The organist follows him to the study. “I’ll ask the verger and Signe to sleep in here tonight. Someone needs to be here to answer the phone if people start calling first thing in the morning and Mona has managed to get to sleep.”
In the kitchen, the pastor’s wife doesn’t want to go to bed, and both the verger and his wife understand that she wants to sit where she is for the last few hours she has with her husband. Signe tiptoes into the bedroom and gets a pillow and a quilt. As she gives them to her, she gets such an utterly dismissive look—an unspoken “Go away!”— that she recoils and retreats to the study. When the others are out of sight, Mona lies down on the floor beside him and pulls the quilt over her. Seems to be asleep, not a sound when Signe looks into the kitchen timidly, turns down the lamp on the table, quietly withdraws. The organist leaves, Signe and the verger try to make themselves comfortable on the bed in the study, ready to jump up if the least little wheeze is heard from the phone. When Brage and the organist have gone, the house is deathly silent—a ghastly phrase!
Word goes out, in the morning by telegraph. The news has gone to the Åland Courier and to the correspondent for Hufvudstadsbladet in the capital and to the national radio. Now it’s a matter of getting word to everyone who needs to be told before the news goes public.
The priest in Mellom is speechless. He says. Although priests are talking machines and have something to say on every occasion, there is nothing he can say. He says. “Unbelievable, incomprehensible. It simply can’t be true. That’s all I can say. He was so young and strong, so full of life. Here today, gone tomorrow. As they say. No!”
“Yes,” the organist says. “I know that you were friends. As was I, a friend. We must contact the cathedral chapter. There are a lot of things to take care of, Sunday service, confirmation classes. But first the funeral. I think I speak for the widow if I say that we hope that you, his colleague and friend, will conduct the funeral service. But it would be good if you spoke to her yourself. The sooner, the better.”
“The widow,” says the Mellom priest. “Mona. It’s inconceivable. The little girls. Of course I’ll call. Thanks for letting me know. We need to stay in touch. We’re going to have to work together these next few weeks.”
“When you call, it would be a good idea to ask Mona if she wants you to call and give the sad news to his parents. I’m not sure, but I believe she isn’t on the best of terms with her mother-in-law.”
“Thanks. I won’t forget. But what will I say? What can you say?”
He is shaken. He is more shaken than he has been for a long time. Naturally he thinks of himself, of how suddenly things happen, of how the fact that you’re young and healthy and strong is no safeguard against death. But mostly, of course, he thinks of Petter, who has become his true friend during the three years they’ve been colleagues in the archipelago. Maybe his only friend, in the sense of being able to open up to someone, let down his guard, set aside his elegant irony. Even now he wants to call him to talk about this dreadful thing that has happened and its repercussions on his own working agenda, but now that possibility is closed. Now it is with fear and displeasure that asks to be connected to Örland Islands twelve, a number that for three years he has asked for with a smile on his lips.
It isn’t Mona who answers but the homecare aide. “Mrs Kummel is in the cow barn,” she reports.
“In the cow barn?” he says. He can’t believe his ears.
“Yes, she absolutely insisted. There’s no stopping her. The verger went with her. I’m staying inside with the girls.”
“I don’t understand. It’s incomprehensible.”
”That’s what we all think. Everyone is crying except Mrs Kummel. We’re worried about her. It would be good if you talked to her. Call back in half an hour.”
Behind Hanna’s collected voice lies an hour of horror. Fetched by the Coast Guard at seven that morning, she climbed the steps to the parsonage with dread in her heart. The pastor’s wife standing in the kitchen, the body lying by the stove, horribly dead. The verger and Signe in tears, Mona white around the nose, distant, but in some way still glad that Hanna has come. Hanna, who was with them through childbirth and illness, now also through a death. Mona tries to avoid her, but Hanna can’t help embracing her and saying, “There, there, dear heart.” She is utterly stiff and hard and struggles a little to get loose, takes a couple of steps backward—space, please. “Thank you for coming,” she says. “Now I can go to the cow barn, now that I know that you can take charge here.”
