The Savage Altar

by Unknown

  “Hi, everyone, may I introduce Thomas Söderberg. He’s the new pastor at the Mission church. I’ve invited him along as a representative of the free churches.”

  It is Margareta Fransson who is speaking, the Religious Studies teacher.

  She’s smiling all the time, thinks Rebecka, why is she doing that? It isn’t a happy smile, it’s just submissive and conciliatory. And she buys all her clothes from A Helping Hand, an ideologically run boutique that sells products made by a women’s collective in the Third World.

  “You’ve already met Evert Aronsson, a priest from the Church of Sweden, and Andreas Gault from the Catholic Church,” continues Margareta Fransson.

  “I think we should be allowed to meet a Buddhist or a Muslim or something,” says Nina Eriksson. “Why do we only get to meet a load of Christians?”

  Nina Eriksson is the class spokeswoman and chief busybody. Loud and clear, her voice echoes round the classroom. Many support her statement and murmur in agreement.

  “There isn’t such a wide choice in Kiruna,” Margareta Fransson apologizes halfheartedly.

  Then she hands over to Thomas Söderberg.

  He looks good, you have to admit. Dark brown curly hair, and long black eyelashes. He laughs and jokes, but from time to time he becomes totally serious. He’s young to be a priest—or pastor, as he says. And he’s wearing jeans and a shirt. He draws on the board. The picture of the bridge. It’s all about how Jesus gave up his life for them. Built a bridge to God. Because God so loved the world that he gave up his only son. He addresses the class with the friendly “du” form, although he is talking to twenty-four people at the same time. He wants them to choose life. Say yes. And he answers all the questions they put to him at the end. At some of the questions he falls silent for a while. He frowns and nods thoughtfully. As if it’s the first time anyone has asked these questions. As if they have given him something to think about. Much later Rebecka realizes that it was far from the first time he’d heard those questions. That the answers had been prepared a long time ago. But the person who asks the questions is made to feel special.

  He ends the visit with an invitation to the Mission church summer gathering in Gällivare. Three weeks’ work and Bible studies, no pay but free board and lodging.

  “Dare to be curious,” he urges them. “You can’t be sure the Christian faith isn’t for you unless you’ve found out what it really stands for.”

  Rebecka thinks he’s looking straight at her as he speaks. She looks straight back at him. And she can feel the fire.

  The snowplow had cleared the road right up to her grandmother’s gray cottage. There was a light upstairs. Rebecka lifted out her suitcase and the supermarket carrier bag of food. She had shopped on the way. Maybe they wouldn’t need it, but you never know. She locked the car.

  That’s the sort of person I am now, she thought. The sort of person who locks things.

  “Hello!” she called when she got inside.

  There was no answer, but presumably Sanna and the children had closed the upstairs door leading to the staircase, so they wouldn’t have heard her.

  She put down what she was carrying and took a walk around downstairs without switching on the lights. It had the characteristic smell of an old house. Lino and dampness. Musty. The furniture stood there like a collection of tired ghosts, pressing themselves against the walls in the darkness, covered with grandmother’s hand-stitched linen sheets.

  She went upstairs carefully, afraid of falling; the melted snow under the soles of her boots had made them slippery.

  “Hello,” she shouted up the stairs, but there was no reply this time either.

  Rebecka opened the door to the upstairs flat and went into the narrow, dark hallway. When she bent down to unzip her boots something black came flying at her face. She screamed and tumbled backwards. Two cheerful yelps and the black thing turned out to be a lovely little dog. A pink tongue took the opportunity to acquaint itself with her face. Two more encouraging yaps and then the dog licked her again.

  “Virku, come here!”

  A girl of about four appeared in the open doorway. The dog did a little pirouette on Rebecka’s stomach, danced over to the girl, gave her a lick, then pranced back to Rebecka. But by then Rebecka had managed to get to her feet. The dog shoved its nose into the bag of groceries instead.

  “You must be Lova,” said Rebecka, switching on the hall light and edging the dog away from the carrier bag with her foot at the same time.

  The light fell on the girl. She had a blanket wrapped around her, and Rebecka realized it was cold in the house.

