Punished

39. Nilsa

NILSA

1986

The eaves dripped, the melt making holes in the snow and forming a puddle. The winter-spring season had been unusually cold and there was still a blanket of snow, but in the past few days the temperature had climbed well above freezing, and more melted each midday. Soon the yard would emerge in the thaw.

Everything changed too fast in the spring, Nilsa thought. He didn’t welcome the returning light with the same enthusiasm as everyone else and found it agonizing to think of the moment he would have to drive his snowmobile into the garage for the season. He was already struggling with melancholy even though the snow would last for at least another month.

The boys were making the most of the last snow, whizzing back and forth in the village. Sire shouted after them to stay off the ice. Nilsa had fallen through on his snowmobile last spring. People had asked how he handled the shock of the cold water. He told them he got back up on the ice but then dove back down to grab his new saw. He wasn’t about to lose that. Then he walked all the way home, freezing stiff as he went. They salvaged the snowmobile as soon as the ice was out a month later. The spot wasn’t deep, he hadn’t needed to dive far. Two meters max. There was talk about the way he’d thrown himself back in, as if maybe he wanted to follow in Aslak’s footsteps. It made him furious, but there wasn’t much to be done about village gossip. His sons, at least, had seen it very differently; their father was a warrior afraid of nothing. But Sire had stared in horror as he tramped into the yard with ice coating his sparse beard, eyelashes, hair—his hat left behind in the lake. Good thing it hadn’t been the river, because in the river he might have drifted downstream, unable to get back to the hole where he first fell through. Every year folks talked about Arne, who’d fallen through the ice in the river, must have been about a decade ago, and how his buddies heard him banging under the ice as the current swept him away. Sire often recounted the tale for the boys. When Nilsa fell through, and bragged about diving back down afterward, she stood and aimed an intense look his way.

“You don’t make it very easy to live with you, you know,” she said, then stalked off. She didn’t care that the boys swallowed their laughter, which was replaced with a heavy, real concern.

Now she was sitting on the kick sled in the sunshine, her face turned toward the warm rays. It wasn’t often she took time for herself like this.

They saw the car with its Norwegian plates at the same time, and exchanged quick glances. It had been a long time, but Hilde, Aslak’s girl, was pulling into their drive.

“It’s such a damn pain living so close to the road, everyone is always stopping by,” Nilsa muttered.

“What do you care?” Sire said. “You only ever just sit there. I’m the one who has to fuss over everyone.” She stood up from the kick sled with a smile. “At least this time it’s someone I like.”

“Yeah, you sure do.” He had to force himself to stay put and raise his hand in greeting. The women cooed like doves as they were reunited.

“How are things, Nilsa?” Hilde asked in Norwegian. “So nice to see you.”

She was a sturdy woman, with strong, broad shoulders and muscular thighs under her utility pants. Her reddish hair was contained in a thick braid and her sunglasses had pulled her bangs back to reveal her high forehead. She wore a white knitted sweater and heavy boots. Ready for anything. A woman who could take care of herself.

“Fine, thanks.”

“I don’t mean to bother you,” she said, smiling so the wrinkles around her eyes deepened.

“You’re never a bother. We’ll make some coffee,” Sire said.

“Maybe we could sit outside? You looked so cozy on the kick sled.”

“Get the sun lounger, Nilsa. And put on the kettle.”

He was grateful for the tasks, because they gave him an excuse to slip away. Typically he would have grumbled about being assigned coffee duty, but today he obediently headed for the shed to get the lounger with floral cushions, gave it to Hilde, and went into the house. He watched the women through the kitchen window. Saw how Hilde laughed, noticed her habit of touching whoever she was talking to. Sire wasn’t that type, but she still seemed at ease. Then, naturally, it was time for secrets and they bent their heads close. He didn’t want to know what they were talking about, but Sire probably wouldn’t spare him the details later.

The few times Hilde came by, she always assumed he wanted to hear old stories about Aslak. As if it were her duty to keep the memory of his brother alive. She felt that there were things she had noticed about Aslak that perhaps they never had, that her stories could provide them with pieces of the puzzle. But he didn’t want to put together any puzzle.

“Henneha!” He cursed softly in the kitchen, turning away from the window and going to the freezer. Couldn’t she just stop coming by? He dug around for the cinnamon buns. They would dip them frozen into the hot coffee. He poured coffee into the thermos and got out two cups, wavering, should he take three? Three it was, plus the sugar and milk. Everything on the tray, he went back outside. The sun gleamed off the snow and he squinted. A sheet of snow fell from the roof of the shed and the women laughed; the sound had startled them. He sighed—time to shovel again.

