Austrian winters cut deep, brandishing exposed skin with bitingly cold plumes, descending from mountain tops. The only feasible way to survive a rural Austrian winter in 1820, especially the duration of its bleakest months, December to March, is to obtain a box-bed.
A simple box-bed.
Raised from the floor, enclosed on four sides with wooden walls and a closed ceiling creates an insulated, rectangular world – a microcosm. Being in possession, certainly provides a cosier wintertime, in homes carved from foothills below the towering dove-tips of Sattnitz Mountains. A mountainous range stretching far – to both the east and west. Prestigious white-capped giants with verdant forests for legs, stretch down to lower villages, eventually trickling into passable pathways.
Friede can only remember sleeping in one, not able to fathom a time when the pivotal bed of her two-roomed home within Carinthia, the coldest region in Austria, did not contain the pivotal box-bed. Always, it has been a keen focus: a childhood haunt, safe place. An expanse where doors can be temporally closed on flurries of snow outside that whirlwind in building frenzies. It is an eyrie in which to hope, dream and rekindle. Friede’s small family have always nestled together within its wooden hold as birds in downy nests, tucked safely into unseen, treetop branches.
As a babe in arms, she would drift to sleep in a swaddled cocoon, soothed by folds of mother and father around her, fitting exactingly within an oval gap left between curved, spoon-like bodies. Since birth, the box-bed has been a womb to Friede, another form of parental protection, with the only difference being that it was built by her father, a skilled carpenter, and not the enfolding flesh of her mother, Lena, in pregnancy. Both have offered epicentres of protection – in different formats.
Whilst harsh winters blast exteriors of rural cottages, the box-bed stands firmly affixed, mimicking a gilded throne that has stood proudly for centuries – no signs of weakness or crack lines present, dispelling orbital power. Some wintertimes ravage land so crops are near impossible to grow, and certainly cannot do so with any fruition or zeal. Lamentably, hard-baked, frozen earth, oftentimes steals seedlings, foraging them into an unlighted underbelly, far beneath iced surface soil, shedding potentiality for growth. Despondency reigns after blasting snowstorms: only frozen kernels are left, skeletal skins of what ifs.
Reading a-front of the fire during Prussian-frost winters, enabled Friede’s love of reading and story time: being perfect pastimes suited to indoor, box-bed worlds. Lena’s lulling fairytales coax her to sleep in arms whilst reading a Hans Christian Anderson folklore tale; Friede favouring The Snow Queen and The Steadfast Tin Soldier. Readying for slumber, her mother will neatly bundle Friede into woven, patchwork blankets, settling within the box-bed at pivotal changes in light, from dusk to darkness. A labour of warmth, and love, stitched into tapestries of eiderdown, acting as added layers of comfort within the box-bed.
In this wooden dimension, stories become lived visions: dreams brightened by each morality tale told by dimming candlelight; imaginative curiosity enlightening, when she learns of fiendish wolves, dwelling deviously in forest glades, and of evil witches enticing young children into captivity with sugary treats, lost to prison-cell cages. Here, she drifts off to cushiony sleep, stroked by fairytale softness.
As she grows into an older child, she takes earnest interest in Aurelius, and his trade of carpentry, most notably whittling. This Friede takes to when harsh storms enclose the cottage making pathways to nearby villages impassable. When the inclination endears him, of an otherwise listless evening, when sat before the blazing flames of the cottage hearth, this is when Friede’s eye narrows, becoming ever watchful and critical.
From a small child, Friede would regard dexterous turnings of her father’s quick hands, magically conjuring shapes and form from raw, lumpen wood. His only tool: a simple sheepsfoot blade; the tip of the knife perfectly aligned with each cutting edge that he plains, resulting in curled shavings slivering to the floor. Friede is always asked to gather wooden curlicues and toss them onto the fire, adding to its kindling spark, but as she turns nine years old, she yearns to wield the knife. Her thirst to whittle, morphs into a tangible presence within their Austrian homestead.
Her volition is a silent substance, one sat in a shadowy chair.
Markedly, she is no longer content to be merely passive, as a mere spectator, not able to wield wooden figurines into life. Marvelling, she has learned to love the art form, aspiring to do as her father: transforming blank wooden pieces into carved fairies, owls and a plethora of other woodland creatures, dotting the cottage as ornaments or sold at market.
As time unspools, Friede begins to carve instead of playing the role of mindless helper: she frequently holds the blade herself, forming meaningless curvature at first, and not the clearly identifiable woodland sprites and animals that wide eye her from the mantelpiece, coined by her father, Aurelius.
