S2E16 Beyond The North Wind Chapter 16

The ice cave reveals itself to Emil.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Beyond the North Wind Chapter sixteen I started to pack up my rucksack with the realization that I had been foolish. I would need to abort the plan. There was no heat brighter than the flame of our love, but this was a dangerous way of celebrating it. There was heat and white light from the two bright flames of the candles, and the love of ice for heat is well established. Oh Anna, if you could have only seen this place, you would have loved it. An inviting but temporary cavern, a deadly Venus fly trap, and I would have brought you here. I hurried to pack away my camera when the first chunks of ice started to fall around me. I looked up and saw that the ice eagle had lurched forward with its wings scraping the ground. In the moment that I registered the dismay of the fallen eagle, larger pieces of ice began to rain on my head. The eagle collapsed into huge sections of ice and the rainbow vanished from its wings. I tried to run to the entrance, but I lost my footing. I put out my hands as I went down and cut them on hidden rocks, smashing my knee. Above me the sun shone through the new holes in the roof. The warmth from the sky reached down for the candelabra that laid on its side with candles extinguished. Larger chunks of ice fell and crashed onto the floor. I curled up at the base of the destroyed eagle, face stricken, hands up, warding off the falling ice. The roof was giving way. The sun entered the cabin, eager to connect with the heat from the miniature star within. The image of the sun through the roof was clear. I remember it as I speak now. Then there was a shift of the camera to a new scene. I was flat on my back with ice and snow on my chest. My vision was doing something quite peculiar, repeatedly scrolling upwards to the collapsed roof. I could not control it. I moaned and groaned, tried to clear this unpleasant experience. My breathing was shallow, I could not move or take a full breath. There was mist rising around me, melt water trickling past my inert body, draining into several holes in the cabin floor. A man high chunk of ice lay next to me. It must have been the capstone of the cavern. I surmised that I had been knocked flat by it and that it had broken apart around me. There was black sediment on the ice, which would have trapped the sunlight and encouraged melting and collapse. Parts of the walls of the cavern were pushed outwards and now seemed thin and insubstantial. The weight of the roof must have been too much in the end. I could only breathe softly and take it all in. Water was streaming down any wall still standing. The rocky table lay in ruins, the tablecloth a sodden, besmirched mess. There were some remains of the opening arch, but little else. The ice eagle was no more, its body and wings separated on the floor. A shard of blue ice rimmed with gold lay beside me. Was the gold a trick of the light or a valuable mineral? I was moving. Even with my damaged senses I could tell that I was slowly sliding downstream from the smashed eagle to the darkest regions of the cavern. There was the sound of running water to accompany me being carried along by the melting ice to an unknown destination. I could do little to resist. I was soaked through and getting colder by the moment, sliding along the wet cavern floor with a sickening feeling of vertigo. I lay for what seemed like hours, watching the sun continue its arc across the sky. My beer can camera on the roof of the summer farm was set to record the passage of Apollo's chariot. Would Anna develop the film now that I was leaving and would not be back home? Did she even know that the camera was there? I needed to make one last image before the inevitable, a farewell message on my phone. My camera was in its waterproof enclosure next to the candelabra. My phone was next to me, screen smashed, display dark. I would like to leave something for you, Anna, to make sure that you know I was all right at the end. There is a permanent marker pen in my pocket for labelling film cassettes. The top comes off and falls onto the ice, but no matter, I have a firm grip on the pen. There I have recorded my last message as best I can, the only thing that I need to say with a shaking hand, and not much time left. Emile Giron studied photography in Oslo and worked as an associate photographer for several wildlife and nature magazines. Influenced by Imagist Poets, Hum, Pound, etc, his early work concentrated on images of juxtaposed complementary colours found in nature. He changed direction in later life to photograph exterior artifacts, notably buildings, in monochrome. His publications include Redbird Green Leaves and Shade and Shadow twenty eighteen. This was not going to end well. I closed my eyes, but the sliding sensation remained. I was on a conveyor belt in a crematorium. The door would open to allow the coffin through and then it would close and that would be that. I knew that I was dreaming that I was somewhere in a darkened place struggling to wake up. I was hanging on, reaching out a hand, waiting to be picked up, waiting for someone to appear by my side. There was no one about. The ice cave was not on an obvious route across the glacier. It had taken a detour to get here, and I had done well to dissuade any like minded explorers. I remembered a postcard, hand sized and glossy, with a scene of a river and a background of fir trees. A young man and woman were in a boat, dressed