“But dear girl you can’t go milk the cows! I’ll go, or if you want me to stay here, Signe can go.” She looks at Signe, who nods eagerly, yes, of course, but Mona tosses her head in irritation. “No, I’ll go myself. Why shouldn’t I?”
Then they hear Sanna coming through the dining room, so big now that she can reach the door handle if she stands on her toes, and so strong she can pull it down and open it. The verger and Hanna form a wall in front of the stove. Sanna amazed.
“Good morning, darling,” says Mama. “Did you sleep well? Come, let’s go back to the bedroom. There’s something I have to tell you.” And so they walk away, just the two of them. No one else is invited. The bedroom door closes.
It doesn’t take long. No shriek is heard, or sobbing. What does she say? “Now, the bad news is that Papa is dead. He drowned last night. Fell through the ice. It’s going to take us a while to grasp the fact that he’s gone. Don’t be afraid. I’m here, and Lillus, and Aunt Hanna.” Maybe no more than that. And Sanna, curious and full of questions from dawn to dusk, does not make a sound. Asks no questions, for what do you ask? Just one question, “When is Papa coming home?” And the answer, that he’s not coming home, that he’s in heaven now, what can she say to that? It happens quietly and calmly, and then Mona is back in the kitchen.
“Hanna, maybe you could help Sanna get dressed and get Lillus up, while I see to the cows. And then we need to get some men who can carry …” Away the body, she means. They can’t have him lying there dead, scaring people. The kitchen is the natural gathering place in the morning, and how could they keep Sanna out for any length of time? She gets a sheet and spreads it over him, and the verger notices that the Coast Guardsmen are still there, standing in the lea of the cow barn, smoking. Brage too has thought about the body and wonders if they need help, so he’s in no hurry to leave. The verger asks them to fetch the sackcloth stretcher, which is rolled up in the sacristy in case someone should faint in the heat of the crowded church, and wait outside. There will have to be a shroud, but then it would be a big help if they could do the heavy lifting and carrying.
Sister Hanna is in a quandary, not knowing if she dares to ask, but asks anyway. “What shall we do about a shroud? Will that sheet be enough?”
Mona is banging around with the milk buckets in the hall and answers with little or no show of interest. “Make a shroud if it’s supposed to be done some special way. Then get him out to the shed without letting the girls see.” She goes into the bedroom and sees that Lillus is still asleep. Sanna has climbed into the crib beside her and sits there with an ugly, introverted expression on her face, staring straight ahead. Just looking at her makes her angry. “Wait till I come back,” she says. “Then we’ll have tea.”
She takes the milk cans and goes, and the verger follows her although she says forcefully that she needs no help. When they’re gone, Hanna and Signe work together to shroud the body, awkward and difficult down on the floor. The wartime sheet, with Mona’s monogram, is barely long enough and they have to start over from the beginning with less of the sheet around his head and shoulders so it will reach all the way to his feet. When they’re finished, Signe calls the Coast Guardsmen to come in. They carry in the stretcher and lift the shrouded body onto it. With a thought to the girls, in case they should look out the window, Brage grabs the blanket still there in the kitchen and throws it across the body so it will look like any ordinary load. They each take one end, Hanna opens the door, they go
out and walk in step, at a respectful pace, down to the boat shed. They put down the stretcher while they arrange sawhorses and planks, then lift the body in its shroud and lay it out. Brage hesitates but then spreads the blanket over it in case someone should come in accidentally. Then they walk down to the Coast Guard cutter in the sludge of broken ice by the dock. When Hanna sees the boat nosing its way out of the bay, she knows they’ve finished.
Inside the cow barn, Mona plunges into the warmth of her animals, their faith in her ability to feed and meet their needs, to gently draw the milk from their udders. Apple and Goody mumble in a friendly way, but the sheep bray and bleat as if there were some danger she would forget them. The hens flap their wings, wanting and not wanting her to collect their eggs, praise them, and leave an empty hollow in the hay. It seems to Mona that she could endure it here. She takes the milking stool and sinks down by Goody’s side, an outrageous case of lèse majesté, because the laws of the universe require that Apple should be milked first. She shuffles and shifts and bawls. “Pardon me,” Mona says and almost laughs. She moves to Apple’s stall, teat salve in hand, milk pail in place. And just sits there, her head resting against the indignant cow, who must now be slaughtered in the autumn.
