S2E19 Beyond The North Wind Chapter 19

Anna and her guides Lars and Anna cross the ice and snow.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Beyond the North Wind Chapter nineteen Lars up the pace until the two women behind him were strung along the rope evenly. Stragglers in the reindeer herd were glimpsed below, striding to the lower ground for the winter. We three are typical of hard headed humans, Anna thought, to move in the opposite direction, upwards into danger. The sounds of animals barking surprised them all. They stopped still and listened. Dogs, said Anna. Why are they barking? asked Kristen. They've seen something they don't like. Maybe the reindeer? Maybe, but reindeer and dogs are used to one another. They stood still for a few more moments, and Anna noticed how the barking had served to bond their own little pack together. After a while they heard nothing more. Lars brought out his ice sacks and prodded the ice ahead of him. We'll ski from here. The snow is good. Anna sat down and took off her crampons, wrapping the metal shoes and a piece of leather in her rucksack. She took out her ski boots wrapped in a plastic bag, smelling of a new layer of wax. With an extra pair of socks on, her feet fitted well in the ski boots, and she did up the bindings. It had been a while since she had skied cross country, but the broad boots and skis fitted as snugly as ever. She tied her walking stick to her rucksack and picked up her ski poles, which came up to her shoulders, and when she finally had her gloves on, she felt ready to go. When she looked up she was struck by a sight. Lars and Kristen stood a few meters apart in the same pose, with their backs to her, looking at the way ahead. Each held their ski poles ready one in each hand, and placed on the ice. They were smartly dressed, no loose clothing, everything was tucked in, they had hats and sunglasses, and shone as they stood under the bright azure sky. Their poses said that they were ready for action, whereas Anna was ready for a rest. She glided up to them. They smiled, touched gloved hands together and set off. Lars was soon ahead with Kristen behind. Anna did her best to keep up as the familiar cadence of skiing came back to her over the sparkling glacier. Ahead were a few man high rocks, littered across a flat plain, otherwise the way ahead looked easy. There was no better place to be than here, under the blue sky, with the world so easy to move over. An hour later the terrain had changed to uneven snow that looked like mud or salt flats. Her heart was pounding from the exercise, a sheen of sweat on her forehead, while Lars and Kristen looked cool and fresh. The rocks were now hills, painted black, brown and white. Snow clouds filled the skies. For a while life looked rosy, and then she was reminded of where and who she was. Kristin was next to her, unspooling a blue rope. Eight mil? asked Anna. Ten. Kristin looped coils of the rope over her shoulder and Anna did the same. I remember. She wound the rope over her shoulder and tied off the loops, clipping the remainder in a carabiner. Lars tied himself on and they spread out so that he was in the middle, with Kristin first and Anna behind him. You are the client, smiled Lars. We will go into any crevasse before you. You mean I will, dear husband. You are light, I will pull you out. Lars tested the rope between them. Hold it like this, he told Anna. With one hand only. Keep about ten meters apart. Kristin did up Anna's jacket to the top of her neck. Have you got a hat? Anna looked at her. There's a hood on the jacket, but I like it down. Kristen pulled the hood up. It did not fit very well. Have this, she said, and Kristen put her woolen hat on Anna's head. Anna felt like a child being dressed by its teacher or parent. It's not far on the glacier and we'll be able to stop at the observatory. There we will have a rest, said Lars. Pull on the rope if you see any crevasses, although we should see them first. Are we ready? Yes, my love, said Kristen. Last one to the observatory is a troll, said Hannah. With the rope held lightly between them, they resumed skiing across the glacier, the blue rope drooping between them. Anna breathed in the sweet cool air and listened to the melt water recede. The glacier appeared lighter, and the mountains darker, their progress over the ice as smooth and as quiet as sleep. They slid over the plain, which expanded and retreated away to the horizon, the mountain tops looking down on them. Beauty, clarity, peace and humility. These are the things nature gives me, thought Anna as she skied along. She felt the muscles in her shoulders unknot and relax. She imagined her woes beginning to deposit on the ice, like the black suit of animal debris. She was being cleansed by the ice and sun, soothed of her anxieties by the hiss