"When I carried you ashore you kept yourself very stiff. But halfway there you suddenly sighed and wound your arms round my neck. At once the going became easier for a stiff body is hard to carry."

Inger went red, she didn't remember anything of that, no doubt, subconscious movement, besides the weather at that time had been really abominable, no, not abominable, but beastly. No, not even beastly, there had been a storm, the first storm she had ever experienced on the sea, and this accounted for quite a lot. Nevertheless she felt strangely warm and good for having wound her arms round this clumsy man's neck. Very strange. How had she been that bold?

She didn't know, all of a sudden she didn't know anything, but she felt sad, very sad and glad, so that she had to fight to hold her tears back. She was sad for something, something seemed to threaten not to take place or happen. This so familiar feeling and in addition something entirely new, altogether new.

She wanted to go, walk, as long and as fast that she could take off and fly.

In the beginning there was an autumn storm. This storm was going on, it was sucking in and absorbing all Inger's sensations and experiences up to now. The storm pervaded her, from head to foot, it lived in her like music in a record. The sounds had waited for their turn, now they were on the verge of being released, taking flight and filling her to the brim. The storm was going on, it had been revived again, had come out of hibernation.

The storm was going on.

I know it mustn't be. Must not, isn't possible, can't be.

I'd like to see you. I want you to hold me, to lift me on to your knee, to hug me so that my breath'll catch, to caress my hair and body, to whisper sweet words in my ear, to be my own, entirely, to the least atom, so that I knew you, so clumsy and strong. So that your brown eyes looked at me, caressed and delighted me. So that you talked to me. So that you talked with me about everything, in every way there is, the way the wind talks with trees, the sea talks with the shore.

I know it mustn't be. Must not, isn't possible, can't be.

Why ever not? she asked herself almost aboil. Why not? Is there anything evil or unnatural about it?

And she was surprised that she could have any doubts at all. Where did that spasm-like fear come from? Was it her sense of responsibility?

I know it mustn't be. I don't know why, but it mustn't be. Have you any idea, Arne, how hopeless it is?

Has it ever been more promising?

How it's going to end is anyone's guess. Perhaps with a big scandal, with hue and cry, with banal words striking incurable wounds into the soul. And deadlier for whom, her or Arne? Oh God, if you do exist, keep us safe, and if you don't, keep us safe nevertheless, safe and protected. We'll be between the Devil and the deep blue sea, both of us, who'll keep us safe and protected? We're naked and shy like moulting birds.

Love is light. It can burn us, can destroy us, can make us happy. Us–who so? Are we actually wandering about in the darkness?

Outside, it was snowing silvery flakes, the wind was gusty and the shadows of the trees, were dancing. Inger was asleep, but, the sun had been up for quite a while now, and the branches of the aspen were moving. It was time to rise and shine, but Inger was still asleep and dreaming. It wasn't of note whether she was awake or dreaming, whether it was actual existence or dreamland when the storm was hack and the little boat was coming in with the Plague on hoard.

Come, come here, come up the stairs, come into my room, be here stay here!

And again Inger felt a strange uncontrollable urge to fly. To fly and meet the one who was coming, breath caught in her throat, with a foretaste of happiness, and to vanish, to melt away.

Inger didn't love yet. At least such were the words in which she measured out her feelings on her way to school.

But she was already in waiting, in a joyful and tender waiting. Not for some patched up paragon, but for a person for a man just the way he was–brown all over likeable and clumsy.

What if she asked for a little time–for herself? In order to step, for just a moment, out of the stream of humdrum life, out of that lazy indifferent river, to live, for a while, only for him and herself.

I'd give you the trees, the sun, the dazzle of the snow. My memories and my mind, to say nothing of my heart. I'd give away the system of times, the whole visible and invisible world–if only I knew where it is and what it is. Take it all, take me all, with all the things I am.

Inger was so generous now. While she was still assuring herself that she didn't love yet.

But nevertheless I love you, she said in the evening. How sad you don't know it. When you come, these will be the very first words I'll tell you, my darling.

In an evening Arne came, Inger hung up his padded jacket and led him into the other room not able to utter a word all of a dither, her mouth dry. She remembered her promise, but could only smile helplessly. It seemed absolutely impossible and somehow needless to say these words now that Arne himself was here, in her room, homely and near with his white teeth and brown eyes. He sat down on a chair and at once turned with his whole body towards Inger, looking with his warm friendly eves inquiringly in hers. He sat in this, way for a long time as if asking: so where do we go from here? and Inger saw that his dark slightly wavy hair was flecked with silver at the temples.

Arne caught her glance and said.

"Why are you looking at me girl? I'm already an old man." It wasn't true. Nonetheless Inger nodded. At that moment she was bereft of her own will and whatever the man would have said now, she would have nodded in agreement. She was charmed, bewitched, deaf, mute and blinded. She could only look at the man her eyes as wide as saucers.

"Why are you so sad, girl?"

"I'm not," Inger said, low-toned, and bent her head. "It isn't sadness."

The man eyed her in silence, or rather didn't, just sat facing her, hands on knees, and kept silent. The storm was going on, the autumn storm of yester-year, the sea was thundering and crashing against a far-off shore, washing over their heads, furious and forceful, trees cracking. Here only a feeble muffled echo filled the room.

"Everything's all right, Inger ... " the man said deep in thought, but in Inger these words ripped something apart, her grey eyes widened and became almost black and misty, however hard she tried to keep a good grip on herself.

