She says nothing, and suddenly I’m very aware of how alone the two of us are. Tone’s asleep in the tent, which leaves just Emmy and me; Emmy lithe and muscular, her eyes black with rage, her fists clenched.
My breath catches in my throat. I try to swallow, only to find that I can’t. Time seems to have stopped still.
“Hey, how’s it going?” The unexpected break of the silence almost throws me off-balance. I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved to hear Max’s voice.
“Fine!” I shout, my voice rough, as I throw a final glance Emmy’s way. She has run her fingers through her hair, all trace of her furious mask gone—all but a lingering streak of stiffness in her face.
“How was the water?”
Max and Robert are walking across the square, all wet hair and clean, refreshed faces. When they arrive I can’t resist giving Max a hug out of pure relief.
He hugs me back and laughs.
“Whoa, what a welcoming committee!” he says. “A hug and coffee.”
When I step back I see that Emmy has poured some instant coffee into the pot of boiling water that she has taken off the stove.
“Would you get the bread?” she asks Robert, who has stopped next to her. “And the oil, and a skillet.”
Robert gets out the equipment and ingredients for beans on toast, then helps Emmy to prepare them. I’m still a little shaken up, but the semblance of normality is so convincing that I almost feel like a fraud. The sunshine warms me up through my jacket, and the thin wisps of cloud on the horizon serve only to accentuate just how high and clear the sky is.
When we sit down to eat, Max asks what the plan is.
“We’ll do the rest of the church,” I say. “I’d like to finish scouting and do some filming in there. And the parsonage. After that we’ll have to see how we’re doing for time.”
“In pairs?” Max asks, but before I can answer, Emmy jumps in, her mouth full of half-chewed bread and beans:
“I’m staying here.”
Robert looks at her in surprise. I stop short.
Emmy looks me straight in the eye and says:
“I think it’s a good idea if someone stays here with Tone. Plus I’d like to go through the material we have and put together a more detailed production schedule for the next few days.”
Her gaze is steady and completely shut off. Eyes like green marbles.
The moment seems to last an age, but I find myself nodding. Sure: if it gets her to calm down and drop the issue then it’s a small price to pay. We can finish scouting in a couple of hours without her, and she’s right that there’s work for her to do here. And maybe it is a good thing if someone stays here with Tone.
“OK,” I agree.
THEN
Elsa shifts restlessly in her seat. The church pews are hard and worn, and in recent years her hips have started aching whenever she sits in the same position too long. Her mother had always complained about her hips, knees, and ankles, but Elsa had never thought it would happen to her, too.
Oh well. She isn’t so very old. Nor is it so strange that she would get a sore backside after sitting on a dry wooden plank for an hour.
“… how many people actually give thought to Jesus’s deeds in their daily lives?” she hears the pastor ask the congregation. “Many of those who call themselves Christians do little to live up to the name. It is easy to let oneself be distracted by the toils and troubles of everyday life, and to forget…”
This sermon seems to be dragging on a bit. The church is full to the rafters, which is, of course, nice to see—many of the people she can see in the front pews are faces she doesn’t often see in church, a happy mix of youths and single older men—but she is concerned that Pastor Mattias is being too long-winded for their tastes. Einar tends to always keep himself to forty, forty-five minutes—short and concise. He realizes that Sunday isn’t a day of rest for anyone in Silvertjärn, whatever the Bible may have to say on the matter.
Although, it has to be said, nowadays most days are days off for folk in these parts.
Elsa can feel her stomach tying itself in knots. But she shakes her head: she can’t think like that. It’s going to be all right. She will figure something out, just as she always does. She’ll sit down and write to her cousin down in Skåne. You never know—he might be able to find Staffan a job at a factory or the like.
As unbearable as the idea of leaving Silvertjärn is, Elsa has also noticed herself beginning to fall prey to the gloom hanging over the village like fog.
It’s rather cold in the church. Spring’s raw, biting chill has found its way in through the large windows. Elsa wraps her shawl around herself more tightly.
“… it is not that Jesus loves only the worthy; but that the only way to prove one’s worthiness is to merge with Christ. Every human soul has the opportunity to merge with the divine. What sort of person would renounce such an opportunity? One who has already turned their back on God. One who has already chosen to surrender themselves to mortal filth, mortal pleasures. The soul that chooses to follow the true path is pure and clear as water, but he who allows himself to be tempted and seduced becomes dark, dirty, and coarse, like ash.”
Elsa frowns. The pastor’s voice has started to intensify, and his impassioned words soar up to the ceiling and echo back down. When he raises his voice and throws out his hands he sounds almost bewitched. But the color of his face is even and light, and