of her skis. She had never found glaciers to be bleak, unlike Fritchov, who regarded the immensity of snow and ice as a hostile place. Perhaps Fritchov didn't like how there was so much empty space which could not be controlled, the manholes, the caves, the hidden depths. This was a difficult place, yes, but it was not harsh or evil, merely indifferent. Take one path and survive. Take the other and fall to your death. The ice couldn't care less about you. They skied past white hummocks, which reminded Anna of snow covered bodies, gunner in his grave who might be hidden now, a thought she found comforting. A roar in the distance halted their tiny column. Two sheets of ice collided together and a new range of peaks rose into the sky. The ice growled and roared, but the glacier did not flinch, and neither did she. She suspected that Fritchov did not like the message of the ice, and of those that were happy to explore it. Fritchov liked his orchards and his soft fruits, Siegfried's boats on the placid fjord, Alva's European cooking. He was proud to be the warden at the village church and to be a parent governor at his children's school. Fritchov would not see the point in Nansen or any other of the polar explorers' quests for the poles. They were quests for nothing, imaginary signs in the ground, places reachable in theory but which moved with the turning of the earth and the passing of time. Listen, said Lars, and they listened. Water. He pointed to rivulets on the ice. That means we are near the crevass zone. There will be wet snow hiding the crevasses. Keep alert. They moved on, keeping the regulation spacing between them, Kristen leading the way. They went forward a hundred meters, then Lars stopped again. The landscape had changed ahead. The army could not have done a better job in creating an obstacle to stop movement across the land. The ice rose at multiple ridges, each shard twenty or thirty feet high, each one at a steep angle. Skis were hung off rucksacks, crampons were tied onto ski boots. Kristen showed Anna how to tackle the challenge. Plant the isacks into the wall of ice, climb up the slope, find footholds of the crampons, put your weight forward on gloved hands, and then without losing balance, pull out the ice axe and repeat. Anna found it to be exhausting work, whereas for Lars and Kristen it seemed to be a form of mild exercise. They waited patiently, watching Anna climb to the top of a ridge, and then walk down unsteadily to the bottom of another ridge, only to repeat the challenge over another wall. It was like an assault course. Lars claimed that it was the shortest way through the crevasses, and if that were true, it was not a quick route. She climbed up another ridge, balanced on top, walked down the side, and saw that there were still multiple obstacles to climb over, and to think she could have taken a boat up the coast to Igtfjord if she hadn't decided to up sticks and run away. But this was the challenge she had chosen. A meal or some evidence of him might be lying in a crevasse. Inspector Rod had flown his helicopters over the glacier with infrared cameras, but he didn't have the inclination to do it again. She looked at the challenge ahead. There was no other way across a route that aimed for the high navigation points. Otherwise they could have gone for the lower routes around the edge of the glacier through seemingly impenetrable forests. There's a big one ahead, said Lars. More than a crevasse, it was an icy stream ten feet wide. The snow was melting around it, revealing in places scrub underneath. The rocks were slippery with wet snow. Lars walked along the side of the crevasse one way, and Kristen walked in the opposite direction. When they came back they agreed that the crevass was too wide to step over. He took a pole and sunk it in the stream up to the handle. In this manner he tested the depth and stability of the watery crevasse. In one place the pole went in only halfway up. Kristen tested another pole in a nearby spot with the same result. Lars was laughing. Are you ready, Nansen? We need to jump this one. Give me your skis. Anna handed hers over, as did Kristen. Lars tied all three pairs to his rucksack and put the pack on. I will go first. Kristen steadied herself at the edge of the stream, tramping down the snow until the scrub showed through with no further holes. Then she took a couple of steps back, moved forward and skipped over the stream in one fluid motion. She stood on the other side, waiting until she was certain she was on solid ground. Your turn, dear husband. Thank you, darling wife. These two are as Emil and I were all those years ago. Nothing was too much trouble back then, and if we did meet an obstacle we went over it together. Glas stood ready, he was loaded like a mountain porter with his rucksack and three