by Mikael Niemi
Gently, he exposed her genitals. I couldn’t understand how he could bring himself to do that. The pubic hair wasn’t black like mine, but dark blond, almost the color of bronze.
“Write down that she bled. In her . . . that her virginity was taken. Something like that.”
Virginity. I struggled to spell this, to transcribe the sound, with the pencil slipping in my sweaty grasp.
Next he gripped the pelvis and turned the body on its side. Her back displayed the reddish-violet marks of lividity. The pastor searched her dress and found a couple of yellowed stems of sedge.
“Dried sedge. Carex nigra. Spelled with an initial C. They must have got caught when she was lying in there in the barn.”
It was an effort to keep up. Carecks with a C.
“Can you help me now? Hold her up like this.”
He levered the body up into a sitting position. I pressed my hands against her shoulder blades. She was ice-cold. Her skin felt slippery and it made me think of fish, the belly of a pike. Her head fell heavily against her chest.
“What’s this, then?”
High up on her right arm, behind her shoulder, were some black craters. Round, bloody puncture marks from something sharp. The pastor checked her blouse and discovered that it had corresponding holes. Small bloodstains showed where the skin had been pierced. The pastor took out his ruler and measured the marks precisely, and their distance one from another. Lower down on her back three parallel cuts were also visible. The pastor measured and I wrote the figures down.
“The bear’s claws,” I whispered in horror.
“Mm.”
“It bit her and scratched her!”
He regarded me without a word. Then he did something that made me gasp. He quietly laid his hands round the girl’s neck with his thumbs on her throat, slowly twisting round so that he could look at the bruises from different angles.
“Look carefully, Jussi. Can you see that the bruises tally with human hands?”
“But—but what about the claw marks?”
“Done with the blade of a knife. And the bite marks on the shoulder were made with its point. You can see from the clothes that the skin bled very little. In other words, the injuries were inflicted when she was already dead.”
“So you mean . . . ?”
“Somebody wanted us to believe it was a killer bear.”
I leaned closer to her neck. And now I saw that the pastor was right: there was no way the ugly bruises could have come from a bear’s jaws. Silently we buttoned up her dress and laid the body out straight again.
The pastor glanced though my notes and put them in his jacket pocket. We stood in silence, trying to regain our composure. I felt ashamed, and I could see the pastor felt the same. We had crossed over a line. He carefully blew out the candle by her head.
At that moment we heard someone rattling the door, and I hurried over to remove the broom handle. The old woman stomped back in and was about to shout out but changed her mind when she caught sight of the pastor. He was kneeling on the sauna floor beside the dead woman. His hands were clasped together and in a low voice he was praying for her poor soul, that it should be at peace. His face gave no hint of what we had been doing, and when he raised his eyes his voice was as strong and clear as in the pulpit.
“We wished to be left alone!”
“I know, Reverend, I know. But the sheriff has arrived.”
The woman scrambled to the side as the bulky form of Brahe squeezed into the sauna room. He was a head taller than the pastor, a head that was wide and fleshy and would have looked good on a sire bull. His eyes were small and beady under pale bushy eyebrows. His uniform jacket was undone and he, obviously suffering from the summer heat, had stuck two fingers under his collar. The backs of his hands were covered with coarse black hairs, not unlike insects’ legs, and after he had wiped the perspiration from his forehead and his bulging cheeks, his face still glistened.
“And what is going on here?” he bawled in Swedish.
His voice was loud, but it was also hoarse, years of military bellowing having wrought their effect. With self-assured authority he stopped in the middle of the room like a boulder in a stream. Everything around him fell into line. Even the pastor pattered around until he’d adopted a suitable position.
“It was Jussi and I who found the girl,” he announced.
For some reason this annoyed the sheriff. Waving his arms like a swimmer, he shooed us aside and pushed his way to the bier.
“Oh, bloody hell,” he said. “Bloody hell . . .”
The old lady flinched at the curses and glanced over at the pastor to see his reaction. But we stood waiting while Brahe poked at the body with evident distaste.
“Yes, she’s definitely damn well dead,” he said.
He leaned forward with his hand over his large-pored nose to shield himself from the stench of death. But the smell that met him was of acid water and damp peat. He looked hurriedly around, found the sauna ladle, and pushed the woman’s chin up.
“She’s been bitten around her neck. Poor lass.”
“It’s most unlikely they’re bite marks,” said the pastor, but the sheriff stopped him with a toss of his hand.
“Anyone thinking of interfering with my examination can leave!”
His voice sounded thick with snot under his palm; he blew his nose directly into his hand and wiped it on the sauna bench.
“Turn her!” he ordered the old lady.
She tiptoed up, visibly shaking in the presence of these two important officials. As quickly as she could, she eased the cloth away from the top half of the body and revealed the back. With the handle of the ladle the sheriff tapped the wounds on the shoulder.
“Bear teeth,” he said. “The brute bit her in the shoulder and then dragged his prey down into the bog pool. To eat later.”
“She was . . . There was a broken hayrack post there as well.”
“It must’ve been there since the harvest.”