  “Who are you?” asked Lova.

  “My name’s Rebecka,” she replied briefly. “Let’s go in the kitchen.”

  She stopped at the door and looked at the kitchen, dumbstruck. The chairs had been turned over. Grandmother’s rag rug was screwed up under the kitchen table. Virku scampered up to a pile of sheets that had presumably been covering the furniture. She growled and shook them playfully. There was a powerful smell of Ajax and soap. When Rebecka looked more closely, she could see that the floor was smeared with cleaning fluid.

  “What on earth!” she exclaimed. “Whatever has been going on here? Where are your mother and your big sister?”

  Lova pointed at the sofa bed in the alcove. A girl of about eleven sat there, wearing a long gray sheepskin coat, maybe Sanna’s. She looked up from her magazine with narrowed eyes, her mouth a thin compressed line. Rebecka felt a stab in her heart.

  Sara, she thought. She’s got so big. And so like Sanna. The same blond hair, but hers is straight like Viktor’s.

  “Hi,” said Rebecka to Sara. “What’s Lova been up to? Where’s Sanna?”

  Sara shrugged her shoulders, making it clear that it wasn’t her job to keep an eye on her little sister or tabs on her mother.

  “Mummy got cross,” said Lova, tugging at Rebecka’s sleeve. “She’s in the bubble. She’s lying down in there.”

  She pointed at the bedroom door.

  “Who are you?” asked Sara suspiciously.

  “My name’s Rebecka, and this is my house. Partly mine anyway.”

  She turned to Lova.

  “What do you mean, ‘in the bubble’?”

  “When she’s in the bubble she doesn’t speak and she doesn’t look at us,” explained Lova, and couldn’t help tugging at Rebecka’s buttons again.

  “Oh, God,” sighed Rebecka, shrugging off her coat and hanging it on a hook in the hall.

  It really was freezing in the house. She must get the fire going.

  “I know your mummy,” said Rebecka, starting to pick up the chairs. “My grandparents lived here when they were alive. Have you got soap in your hair as well?”

  She looked at Lova’s hair, hanging in sticky clumps. The dog sat down and tried to reach round and lick its back. Rebecka crouched down and called to the dog in the same way as her grandmother used to call the dogs at home.

  “Here, girl!”

  The dog came straight over to her and showed her submissiveness by attempting to lick Rebecka’s mouth. Rebecka could see now that she was some sort of spitz crossbreed. The thick black coat stood out like a woolly frame round the narrow feminine head. Her eyes were black, shining with happiness. Rebecka ran her hands through the fur and sniffed at her fingers. They smelled of carbolic.

  “Nice dog,” she said to Sara. “Is she yours?”

  Sara didn’t answer.

  “Two-thirds belong to Sara and one-third belongs to me,” said Lova, as if she had learned it by heart.

  “I want to talk to Sanna,” said Rebecka, and stood up.

  Lova took her hand and led her into the other room. The accommodation on the upper floor consisted of the big kitchen with the alcove for the sofa bed, and another room. This had been the children’s bedroom. Grandmother and Grandfather had slept in the alcove in the kitchen. Sanna was lying on her side on one of the beds, her knees drawn up so that they were almost touching her chin. Her face
was turned to the wall, and she was wearing only a T-shirt and a pair of flowery cotton knickers. Her long blond angel hair was spread over the pillow.

  “Hello, Sanna,” said Rebecka carefully.

  The woman on the bed didn’t reply, but Rebecka could see that she was breathing.

  Lova picked up a blanket that was lying folded at the foot of the bed and spread it over her mother.

  “She’s in the bubble,” she whispered.

  “I understand,” said Rebecka through clenched teeth.

  She poked Sanna hard in the back with her forefinger.

  “Come with me,” said Rebecka, and took Lova back into the kitchen.

  Virku trotted after them once she had checked that her mistress, lying immobile and silent on the bed, was in no danger.

  “Have you had anything to eat?” asked Rebecka.

  “No,” replied Lova.

  “You and I used to know each other when you were little,” said Rebecka to Sara.

