was never in love with me, he was never even keen on me. I never want to hear a single word about it again. I don’t intend to take any responsibility for the fact that he and I didn’t end up together. And I certainly don’t intend to take responsibility for the fact that he was murdered. You’re not fucking right in the head if that’s what you’ve come up with. Please feel free to carry on living in your parallel universe, but leave me out of it.”
She fell silent and pounded on the side window. Then she banged her head with both hands. The woman with the dog looked alarmed, took a step backwards and disappeared.
For God’s sake. I must calm down, thought Rebecka. I’m in no fit state to drive the car. I’ll have us off the road.
“That’s not what I meant,” whined Sanna. “I’ve never blamed you for anything. If anyone’s to blame, it’s me.”
“What for? Viktor’s murder?”
Something inside Rebecka stopped and pricked up its ears.
“Everything,” mumbled Sanna. “The fact that you were forced to move away. Everything!”
“Pack it in!” spat Rebecka, filled with a new rage that swept away the shaking and turned her legs to ice and iron. “I have no intention of sitting here, patting you on the shoulder and telling you none of it was your fault. I’ve done that a hundred times already. I was an adult. I made my choice and I took the consequences.”
“Yes,” said Sanna obediently.
Rebecka started the car and screeched out onto Malmvagen. Sanna raised her hands to her mouth as an oncoming car tooted angrily at them. From Hjalmar Lundbohmsvagen they could see the mining company’s offices glowing in front of the mine. Rebecka was struck by the fact that they no longer seemed so big. When she used to live in the town, the offices had always been massive. They passed the town hall with its stiff tiled facade, its remarkable clock tower outlined against the sky like a black steel skeleton.
What I said was true, thought Rebecka. He was never in love with me. Although I can understand everybody thinking he was. That’s what we let them think, Viktor and me. It began that very first summer. During the summer church with Thomas Soderberg in Gallivare.
I n the end there are eleven young people attending the summer church. They are to live, work and study the Bible together for three weeks. Pastor Thomas Soderberg and his wife, Maja, are leading the group. Maja is pregnant. She has long, shiny hair, doesn’t wear makeup and always looks so sweet and cheerful. But sometimes Rebecka sees her move to one side and press her fist into the small of her back. And sometimes Thomas puts his arms around her and says:
“We can manage without you. Go and lie down and have a little rest.”
She usually looks at him with relief and gratitude. It’s hard work, being the unpaid wife of a pastor.
Maja’s sister, Magdalena, is there too, helping out. She does everything quickly, like a cheerful mouse. She can play the guitar, and teaches them hymns.
Viktor and Sanna are among the eleven. Everyone notices them straightaway. They are very much alike. They both have long, fair hair. Sanna’s is naturally curly. Her snub nose and big eyes give her face a doll-like expression.
She’ll still look like a child when she’s eighty, thinks Rebecka, and forces herself not to stare.
Sanna is the only one of the young people who is a committed Christian. She’s only seventeen, and has a small child with her. Sara, who is three months old.
“Jesus and I have an exciting, loving relationship,” says Sanna with a crooked smile.
They have different kinds of belief, Sanna and Thomas Soderberg. Thomas demonstrates his belief in several different ways.
“The word ‘belief,’ ” he says, “means the same as to rely on, to be convinced of. If I say ‘I believe in you, Rebecka,’ then I mean that I’m convinced you will fulfill my expectations of you.”
“I don’t know,” Sanna protests. “I think that to believe is simply to believe. Not to know. To have doubts, sometimes. But still to invest in your relationship with God. To listen for his whisper in the forest.”
Viktor leans forward and ruffles his big sister’s hair.
“The whispering and sighing is all in your head, Sanna,” he says, and laughs.
He doesn’t believe. But he likes to discuss things. He often wears his long fair hair in a knot on top of his head. His skin is so fair it almost tips over into pale blue. The other girls look at him, but he soon finds a way of keeping them at bay. He plays a game with Rebecka.
Rebecka isn’t stupid. She soon realizes that the way he looks at her doesn’t mean anything, and that she isn’t allowed to reciprocate the quick caresses of her hair or her hand. She learns to sit still and pretend to be the object of his unrequited longing. She doesn’t come out of the game empty-handed. Viktor’s admiration gives her a higher status among the other girls in the group. She has outplayed them, and that brings respect.
During their Bible study the views of Thomas and the participants are quite different at the beginning. The young people don’t understand. Why is homosexuality a sin? How can it be that the Christian faith is the only true faith? What will happen to all the Muslims, for example-will they all go to hell? Why is it wrong to have sex before marriage?
Thomas listens and explains. You have to choose, he explains. Either you believe in the whole of the Bible, or you can pick out different bits and just believe those, but what kind of faith would that be? Insipid and toothless, that’s what.
They sit on the jetty by the lake during the light summer nights and swat the mosquitoes that land on their arms and legs. They discuss and consider. Sanna is secure in her God. Rebecka feels as if she is standing in the middle of a raging torrent.
“It’s because you have been called,” says Sanna. “He wants you. If you don’t say yes now, you could be lost forever. You can’t postpone your decision until later, because you might never feel this longing again.”
When the three weeks are up, all except two of the participants have given themselves to God. Among those newly saved are Viktor and Rebecka.
“W hat about you and Viktor, then?” Thomas asks Rebecka when the summer church is almost over. “What’s going on between you two?”
He and Rebecka are walking to the local supermarket to buy some milk. Rebecka breathes in the wonderful aroma of warm, dusty asphalt. She’s pleased that Thomas wanted to come with her. Most of the time she has to share him with everyone else.
“I don’t know,” says Rebecka hesitantly as she decides not to tell the truth. “He might be interested, but I haven’t time for anyone but God in my life right now. I want to invest one hundred percent in Him for a while.”
She breaks a thin twig from a birch tree as they walk by. The fragile green leaves smell like a happy summer. She puts a leaf in her mouth and chews.
Thomas grabs a leaf as well and pops it in his mouth. He smiles.
“You’re a sensible girl, Rebecka. I know that God has great plans for you. It’s a wonderful time when you’ve just fallen in love with God. It’s good that you’re making the most of it.”
She heard Sanna’s voice, at first from a long way off, then close by. Sanna’s hand on her upper arm.
“Look,” squeaked Sanna. “Oh, no.”
They had arrived at the police station. Rebecka had parked the car. At first she couldn’t see what Sanna was looking at. Then she saw the reporter running toward their car with a microphone at the ready. A man was standing behind the reporter. He lifted the video camera toward them like a black weapon.
In the Crystal Church, Pastor Gunnar Isaksson’s wife, Karin, sat with her eyes half closed, pretending to pray. There was an hour to go before the evening’s meeting. On the stage at the front, the gospel choir was warming up. Thirty young men and women. Black trousers. Lilac sweatshirts with an explosion of yellow
