Happy Times in Norway

by Sigrid Undset

  Perhaps the children imagined they had really seen the figures at the Manger move, as the lights and shadows thrown by the altar candles flickered and flamed across them. And they were encouraged to tell more and more, for the sisters seemed to have a great desire to laugh and to draw them out, though it is against the rules of the order to talk in the period between evening prayer and the morning Mass. Sister Rogata made so many curious signs and gestures to them that the youngsters had to go over to her and throw themselves into her lap a little while. Sister Rogata was every child’s very special friend.

  “It is because she has nothing to do with the school,” Mother Fulgentia observed dryly.

  Sister Rogata was the surgical nurse at the eye clinic.

  It was two o’clock before Mother and the boys got away and out to where Böe was waiting with the car. And, miracle of miracles, the footpath was white, the housetops white, and the tree branches etched in fine white lines. The fall of snow was still so light that every track was left blackly showing on the ground. But it was good snow, a dense fall of hard, dry crystals. It beat against the windshield with a light, prickling sound when they began to drive.

  The streets of Hamar lay deserted and still. And when they got out of town, the road ran in the light of the headlights like a white band through the forest’s black and white masses. Fences, gates, trees, and slumbering little houses slipped past. One of the best things about this Christmas night drive, the boys felt, was to know that they were up, and out driving, while everyone, for miles around their lake, was sound asleep!

  Suddenly a bull moose started out of the forest near Veldre. For some distance it ran ahead of them, with nearly every hair of its gray-brown coat and every tip of its antlers showing in the lights of the car. But when Mother turned around to tell the boys to look, they lay like rocks in the back seat, sound asleep, both of them.

  The driving snow that had whirled furiously in front of the windshield now turned into large feathery flakes, tumbling down more and more thickly. Thea stood at the gate and had everything open as they drove up. The dogs knew Böe’s car by its sound and always gave notice of its coming long before the car could be seen down the road. Now they stormed down to meet it, barking to high heaven, rolling in all the white, and lapping at it with their tongues.

  The sleep-drugged boys tumbled out and saw that now it was really Christmas in Norway. . . .

  That was why it was doubly festive to come to the table that stood there laden with all the very best Christmas things. It was hard to say whether this meal should be called supper or breakfast, but in communities where people keep up the old customs, they take the first bite of the Christmas pig and all the other meats sometime between midnight and daybreak of Christmas Day. That was why Thea had set out the headcheese and the mutton ham, the smoked reindeer tongue and the liver pudding. Hans, who was never allowed to drink coffee, got a cup tonight, and three drops of aquavit in a glass, so that he too could drink a toast and wish Merry Christmas once again.

  Njord and Neri were wide awake, and Njord sat on his hind legs begging all the time that Mother ate. Neri lay in Anders’s lap, and every once in a while he snatched a bite from the boy’s plate. Of course only terribly spoiled dogs do such things, but these dogs were, unfortunately, just that. Besides, Christmas night they were allowed to do many things that were unacceptable for everyday.

  Only Tulla was not down. It was better for her to sleep undisturbed. Tomorrow, when the others were in bed, Tulla would sit by the window where she never tired of looking at the big flag that hung outside, furling and unfurling, and then falling against the flagpole again—to billow out and show the blue and white cross upon the scarlet field—and then come back to hide itself like some living thing. . . . Even when the air was still, or when it was snowing and the flag hung limp, Tulla sat waiting faithfully, staring. . . .

  5

  IT IS THE CUSTOM IN NORWAY THAT ON CHRISTMAS DAY people stay quietly at home, or go out only to be with their closest relatives. Even the skiers who swarmed over all the roads and fields, beaming with delight over the first snow of the year, kept together in family groups. Big boys, who ordinarily spend all their free time on their ski club’s training ground, stay home and take a quiet morning walk with their mamma, and sometimes with grandmamma too. Fathers putter around in the fields this day instead of going to their cottages in the mountains. They have their tiniest youngster with them, a boy or girl of two or three, who got his, or her, first pair of skis under the Christmas tree this year and today has them on for the first time.

