“Put it in a plastic pocket,” said Anna-Maria. “We’ll send anything interesting to the lab. Shit!”
“Look!” she said. “Look at this!”
She unfolded a sheet of paper and held it up to her colleagues.
It was a drawing. The picture showed a woman with long hair, hanging from a noose. The person who had done the drawing was talented. Not a professional, but a skillful amateur, that much was obvious to Anna-Maria. Tongues of fire curled around the dangling body, and a black cross stood on top of a grave mound in the background.
“What does it say down at the bottom?” asked Sven-Erik.
Anna-Maria read out loud:
“ ‘SOON MILDRED.’ ”
“That’s…” began Fred Olsson.
“I’ll send it to the lab in Linkoping right away!” Anna-Maria went on. “If there are prints… We must ring them and tell them this has to have priority.”
“You go,” said Sven-Erik. “Fred and I will go through the rest.”
Anna-Maria put the letter and the envelope in separate plastic pockets. Then she dashed out of the room.
Fred Olsson bent dutifully over the pile of letters again.
“This is nice,” he said. “It says here she’s an ugly man-hating hysteric who needs to be bloody careful because ‘we’ve had enough of you, you fucking slag, be careful when you go out at night, look behind you, your grandkids won’t recognize you.’ She didn’t have any children, did she? How could she have grandchildren, then?”
Sven-Erik was still staring at the door Anna-Maria had disappeared through. All summer. These letters had been lying in the locker all summer, while he and his colleagues fumbled around in the dark.
“All I want to know,” he said without looking at Fred Olsson, “is how the hell those priests could not tell me Mildred Nilsson had a private locker in the parish office!”
Fred Olsson didn’t reply.
“I’ve got a good mind to give them a good shaking and ask what the hell they’re playing at,” he went on. “Ask them what they think we’re doing here!”
“But Anna-Maria’s promised Rebecka Martinsson…”
“But I haven’t promised anything,” barked Sven-Erik, slamming the flat of his hand down onto the table so hard it jumped.
He got up and made a hopeless gesture with his hand.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to run away and do anything stupid. I just need to, I don’t know, sort myself out for a bit.”
With these words he left the room. The door slammed behind him.
Fred Olsson went back to the letters. It was all for the best, really. He liked working alone.
Bertil Stensson and Stefan Wikstrom were standing in the little room inside the parish office looking into Mildred Nilsson’s locker. Rebecka Martinsson had handed in the key to the house in Poikkijarvi and the key to the locker.
“Just calm down,” said Bertil Stensson. “Think about
He ended the sentence with a nod in the direction of the office where the clerks were sitting.
Stefan Wikstrom glanced at his boss. The parish priest’s mouth contracted into a thoughtful expression. Smoothed itself out, contracted again. Like a little hamster mouth.The short, stocky body in a beautifully ironed pink shirt from the Shirt Factory. A bold color, it was the priest’s daughter who kitted him out. Went well with the tanned face and the silvery, boyish haircut.
“Where are the letters?” said Stefan Wikstrom.
“Maybe she burned them,” said the priest.
Stefan Wikstrom’s voice went up an octave.
“She told me she’d kept them. What if somebody in Magdalena’s got them? What am I going to say to my wife?”
“Maybe nothing,” said Bertil Stensson calmly. “I need to get in touch with her husband. To give him her jewelry.”
They stood in silence.
Stefan Wikstrom gazed at the locker without speaking. He had thought this would be a moment of liberation. That he would hold the letters in his hand and be free of Mildred for good. But now. Her grip on the back of his neck was as tight as ever.
What is it you want of me, Lord? he thought. It is written that you do not test us beyond our capability, but now you have driven me to the limit of what I can cope with.
He felt trapped. Trapped by Mildred, by his job, by his wife, by his vocation, just giving and giving without ever getting anything back. And after Mildred’s death he had felt trapped by his boss Bertil Stensson.
Before, Stefan had enjoyed the father-son relationship that had grown between them. But now he recognized the price that would have to be paid. He was under Bertil’s thumb. He could see what Bertil said about him behind his back from the way the women in the office looked at him. They put their heads on one side, and there was just a hint of pity in their eyes. He could almost hear Bertil: “Things aren’t easy for Stefan. He’s more sensitive than you’d think.” More sensitive as in weak. The fact that the parish priest had taken some of his services hadn’t gone unnoticed. Everyone had been informed, apparently by chance. He felt diminished and exploited.
I could disappear, he thought. God takes care of the sparrow.
Mildred. Back in June she was gone. All of a sudden. But now she was back. Magdalena, the women’s group, had got back on its feet. They were vociferously demanding more women priests in the parish. And it was as if Bertil had already forgotten what she was really like. When he spoke about her nowadays, there was warmth in his voice. She had a big heart, he sighed. She had a greater talent as a pastor than I myself, he maintained generously. That implied that she had a greater talent as a pastor than Stefan, since Bertil was a better pastor than Stefan.
At least I’m not a liar, thought Stefan angrily. She was an aggressive troublemaker who drew damaged women to her and gave them fire instead of balm. Death couldn’t change that fact.
It was a disturbing thought, that Mildred had set damaged people on fire. Many might say she’d set him on fire too.
But I’m not damaged, he thought. That wasn’t why.
He stared into the locker. Thought about autumn 1997.
Bertil Stensson has called Stefan Wikstrom and Mildred Nilsson to a meeting. Mikael Berg, the rural dean, is with him in his capacity as the person responsible for personnel issues. Mikael Berg sits bolt upright on his chair. He’s in his fifties. The trousers he’s wearing are ten to fifteen years old. And at that time Mikael was ten to fifteen kilos heavier. His thin hair is plastered to his skull. From time to time he takes a deep breath. His hand shoots up, doesn’t know where to go, smooths his hair down, drops back to his knee.
Stefan is sitting opposite him. Thinking he’ll remain calm. During the whole conversation ahead of him, he'll remain calm. The others can raise their voices, but he’s not like that.
They’re waiting for Mildred. She’s coming straight from a service in a school and has let them know that she’ll probably be a few minutes late.
Bertil Stensson is looking out of the window. A deep furrow between his eyebrows.
Mildred arrives. Walks in through the door at the same time as she knocks. Red cheeks. Her hair slightly frizzy from the damp autumn air outside.
She chucks her jacket onto a chair, pours herself a coffee from the flask.
Bertil Stensson explains why they’re there. The community is being split in two, he says. A Mildred-section and, he doesn’t say a Stefan-section, and the rest.
“I’m delighted with the sense of involvement you spread around you,” he says to Mildred. “But this is an insupportable situation for me. It’s beginning to resemble a war between the feminist priest and the priest who hates women.”
Stefan nearly leaps out of his seat.
