Until Thy Wrath Be Past Part 24

"Right, we're off to pick up Tore Krekula," Mella said. "I expect you'll want to be present at the interrogation?"

Martinsson nodded and the pack raced out of the door, baying and howling, sniffing the ground.

She remained where she was, feeling left out.

Oh dear, she said to herself, how little and insignificant you are.

Vera suddenly started barking. Krister Eriksson had just parked his car and let out Tintin and Roy. His face lit up when he caught sight of Martinsson. He went over to her.

"I was looking for you," he said with a smile so big that his pink skin seemed tightly stretched. "Do you think you could look after Tintin for a while? I'm going to put Roy through his paces, and Tintin is always so miserable when she's left behind in the car."

Vera stood submissively still, wagging her tail in a friendly greeting, as Tintin and Roy sniffed at her, under her stomach and around her rump.

"I'd love to," Martinsson said.

"How are things?" he said. Martinsson had the feeling he could see right through her.

"Fine," she lied.

She told him about Tore Krekula's jacket, about how he was about to be arrested.

Eriksson said nothing, just stood there and waited. Looked sympathetically at her.

You're a right one for standing there and waiting, Martinsson thought. Wait on.

She had no intention of telling him about Hjalmar Krekula and their meeting in the cemetery.

Then he smiled suddenly. Tapped her gently on the arm. As if he simply could not keep his hands off her.

"So long, then. I'll collect her this evening."

He instructed Tintin to stay with Martinsson, went back out to his car and drove off with Roy.

Laura Krekula took her time before opening the door. She eyed the police officers standing outside. Mella could not resist flashing her I.D.

She could see the fear in Laura Krekula's eyes. Rantakyro and Olsson were wearing their serious faces.

I don't feel sorry for her, Mella thought. How on earth could she marry such an idiot?

"Here you are again," Laura said in a weak voice.

"We're looking for Tore," Mella said.

"He's at work," his wife said. "You won't find him at home in the middle of the day."

"Is that his car parked over there?" Mella said.

"Yes, but he's making a delivery to Lule today and won't be back home until late tonight," his wife said.

"Is it O.K. if we take a look round the house? One of the drivers at the garage said Tore was at home."

Laura Krekula stepped to one side and let them in.

They opened wardrobes. Checked the garage and laundry room. Laura remained in the hall. After five minutes, the police thanked her and left.

When they had driven off, Laura went upstairs. She collected the big, long, hexagonal spanner that fitted the hatch to the cold loft. Turning the spanner, she let the hatch fall open and unfolded the ladder.

Tore Krekula climbed down.

Walking past his wife, he bounded down the stairs to the ground floor.

Laura followed him. Said nothing. Watched him pull on his boots and jacket. He went into the kitchen wearing his outdoor clothes. Spread some b.u.t.ter on the side of the crispbread with the deepest holes and cut some slices of sausage which he laid on top.

"Don't say a thing," he said with his mouth full. "Not a word to your mother or your sister. Is that clear?"

Hjalmar is skiing through the forest. The afternoon sun is warming everything. There are big b.a.l.l.s of new snow in the trees, but it has started to melt and drip. I'm sitting in the birch trees among all the watery pearls, watching him. Moving from tree to tree. Being weightless, I can perch on the thinnest of twigs. In winter they are black and the frost makes them straggly. Now they've a.s.sumed a violet tinge. The colour of spring. I run like a lynx up a pine trunk smelling of resin. The bark is golden brown, just like Anni's ginger biscuits. The branches are dressed in her green cable-knit cardigan. I hide inside the cardigan. Lying in wait for Hjalmar.

It must be at least twenty years since he last went skiing. His boots and skis are much older than that. Old-fashioned, untarred, unwaxed skis with ancient mousetrap bindings. He can't make them slide. He has to keep stopping in order to sc.r.a.pe away the snow clinging onto the bottoms. He sinks down into the snow even though he is trying to follow the scooter tracks. His ungreased, cracked leather boots are soon soaked through. His trousers as well.