The coffee cup warmed his hands as he settled on the steps. Hilde complimented the bun. She wasn’t one for small, polite nibbles—the whole thing went down in two big bites and then she helped herself to another.

“So, I was just telling Sire that I wanted to talk a little about Aslak.”

He nearly broke the delicate handle off the porcelain cup. Why had he sat down with them? He could have said he needed to remove the snow from the sauna roof right away, that it could pose a danger if it fell down, too. On with his sunglasses.

“I was on my way to Jokkmokk and wasn’t planning to stop, but when I saw Sire on the kick sled I figured I was meant to come here.”

Nilsa made up his mind: from now on Sire would have to sit behind the house. He would also start parking their two cars back there so people wouldn’t know they were home. Maybe he would even start leaving the broom in the door all the time to fool the neighbors into thinking they weren’t home.

Hilde wasn’t deterred by his silence. Sire’s upright posture told him she had already heard what Hilde had to say and he wasn’t going to like it.

“Well, the fact is that I’m going to tell you something Aslak maybe never intended to say. But I feel strongly that you deserve to know.”

Nilsa gnashed his teeth. “Maybe you shouldn’t say it, if you made a promise to Aslak.”

“Nilsa, just listen,” Sire said.

“No, nothing like that. He never said I couldn’t share this. But he was ashamed of what happened. I’m sure he would have told you if he had seen it through, and I think you should know the lengths he was prepared to go for you, Nilsa. How much you meant to him.”

Her habit of speaking in riddles drove him crazy; it was like she enjoyed building up the tension. He was determined to appear unfazed, so he reached for the thermos, keeping his hands busy. He listened for Siberian jays, which usually braved their way out from the birches in the yard when there was a chance of food, and were even more likely to appear in the forest, when he and the boys had a fire on the riverbank, near the ice-fishing holes. And he’d seen an ermine the other day. It was beautiful, standing sleek and pretty on its hind paws.

Hilde took a sip of coffee and appeared to steel herself. “I regret not telling you this before. Maybe it seems a little strange to do it now, but I’ve been thinking about him a lot recently—he comes to me in my dreams. This last time, he asked me to talk to you.” She put down her cup and clasped her hands. “Anyway, you see, Aslak talked a lot about the nomad school. Well, I suppose I should be honest and say it only came up when he was drinking, but he told me such terrible things. Appalling! It’s beyond me how a person could be so cruel to little children. You all were totally defenseless, abused by the matron, and then there was the bullying on top of it.”

Sire darted a quick glance at him but said nothing.

“What Aslak said about the other boys, what they did to him, it was hard to listen to.”

Nilsa, too, put down his cup and gripped his knees tight. Breathe in. Breathe out.

“A couple years ago, he found out where the matron lived and went to see her.”

“What?”

“Yeah. He found out she lived in Skaulo. Rita Olsson, that was her name, right? Aslak wanted to make you proud. He said he was going to take action, show his brother. Maybe he was drunk, I don’t know, sounded like it anyway. He called me and said there was somebody he had to go punish. I thought it was an odd choice of words—that’s why I remember the conversation so clearly.”

Nilsa swallowed the lump that was bobbing up and down in his throat. Memories flickered through his mind. The first time little brother asked him to kill that old hag; he could see Aslak’s frightened eyes. Recalled how he, too, became filled with a rage that made it impossible to hold still. He had kicked the wall in the corridor and punched until his knuckles were red. The witch had shown up and beaten him so badly that he couldn’t lie on his back for a week. Aslak had cried as if it was all his fault.

“When he said he was going to see Rita Olsson, I told him it was a bad idea.” Hilde shook her head slowly and he forced himself to look at her through his sunglasses. “But he wouldn’t give in. He kept saying he wanted to do right by the both of you.” She paused, waiting for a reaction, but he wasn’t about to open his mouth.

“This was not long before the accident,” Sire said, and he glared at her. Why couldn’t she just keep her mouth shut too?

“Yes, just days before he left us,” Hilde said.

Nilsa simply couldn’t look at her any longer. She was making things up, reading into drunken ramblings, but more than anything she was placing the blame on him, wasn’t she? As he stood up, his left knee creaked and there was a twinge in the small of his back.

“Aslak went to see her, and it didn’t go well.”

He wanted to walk away, but his legs weren’t helping. His hand grasped the porch railing, which he’d painted himself. The additions he’d put on this house, everything in the yard, it was all a product of his own labor. How could she be so brazen as to walk onto his property and sling accusations?

“That’s enough,” he said bluntly.

