“I most certainly don’t hate women,” he says, upset.
“No, but that’s the way it looks,” says Bertil Stensson, pushing Monday’s newspaper across the table.
Nobody needs to look at it. Everybody has read the article. “Woman Priest Answers Her Critics,” says the headline. The article quotes Mildred’s sermon from the previous week. She said that the stole was in fact a Roman female garment. That it’s been worn since the fourth century, when liturgical costume was first worn. “What priests are wearing today is actually women’s clothes, according to Mildred Nilsson,” says the article. “I can still accept male priests, after all it says in the Bible: there is neither female nor male, neither Jew nor Greek.”
Stefan Wikstrom has also had the opportunity to express his views in the article. “Stefan Wikstrom maintains that he doesn’t see the sermon as a personal attack. He loves women, he just doesn’t want to see them in the pulpit.”
Stefan’s heart is heavy. He feels he’s been tricked. True, that is what he said, but it’s come out completely wrong in that context. The journalist asked him:
“You love your brothers. What about women? Do you hate women?”
And he’d naively answered absolutely not. He loved women.
“But you don’t want to see them in the pulpit.”
No, he’d replied. Broadly speaking that was true. But there was no value judgment in that, he’d added. In his eyes the work of the deaconess was every bit as important as that of the priest.
The parish priest is saying that he doesn’t want to hear any more comments like this from Mildred.
“And what about Stefan’s comments?” she says calmly. “He and his family don’t come to church when I’m preaching. We can’t hold a joint confirmation, because he refuses to work with me.”
“I can’t go against what it says in the Bible,” says Stefan.
Mildred makes an impatient movement with her head. Bertil clothes himself in patience. They’ve heard this before, Stefan realizes, but what can he do, it’s still true.
“Jesus chose twelve men as his disciples,” Stefan persists. “The chief priest was always a man. How far can we move away from the word of the Bible in our attempt to fit in with the values prevalent in modern society before it stops being Christianity at all?”
“All the disciples and the chief priests were Jews as well,” replies Mildred. “How do you get round that? And read the epistle to the Hebrews, Jesus is our chief priest today.”
Bertil holds up his hands in a gesture that means he doesn’t want to get involved in a discussion they’ve had several times before.
“I respect you both,” he says. “And I’ve agreed not to place a woman in your district, Stefan. I want to stress once again that you’re placing both me and the church in an extremely difficult position. You’re shifting the focus to a conflict. And I want to ask you both not to get involved in polemics, above all not from the pulpit.”
He changes the expression on his face. From stern to forgiving. He almost winks at Mildred, as if they share a secret understanding.
“I’m sure we can make an effort to concentrate on our common goals. I don’t want to have to hear words like male power and the power balance between the sexes being bandied about in church. You have to believe Stefan, Mildred. It isn’t a value judgment if he doesn’t come to church when you’re preaching.”
Mildred’s expression doesn’t alter at all. She stares Stefan straight in the eye.
“It’s what the Bible says,” he maintains, staring right back at her. “I can’t find a way around that.”
“Men hit women,” she says, takes a deep breath and carries on. “Men belittle women, dominate them, persecute them, kill them.
Or they cut off their genitals, kill them when they’re newborn babies, force them to hide behind a veil, lock them up, rape them, prevent them from educating themselves, pay them lower wages and give them less opportunity to take power. Deny them the right to become priests. I can’t find a way around that.”
There is complete silence for about three seconds.
“Now, Mildred,” ventures Bertil.
“She’s sick in the head,” yells Stefan. “Are you calling me… Are you comparing me with men who abuse women? This isn’t a discussion, it’s slander, and I don’t know…”
“What?” she says.
And now they’re both on their feet, somewhere in the background they can hear Bertil Stensson and Mikael Berg: calm down, sit down.
“What part of that was slander?”
“There’s no room to maneuver,” says Stefan, turning to Bertil. “There’s no common ground. I don’t have to put up with… it’s impossible for us to work together, you can see that for yourself.”
“You never could work with me,” he hears Mildred saying behind his back as he storms out of the room.
Bertil Stensson stood in silence in front of the locker. He knew his young colleague was waiting for him to say something reassuring. But what could he say?
Of course she hadn’t burned the letters, or thrown them away. If only he’d known about them. He felt very annoyed with Stefan because he hadn’t said anything about them.
“Is there anything else I should know?” he asked.
Stefan Wikstrom looked at his hands. The vow of confidentiality could be a heavy cross to bear.
“No,” he said.
To his amazement, Bertil Stensson discovered that he missed her. He had been distressed and shocked when she was murdered. But he hadn’t thought he’d miss her. He was probably being unfair. But what had seemed good about Stefan before, his helpfulness and his… oh, it was a ridiculous word, his admiration for his boss. Now Mildred was gone, it all seemed somehow coquettish and irritating. They had balanced each other out, his little ones. That’s how he’d often thought of them. Although Stefan was over forty and Mildred over fifty. Perhaps because they were both the children of parish priests.
She’d certainly known how to annoy a person. Sometimes in the smallest ways.
The Epiphany dinner, for example. Looking back now, he felt that it was petty of him to have got so annoyed. But then he hadn’t known that it would be Mildred’s last.
Stefan and Bertil are staring at Mildred’s advance down the table in front of them as if they are under a spell. The church is holding its Epiphany dinner, a tradition that’s been established for a few years now. Stefan and Bertil are sitting next to one another opposite Mildred. The staff are clearing away the main course and Mildred is mobilizing her troops.
She started by recruiting soldiers for her little army. Grabbed the salt cellar in one hand and the pepper mill in the other. Brought them together, then took them for a bit of a march around while she followed the conversation, apparently lost in thought; it was probably about how busy things had been over Christmas, but now at least it was over, and maybe about the latest winter cold that was doing the rounds, that sort of thing. She was pushing down the edges of the candle too. Even at that stage Bertil could see how Stefan was almost having to hold on to the edge of the table to stop himself snatching the candle off her and shouting stop fiddling with everything!
Her wineglass still stood by her side like the queen on a chessboard, waiting for her turn.
When Mildred starts talking about the wolf that was in the papers over Christmas, she distractedly pushes the salt and pepper over to Bertil and Stefan’s side of the table. The wineglass is on the move as well. Mildred says the wolf has made its way across the Russian and Finnish borders, and the glass makes great sweeps across the table, as far as her arm can reach, crossing all possible borders.
She keeps talking, her cheeks rosy from the wine, constantly moving the objects on the table. Stefan and Bertil feel crowded and strangely disturbed by her advance across the tablecloth.
Keep to your own side, they want to shout.
She tells them she’s been thinking. She’s been thinking they ought to set up a foundation within the church to protect the wolf. The church owns the land, after all, it’s part of the church’s responsibility, she thinks.
Bertil has been somewhat affected by the one woman game of chess on the tablecloth, and comes back at
