The Ice Palace (15 page)

But it is so unpleasant to see casements swinging open without reason. You don’t know what is true and what is imagination.

Siss lay tense and calm at the same time. Not numb with shock but prepared for more, should it come; letting it devastate her in the dark relapse she was in.

Her thoughts ran on. Tomorrow is my last day, flashed through her mind. That’s why the window opened. There
is
something about that ice palace tomorrow. Something will happen at the palace. Fear can resemble a crackling sound in a frozen ditch. Her limbs felt curiously alien.

It was I who thought up this trip for them; I had no difficulty persuading them to come. But something will go wrong at the ice palace tomorrow.

It’s the last day. The big white piece of ice is quivering. The river is pounding against it and will shatter it.

She could see it all. The whole group, excited, running about – though they did not share her secret experiences. They would climb all over it, out on to the roof, on to the domes of ice. She would call into the terrible roar that it was dangerous! but she would not be heard. They would climb out on to the roof and she herself would climb it first when it came to the point. They would signal to each other wildly out on the top that it was dangerous and climb higher – but that would be the moment, as she had known. It was this the palace and the river had been waiting for. She had known it all along. Now it would crash. They would stand out on top, she had drawn them all with her into this horror. Gaping
cracks would open beneath their feet, the palace would totter and fall forward under the pressure of the water with all of them on top of it, down into the seething channel, and that would be the end. She had known it all along, ever since the moment when the men stood there with their sombre song of sorrow.

As she fixed her eyes on the open window this took shape in her mind. She had no difficulty inventing it. It was there; she saw exactly what would happen the next day. Not in panic but as a stranger watching – though involved herself.

Am I going to
do
this tomorrow?

Must I?

No, no!

There was a breathing from the quiet aperture. She did not go over and shut the window again. She was no longer afraid of the dark, but all the same she could not face reaching for the window with outstretched arm.

I’m not afraid of the dark, she had said to Auntie in parting, and at that moment she had not been afraid.

I must be afraid after all. I’m not going over to shut that window.

She had a couple of coats hanging in her cupboards. She fetched them and laid them on the bed so as not to get cold in the draught from the gaping aperture. She could not turn her back on it, nor switch off the lamp. She could not be in the darkness with the thought that it was open – she lay looking straight at it until she remembered nothing more.

The Sunday morning was frosty before the sun took hold in earnest. There was a slight crackle from frozen trickles of water on the dun-coloured fields when Siss left home. They had agreed to meet very early for their trip to the palace in the waterfall.

Siss did not turn and look back at her home – the numb wakeful night had not affected her to that extent. My last day? Nonsense. Now it was morning and one thought differently.

But for her it was a tense morning.

The water that had frozen was only the brittle silver ornamentation that forms among the grass roots on frosty April nights – the water did not seem to have paused; it left its trace on everything. It filled all existence, cascading in all the rivulets – its singing never so clear as on a holiday morning, whatever the reason. The big lake was brimful after the thaw, with a haze above it, large and small ice floes floating in it, and its shores black. Beyond it all, unheard at such a distance, flowed the great river, thundering with giant power.

A thunder that was familiar to Siss and that she was about to seek with trepidation.

Anything but stop. The excitement of rising sap, the excitement of the scent of damp earth – her heart quivered as she walked among it all. Soft-toned, inciting woodwind players had come, enmeshing Siss in sad and joyful enchantment.

We are woodwind players, enchanted by things we cannot resist.

Everything is naked and new. A rock stands in running water. It sticks out, motionless, like a lifted axe, parting the moments for us, so that we can get there quickly enough. We are expected. A witless small bird plunges towards the rock and lies in the heather, then flutters up and does not appear again.

We are expected.

We are among the white stems of the birch trees before we realize it. One moment we were on our way; now we are here. We are expected.
The brief time left to us will be spent here.

A bird passes overhead. A birch-clothed promontory runs out into the lake. Our brief time.

Siss said to herself, Today I shall go back to the others.

Is that why?

What
is why? The question seemed to come up against a blank wall.

It was not quite clear why.

Siss was out so early that she thought she would be first at the meeting place. It would make it simpler for her. She was going back to the others after shutting herself away from them – for that reason she wanted to meet them one by one as they arrived. To walk towards the whole crowd would take more courage than perhaps she had.

But as it turned out there was someone else who had thought of being first and was. When Siss arrived the reticent leader-girl was already there. Without a word and without anyone appearing to know why, she had taken control as soon as Siss had begun standing by herself at school. She was energetic and firm and was immediately accepted. Siss
had stood watching this through the winter and had begun to long for her company but had never approached her. Now she went forward composedly and nodded good morning.

Siss said, ‘Are you here already?’

‘I could say the same.’

‘I thought it would be easier to be here when they arrived,’ said Siss frankly.

‘Yes, easier for you. I guessed that. That’s why I left early. I wanted to meet you before the others got here.’

‘What’s it about?’ Siss asked against her better judgement.

‘Oh-h-h, about you know what.’

They looked at each other tentatively. They were not enemies, they both observed. Siss forced back her longing for companionship; that would have come later, if at all. She felt, too, that she did not have the upper hand. But the girl’s face was unrecognizably tense; it had always been smooth and serene before.

‘It was fun going home with you yesterday, Siss. I could see that everyone thought so.’

Siss said nothing.

‘You, too.’

‘Yes,’ said Siss softly.

‘But you can’t get out of it because of that,’ said the girl, trying to steel herself.

‘Get out of what?’

‘Oh, I think you know. We must talk about this before the others come.’

Her voice was more strained. She persisted. ‘It
hasn’t
been fun this winter, Siss.’

Siss reddened.

The girl persisted. ‘Why did you do it?’

‘It wasn’t
against
anyone. It wasn’t like that -’ faltered Siss.