"No, it isn't," she said in a low tone with such agony that the man winced. "It isn't ... "

Arne rose from his seat and came up to Inger. During this step or two he took, which he could have left untaken as well, seeing Inger was sitting so close that their knees were almost touching, the brown man felt that somehow or other these steps would dip the scales, not unlike a leap into the unknown, into the inevitability. At that moment he saw through the curtainless window the bare aspens, a light evening sky and knew he shouldn't take these steps since they would destroy his habitual pattern of life, would cast sharp, painful rays of light on his entire past life, would break in him something he wouldn't know how or would have no strength to patch up afterwards. All this the brown man felt by instinct, vaguely, and still he stepped up to Inger and tentatively stroked the girl's cheek with his callous, work-roughened hand. All tension evaporated, entered the caress of this hand, became one with trust flowing from this strong, firm hand.

"It's all right," Arne said soothingly. "Don't cry, my love!"

He kissed Inger's hair. "Things will straighten out, won't they? Everything ... " His words dried out, he didn't know what was all right and what must be straightened out, his only aim was to comfort the girl.

Inger seized the man's hand and pressed it against her cheek. "Why didn't you come? Where have you been? I've been waiting for you for ages!"

"Don't cry, girl, I'm here now."

The man lifted the still weeping girl, seated her on his lap and caressed her hair and cheeks, tucked loose strands behind her ear, trying to console her.

"I wanted to come long ago, I did, all the time. But couldn't get up courage. Still down at the foot of the stairs, my heart began thudding away a mile a minute, I thought: how can I go? No, it isn't done. What shall I tell her? Who can tell what she'll make of it ... I'd better go wandering on the shore, just loiter about. It was touch and go, I was almost turning tail ... "

"You're brown all over," said Inger, fighting her sobs. "Even your nose is brown, you're a brown man, a brown bear."

"Slightly scorched, toasted brown ... " he said a glimmer of a smile lighting his face.

"Tell me about yourself. I don't know the first thing about you. You only come, sit down and go ... "

"From day to day moving in a rut, in the morning I go to work and drive the truck all day long. In the evening I go home, have a meal, read a newspaper, dog-tired, fall asleep. On Sundays I build the house. What's there to tell?" He became serious and silent. All in one, it was so tedious, so cut-and-dried, why bother telling about it. But Inger had snuggled against him ready to listen and this gave him some courage.

"It could be told in a couple of sentences, the life I live ... " Again he was silent for a little while. "I wasn't able, hadn't any time to think it could be lived otherwise ... Since autumn there's been a strange restlessness, everything seems so barmy and banal, so futile. No, don't you think I'm turning out such tricky phrases to impress you–I really felt that something wasn't the way it should be. Nothing's ever changed. What's there for me? The house will soon be ready, then I'll start putting by for a car. Suppose, I've already got the car, what shall I do then? I kept mulling over it and began to study. How long shall I be beavering away like that, where will it get me? My wife goes to work and is rearing children. I'm earning money, that's the way I live ... "

He fell silent, he'd started to recount the details of the situation at home, talking about his wife, children, and again he gave Inger a somehow flustered look. Inger sat on his lap and even after the man had left off speaking, kept listening to him.

"I don't know, maybe ... " the man said calmly. "But that's the way I lived."

"And you're slightly scorched?"

"Treated with fire and. water." Arne said jokingly and added seriously, sincerely. "I've got a bottle of dry wine in my overcoat pocket. Do you want it?"

"I do."

Arne had everything, she had nothing. No, cut it out! Her big joy was that Arne existed, had found her had tracked her down came to see her, drank dry wine, told about his life and about his children. It was a great delight wasn't it that Inger delighted the man, that she could he something to him.

It was happiness wasn't it? She couldn't contain it, it frothed over. Now she was patient, cheerful, obliging, she even let her worst sluggards in the seventh form talk trash and gave them not only second but twentieth chance to answer the same thing again without losing her serenly joyful air.

As a matter of fact, nothing had happened. Or had it? What at all did 'happen' denote?

Arne was a magnet which attracted Inger gave meaning to her life, cleansed and aired her. But Arne had a world of his own which Inger couldn't nor was allowed to break up.

No, my darling. I shan't break up anything. I only want to pleasure and delight you. I don't want to leave your boys fatherless. No. what I have will suffice for me.

"Now, at least you're entirely mine."

"Never. Not ever."

"Not ever?"

"We mustn't play games on thin ice."

"We aren't playing, we love."

"Ten years before I was a schoolgirl. What were you doing then? You could have waited for me."

"I shouldn't have recognized you then."

"I had a navy-blue dress with a white collar, a black pinny and short hair. We could have met–on the mainland or here, on an excursion ... "

"Whatever, I shouldn't have recognized you."

"You think so?"

"I was twenty-five then. Honour bright, I shouldn't have recognized you."

Perhaps it's the most sincere feeling I am to experience throughout my life. I've been waiting for love like a criminal's waiting for his sentence. Now I'll give myself over to love.

Arne's heart was beating in the brown darkness, his body showed white. They were placid, tired and happy. They weren't any more the same people they had been half an hour before. And they won't ever be the same again in that irreversible world.

"You ought to have recognized me."

"How so?"

"Seeing I love you. I loved you even then when you were holding the tiller when you were cooking the chowder on the when you were rummaging out red tomatoes from your rucksack."

"How could I have recognized you ten years before?"

Continued in Part XXIII...

Christopher Marquet

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