Until Thy Wrath Be Past

by Asa Larsson

  Hjalmar is clinging to Tintin and singing away. Tintin is also soaked through. She is lying in the snow. Lifts her head, manages a wag of her tail.

  “Rebecka,” Mella says. “Rebecka.”

  When she does not get an answer, she walks over to Martinsson and takes hold of the spade.

  “You must go inside, into the cottage . . .” she begins, but does not have the opportunity to say anything more.

  Martinsson snatches the spade back and hits Mella over the head. Then she drops it and falls backwards into the snow.

  Rebecka Martinsson is sitting on a kitchen chair in Hjalmar Krekula’s cottage. Someone has taken all her clothes off her, and she is wrapped in a blanket. The fire is burning vigorously in the stove. She has a police jacket round her shoulders. The whole of her body is vibrating with cold. In fact she is jumping up and down on the chair. Her teeth are chattering, rattling. Her hands and feet ache, as do her thighs and her bottom. A flour mill is grinding away inside her head.

  She has a mug of warm water in front of her.

  Sven-Erik Ståhlnacke is also sitting at the kitchen table. He occasionally presses a towel against her battered, blood-stained hands, and against her head and face.

  “Have a drink,” he says.

  She wants to drink, but doesn’t dare to. She feels that she will simply sick it back up immediately.

  “Tintin?” she says.

  “Krister has been to collect her.”

  “Is she O.K.?”

  “She’ll be alright. Come on now, have a drink.”

  Mella comes in. She has her mobile in one hand. The other is pressing a snowball against her forehead.

  “How is she?” she says.

  “Everything’s fine,” Stålnacke says. “All quiet on the Western front.”

  “I’ve got Måns on the phone,” Mella says to Martinsson. “Do you feel like talking to him? Are you up to it?”

  Martinsson nods and reaches for the mobile, then drops it on the floor.

  Mella has to hold it for her.

  “Yes,” she croaks.

  “Is there no limit to what you’ll do to draw attention to yourself?” Wenngren says.

  “No,” she says with a laugh that comes over as a cough. “I’ll do anything at all.”

  Then he turns serious.

  “They tell me you were stuck in a hole in the ice. That you drifted under the ice and then managed to break through it and climb out.”

  “Yes,” she says in her hoarse, rasping voice.

  Then she says,“I must look a right bloody mess.”

  Silence at the other end. She thinks she can hear him crying.

  “Come up here,” she says. “Come up here, darling, and give me a big hug.”

  “Yes,” he says. His voice sounds strained, then he clears his throat. “I’m in a taxi on my way to the airport.”

  She hangs up.

  “Let’s go,” Mella says to Stålnacke. “We’ll get Hjalmar’s confession on tape.”

  “Where is he?” Martinsson says.

  “He’s sitting on the steps outside the front door. We had to let him rest.”

  “Hang on a minute.”

  Martinsson goes down on all fours. Every movement is agonizing. But she manages it eventually. Sliding the rag rug to one side, she lifts up the lino and the floorboard, then produces the oilcloth package with the maths books and the Advanced Level Certificate of Education.

  “What’s that?” Mella says.

  Martinsson does not answer.

  “What is it?” Mella says again, with irritation in her voice. But she falls silent when she notices Stålnacke’s expression.

  Leave her alone, his eyes say.

  Martinsson staggers out through the door. Hjalmar is sitting at the top of the steps.

  Olsson and Rantakyrö are standing beside him. She puts the package on Hjalmar’s knee.

  “Thank you,” he says.

  The moment he says it, he realizes that he has not used that expression for a very long time.

  “Thank you,” he says again. “That was kind of you, really kind.”

  He taps the package with his hand.

  Martinsson goes back indoors. Rantakyrö supports her discreetly with a hand under her elbow.

  Anni has fallen asleep on the posh sofa in the drawing room. It is a puffed-up leather affair, not especially attractive. Much too big for the room. Hanging over the back of it are small white embroidered cloths, presumably to protect against the ill effects of someone sitting on the sofa with dirty hair or too much pomade.

