Until Thy Wrath Be Past

by Asa Larsson

  She pours out the coffee. It’s hot. She drinks slowly, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her nose and cheeks. For the first time since I died she is happy to think that she might live long enough to experience another summer. Tells herself she must take care not to fall, so that she doesn’t end up in hospital.

  Three ravens land in the parking area in front of the house. At first they saunter around as if they owned the place. The sun makes their black feathers sparkle and gleam. They point their curved beaks in all directions, but don’t have much to say for themselves. I have the impression they are putting on an act. Pretending to be serious fellows. Dragging their wedge-shaped tails behind them like peacocks. If I were really sitting here with Anni, I would joke about it. We would try to work out where these important gentlemen came from. Anni would say straight away that they were three Laestadian preachers who’d come to convert us. I’d guess that they were the boss of Social Services, a headmaster and a district judge. “I’m done for now,” I’d say.

  Anni pours herself a refill. She wraps her hands around the mug.

  I would also like to wrap my hands around a mug of steaming-hot coffee. I want to be sitting here on the steps with Anni for real. I want Simon to drive up to the door. Oh, his smile when he sees me! As if someone had given him a marvellous present. I’m so full of desire that it’s painful. My hands are unable to touch anything.

  When a car does in fact drive up, I almost believe it is him. But it’s Hjalmar. The ravens fly up into the trees.

  Hjalmar switches off the engine and clambers awkwardly out of the car.

  Now he’s standing in front of Anni, but can’t work out for the life of him how he’s going to come out with what he wants to say. At first it doesn’t matter. Anni does the talking.

  “I’m sitting here speaking to the dead,” she says. “I must be going daft. But what else can I do? Soon there won’t be any living people left whom I know.”

  She falls silent. Recalls an old aunt who always used to sit around complaining about how lonely she was. Remembers thinking what a pain it was to have to visit her. Now I sound exactly the same, she thinks. It’s enough to drive me up the wall.

  “Are you going to the cottage?” she says, mainly to change the subject.

  He nods.

  “Anni,” he manages to say.

  Only then does she become aware of the strange expression on his face.

  “What’s the matter?” she says. “Is it Isak?”

  Hjalmar shakes his head.

  “But what’s the matter with my little boy? Poika, mikä sinulla on?”

  He can’t help smiling at the way she still calls him her little boy.

  She grasps the iron rail with her bird-like claws and manages to stand up.

  Then he says it.

  “Forgive me.”

  That wasn’t much of a voice. You can tell how unaccustomed he is to using it. And how unaccustomed he is to that phrase. His voice is hoarse as it stumbles out of his mouth. As if it were written on a piece of paper that he’s had in his mouth for so long that it’s become all scrunched up.

  The last time he said it must have been very long ago, when he’d been thrashed by Isak. And in those days it meant “Have mercy”.

  “For what?” Anni says.

  But she knows what for.

  She looks at him and she knows.

  He realizes that she knows.

  “No!” she shouts so loudly that the ravens in the tree beat their wings together.

  But they don’t fly away.

  She clenches her bird’s claws and shakes them at Hjalmar. No, she will not forgive him.

  “Why?” she shouts.

  Her body might be skinny, but the air around her on the front steps is vibrant with powerful forces. She is a priestess with damnation in her clenched fist.

  Hjalmar reaches out with one hand and leans awkwardly against his car. He holds the other hand against his heart.

  “They were going to go diving, looking for an old aeroplane,” he says. “But Father heard about it. That was when he had his heart attack. You shouldn’t poke around in the past.”

  He hears what that sounds like. As if he were defending himself. That would be wrong. But he doesn’t know what else to say.

  “You?” Anni shouts. “On your own?”

  He shakes his head.

  “It’s not true,” Anni says.

  Her voice has lost all of its strength. It’s as if she has an animal in her throat. And once the animal has bellowed out its lamentation, it turns on Hjalmar. Her eyes are blazing. The words tumble out in a rush of gurgling fury.

  “Get away from here! You swine! Don’t ever, ever come here again. Did you hear me?”