pairs of tall skis poking out the top. He walked forward, planted both poles in the middle of the stream, and strode across the stream as if it were solid ground. Bravo, said Kristen. They both turned and looked at her. Your turn, Anna. Do you want the poles? A shining, flowing obstacle stands in my way, yet another barrier in my hopeless quest. She took off her rucksack and threw it across the stream to Kristin. Please, don't look. If you hear a splash, then you may pull me out. To her surprise they both turned around and looked the other way. She imagined the back of Lars to be the back of Emil. The stream disappeared as she ran up and stepped out into space. Her leading boot hit the edge of the stream and Kristen pulled her over. Lars bowed his head. Very good, Nansen, your long legs give you an advantage. They were vigilant for running surface water and found more crevasses, but none as wide as the first. Soon the way ahead was navigable again on skis. They followed Lars sliding in his tracks, three figures with the rope slacked between them on the ice. The side of the mountains framed their way ahead down a walled tunnel along a white road. The way expanded as they moved on to the widest part of the glacier, and the horizon receded into the whiteness under the blue sky. This is the point of my journey, Anna thought, where the mind can become clear, and one can stand as a speck in the middle of the universe. The wind blew up and filled the air with snow and the noise of rushing trains. Her skis hit hidden rocks and she fell over. The rope tightened, and she felt it tug Kristen ahead, but her guides were lost in the sudden storm. Anna was on the ground, snow stuck to her jacket and trousers and frozen in patches. She looked at the white powder and inspected it on her gloves. The rope had come untied from her carabiner. The wind suddenly strengthened and made it difficult to move forward. She leant across the wind and imagined pushing against a strong man with ice in his beard. Boreas teased her, making her put all her weight on one leg, then changing tack to buffet the other side of her body. She dragged her left leg forward with the ski sticking out awkwardly to the side. Her poles were in the ground and should have given support, but it was more as if she was stuck between them and was being pulled apart. She pushed into the wind and the wind pushed back. She persevered as if she was dragging an enormous weight. Boreas, you will need to do better than that, for I am a stubborn mule. The wind dropped. She was in a sea of white, with the black topped rocks running towards her like waves. The worst thing was that behind her the sun lit the sky in a beautiful silvered backdrop with a few scudding clouds. It would be so easy to just turn around and give up, citing the weather as too difficult, but they must be closer to Uctafjord than home. With another heave she pulled her left leg forward, waited, panting, and then trudged on raising her right ski. She pushed down on her poles and moved a little ahead. The upward slope was now against her. She was tired. Her foot hurt, she was an embarrassment. Her guides must have thought she wanted to come out here to die. Suicide by misadventure. She would not be the first person to do it in the winter when the sky turned dark all day. Kristin appeared with her face covered in a scarf and reattached the rope to Anna's carabiner. You are wheezing asthma, made worse by the cold. You should have said Kristen yanked on her rope and Lars joined them. I didn't want to slow you down. She wished she were back at the summer farm or in a nari with Burgot and the girls. They would go out on the lake to catch some fish for supper. In the evening they would watch movies together in a warm room with a fire. Instead she had opted to torture herself like a medieval pilgrim. She was no trekker, and her destination was pulled out of a hat. Kristen and Lars talked together quietly, occasionally looking at her, but she had to go on for a meal for herself. She had to push past Boreas and get on with the rest of her life. The tightness in her chest be damned. Lars finished his inspection of the sky and the route ahead. This is definitely the last day trek of the season. But we will get to Uctor Fjord tomorrow morning unless we can catch reindeers and fly. Anna sighed, like Pergint over the mountains, into the halls of the mountain king. Kristen came over and did up Anna's jacket to the neck. You go into the middle and follow Lars. Kristen kissed her cheek, you're stronger than you think. You just need to keep going. I'm not strong, I'm tired out, and exhausted from trying so hard. It would be nice if things could be a bit easier for me. But she didn't say the words, and took a place in the middle of the line as they set off under the twilight sky.