  I sit in the armchair and look at her. We never used this room. It feels unfamiliar. We always sat and talked in the kitchen. And when I was alive, the television was always on the upstairs landing, which was big enough to use as a room. The drawing room was only used for special occasions, for coffee after funerals or for christenings. Whenever the vicar came to visit, he was always served coffee in the best china in the drawing room.

  It’s evening. The sun is going down. The atmosphere in the room is warm and conducive to an afternoon nap.

  When I died, Anni asked Hjalmar to carry the television down to the drawing room. Now she often has a lie-down here. I assume she doesn’t have the strength to climb the stairs. She has a woollen blanket over her legs. It’s a rather fine blanket whose sole role used to be to hang decoratively over the armrest. It still shouldn’t really be used, and so Anni hasn’t unfolded it completely: it’s lying doubled over her legs. If I could, I would open the blanket out to cover her completely. Silly old Anni! What’s the point of not making full use of everything now?

  I look around. Everything is so neat and tidy, but it’s not really Anni. It’s a collection of all the poshest and best things she possesses. The dark-stained bookcase has books – not all that many, mind you – in neat rows. Cheap ornaments, a hollow swan made of glass and containing a red fluid that rises up its neck when the pressure is high, a painted plate from Tenerife on a stand – Anni has never been there. Professionally taken photographs of relatives in dusty frames. There’s one of me when I was a child. I look like nothing on earth, with my hair newly washed; properly combed and electrically dried, it’s sticking to my forehead. I remember the dress I’m wearing: the seams chafed against my skin. The crotch of my tights was halfway down my thighs. How on earth did they get me into that outfit? Did they drug me?

  Anni is so thin under her two cardigans. There’s nothing more than skin and bones left of her. But she’s still breathing. And now her eyelids are flickering. Her hands and legs start jerking like the limbs of a sleeping dog. She has a bruise on her cheek where Kerttu slapped her.

  I’m sitting in her best armchair, trying to remember if I ever told her how much she meant to me. I want to thank her for loving me unconditionally. And I want to thank her for never restricting me – I could come and go like a pet cat, but she was always there to heat up a bowl of soup or make me a sandwich or two if I was hungry. Mother used to say that Anni spoilt me. It’s true. She did. I want to thank her for that. My mother was so different, with all her hang-ups: drama, tears, screams and curses one minute, red-eyed, emotional and guilt-ridden the next. “Please forgive me, my darling: you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Can you plea-plea-please forgive me?” In the end I became an ice-cold teenager. “Pass the sick bag,” I used to say when she became devastated and wet and tearful and hiccupy. Anni said, “Wilma can come and live with me. If she needs a bit of a break. And she can start revising her maths.” Mother thought I’d go mad out here in the sticks. “I did when I lived there,” she said. But she was wrong.

  I’m sitting in Anni’s best armchair and thinking how much I loved her. I never told her, perhaps because I’m allergic to the word. Mother must have used it thousands of times, but she’s about as mature as a nestling. I ought to have told Anni, though. All those times when she sat on the kitchen sofa with her legs up, trying to reach her feet so that she could massage them: I ought to have massag
ed them for her. I ought to have brushed her hair. I ought to have helped her up the stairs every night. I never realized. I used to lie on my bed, listening to music.

  I look at her more closely. The light is dim in the room, and I can’t see her chest moving. Is she breathing?

  I hear a voice from the kitchen doorway saying, “Is that you, sitting there?” And when I turn round, there she is.

  She looks exactly like she always did, but not at all like the Anni lying on the sofa.

  “No,” she says with a smile when she catches on to my question. “I’m just asleep. I’m going to live for another sixteen years. But it’s time for you to go now. Don’t you think?”

  Yes, says something inside me. And suddenly there we are, standing on the shore of the lake. It’s summer. The far shore doesn’t look at all like the other side of Piilijärvi. But the boat is Anni’s. It’s her old rowing boat, the one her cousin made for her ages ago. The water is gurgling beneath the bows, which smell of tar. The sun glitters like trolling-spoons in the ripples. Mosquitoes sing their hymns to summer as Anni unties the painter and holds onto the boat while I jump aboard and lay the oars in the rowlocks.

