The Children's Blizzard(45)

    And a strange foreboding also rattled her chest: What of the children she had so blithely sent home?

For a second her breath caught on the suggestion of loss beyond anything she could comprehend, her own actions the reason why. She shut her mind to it, lest it overwhelm her. She must think now only of Minna and Ingrid, so inert in their sleep. Their ordeal must have taken such a toll on them, no wonder they slept so soundly.

Turning about was painful—she cried out, but the girls didn’t appear to hear—as sharp daggers slaughtered her knees. She was afraid she might break them, and she wondered about that—could a kneecap break? She’d never heard of such a thing, but every inch of her felt as brittle as thin glass. Still she had to get out of here, somehow.

Finally, she maneuvered herself until she was on her hands and knees, her lower legs dragging behind like sled runners as she crawled out of the haystack. The unfiltered air made her gasp, made her bronchial tubes seize up, her nostrils freeze; she had to pant to get any of that icy hot air inside her lungs. The blinding sun, the dazzling white snow—her eyes began to smart, to tear up, and she shut them, feeling tears roll and then freeze on her cheeks. Her ears began to burn, but she crawled away from the haystack with her eyes still squeezed shut; she crawled for a few more yards then dared to pry open her eyes once more, steeling herself for the shock of the sun—

    And when she saw the house only twenty-five yards or so away, she shouted with all her might as she crawled, one painful movement at a time, toward it. It was the girls’ house, for heaven’s sake! All this time, shelter had been only one last march away, but they hadn’t known. All this time, as the girls’ parents must have been frantic with worry, their daughters were freezing in one of their own haystacks. There was no irony left in Gerda, for she couldn’t bring herself to laugh about it. All she could do was inch forward like a wounded animal, her hands in the snow, no feeling left in them, her feet just dead things attached to her legs, shouting with all her might, knowing her voice wouldn’t carry, not even in the frigid morning air that amplified everything else—that hawk circling above, still crying, the rustle of a frozen tumbleweed scooting over the snow, a faint, chirping sound, like a mouse that had found himself, unwillingly, forced out of his nest.

“Help, help,” Gerda kept shouting, and finally a door opened. A worried man and woman peered out, horrified astonishment on their faces as they snatched at coats and rushed out of the house toward her. With her last ounce of strength she pointed toward the haystack and gasped, “Minna, Ingrid,” and then she felt herself fading down into the snow until a strong arm hauled her out and she was being carried into the house and deposited in haste upon the floor nearest the kitchen stove, the faint warmth of the fire surprising her frozen skin into protesting with shocks of pure pain. The arms, attached to the body of Gustav Nillssen, then left, and she heard him call for his girls, his cries mingling with his wife’s.

    Then they were silenced. No more calls; it was quiet. Gerda imagined them lifting up their daughters and any second they’d be back inside. But the seconds passed, the silence continued.

Gerda’s eyes fluttered, she fell back into what passed for sleep when a body was so frozen and exhausted, her heart so feeble she was aware of its every attempt to beat blood through her body….It was so tempting to just give in and let her heart take a rest; she could sleep forever and ever….

Then a cry startled her awake, shocking her heart into beating more regularly, remembering its purpose.

The shrieking kept up, got louder, came closer. Then the door burst open and two adults, their arms around two limp bundles of clothing, were inside, kicking Gerda away from the stove so they could kneel before it, frantically rubbing the bundles, calling their names—Ingrid! Minna!

But the bundles didn’t move, didn’t stir.

Gerda pushed herself up on her elbows, confused; she, too, called the girls’ names. But no answer came, and she caught a glimpse of Minna’s deathly white face, blue lips, doll-like blue hands. The stillness that Gerda had seen earlier but not been able to recognize in one so young, the stillness of a body ready for the grave.

Gerda fell back, shutting her eyes before she could see the Nillssens’ faces. She couldn’t bear it, not now; not with the still-fresh memory of Minna on her back as she took each grueling step, thinking that as she did, she was one step closer to getting her and Ingrid to shelter. Thinking that Minna was still alive—and now she had to wonder. When did the girl die? Was it before they even got in the haystack, that tunnel she’d dug with her own numb hands?

    Had she been carrying a corpse on her back the entire time? The effigy of a child—of all the children—she’d been in charge of keeping safe?

Where were they? Where were all the others? Feverishly, she began to chant the names of all her pupils out loud, as she did every day when she took the roll: “Minna, Ingrid, Hardus, Johnny, Johannes, Karl, Walter, Sebastian, Lydia.

“Minna, Ingrid, Hardus, Johnny, Johannes, Karl, Walter, Sebastian, Lydia—”

“Shut up, shut up!” Someone was shaking her shoulders, forcing her to wake up, to see—

New grief, etching its way into weathered skin, in the faces of the girls’ parents. Mrs. Nillssen would turn hard in her sorrow, Gerda thought, oddly, as she tried to make sense of the tragedy. Hard, silent, but she would endure. Mr. Nillssen would be plowed under it, just like the fields he worked every day. Maybe that was what truly did make this land yield up its meager harvest: the weight of unbearable sadness pressing down upon it.