Her face turned red. “I don’t mean any harm here. Oh, I’m telling you all this the wrong way. I’m sorry, unnskyld.”

He went down to get the snow shovel and headed for the shed.

“Nilsa meant everything to Aslak, but it was hard for him to live up to his expectations,” he heard Hilde tell Sire. “He really wanted to prove he was worthy, that time.”

The shovel cleaved the pile of snow and he backed up and pivoted left to dump it at the corner of the building, where it would melt in the warmth of the sun and flow away from the outbuildings. He did it over and over, scraping the ground clear. By the time he finished he was panting; the snow was damn heavy.

That done, he went behind the house and gathered the gas cans that the boys had left strewn about after fueling up the snowmobiles. He continued to the smoke goahti and peered in; it was about time to start smoking the meat—next week, maybe. He also had to check the net on the roof where the cuts of meat would hang to dry, to make sure the ermine couldn’t get at them.

When he turned around, there she stood.

“I want you to listen to me, Nilsa.”

He took a step to the side and walked toward the front yard, but she followed. No mincing feminine steps—firm strides.

The question was, could she take a right cross to the stomach? He made a fist. Sire was sitting on the kick sled, watching the spectacle. It must be a sight—he was being pursued on his own property. He stopped short and crossed his arms.

“Let me just say that that Rita Olsson was as horrid as when you were little. Aslak said she laughed at him. I don’t know what he was planning to do, whether he was going to attack her or demand an apology or what, but it didn’t go well. She laughed, and he went home. I didn’t hear from him for two days, he must have gone on quite a bender.”

He was too chicken , Nilsa thought. Aslak’s fist, always becoming a limp palm when he tried to land a punch.

“I comforted him and told him he was brave. She is insane, and there’s no winning when it comes to psychopaths. That’s what I told him.”

Nilsa growled like a dog. So much wanted to come out, but it just sat there vibrating in his chest. He felt Sire’s eyes on him and knew what she was thinking. The stuff she tried to pry out of him on occasion. Now she would claim that there had been good reason.

“What are you saying? You think he killed himself?” He puffed up his chest, but still he could barely look down on her.

Hilde shook her head. “This all turned out wrong, Nilsa. I honestly don’t think Aslak wanted to die. But I think he often felt really, really depressed. And he probably wanted to come see me after all that. Maybe, I don’t know. But believe me when I say I wish I had known he was on his way to Kauto, because I would have told him not to get behind the wheel.”

Nilsa took off his sunglasses; she needed to see his rage. “Are you finished now?”

Hilde glanced uncertainly in Sire’s direction, as though his wife knew what would happen next. “Just one more thing. Aslak often said that his nephews meant so much to him, and, you know, he was a little worried about Juvva. He sometimes said he saw a lot of himself in Juvva, that he—”

“We’re done here,” said Nilsa.

He turned around and took the steps in one stride, opening the door to the house and slamming it behind him. He struck at the air, went to the living room, punched a doorframe, and moved on to the bathroom, where he didn’t know what to do with himself. Who the hell did she think she was? You just didn’t do this. Why did she have to come now? Why come at all? Who comes by after two years and says this kind of stuff? He stormed back through the house and over to the kitchen window. Sire and Hilde were standing well apart now and looking serious; they glanced in toward the kitchen and he didn’t bother to back out of sight.

Hilde walked to her car, and as soon as she had driven off he sank onto a kitchen chair. Sire came inside, and he felt the urge to grab her and throw her to the floor. Instead, he gripped the seat of his chair tight.

“That was the last time, do you hear me? The last time. She is no longer welcome here.”

Sire put the milk in the fridge and the sugar in the pantry; she rinsed out the cups and then stood with her back against the counter. “Juvva…” she began.

“She has no fucking clue! Did Aslak ever even say all that? Did any of that actually happen? There must be something wrong with her, to keep dredging up this crap over and over again.” Spit flew from his lips. “Do not say another word, or I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Sire’s eyes narrowed and she opened her mouth to speak, but she wisely reconsidered.

He heard snowmobiles approaching and she saw them from the kitchen window. He sat up straight and could see them as well, on the other side of the county highway. Nils-Ola was way ahead of Juvva and he braced to sail over the jump they’d built out of snow in the meadow last week. He made a daring leap on the machine and landed with no problem. Juvva came behind, slower, and went around the jump. That didn’t mean anything, Nilsa wanted to bark at Sire, because he could see the look on her face, she thought she knew something about Juvva. There was no difference between the brothers! He knew that, he was their isá, and he knew. His fist struck the table and Sire jumped.