Until Thy Wrath Be Past Part 13

He has returned home to the village full of adventure stories. Sat in people's kitchens and recited the Swedish mantra "Finland's cause is ours", and perhaps sounded self-important, but his listeners have encouraged that. They have brewed real coffee, produced biscuits to dunk, and laughed when Krekula has told them about how he jokes with both the Finnish and the Swedish soldiers to keep their spirits up after all, he speaks both languages fluently, just like the rest of the villagers. "I came to Kousamo. My G.o.d, but the lads were freezing. And hungry. I told them: 'Those b.l.o.o.d.y Russkies will all have frostbitten a.r.s.es, and perkele, they'll starve to death.' They couldn't stop themselves laughing. Then we'd unload food and tobacco and weapons. There were tears in plenty of eyes, believe you me."

The villagers would have been sitting by their wirelesses listening to reports from the front line; the women would have been knitting mittens and jumpers and socks for the Swedish volunteers. They would have handed the clothes over to Krekula for delivery to the troops, and would have felt extra-pleased when he came back and told them how the boys nearly ended up fighting over the jumpers the women had made, and how they sent greetings and thanked them all from the bottom of their hearts. "And they wondered if I couldn't bring a few pretty unmarried girls with me next time."

The volunteers had been welcomed back to Sweden with parades and receptions in town halls and cathedrals.

Krekula's pockets are full of cash. He earns a lot of money from these transports. His haulage firm grows bigger and bigger. But n.o.body begrudged him that before the winter of 1943.

Then comes Stalingrad, and the tide turns against the Germans. Foreign Minister Christian Gunther, who had urged Sweden to follow the example of Finland and support the Germans against the Soviet Union, had backed the wrong horse. Sweden supports the allies. Finland's cause is not ours, dammit. Finland is a German lackey.

Now the returning volunteers are greeted with silence and averted eyes. Krekula still transports goods across the border, but he no longer circulates around the kitchens of the village. He takes Kerttu with him in his lorry. They have been going steady since she was fourteen, and she is as pretty as a picture. Spends ages posing in front of her mirror and avoiding doing any ch.o.r.es, and Anni is tempted to give her a good smacking. Krekula seldom comes in to say h.e.l.lo, hangs around in the road instead. Matti, the girls' dad, looks away and growls grumpily when Kerttu bids them a hasty goodbye and runs outside. He keeps the family going on the little he earns from farming and fishing. But he feels the shame of the poverty-stricken when his daughter comes home with a new dress that Krekula has bought her, or a fancy headscarf or some perfumed soap. Anni and her mother are a stark contrast to all that finery. If the family were better off, perhaps Kerttu would not be so head-over-heels in love but what can Matti do?

Kerttu continues to strut through the village and couldn't care less what people say. Not that they dare say very much, as several of the local men drive lorries for Krekula and others are involved in building him a new garage. The bottom line being that they all need to earn a living.

But Anni knows about the gossip. One day when she is visiting one of the families in the village, the youngest daughter catches sight of Kerttu through the window. She starts singing, "If you want to see a bright star, look at me". One of her sisters immediately shuts her up and gives Anni a look combining shame and scorn. She does not apologize. Anni knows that the song is often sung behind Kerttu's back.

The singer who made it popular, Zarah Leander, is out in the cold now, hated by everyone for fraternizing with the n.a.z.is. On the other hand, the anti-fascist composer and revue artist Karl Gerhard's songs are being played on the wireless again. The wind changes direction rapidly. Kerttu is the village's little Zarah Leander.

All those threads between the sisters. Anni is over eighty, the age Kerttu soon will be. But they're unable to say a word to each other about what they think and know. Eventually, Anni says she's going back indoors. Whereupon Kerttu heaves her kick-sledge around and heads off home.

Anni stays put for a while, watching the mist. Then, suddenly, she senses my presence.

"Wilma," she says.

I wish I were able to touch her. Instead, I remind her of when we went swimming in the lake. She even swam underwater. Came up snorting.

"I didn't know I was still capable of that!" she gasped in jubilation. "Why do we stop doing things simply because we grow old?"

I shouted back to her,"I'm not going to stop. I'll carry on swimming until I'm ninety!"

Later, in the kitchen, when we were both sitting in front of the stove with fluffy towels wrapped around us, Anni grinned and said, "So you'll stop swimming when you're ninety, will you? Why?"

Now she starts crying as she turns round and trudges back to her house.

I move on.

I'm sitting on the edge of the autopsy bench, observing myself.

The pathologist has been in a continuous bad mood. Angry because he's been forced to do his post-mortem examination again. A week ago my body looked quite decent. But now, after being exposed to the air, I'm bluish and swollen. My flesh is distintegrating.

Now he's cutting up my right hand, and suddenly his bad mood seems to have blown away. He starts humming. Is it a song? What a voice he has! It sounds like two stones being rubbed together.