  But Anders came home to the late dinner, cheeks red and hair damp, and with eyes that were dark and shining. The whole boy seemed to be aglow. He had been clear up to Nordseter.

  “Three hours up, and half an hour down, and as soft as velvet, mother!”

  Then Mother knew that from now on until the last snow in the mountains became unusable sometime in the spring, Anders would think of little else than skiing. All his free time would be used for practicing, and every Sunday morning he would disappear with a truckload of boys bound for some ski contest to the north, or south, or east, or west. Anders had not yet reached high on the prize list. He was too thin and light, even in his own age group. But the judges said he had fine style, and he worked hard, so he would be good in time, when he had taken on some weight. Skiing interfered with his schoolwork, of course. But Mother had the same weakness as most Norwegian mothers. It was unfortunate if his marks were altogether too poor, but if the boy could keep it up until he became an outstanding skier, she would be dreadfully proud. Secretly she pasted into a scrapbook all the little newspaper clippings in which Anders’s name appeared, even though it was only one of the lowest prizes he had won.

  Hans had not one particle of such vanity. He went on long trips with Magne or Ole Henrik, his friends, equipped with much good food in their knapsacks. Up in the forest and on the ridges were little farms where they could buy coffee and ginger ale, before they skied down. But to ski “just to have people standing around gaping on the hill, gape at me, that’s just dumb,” said Hans.

  On Second Christmas Day everyone in the house had to get up early, for today the guests from Oslo were arriving on the noon train. And although Mother and Thea had been working for many days to get ready for them, there were many things to arrange at the last minute.

  Böe brought two cars. Mother took Tulla with her in one, for Grandmother was always so happy when Tulla came to meet her. Anders and Hans went in the other car, and in the course of the journey to the station they managed to become furious enemies. Anders had a bad habit of bossing his brother, and Hans did not like to be bossed by anyone. This time it was Brit they had quarreled about.

  “Anders does not have to tell me I must not tease Brit! I guess I am just as much her uncle as he is!”

  It was still snowing hard and the place outside the station was almost impenetrable, it was so filled with buses and cars from the many hotels and sanatoriums in and around town, and with horses and sleighs from the farms. The station platform swarmed with people. Half the town was there to meet Christmas guests, and the other half whose guests had arrived Christmas Eve was down to see who was coming on the train. The hotels were almost full and still more people were expected. Many Danes always came up here at Christmastime to ski—and one could tell the Danes half a mile away as large parties of them came driving down Main Street. They talked so loud and shouted and laughed; besides, they were always clad in all the colors of the rainbow—red and blue and yellow trousers and striped and flowered jerseys. But they were astonishingly good skiers, many of them, and those who were not good were at least daring and rolled down the slopes blithely.

  The train was more than an hour late, the station-master announced. Special trains, overcrowding, and obstacles caused by the snow along the line had made chaos of the traffic, but that too was part of Christmas. There was much jollity at the station on these occasions. Mother greeted acquaintances from Oslo
and acquaintances from town, and everyone had to wish everyone else Merry Christmas and agree to meet sometime during the holidays. Anders and Hans forgot to quarrel and planned skiing trips with their friends and made dates with the girls for the ball at the Bank Second New Year’s Day. And the snow fell faster and faster. Soon everyone looked like a snowman or a witch, and inside the railroad station restaurant the floor and tables floated in half-melted snow. People came in to pass the time over a cup of coffee and then dashed out to peer down the tracks for the train.

  They neither saw nor heard it in the falling snow until it was almost upon them. Anders and Hans burrowed a way for themselves through the mass of people in order to be the first to greet Grandmother. There she stood in the window, waving, when suddenly Anders discovered Neri between his legs. And in the middle of a great snow flurry, Njord and the beagle from Victoria Hotel were engaged in savage combat. Mother and the hotel boy threw themselves upon the dogs to separate them. How it ever happened that the dogs had got out and followed them clear down to the station it was hard to say. But when Anders and Mother finally got them into the car, Hans, proud as a peacock, was already escorting the Christmas guests. It had been he, after all, who had had to find them in that crowd on the platform and show them the way to Böe’s cars.

