The Ice Carriers by Anna Enquist

Nico had sneaked away while she was still asleep. Usually he bicycled quickly to the hospital on Saturday, in jeans and a windbreaker. How we can keep this up, she thought, sitting on the edge of the bed. She bent forward until her head hung between her knees. Every day again try not to think. Disregard with all your might the mute choir in the back of your head that sang “help” at the top of its voice, that chanted incessantly “I wish I were dead.” Vigorously limit the open hours of the day by working, answering the mail, taking care of the things in the house, pruning the bushes. And all that silently, separate from each other, alone. He pedaled the hours away on his racing bike, she shoveled them into the ground.

There was still dew on the grass. In the back of the garden, near the gate next to the bicycle path that led to the dunes, the sun was drying the pathetic plants and bushes; a barely visible mist hung above the leaves. Laying out a vegetable garden was a project that would keep her safe her for weeks.

Slowly she walked to the shed to get gloves, hoe and spade. She wanted to dig out all the half dead plants and next to the shed she made a trash heap, a bonfire. Around a plant she pushed open the earth with a shovel; sitting on her knees she dislodged the roots until she could pull it out. With a handkerchief she tied back her hair which kept falling in her face. The muscles in her back were tensed to the limit and hurt. Persevere. She did it for this; for a short time nothing existed outside this struggle.

“Difficult,isn’t it, to make something grow in that sand!” She looked up;she hadn’t heard him come, but in her immediate memory she knew that the shells of the bicycle path had crunched. A young man was sitting on his bicycle; with one hand he held onto the gate and with a foot he balanced on the ground. On the seat rack he carried a large bag of garden soil, and on the handlebars hung plastic bags with the logo of the garden center on them.

“I’m Wessel ten Cate. I attended your school. But only for a very short time. That’s how I know you.” Around twenty or so, she thought, a clean-cut face, eyes looking away. Would such a boy be shy? But why then does he speak to me? I can’t remember ever seeing him, but that means nothing, students remember teachers better than the other way round. She rose to her feet. Together they surveyed the damage. She told him what she was planning: leeks ,lettuce, broad beans, gooseberry bushes, a strawberry bed.

“Are you Maj’s mother?” he asked. She nodded, turned around and walked ahead of him to the shed, speaking rapidly over her shoulder. That he should put on an overall which hung in the back on a nail; where the buckets were, the connection for the garden hose, the pruning shears, the planting dibbles, rope, cow manure, grass seed, flower pots; of course he wanted something to drink ‘digging makes you thirsty’ especially in such beautiful weather; the sun was already hot in that part of the garden.