  Anni pushes off, then jumps aboard as well. I do the rowing.

  As I’m rowing, I see Hjalmar.

  He’s standing in the prison chapel, singing away. He’s with seven other inmates. The prison chaplain is a thin-haired man in his forties. He’s quite good on the guitar, and they’re singing “Childhood Faith”, the religious song made famous by the north’s favourite singer, Lapp-Lisa. The sound echoes back and forth, to and from the melancholy walls. The chaplain is glad that Hjalmar has joined his group. Hjalmar is big and commands respect, and, as some of the other prisoners want to keep on his good side, they turn up for every Wednesday service. The chaplain can demonstrate the results of his prison activities to his own congregation, so everyone is happy. For it is surely marvellous that these criminals are allowed out on parole to attend Sunday service at the Philadelphia Pentecostal Church. They pay homage to Jesus. And are only too pleased to describe the miserable lives they led before they saw the light, so that the whole congregation is inspired.

  Happiest of them all is Hjalmar. He has new maths books in his cell.

  His fat cheeks are rose-pink. He enjoys singing, likes to belt out “Childhood faith, childhood faith, you are a golden bridge to heaven”.

  He always jokes that he’s never going to appeal against his sentence.

  I carry on rowing. Two ravens come flying over the tops of the pine trees. They circle above us. Round and round. I glance up at their long black outstretched pinions, their wedge-shaped tails. I hear the sound of their wings beating above our heads. Then they glide down and perch on the rail of the boat. Just as naturally as if they were taking seats they’d booked in advance. I wouldn’t be surprised if they each produced a little black suitcase from under their wings. Their feathers are shimmering like rainbows in the sun, their beaks are so full of strength, curved and sharp, with little moustaches near the base, and they have thick, feathery collars. One of them lunges at a horsefly that has accompanied them out over the water. They chat to each other with all their r-sounds; they seem to be saying, “Rave-rave-raven”. But then one of them suddenly sounds like a clucking cockerel, and the other one seems to burst out laughing. I don’t know what to think about these birds.

  I carry on rowing. Dip the oars deep into the water. I enjoy feeling my body again. The sweat running down my back. The wood of the oars made smooth by many years of handling. The feeling in the muscles of my back and arms with each stroke, summoning up the strength, the effort, the tiredness, the recovery.

  The sun is hot. The ravens open their beaks. They are silent now. I feel nothing but happiness. It wells up inside me like the sap in a birch tree.

  The ravens cry and take off. They fly with powerful beats of their wings in the direction from which I came. Disappear through the sky.

  I row. I am strong and as untameable as a river, and I row.

  I press hard with my feet, and row with long, powerful strokes.

  I’m coming, I think happily. I’m coming now.

  SUNDAY, 3 MAY

  The weekend is over. The soft light of the evening sun glides into Rebecka Martinsson’s kitchen in Kurravaara.

  Måns Wenngren looks at Martinsson. Even though she is sitting only half a metre away, he wants her so badly. Her dark, straight hair. Her eyes with that dark grey edge round her irises. He has hugged her. Made love to her. Albeit cautiously. She is covered in bruises. Still feels sick, has dizzy spells and is very tired from the concussion.

  He looks at the scar above her lips. He likes it. He particularly likes that scar. Especially as it is ugly. He is filled with the same kind of tenderness he felt when he held his daughter for the first time.

  “How do you feel?” he asks, pouring a glass of wine.

  Martinsson reads the label. Much too fine. Wasted on her.

  “I’m O.K.,” she says.

  She has no feelings about what has happened. No thoughts. What was it like, being in that hole in the ice? Being dragged under the ice? Awful, of course. But it is all over now. She can feel that Måns is worried. That he thinks she is going to have a relapse. His voice is gentle, too gentle.

  There is some kind of barrier between them. She longed so much for him to come up and give her a hug, but now that he is here she is hiding herself away in her tiredness and her bruises.