  Hjalmar gets into the car. He holds both hands in front of him like a bowl, and places his face in the bowl. He will go. But first he must pull himself together.

  Then he drives away from Anni’s house, heading north. As soon as the lump in his throat has subsided, he will ring the police station. And ask to speak to that prosecutor, Rebecka Martinsson.

  Isak Krekula is lying on his back in the little room off the kitchen. His feet are ice cold. He is freezing. The wall clock is ticking ponderously in the kitchen. Like a death machine. It first hung on the wall in his parents’ house. When they died it ended up with him and Kerttu. When he passes on, Laura will take it to her and Tore’s house: they will listen to it ticking and wait for their turn.

  He shouts for Kerttu. Where the devil is the woman?

  “Hey there! Get yourself in here, woman! Tule tänne!”

  She turns up eventually. He moans and groans as she pulls the covers over his feet.

  He has been shouting for her for ages. How come she has not heard him? Stupid cloth-eared bitch!

  “I’ll put the coffee on,” Kerttu says, and goes back to the kitchen.

  He continues fanning the flames of his anger. That woman has to come the moment he shouts for her. Can she not understand that? He is lying here helpless.

  “Can you hear me?” he shouts. “Are you listening? Bloody whore.”

  He adds the last comment in a somewhat quieter voice. He has always made such remarks without a second thought. He is the one who has paid for the food served up at mealtimes, and he has always been the boss in his own house. But what can you do when you are confined to bed like this? Dependent on others?

  He closes his eyes, but he cannot sleep. He is freezing. He shouts to his wife, telling her to bring him another blanket. But nobody comes.

  Inside his head it is August 1943. A hot day in late summer. He and Kerttu are in Luleå. They are standing outside the German military depot next to the cathedral in the town centre, talking to William Schörner, the S.S. man in charge of security. A fleet of lorries is being loaded with sacks, all marked with an eagle, as well as some exceptionally heavy wooden crates that need to be handled with care.

  Schörner is always smartly dressed, clean-shaven, dignified. He does not even seem to sweat in the hot sun. The depot commander, Oberleutnant Walther Zindel, who is stationed in Luleå, sticks two fingers inside his collar and gives every appearance of being on the warm side. The only times Isak Krekula has seen Zindel raise an arm in a Hitler salute have been when Schörner has been in the vicinity.

  It is plain that Sicherheitschef Schörner and depot manager Zindel are under pressure.

  The tide has turned against the Germans. Everything is changed now. Sweden is accepting more and more Jewish refugees. Public opposition to the German trains passing through Sweden has increased during the spring and summer. The writer Vilhelm Moberg has published articles about these trains, claiming that they contain not only unarmed soldiers going on and coming back from leave but also soldiers armed with bayonets and pistols. At the end of July the Swedish government cancelled the transit agreement with Germany, and Swedish Railways will soon stop transporting German soldiers. People have started to hate Hitler. Four Swedes have been sentenced to death in Berlin for es
pionage. The Swedish submarine Ulven was sunk in April, and news is emerging of another Swedish submarine, Draken, coming under fire from the German transport vessel Altkirch. In July the Germans sank two Swedish fishing boats off the north-west coast of Jutland, and twelve Swedish fishermen died. People are furious when Berlin responds to the Swedish protests by claiming that the fishermen had been sabotaging German light buoys.

  Both depot manager Zindel and Sicherheitschef Schörner have noticed that their reception in Luleå has become cooler. The atmosphere in the post office, in restaurants and everywhere else is different now. People avoid looking them in the eye. They receive fewer dinner invitations from local middle-class families. Zindel’s Swedish wife spends most of her time at home, alone.

  When Krekula drove down to Luleå, he had in mind that it was time to renegotiate the fee he was being paid for his transport services. Now that Swedish Railways have terminated their arrangements, the Germans will be totally dependent on road-haulage companies to supply their troops in Finnish Lapland and northern Norway. Krekula is also feeling the effects of people’s objections to the way he is placing his lorries at the Germans’ disposal. He wants compensation.

