The Ice Cage — A Scandinavian Crime Thriller set in the Nordic Winter (The Baltic Trilogy) by Olivier Nilsson-Julien
Authors: Olivier Nilsson-Julien
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before sitting in silence in my father’s kitchen. I t suddenly came back to me, my father saying that the funnel - shaped , orange lamp hanging above the kitchen table eavesdropped on everything we said . I f you leaned under it and remained completely still, you could hear echoes of our conversations. The lamp shade was like a sea shell that would have kept fragments of our voices .
Part of me had wanted to believe it and now I wished it was true. I really wished the lamp could whisper. Maybe in the future scientists would be able to extract such information from everyday knick - knacks , kitchen sinks and pedal bins. The cassette recorder had brought me back to my childhood, i t had made the house come alive again. The voice of the house was on the tape like a melody from the past. I was listening to a forgott en me surrounded by our family.
What surprised me most was how different my mother sounded. I recognised her voice, but it wasn’t the voice I’d grown up with in London . She was usually bitter and negative, spending much of her time muttering to herself. Here the tone was lighter and it was obvious I’d seen her happy in Mariehamn , but she’d chosen to repress it . She’d spent the last two decades denying anything good had ever happened with my fat her and convincing me that it was the truth. It was sad to think that she’ d wasted so much energy on criticising the best time of her life, beca use that’s what it sounded like. In Mariehamn, s he’ d been a happy young woman full of hope and after the separation she’d turned bitter. She’d seen my father’s desire to leave as a betrayal and had never come to terms with it. The only way I’d been able to cope with her inability to adapt was to shut down everything to do with my father.
I rang Carrie to tell her about the tape and that I needed some more time. Of course, I would come bac k immediately if she needed me, but she really didn’t want me to return until I was done . I should do whatever I had to do now. Once the baby arrived, she wanted everything to be sorted and certainly wouldn’t want me to leave again. I realised that this was also about me becoming a father. I needed to know who my father had been and where I was coming from. My children would ask about their granddad. It was the right decision a nd it was confirmed when I made another discovery in the attic, a shocking one – a box of letters sent to me in London by my father .
My mother had returned them unopened . I recognised her handwriting on the envelopes – ‘ unknown at this address ’ . In the letters , my father told me how much he missed me as well as about his skating and fishing adventures, always with warmth and humour. He loved his life, but failed to hide that there was a big void . I sensed that the separation from me and my mother had distanced him from life , made him more emotionally detached. P art of his heart had been ripped out . That’ s what I read between the lines, but of course these were letters intended for a 10 - year old and probably written th inking that my mother would examine them first. In any case, the letters reinforced my urge to understand my father’s life and feelings in his last days.
18
Apart from the soldiers, hunting with his father was the only thing he enjoyed as a kid. He’ d been scare d of pulling the trigger in the beginning and his father had started by teaching him that it wasn’ t to be pulled – i t was pressed in a smooth gesture that he would acquire with experience.
He loved the silence of the forest . There were sounds , but no unnecessary words. Every single crack or tweet had a meaning , whether a fox in the u nderg rowth, the wind or a bird. I t wa s never arbitrary, never noise for the sake of noise . To him these natural sounds were appeasi ng.
But it was shooting his first moose that had impressed him the most. T he feeling of taking down such a massive animal had made him all shaky and
Part of me had wanted to believe it and now I wished it was true. I really wished the lamp could whisper. Maybe in the future scientists would be able to extract such information from everyday knick - knacks , kitchen sinks and pedal bins. The cassette recorder had brought me back to my childhood, i t had made the house come alive again. The voice of the house was on the tape like a melody from the past. I was listening to a forgott en me surrounded by our family.
What surprised me most was how different my mother sounded. I recognised her voice, but it wasn’t the voice I’d grown up with in London . She was usually bitter and negative, spending much of her time muttering to herself. Here the tone was lighter and it was obvious I’d seen her happy in Mariehamn , but she’d chosen to repress it . She’d spent the last two decades denying anything good had ever happened with my fat her and convincing me that it was the truth. It was sad to think that she’ d wasted so much energy on criticising the best time of her life, beca use that’s what it sounded like. In Mariehamn, s he’ d been a happy young woman full of hope and after the separation she’d turned bitter. She’d seen my father’s desire to leave as a betrayal and had never come to terms with it. The only way I’d been able to cope with her inability to adapt was to shut down everything to do with my father.
I rang Carrie to tell her about the tape and that I needed some more time. Of course, I would come bac k immediately if she needed me, but she really didn’t want me to return until I was done . I should do whatever I had to do now. Once the baby arrived, she wanted everything to be sorted and certainly wouldn’t want me to leave again. I realised that this was also about me becoming a father. I needed to know who my father had been and where I was coming from. My children would ask about their granddad. It was the right decision a nd it was confirmed when I made another discovery in the attic, a shocking one – a box of letters sent to me in London by my father .
My mother had returned them unopened . I recognised her handwriting on the envelopes – ‘ unknown at this address ’ . In the letters , my father told me how much he missed me as well as about his skating and fishing adventures, always with warmth and humour. He loved his life, but failed to hide that there was a big void . I sensed that the separation from me and my mother had distanced him from life , made him more emotionally detached. P art of his heart had been ripped out . That’ s what I read between the lines, but of course these were letters intended for a 10 - year old and probably written th inking that my mother would examine them first. In any case, the letters reinforced my urge to understand my father’s life and feelings in his last days.
18
Apart from the soldiers, hunting with his father was the only thing he enjoyed as a kid. He’ d been scare d of pulling the trigger in the beginning and his father had started by teaching him that it wasn’ t to be pulled – i t was pressed in a smooth gesture that he would acquire with experience.
He loved the silence of the forest . There were sounds , but no unnecessary words. Every single crack or tweet had a meaning , whether a fox in the u nderg rowth, the wind or a bird. I t wa s never arbitrary, never noise for the sake of noise . To him these natural sounds were appeasi ng.
But it was shooting his first moose that had impressed him the most. T he feeling of taking down such a massive animal had made him all shaky and
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