The Savage Altar

by Unknown

  “Sometimes we have to choose whether to follow the laws of Caesar or of God,” says Thomas. “I’ve told Magdalena that you’ll understand. Isn’t that right, Rebecka? Or are you going to report her?”

  Rebecka shakes her head. Magdalena looks relieved. She is almost smiling. Maja isn’t smiling. Her eyes are black when she looks at Rebecka. Rebecka feels the nausea welling up. She ought to eat something, it usually eases off then.

  They want her to bring up my child? thinks Rebecka.

  “So what do you say, Rebecka?” Thomas persists. “Can I leave here with your promise to cancel that hospital appointment?”

  Now the nausea suddenly floods through her body. Rebecka bangs her knee on the table as she leaps out of the wicker chair and runs to the bathroom. She brings up the contents of her stomach with such force that it hurts. When she hears them getting up in the lounge, she closes the door and locks it behind her.

  The next moment all three of them are standing outside the door. They knock. Ask how she is, and beg her to open the door. It’s deafening. Her legs feel weak and she slumps down on the toilet seat.

  At first the voices outside sound anxious, and they plead with her to come out. Even Maja is sent to the door.

  “I’ve forgiven you, Rebecka,” she says. “We only want to help you.”

  Rebecka doesn’t answer. She reaches out and turns the taps full-on. The water thunders into the bath, the pipes bang and drown out their voices. At first Thomas is merely irritated. Then he gets angry.

  “Open this door!” he shouts, hammering on it. “It’s my child, Rebecka. You have no right, do you hear me? I have no intention of allowing you to murder my child. Open the door before I break it down!”

  In the background she can hear Maja and Magdalena trying to calm him. They pull him away from the door. At last she hears the door to the flat close, and their footsteps disappearing down the stairs. Rebecka lowers herself into the bath and closes her eyes.

  Much later the door of the flat opens again. Sanna is home. The bathwater has been cold for a long time. Rebecka climbs out and goes into the kitchen.

  “You knew,” she says to Sanna.

  Sanna looks guiltily at her.

  “Can you forgive me?” she says. “I did it because I love you, you do understand that?”

  “Why are you here?” asked Maja.

  “I want to know why Viktor died,” said Rebecka harshly. “Sanna is a suspect, she’s being held for questioning and nobody seems to give a shit. The people in the church are dancing and singing hymns and refusing to cooperate with the police.”

  “But I don’t know anything about it,” exclaimed Maja. “Do you think I killed him? Or Thomas? Chopped off his hands and gouged out his eyes? Have you gone mad?”

  “How should I know?” replied Rebecka. “Was Thomas at home the night Viktor was murdered?”

  “That’s enough, Rebecka,” Magdalena interjected.

  “Something was going on with Viktor before he died,” said Rebecka. “He seemed to have fallen out with Sanna. Patrik Mattsson was angry with him. I want to know why. Was he having a relationship with somebody in the church? A man, perhaps? Is that why it’s so quiet you can hear a pin drop in the house of God?”

  Maja Söderberg stood up.

  “Didn’t you hear what I said?” Maja screamed. “I have no idea! Thomas was Viktor’s spiritual mentor. And Thomas would never pass on anything he was told in confidence in his capacity as pastor. Not to me, nor to the police.”

  “But Viktor’s dead!” hissed Rebecka. “So I imagine he couldn’t give a shit whether Thomas breaks a confidence or not. I think you all know more than you’re prepared to say. And I’m ready to go to the police with what I know, then we’ll see what else comes out in a preliminary investigation.”

  Maja stared at her.

  “You’ve taken leave of your senses,” she exclaimed. “Why do you hate me? Did you think he’d leave me and the girls for you, is that what it is?”

  “I don’t hate you,” said Rebecka tiredly, getting up. “I feel sorry for you. I never thought he’d leave you. I never imagined I was the only one, it was just bad luck that you found out. Am I the only one you know about, or were there…?”

  Maja swayed slightly. Then she pointed her finger at Rebecka.

  “You,” she said furiously. “You child murderer! Get out of here!”

  Magdalena followed Rebecka to the door.