“It looked as though it had been used to push the body down.”
The sheriff took a deep breath and glared at the pastor. Who was considerably smaller in stature and nearly twenty years older. But despite the physical disadvantage, I could see the pastor’s anger was beginning to mount. He tilted his head back and stared at his opponent. Brahe took no notice of him but raised his voice even more.
“So it was the pastor who found the girl?”
“That’s correct.”
“The pastor. And that young Lapp boy over there.”
The sheriff made a sweeping gesture in my direction.
“Jussi accompanied me. We examined the barn first and noticed at once that the hay had been compressed, as if someone had been lying on it. We found a mountain plant in the hay and some strands of hair we believe came from Hilda Fredriksdotter.”
“How the hell do you know that? All women have hair.”
“Sheriff Brahe may care to examine the girl’s scalp.”
“You attend to your job and I’ll attend to mine.”
The pastor looked as though he had a venomous retort to deliver, but made a visible effort to keep his lips closed. Instead he did an about-turn and walked briskly out of the sauna.
“And you too!” the sheriff said to me. “Unless you want to hear it in Lappish as well?”
He took aim with the ladle and I bolted after the pastor. Behind me I could hear the old woman clattering with the buckets and spooning out hot water.
12.
Gloom and fear spread through the district. A young person had lost her life and at the end of each day people hurried home, anxiously keeping an eye on the undergrowth at the sides of the roads and paths. The collection for a reward for anyone who could slay the killer bear continued, with generous contributions arriving from near and far. Bait and traps were laid in the forests.
One daybreak the calm was shattered by a tortured bellowing. Bleary-eyed men with axes and iron bars rushed out into the woods, where it proved to be the sound of a handsome dairy cow from the nearby farm who had gotten caught in an iron trap. Its leg was broken and the poor creature had to be killed, so the farmer’s wife had no choice but to stand in the farmyard whisking its blood, her tears trickling into the pail.
Sheriff Brahe relished the limelight as he paraded around the farms with Constable Michelsson in tow. This was a far cry from reports of theft and false accusations and covert boundary changes, the sort of thing that would usually occupy the majority of his time. He was served regular meals and brandy in the evenings, while the constable jotted down everything that needed to be sent to the powers that be. Hunting plans were drawn up, battues moved noisily from village to village, and bear sightings by cow-girls and villagers were monitored.
* * *
—
Early one morning when the pastor was still in bed asleep, a visitor came to see him. It was a boy from one of the tenant farms; he must have been about ten and was so nervous he was trembling slightly as he drank from a birch-bark ladle. With the pastor’s children flocking around him, he gulped it down and was given a refill. Selma tried to worm out of him why he had come, but the boy sensed his own momentary importance and waited patiently for the pastor. Brita Kajsa asked the parsonage housemaid to give him a piece of bread. He seized on it eagerly but didn’t eat it, putting it instead into his trouser pocket. Then he sat down on the kitchen step and let his gaze wander around the parsonage, wanting to imprint every detail on his mind so he could recount it to his brothers and sisters. He marveled in particular at the metal pans, the shining copper dishes from Norway embossed with an animal pattern of deer and sheep among stylized trees. And in the middle of the flock of cloven-hoofed animals lay a terrifying lion with its teeth bared. It was right beside its prey; the next meal was chewing the cud by the side of the lion’s claws. The whole scene radiated unearthly peace. It represented Paradise, the pastor had explained. The world before the fall of man. And, indeed, on the other dish a man and woman were sitting sharing a piece of fruit with a snake hanging from the branch of a tree. You wanted to grab hold of them and shake them, scream a warning before it was too late. But the young couple divided their fruit and the sweet taste flooded their palates with pleasure. And very soon the idyll surrounding them would all be gone.
The pastor finally emerged wearing a carelessly buttoned shirt and running his hand through his hair. The boy instantly rose to his feet, obviously scared in the presence of this great public figure. He pressed his slender back against the doorpost and bowed deeply.
“I bring a message to the reverend that the beast has been captured.”
It sounded as though he’d been rehearsing the sentence. An adult had clearly given him instruction.
“What beast?” the pastor asked.
“The beast has been captured,” he repeated.
“You mean . . . ?”
“The beast that ate up the girl. It was caught in the night. They want the pastor to come and verify it.”
It was clear the boy was loath to use the word “bear.” The pastor nodded hurriedly and asked the boy to wait for him to get ready. I had been prepared for departure for some time.
“Was it big?” I asked. “Did you see it with your own eyes?”
The boy kept his lips tightly sealed. Then he nodded smugly and scratched his dirty, mosquito-bitten ankles.
* * *
—
The hunt for the killer bear had been going on ever since the reward was announced. A number of enterprising farmers had acquired an enormous iron trap with crudely serrated jaws. This grim instrument was buried and carefully camouflaged. The bait was laid next to it, a rancid pile of entrails retained after the slaughter of a pig, the stench of which carried far and wide and attracted foxes and crows. But soon the killer bear found the scent too and came closer, swiftly dispersing the smaller animals. When the creature lumbered up, followed by her two cubs, she stepped straight into the trap. Her paw sank into the iron jaws of the concealed snare and they slammed shut in a vise-like grip.
