The Ice Palace (11 page)

The next moment he was on his way down again. Another line was drawn in front of the ice palace at precisely the same point. He was an unfettered bird, threatened by no one, at liberty to do as he liked, to be fascinated when he so wished.

He could not leave the spot. Nor could he pounce, or settle – only slice past the ice wall like a dark puff of wind. The next minute far away on the horizon or spiralling upwards; the next moment past the ice wall again at the same point. He was no longer a completely unfettered bird with steel claws and accompanying wind. He was bound fast here, the prisoner of his own freedom, unable to give up. What he saw confused him.

He would cut himself fatally with his own shreds – as hard as glass where they showed the least. But they ripped up the air. He could not avoid being ripped up himself.

School and the winter took their usual course. Siss stood by the wall in the breaks. The others had become used to it. The weeks passed, each one like the next. The big search for Unn had been shelved.

Siss stood by the wall, keeping her promise. A new girl had taken over as leader of the group.

On such a winter’s morning a strange girl entered the classroom. She was the same age as the others and had come to join their class. Her parents had moved to the district a couple of days ago.

At once the atmosphere was tense. Siss saw, with a start of surprise, that they had not forgotten. The empty desk left by Unn was immediately the centre of attention. The girl stood there, a stranger to it all, looking about her. The others went to their places.

The girl saw there was a vacant place in the middle of the room and took a couple of steps towards it. Then she paused, and asked them, ‘Is this one free?’

They all looked at Siss: Siss who of late had become a different person; Siss whom they longed to get back again. Now they could show her how interested they were in her. Siss felt their sympathy like a wave, and it rebounded back from her, while her cheeks coloured: a fleeting joy she had not imagined possible.

‘No,’ she said to the girl, out of all these sensations.

The girl looked surprised.

‘It’s
never
free,’ said Siss, and the whole class straightened
up in their desks in a common recognition of something they had not known they felt: that they suddenly wished to defend Unn’s place. They looked at the innocent newcomer with dislike, as if she had already disgraced herself.

There were no more desks, and the girl remained standing in front of the class until the teacher arrived. The tension increased.

‘And now let’s find you a desk,’ he said, when the introductions were over. He looked at the class for a moment before taking the obvious decision. ‘You’d better take that desk there. It’s free now.’

The girl looked across at Siss.

Siss stood up. ‘It’s n-not free,’ she stuttered.

The teacher met her eyes and said calmly, ‘The desk ought to be used, Siss. I think that would be the best way.’

‘No!’

The teacher was in a quandary. He looked at the class and sensed from their expressions that they agreed with Siss.

‘There are desks out in the corridor that aren’t being used,’ said Siss, still on her feet.

‘Yes, I know there are.’

He turned to the newcomer. ‘The desk belonged to a girl who disappeared last autumn. I expect you read about it in the papers.’

‘Lots of times.’

‘And if her place isn’t there, she’ll never come back!’ exclaimed Siss – and at that moment her wild assertion did not seem absurd. A quiver passed through them all.

The teacher said, ‘I think that’s going too far, Siss. None of us should say things like that.’

‘But can’t the desk stay as it is?’

‘I like the way you feel, Siss, but you mustn’t go too far.
Wouldn’t it be better for someone to sit there for the time being? That would be quite natural. Nothing would be spoiled by that, would it?’

‘Yes, it would,’ said Siss, unable to think very far ahead in the tumult of the moment. She stared, shocked at the teacher, who could not understand her either.

The new girl was still standing in front of the class, unable to join them. It was obvious that she would have preferred to run away from it all. There was clearly a feeling of ill will against her for which she was not responsible. The class sat securely behind Siss in a topsy-turvy kind of satisfaction.

The teacher came to a decision.

‘All right, I’ll fetch another desk.’

Siss looked at him gratefully.

‘It’s not worth spoiling a thing like this,’ he added. He went out into the corridor.

At once their attitude towards the girl was changed. She was no enemy. She was welcome.

For some reason they asked Siss, who was crouching in her seat again. ‘You’ll join us again now, won’t you, Siss?’

She shook her head.

She could not tell them about the promise and that she had been given a great gift. All she was waiting for at that moment was to turn towards the teacher who came dragging the desk.

As we stand the snow falls thicker.

Your sleeve turns white.

My sleeve turns white.

They move between us like

snow-covered bridges.

But snow-covered bridges are frozen.

In here is living warmth.

Your arm is warm beneath the snow, and

a welcome weight on mine.

It snows and snows

upon silent bridges.

Bridges unknown to all.

A movement up in the treetops is the first warning. There is no wind, merely a current through the green tops of the conifers in the early evening. Only when night falls will it become a strong draught, a nocturnal stream.

Snow has fallen today, too. Everything is shining new and white, but the sky is heavy, the clouds low and smooth.

Now it begins. People out walking in it feel it and change to a different rhythm, as if wanting to get home in good time. How mild it is, they say to themselves. But they have no desire to speak. Now it begins.

The stream has increased and is flowing more strongly up in the forest. The pine needles stretch their tongues and sing an unfamiliar nocturnal song. Each tongue is so small that it cannot be heard; together the sound is so deep and powerful that it could level the hills if it wished. But the air is mild, the snow lies wet and unmoving below, no longer rising in snow flurries.

How mild it is, say the people out walking late. They leave the forest and come out on to open ground – and there they meet the mild stream itself. They are moved, and welcome it as they would a friendly envoy. It has been cold long enough – and it will probably be just as bitter again soon. But in this wind they are for a moment as they prefer to be. The wet wind in the winter darkness can make the face radiant.

Nothing has yet been released, but something will come; it is tied by its own warning up in the clouds. In this state
they finally return from their walk to the sleeping house. No one will know tomorrow that for a little while this evening they were radiant and altered.