in funny costumes, light suede jackets with tassels each held a paddle out of the water. The thrill of the present predicament and the mysterious object from the past. That postcard was on my bedside cupboard for ages. The click of the cupboard door, the smell of wood and of chocolate mints hidden inside, the click of the door closing, secrets, the development of personality. Keep track, keep focus. They were Indians in a canoe carved from a tree. On the back of the card was a red maple leaf, greetings from Canada. The scroll was hard to read, I could only make out the name Uncle Conrad on the bottom line, one of two mysterious uncles never seen. Should I have shown it to my man and Augustine or keep it secret? Deception A message from another world, excitement, a world that I wished to visit, Indians, Native Americans tanned faces, exotica, the open sea, the future. A second postcard arrived at some point in my childhood. From Poland In a forest two young people wearing coats were escaping into the trees. Both had shaved heads, were barefoot and wore dark grey blankets. The young woman was further up the tree than the man. They turned around just at the right time to be captured by the photographer. It was an artfully posed shot. Chest nipples, not an ounce of fat. There was a stillness and patience about the actors that belied the supposed urgency in their escape. Still the photographer did a good job and got his shot away. There is the trumpet solo again. Anna hears it and I hear her. I am sliding on an icy floor towards a melt water hole in a cave. Close your eyes and feel for the image in words, pour out what you feel. A building that says something because you are mouthing the words. This collapsed cave says the end of a meal. Early jurons were easy to spot, they sold in the front windows of art galleries in the cities. A yellow sunset against the purple sea, an orange tulip against the blue sky, a red bird amongst the green leaves. Yes, those were early jurons, striking, plain, intense student stuff. The vibrating edge of complimentary colours. Viewers loved the immediacy. They were not very subtle, won no awards, but they sold well and paid the bills. Wait, how did I get here? My home country is very well run, so I never did social comment. There is little chance of catching the sight of tight lipped royalty dressed in furs leaving the opera and ignoring open mouthed beggars. I don't document people at work or at play. People pose, even when in a crowd, they collude in supposedly candid photographs. People are too complicated. What I wanted was the honest viewer. Sliding slowing sliding. I concentrated solely on the outside of the form to get to the inside of the viewer. I found the places that interested me, planned the shot, and came back prepared to impose myself on the scene. Anyone can take a realist photo with their phone. Few people, however, can take a picture of sand dunes and turn them into dark and light textured blocks of fabric that you want to reach out and touch. Barn black isolated zoom out light surroundings papagon. Call it abandonment, if you will. Is that an Adams or a White? Is that a Gironde? You can destroy all my photos, all the prints, all the electronic images, the magazines, everything, but my ideas will still exist as objective knowledge. Whereas if you destroy me, that is rather the end of it. The ice cave was merely a temporary shell of ice hiding a death trap. We both could have died, but instead it will just be me. I knew that there is a hole behind me in the cave floor which leads directly down. Do not pass go, do not collect four thousand krona. To the bottom of the glacier, in other words I was sliding into a mulin, from which, rather like a black hole, no one escapes. Figures queued up on the edge of my awareness. They filed past my icy bed to say goodbye. Mamma bent down to give me a kiss and a fruit chew before I got on the taxi to school. Augustine punched me gently on the shoulder and told me to get my guard up. Then he took up a newly printed photograph, the one of Dark Barnes in the middle of nowhere. He nodded his head in agreement. He never said that he liked it. Movement wasn't possible. I tried, but it was like trying to wake up from a deep sleep. I was mentally alert but physically incapable. Anna, are you still watching that TV programme with the Herter Gruten ferry travelling up the coast? The boat should have reached Oxfield by now. People want to get on TV, so I'm sure that there will be a crowd gathered at the wharf. I would have liked to go and see it, or even better, book a berth on the return journey to Bergen. Gliding over glass, over mirrors, moving through ripples, wiping the rain off the bow cam, helping the captain to put out a string of flags or pennants like bunting on the mast in front of the camera. We live in a beautiful country, that is for sure. I hope I have contributed to the enjoyment of our surroundings. It is a shame that I am stuck here, coat and clothes soaked in the narrow river of melt water that will take me down the Moulin. I am slipping away. You will be upset when you find out. I am sorry. Make sure you cry, yes, you must. You will need to let it all out. Remember Yvonne's funeral. You must howl. You must sob. Choke on the tears. Then tell a nice story about me. It's okay, I'm not in pain. I had an accident, a rather foolish accident. You will find out eventually, I hope. The brush of a fly landing on my hand is like the brush of Gunnar's coat. Let's all go out for a walk together.