The Savage Altar

by Unknown

  “Do you really think that’s so strange? Have you started to believe that everything stops because your body no longer works? He was standing by my bed, Rebecka. He looked so sad. And I could see that it wasn’t him, not physically anyway. I knew something had happened.”

  No, I don’t think it’s strange, thought Rebecka. She’s always seen more than the rest of us. A quarter of an hour before somebody came to visit completely unannounced, Sanna would put the coffee on. “Viktor’s on his way,” she’d sometimes say.

  “But…” began Rebecka.

  “Please,” begged Sanna, “I really don’t want to talk about it. I daren’t. Not yet. I’ve got to keep it together. For the girls’ sake. Thanks for coming up. Even though you’ve got your career to think about. You might think we’ve lost touch, but I think about you loads. It gives me strength just to know that you’re down there.”

  Now Rebecka was squirming.

  Stop it, she thought. We’re not friends. Her opinion of me used to mean so much. The fact that she said I was an important part of her life. But now… now it feels as if she’s spinning a web around my body.

  Virku was the first to hear the sound of the snowmobile, interrupting them with a sharp bark. She pricked up her ears and looked out of the window.

  “Is somebody coming?” asked Rebecka. She wasn’t sure where the noise came from, but thought it sounded as if the snowmobile was idling not far from the house. Sanna leaned her forehead against the windowpane and shaded her eyes with her hands so that she could see past her own reflection.

  “Oh, no,” she exclaimed with a nervous laugh, “it’s Curt Bäckström. He was the one who gave us a lift out here. I think he’s got a bit of a thing about me. But he’s really good-looking. A bit like Elvis, somehow. Might suit you, Rebecka.”

  “Stop right there,” said Rebecka firmly.

  “What? What have I done?”

  “You’ve been doing it for as long as I’ve known you. You attract endless brainless admirers, and then announce that they might suit me. Thanks but no, thanks.”

  “I do apologize,” said Sanna in an offended voice. “I’m sorry if people I know and associate with aren’t good enough or smart enough for you. And how can you call him brainless? You don’t even know him.”

  Rebecka went over to the window and looked out at the yard.

  “He’s sitting on his snowmobile, it’s practically the middle of the night, and he’s staring at the house you’re staying in, instead of coming to the door,” she said. “I rest my case.”

  “Besides, it’s not my fault if some men are attracted to me,” Sanna went on. “Or maybe you agree with Thomas and think I’m a whore.”

  “No, but you can damn well stop making comments about my appearance or offering me your cast-off admirers.”

  Rebecka grabbed her travel bag and rushed into the bathroom. She banged the door so hard that the little red wooden heart that said “Here It Is” swung violently.

  “Ask him to come up,” she shouted out to the kitchen. “He can’t sit out there in the cold like an abandoned dog.”

  God, she thought as she locked the door. Sanna’s witless admirers. Sanna’s loose way of dressing. It’s not my problem anymore. But it upset Thomas Söderberg. And at the time, when Sanna and I used to share an apartment, in some peculiar way it was my responsibility.

  “I would like you to speak to Sanna about her clothes,” Thomas Söderberg says to Rebecka.

  He is displeased with her. She can feel it in every pore. And it is as if she is being crushed to the ground. When he smiles, heaven opens and she can feel God’s love, even though she cannot hear His voice. But when Thomas has that disappointed look in his eyes, it is as if a light goes out inside her. She becomes nothing more than an empty room.

  “I have tried,” she defends herself. “I’ve told her that she must think about how she dresses. That her necklines shouldn’t be so low cut. And that she should wear a bra, and longer skirts. And she understands, but… it’s as if she doesn’t see what she’s putting on in the mornings. If I’m not there to keep an eye on her when she’s getting dressed, she just forgets, somehow. Then I meet her in town and she looks like…”

  She hesitates, the word “whore” sticks in her throat. Thomas wouldn’t like to hear that word from her mouth.