  “Don’t do it, Rebecka,” she pleaded. “Don’t go to the police and stir things up. What’s the point? Think of the children.”

  “Well, help me, then,” snapped Rebecka. “Sanna’s on her way to jail, and nobody will say a bloody word. And you want me to be nice.”

  Magdalena pushed Rebecka out onto the landing in front of her, then closed the door behind them.

  “You’re right,” she said. “There was something the matter with Viktor recently. He’d changed. Become aggressive.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Rebecka, pressing the glowing red button so that the lights came on.

  “Well, you know, his whole manner, how he prayed and spoke to the congregation. It’s hard to put your finger on it. He was restless, somehow. Often used to pray at night in the church, and didn’t want any company. He never used to be like that. He used to like other people to pray with him. He was fasting and he was always busy. I thought he looked haggard.”

  She’s right, thought Rebecka, remembering how he’d looked on the video. Hollow-eyed. Strained.

  “Why was he fasting?” she asked.

  Magdalena shrugged her shoulders.

  “How should I know,” she said. “It does say that certain demons can be driven out only by prayer and fasting. But I wonder if anyone knows what was wrong with him. I’m sure Thomas doesn’t know, they hadn’t been getting on very well recently.”

  “What was the problem between them?” asked Rebecka.

  “Well, nothing that was going to make Thomas murder Viktor, at any rate,” said Magdalena. “But seriously, Rebecka, you can’t really believe that? It seemed as if Viktor had withdrawn from everybody. Including Thomas. I just think you should leave this family in peace. Neither Thomas nor Maja has anything to tell you.”

  “Who has, then?” asked Rebecka.

  When Magdalena didn’t reply, she went on:

  “Vesa Larsson, maybe?”

  When Rebecka reached the street it occurred to her that she’d better let Virku out of the car for a pee, before she remembered that the dog had disappeared. What if something had happened to her? In her mind’s eye she could see Virku’s little body lying in the snow, frozen to death. Her eyes had been pecked out by crows or ravens, and a fox had eaten the tastiest parts of her stomach.

  I’ll have to tell Sanna, she thought, and her heart felt heavy in her breast.

  A couple pushing a pram passed by. The girl was young. Maybe not even twenty. Rebecka noticed her glance enviously at Rebecka’s boots. She was passing the old Palladium. Ice and snow sculptures still stood there, left over from the Snow Festival at the end of January. There were three half-meter-high concrete ptarmigans in the middle of Geologgatan to stop cars driving down it. They had little hoods of snow on their heads.

  It was an unpleasant feeling, getting into the empty car. She realized she’d already got used to the children and the dog.

  Pack it in, she told herself sharply.

  She looked at her watch. It was already half past twelve. In two hours it would be time to pick up Sara and Lova. She’d promised them they’d go swimming this afternoon. She ought to get something to eat. This morning she’d given the girls sandwiches and hot chocolate, but she’d just gulped down two mugs of coffee. And she wanted to fit Vesa Larsson in as well. And she ought to try and do a bit of work. She could feel the pain in her midriff kick in when she thought about the memo on the new regulations for small companies that she still hadn’t finished.

  She nipped into The Black Bear and grabbed a bar of chocolate,
a banana and a Coke. An advertising board for one of the evening papers screamed, “Viktor Strandgård Murdered by Satanists.” Above the headline in almost illegible print it said, “Anonymous Member of the Church Claims.”

  “What a cold hand,” said the woman who took her money.

  She wrapped her warm, dry hand around Rebecka’s fingers and squeezed them briefly before she let go.

  Rebecka smiled at her in surprise.

  I’m not used to it anymore, she thought, chatting to strangers.

  The car was icy cold. She ripped off the skin and gobbled the banana. Her fingers were getting colder and colder. She thought about the woman in the newsagent’s. She was around sixty. Powerful arms and plump bust in a pink mohair cardigan. Home-permed hair, cut short in a style that was fashionable in the eighties. She’d had kind eyes. Then she thought about Sara and Lova. About how warm their bodies were when they slept. And about Virku. Virku with her velvety eyes and her soft woolly coat. Misery suddenly overwhelmed her. She turned her face up to the roof of the car and wiped the tears from her eyelashes with her index finger so that she wouldn’t get mascara under her eyes.

