Ulla-Lena Lundberg - Ice

Sister Hanna is in a quandary, not knowing if she dares to ask, but asks anyway. “What shall we do about a shroud? Will that sheet be enough?”

Mona is banging around with the milk buckets in the hall and answers with little or no show of interest. “Make a shroud if it’s supposed to be done some special way. Then get him out to the shed without letting the girls see.” She goes into the bedroom and sees that Lillus is still asleep. Sanna has climbed into the crib beside her and sits there with an ugly, introverted expression on her face, staring straight ahead. Just looking at her makes her angry. “Wait till I come back,” she says. “Then we’ll have tea.”

She takes the milk cans and goes, and the verger follows her although she says forcefully that she needs no help. When they’re gone, Hanna and Signe work together to shroud the body, awkward and difficult down on the floor. The wartime sheet, with Mona’s monogram, is barely long enough and they have to start over from the beginning with less of the sheet around his head and shoulders so it will reach all the way to his feet. When they’re finished, Signe calls the Coast Guardsmen to come in. They carry in the stretcher and lift the shrouded body onto it. With a thought to the girls, in case they should look out the window, Brage grabs the blanket still there in the kitchen and throws it across the body so it will look like any ordinary load. They each take one end, Hanna opens the door, they go out and walk in step, at a respectful pace, down to the boat shed. They put down the stretcher while they arrange sawhorses and planks, then lift the body in its shroud and lay it out. Brage hesitates but then spreads the blanket over it in case someone should come in accidentally. Then they walk down to the Coast Guard cutter in the sludge of broken ice by the dock. When Hanna sees the boat nosing its way out of the bay, she knows they’ve finished.

Inside the cow barn, Mona plunges into the warmth of her animals, their faith in her ability to feed and meet their needs, to gently draw the milk from their udders. Apple and Goody mumble in a friendly way, but the sheep bray and bleat as if there were some danger she would forget them. The hens flap their wings, wanting and not wanting her to collect their eggs, praise them, and leave an empty hollow in the hay. It seems to Mona that she could endure it here. She takes the milking stool and sinks down by Goody’s side, an outrageous case of lèse majesté , because the laws of the universe require that Apple should be milked first. She shuffles and shifts and bawls. “Pardon me,” Mona says and almost laughs. She moves to Apple’s stall, teat salve in hand, milk pail in place. And just sits there, her head resting against the indignant cow, who must now be slaughtered in the autumn.

“As if she were crying,” the verger thinks as he busily gathers forkfuls of hay and wanders back and forth between the cows and over to the manger in the sheepfold. Yes, there by the cows, she’s crying, wiping her eyes and nose on the sleeve of her milking coat, starts milking again, stops, shakes and sobs. Goody, the only creature on the earth she could live with, stops eating and looks over the edge of her stall, growls like a little bear deep in her stomach—don’t cry. Then Mona starts to cry big tears that roll down onto the cement floor. “Good,” the verger thinks, weeping openly as he takes the water buckets and draws water from the cowbarn well and goes back in and gives it to the cows and sheep. He glances at her as he mucks out and cleans the floor. Between attacks of sobbing, she milks evenly and energetically, moves to sit beside Goody, and Goody, better than any human being, lets her cry, all four of her stomachs bulging with sympathy.

The verger does all he can to help. Sees that she’s finished milking and takes the two pails from her. The big milk basin in position, the cloth in the strainer, in with the first batch of milk.

“Thanks,” Mona says. She stands up, takes her stool in one hand, pats Goody. “We have to go now. So much butter and milk and cream we’re going to need these coming days!” She’s already thinking about all the food that will have to be prepared for the funeral, about what she’ll have to order from the shop, about where she’s going to put all of Petter’s unavoidable relatives. Who take a laden table and good beds for given.

She dries her nose a last time, and lifts her head, ready for battle. “Yes, dear Lord. I’m guessing the phone is going to start ringing off the hook.”

Together, she and the verger walk back to the parsonage, talking about everyday things. She kicks off her boots in the hall and hangs up her milking coat, hesitates about whether to go into the parlour or the kitchen but goes resolutely into the kitchen. Lillus comes toddling gaily towards her. Her cold is much better and she’s had a good long sleep. “Papa,” she says, and it makes Mona furious that it’s Papa Lillus thinks of when she sees her Mama! She thinks Papa has been in the cow barn with Mama, which he is sometimes, and how she’ll sit on his lap and have her morning tea.

“Papa’s not here!” she says, incensed. “Papa’s dead!”

Lillus doesn’t know what it is to be dead, but she can see that it makes Mama really angry. She looks scared and backs away. The tears come as if someone had pushed a button. “For shame! Be quiet, Lillus! Where is Sanna?”

Sanna comes at once, not a word, and takes Lillus by the hand and takes her to the table. Sister Hanna lifts her into her highchair. She and the verger and Signe feel helpless and uncertain. They expect her to pick up her children and hug them, but she keeps them, too, at a distance.

“Come, Mona,” says Sister Hanna. “Hot tea and sandwiches. Eat while you can. The Mellom priest will be calling soon.”

“He doesn’t need to!” she says. But she sits down and eats, to everyone’s surprise, but quite logically, for she has to keep up her strength. If she doesn’t, who will? Now and then she glances at the floor by the stove. The rug, she saw, had been hung over the railing by the steps to dry. The wet spot on the floor is a good deal smaller. A person’s traces are cleaned away at breakneck speed. No one can ever imagine what it was like to live beside him.

While Mona drinks her tea and eats her sandwich, and while Sanna sits silently and Lillus fusses, the priest in Mellom paces and suffers agonies. His own parishioners call, one after another, to ask if it’s true. Which it is, although it’s hard to grasp. But beg pardon, he can’t talk now because he’s promised to call Pastor Kummel’s wife on the Örlands. Although to himself he wonders why, what can he say? His wife wonders too. Maybe she ought to offer to speak to Mona Kummel, but they’ve only met the one time, at Kummel’s installation, and what can she say? “You talk to her,” she tells her husband. “You know what to say.” She wonders what it would be like if it had been Fredrik who’d drowned. Conflicted feelings, obviously. Grief, worry about the children, loss, regret for the loss of their routines. But also relief. Back to Grankulla. Back to a life of her own.

Mona Kummel answers in an amazingly energetic voice. It sounds as if she was just swallowing some food. “Yes, hello?”

“Fredrik Berg here. I heard the unbelievable news. My wife and I want to extend our deepest sympathies for your loss.”

“Thank you,” says Mona Kummel. There is silence.

“Where do you find the strength? How are you getting along?”

“Thank you. I don’t have much choice.”