  But the moment he jumps down from his lorry outside the depot, he realizes that there will be no renegotiation. Sicherheitschef Schörner is in Luleå. Krekula prefers not to have dealings with him, but when Schörner is in Luleå, which is often, he takes charge of every detail. The last time he was due to pay Krekula, he snatched away the envelope containing the money just as the haulier was about to take it. Krekula was left standing there, holding his hand out and feeling silly.

  “Isak,” Schörner had said. “A genuine Jewish name, nicht wahr? You’re not a Jew, are you?”

  Krekula had assured Schörner that he was not.

  “I can’t do business with Jews, you see.”

  Again Krekula assured Schörner that he was not of Jewish ancestry.

  Schörner had sat in silence for what seemed an age.

  “Ah well,” he had said eventually, and handed over the envelope containing the money.

  As if he was not entirely convinced.

  Now Schörner is a sort of powder keg on legs. All the setbacks the Germans experience on the battlefield, all the indulgence displayed by Sweden towards the allies, everything seems to be conspiring to create a minefield around him. Last week, for instance, he heard that three Polish submarines were lurking in Lake Mälaren just off Mariefred, and nobody was doing anything about it – not even the German government. He is calm, and flirts with Kerttu as usual, but there is a field of energy surrounding him, just waiting to go off. He is ready to explode. In fact, he is longing to explode.

  Sweden’s Foreign Minister has expressed his worry about terminating the transport arrangements this way: “The final blows of a wounded beast of prey can be devastating.” Schörner is that beast.

  But Kerttu notices nothing. Isak Krekula watches stony-faced as she purrs and churrs in response to Schörner’s flattery. Her chestnut hair sweeps over one eye à la Rita Hayworth. She is wearing a summery blue dress with white dots. The skirt is bell-shaped, and the waist is high. Schörner tells her she must be careful, or one of these days someone will eat her up.

  Schörner has a soft spot for Kerttu. She has done him a lot of favours in recent years. Passed on bits of information she has picked up here and there. Just over a year ago a German transport plane with a cargo of machine guns had to make an emergency landing somewhere in the forest several kilometres inland. Kerttu and Krekula were in Luleå, and Kerttu took the opportunity to go to the hairdresser’s. When she came out, she was able to tell Schörner exactly where the plane had come down: the wife of the forest owner had mentioned it while having her hair cut. The landowner had not reported his find to the police. Perhaps he had hoped to earn some money on the side. The pilot and all the passengers had died in the crash. On another occasion Kerttu was able to tell Schörner about a journalist who had taken photographs of railway waggons full of German weapons. That kind of thing. Important and trivial. That is how it is with Kerttu. People want to tell her things. They want her to look at them with her greenish-brown eyes. It lifts your soul when a beautiful young girl looks at you. Schörner usually writes down the information she gives him in a little notebook. It is bound in black leather, and he writes in it with a pencil. Then he puts the notebook away in his briefcase. If the information turns out to be correct and is of use to the Germans, Kerttu usually gets paid. The time she told him about the German transport plane, he gave her a thousand kronor. That is more money than her father Matti earns in a whole year.

  So she has acquired a tidy little sum. And she has not wasted it. She lives with her parents and does not have to pay for board and lodging, and she has lent money to Krekula, who has in turn invested it in his haulage business. Krekula is paid well by the German army. He does not ask many questions, and he delivers the goods to their destinations.

  Now Schörner takes Krekula and Kerttu to one side and asks if Krekula is prepared to lend Kerttu to him for a little job.

  Kerttu pretends to be offended and asks Herr Schörner if he does not think he ought to be asking her instead of Krekula. She is not Krekula’s property, after all.

  Schörner laughs and says that Kerttu is an adventuress. He knows that she will want to do it.

  Krekula says that Kerttu will make up her own mind, but of course he is wondering what it is all about.

  “Ah well,” Schörner says. “The thing is that three Danish prisoners of war have escaped from a German ship moored in Luleå harbour. I want them recaptured.”