  Pull yourself together, she told herself, and turned the ignition key.

  Virku is lying in darkness. Then the lid above her is opened and the light of a torch dazzles her. Her heart shrinks with fear, but she does not try to resist when two rough hands reach in and lift her up. Dehydration has made her passive and obedient. But she still turns her face up toward the man who is lifting her out of the trunk of his car. Shows him as much submission as she can, with silver tape bound tightly around her muzzle and paws. In vain she exposes her throat and presses her tail between her back legs. For there is no mercy to be had.

  Pastor Vesa Larsson’s newly built modern villa was behind the Folk High School. Rebecka parked the car and looked up at the impressive building. The white geometric blocks of stone blended in with the white landscape all around. In snowy weather it would have been easy to drive straight past without realizing there was a house here, if it hadn’t been for the connecting sections, which glowed in glorious bright red, yellow and blue. It was obvious the architect had been thinking of the white mountains and the colors of the Sami people.

  Vesa Larsson’s wife, Astrid, opened the door.

  Behind her stood a small Shetland sheepdog, barking frantically at Rebecka. Astrid’s eyes narrowed and the corners of her mouth curved downward in a grimace of distaste when she saw who was at the door.

  “And what do you want?” she asked.

  She must have put on thirty pounds since Rebecka last saw her. Her hair was tied back messily, and she was wearing Adidas tracksuit bottoms and a washed-out sweatshirt. In an instant she had registered Rebecka’s long camel coat, the soft Max Mara scarf and the new Audi parked outside. A hint of uncertainty flickered across her face.

  I knew it, thought Rebecka nastily. I knew she’d lose the plot as soon as they had their first child.

  In those days Astrid had been a little on the plump side, but pretty. Like a chubby little cherub on a fluffy cloud. And Vesa Larsson was the unmarried pastor, fought over by all the prettiest girls in the Pentecostal church who were desperate to get married.

  It’s very liberating not to have to try to love everybody, thought Rebecka. I never did like her.

  “I’ve come to see Vesa,” said Rebecka, walking into the house before Astrid had time to reply.

  The dog backed away, but was now barking so hysterically that it was making itself hoarse with the effort. It sounded as if it had a hacking cough.

  There was no hallway and no porch. The whole of the ground floor was open plan, and from her position in the doorway Rebecka could see the kitchen, the dining area, the seating around the big open fireplace and the impressive picture windows looking out at the snow. On a clear day you would have been able to see Vittangivaara, Luossavaara and the Crystal Church up on Sandstensberget through those windows.

  “Is he in?” asked Rebecka, trying to speak over the sound of the dog without shouting.

  Astrid snapped back: “Yes, he is. Will you shut up!”

  This last remark was directed at the furiously barking dog. She rummaged in her pocket and found a handful of reddish brown dog treats, which she threw onto the floor. The dog stopped yapping and scurried after them.

  Rebecka hung her coat on a hook and pushed her hat and gloves into her pocket. They’d be soaking wet when it was time to put them on again, but that couldn’t be helped. Astrid opened her mouth as if to protest, but closed it again.

  “I don’t know if he’ll see you,” she said sourly. “He’s got the flu.”

  “Well, I’m not leaving here until I’ve spoken to him,” said Rebecka calmly. “It’s important.”

  The dog had now eaten all its treats and come back to its mistress, grabbed her leg and started rubbing itself against her, once again yapping excitedly.

  “Don’t do that, Baloo,” Astrid protested halfheartedly. “I’m not a bitch.”

  She tried to push the dog off, but it clung frantically to her leg with its front paws.

  Good God, you can see who’s in charge in this house, thought Rebecka.

  “I mean it,” said Rebecka. “I’ll sleep on the sofa. You’ll have to call the police to get rid of me.”

  Astrid gave up. The combination of the dog and Rebecka was just too much for her.

  “He’s in the studio,” she said. “Up the stairs, first on the left.”

  Rebecka took the stairs in five long strides

  “Knock first,” Astrid called after her.

