by Mikael Niemi
The pastor studied Nils Gustaf’s hands. The thumbnail shone in a way that was reminiscent of a crescent moon. It looked as though he were trying to imagine it being pressed into a woman’s neck, while she choked and tried to twist away.
Was it possible that these same hands could capture the softest shimmer of light in one moment, only to wound and strangle in the next? Could such extremes coexist in the same psyche? While the pastor sat absorbed in these thoughts, he heard the cottage door open and one of the girls from the foundry came in with a silver tray. On it were some delicious little fried pastries.
“Crullers.” The artist smiled. “I asked the cook to bake some. The recipe is supposed to come from Gustav Vasa’s household.”
He handed a copper to the girl, who shyly mumbled her thanks in Finnish. It was obvious from her appearance that she must be a descendant of the Walloons at the foundry; her eyes were brown, and her plaited hair dark and thick. When she took the coin, he snatched her wrist and pressed a kiss on her neck. The pastor could see she didn’t like it. Blushing, she hurried out, while Nils Gustaf proffered the still-warm pastries.
“Cinnamon,” the pastor noted. “But is there brandy in there too?”
“Only a few drops for flavor.”
The pastor hesitated and stopped chewing. He silently put the cake to one side.
“A delight,” Nils Gustaf said with a laugh. “I mean that girl. I’ve been wanting to paint her, but she keeps digging her heels in.”
“But you think you can persuade her?”
“I have my own ways to make girls soften.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“She will.”
“A woman’s strengths should not be underestimated,” the pastor said. “Some people think a woman is superior to a man.”
“Do you believe that?”
“In certain respects, yes, I do.”
“Maybe the pastor means a woman’s guile? Her power to ensnare? Her way of offering a man forbidden fruit?”
“I mean that without my mother I wouldn’t be here.”
Nils Gustaf gave an unconscious grimace.
“No, that’s certainly true. A woman has to bring us forth.”
“In my childhood home in Jäkkvik it was my mother who held the family together. Without her sacrifices, Petrus and I would never have survived. Father was away for long periods. He was doing business of various kinds.”
“And perhaps with other women?”
“Do you think so?”
“A man has to have women. Even the pastor must understand that.”
“And if he doesn’t get them?”
“There’s always a rose somewhere to be picked.”
“And if she declines? If she offers resistance?”
“What at first appears to be reluctance usually turns into desire when it comes to the moment of truth.”
“But if the man wants it but the woman doesn’t, should he make use of his physical strength?”
Nils Gustaf drew on his cigar and gazed into the distance.
“The pastor thinks of his mother with love. I wish I could do the same.”
He exhaled, rounding it off with a short bout of spitting, and watched the wreath of smoke rise to the ceiling.
“I was an unwanted child. To this today I don’t know who my real father is. Her brother had to look after me. He was a lieutenant in the cavalry, always ate his dinner in uniform. I was expected to follow in his footsteps. Now, with the passage of time, I understand him better, but then it was difficult. He wanted to make his sister’s bastard child respectable.”
“Was he harsh toward you?”
“I remember my paint box. It was my most cherished possession, and when he realized that, he confiscated it as punishment. Every little misdemeanor led to a ban on painting. It wasn’t until I started painting horses that he relented on that point.”
“Horses?”
“Horses at a walk, horses over hurdles, cavalry charges, hunters, parade horses, a team of four to whose driver I gave some of his own features. And thanks to this he finally let me paint. You see, he liked horses more than he liked people.”
“And your aunt?”
“She had enough to do with her own children. For the whole of my upbringing I felt as though I’d forced my way into their home, that I was taking up space that belonged to the real family.”
“Didn’t she ever show any motherly feelings?”
“I never received any warmth. On the other hand, they were careful about my clothes, because I represented the family in the outside world. Sometimes I think she was scared of me.”
“Scared of a child?”
“I was big for my age. She used to take her children out of my way. At times she seemed to think I wanted to hurt them.”
“Did you want to?”
“I kept to myself. It was worse when I started school, when I learned the word ‘bastard.’ Then I had to take advantage of my size.”
“You learned to fight?”
“Top-sawyers’ kids or whoever the hell they were, I gave the whole lot of them a good walloping. Even when they were older, even when there were several of them. I had fights all the time I was at school.”
“And as an adult?”
“When I have to. Doesn’t the pastor too? Or does he always turn the other cheek?”
The pastor gripped his pipe and pretended to clean it on his sleeve.
“I have a temper,” he said. “But I do everything I can to resist coming to blows. I don’t want to be like my father.”
“I understand. But that’s still preferable, to have a father who hit you. Rather than not having one at all.”
“Your mother never said who he was?”
“She came to see me now and then. Always stylishly dressed in voluminous gowns, a thick layer of powder in the corners of her mouth. When she’d gone I tried to sketch her from memory.”
“Your first portrait?”
“I don’t remember her ever touching me. My stepfather gave me to understand she was ill.”
