And so they head home. They say their thank-yous and goodbyes, and in a cluster they wander out to the gate and through it. A few more steps and the boys start to run. Run and compete, punch each other, shout. The girls walk on properly and modestly past the parsonage, then they too run down to the church dock. Some of the boys have been allowed to take boats, space enough for everyone. They arrange themselves by destination, jump into the boats so lightly that they bounce, flywheels turn, the Wickström motors start with a clatter, their exhaust shooting out like white flames. Laughter and shouts as they jostle their way out through the harbour entrance, last man out’s a monkey, and at breakneck speed they crowd out into open water and separate, east villagers to the east, west villagers to the west.
The pastor and the organist stand there smiling and watch them go. “Just think if we’d been that free when we were that age,” says the pastor longingly. “What would it be like if human life was organized so that we could hold on to youth’s passion and boldness even after we’d gained experience and self-control.” He turns to the organist. “Were you like that as well, a generation earlier?”
“As far as I remember,” the organist says. “But boys didn’t get to take the boat, we had to walk and wade and take rowing boats across the sound. It was a real trek. But still fun when we went in a group. On our way to church we were free from our chores and had a legal right to hang out together. We were often glad it was so far. But the pleasures of youth are not shared out equally. It was a heavy trip for those who had to walk alone.” Then he adds, as an afterthought, “And what you say about their being so free, we didn’t see it that way. And I’ll wager they don’t, either.”
“No,” the pastor says. “There’s a lot we don’t understand until we’ve lost it. Heavens, I sound like Ibsen.” He looks embarrassed, but suddenly the parsonage door opens and Grandpa Leonard and Sanna come down the steps, wrapped up well against the cold. Leonard starts calling and talking from a distance, can’t stop the words from tumbling out as soon as he has someone in sight. He talks about the candidates, pleasant youngsters, nice to see young people in good spirits getting along together. “I’m sure these boat trips lay the foundations for any number of marriages,” he predicts. “And so they should. What better way to meet than in youth, at Bible study, which is the gateway to life as an adult?”
He appropriates the organist and wanders off with him, the pastor following with Sanna’s hand in his. He has devoted himself to teaching confirmation candidates, and they have no idea what they have taught him—to be happy, and quick, warm in body and full of desire. It would be ingratitude without compare not to affirm the freedom in the life he now lives. To experience all this after his sullen, inhibited youth is the very epitome of grace.
PART TWO
Chapter Twelve
When the ice sets, you need to keep your ears open and your eyes on stalks. How the ice freezes, where there are dangerous currents. Which way the wind is blowing. Black streaks for weak ice, green for glass smooth, milky blue like a blind eye for the thin layer above an invisible hole—you need to know how to watch for such things. Obvious things. Always have an ice pike and a knife in your belt. Listen to the way the ice creaks. Don’t be timid, because then you’ll get nowhere. Don’t be foolhardy, because then the ice will swallow you. The water is cold, you know, and deep.
In addition, there is another way of seeing and hearing that can’t be explained. It’s like seeing and hearing alongside others who have been out there from time immemorial and know everything about the weather and the ice, although they exist in a sphere from which they cannot reach out a hand and call “Beware!” It is you yourself who must listen and see and grasp what they mean. They are there, and their messages and warnings are laid out before you, if only you will see them.
I don’t know how it began. When I noticed them. When they noticed me. As I grew up, we were many children and I was almost never alone. But I was only a little thing when I knew they were there. When I went outside, they stood as close around me as my brothers and sisters did indoors. Not unnatural, not supernatural. Just the world as I heard and saw it. They were part of it, nothing more.
When you are a suckling babe, mama’s teat is the first thing you know about. The second is the weather. They talk about it all around you all the time. About the outlook, about how long it will last. When it will change. The way the sun goes down in clouds or how, still shining, it sinks straight into the sea and sputters like a fireball. The look of the cloudbanks. How currents of cold air move in. The way heat can stand like a wall, while a storm butts its head against the other side. The way the building groans, which is a sign, and you need to know what they mean by it.
A toddler stands on the steps and holds on, which is all he can do to keep from tumbling over. But he has already learned that what there is outside is the weather. That it’s full of messages and warnings. That there are voices and eyes and mouths which you don’t see but which you can hear and see within yourself. I don’t remember when I became aware of it, it’s a thing that was there in me before my memory began to flicker into life. Then I remembered that it had always been so for me.
I was like every other pup of a boy and thought that when people talked about the weather they all meant the same thing I meant. That the weather was the world, and that they were as tight in the world as a hazel thicket whenever there was danger afoot. I remember one time when I was out on the ice as a little boy. I knew suddenly that I needed to get to land as quickly as I could, for they were about to pull the ice out from under my feet. And believe me, the ice broke up behind me as I scurried towards land. But my shoes were dry when I climbed the cliff, and there they knocked me down and smacked me against the rock so hard my whole shank was black and blue. They taught me a lesson that day. You must make your ears hear what they say, although it’s not like ordinary talk or the radio or a voice on the telephone.
It is something outside me that speaks to something inside me. And shows me the look of things, though it’s not like in a theatre or a movie. Then I know where to go, and the mare that pulls the mail from the ship channel at Mellom knows she can count on me even when the ice is creaking. And when I leave her to walk in to a house on one of the outer islands, she stands quietly on the ice and waits, because even though she’s smart and gentle, she doesn’t see what I see, and she knows it. They crowd around her and she feels that they’re there, but she doesn’t know what they mean, and they don’t know much about horses. I’ve learned that from experience.
The thing with them and me is that we have something in common. Although they’re no longer like real human beings, nevertheless they once were, and therefore it’s possible to understand the signs and warnings they set out. So you can move securely when you use your common sense and watch out for the things they’re constantly showing you, in pictures, sort of, or inarticulate sounds. They wake you up, make you lift your chin from where it was buried in your fur collar, and look. They’ve opened a passage somewhere and send you an echo to prick up your ears. You can make your way through great dangers with the help of such signs.