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 woodpecker 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. Shaggy 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.
God 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 God, 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 peacocks. 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?”