“You must have patience,” comes the only response as he finishes, with adept exactitude, perfecting an intricate carving of an alpine swift. Its wings, extended in full flight, soaring high above mountaintops that surround their homestead. The scored, individual feathers are a work of dedication and exacting eye, one keen to replicate the detailed patterning of natural life.
“I shall not be as good as you, father,” she half-breathes as he passes the blade to his only child.
Nervous, her hands wobble to begin with, causing her to drop the knife. Steadfast, as is her very nature, she scoops the blade from its falling place, each and every time, that it falls from her determined hand. Her mother embroiders by the windowpane where icy tendrils flicker in the candlelight as Friede begins her unofficial apprenticeship.
At ease, her mother’s feet rest atop a pouffe – covered by one of her embroidered coverings. The cushioned footstool depicts bunches of edelweiss that flourish in Carinthia, tucked into remote mountain crags and rocky limestone slopes. Intricate floral heads poke around stockinged feet, showcasing lance-shaped and woolly-white leaves, formatted by mother nature into a perfect star. A quick glance steels Friede to persist in whittling, emboldening her belief, safe in the reassuring knowledge that she stems from two artistic parents. I too, can whittle, she reasserts, hopeful to stopper wobbling confidence as it rises in intense waves. Crimson kisses of frustrated embarrassment fleck her cheeks as she toils.
Eventually, through perseverance and time, the soft wood permits each impression that she intends to carve. The wooden lump desists its original reluctance. Her imaginative projections begin to take shape, forming blurry silhouettes of recognisable beings.
A start.
Thickly and apace, the winter lessens the gripping of arctic arms around Carinthia, depleting its hold of Friede’s village, allowing Ebenthal and the wider scope of Klagenfurt-Land, a reprieve from the chill. Once again, the iced mountain plains, commence warming by the closer, lower heat of the sun, shedding waves of light to villagers beneath, rekindling tired and darkened inhabitants from winter’s drowsy shroud. Daffodil fingers reach forth as Friede explores lower mountainsides and forest glades of home, tightly folded into a double-breasted, woollen coat. Now spring is spreading, she is allowed to venture from the cottage, oftentimes to play or she is asked to pick vegetables from the allotment. Full of promise, she tucks golden ringlets into her Dachstein wool cap, too eager to sense the alpine air upon her face and for it to flutter freely in the breeze, mirroring Friede’s own desire to adventure outside the fringes of homely, enveloped warmth.
On one particular morning, Friede is tasked with picking edelweiss for her mother, Lena, to press into a tincture. The crushed, worked flowers are to be used in order to produce a medicinal cure for stomach ailments, sold to many villagers. The star-shaped heads tilt towards her as she scoops, picking a basket-full of virginally white blossoms. Once her task is achieved, she nestles within blooms on a clear, grassy patch. Sitting atop spongy verdancy, she takes to whittling, having brought along a lumpen piece of wood, small but large enough to carve a shape into. Inspired by the dancing heads of the yellow-centred flowers, she starts to carve a five-petal shape, mimicking the outline of the flower as presented upon this spring, clement morning. So lost is she in her work, she fails to notice a young man has set up paints and an easel not far from where she wields her knife creating floral silhouettes of edelweiss.
An artist.
Amicably, he smiles across at Friede, inviting instant trust and affinity in an unspoken look of assurance and familiarity even though he is no more than a stranger.
Some minutes pass before he deposits a paint-stained brush into a jar of twirling, watery hues, making his way over to the chequered blanket that Friede sits on top of.
“Edelweiss,” he breathes into the air as he nears Friede, assessing the changing shape held in her lap. “You have a talent,” he adds.
“You are too kind. I am only a novice. It is my father, Aurelius, who holds the true talent. He is a carpenter,” she answers, a little intrepidly.
“Come and look upon my easel. We have the same muse, you and I,” he discloses with a playful wink of his left eye.
She follows him unquestioningly.
The two youngsters saunter towards the other side of the patch of blooms and then Frieda sees it. A painting of edelweiss, in full bloom and abundance, offset by greenery of the mountain slopes, framing delicate heads of edelweiss as portraiture.
“Simply exquisite,” she enthuses whilst regarding his work with great interest. “This must have taken you some days to paint?”
“Every morning for the past week since spring has broken, I have studied floral blooms here, wishing to capture truth: an enchanting spirit that they are beholders of, within painted brushstrokes. As a fellow admirer, I hope that my depiction of edelweiss is pleasing to you?” he delicately questions, keen to impress with his artistry.
