Elisabeth Rynell - To Mervas

The fact that she was in a mining town where roads and paths led down and into the mountain felt natural. However, this opening into the dark had filled her with fear and rage. The burning, short-fused anger she felt reminded her of something, reminded her of being forced to obey. Where she now sat curled up on the front stairs of the school, she could clearly recall how the gaping door frame became a mouth breathing its dark, powerful presence into Mervas. The odd feeling seized her that this mouth would suck up everything outside it, that it would pull everything unmoored and movable toward its shapeless internal darkness, would swallow anything light, kind, comforting, and warm. In there, down there, she thought, everything would dissolve; leaves, people, pieces of wood, stones, everything would dissolve into darkness.

She was freezing, and tried to shake off her thoughts. But the mere knowledge of that opening with its stairs leading down to the shiny water made her shiver with discomfort and also robbed her of the feeling of freedom that was so precious to her. The feeling that she was free to leave whenever she wanted to, that nothing forced her to stay in Mervas.

No, nothing is up to you, the chasm hissed.

She was meant to be forced, such were the rules of her life no matter how much she tried to resist.

She tried to listen only to the blackbird, who was still singing, tried to stay with the warm, low voice chanting such wise and simple things, balanced things, about life. It had found a place beyond everything, where there were no demands. A song without rage. He was free.

The blackbird sings the Song of Songs, Marta told herself. The blackbird’s song is great, she tried thinking; the greatest thing is love — and the song of the blackbird.

But other voices insistently crowded in on her and said other things, the wrong things. She felt their hard grasp burn around her wrist, felt the strength of that grasp, how she’d been dragged around, forced.

She had initially planned to explore a bit during the rest of the evening. From studying the map, she knew there was a small lake right behind the school, a little ways through the woods. At the lake, she would find a hut, the map said. But she’d become too scared now. Obstacles had been raised inside her, she had to stay on the school stairs tonight, and she couldn’t leave. She could sleep in the car later, the tent seemed unpleasantly thin-walled. If she slept in the car she could also easily escape if she had to.

A black circle on the ground in front of the stairs showed where people had lit bonfires. Marta pushed her anxiety aside and gathered a sizable pile of dry branches, leaves, and some birch bark. Then she started a fire. The sun was low in the sky and it slowly rolled north from the west. In a few more hours, it would momentarily dip below the horizon. The sky would never get completely dark, the sun would never sink that low.

When the fire crackled and burned, she felt calmer. Suddenly, she understood why humans had once needed to master fire. It was when they’d been driven from the Garden of Eden, when they were alone with themselves and the immensity of the world. With the help of fire, exiled and abandoned ones sought to protect themselves from the gnawing and ultimately crushing fear. The god of fire now protected her too; she and the fire had a pact against what lurked underground.

She took a piece of smoked whitefish from the lunch box and began eating it with her fingers. Carefully, she removed the thick skin and pinched the tender fillets lightly and gently so they came off the bone. Her fingers dripped with fat, and the aroma from the fish, heavy as it was, made her feel full. Imagine that, I’m here, she thought, and briefly felt elated. I’m sitting here by a small fire in the vast sea of trees, I made it out of my apartment, yes, I broke free and came all the way here.

Someone else now lived in the gray rooms where she’d been shut in for so many years. Those rooms didn’t exist any longer, the rooms where she’d lived alone, and with the boy. They were now repainted, refurnished, all traces of her were gone, all traces of the boy, and the traces of her own catastrophic reaction on the day he turned fourteen.

Embers pulsed faintly among the last logs on the fire and the sun disappeared behind the treetops in the north. Marta forced herself to stop ruminating and spread a thick sleeping pad in the back of the car. She arranged her things so that only the driver’s seat was empty and accessible. She really wanted to wash the strong smell of whitefish from her hands, but it would have to wait until morning. Then, she’d go down to the little lake and greet the day by the water. If she’d had a little more foresight, she would’ve gotten some curtains for the car before she left. Now she had to sleep in the light and hope that she’d made the right calculations so that in the morning the car would be in the shade, away from the sun.

A flock of geese floated across the tin-colored sky. Night had fallen on Mervas and the surface of the lake rested without a ripple. Supernaturally green, the white night light that seemed to come from nowhere rose from the plains behind the mine. Around it the mountains lay sphinxlike, guardian animals in the silence.

Marta fell asleep as soon as she lay down inside the car. The visions that had filled her head and danced behind her eyes as soon as she closed them swelled and grew like sails filled with wind. They carried her into a dream where the images melded and separated and transformed while she moved deeper into the sometimes familiar, other times foreign dreamscape.

The morning had come creeping into what was actually still nighttime. A couple of mosquitoes had entered through the small crack of the window that she had left open and they now clung to the walls, gorged with her blood. She opened her eyes. The light was mild, fuzzily gray, and she had time to think that it would probably be an overcast day when she spotted the man who stood looking at her a little ways from the car.

He was large and bearded, and his hair was speckled with gray. He was wearing a shapeless green jacket and had a slight stoop. Marta didn’t get scared when she saw him. She knew it was Kosti and it was somehow very natural that he was out there. His gaze was completely focused, and he kept looking into the car as if his eyes were searching for something to hold on to in her features. She felt his gaze fumble over her, searching.

Perhaps he didn’t recognize her. Maybe he couldn’t see her real face. It was hidden beneath a thick skin of years, settled behind a mask of tired middle age. She now saw that he was crying. It hurt him to see her, hurt him to see what life can do, how harsh it can be. He stood so heavy and stooped out there in the gray light, and she saw his tears running down his cheeks and into his beard. He’d also gotten old. His face was grooved and darker than she remembered. It was more rugged, burdened; all of his quick and sensitive boyishness was gone. She wanted to cry like him, let the tears flow. But she just lay still watching him. Neither of them moved. Something had happened to time itself; they had both stepped out of it and stood to the side, watching. They calmly looked at each other, looked through all the years gone by, everything that had been their lives. It was like a photograph in developing fluid slowly taking shape out of white nothingness. Shadows and lines appeared, darker, sharper. Each waited for the other, called soundlessly to the other.

She sat up at the same moment he took a step forward, and gasped for breath. His face was so deeply and wrenchingly known and beloved; now, at this distance, she suddenly felt how much it had always been part of her life, how close it had always been, how frighteningly close. She untangled her legs from the sleeping bag and unlocked the door. She was trembling all over when she opened the door; her hand trembled, her arms and her legs trembled. She stood in front of him, he was still staring at her, and they took each other’s hands and then held each other hard, very hard.