  “… well, I don’t know what she looks like,” she goes on. “You ask her what on earth she’s got on and she looks at herself in amazement. She doesn’t do it on purpose.”

  “I don’t care whether she does it on purpose or not,” Thomas Söderberg says harshly. “As long as she can’t dress decently I can’t let her take any kind of leading role in the church. How can I let her bear witness, or sing in the choir, or lead the prayers, when I know that ninety percent of all the men who are sitting there listening are just staring at her nipples sticking out under her top, and the only thing they can think about is shoving a hand between her legs.”

  He stops speaking and looks out through the window. They are sitting in the prayer room at the back of the Mission church. The clear light of the late winter sun pours in through the high, narrow windows. The church is in an apartment block designed by Ralph Erskine. The people of Kiruna call the brown concrete building “The Snuffbox.” And consequently the church becomes known as the Lord’s Pinch. Rebecka thinks the church was more attractive before. Spartan and austere. Like a monastery, with its concrete walls, its concrete floor and the hard pews. But Thomas Söderberg had the fixed pulpit removed, and replaced it with a movable one made of wood. At the same time he had a wooden floor laid at the front. So that it wouldn’t be so depressing. And now the church looks just like any other free church.

  Thomas lets his gaze wander up to the ceiling, where there is a huge patch of damp. It always appears in the early spring, when the snow on the roof begins to melt.

  It is his way of falling silent and not meeting her eyes that makes Rebecka understand. Thomas Söderberg is angry with Sanna because she is tempting him as well. He too is one of those men who want to shove their hand inside her knickers and…

  Fury bursts out like a burning rose in her breast.

  Bloody Sanna, she swears to herself. You little slag.

  She knows it isn’t easy to be a pastor. Thomas is tempted in every possible way. The foe would like nothing better than to catch him in a trap. And he has a weakness when it comes to sex. He was quite open about this with the young people in the Bible study group.

  She remembers how he told them about a visitation by two angels. Without being able to help himself, he had been attracted to one of them. And she had known it.

  “That would be the worst thing that could happen,” the angel had said. “I would become the opposite of myself. As much of the darkness as I am now of the light.”

  Sanna knocked timidly on the bathroom door.

  “Rebecka,” she said. “I’m going to go down and ask Curt to come up. You are going to come out of there, aren’t you? I don’t really want to be alone with him, and the girls are asleep…”

  When Rebecka came out, Curt Bäckström was sitting at the table. He held his mug of coffee with both hands when he drank. He lifted it carefully from the table, and at the same time lowered his head so that he wouldn’t have to lift it too high. He had kept his boots on, and just shrugged off the upper part of his snowmobile overalls so that they hung down below his waist. He glanced sideways at Rebecka and said hello without meeting her eyes.

  Where’s the resemblance to Elvis? thought Rebecka. Two eyes and a nose in the middle of his face? His hair, of course. And his moody expression.

  Curt had black, wavy hair. His thick fur hat had pressed it down so that it was plastered to his forehead. The outer corners of his eyes had a slight downturn.

  “Wow,” exclaimed Sanna, looking Rebecka up and down. “You look fantastic. It’s really strange, because it’s only a pair of jeans and a sweater, and it looks as if you’ve just pulled any old thing out of the wardrobe.
But it’s just so obvious it’s top-quality stuff.

  “Sorry,” she went on, her hand covering an embarrassed smile. “I wasn’t supposed to comment on your appearance.”

  “Like I said, I just wanted to see how you were,” said Curt to Sanna.

  He pushed the coffee mug away slightly to indicate that he was about to leave.

  “I’m fine,” replied Sanna. “Well, I say fine… but Rebecka has been an enormous support to me. If she hadn’t come up here and gone with me to the police station, I don’t know if I could have done it.”

  Her hand flew out and lightly brushed Rebecka’s arm.

  Rebecka saw the muscles under the skin around Curt’s mouth stiffen. He pushed back his chair to stand up.