“Beautiful. My mother would love to see it. Father also. Perhaps you could visit us when you are again painting in the area.”
Awkward moments persist held by the alpine arms of air.
“I forget myself. Forgive me. I haven’t even asked your name,” she half apologises. A flash of crimson embarrassment courses her throat as she takes to admire his blonde flops of hair and piercingly blue eyes, as hypnotising whirlpools, holding unknown depths and turning tides.
“Josef,” he replies simply. “I’m Josef. I live in the next village to you.”
Stilted time holds them where neither can glance away, not even to return to artistry, but remain standing firm as magnets, naturally drawn. A light breeze reawakens Friede before she realises that another stretch of minutes unravels between them, becoming slightly awkward as her self-consciousness dawns.
“Mother. I forgot. I must return home. Mother will be awaiting the edelweiss,” she explains pointing to the full basket opposite Josef’s easel. “She crushes the flowers, making them into herbal remedies. It is quite popular in our village,” she adjoins, wishing to quell the unsaid attraction that grows as she silently appraises the young artist.
“Until next time,” he earnestly offers as a farewell, not wishing to put her into a nervous spin, sensing rising unease to return home.
As she bundles belongings together, placing a chequered blanket atop her horde of edelweiss, she calls out to the artist.
“I’m Friede,” she offers, trundling through softly stroking blades of grass that caress her ankles; dressed in a pinafore style, cotton dress as befits amicable weather.
Many months pass before Friede sees Josef again. Whenever she takes to collect edelweiss over the end of spring and start of summer, Josef is always absent.
At home, her craft improves under the ever watchful and instructive gaze of her father, Aurelius. She takes to carving a single wooden pane within the box-bed one morning when her father is from home and her mother makes medicinal presses within the kitchen.
Using the blade of her whittling knife, she takes to carving a series of panels over coming days and weeks; each one depicting her childhood years. The first pane, as a comic strip, tells of her birth, cocooned by the protective hold of her parents in the box-bed. The second panel reflects her mother embroidering before the fireside. The third is of her father whittling a piece of wood into the shape of an owl – a figurine that he holds aloft in appeasing hands within the panel etching. A moment, prized memory, stilled perpetually, in wood-framed time. Further etchings speak of fairytales that resounded so memorably when younger, but still echo now, persisting in imagination especially when adventuring around her woodland home.
Each day, she whittles, and carves portraits of stilled life into more of the box-bed panels.
Summer passes and Josef is never sighted. Thinking of him, she carves more recent frames of life into the impressionable wood: Josef at his easel along the base of the mountainside where they first met. Lena admires her forming visual tapestry as they sleep together at nighttime. Her father staying more in front of the fire with a blanket now that Friede is a young woman and wants more space and privacy. He is cognisant of her etchings though and praises clear markings that paint the story of her life thus far. A box-bed that belonged to his parents and an integral feature of his childhood in the selfsame village of Ebenthal.
Friede’s skill begins to extend beyond imaginings of carved scenes within the box-bed. Father now takes a number of carved figurines to work: her carved edelweiss ornaments proving to be most popular and sold in swathes at market.
Summer elongates into autumn and the weather turns. No longer do the fragile heads of edelweiss sway caressingly in the breeze. A colder clime sweeps the mountain plains summoning the need for Friede to work within the warmth of the box-bed. Her creativity cast into its many squared panels as stilled images.
One late October night, a sturdy, insistent knock is heard at the front door. Friede’s mother dons a dressing gown and lights a candle, shuffling to the door with chilled feet.
Muffled voices are heard as Friede remains half-asleep in the box-bed. Her father, Aurelius, awoken, coughs, standing before the fire and joins his wife.
A young man’s face is illumined by mother’s held candle; beams paint his face into fruition from the sheet of blackness outside.
Friede discerns her ear, eager to hear more of the fuzzy conversation in the dead of night. She manages to hold onto fragments.
“Mother…”
“A terrible sickness.”
“Can you help me?” echoes a vaguely familiar voice, desperately pleading.
Friede rises to join her parents concerned for the wellness of a fellow villager to be shockingly greeted by Josef’s aggrieved face at the door.
“Josef,” she half shouts in alarm. “What is wrong?” she desperately questions.
“Whatever are you doing here?”
“My mother, Mila, has the winter sickness. It took father a few years ago and I fear she may not last the night,” he panics, although, managing to keep a sense of gentlemanly decorum, even in his direst hour of need.
“I hope your mother with her cures may be able to help her,” he discloses, speaking to Friede instead of to either of her parents. She is a more familiar face to him.
