and orange and the word “Joy” on the front.
Once she had been so in love with this church that it almost hurt. The divine acoustics. Like now. Long, drawn-out notes swirling up toward the ceiling, then cascading down to a depth only the bass voices could reach. The warm light. The polar night outside the immense glass windows. A bubble of God’s strength amid the darkness and the cold.
The musicians on the electric and bass guitars were tuning their instruments. There was a dull thud as the lighting technician switched on the spotlights on the stage. The boys who were looking after the sound were struggling with a microphone that was refusing to work. They were talking into it, but you couldn’t hear anything, and then all of a sudden it gave a piercing whistle.
Her arms itched. This morning the rash had been angry and red. She wondered if it could be psoriasis. Just as long as Gunnar didn’t catch sight of it. She didn’t want his intercession.
They had rearranged the furniture in the church. The chairs had been placed around the spot where Viktor had been lying. It looked just like the circus. She looked at her husband, sitting in the front row. His thick neck bulging over the white shirt collar. Next to him sat Thomas Soderberg, trying to concentrate before the evening’s sermon. She saw how Gunnar was forcing himself to look down at the Bible, determined not to distract the other man, only to forget himself and start babbling. His right hand shot out and started to paint pictures in the air with great sweeping strokes.
After Christmas he had decided to lose some weight. This afternoon he had skipped lunch. She had sat at the kitchen table twirling spaghetti around her fork, while he stood at the sink eating three pears. His broad back bending over the draining board. Slurping and gobbling. The sound of the pear juice dripping into the sink. His left hand pressing his tie against his stomach.
She looked at the clock. In a quarter of an hour he would leave his place at Thomas Soderberg’s side, sneak off to the car, drive into town and eat a hamburger in secret. Come back with his mouth full of spearmint gum.
Lie to somebody who cares, she thought. I don’t.
In the beginning he had been a different man. He’d been filling in as caretaker at Berga School, where she’d been working as a teacher. And she’d been to college, he thought that was wonderful. It was an energetic and very obvious courtship. Made-up errands to the staff room when she had a free lesson. Fun and laughter and an endless stream of bad jokes. And beneath all this, an insecurity that moved her. The delighted comments of her colleagues. How he clapped his hands with pleasure when she’d had her hair cut, or bought a new blouse. She watched him with the children in the playground. They liked him. A kind caretaker. It didn’t bother her then that he didn’t read books.
It was later, when he found himself in the shadow of Thomas Soderberg and Vesa Larsson, that the urge to assert himself was aroused.
But then she started to go with him to the Baptist church. At the time it was a church threatened with extinction. No, that was wrong, it was doomed to extinction. The members of the congregation looked as though they’d just dropped in for a rest on the way to the grave. Signe Persson, his gossamer-fine transparent hair carefully waved. His scalp shining through, pink with brown patches. Arvid Kall, once a loader for the LKAB mining company. Now half asleep in a pew, his huge hands lying powerless on his knees.
Naturally they hadn’t been able to afford a pastor; there was hardly enough money to heat the church. Gunnar Isaksson ran the church community like a one-man business. Mended and maintained what they could afford. Sighed over the rest. For example, the damage caused by the damp in the cloakroom. The wall that bellied out like a swollen corpse. The wallpaper that kept peeling off. The idea was that members of the congregation should take it in turns to preach; services were held every other Sunday. Since nobody else volunteered, Gunnar Isaksson stepped in.
There was no kind of thread to be found in his sermons. He drove here and there at random through the landscape of the free church he’d known since his youth. But still the routine was always very similar, with obligatory stops in well-known places, such as 'the Spirit of God descending like a dove,' 'Behold, I am making all things new' and 'Those who drink of the water that I will give them.' Without exception the journey always ended with a revivalist call to the cooperative souls sitting there, saved long ago.
One consolation was that things weren’t much better in the other churches around the town. God’s temple in Kiruna: a dilapidated hovel where the stale air stood completely still.
Gunnar stood up and came toward the exit. Slowed down to show respect as he passed the place where Viktor Strandgard’s body had lain. A pile of flowers and cards was already lying there. He gave her a brief smile and a wink. A sign that appeared to mean he was just going to the bathroom, or to have a quick word with someone in the cloakroom.
He wasn’t stupid. Not in the least. The very fact that he’d managed to get where he was today. Right at the top of the church, along with Thomas Soderberg and Vesa Larsson. Without any formal training as a pastor. Without any talent as a fisher of men. That very fact demanded a certain talent.
She remembered when Gunnar had told her that the Mission had a new pastor. A young married couple.
A week or so later Thomas Soderberg came to a service in the Baptist church. Sat in the second row nodding in agreement throughout Gunnar’s sermon. Encouraging smiles. Serious consideration. His wife, Maja, like a model pupil by his side.
They stayed for coffee afterward. Gray winter darkness outside. Clouds full of snow. The day dwindling before it had even arrived properly.
Maja talked loudly and slowly into Arvid Kalla’s ear. Asked Edit Svonni for her recipe for sugar biscuits.
Thomas Soderberg and Gunnar having an animated conversation with two of the church elders. Switching between serious nodding of heads and loud laughter, like a well-rehearsed, perfectly coordinated dance. United in brotherhood.
And the obligatory question to the southerners: How do you like it up here? The darkness and the cold? They answered as one: They absolutely loved it. They certainly weren’t missing the slush and the rain. They’d be celebrating the next family Christmas in Kiruna.
That was all it took. The fact that they didn’t feel they’d been banished to a distant place beyond the bounds of tolerance. No whining or complaining about the biting wind or the darkness that creeps into your soul. The answers made the congregation’s faces soften.
When they’d gone, Gunnar said to her: “Nice people. He’s got lots of ideas, that boy.”
That was the last time he called Thomas Soderberg, ten years younger than him, “that boy.”
Two weeks later she met Thomas Soderberg in town. She was pushing the pram through a blizzard. Andreas was two and a half months old, and would only sleep in the pram. She pushed him up and down the streets of Kiruna. Dragging the two-year-old, Anna, like a fretful bundle. Hands and feet freezing.
She felt dreadful. Exhaustion filled her like a gray, rising dough. At any moment she might just burst and go under. She hated Gunnar. Kept losing her temper with Anna. Just wanted to cry all the time.
Thomas came walking up behind her. Laid his left hand on her left shoulder. Caught up with her at the same time. For a second, just as he drew level with her, it was as if he had his arm around her. Half an embrace for a fraction of a second too long. When she turned her head he was smiling broadly. Greeted her as if they were old friends. Said hi to Anna, who clung fast to Karin’s legs and refused to answer. Peeped at Andreas, who was sleeping like an angel from God in his warm outfit.
“I keep trying to convince Maja that we ought to have children,” he confessed, “but…” He didn’t finish the sentence. Sighed deeply and let the smile fade away. Then he regained his good humor. “I do understand her,” he said. “It’s you women who bear the heaviest load. It’ll happen when it’s meant to happen.”
Andreas moved in the pram. It was time to go home and feed him. She wanted to invite Thomas back for lunch, but didn’t dare ask. He walked part of the way with her. It was so easy to talk. New topics of conversation just popped up by themselves, attaching themselves to the old ones like the links of a chain. At last they were standing by the crossroads where they had to part company.
'I would like to do more for God,' she said. “But the children. They take all the strength I have, and a little bit more.”
The snow was whirling around them like a hail of sharp arrows. Made him blink. An archangel with dark curly hair wearing a blue padded jacket made of some kind of synthetic crackling material that looked cheap. Jeans tucked into high-heeled leather boots. Knitted cap, homemade, with an Inca pattern. She wondered if it was Maja