  Vesa Larsson was sitting in front of the big white-tiled stove on a sheepskin-covered stool. On one of the tiles “The Lord Is My Shepherd” was written in elegant letters the color of birch leaves. It was pretty. Presumably Vesa Larsson had written it himself. He wasn’t dressed, but was wearing a thick toweling dressing gown over flannelette pajamas. His tired eyes looked at Rebecka from two gray hollows above his stubble.

  He feels bad, all right, thought Rebecka, but it’s not the flu.

  “So you’ve come to threaten me,” he said. “Go home, Rebecka. Leave all of this alone.”

  Aha, thought Rebecka. They didn’t waste any time ringing to warn you.

  "Nice studio," she said, instead of answering.

  “Mmm,” he said. “The architect nearly had a stroke when I said I wanted an untreated wooden floor in here. He said it would be ruined in no time by paint and ink and all the rest of it. But that was the idea. I wanted the floor to have a patina, from everything I’d created.”

  Rebecka looked around. The studio was large. Despite the gloomy snowy weather outside, the daylight flooded in through the huge windows. Everything was tidy. On an easel in front of the picture window stood a covered canvas. There wasn’t the least speck of color on the floor as far as she could see. It had been a bit different in the days when he used to work in the cellar of the Pentecostal church. There were sheets of drawings all over the floor, and you could hardly move for fear of knocking over one of the many jars of turpentine and brushes. The smell of turpentine gave you a slight headache after a while. In this room there was just the faint smell of smoke from the stove. Vesa Larsson saw her inquiring look and gave a crooked smile.

  “I know,” he said. “When you finally get the studio other people can only dream about, you…”

  He finished the sentence with a shrug of his shoulders.

  “My father used to paint in oils, you know,” he went on. “The Aurora Borealis, Lapporten, the cottage in Merasjärvi. He never grew tired of it. Refused to take an ordinary job, sat drinking with his mates instead. Then he’d pat me on the head and say: ‘The lad thinks he’s going to be a truck driver and all sorts of things, but I’ve told him, you can’t get away from art.’ But I don’t know, these days it just seems pathetic, sitting here with my dreams of being a painter. It wasn’t so hard to get away from art after all.”

  They looked at each other in silence.
Without knowing it, they were both thinking about the other one’s hair. That it used to look better. When it was allowed to grow more freely, go its own way. When it was obvious it was friends who were wielding the scissors.

  “Nice view,” said Rebecka, and added: “Although maybe not just at the moment.”

  All you could see outside was a curtain of falling snow.

  “Why not?” said Vesa Larsson. “Maybe this is the best view of all. It’s beautiful, the winter and the snow. Everything’s simpler. Less to take in. Fewer colors. Fewer smells. Shorter days. Your head can have a rest.”

  “What was going on with Viktor?” asked Rebecka.

  Vesa Larsson shook his head.

  “What’s Sanna told you?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” replied Rebecka.

  “What do you mean, nothing?” said Vesa Larsson suspiciously.

  “Nobody’s telling me a damned thing,” said Rebecka angrily. “But I don’t believe she did it. She’s on another planet sometimes, but she can’t have done this.”

  Vesa Larsson sat in silence, gazing at the falling snow.

  “Why did Patrik Mattsson say I should ask you about Viktor’s sexual inclinations?” asked Rebecka.

  When Vesa Larsson didn’t answer, she went on:

  “Did you have a relationship with him? Did you send him a card?”

  Did you put a threatening note on my car? she thought.

  Vesa Larsson replied without meeting her eyes.

  “I’m not even going to comment on that.”

  “Right,” she said harshly. “Soon I’ll be thinking it was you three pastors who killed him. Because he wanted to blow the whistle on your dubious financial dealings. Or maybe because he was threatening to tell your wife about the two of you.”

  Vesa Larsson hid his face in his hands.

  “I didn’t do it,” he mumbled. “I didn’t kill him.”

  I’m losing it, thought Rebecka. Running around accusing people.

  She rubbed her fist across her forehead in an attempt to force a sensible thought out of her brain.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “I don’t understand why you’re all keeping quiet. I don’t understand why somebody put the knife in Sanna’s kitchen drawer.”