“I have an edelweiss tincture that I have made for many years which I sell at market. I will come with you to her. Let me dress quickly and collect the medicinals. I have other cures that may help her also,” Lena offers.
Friede is ushered back to bed by her father who insists on accompanying her mother to the home of Josef.
“Return to bed, my child, and rest. We shall be returned by first light,” he advises assuredly.
The night passes in fits and starts: Friede unable to compose her mind to the soft tapestry of sleep. She frets about Josef’s mother even though she has never met her. The winter sickness bug is notorious in these parts of Austria in the wintertime. Friede has heard enough of deaths since a child to know of its potential to kill, bringing destruction to families.
Dawn peeks her head around the curvature of the mountain range as Friede eyes the woodland trail, searching for the return of her family. By breakfast they are returned but with swelling news of woe. Josef’s mother, Mila, passed away in the night. Her mother’s natural remedy of crushed edelweiss too lately delivered in order to save her.
Weeks pass in gloomy silence within Friede’s woodland home as father sickens. Mother tends to him, but he becomes unable to grip the whittling knife: the blade that has defined his livelihood. The blade instinctively knowing the bone formation of his carving hand – long have man and tool coexisted together, producing a litany of skilled craft. The crushed presses that her mother tirelessly concocts, work somewhat, to relieve sickness, at first. Lamentably, as Austrian winter advances, he becomes unable to stand from his chair; his legs too wobbly to sustain body weight.
He dies on an early December evening. A melancholic day indeed. Winter sickness being the cause.
Months pass and as night draws in on Christmas Day, an unexpected knock resounds.
Josef.
“I have brought you a gift, Friede,” he offers, extending a brown paper parcel towards her. It is wrapped exactingly with a pale violet ribbon, drawn into a proudly neat bow atop.
“Happy Christmas, Friede. I am so truly sorry for the loss of your father. I heard of his sad passing within the village,” he soothes, offering her comfort within the balm of his soft, honeyed voice.
“Come in, Josef,” her mother calls beckoning him into their home. He is a welcome guest and manly presence in the absence of Friede’s father.
The festive period passes with Josef becoming a constant feature of Friede’s childhood home. He paints. Friede whittles. Her mother embroiders in her armchair often gazing searchingly for the return of her husband from market, yet his steps are never to beckon the doorway again. She knows this to be the truth but cannot do otherwise than pointlessly watch for him, just the same. He is missed beyond words or rational reckoning – some griefs can only exist in unspoken, gloaming tones.
As Friede enters her twenty-second year of age, Josef proposes, requesting her hand in marriage from Lena. She acquiesces. The match is a formidable one. Friede’s mother has no doubt in the bond that exists between her daughter and son-in-law to be. She is more than happy for the union to take place.
A simple service is held in Ebenthal, Carinthia by the priest that baptised Friede more than twenty-one years ago. Although lives have been lost, some things do persist – unchanging.
Two years later, a son is born. The box-bed now a safe place for Friede, Josef and her infant child. Her mother lives with them, often holding baby Elyah in her ageing arms within the cottage, rekindling warmth and stillness of life when holding Friede in younger arms as a newborn.
Friede adds to the tapestry of welded images in the box-bed. One, a representation of her as a new mother. She wishes, in time, to teach her son the artistry of wood, beginning with handing him a set of wooden building blocks that she played with as a toddler. Her father’s handiwork. As she watches Elyah lost in play, turning blocks in chubby hands, cushioned in the wooden womb walls of the box-bed, she remembers her father. Such a constant in her life but now rawly missed, as torn flesh from an open wound. Elyah eyes his mother’s adept hand as she wields pictorial meaning to the blank panels of the box-bed, sat with a mouth in an elongated ‘O’.
With a growing curiosity in the images that his mother crafts, he takes to pulling himself up, wishing to touch outlines of each panel carving, coursing infantile, chubby fingers along the plained lines. Always, returning to one panel, in particular. A panel showcasing a singular but enlarged bloom of edelweiss, coursing star-headed petals with an eager thirst, its central part, a bright golden star.
Her apprentice in waiting fingers the plained shape, a flower that unites his parents. The reason why they first met atop the inclining mountain years before – two artistic souls brought to the same meeting place. Edelweiss is a pivotal bloom that holds bountiful memories, even when Elyah himself, is aged, telling tales of this box-bed and its designed panels. An heirloom that tells stories of childhood, and that of his own mother. These are memories to rekindle with future grandchildren; grandchildren flickering unseen in wooden panels – ones yet to be carved into familiarly known shapes.
Photo by Lorna Scubelek on Unsplash