He takes off his gloves and makes a phone call. Asks to speak to Anna-Maria Mella. He starts by complaining about what a h.e.l.l of a nuisance it is, having to repeat the post-mortem, and how he'd be grateful if in future he'd be informed when there's suspicion that a death has been anything other than accidental, so he knows what to look for. I can hear that the woman at the other end of the line is being very patient with him. He grumbles and groans, but in the end can't contain himself any longer. He simply has to tell her about the hand.

"I thought you might be interested in something," he says, and when he hears her tense, expectant silence, he pauses dramatically, coughing and clearing his throat, and almost succeeds in driving her mad.

"Khrush . . . khrush . . ." he croaks before continuing. "She has a fracture in her fifth metacarpal . . . that is, you know, the bone in the hand behind the little finger on the way to the wrist. A common injury caused when defending oneself . . . It could very well have been caused by her . . . by her hitting her hand against a door, for instance . . ."

I must get away from here. I can't bear to look at this body any more. Not long ago the skin was tight and alive. I had fantastic b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I think about how Simon used to hug me. I remember how he would stand behind me, kiss my ears and my neck, and put his hands inside my clothes. The soft, sweet noises he would make which meant that he wanted to make love to me. Saying "Mmm" to each other, we knew exactly what we meant.

Now I have no body. That blue, swollen, disintegrating lump of flesh on the steel bench beneath the fluorescent lamps isn't really my body.

I am so terribly lonely.

Hjorleifur Arnarson is also lonely. I'm standing outside his house. His dog can sense my presence. She's staring in my direction. The fur on her back bristles, and she whimpers restlessly.

Several weeks can pa.s.s between occasions when Hjorleifur talks to other human beings. Not that he misses the contact. He thinks a lot about women, of course, but it's more than thirty years since he had a relationship with one. He dreams about a woman's soft skin and rounded body. He leads his own eccentric, wild existence out there in the forest. In summer he wanders around naked and sleeps outdoors. Every day, summer and winter, he bathes in Lake Vittangijarvi.

He didn't see us when we were there, diving. When he arrived at the lake we had already been dead for two hours. I wasn't even in the lake any more. He wondered about that hole in the ice, too big to be used just for fishing. He thought perhaps there was someone enjoying a wintry bath in the lake, just like him. But why in the middle of the lake? And the remains of the door were floating around in the hole, lots of bits of wood; he couldn't fit them together.

Then he saw our rucksacks in the lay-by. a.s.sumed they belonged to people who would be returning shortly. He hung around for a while. Investigated the contents of the rucksacks, but didn't take anything. He was curious, hoping for an opportunity to chat. But n.o.body turned up, of course.

When he came back for his dip the next day, the rucksacks were still there. And the following day. It started snowing the day after that. The rucksacks were covered in snow. So he took them home.

Now he goes upstairs and takes the rucksacks out of a cupboard. He has shut them away very carefully, so that mice and rats couldn't get at them and poke around and c.r.a.p all over them.

No doubt the rucksacks belonged to the kids that policewoman was asking about, he thinks. He'll hand them over when she comes back tomorrow, tell her exactly where he found them and about the bits of wood floating around in the hole which doubtless came from the door she was also asking about.

But before he does that, there are one or two things he wants to remove. There's a first-rate, brand-new Trangia stove in one of the rucksacks, and a big merino wool pullover with a windproof lining in the other one. Hjorleifur has never owned such a splendid pullover. And the kids no longer need the stuff, so there's no reason why he shouldn't keep it.

He carries the rucksacks downstairs. It's so cold upstairs. Much nicer in the kitchen, where the wood-burning stove is crackling and spitting away, warming the place up with its living heat.

He is so busy unpacking the rucksacks and sifting through the contents, picking out what he wants to keep and what he'll put back, that he doesn't hear the snow scooter pull up not far from his house.

It doesn't worry him that the dog starts barking she does that sometimes. For all sorts of reasons. A squirrel, perhaps. Or a fox. Or snow tumbling down from the trees. She's such an old softie.

It's only when he hears the front door closing and footsteps approaching down the hall that he realizes he has visitors. Two men appear in his kitchen.

"Now then, Hjorleifur," one of them says. "We hear you've had a visit from the police."

He looks at them. His instinct tells him to run. But there's nowhere to run to.

Only one of them does the talking. The other one, who's big and fat, stands leaning against the door frame.

"What have you told the police, Hjorleifur? What did they ask you about? Come on, let's hear it!

Hjorleifur clears his throat "They were asking about a couple of kids who disappeared. If they'd been to the lake. If I'd seen them."

"Well, did you? What did you tell them?"

Hjorleifur doesn't answer. Remains kneeling by the rucksacks.

It's only now that Tore notices them. Two top-cla.s.s rucksacks made from posh nylon material. Not the kind of thing Hjorleifur would normally have. He uses army surplus and home-made stuff he nails together or sews by hand from animal skins he's tanned himself.

"So you found the rucksacks by the lake," Tore says, feasting his eyes on them. "That's right, isn't it, you thieving b.a.s.t.a.r.d?"