His poles sink into the snow. Deep down, and it's hard work pulling them out again. The discs get stuck. When he manages to pull them up again they look like cylinders, with 30 centimetres of snow clinging to the poles above the discs.

He thinks he's making wretchedly slow progress, but he wouldn't have been able to progress at all without skis. And if skis like these were good enough for his father and his friends, why shouldn't they be good enough for him? Don't forget that in the old days the Lapps used to roam far and wide through the forests with much worse equipment and only one pole.

Occasionally he looks up. Sees drops of water trembling hesitantly on the branches.

Sweat runs down his forehead and makes his eyes smart.

At last he comes to the shelter he and Tore built twenty years ago just south of Ripukkavaara.

Hjalmar sits down in the shelter and takes the thermos of coffee and box of sandwiches from his rucksack. The sun warms his face.

Taking the sandwiches out of the plastic box, he is overcome by exhaustion. He puts them down beside him.

The wind sighs soothingly in the crowns of the trees. Like Anni's wooden spoon in a pot. The branches sway from side to side, offering no resistance. Allow themselves to be rocked to sleep. Not long ago Hjalmar thought the birdsong was hurting his ears. It sounded like knives being sharpened by rubbing against each other. But now it sounds quite different. A chirping and chirruping. A woodp.e.c.k.e.r is hammering at a tree trunk in the distance.

Hjalmar lies down on his side. Water drips from the roof of the shelter.

A sentence comes into his mind: "Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me; my heart within me is desolate." Where does it come from? Is it something he's read in the Bible in his cottage at Saarisuanto?

Why should one have to worry about things that happened in the past? When his father held his head under the icy water. That was fifty years ago. He never thinks about it; why would he start now?

His eyes close. The snow sighs in the forest, made weary by the coming of spring. The sun is roasting hot. Hjalmar dozes off in the warmth of the shelter.

He is woken up by a presence. Opens his eyes and at first sees only a shadow blocking out the sun. s.h.a.ggy and black.

Like a shot he is wide awake. A bear.

It stands up on its hind legs in front of him. Hjalmar can make out more than the mere outline. Its snout, its fur. Its paws and claws. For three long seconds it stands still, staring him in the eye.

It's curtains, Hjalmar thinks.

Three more seconds. During those three seconds, everything in Hjalmar comes to a standstill.

Well, this is it, he thinks about his own death.

G.o.d is looking at Hjalmar through the eye of the bear.

Then the bear turns round, flops down on all fours and ambles away.

Hjalmar's heart starts pounding. It is the beating heart of life. It is the fingertips of the shaman on the skin of a drum. It is the rain on the tin roof of his cottage at Saarisuanto, an autumn evening when he's lying in bed and the fire is crackling in the hearth.

His blood flows through his veins. It is the spring water starting to flow beneath the ice, forming rivulets under the snow, finding its way up into the trees, cascading over cliffs.

His breath floats in and out of his lungs. It is the wind that lifts up the rollicking raven, that whips the snow into whirling, sharp-edged spirals on the mountainside, that caresses the lake tenderly in the evening, and then lies down to rest and enables everything to become still and mirror-like.

My G.o.d, says Hjalmar in the absence of anybody else, anything else to turn to while he wallows in the feeling of deliverance that has overwhelmed him. Stay, stay with me.

But he knows this is a sensation that will not last. He sits still until it dies away.

Now he notices that his sandwiches are no longer there. They were what lured the bear to the shelter.

He skis home, feeling exhilarated.

Anything at all can happen now, he thinks. I'm free. The bear could have killed me. It could have been curtains.

He will search through the Bible in his cottage and see if he can find that line. "My heart within me is desolate."

Anni looks completely transparent now. She's been asleep on the kitchen sofa. I'm sitting next to her, looking at her chest. The muscles inside are so tired, there's no strength left in them. Her breathing is shallow and fast. The spring sunshine pours in through the window and warms her legs. Then suddenly she opens her eyes.

