by Mikael Niemi
“She has nothing to do with this.”
“But with her it was different. You wanted to be with her. But you had to have an excuse to speak to her. You told her that, being the constable, you’d found out who the murderer was, the one who’d attacked the women. Wasn’t that what happened?”
“Everybody around here thought it was Jussi.”
“During one of your encounters, Maria mentioned something to you about Nils Gustaf’s fortune. While he was painting her, she had seen where he hid his money. It whetted your greed and you couldn’t stop thinking about this hoard. In the end you managed to obtain a strong poison.”
Michelsson shook his head.
“The pastor forgets that the cottage was locked from the inside!”
“That’s true. It took me a long time to solve that puzzle. We knew someone had visited Nils Gustaf on the night of his death. I found fingerprints on both brandy glasses and took them home, as you recall. When you and Brahe paid me a visit later in the parsonage, I kept your glasses and compared the papillary patterns. And there was no doubt, the prints from Nils Gustaf’s cottage were identical to yours. I also managed to decipher your signature in the artist’s receipt book. You presumably told him the purpose of your visit was to arrange to have your portrait painted. At the appropriate moment, when he turned his back or maybe when he went outside to empty his bladder, you pocketed his money. It must have been a very considerable sum. You knew that when he eventually discovered the theft, suspicion would fall on you. But you had already drawn up your plan.”
“There are no witnesses to this!”
“While you sat there drinking French brandy, Nils Gustaf rigged up his daguerreotype apparatus. He made everything ready and asked you to pose, without moving. But you didn’t understand what he wanted to show you, that your picture could actually be captured on a glass plate. Meanwhile, you surreptitiously poured prussic acid into his glass of brandy.”
“Pure blather!”
“I got to know a chemist while I was in Uppsala, a fervent admirer of his Swedish predecessor Carl Wilhelm Scheele. It was Scheele who discovered this substance. My friend taught me how to test for its presence by adding iron salts. A compound is then formed with a bright color known as Prussian blue. There was some brandy left in the glasses when I examined them, and I managed to detect the poison in one of them. To my horror I realized that Nils Gustaf had been murdered.”
“But you didn’t say anything to Brahe!”
“No, for a long time I thought that he was the one who did it. Only after a great deal of painstaking consideration did the pieces fall into place. Let us return to that evening in the cottage. Before Nils Gustaf could develop the glass plate you bade a hasty farewell and left with your pockets full of his money. Nils Gustaf locked the door for the night, as was his wont. Suspecting nothing, he drank from his glass and immediately began to feel unwell and lay down on his bed to rest. The following day he was found dead in his cottage, which was locked from the inside. Death was assumed to be from natural causes. And you, Michelsson, thought that you had committed the perfect crime.”
I watched the constable’s face blanch, his skull outlined like a pale death mask. And then the veins swelled, the skin darkened, a surge of blood welled up from inside him and took control, and with a low, gurgling growl he bent over me. I was horrified by his transformation. The human was forced out by something else, a being from another world, sulfurous and incandescent. I sensed shadows circling against the church roof with tails lashing and jaws agape, I heard Beelzebub’s war cry from a thousand throats. As Michelsson closed his claw-like fingers around my neck, I fought with all my strength. He squeezed, his mouth was open, his teeth bared, juices dribbling from his maw. I twisted my hips and tried to wriggle away. But he pushed all his weight onto me and all his strength into the thumbs digging into my throat. All the time I sought his gaze, but it was utterly empty. Like a pike’s. Coal-black water surrounded by the flames of hell. And I looked at him as the women must have done before he extinguished their gaze. He was too strong. I couldn’t get away. But despite the unbearable pressure, I still resisted. Here was one thing that distinguished me from the women. My white, well-sewn clerical collar. It ran all the way round my neck, and it was sufficiently broad and stiff to afford me a breath of air.
My hand grasped the narrow metal shaft of the object in my pocket and with my thumb I managed to open the blade. I swung it sharply up toward his arm. The edge was razor-sharp and the blade of my pocketknife went straight into the flesh between the two bones of his forearm. He froze, not understanding at first what had happened. Then his grip slackened and I felt the weight of his body keeling over to the side. With a frantic heave I pushed him over. I kicked hard—my legs, albeit short, were resilient from miles of wandering—and I tried like a wildcat to strike his stomach. He rolled backward toward the altar rail, looking around for a weapon. On the altar stood the heavy wooden cross. He grabbed it and swung it violently toward me. At the last moment I backed away and felt the cold rush of air across my face as it hurtled past. Next to me was the baptismal font. A silver bowl sat in the wooden pedestal. Desperately, I took hold of the edge and managed to prize the bowl loose. I raised it as a shield against the next blow and Michelsson’s cross hit it with the clang of a bell.
“Jeeesus!” I screamed. “JEEEESUSSS . . .”
Over and over again. My voice was strong, a voice crying in the wilderness. It forced its way to the church door, down across the parvis, out over the meadows, and up to the foundry, to all the crofters and the maids. Could no one hear me? Michelsson hit out once more, but I parried with the bowl. In my other hand I was still holding the pocketknife.
“JEEEEESSSUUUSSSS . . .”