She was about to say that she had promised, but remembered that the girl knew this well enough. Everyone must have heard about that promise. It wasn’t any use now. The attractive girl said to Siss: ‘We felt as if it
was
against us, too. Surely you could have stayed with us?’ The leader-girl’s eyes were scornful.

Siss ducked and replied, ‘I didn’t think I could, so there. And so I didn’t either.’

‘And you stood there just the way she did.’

Siss flared up. ‘You’re not to talk about her! If you mention her, I’ll -’

Now it was the leader-girl who was flushed and unhappy and who stammered, ‘No, of course not! I didn’t mean –’

But she pulled herself together quickly. She knew that the group whose leader she was had nothing to be ashamed of in this matter. Siss had made that test, too, and learned a lesson from it. She drew herself up and looked calmly at Siss.

Siss felt the power radiating from her, sensed her strength. It had been hidden, but this winter it had sprung out into the daylight – it had happened in just the same way to the boy with the boot.

‘You mustn’t mind my saying this,’ said the girl.

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

Siss nodded.
We
must get together, she thought.

The girl asked cautiously, ‘What do you want to show us there?’

‘At the ice?’

‘Yes. There must be something.’

‘There is, but I can’t tell you about it,’ answered Siss helplessly. ‘You must come yourselves.’

‘It all seems so strange when you talk about it.’

‘None of you saw it, did you? You weren’t there that night, were you?’

‘No,’ said the girl shyly.

They fell silent and stood there together. We shall stand here for a long time.

‘I expect they’ll be here soon,’ said the girl.

‘Yes.’

‘What’s the matter?’

Siss was nervous and altered. She looked at the seemingly strange girl standing there, the same age as herself. We shall look at each other in a mirror! she thought haphazardly. What’s the matter? she had asked. A question at the very moment when she was off balance, spellbound by her companion because the same thing was happening all over again. Siss said, ‘Yes, you see -’

The girl waited.

Siss began again.

‘You see, so much that’s impossible is happening.’

‘Yes, Siss.’

Nothing much. Just: Yes, Siss. Yet it went straight to the heart. We must get together somehow.

At once a wandering shadow came between them. She started and said headlong, ‘But you mustn’t come to me!’

‘What?’

‘And I mustn’t go to you!’

‘What?’

‘Or it will happen all over again,’
said Siss wildly.

The leader-girl gripped Siss tightly. ‘Now don’t go off again – we’re with you. You mustn’t go off again now.’

Siss only felt the blessed grip.

‘Are you listening?’

‘Yes,’ said Siss.

The strong girl let her go. It could not last longer. Siss turned half away, tore at a willow twig and picked off the buds. There was a chattering just behind the trees, and in spite of everything it felt like a liberation.

The stern girl said quickly, ‘Here are some of the others. I’m glad -’

‘So am I.’

They were surrounded by three or four others who arrived with happy faces.

‘Hello, Siss.’

‘Hello.’

Siss’s plan, to meet them one by one, had come to nothing. The leader-girl made it impossible.

The rest of them arrived, and they started out.

The reticent girl said nothing now, merely mingled with the group. One of the boys was leading the way. Siss must have noticed him. Without being entirely aware of it, she skied beside him for a while. He had turned her over with his boot so kindly one miserable day. And since that day he had been a leader. He had been around on other occasions, too, but they had not been like that day with the boot.

She found something to say.

‘Is it you who knows the shortest way?’

‘Yes,’ he answered abruptly.

‘Have you been this way often?’

‘No,’ he said in embarrassment, snubbing her.

Siss fell behind.

How ought I to behave today?

They radiated through the wood, scattering and coming
together again. Siss noticed how they made her the centre of attention and was ashamed. But it was not unpleasant. The stern girl seemed to have disappeared, using none of her authority. The others for the most part kept close to Siss, not saying much, for this was a solemn outing and they wanted to show they were aware of it.

No one let themselves go. If anyone started making a noise he was stopped by a hostile silence which he understood. They all knew that this was a memorial pilgrimage.

The ice palace stood for something special for Siss, they knew. Siss was going there and wanted them to come with her for some reason. They accepted this, and that was why it was no ordinary ski trip but a solemn occasion.

Now they had reached the first valley.

They would be going straight across small valleys today. The sun had become strong and warmed the heather and last year’s pale grasses. It smelled like some magic morning when one was quite small, and now it lay like ballast, heavy inside them. All that one did not yet know. There was a little of it in that smell. They moved solemnly, but the low tones of the woodwind players made their eyes wild.

Siss was kept in the centre. If she tried to move to one side they gathered around her again. She looked across at the bluff, silent leader-girl and thought: They mustn’t.

In the first valley. Then up the slope – and there on the hill they knew you could see the waterfall in the distance. They hurried up the slope for that reason.

And there it was. Far away the great ice palace stood white in its frame of dark spring fields. It had not been crushed by the floodwater.

Siss felt their eyes on her.

‘Shall we get our breath here?’ she asked.

She did not need to, nor did any of this vigorous group, but they sat down for a while and looked over towards the palace and the waterfall.

Wasn’t that right? The boy who had led the way was standing in front of her, asking her privately, ‘Shall we turn back here?’

She shot up. ‘Turn back?’

Had he seen correctly? Had she wanted to avoid something? What was she afraid of? She was not sure.

‘Why do you ask that? Surely we’re not going to turn back?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘but in that case can’t we go on?’

‘Of course.’

There was no release yet for the group. They skied along in the same way as before, bound by the unusual event. In this fashion the little procession passed down into the second valley. The land sloped steeply downwards. The view disappeared at once.

But this time is for Siss.

They skied quietly and in silence. Anyone used to seeing them every day in the schoolyard would not have believed they were the same people.