"Shall we put the coffee on?" she says.

I realize that she's talking to me, even though she can't see me. Although she is far from certain that I'm there.

She sits up slowly: her left hand finds support behind her back while she holds onto the white-painted wooden back of the sofa with her right one. Then she needs to use both hands to move her legs closer to the edge of the sofa until they overlap it and she can lower them to the floor. Feet into her slippers, hand on the table to get some leverage. A little gasp reflecting effort and pain, and a there-we-go slides over her lips as she stands up.

She pours water into the pan, opens the coffee tin and transfers some spoonfuls into the pan.

"I thought we could fill up the thermos and drink our coffee on the steps outside. Now that the sun's so warm."

Then it takes half a year for her to get out the thermos flask, fill it with coffee, put on her jacket and shuffle out of the front door. Not to mention the difficulty she has in sitting down on the steps. Anni laughs.

"I have my mobile in my pocket. So I can ring for help if I can't stand up again. I don't suppose you'll be able to help me."

She pours out the coffee. It's hot. She drinks slowly, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her nose and cheeks. For the first time since I died she is happy to think that she might live long enough to experience another summer. Tells herself she must take care not to fall, so that she doesn't end up in hospital.

Three ravens land in the parking area in front of the house. At first they saunter around as if they owned the place. The sun makes their black feathers sparkle and gleam. They point their curved beaks in all directions, but don't have much to say for themselves. I have the impression they are putting on an act. Pretending to be serious fellows. Dragging their wedge-shaped tails behind them like peac.o.c.ks. If I were really sitting here with Anni, I would joke about it. We would try to work out where these important gentlemen came from. Anni would say straight away that they were three Laestadian preachers who'd come to convert us. I'd guess that they were the boss of Social Services, a headmaster and a district judge. "I'm done for now," I'd say.

Anni pours herself a refill. She wraps her hands around the mug.

I would also like to wrap my hands around a mug of steaming-hot coffee. I want to be sitting here on the steps with Anni for real. I want Simon to drive up to the door. Oh, his smile when he sees me! As if someone had given him a marvellous present. I'm so full of desire that it's painful. My hands are unable to touch anything.

When a car does in fact drive up, I almost believe it is him. But it's Hjalmar. The ravens fly up into the trees.

Hjalmar switches off the engine and clambers awkwardly out of the car.

Now he's standing in front of Anni, but can't work out for the life of him how he's going to come out with what he wants to say. At first it doesn't matter. Anni does the talking.

"I'm sitting here speaking to the dead," she says. "I must be going daft. But what else can I do? Soon there won't be any living people left whom I know."

She falls silent. Recalls an old aunt who always used to sit around complaining about how lonely she was. Remembers thinking what a pain it was to have to visit her. Now I sound exactly the same, she thinks. It's enough to drive me up the wall.

"Are you going to the cottage?" she says, mainly to change the subject.

He nods.

"Anni," he manages to say.

Only then does she become aware of the strange expression on his face.

"What's the matter?" she says. "Is it Isak?"

Hjalmar shakes his head.

"But what's the matter with my little boy? Poika, mika sinulla on?"

He can't help smiling at the way she still calls him her little boy.

She grasps the iron rail with her bird-like claws and manages to stand up.

Then he says it.

"Forgive me."

That wasn't much of a voice. You can tell how unaccustomed he is to using it. And how unaccustomed he is to that phrase. His voice is hoa.r.s.e as it stumbles out of his mouth. As if it were written on a piece of paper that he's had in his mouth for so long that it's become all scrunched up.

The last time he said it must have been very long ago, when he'd been thrashed by Isak. And in those days it meant "Have mercy".

"For what?" Anni says.

But she knows what for.

She looks at him and she knows.

He realizes that she knows.

"No!" she shouts so loudly that the ravens in the tree beat their wings together.

But they don't fly away.