival, he declares into the emptiness, to Mona and Sanna and Papa and Adele and Elis, the verger in his pew and the organist and the pumper in their loft. No less true for that, but it echoes balefully in the empty space.