In the morning and when it gets light it is still very mild, with the trees soughing and swaying. When the daylight comes the wet snow is seen to be scattered with minute black creatures; on every inch of snow, and for miles in all directions. They are alive, creeping as if on the move; recently they were a cloud, windborne and nightborne, a glimpse of what goes on in the universe, and they will turn into a stripe in the drift after the next snowfall.

March arrived with its clear sky after all the midwinter weather. Now the mornings came early, shining and frosty. The drifts had settled, making for good skiing. It was the time for ski trips, the time for the trip to the ice palace. It was the end of March now.

The class had decided on the ski trip one Saturday just before they went home. They would go on Sunday morning. The trip would be extra special, because Siss was coming with them.

They decided they had won Siss over. Three of them had approached her.

‘Come with us on the trip, Siss. Just this once.’

They were the three she liked best.

‘Oh no,’ she said.

Just those three. The group knew who to send.

The three had no intention of giving in at the first refusal.

‘Come with us, Siss. You simply can’t go on cutting us like this. We haven’t done anything to you.’

Siss had a strong current against her. She intended to go to the ice palace on her own, and yet …

The one of the three who knew she was the strongest took a step forward and said softly, ‘Siss, we want you to come with us.’

‘Siss,’ she repeated, even more softly, making it into a dangerous weapon of temptation. The other two stood stock-still, giving even more effect to her words.

And they were too strong. The promise was pushed a little aside, Siss answered in the same dangerous tone as her tempter had used and with which one answers tempters. ‘All right, I’ll come. But if I come we’re going to the ice palace.’

The three of them glowed, ‘Now you’re being sensible.’

Siss had a guilty conscience as soon as she was alone. But Father and Mother were so happy when they heard about it that the hurt seemed to come from that source.

In the morning the group collected and set out with a lot of shouting and noise. It was a frosty, clear morning, with a little loose snow on top of the firm foundation, as it should be when at its best. Everyone was pleased that the trip would take them past the waterfall, and there was general rejoicing that Siss was with them. Siss was conscious of their friendliness; it sustained her buoyantly as her skis did on the snow-crust with the new snow on top.

Everything was and was not as it should be.

They followed a track that would bring them to the river just below the waterfall. Here were great silent pools where ice had formed and where you could cross over if you wished. The waterfall roared in the silence. They went right up to it.

All of them had been here to see the ice palace once or twice during the winter, so it did not take their breath away – yet it towered above them, powerful and mysterious. It was shining and free of snow now. The March sun had found the way to it early today, and was playing over the ice formations.

They conscientiously remembered to say nothing to Siss about dangerous subjects. She understood this and felt simultaneously secure and embarrassed. She was secretly in
tumult at the sight of this place again. The men had cemented the link between the palace and herself that night. She would have to stay behind and take leave of the others here.

They feasted their eyes on the palace, listened to the roar of the falls which would soon become much stronger – and then they were ready to go on.

Siss stood stock-still. What they feared had happened. It had occurred to them that perhaps they had not won her over after all. They stood waiting for her to say so.

‘Look,’ she said, ‘I don’t think I’ll go any further. I really only wanted to come here.’

‘Why?’ asked someone. But one of the three tempters said at once, ‘Siss must decide. If she doesn’t want to come any further it’s none of our business.’

‘No. I’ll turn back here,’ said Siss, with her usual expression when she wanted to prevent opposition.

‘We’ll turn back, too, then,’ they said generously.

Siss was embarrassed. ‘No, of course not. Please. Can’t you go on as you’ve planned? I’d like to be here alone for a bit.’

Their faces fell. Can’t we stay with you? was written on them plainly. The solemn way she had talked about being there alone reminded them of how Siss had been all winter. It made them silent and constrained.

Siss saw from their expressions that the day was spoiled, but as far as she was concerned there was nothing to be done. It was too late; the promise had risen up inside her like a wall.

‘So you don’t want to be with us any more today?’

‘No, I’d rather not. You don’t understand, I know. It’s something I’ve promised,’ she said, startling them.

When she said it like that, they dimly realized that it was a promise made to Unn, and nobody knew whether she was alive or dead. In that case it was powerful and dangerous. It put a stop to all discussion.

‘You know I can find my way home on my own. I have our tracks to follow.’

Since she spoke so normally they regained their voices and were able to reply and even argue.

‘Yes, of course,’ they said, ‘but it’s not that.’

‘You’ve been standing by the wall the whole winter,’ one of them dared to say.

‘And we thought everything was going to be as it used to be.’

‘I’ll get home before you do,’ said Siss, who had no desire to discuss the matter.

‘Yes, but we thought everything
was
as it used to be, you see.’

‘Go on, and don’t talk like that,’ she pleaded.

They nodded to her and then, one by one, began to ski down the slope. They collected again on a small plateau, stood there as if in conference, and then swung away in a tightly knit group.

Siss, shamefaced and unhappy, ran on her floating skis back to the waterfall and the walls of ice. The roar drew her as if a voice were calling.

The memory of the men. They had stood here so strangely that night, as if something unexpected was about to happen. Because they believed it might have happened here. There was nowhere else to go when at one’s wits’ end.

She repeated the thought: I am at my wits’ end. The sort of thing people said many times a day without meaning it.

Shamefaced and unhappy she ran away from her
companions and straight into the roar, straight towards the ice palace.

It was just as alarmingly tall and strange from whichever angle you looked at it. Polished and sparkling, free of snow, and with a ring of cold around it in the middle of the mild March air in which it stood. The river, black and deep, moved out from under the ice, gathering speed on its way downward and taking with it everything that could be torn away.