  Now followed a good deal of discussion about who should sit with whom. Hans wanted to sit beside Grandmother, in the car where Mother and Tulla were, but he wanted Brit beside him also. He became annoyed with Anders again, for Anders without any more ado had lifted Brit up in his arms and whisked her into the other car. Anders, naturally, was going to sit beside Gunhild, their half sister, for she and Anders had always been the best of friends. Böe and Godfather and Aunt Signe were busy getting all the baggage arranged and all the skis tied fast on the outside of the car. Today, skis and ski poles bristled from everything on wheels. The girls—Aunt Signe’s three, and Ulla from Stockholm—tumbled in and out of the two cars and did not know where they wanted to sit or where there would be room for them. The twins, Siri-Kari and Anne-Lotte, looked pale, for they always got trainsick.

  Finally the whole party was disposed of, one way or another, and Böe started off. It was almost dinnertime when they got home, but Thea had nevertheless laid the tea table in the large parlor, for Grandmother always had to have tea the moment she arrived. Thea would certainly postpone dinner an hour, for she knew everyone had to speak with everyone else and there was such a lot to talk about. The children hoped that the rest of the Christmas presents would be distributed at once, but Mother said no to that idea.

  “That will have to wait,” she said. “There are so many of us that it will take too much time!”

  It was a whole year since all the family had been together. Grandmother had been here in the summer, and the girls from Oslo had come up rather often, whenever they had a few days’ vacation, but Mother’s sister, Aunt Signe, and her husband, whom the children called Godfather because he was godfather to Anders, had not been here since last Christmas. And Ulla from Stockholm, the daughter of Mother’s other sister who was married in Sweden, was traveling alone for the first time in her life. Since she was Hans’s age, seven years old, it was rather impressive, for Hans had never been allowed to travel alone even so far as Oslo. Grandmother was still rather shocked over the fact that Ulla’s mother had dared to let her go so far alone—but she was beaming at the same time for now she had all her grandchildren, except Ulla’s little brother, gathered round her.

  Gunhild had not been here since Brit was a tiny tot who could hardly stand. Now she was over two, and could both run and talk all she needed—and a little more besides. Both Anders and Hans thought it a frightful lot of fun that they were uncles and they admired their niece tremendously! To think that Brit was not in the least afraid of the two black dogs that looked so wild and were carrying on so! For Njord seemed to think he must show Grandmother how delighted he was to see her by nearly knocking her down. And all these strange children he had to bark at, so that they would have the proper respect for him, for it would be too much of a good thing if they all petted and hugged him until he had no peace! Neri flew around like the little fool he was, trying to do everything Njord did. Finally Brit got both her fists entwined in Njord’s fur, where she held on until Njord positively had to shake her loose. After that he went and lay down under Mother’s writing table in the other room and Neri took refuge in Mother’s lap.

  The cats did not make an appearance at all when there were so many strangers in the house. They lay in Thea’s bed, when they were not in the kitchen, eating, or out walking in the snow.

  6

  THEA HAD DECORATED THE LONG BREAKFAST TABLE with sprigs of evergreen, candles, and flowers. It sagged under all the good Christmas food. And in the snow outside the door stood the bottles of beer, and the old brandy decanter from Great-grandfather’s house. Godfather was very particular that the Christmas brandy should be the temperature of the snow.

  As they sat waiting for Thea to come down with Tulla, and Gunhild to come with Brit, the children ate cookies and cracked nuts, for all during the Christmas season the big old copper bowl filled with fruit and nuts and cookies stood on a table in the corner.

  A telephone call for Anders. . . . Soon he was back in the room with a rush.