“Was it serious?”
“Supposedly. But I don’t know. Maybe she just wanted an excuse not to hold me.”
“And she never told you who your father was?”
Nils Gustaf gave a sardonic smile.
“It was an excellent idea, wasn’t it? The bitch is still alive, you see. Maybe I should look her up and threaten to strangle her if she doesn’t tell? Squeeze her neck harder and harder until in the end the old battleax understands what she has to give me. Or do you have a better suggestion?”
The pastor gave no answer.
“Good,” Nils Gustaf said. “Maintain that expression. That exact expression.”
* * *
—
At one of the sittings Nils Gustaf took a break to visit the privy out in the garden. The pastor was left in the cottage alone. He wrestled with his conscience for a while before getting up and walking over to the large wooden trunk standing in one corner. It was locked. With mounting apprehension, the pastor looked for the key and finally found it in a waistcoat that was hanging up. He unlocked the lid and stood there speechless. The trunk’s interior was divided into a large number of compartments. There were liquids and powders in a variety of sealed bottles and jars, several of which bore labels with gaping skulls. There were metal boxes, glass receptacles and measuring tubes, meticulously graduated scales with weights, all the equipment you could possibly need in a chemical laboratory.
On the desk was correspondence about artists’ materials and commissions for portraits. One letter was an invitation to an exhibition in Stockholm in the winter. He was clearly having some success in the finer salons. In the penholder were a quantity of pencils. The pastor examined them and put one of them in his pocket.
“D
id you find anything interesting?”
The pastor hastily turned. The doorway was filled with Nils Gustaf’s mighty form. He came to stand next to the pastor, who was pretending to look through some canvases.
“The mountain theme!”
“Yes, I spent a time up by Lake Torneträsk before I made my way down here to Pajala. Do you like them?”
“You must have walked a long way to find views like these.”
“I borrowed a tent. To experience the midnight sun over the mountain heath was sublime!”
The pastor nodded quickly. The artist went over to a painting that had been placed to one side to dry and turned it round.
“What does the pastor think of this?”
“It . . . it is exceptional!”
The pastor stared dumbfounded at the picture Nils Gustaf was holding up to the light. It was pinned to a simple wooden frame and was still not completely finished.
“Can the pastor see who it is?”
The woman in the painting was radiant. Her body appeared so light, as if she were floating. The golden hair spinning around like clouds, the dress red as blood, the face shimmering in the darkness of the barn. Her beauty was striking.
“Maria,” the pastor murmured.
“It took some time to get her hair loose. But I succeeded in the end.”
The pastor looked grave.
“A painting like this can hardly be shown to the people.”
“In Stockholm it can.”
“But should it?”
“The girl’s beautiful, Pastor. She’s the prettiest I’ve seen. My painting captures but a dim reflection of the real Maria.”
The pastor stared at the picture for a long time, as if trying to retain it inwardly. Then he turned to Nils Gustaf.
“You are not awakened?”
“Not in the pastor’s sense, no.”
“Do you wish to be? Shall I tell you about the divine grace I myself encountered during a period of great despair?”
Nils Gustaf smiled.
“No,” he said.
But then, while he was mixing the colors, he added:
“Actually, yes. I can paint you in the meantime. I can reproduce it in the picture.”
For a moment, the pastor was obliged to close his eyes. To step inside, wander deep into his limitless forests.
“That woman was called Maria too,” he began.
This was a lie. The woman in his innermost heart was called Milla Clementsdotter.
“It happened the winter after my pastoral degree. I was on a long visitation, and arrived at the village of Åsele one January evening. The winter darkness weighed on the landscape and a similar darkness prevailed in my soul.”
“Yes, those are the times you crave female company.”
“Those are the times,” the pastor said, “the times under the sparkle of the starry heavens, that divine grace can reveal itself. . . .”
39.
We all felt the nights grow noticeably chillier. The animals sped up their preparations for the long polar winter. People, too, hastened to reap and gather and fill their storehouses.
Although it was only the end of August, the pastor noticed the first signs of frost damage on his potato plants. The tips of the leaves had shriveled and turned black. In concern he took the little trowel and raked around the roots. Soon he glimpsed something yellow in the brown clay soil. Squatting down in the garden, he very gently picked up the hard tuber and dug a little farther. He immediately discovered more of these fruits of the earth, six larger ones in total, as well as two the size of peas still attached to the root system. He gathered them all and examined them with interest. He rubbed off the soil with his thumb and saw that they had a thin skin, and under the skin a light-colored, yellowish flesh. He bit into one, expecting it to taste like an apple, because the consistency reminded him of freshly fallen fruit, but found it tasted mostly of water. With the little harvest in his cupped hands he walked over to the well and rinsed it clean.
“Come here, Jeana,” he called to his daughter, who was playing with the dog.
He cut a piece off for her; she chewed it quickly and then spat the mush out onto the grass.
“Don’t trick me, Father!”
