The Ice Palace (12 page)

Siss stood there for a long time. She wished she could have stood as the men had done before they left, just before the start of the sombre song.
They
had stood in the flickering lantern-light as if they expected the missing child to emerge before their very eyes and tell them that there was nothing to find. Siss could not believe such a thing.

A great bird sliced past, making her start, but by that time it was already out of sight.

Nothing to search for here, nothing to find. But all the same … For the sake of the grown men …

She decided to stay. She took off her skis and walked on the firm snow up along the ice wall. The ice palace alone was fascinating enough, the way it had built itself up out of spurting and trickling moisture. Now all of it was compact and strong. Siss decided to go to the very top, to climb about there, simply to be there.

When she came up she looked out over a confusion of ice shapes. It was all blown clean of snow. Cautiously she let herself slide out on to the sloping ice, down into deep gulleys, half afraid that it might not be strong enough after all – and with the gnawing thought: perhaps it was like
this,
exactly like this that it happened?

Just now she had left her friends shamefacedly. Now she
was shamefaced because she had somehow betrayed something when she went with them, forgotten her promise for the tempting eyes and lips of friendship and a ski trip. No, not the ski trip, but it had meant a great deal to be with them. It had gradually become more difficult to resist. She had resisted until she was worn out.

Siss’s feelings were in tumult up there on the tall, intricate dome of ice. She let herself slide along gulleys and down into fissures and came out on to a shelf some way down and at the very edge, facing the sun and the falls. She was in tumult on account of the place. She climbed down a hollow of transparent, solid ice. The sun shone on it and sparkled in hundreds of different patterns.

She screamed as she did so: for there was Unn! Straight in front of her, looking out through the ice wall.

In a flash she thought she saw Unn, deep in the ice.

The strong March sun was shining directly on her, so that she was wreathed in glinting brightness, all kinds of shining streaks and beams, curious roses, ice roses and ice ornaments, decked as if for some great festivity.

Siss, paralysed from head to foot, took it all in. For a moment she was unable to move or to make a sound beyond her first scream. She realized she was seeing a vision. She often heard about people who had had visions; now she was one of them. She was seeing a vision, seeing Unn, for the brief while she could bear to look at all.

The vision did not fade, it seemed. It remained unmoving in the ice – but it was too overpowering for Siss to look at. It had come like an assault.

Unn was enormous in this vision behind the running ice walls, much bigger than she should have been. It was really only her face that showed; the rest of her was vague.

Sharp rays of light cut across the picture, coming from unseen fissures and angles. There was a dazzling brilliance about Unn that made it difficult to grasp. Siss could not bear the sight. She regained the use of her limbs and crawled over into other hollows, without a thought other than that of hiding. She had gazed too long as it was; she was trembling.

When she came to her senses she was a good distance away. She thought: it must have disappeared by now, too. Visions do disappear quickly.

So it must have meant that Unn was dead.

Of course. Unn is dead.

Siss went to pieces as the realization struck her. This thing that she had not wanted to think, had not mentioned to herself, but which had been a horror in the background all the time- – and which people round about had certainly said so often and so openly – now there was no way of avoiding it. She had to believe it.

As she lay thinking she heard a swish close behind her, felt a sudden puff of wind, saw a streak in the air – all at once. Very close.

She shivered. It was cold lying on the ice. She began to crawl along in the slippery cavities. The way back was more difficult. Beneath her, in the ice, there was a curious play of sparkling fissures and light effects all the time. Occasionally it looked dangerous; she slid on to places without intending to. But she managed to climb up again. When she reached the top everything seemed so depressing and difficult. She stood looking out and began to wonder whether she really had seen anything.

Of course she had.

And she thought: One day in the spring this whole
mountain of ice will be smashed to smithereens. It will crack up, and the floodwater will take it, smash it, tear it away on its downward course, dash it into even smaller fragments against the rocks, and wash it all out into the lower lake – and that will be the end of it.

Siss imagined herself standing there that day, watching it happen. She imagined, too, for a second that she was standing up on the ice palace at that moment – but she rejected the thought immediately.

No.

Siss found her skis again. Instead of putting them on she sat down on the warm wood on the warm, sunny slope. She had not yet come to her senses sufficiently. She was bewildered by the vision of Unn, ornamented with ice.

One thing was certain: she could never tell anyone about this. Not anyone in the whole world!

Why should she have seen this? Had she forgotten Unn too often?

Not a word to Father and Mother; not a word to Auntie, not to anyone.

Had she seen it? Had she perhaps dozed off up there in the sun, and dreamed for an instant? When she looked about her in the sunshine, sitting on her skis, it was easy to believe she had imagined it all.

No, it wasn’t so easy as that. She was quivering all over. That doesn’t happen after a brief dream.

She managed to put on her skis with trembling fingers. She looked up at the ice palace and thought: I expect I’m seeing it for the last time. I daren’t come here again.

And she set her skis in motion.

Siss came home tired and sweating after her run. They saw, crestfallen, that all was not as it should be.

‘Are you back already? Did you feel ill?’

‘No, it’s nothing.’

‘But we know the others won’t be coming home for a long time yet. We phoned to find out.’

‘I turned back at the waterfall.’

‘But why?’

‘It’s nothing,’ she replied to their nervous questions. ‘I felt I couldn’t manage the whole trip, and so I went with them as far as the river.’

‘You
couldn’t manage it?’

‘I’m all right now, though. I felt I couldn’t manage it just for a while.’

Her explanation did not ring true. She was not usually the first to give up.

‘We’re upset about this,’ said her father.

‘Yes. We were happy today. We thought you’d got over it at last,’ said her mother. ‘We thought things were going to be just as they used to be.’

Got over it, they said.