  “Mother, would you please pack my knapsack? I must have enough food along for twenty-four hours at least. That was from Nordseter Hotel . . . two Danes went out as it was getting dark last night, and they haven’t come back. Now they are asking some of the Boy Scouts to come along and look for them. It was foggy and snowing in the mountains yesterday, of course. Just like Danes to do some fool thing like that.”

  Grandmother was about to protest, for Grandmother was Danish, but Anders waved her aside:

  “. . . talk about it when I get home, grandmother. But, say, grandmother, lend me your pocket flashlight, will you? Both batteries are burned out in mine.”

  Again Grandmother started to protest. She could not give up her flashlight! Every time she woke up at night she wanted to see what time it was.

  “Mother will give you a candle and some matches, grandmother. I must have a pocket flashlight with me.”

  So Grandmother went to fetch her precious flashlight.

  “And you, mother, you must lend me both thermos bottles for coffee, and I ought to have a little aquavit along too, just in case we find them. But hurry up, then! The car may be here any second.”

  Anders stood ready, skis and all, as the truck stopped before the gate. Mother followed him out. It was rather comforting to see that all the other boys in the car were older than Anders—several of them were young men.

  “Well, I know you are used to the mountains, Anders. I can depend on you to be careful and not get separated from your party.”

  For now the snow was tumbling down again so thickly one could not see more than a few ski lengths ahead.

  “Yes. Yes, mamma.”

  When Anders considered any remark of Mother’s ill-timed he called her “mamma.”

  “Don’t worry about me. . . . Of course you realize I probably won’t be home tonight. . . . Yes, certainly, I’ll ask the hotel to give you a ring the minute they find those Danes. By the way, the mother of one of them is on the way down to see you,” Anders remembered suddenly. “They asked me to tell you. It’s someone you know—she’s a writer, I think they said.”

  “Do you know her name? Didn’t they say?”

  “Yes, but I can’t remember it. ‘Swan,’ I think maybe. Or maybe ‘Baer.’ Some kind of animal anyway. Well, take care of yourselves.”

  Indoors, the family was still waiting for breakfast and Aunt Signe was trying to soothe the ruffled tempers. Grandmother was annoyed, for she considered Anders altogether too young to be going on a searching party; besides, why must people always pick on the Danes? Godfather was saying he did not always pick on the Danes, but they annoyed him—yes, and all the other foreigners, as well, who staged these disappearing act
s in the mountain resorts every blessed winter. Why couldn’t they listen to the guides who tried to make it clear to them that when there was a heavy fog, or when it was snowing, it was no time to go skiing? For then searching parties had to be made up, lumbermen and farmers had to leave their work, often for days at a time, for sometimes it took days to find a couple of lost tourists in such terrain as the mountains hereabouts, with mile upon mile of little hills and valleys running hither and thither. There ought to be notices posted at every resort that tourists who got lost must pay the searchers for the time spent looking for them. Maybe that would put an end to the nuisance. But that would probably never be done.

  It has been the rule in Norway for hundreds of years that, when anyone gets lost in the forests or on the mountains, all the men in the neighborhood go out and search for him until he is found, dead or alive. When it was one of the country people who got lost it was usually someone out on a necessary errand—someone going to or from a saeter, or crossing the mountain into the neighboring valley, or someone out hunting or fishing, not persons out for fun. Just because tourists who did not know any better abused good old customs, people, at least in this part of the country, had no desire to change any of them.

  Mother had just managed to snatch a bite of breakfast when Thea came in.

  “There is a lady asking to see Madam. Shall I show her into the parlor?”

  The moment Mother opened the parlor door, a big, yellow-haired woman in orange-colored sports clothes sprang into her arms. The woman’s face was so red and swollen from tears that one could scarcely tell what she looked like, and she sobbed and sobbed.

  Mother tried to console her.

  “They’ll find them. They always do. And it was not cold last night, and there are so many cabins and saeters in the mountains, perhaps they got indoors somewhere last night! Ah, it could have been much, much worse.”