Michelsson’s arm was dripping blood. With a neat kick he hit the baptismal bowl, which clattered away into the darkness, and I fell backward. He took a run at me for his next kick, this time aiming for the side of my head. I tried to crawl away to save myself, but I couldn’t move my legs. He rushed toward me, raised his boot, and kicked with all his might. I twisted away but was far too slow, and I desperately held up my arms, shut my eyes, and waited for the heavens to fall.
There was a dull thud, like the sound of someone chopping wood. Michelsson’s flailing body sprawled on top of me and he rolled sideways before the next thump was heard. In the air above us hovered the heavy altar crucifix bearing the mild gaze of Jesus, and for a moment the afternoon sun shone through the window straight onto our Savior’s face, and the cross gleamed as if it were made of gold, before hammering down for the third time on the constable’s body. He howled with pain, and maybe with fear too. Like a devil in dark clothes he jumped to his feet and limped away between the pews.
Jesus was picked off the floor once again and turned his face to me. I could see that the crossbeam had come off. But Jesus was still holding his arms wide, as if he wanted to fly, float up to heaven. With a sweep he took up his position back on the altar. Only then did I see that a woman had been holding him. It was Milla Clementsdotter. She was small and thin and wearing a threadbare tunic. Her breathing was fast, and she watched me as I lay groaning in my delirium.
“Milla, you saved me. . . . My beloved Milla.”
Her lips parted but there were no words. She raised her arm and made the sign of the cross to symbolize the Holy Trinity. Then she turned and padded away in her soft-soled curled-toe shoes. Everything was so strangely quiet. I heard no footsteps, as if she were a dream.
I struggled to my feet, limbs aching, and dizzy with pain. A piece of wood was still on the floor. It was the crucifix’s lost crossbeam, which I laid on the altar, thinking that it might be possible to glue it back on. I limped across the church to the door, holding on to the pews for support.
69.
The verdict against Jussi Sieppinen was announced one bleak and rainy morning. The defendant was found guilty of the murder of H
ilda Fredriksdotter, the attempted rape and subsequent murder of Jolina Eliasdotter, the attempted assault on a farm maid, and the theft of Nils Gustaf’s money. The prosecutor’s evidence and the defendant’s signed confession were considered sufficient in the case. The sentence was death by beheading.
I received the news at home, where I lay bedridden on the truckle bed. Under me I had something hairy and warm with an aroma of anthill and bark. It was the newly tanned skin of the she-bear. When the farmers who killed her found out I was ill, they gave it to me as a tithe.
“It has healing powers,” they said. “He who lies on a bearskin can never die.”
After hearing about Jussi’s death sentence, I lay there numb. Brita Kajsa sat down by my sickbed and stroked my forehead gently. I tried to lie completely still, my body aching after all the blows and kicks. By some miracle no bones were broken, but my front teeth felt loose. I could wiggle them in my gums and suspected they would never be firm again.
“Beheading,” I said in despair.
“You did the best you could, dear priest.”
“I couldn’t save Jussi. He could have been our son, Brita Kajsa!”
“You fought as bravely as a lion.”
“Give me some paper. I need to appeal. Fetch the inkpot!”
She pressed her palm against my chest when I attempted to sit up.
“Later,” she said firmly.
Her light hand massaged my sore ribs.
“Was it really Michelsson who beat you so badly?”
“He and no other.”
“Was he the one who attacked the women too?”
“I’d suspected him for a while. But the murderer was left-handed and I noticed Michelsson used his right hand when he wrote. For a long time, I couldn’t understand how it could all tie together. But then I remembered something Juhani Raattamaa told us.”
“What was that?”
“During his visit in the summer Raattamaa said that he forced his left-handed pupils to write with their right hand. And Raattamaa had been Michelsson’s teacher. That was why Michelsson wrote in such a strange way, with his left hand clenched behind his back.”
Brita Kajsa nodded grimly.
“We have to report him.”
“To whom? I don’t trust Sheriff Brahe.”
“You gave Michelsson a knife wound in the arm.”
“Should I have turned the other cheek?”
“I mean it’s proof that you were attacked.”
“Michelsson can claim I attacked him first. That he was simply exercising his right to defend himself. His word against mine.”
“But are you going to let the monster walk away? Michelsson is like the killer bear, a beast who’s had the taste of women’s flesh.”
“Michelsson is afraid of me now. In all likelihood he’ll soon leave our region.”
“Then he’ll just carry on his evil deeds elsewhere!”
Of course my clever wife was right. But what could I do? Now that Jussi had been sentenced, Michelsson could no longer be prosecuted for the crimes put to the court.
“I heard he visited Maria yesterday,” Brita Kajsa said.
“They plan to go away together. I think it was Maria who told Michelsson where Nils Gustaf hid his money. And then the idea of murder came to him.”
“He must be the devil,” Brita Kajsa said.
“I’ve thought so too.”
“He tried to kill you!”
“But he could never have killed the revival. Even if I had passed away there at the altar, it would have lived on. They will never touch the revival movement.”
Brita Kajsa quietly squeezed my hand.
“I don’t think we’ve seen the final battle,” she said after a while.