  He smiles, winks and offers them a cigarette.

  Krekula realizes that, behind his smile, Schörner is furious. The resistance movement in Denmark has become properly organized during the summer, and the Germans have been having enormous problems with sabotage and other anti-German activities.

  Schörner knows only too well that ruthlessness must be met with ruthlessness. An eye for an eye. In Norway the Germans have escalated the level of terror imposed on the civilian population, which is essential to keep people under control now that the 25th Panzer Division has withdrawn to France.

  “Someone has hidden them,” Schörner says. “There is a resistance movement here in Sweden as well. And I have a pretty good idea that a particular young man probably knows where those Danes are. And that young man has a weakness. He’s very fond of attractive girls.”

  And he tells them what he has in mind. Promises them generous payment.

  Krekula’s head fills with images. He pictures Kerttu coming back from her little outing with bits of straw clinging to her back and her hair tousled. But it is a lot of money. And Kerttu says yes without so much as a glance in his direction. What can Krekula do about it? Nothing.

  Krekula is eighty-five years old. Lying on his back in the little room, he says to himself – as he has been saying to himself ever since – I couldn’t have stopped her.

  He shouts for her again. Says he is thirsty. That he is still freezing.

  She appears in the doorway with a glass of water in her hand. When he turns to look at her, she empties the glass in a single swig.

  “You’ve always revolted me,” she says. “You know that, don’t you?”

  Even as she is saying it, the doorbell rings. The police are outside. That little fair-haired inspector Anna-Maria Mella. With two men standing at the bottom of the steps. Mella asks if Tore is in.

  Kerttu Krekula realizes that this is serious. The police say nothing about a warrant. Nor do they need to. Kerttu is furious. Absolutely furious.

  “Are you mad?” she yells. “Out of your minds? Why are you harassing us? What do you want him for?”

  And she stands there screaming as if someone had stuck a stake through her body while the police enter the house and take a look around.

  “My boy,” she screams. “My poor boy!”

  And when the police have left, she slumps down at the k
itchen table with her forehead resting on one arm. She puts her other arm over the top of her head.

  Isak Krekula is lying in the little room, shouting. Who the devil was that, he wants to know. Who was it? She does not answer.

  I’ve landed on all fours on Kerttu’s draining board. Standing like a cat on the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet. I want to see this. Bloody Kerttu! There’s only the two of us in the kitchen. I accompany her to the open-air dance floor at Gültzauudden just outside Luleå. It’s 28 August, 1943.

  There is a dance at Gültzauudden near Luleå. The Swingers are playing. “Sun Shines Brightly on Your Little Cottage”, “With You in My Arms”, “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and other popular songs. The mosquitoes and horseflies join in the “Sjösala Waltz”, and the telephone wires sag under the weight of the swallows, sitting in a row as if at the front of the stalls.

  The young men are wearing suits finished with French seams. The girls are in home-sewn outfits with stiffened bell skirts. Everyone is slim and willowy in these straitened times of food rationing.

  Kerttu is not in a particularly good mood. She has come to the dance without a partner. And Schörner would not let her wear her best dress either.

  “You mustn’t stand out too much,” he said. “You must look like an ordinary young lass. You come from . . . wherever it is you come from.”

  “Piilijärvi,” she said.

  “But you don’t have a fiancé, of course, and you’re staying with your cousin here in Luleå, and you’re looking for a job.”

  She buys a bottle of soda and stands around at the edge of the dance floor. Two young lads come up and ask her for a dance, but she says, in a friendly way, “Maybe later,” explaining that she is waiting for her cousin. Drinking her soda slowly to make it last, she feels like a cross between a wallflower and an ice queen. Out of the corner of her eye she sees the man Schörner is trying to trap. Schörner had shown Kerttu a photograph of the lad. Axel Viebke.

  Here comes Schörner. He has borrowed the depot manager’s Auto-Union Wanderer. Young boys hanging around the dance floor and sitting in the birch trees like a flock of thrushes gather round the smart-looking sports car.