Tales of Protection by Erik Fosnes Hansen

Author:Erik Fosnes Hansen
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2012-05-30T16:00:00+00:00

The spring equinox approaches. The sun shines above the ice, and the white surfaces turn golden during the day. Soon there are small black zigzag lines from horizon to horizon. Early one morning Josefa is standing in the washhouse alone, helping her mother do the laundry. Her mother has just gone inside to get a new basket of clothes, and Josefa has lifted a heavy load into the rinse tub; she has permission to begin exerting herself again now, since she has been well for so long. Outside, the March sun is shining. Deep snowdrifts line the wall, all the way up to the window. She hums. She thinks about many things and places, places she hasn’t been; she thinks about fresh bread and butter, she thinks about the fact that it will soon be spring and will be green in the woods. She avoids thinking about her father and mother and, above all, avoids thinking about what Aid told her. Instead she thinks about summer guests who will come. She thinks intensely about such things. She constantly asks her mother who she thinks will come in the summer.

“I don’t know,” her mother laughs. “Are you wondering about that so much?”

“Yes,” says Josefa softly.

“You’re a strange one,” says her mother. “I guess those scientists will probably come as usual, and maybe a painter. Oh yes, that’s true—there’s an engineer coming too, to test a new lighthouse lamp.”

“But just imagine if exciting people come,” says Josefa. “That would be thrilling.”

“It certainly would,” says her mother. She gives Josefa a puzzled look. “Do you think life is boring out here?” she asks.

“Uff,” says Josefa, flushing, “what a stupid question.”

Her mother laughs a little, but without really understanding.

“You’re at a strange age now, Josefa,” is all she says. Josefa does not reply.

The air smells of soap and clean clothes, and Josefa rinses large white tablecloths and sheets. All at once everything becomes so strange; it’s as if she’s very cold, and her humming suddenly sounds confined, as if it doesn’t go farther than her lips.

She hears a sudden loud knock on the windowpane. Startled, she drops the clothes from her hands and looks out. Against the pane she sees a man’s fist; now it knocks again, and the glass rattles violently. She knows she has never seen quite such a fist before. She is taken aback, screams loudly. Then everything goes black around her.

When she regains consciousness, her mother and father are leaning over her, she is lying on the couch in the living room. Aid is there too, standing at a distance over by the door, wearing his winter jacket.

“Thank God,” says her father. “We thought you were sick again, Josefa.”

“No,” she says, a little surprised. “No. I’m not sick. I don’t think so.”

“Aid was walking past the washhouse. He heard you scream and found you on the floor inside.”

“It was so strange,” says Josefa thoughtfully.

“What was strange?” asks her mother.

“Someone knocked on the window,” says Josefa. “I got so scared.” Yes, now when she thinks about it, she knows she isn’t sick, she only got frightened.

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