  And there is something she cannot stop thinking about. When Tore Krekula came towards her on the snow scooter and she thought her number was up. When she almost drowned under the ice. At no time did she think of Måns. She thought about her farmor and her father. But not about Måns. She did not think of him until Mella handed her the mobile.

  They hear a car pull up outside. Martinsson walks over to the kitchen window. It is Krister Eriksson. He gets out of the car and walks towards her front door, stooping noticeably. She taps on the window pane, points at him and then points upwards, making a come-on-up gesture with her other hand.

  Then he is standing in the kitchen doorway. Wenngren gets up.

  “Forgive me,” Eriksson says. “I didn’t know . . . I should have rung first . . .”

  “No, no, it’s O.K.,” Martinsson says.

  She introduces the two men. Wenngren puts out his hand.

  “Just a moment,” Eriksson says. “I’ll just . . .”

  He unzips his jacket.

  Inside it is a puppy. Small and snub-nosed. Having fallen asleep in the warmth of the jacket, it sniffs and starts treading with its paws when Eriksson opens the zip.

  “If you can hold it, Måns and I can shake hands,” he says to Martinsson, handing over the puppy.

  The delighted look on her face makes him laugh.

  The puppy wakes up. It is still blind. So little that she can hold it in one hand.

  “Oh God,” she says.

  It is so soft, warm and helpless. It smells of puppy.

  Vera comes over and fusses at Martinsson’s feet.

  “You can say hello another time,” Martinsson says.

  “Is it Tintin’s?” she says while the men are shaking hands. Wenngren has pulled himself up to his full height and tucked in his stomach. Gives Eriksson’s face an inquisitive look, but is careful not to stare.

  “Yes,” Eriksson says. “It came a bit early, but everything went well. It’s yours if you’d like it.”

  “You can’t be serious,” she says. “A puppy of Tintin’s, it must be worth . . .”

  “I’ve heard what you did,” Eriksson says, looking right at her.

  He ignores the fact that her boyfriend is there. All the men in the world can be there if they want. He looks into her eyes, fixing her with his gaze.

  She looks back.

  “You certainly can’t have a dog,” Wenngren says to Martinsson. “You’ve said yourself that you don’t know what you’re going to do with Vera. You work so hard. And when you move
in with me in Stockholm . . . Dogs shouldn’t live in cities.”

  He takes hold of Martinsson’s neck playfully but firmly. The gesture is aimed at Eriksson. She is mine, it means.

  Then he asks Eriksson if he would like a glass of wine. Eriksson replies that he is driving, unfortunately . . . Martinsson looks at the puppy.

  “What’s happened to Kerttu Krekula?” Eriksson says.

  “She hasn’t been interrogated yet,” Martinsson mumbles, her lips and nose pressed against the puppy. “She says that she and Tore tried to stop Hjalmar. We’ve let her go. There’s no proof apart from Hjalmar’s statement, and that’s not enough to charge her.”

  Eriksson closes his eyes briefly. Tries to imagine Kerttu Krekula isolated in her home in the village, with only Isak Krekula for company.

  “She had an opportunity,” he says. “But she’s condemned herself to a tougher punishment than a court would have done.

  “I’ll have to go,” he says eventually. “I can’t keep her away from Tintin for too long. She’s at home with the other three.”

  He wants to feast his eyes on Martinsson for just a little while longer.

  “You don’t need to make your mind up now,” he says. “Think it over. She’ll become a lovely dog.”

  “Do you think I don’t realize that?” Martinsson says. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “How about ‘thank you’?” he says with a smile.

  “Thank you,” she says, and smiles back.

  She hands over the puppy. Their hands touch as Eriksson takes it from her. Wenngren coughs impatiently.

  Krister Eriksson carries the puppy down the stairs inside his jacket. He holds tightly on to the banister rail – he certainly doesn’t want to fall with the little chap.

  He gets into the car. The puppy is wrapped up cosily in his jacket on the passenger seat.

  He turns the ignition key. Purses his lips. Looks at the puppy, which has fallen asleep again. Thinks about how Wenngren held Martinsson by her neck. Imagines them kissing back there in the house. Hears Wenngren saying, “He’s very fond of you, that police officer.”