Down by the mine he drove past the sentry box with a wave. The guard was buried in his newspaper and didn’t even look up. He stopped by the barrier in front of the tunnel opening that led down into the mine. His whole body was shaking. His fingers wouldn’t cooperate when he fumbled for a cigarette in his jacket pocket. He felt empty inside. That was good. For the last five minutes he hadn’t thought about Viktor Strandgard once. He took a long pull on the cigarette and inhaled deeply.
Keep calm, he whispered reassuringly, just keep calm.
Maybe he should have stayed at home. But shut in the flat all day, he’d have jumped off the balcony, for sure.
Oh, who are you kidding, he sneered at himself. As if you’d dare. Smashing teacups and chucking flowerpots on the floor, that’s all you can manage.
He wound down the window and stretched out his hand to insert his pass card into the machine.
A hand grabbed his wrist and he jumped, the hot ash from the cigarette falling on his knee. At first he couldn’t see who it was, and his stomach cramped with fear. Then a familiar face appeared.
“Rebecka Martinsson,” he said.
The snow was falling on her dark hair, the flakes melting against her nose.
“I want to talk to you,” she said.
He nodded toward the passenger seat. “Hop in, then.”
Rebecka hesitated. She was thinking about the message someone had left on her car. “You will surely die,” “You have been warned.”
“It’s now or never, as The King says,” said Patrik Mattsson, leaning over the seat and opening the car door.
Rebecka looked at the mine entrance in front of her. A black hole, down into the underworld.
“Okay, but I’ve got the dog in the car, I’ll have to be back in an hour.”
She walked around the car, got in and shut the door.
Nobody knows where I am, she thought as Patrik Mattsson stuck his card into the machine and the barrier that barred the way down into the mine slowly lifted.
He slipped the car into gear and they drove down into the mine.
Ahead of them they could see the reflectors shining on the walls; behind them a dense darkness descended like a black velvet curtain.
Rebecka tried to talk. It was like dragging a reluctant dog along on its lead.
“My ears are popping, why does that happen?”
“The difference in altitude.”
“How far down are we going?”
“Five hundred forty meters.”
“So you’ve started growing mushrooms, then?”
No reply.
“Shiitake, I’ve never actually tried those. Is it just you?”
“No.”
“So there are a few of you, then? Anybody else there at the moment?”
No answer, driving fast, downward.
“This way,” said Patrik Mattsson, and set off.
Rebecka followed him, looking at the men in the workshop and wishing one of them would turn around and see her.
Black primitive rock rose up on both sides of them. Here and there water was running out of the rocks and turning the walls green.
“It’s the copper, the water turns it green,” explained Patrik when she asked.
He stubbed out his cigarette under his foot and unlocked a heavy steel door in the wall.
“I thought you weren’t allowed to smoke down here,” said Rebecka.
“Why not?” asked Patrik. “There aren’t any explosive gases or anything like that.”
She laughed out loud.
“Brilliant. You can hide away down here, five hundred meters under the surface, and have a secret smoke!”
He held open the heavy door and held out his other hand, palm upward, indicating that she should go in ahead of him.
“I’ve never understood the list of commandments in the free church,” she said, turning toward him so that she wouldn’t have her back to him as they went in. “Thou shalt not smoke. Thou shalt not drink alcohol. Thou shalt not go to the disco. Where did they get it from? Gluttony, and not sharing what you have with those in need, sins that are actually mentioned in the Bible, they haven’t got a word to say about those.”
The door closed behind them. Patrick switched on the light. The room looked like a huge bunker. Steel shelves hung from the ceiling on bars. Something that looked like great big vacuum-packed sausages, or round logs, was lying on the shelves.
Rebecka asked, and Patrik Mattsson explained.
“Blocks of alder packed in plastic. They’ve been injected with spores. When they’ve been there for a certain amount of time, you can take off the plastic and just tap the wood with your hand. Then they start to grow, and after five days you harvest them.”
He disappeared behind a large plastic curtain at the far end of the room. After a while he came back with several blocks of wood full of shiitake mushrooms. He placed the blocks on a table and began to pick the mushrooms with a practiced hand. As he picked, he dropped them into a box. The smell of mushrooms and damp wood permeated the room.
“It’s the right climate for them down here,” he said. “And the lights change automatically to give them very short nights and days. Enough of the small talk, Rebecka-what do you want?”
“I wanted to talk about Viktor.”
He looked at her expressionlessly. Rebecka had the feeling that she should have dressed more simply. They were standing here on different planets, trying to talk. She had that damned coat on, and her fine, expensive gloves.
“When I used to live here, you were very close,” she said.
“Yes.”
“How was he? After I left, I mean.”
Behind the curtain the watering system sprang to life with a muted hiss. Moisture sprayed from the roof and trickled down the stiff, transparent plastic.
“He was perfect. Handsome. Devoted. A gifted speaker. But he had a tough God. If he’d lived in the Middle Ages he’d have whipped himself with a scourge and walked to holy places in his bare, wounded feet.”
He picked the mushrooms from the last block of wood and spread them evenly in the box.
'In what way did he punish himself?' she asked.
Patrik Mattsson carried on rearranging the mushrooms; it was as if he was talking to them rather than to her.
“You know. Strip away anything that doesn’t come from God. No listening to anything other than Christian music, because then you’d expose yourself to the influence of evil spirits. He was really keen to get a dog once, but a dog takes up time, and that time belongs to God, so nothing came of it.”
He shook his head.
“He should have got that dog,” he said.
“But how was he?” asked Rebecka.
“I told you. Perfect. Everybody loved him.”
“And you?”
Patrik Mattsson didn’t answer her.