“As if she were crying,” the verger thinks as he busily gathers forkfuls of hay and wanders back and forth between the cows and over to the manger in the sheepfold. Yes, there by the cows, she’s crying, wiping her eyes and nose on the sleeve of her milking coat, starts milking again, stops, shakes and sobs. Goody, the only creature on the earth she could live with, stops eating and looks over the edge of her stall, growls like a little bear deep in her stomach—don’t cry. Then Mona starts to cry big tears that roll down onto the cement floor. “Good,” the verger thinks, weeping openly as he takes the water buckets and draws water from the cowbarn well and goes back in and gives it to the cows and sheep. He glances at her as he mucks out and cleans the floor. Between attacks of sobbing, she milks evenly and energetically, moves to sit beside Goody, and Goody, better than any human being, lets her cry, all four of her stomachs bulging with sympathy.
The verger does all he can to help. Sees that she’s finished milking and takes the two pails from her. The big milk basin in position, the cloth in the strainer, in with the first batch of milk.
“Thanks,” Mona says. She stands up, takes her stool in one hand, pats Goody. “We have to go now. So much butter and milk and cream we’re going to need these coming days!” She’s already thinking about all the food that will have to be prepared for the funeral, about what she’ll have to order from the shop, about where she’s going to put all of Petter’s unavoidable relatives. Who take a laden table and good beds for given.
She dries her nose a last time, and lifts her head, ready for battle. “Yes, dear Lord. I’m guessing the phone is going to start ringing off the hook.”
Together, she and the verger walk back to the parsonage, talking about everyday things. She kicks off her boots in the hall and hangs up her milking coat, hesitates about whether to go into the parlour or the kitchen but goes resolutely into the kitchen. Lillus comes toddling gaily towards her. Her cold is much better and she’s had a good long sleep. “Papa,” she says, and it makes Mona furious that it’s Papa Lillus thinks of when she sees her Mama! She thinks Papa has been in the cow barn with Mama, which he is sometimes, and how she’ll sit on his lap and have her morning tea.
“Papa’s not here!” she says, incensed. “Papa’s dead!”
Lillus doesn’t know what it is to be dead, but she can see that it makes Mama really angry. She looks scared and backs away. The tears come as if someone had pushed a button. “For shame! Be quiet, Lillus! Where is Sanna?”
Sanna comes at once, not a word, and takes Lillus by the hand and takes her to the table. Sister Hanna lifts her into her highchair. She and the verger and Signe feel helpless and uncertain. They expect her to pick up her children and hug them, but she keeps them, too, at a distance.
“Come, Mona,” says Sister Hanna. “Hot tea and sandwiches. Eat while you can. The Mellom priest will be calling soon.”
“He doesn’t need to!” she says. But she sits down and eats, to everyone’s surprise, but quite logically, for she has to keep up her strength. If she doesn’t, who will? Now and then she glances at the floor by the stove. The rug, she saw, had been hung over the railing by the steps to dry. The wet spot on the floor is a good deal smaller. A person’s traces are cleaned away at breakneck speed. No one can ever imagine what it was like to live beside him.
While Mona drinks her tea and eats her sandwich, and while Sanna sits silently and Lillus fusses, the priest in Mellom paces and suffers agonies. His own parishioners call, one after another, to ask if it’s true. Which it is, although it’s hard to grasp. But beg pardon, he can’t talk now because he’s promised to call Pastor Kummel’s wife on the Örlands. Although to himself he wonders why, what can he say? His wife wonders too. Maybe she ought to offer to speak to Mona Kummel, but they’ve only met the one time, at Kummel’s installation, and what can she say? “You talk to her,” she tells her husband. “You know what to say.” She wonders what it would be like if it had been Fredrik who’d drowned. Conflicted feelings, obviously. Grief, worry about the children, loss, regret for the loss of their routines. But also relief. Back to Grankulla. Back to a life of her own.