“It’s a potato,” he hastened to tell her. “I got the seeds from a student friend in Uppsala.”
Now that the tubers had been washed, small indentations were visible in them. They were similar to the ones he had planted last summer, when little purple shoots had sprouted out of them. Maybe he ought to give the whole lot to the pig?
He carried the potatoes in to the kitchen table and examined them through a strong magnifying glass. He split one of the tubers and discovered that the inner structure consisted of a hard, cream-colored flesh that was shiny and slightly wet. On the fireplace was an iron pot with some hot water left at the bottom. He dropped the potatoes in one by one and brought it to a boil. Nothing happened. No change in color, no contraction or wrinkling of the skin. On the other hand, a rather agreeable smell was rising, suggestive of moist bread. He prodded them now and then with a needle to see if the consistency was changing, and after a few minutes the tubers started softening. Soon the needle went right through. Full of anticipation, he served them up on a plate and put them on the table, just as Brita Kajsa came in. She gave off an odor of farmyard, and her forehead was glistening with perspiration from her labor.
“Sit down,” the pastor urged her, looking for a spoon. “Now we’ll try our crop.”
She frowned when he presented the round, steaming shapes.
“Are they turnips?”
“No, not turnips. They’re our newly acquired solanums.”
“You’ve harvested them?”
“Just the first few plants. The dog refused to eat the fruit. But now I’ve cooked it.”
Brita Kajsa cautiously cut the potato into pieces. She took a small bite and let it rest on her tongue. The pastor hurriedly did the same. A small smile spread across his wife’s face.
“Not bad,” she said. “Possibly needs a pinch of salt.”
She sprinkled a few grains from the saltcellar on top. The pastor reached for the butter dish that had been left there, scooped out a knob, and let it plop down. The heat made the butter melt and mix with the salt. He rolled the piece of potato in the sauce and put it on his tongue. As an undreamed-of tenderness dissolved in his mouth, he shut his eyes and smacked his lips with pleasure.
“We need to be sparing with the butter,” she said.
“Yes, but taste it first. Mix the potato with butter and salt.”
Brita Kajsa did as she was told. The pastor watched her close her lips, chew tentatively, and then pause. Without moving, she looked at her husband.
“Oh!” she exclaimed.
At first he thought she had burned her tongue, but instead she gave him a look that demanded to know if this could be true.
“Potato?” she asked.
“The tubers I put in the ground. Six of them came from one single plant.”
“It tastes heavenly.”
“It does indeed.”
“It’s so good it’s probably poisonous.”
“In that case we might die this very minute.”
The pastor cut up the next potato. She did likewise; they were both eating from the same plate.
“Six from one single plant?”
“Yes, and there are more out there.”
“Potato,” she said again. “From the solanum plant?”
“At first I thought I’d give them all to the pig.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“But then I remembered hearing that it had to be cooked. And when you eat it with butter and salt . . .”
“Well, the butter isn’t entirely necessary.”
“From just one of the t
ubers I got six back. Imagine if we get the same crop from the others! We need to share the knowledge. I’ll announce it to all from the pulpit!”
“People prefer turnips.”
“Shouldn’t we encourage them to plant some all the same?”
“As an extra crop, maybe,” she said.
“This taste!” the pastor said excitedly. “Fresh, newly cooked potatoes. I really believe I won’t ever forget it.”
“As long as it doesn’t make us ill!”
“Then we’ll die in bliss.”
“You said there’s more out there?”
“Certainly, there’s more out there. We can cook some for the children too.”
“I can feel something moving in my stomach. Maybe it’s like the toadstool. The poison creeps up on you after a while. . . .”
“We’ll lie down and rest, Brita Kajsa. It’s just the feeling of being full.”
“Yes, God help me!”
“Potato,” he repeated. “Who could have imagined this? Isn’t creation filled with the sweetest miracles?”
As soon as they lay down, Brita Kajsa’s stomachache passed. She didn’t usually get enough peace to rest, but this time she shut her eyes and nodded off. Soon the pastor could hear her heavy breathing and see her purple, veiny eyelids twitch slightly. The pastor dozed off too and dreamed of a future in which every farm in the north had large, leafy potato crops. A sixfold return in the harvest of these delights, was that really possible? Such an outcome would finally banish starvation from the Tornedalen vale of tears.
40.
I was by the well, cleaning some autumn salmon the pastor had received as a tithe. I tossed the guts to Tjalmo the dog, who sniffed them with suspicion before warily trying them. The tithing should naturally have increased after the pastor moved to Pajala. The poor crofters up in Karesuando had difficulty delivering the tax they owed and the pastor never wanted to insist. Here in the Pajala region there were some prosperous farms, but nevertheless the inhabitants gave less than they ought. And you could well understand the reason. Since the revival, the pastor had stopped serving brandy to those who came to him with their butter, their cheeses and turnips. This was matched by a conspicuous disinclination to pay. It was easy to overlook your obligations if you didn’t receive your dram in return.