"I didn't think about it," Hjorleifur says. "There was n.o.body who . . ."

That's as far as he gets. Tore takes a lump of wood from the pile beside the stove, holds it with both hands like a baseball bat and uses all his strength to bash it against the back of Hjorleifur's head.

I hear the sound of Hjorleifur's skull cracking. I hear the thud as his body slumps to the floor. I hear the forest catch its breath in horror. The earth shudders, appalled by the blood being spilt.

Outside the house, the dog stiffens and bristles, then lies down in the snow. She doesn't go indoors, despite the fact that the brothers have carelessly left the door open.

The whole area smells of death. The birch trees are writhing. Birds are calling. Only the field mice carry on scampering beneath the snow. This means nothing to them.

I also feel strangely cold and unaffected. But perhaps I was like that even when I was alive.

Hjalmar moves away from the door frame.

"That was unnecessary, for Christ's sake," he says.

Hjorleifur Arnarson's legs twitch and kick as life drains out of him.

"Don't be such an old woman," Tore says. "Put your gloves on. We need to rearrange the furniture here."

TUESDAY, 28 APRIL.

"Why the devil don't you pick up when I ring you?"

Mns Wenngren sounded annoyed.

Rebecka Martinsson rolled her desk chair over to the door and kicked it shut.

"But I do," she said.

"You know what I mean. I've been trying to get you on your mobile, and I don't like my calls being rejected."

"I'm working, remember," Martinsson said patiently. "So are you, Mns. Sometimes when I ring you . . ."

"But then I ring you back as soon as I can."

Martinsson said nothing. She had intended to ring him back, but had forgotten. Or perhaps could not summon up the strength. She had worked late following the trip to Hjorleifur Arnarson's with Anna-Maria Mella. Then Sivving Fjallborg had invited her to dinner, and she had fallen asleep the moment she had got home. She ought to have phoned Wenngren and told him about Hjorleifur. How he ran around naked in the forest and wanted to give her some ecological eggs that would boost her fertility. That would have made Wenngren laugh.

"I don't get it," he said. "Are you playing games with me? Now you see me, now you don't? Just say the word. I'm s.h.i.t-hot at game-playing."

"I don't do that sort of thing," Martinsson said. "You know that."

"I know nothing. I think you're playing a little power game. Make no mistake, Rebecka, you're wasting your time. It'll just cool me off, that's what it'll do."

"Sorry, that's simply not the case. I really am no good at . . . You're O.K."

Silence.

"Move back here, then," he said eventually. "If you think I'm O.K."

"I can't," she said. "You know that."

"Why not? You're partnership material, Rebecka. And you're wasted messing around as a prosecutor up there. I can't possibly move north."

"I know," Martinsson said.

"I want to be with you," he said.

"And I want to be with you," Martinsson said. "Can't we just carry on as we are? We get together fairly often, in fact."

"It will never work in the long run."

"Why not? It works for lots of people."

"Not for me. I want to be with you all the time. I want to wake up with you every morning."

"If I worked for Meijer & Ditzinger we'd never see each other."

"Oh, come on . . . !"

"It's true. Name me one woman working for the firm who's in a successful relationship."

"Work as a prosecutor here in Stockholm, then. No, you don't want to do that either. It seems to suit you down to the ground to keep me at a distance, to answer the phone only when you feel like it. When you've nothing better to do. I have no idea what you were doing yesterday evening."

"Oh stop it. I was having dinner with Sivving."

"So you say."

Wenngren continued talking. The door to Martinsson's office opened, and Mella popped her head round it. Martinsson shook her head and pointed at the telephone, indicating that she was busy. But Mella took a piece of paper from her desk and scribbled on it in large letters Hjorleifur Arnarson is DEAD!!!

"I've got to go," Martinsson said to Wenngren. "Something's happened. I'll call you."

Wenngren broke off his musing.

"Don't bother," he said. "I'm not the type to hang around where I'm not wanted."

He waited for Martinsson to respond.

She said nothing.

He hung up.

"Man trouble?" Mella said.

Martinsson pulled a face, but before she could reply Mella said, "I tell you what let's forget about men for the moment. I heard a couple of minutes ago from Sonja on the switchboard that Goran Sillfors found Hjorleifur dead. Sven-Erik and Tommy are already there. You might well ask why they didn't ring me, but never mind that."

Sven-Erik will be furious, she thought. p.i.s.sed off because I didn't tell him I was going to visit Hjorleifur Arnarson yesterday.

Wilma Persson was buried on April 28 at 10.00 in the morning. The mourners stood in the churchyard, cl.u.s.tered round the grave. Hjalmar Krekula looked around. He had not bothered to take his dark suit out of the wardrobe that morning. It was G.o.d knows how many years since he had grown out of it.

Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, he had shaved and thought, I can't cope with this. I can't take any more.

Then he had sliced up a whole loaf of rye bread for breakfast. Spread each slice thickly with b.u.t.ter. Eaten it while standing by the draining board. Eventally he had calmed down. His heart had stopped pounding against his ribcage.