The Ice People 42 - The Calm Before the Storm. Margit Sandemo

in his brown boots. You could still see the hole in his jacket and sweater, in the middle of his chest, where the bullet had killed him in the concentration camp.

      Karine looked at his eyes. She remembered how strangely they had once gleamed in a lorry. Or was it in a train compartment? Perhaps both. And there was something else she had noticed about him, which she had sensed when he held her close to comfort her. Something that wasn’t there ...

      Now she understood how everything came together. Karine had gathered who Rune actually was. That wasn’t the case with Mari. She believed that Rune’s ghost had returned to punish her, Mari, because she had rejected him that time, turning away from him in horror.

      Rune didn’t think any such thoughts.

      Right now, everybody in the hall recalled Tula’s words: “We can thank the black angels that we have Rune with us tonight ... he’s older than all of you put together. He’s older than Adam and Eve. Nevertheless, he has chosen to follow the Ice People since their first days in the struggle to fight the worst scourge in the world: our ancestor, Tengel the Evil.”

      It wasn’t until Tula said these words that Gabriel understood who Rune was: Rune was the Ice People’s mandrake, which the black angels had transformed into a human being in Nataniel’s room.

      The thought made Gabriel feel dizzy. A small root ... How could it turn into a human being?

      Nevertheless, Gabriel accepted the idea with a deep sense of joy and warmth in his heart. He was moved as he looked at the piteous, ugly figure on the dais. He was proud that in a way his family had contributed to the lonely mandrake having a life.

      Dida said softly: “Now we want to hear your story, Rune.”

      Tula added just as gently: “Where were you born? On a hill near the gallows by the Mediterranean?”

      Rune smiled and said in his creaky voice: “No.” The audience could see that it was difficult for him to pull up his mouth to smile, partly because of the wood-like stiffness, and partly because it pained him to speak about his origins.

      “No, I’m older than you would believe. I’m the first, the original mandrake.”

      The audience sighed audibly. Gabriel forgot to breathe.

      Dida noticed that Rune was having difficulty standing and she discreetly pushed the tall “throne” towards him. He nodded gratefully and sat down. He creaked a bit, but he managed to sit.

      “No, an ordinary mandrake would be unable to do what I did,” he said in his slow, almost exaggeratedly clear voice. “Mandrakes are mighty talismans, but they’re unable to move, see, hear or think, as I could even as a root. Now I’ve been transformed into a human figure and with that came language. Yes, I would like to tell you my story. You’re all my friends.”

      Gabriel couldn’t help noticing that he cast a swift glance at the top rows. There was no fear in his eyes, just a subtle summing up, a flicker of matter-of-fact solidarity. The top benches were just as quiet as the rest of the hall. Nobody wanted to miss a word now.

      This is Rune’s account – with some short interruptions now and then:

      “I was a big, magnificent plant in a grove far away in the East. The grove was called the Garden of Eden. Divine plants and trees grew there and animals roamed about. It was good to be in the Garden of Eden. There’s no place like it on earth ...”

      Gabriel blurted out: “Is it true that you have always yearned to be back in Paradise?”

      “Yes, Gabriel, that’s true.”

      Gabriel was excited. He knows my name. “So where is paradise? The Garden of Eden?”

      Rune smiled wistfully. “I don’t know, my friend. Some say that it was situated in Ceylon, others that it was somewhere near Persia. Nobody any longer knows its precise location.”

      “I’ll go to Ceylon and bring back some soil from there, Rune. It may be the right place.”

      “Thank you, Gabriel.”

      Then Rune continued his interrupted account.

      “Lucifer, the angel of light, was the chief supervisor of this splendid garden. That was something I didn’t know at the time because I was just a plant, and although I could sense a lot, sun and earth and water were the most important things for me.”

      Rune’s eyes turned dark and pensive. “I also didn’t know that Lucifer had a master above him. But one day ... one day, somebody entered the garden.

      “He, to whom all animals and plants paid tribute, settled down under a tree and seemed to be finding his way. It was as if he was brooding over something. The Tree of Knowledge whispered: ‘He wants to create something new. We’re not enough. He wants to create a higher being, who is also to reside here.’

      “The tall man picked up stones and small animals in his hands, putting them down again, one after the other. His hand searched in the lush vegetation – and found me.

      “‘Yes,’ said his voice. ‘From a plant, I can create the figure I want.’

      “Then he pulled me out of the earth and with his hands he shaped my root until it resembled himself. He held me up in the air in front of him for quite some time, turning me this way and that, making small adjustments here and there ... I trembled in his hand because I sensed that I had been chosen for something great, and I promised myself that I would be worthy of him. I could feel him breathing air and life into me ...”

      Rune’s face seemed to darken. “Then he lowered the hand that held me. ‘Or ... perhaps I can create my equal out of earth and sand? Or clay?’ he said. And he put me down on the earth as I was, still merely a plant, albeit with more thoughts, senses and emotions than a plant normally has. The great one walked away, and shortly afterwards I saw a new creature in the Garden of Eden. A tall, two-legged creature, exactly like him. And the ruler was satisfied with his work and called the creature Adam.

      “He worked with Adam for a long time and was pleased with him. My newly aroused consciousness felt intense pain at being forgotten. Then the highest one caught sight of me and threw me away. There I lay, discarded, rejected, of no use at all. My newly shaped body, which had been created in his image, suffered badly in the sunlight. It dried up, became more and more stiff and yearned desperately to be put back into the earth.

      “Then one day, Lucifer found me. This was on the very same day that he fell out of favour with the ruler because he didn’t want to worship Adam, who had been created from a lump of clay. Lucifer had been created from fire, and he considered himself to be more important than human beings. There was great bitterness in the Garden of Eden on that day. Lucifer found me and picked me up. Since he was angry with his master – I could feel his anger like seething fumes under his skin – he took me by the hand and carried me to the cool shadows by the gates of the Garden of Eden. The angel of light said: ‘You’re too valuable to languish here in agony. You have great power in you, so much that human beings will come to desire you. They will try to pull up other members of your species from the earth and thus kill them. In order to help them, I’ll make your fellow relatives small and inconspicuous so that it won’t be so easy to find them in the grass.’ The Lord heard him and said: ‘You, Lucifer, are damned, with everything you touch. The plant that you’ve made small and unobtrusive will have a heavy fate. In the places where human sinners die, it will grow up to cruelty and humiliation, and being pulled out of the earth will be agony. Because nobody has made me so angry as you, Lucifer, my brightest angel. You turned against me, presuming to be my equal. So you are to be plunged into the darkest abyss, and the owners of this plant are to lose their souls ...’

      “In order to symbolize his intention, the Almighty picked me up and tossed me over the gate of the Garden of Eden. I landed in the dry desert sand, which human beings had to live in. I had no idea how things turned out for Lucifer and all the angels that followed him, because the Garden of Eden was no longer my land.”

      Rune hesitated a bit. Everybody in the hall shared his sorrow