  “I’m not little,” shouted Lova. “I’m four!”

  “Now, this is what we’re going to do,” decided Rebecka. “We’re going to tidy up in the kitchen, I’ll cook us a meal, then we’ll heat up some water on the stove and we’ll wash Lova and Virku.”

  “And I need a new top,” said Lova. “Look!”

  She opened the blanket and revealed a soap-smeared T-shirt.

  “And you need a new top,” sighed Rebecka, exhausted.

  An hour later Lova and Sara were sitting eating sausage and mashed potato. Lova was wearing a pair of jeans belonging to one of Rebecka’s cousins and a washed-out pale red top with cartoon characters on the front. Virku was sitting at their feet waiting patiently for her share. The wood in the stove crackled and sparked.

  Rebecka glanced at the clock. Seven already. And she and Sanna had to go to the police station. The stress gnawed at her stomach.

  Sara sniffed at Lova’s top.

  “You smell disgusting,” she said.

  “No she doesn’t,” said Rebecka with a sigh. “The clothes smell a bit funny because they’ve been folded up in a drawer for such a long time. But her own are even worse, so we’ll just have to put up with it. Give Virku your leftover sausage.”

  She left the girls in the kitchen, went into the other room and closed the door.

  “Sanna,” she said.

  Sanna didn’t move. She lay in exactly the same position as before, her face turned to the wall.

  Rebecka went over to the bed and stood there with her arms folded.

  "I know you can hear me," she said harshly. "I’m not the same person I used to be, Sanna. I’ve become nastier and more impatient since then. I have no intention of sitting by you, stroking your hair and asking you what’s wrong. You can get up right now and get some clothes on. Otherwise I shall take your daughters straight to Social Services and tell them that you’re unable to look after them at present. Then I’ll get the next plane back to Stockholm."

  Still no answer. Not a movement.

  “Okay,” said Rebecka after a while.

  She took a deep breath as if to indicate that she had finished waiting around. Then she turned and walked toward the kitchen door.

  That’s it, then, she thought. I’ll ring the police and tell them where she is. They can carry her out of the house.

  Just as she placed her hand on the door handle she heard Sanna sit up on the bed behind her.

  “Rebecka” was all she said.

  Rebecka hesitated for half a second. Then she turned round and leaned on the door. She folded her arms again. Like somebody’s mother: Now let’s get this sorted out once and for all.

  And Sanna was like a little girl, chewing on her lower lip, pleading with her eyes.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled in her husky voice. “I know I’m the worst mother in the world and an even worse friend. Do you hate me?”

  “You’ve got three minutes to put your clothes on and get yourself out here to eat something,” ordered Rebecka, and marched out.

  Sven-Erik Stålnacke had parked outside the hospital Emergency department. Anna-Maria leaned on the car door when he fumbled in his jacket pocket for the keys. It wasn’t that easy to take deep breaths when the air was so cold it actually took your breath away, but she had to try and relax. Her stomach had grown as hard as a snowball on the short walk from the autopsy out to the car.

  “The Church of All Our Strength has three pastors,” said Sven-Erik, groping in his other pocket. “They have informed us that they are available to receive the police for the purpose of interrogation. They are setting aside one hour, no more. And they have no intention of being interrogated individually; all three of them will talk to us together. They say they wish to cooperate, but—”

  “But they have no intention of cooperating,” supplied Anna-Maria.

  “What the hell do you do?” wondered Sven-Erik. “Go in hard, or what?”

  “No, because then the whole community will just shut up like a giant clam. But you have to wonder why they’re not prepared to speak to us one-on-one.”

  “No idea. One of them did explain. Gunnar Isaksson, his name was. But I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. Maybe you can ask when we meet them. Bloody hell, Anna-Maria, I should have had them dragged out of bed first thing this morning.”

  “No,” replied Anna-Maria, shaking her head thoughtfully. “You couldn’t have done anything differently.”

  The Aurora Borealis was still swirling its veils of white and green across the sky.

  “It’s just unbelievable,” she said, tipping her head backwards. “It’s been like this all winter. Have you ever known anything like it?”

