Lisa, amazed and angry all at the same time. And something else in her eyes too. Her mouth opens. Takes a deep breath just as you do before you disappear under the water.
The current carries Lisa along with it. She loses her grip on the door handle. Moves toward Mildred. Her hand ends up round the back of Mildred’s neck. Her hair feels like a child’s beneath Lisa’s fingers. She draws Mildred toward her.
Mildred in her arms. Her skin is so soft. They stagger into the hallway entwined around each other, the door is left open, banging against the balustrade. Two of the dogs sneak out.
The only sensible thought in Lisa’s head: They’ll stay in the yard.
They stumble over shoes and dog baskets in the hallway. Lisa is walking backwards. Her arms still around Mildred, one around her waist, one around the back of her neck. Mildred very close, pushing her into the house, her hands beneath Lisa’s sweater, fingers on Lisa’s nipples.
They stumble through the kitchen, land on the bed in the bedroom. Majken is lying there smelling of damp dog, she couldn’t resist a dip in the river earlier in the evening.
Mildred on her back. Off with their clothes. Lisa’s lips on Mildred’s face. Two fingers deep inside her.
Majken raises her head and looks at them. Settles down with a sigh, nose between her paws. She’s seen members of the congregation coupling before. There’s nothing strange about it.
Afterward they make coffee and thaw out some buns. Eat as if they were starving, one after the other. Mildred gives the dogs tidbits and laughs, until Lisa tells her off, they’ll be sick, but she’s laughing all the time she’s trying to be stern.
They sit there in the kitchen in the middle of the light summer night. Each with a sheet around them, sitting on opposite sides of the table. The dogs have picked up on the party atmosphere and are playing about.
Now and again their hands creep across the table to meet.
Mildred’s index finger asks the back of Lisa’s hand: “Are you still here?” The back of Lisa’s hand answers: “Yes!” Lisa’s index finger and middle finger ask the inside of Mildred’s wrist: “Guilt? Regret?” Mildred’s wrist replies: “No!”
And Lisa laughs.
“I’d better come back to the Bible study group, then,” she says.
Mildred bursts out laughing. A piece of half-chewed cinnamon bun falls out of her mouth and onto the table.
“I don’t know, the things you have to be prepared to do to get people to the Bible study group.”
Mimmi stood in front of Lisa and examined her work. The scissors in her hand like a drawn sword.
“There,” she said. “Now I don’t have to be ashamed of you.”
She ruffled Lisa’s hair with a quick gesture. Then she pulled the kitchen towel out of the waistband of her apron and vigorously brushed the hairs off Lisa’s neck and shoulders.
Lisa ran her hand over the stubble.
“Don’t you want to look in the mirror?” asked Mimmi.
“No, I’m sure it’s fine.”
The autumn meeting of Magdalena, the women’s group. Micke Kiviniemi had set up a little drinks table outdoors, just outside the door by the steps that led into the bar. It was dark now, almost black outside. And unusually warm for the time of year. He’d created a little pathway from the road across the graveled yard up to the steps, edged it with tea lights in glass jars. Several handmade candlesticks stood on the steps and on the drinks table.
He got his reward. Heard their ohs and ahs from as far away as the road. Here they came. Tripping along, walking, tiptoeing across the gravel. Thirty or so women. The youngest just under thirty, the oldest just turned seventy-five.
“This is lovely,” they said to him. “It feels just like being abroad.”
He smiled back. But didn’t reply. Sought sanctuary behind the drinks table. Felt like somebody in a hide, watching the wildlife. They wouldn’t take any notice of him. They’d just behave naturally, as if he weren’t there. He felt excited, as if he were a boy lying on the fallen leaves among the trees, spying on them.
The yard outside the bar, like a big room in the darkness, full of sounds. Their feet on the gravel, giggling, chattering, cackling, nattering. The sounds traveled. Soared recklessly upward toward the black star-spangled sky. Rushed shamelessly across the river, reaching the houses on the other side. Were absorbed by the forest, the black fir trees, the thirsty moss. Ran along the road and reminded the village: we exist.
They smelled good and had dressed up for the occasion. Although it was obvious they weren’t well off. Their dresses were out of fashion. Long cotton cardigans buttoned over flowery bell-shaped skirts. Home permed hair. Shoes from the OBS store.
They got through the business of the meeting in about half an hour. The duty rosters were quickly filled with the names of volunteers, more hands in the air than were needed.
Then they had dinner. Most of them weren’t used to drinking, and quickly got tipsy, to their slightly dismayed delight. Mimmi giggled at them as she moved between the tables. Micke stayed in the kitchen.
“Heavens,” exclaimed one of the women as Mimmi carried in the dessert, “I haven’t had this much fun since…”
She broke off and waved her skinny arm around, searching for the answer.
It stuck out from the sleeve of her dress like a matchstick.
“… since Mildred’s funeral,” somebody shouted.
There was silence for less than a second. Then they all burst out into hysterical laughter, telling each other it was true, Mildred’s funeral had been… well, to die for, and they shouted and laughed as much as the feeble joke was worth.
The funeral. They’d stood there in their black clothes as the coffin was lowered. The bright early summer sun had stabbed at their eyes. The bumblebees banging about among the funeral flowers. The birch leaves young and shiny, as if they’d been waxed. The tops of the trees like green churches, chock full of male birds keen to mate, and the females answering them. Nature’s way of saying: I don’t care, I never stop, earth to earth.
The whole of that incredibly beautiful early summer’s day as the background to that terrible hole in the ground, the polished coffin.
The images in their heads of how she looked. Her skull like a broken plant pot inside the skin.
Majvor Kangas, one of the women in the group, had invited them back to her house afterward.
“Come with me!” she’d said. “My old man’s gone to the cottage, I don’t want to be on my own.”
So they’d gone along. Sat there subdued in the lounge on the black, squashy leather sofa. Hadn’t had much to say, not even about the weather.
But Majvor was feeling rebellious.
“Right, you lot!” she’d said. “Give me a hand!”
She’d fetched a tall stool with two steps from the kitchen, clambered up and opened the little cupboard above the hall stand. She’d passed down a dozen or so bottles: whisky, Cognac, liqueurs, Calvados. Some of the others took them off her.
“These are good,” one of them had said, reading the labels. “Twelve-year-old single malt.”
“Our daughter-in-law always brings them for us when she goes abroad,” explained Majvor. “But Tord never opens them, it’s just his home brewed hooch and grog if he offers somebody a drink. And I’m not much of a one for this sort of stuff, but…”
She’d allowed a meaningful pause to finish the sentence. Was helped down from the stool like a queen from her throne. A woman on each side of her, holding her hands.
“What’s Tord going to say?”
“What can he say?” Majvor had said. “He didn’t even open any of them when it was his sixtieth birthday last year.”
