An Element of Doubt

Marc de Courcy awoke in a cold sweat! It was raw fear! It always reduced him to this condition. It took a full minute for relief to flood over him when he realized it was the dream - recurrent - identical to the original which he had had as a boy. He didn’t have the dream so often now - not the repetitive process he used to have when he was young and later when he was maturing into manhood. But every once in a while the dream returned to shake him physically.

He could see himself as a young boy, blond, vivid blue eyes, slim; he would be waiting for someone to come home but invariably that someone would emerge from a cave - the same type of cave where it was thought there lived various types of trolls who took their form and shape from the silvery grey rocks and stones which were twisted into round, square or elongated forms that came from basalt or granite; often their eyes would be delineated by the crystalline texture of quartz while their mouths were formed from the dark characteristics of igneous rocks. Norway was said to be inhabited by these trolls whose habitat appeared to be, for the most part, along the central mountainous spine that ran along the center of the country.

He had forcibly obliterated every thought of his childhood which had been harsh, lonely and at which time he was consumed with a raging hunger for food; he couldn’t ever remember being satisfied. Neither could he remember a softening presence since his mother had died when he was fairly young. He lived with his grandfather Gustafson - a giant troll of a man who was mute - not congenitally but because he had suffered a stroke some years earlier which had left him in that condition. He was able to work physically and did so but it was impossible to communicate except by sign language. Sometimes, the boy, lonely and frustrated would pretend he didn’t understand and would turn away. Occasionally he, the grandfather, would write something on a piece of paper to try to communicate with the boy but it was like trying to decipher Old Norse - it may even have been Old Norse for all the boy knew, something Per thought of years later. His grandfather eventually became very ill because of lack of care and he was unable to work.

About four times a year his father’s brother Uncle Ivar would come from Trondheim to stock the larder and leave money for him and the grandfather also clothing for the boy who looked forward to his uncle’s visits - but Trondheim was some distance away.

When the boy was twelve Uncle Ivar came for his quarterly visit; at that time he felt that Per was old enough to understand what perhaps had happened to his father Lars Norstadt who had gone away to fight in the ‘resistance.’ "Resistance?"

"Yes! But first I must tell you the background of all this. Thor Gustafson (your grandfather here) married Audur Arnmudsson both from here - Hronsk. They had three children several years apart; just when they thought they would have no more children a little girl was born -the others had been boys. They named her Threllig, she was to become your mother. The child was six when her mother died - the boys had all gone from home by then. Your grandfather’s sister in Trondheim took her in because she had had only sons. The child grew into a beautiful young woman who fell in love with Lars Norstadt my brother; he was a year older than she was. They married and had you. At that time the Germans came to Norway having been sold out by Vidkun Quisling. First, the Germans required every Jew to wear the Star of David on their outer clothing; King Haakon was outraged! He wore one too to show his displeasure; eventually he escaped to England. After the war Quisling was found guilty of war crimes and shot! But all this you must know?" The boy shook his head. "Your father Lars joined the resistance but moved your mother and you here to Hronsk thinking you would be safer but that was not so! Grandfather Gustafson recalled the day the Germans came - - he told me this when I came to visit you. Like everyone else your mother Threlig was terrified of the Germans; when she saw the armored cars driving in, she panicked, ran behind the tool shed; she might have been saved had she run into the shed itself but she ran around the back from which the earth had eroded; she slipped and fell before she realized what had happened! Her screams were heard as she went down, down, down! There should have been some sort of railing there but your grandfather never got around to it." He shrugged: "The townspeople thought the Germans had found her and had carried her away for their pleasure! Her body was never been found!"

"All this has been hard on you lad! I would take you in myself but we have five children - it’s a struggle to keep things going as it is. Perhaps when you are ready for secondary education we can bring you to Trondheim to see what we can do; perhaps then one or two of our children will be ready to go out to work and we can take you in."

With Uncle Ivar’s visits, the provisions he brought as well as clothes and money, Per continued his daily life. One day while passing the widow Throwald’s house she saw him with his school satchel on his back walking to school. From the corner of his eye he saw her go to the small pasture to milk the cow. There were a few of these pastures which had been wrested from the rocky soil which had crumbled. The best present for those who came to visit was to bring a bagful of dirt - just plain soil. Throwalds had been tending to their pastures, small as they were for decades. The cow had a small pasture for grass while the other areas were given over to vegetables. Mountain flowers grew in profusion in the spring and summer so these small plots of earth were for food growing. Some people kept pigs and poultry so there was a supply of pork, eggs and poultry for the small town. The boy stopped to watch the milking thinking that if he learned to milk the cow the widow would let him have a glass of milk and perhaps some bread with butter. He approached her with the suggestion.

"Are you hungry lad?"