Mona Kummel answers in an amazingly energetic voice. It sounds as if she was just swallowing some food. “Yes, hello?”
“Fredrik Berg here. I heard the unbelievable news. My wife and I want to extend our deepest sympathies for your loss.”
“Thank you,” says Mona Kummel. There is silence.
“Where do you find the strength? How are you getting along?”
“Thank you. I don’t have much choice.”
“Do you have anyone there with you?”
“Yes. The homecare sister. The verger and his wife, all of them terribly helpful. The organist is a great support. We’re not alone. In fact I don’t know how I’m going to put up with all the people who will come rushing to the house these next few days.”
She sounds more irritated than prostrated with grief. Pretending to understand, he goes on. “Maybe it’s well that there is much to do and think about. It forces a person to keep going. You have the girls—a big responsibility. You can always count on me, under all circumstances. You know that Petter was not only my colleague but also my best friend. And now, presumably, I will have responsibility for the Örlands until … Well, they’ll let us know. I’ve already spoken to the organist. I know that Petter valued him highly. It will be easy to work with him.” He rambles on.
Now and then she says “Yes.” And like a wind-up mouse that scurries around on the floor, he prattles on. “It’s too soon to talk about the funeral, but of course I want to be there.” He draws a breath to continue, but she breaks in.
“No, it’s not too soon. We need to decide as soon as possible so that I can tell everyone who calls and we won’t have to get in touch a second time. Here on the Örlands, funerals usually take place quickly. And I think that’s right. What would you say to next Sunday, the thirteenth?” He can see her looking at the wall calendar in the study, pen in hand, ready to mark the day. With a cross? With a neatly written “Petter’s funeral”?
“Of course,” he says. “We’ll make the arrangements.”
“Good,” she says. “Then it’s decided. Those who can’t come will simply have to miss it.”
Is he hearing her right? A tone of triumph? But she continues. “I wonder if you would like to deliver the eulogy and conduct the burial service? I know that both Skog and Uncle Isidor will want to do it, but you’re his good friend and colleague. You’ve had a lot in common out here these last few years. It feels right to ask you.”
“Of course, it would be an honour. And unworthy. Of such a man. How in the world can I do justice in a single speech to his personality, the effect he had on everyone he met? The joy he brought to the congreg
ation. And now the sorrow. It will be hard. But of course.”
“Thank you,” Mona says. “Then we’ve answered the essential questions, and you can feel free to report what we’ve decided to anyone who asks. And one more thing. I must call his parents, but I hate the thought. His mother. No, I’d really rather not.”
“Of course I can make the call,” says Fredrik Berg, amazed at the organist’s psychological insight. He permits himself a crooked smile. “Priests are supposed to be experts at delivering bad news, although I haven’t done so well this time.”
“Not at all,” says Mona Kummel. “I appreciate the fact that I can speak to you plainly.”
“Good,” says the priest in Mellom. “When I’ve spoken to his parents, I’ll notify the deanery and the cathedral chapter. And remember, you can contact me for any reason. I’ll try to do all I can.” “Good,” says Mona, too. “Thanks for calling. Give my best to Margit.” She rings off. The operator stands with her mouth open, as does the Mellom priest. It’s true, as he often says, that grief has many faces. As a spiritual guide, you must confront your own inadequacy more often than another human being. He pulls himself together, ignores Margit who asks how it went, just says dismissively, “I have to call his parents now. Time’s passing, and it would be awful if they heard about it from someone who thought they already know.”
Talking to Petter Kummel’s mother, he does at last encounter something expected and predictable. Silence. Horror. Denial. “No, it can’t be true. It must be someone else. A terrible misunderstanding. Petter is an excellent swimmer. Thoroughly familiar with waterways and ice conditions around the Örlands. It’s unthinkable. No, my dear Mr Berg, please get your facts straight before you try to frighten us to death.”
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