In the middle of the night the people on the nearest farm heard what sounded like someone shrieking out in the forest and their dogs began to show signs of agitation. They waited until dawn, summoned their neighbors and other villagers, and armed themselves with whatever was at hand. In trepidation they then made their way to the site. After stealthy inspection they were able to ascertain that the beast was trapped. One shot was fired from a rifle and, after a lengthy reloading procedure, a second, with the sole effect of making the beast even more ferocious. Moving close enough to strike it with an ax would have been suicidal, and no one had a spear. In the end they cut down some of the smaller fir trees. The branches were lopped off and the trunks used as clubs to rain down a storm of blows on the hairy skull. Blood gushed into its eyes, almost blinding the creature, with the result that some of the boldest men were able to go right up to it and hack at the bear’s front legs with their axes. After several attempts they managed to sever the sinews in the hind legs too. Now that the animal no longer had the means to stand upright, the others could get close enough to rain blows until it breathed its last.
* * *
—
The bear lay in a shaggy heap on the moss. The strong odor from the pig entrails was now mixed with the iron smell of blood. The animal had been severely mutilated, and the head was misshapen from all the ax blows. The eyeballs had been pushed out like boiled eggs, one of them dangling on a whitish stalk. Everyone was agreed, it was the right animal. The two cubs, who of course were also tainted by human flesh, were dispatched with well-aimed buckshot. Like hairy fruit, they tried to cling to the snag of a pine tree, before they came thudding down to share their mother’s fate.
The farmers and workers closest to the scene danced around, intoxicated with pride. Smoke from a smoldering fire drove away the mosquitoes and blowflies, not to mention the swarms of horseflies attracted by the smell of blood. The pastor riffled through his pockets for a piece of paper and a pencil stump. He slowly walked round the animal, viewing it from every angle as he made notes. Because his expression was closed and introspective, it was impossible to discern what he was thinking. He asked the men to turn the animal onto its back. They took hold of the beast reticently, as though it might still make a lunge. With their combined force they managed to tip the body over into a supine position, its limbs akimbo. Now they could see the size of it, as long as the tallest of men and impressively broad across the chest. The body bore an uncomfortable resemblance to a human being, with its arms and legs stretched out, and its naked genitals. Its jaw was half open, the massive canines shining like dagger blades, shaped for slaughter and destruction. Hanging in the fur were the teats the cubs had licked and tugged. The pastor bent down and examined the bear’s mouth. He sniffed at it like a dog. With both hands he prized the jaws apart and took various measurements with a small folding ruler he found in his inside pocket. He wrote down the figures on the piece of paper and pondered as he filled his clay pipe.
“Open her up,” he said.
The men looked at one another askance. Not one of them had any experience of slaughtering bears. Somewhat reluctantly, one of them took out his knife and poked it into the belly. With difficulty he cut through the tough pelt from the rib cage down to the crotch. This exposed the innards, the convoluted coils of violet and gray. The pastor passed the writing implements to me, took off his jacket, and sank to his knees. He rolled up his shirtsleeves and at that point seemed to hesitate, but then he plunged his arms in up to the elbows and began to pull out the bear’s long guts. The men helped by folding back the skin so that it was easier for the pastor to empty the abdomen. Still with his pipe in his mouth, the pastor gripped his pocketknife and cut through the membranous sto
mach wall. A grayish sludge spilled out onto the ground. Everyone recoiled at the putrid stench and someone could be heard retching. The pastor vigorously puffed smoke from his pipe and bent forward, the better to study the half-digested contents. He stirred them with his knife and turned to me.
“Plant components, write that down. Roots, leaves, stalks. This bear’s diet appears to have consisted entirely of vegetables.”
“But it was attracted by the bait,” one of the farmers protested.
The pastor looked skeptical. He took out another ruler from his inside pocket, measured the bear’s claws, and made a note. Then he straightened his back and wiped his hands, while simultaneously drawing deeply on his pipe. The smoke streamed from his nostrils as he looked around.
“We’ll hear what the sheriff’s opinion is,” he said, gesturing into the distance.
The men turned to see the heavy, thickset shape of the sheriff making its way through the undergrowth. Constable Michelsson followed in his wake, and several paces behind them both, with a sizable pack on his back, came the artist Nils Gustaf. The village folk fell silent and respectfully moved aside. When the sheriff caught sight of the pastor, he greeted him guardedly, before walking with a wide-legged gait up to the she-bear and prodding her with his toe cap.
“Who’s responsible?” he asked peremptorily. Like many people in authority he took pleasure in intimidation and assuming command. Cap in hand, the men said nothing.
“Evil be to him who evil does,” the sheriff continued tersely, wiping the perspiration from his face.
The constable plucked at the cubs’ fur and grinned.
“Two little man-eaters into the bargain, hee-hee,” he sniggered.
“Well, I assume you’ll be claiming the reward,” the sheriff said to the men. “In which case you can stand your hand to a celebratory nip.”