“What’s on your mind?”
“I think it will get worse. I have a foreboding of something dreadful.”
“It won’t be so bad.”
“I dreamed of blood. Of blood and burning buildings. And you were there. You saw it all happen but couldn’t stop them.”
“Who?”
“They were like ordinary people, but they called themselves angels. They were ashen-faced, as if they’d been consumed by lightning bolts in heaven.”
“Do you mean Kauto—” I began.
Abruptly she put a finger over my sore lips and held it there anxiously as she looked over her shoulder. But there was no one there.
* * *
—
Immediately after the judgment was passed, the convict Jussi Sieppinen was taken in chains to the prison convoy that would transport him to the crown prison in Umeå. I never managed to say goodbye. He left behind the Bible I had lent him. I would rather he had kept it, so that in his death cell he could have leafed through and found the word of God in the pages where I had so often sought comfort.
I lay in my sickbed looking gloomily through Jussi’s Bible for something to give me strength in this hour of need. Ecclesiastes: “All is vanity and vexation of spirit.” Undeniably true, but not what I needed to hear just now.
While I was searching through the thin pages my fingers could feel that the margin was strangely rough. I stopped and ran my fingers over it. I could feel tiny wrinkles and dents as if the paper had been creased by someone browsing carelessly. Perhaps they might disappear if I pressed the book under some heavy weights? A few pages on I discovered a similar roughness. My irritation grew. I always looked after my books; who could have been so remiss? From the beginning I had taught Jussi to turn the pages carefully, one of my conditions if he wanted to come anywhere near my library. Maybe it was the clumsy fingers of the prison guards who creased the Bible during their inspections? I was about to carry on browsing but I stopped short. I sat as if paralyzed, just staring.
“Selma! Fetch a pencil!” I shouted.
My youngest daughter came in carrying the inkpot.
“No, a soft lead pencil,” I explained. “Bring the one that’s on my desk.”
She returned at once. I looked at the page in the Bible and hesitated; it went against the grain to sully God’s words. But I placed the lead against the paper and started solemnly shading the rough surface. With light movements I observed the grooves being transformed into small white symbols.
When I peered through my magnifying glass I could see that they were letters, and they were forming words. For safety’s sake they were written in Sami. Jussi had remembered the trick I had shown him and he must have used something sharp to scratch with, maybe a nail.
That whole evening, I sat in my bed, deciphering the text. I had scarcely time to eat the evening meal and when Brita Kajsa tried to speak to me, I was in another world. Jussi had written about his life. About his childhood, about the darkness he lived in before I found him. About his sister Anne Maaret, who was called the runt, with her sore bottom. How she stayed behind when he left.
I lowered the magnifying glass and rubbed my tired eyes. I had never read anything like it. It was the introduction to a book. A depiction of reality as it looked here in the north, far from all the lecture theaters and auditoriums.
When an ordinary, simple Sami boy could achieve this, others would follow. Farmers and reindeer herders, hunters and fishermen, maids and lumberjacks. One day they would be able to tell the story of their lives themselves. Instead of spending money on brandy, they would buy books, gather in the evening to talk to one another about the light of heaven, about the plants of the forests and meadows, about what it meant to be a human being.
My wife was sleeping deeply when I crept under the quilt. Outside it was dark, except for the points of a few sharp stars poking through the ceiling of the sky. They would never kill Jussi, I thought as I lay there. Somehow I would save him.
70.
Winter was at the door. Violent northern winds brought thick banks of clouds and constant rain acro
ss the land of the north. Despite the aches and pains in my body, I forced myself out into the dreadful weather and along the slippery wet marsh path to Pajala. I approached the large villa where the sheriff had his lodging and office, knocked on the door, and entered.
Constable Michelsson was sitting at the desk, writing. He stiffened at the sight of me and lifted the metal nib from the paper. His lips tightened over his teeth; he dried the ink with the blotting paper and gave me a cold stare.
“I’m looking for the sheriff,” I said.
“He’s traveling.”
A blazing stove spread a fierce heat throughout the room. I pulled out my portfolio, unfolded the rain-soaked cloth I had wrapped round it for protection, and opened it.
“I have our writ here. Jussi Sieppinen hereby appeals to the Upper Norrland Court of Appeal against his judgment. I would prefer to see Sheriff Brahe receive our application for onward submission.”
“In the sheriff’s absence it is I who takes care of the formalities.”
Michelsson’s voice was restrained and rather hoarse. His pale blue eyes showed no emotion when he saw my injuries. My battered lips had started to heal, the bruises on my neck were turning yellow.
“In that case, I’ll have a written receipt.”
I placed the piece of paper on the desk. Out of one of the drawers he took a pad and filled in the receipt with his right hand, holding his left hand behind his back as Raattamaa had once taught him. His fingers were long and slender and the pen nib made a rasping scratch, his handwriting as always very neat and elegant. Much more graceful than my own. He quickly laid the blotting paper on top and ran a roller over it, before handing me the receipt. I made a move as if to take it, but instead I swiftly grabbed his wrist and twisted it. He shrieked, tried to wrest his arm away, and at the same time swung at my hand with the other arm.