  “No, but it’s these sun storms,” replied Sven-Erik. “It looks fantastic, but any day now they’re bound to decide it causes cancer. We should probably be walking around with a silver parasol to protect us from the radiation.”

  “Now, that would really suit you,” laughed Anna-Maria.

  They got into the car.

  “On that particular subject,” Sven-Erik went on, “how are things with Pohjanen?”

  “I don’t know, it wasn’t really the right time to ask.”

  “No, of course not.”

  He can ask Pohjanen himself, thought Anna-Maria crossly.

  Sven-Erik parked below the church and they began to walk up the hill. The piles of snow by the side of the path had disappeared, and the tracks of both people and dogs crisscrossed the snow all around the church. The whole area had been searched for the murder weapon, in the hope that whoever had murdered Viktor Strandgård would have thrown away the weapon outside the church, or perhaps buried it in a mound of snow But nothing had been found.

  “What if we don’t find a weapon,” said Sven-Erik, slowing down as he noticed that Anna-Maria was out of breath. “Can you get a conviction for murder these days if there’s no technical proof?”

  “Just remember what happened to the guy everybody said had murdered Olof Palme,” puffed Anna-Maria.

  Sven-Erik gave a hollow laugh.

  “Oh, that’s made me feel so much better.”

  “Have you found the sister yet?”

  “No, but von Post says he’s arranged for her to come in at eight o’clock this evening to be interviewed, so we’ll see what comes of that.”

  Anna-Maria Mella and Sven-Erik Stålnacke entered the church of The Source of All Our Strength at ten minutes past five in the afternoon. The three pastors were sitting in a row right at the front of the church, their faces turned toward the altar. There were also three other people in the church. A middle-aged woman was dragging an unwieldy vacuum cleaner as it droned and roared over the carpets. Anna-Maria thought she looked skinny in her old-fashioned tights and a pale lilac knitted cotton sweater that almost came down to her knees. From time to time the woman had to switch off the vacuum cleaner and get down on her hands and knees to pick up bits of rubbish that were too big for the hose. Then there was another middle-aged woman, much more elegant, in a smart
skirt, well-pressed blouse and matching cardigan. She was walking up and down the rows of chairs and placing a photocopied sheet on each seat. The third person was a young man. He appeared to be wandering aimlessly around, talking to himself. He held a Bible in his hand. Every so often he stopped in front of a chair, reached out his hand and seemed to be talking to it in an agitated manner, but no sound came from his lips. Or he stopped dead, raised the Bible up toward the ceiling and gabbled out loud a series of phrases that were completely incomprehensible to Sven-Erik and Anna-Maria. When they walked past him, he gave them a filthy look. The blood-soaked rug was still lying in the aisle, but someone had moved the chairs so that it was easy to get by without walking where the body had been.

  “So, this is the Holy Trinity, then,” said Sven-Erik in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere as the three pastors rose to greet them, their faces serious.

  None of them gave the slightest hint of a smile.

  When they were seated Anna-Maria jotted down their names with a short description in her notebook so that she’d remember afterward who was who and who said what. A tape recorder was out of the question. It was probably going to be difficult enough to get anything out of them as it was.

  “Thomas Söderberg,” she wrote, “dark, good-looking, trendy glasses. Forty-something. Vesa Larsson, forty-something, the only one who isn’t wearing a suit and tie. Flannel shirt and leather waistcoat. Gunnar Isaksson. Pudgy, beard. About fifty.”

  She thought about their handshakes. Thomas Söderberg had pressed her hand firmly, met her eyes steadily and held on for a moment. He was used to inspiring trust. She wondered how he would react if the police indicated that they didn’t quite believe something he said. His suit looked expensive.

  Vesa Larsson’s handshake was flaccid. He wasn’t used to shaking hands. When their hands met he had actually made his greeting through a brief nod that preceded the handshake, and he was already looking at Sven-Erik.

  Gunnar Isaksson had nearly crushed her hand in his. And it wasn’t the unconscious strength you sometimes find in men.

  He’s just afraid of seeming weak, thought Anna-Maria.