They cut right through and drew out the truth about what she was expected to do: get over it. It was easy to say, but how could that happen as long as the vision was dancing before her eyes? She realized she had lied to little purpose; they could not be taken in. But at any rate she could keep her mouth shut. She would willingly have pleased them in some way at that moment but could not lie to do – and how else could she do so? She looked at her mother in silence.

‘Go and take a bath and wash off all that sweat,’ said Mother. ‘Then we can talk about it later.’

‘What should we talk about later?’

‘Off you go. The water’s hot.’

Her mother’s usual advice when she came home after some tussle or other: into the bathtub. Go and take a bath.

She lay in the warm water but saw the face among flashing ice roses and glinting light. It was ever-present. The fatigue and well-being after such a trip were waiting over in the corner but were unable to approach. Here were walls of ice with a face inside them four times too big.

Something enormous that she had to bear alone, that had to be hidden among her innermost thoughts, among the thoughts she never dared let pass her lips.

It said: Siss.

No no, it said nothing.

But the face was just behind the warm steam.

Siss? it said. Panic lay in wait, in spite of the bath. It had lain in wait all the way home, now it seized her. There were ice walls, eyes -

‘Mother!’ she shouted.

Mother was there in a trice as if she had been expecting it. Siss was small. But she did not forget to keep silent about what had happened.

What about the promise now?

What is this that is about me? A nudging wind, playing affectionately with my hair. A gentle wind – as if unpractised.

Unn will never come back to meet me, as the promise said. What of it, then, now that Unn is dead?

Siss stood by herself again at school the next day, and went home alone. She had to shut herself in when she got there. The vision in the ice palace had been so powerful that she had to guard against talking about it all the time and wherever she might be. If she let it loose in front of others the panic would seize her.

She was forced to stay in her bedroom and read, or wander about alone out of doors. It was too dangerous to have her parents’ eyes on her: they might breach the dam; it might spill over. They were expecting something, she knew very well. But she could not approach them. They could remark quite calmly: ‘We see scarcely anything of you, Siss.’

‘No,’ she replied.

They said no more, though they had her cornered. It made her feel insecure.

Why did I see Unn?

So that I should not forget her?

Of course.

It seemed to her that Unn was forgotten. Nobody talked about her; she never heard the name mentioned. Not at home, not at school. As if Unn had never existed, thought
Siss, outraged. I’m the only one who remembers. And her Auntie, I expect she remembers. And she hasn’t sold her house and gone away.

Who else thinks about Unn?

The question was urgent. It was so important that Siss had to test it. She tested it one morning in the classroom just before a lesson. Everybody was there except the teacher. She did not want him mixed up in this. She had to brace herself to do it.

She made her stand, plucked up courage, and spoke at the room so that everyone could hear, making it sound almost like an announcement:
‘Unn.’

Just the bare name. She could do it in no other way. They would probably understand.

Nothing happened immediately, if that was what she had expected. Their faces turned towards her, of course, and the chatter ceased, but after that there was merely a silence.

They were probably waiting for further surprises. When nothing came they began to exchange glances. Still nobody uttered a sound. Siss thought they seemed shocked. She looked around her cautiously.

Was there a wall of animosity? No, there was no wall. They were perplexed.

She was perplexed, too. She should never have thought of it.

At last someone replied. It was not one of the girls and therefore close to her but the boy who had nudged her with his boot. She had noticed that he had come to the fore on various occasions recently. It was he who replied sharply, ‘We haven’t forgotten her.’

As if cutting off something.

One of the girls joined in. ‘No, of course we haven’t – if that’s what you think.’

Siss was burning with shame. She realized that she was on the wrong track in her isolation. She stammered, ‘No, it was only –’

She ducked down, nonplussed on account of all she could have told them and that would have caused them distress.

I’m not alone in remembering, but this is something people aren’t talking about. Why don’t they talk about it? It’s unlike them.

Siss started occasionally at the thought: Now the cottage is sold, Auntie’s cottage. Now Auntie will go.

The next day she went past it on her way home. She saw that someone was still there and that Auntie’s things were outside.

Since the house isn’t sold, Auntie believes it.

Siss was caught one day as she was passing the house in this way. She had come too near and was seen. Auntie came to the door and beckoned to her.

‘Come here, Siss!’

When she came, reluctant and tense, Auntie said, ‘I believe I promised to tell you if I were to sell and leave.’

‘Yes. Have you?’

Auntie nodded.

So it was sold. What has she found out? At the same moment as I was at the ice palace? Nonsense. Say more, wished Siss, and Auntie did so. She said without evasion, ‘I’m certain now that there’s nothing more to wait for.’

Do you
know
that?’

‘I don’t
know,
and yet – I do know just the same. So I’ve sold the cottage. And I’m going away.’

Strangely enough Siss felt secure. Auntie would not say: Now that I’m going, surely you can tell me everything that
you didn’t want to talk about before? She would not say it. ‘Are you leaving tomorrow then?’

‘Why do you say that? Why tomorrow?’ Auntie looked at her sharply. ‘Had you heard already?’

‘No. But every day I’ve thought, I expect she’ll leave tomorrow.’

‘Well, you’ve guessed right at last, for I
am
leaving tomorrow. That was why I called to you. It was lucky I saw you going past. If you hadn’t come by I had thought of looking in on
you
this evening.’

Siss said nothing. It was strange to hear Auntie telling her that she was leaving. It was terribly sad. Auntie was silent for a while, too, but then she remembered something.

‘Besides, I called you because I’d like to go for a walk this evening just the same. My last evening. I wanted to ask whether you’d come with me?’

A twinge of joy.

‘Yes! Where do you want to go?’

‘Nowhere. I just want to walk about for a bit.’

‘But I must go home first. I came straight from school.’