  Well done, Sanna, thought Rebecka. Tell him how nicely dressed I am. What a support I’ve been. And touch me just to make sure he understands how close we are to each other. So you’ve put some distance between you and him, and the only one he’s angry with is me. Like the pawn placed in front of a threatened queen on the chessboard. But I’m not your damned chaperone. The pawn is handing in her resignation.

  She quickly placed her hand on Curt’s back.

  “No, you stay there,” she said. “Keep Sanna company. She can find some bread and something to put on it and you can both have some breakfast. I’ve got to go down to the car to fetch my cell phone and laptop. I’ll sit downstairs, make a few calls and send some e-mails.”

  Sanna followed her with an inscrutable gaze as she went into the hall to put on her heavy boots. They were wet, but she was only going the short distance to the car. She could hear Sanna and Curt talking quietly at the kitchen table.

  “You look tired,” said Sanna.

  “I’ve been up all night praying in the church,” replied Curt. “We’ve started a chain of prayer, so there’s somebody praying all the time. You ought to go. Put yourself down just for half an hour. Thomas Söderberg has been asking about you.”

  “But you didn’t tell him where I was, did you?”

  “No, of course not. But you really shouldn’t stay away from the church now, you should find your refuge in it. And you ought to go home.”

  Sanna sighed. “I just don’t know who I can rely on anymore. So you mustn’t tell anybody where I am.”

  “I won’t. And if there’s anyone you can rely on, Sanna, it’s me.”

  Rebecka appeared in the doorway just in time to see Curt’s hands working their way across the table to find Sanna’s.

  “My keys,” said Rebecka. “Both my car keys and the key to the house are missing. I must have dropped them in the snow when I was playing with Virku.”

  Rebecka, Sanna and Curt hunted for the keys in the snow with their torches. It hadn’t started to get light yet, and the cones of light swept across the garden, the snowdrifts and the footprints left in the deep snow.

  “This is just hopeless,” sighed Sanna, burrowing aimlessly where she was standing. “Keys can sink really deep if the snow isn’t packed.”

  Virku went to stand beside Sanna and starting digging like something possessed. She found a twig and shot off with it.

  “And you can’t trust that one either,” said Sanna, gazing after Virku, who had been swallowed up by the darkness within a couple of meters. “She might have picked them up in her mouth and carried them off, if she couldn’t find anything else interesting.”

  "You and Curt might as well go back inside with the dog," said Rebecka, trying to hide her annoyance. "The girls might wake up, and soon I won’t know which tracks are mine and which are yours."

  Her feet were icy cold and damp.

  “No, I don’t want to go in,” whined Sanna. “I want to help you find your keys. We’ll find them. They’ve got to be here somewhere.”

  Curt was the only one who seemed to be in a good mood. It was as if the darkness gave him some protection against his shyness. And the exercise and the fresh air had made him wake up.

  “It was just unbelievable last night!” he told Sanna excitedly. “God was just reminding me of His power all the time. I was completely filled by Him. You should go to the church, Sanna. When I prayed, I could feel His strength pouring over me. I could speak fluently in tongues. Shakka baraj. And my soul was dancing. Sometimes I sat down and just let the Bible fall open where God wanted me to read. And it was all about promises for the future. Bang, bang, bang. He was just bombarding me with promises.”

  “You might like to pray that I find my keys,” muttered Rebecka.

  “It was just as if He was burning some of the words from the Bible into my eyes with a laser,” Curt went on. “So that I would pass them on. Isaiah 43:19: ‘Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.’ ”

  “You could pray yourself that you find your keys,” said Sanna to Rebecka.

  Rebecka laughed. It sounded more like a snort.

  “Or Isaiah 48:6,” droned Curt. “ ‘Thou hast heard, see all this; and will ye not declare it? I have showed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them.’ ”

  Sanna straightened up and shone her torch straight into Rebecka’s eyes.

  “Did you hear what I said?” she asked in a serious voice. “Why don’t you pray for your keys yourself?”

  Rebecka raised her hand against the blinding light.

  “Stop it!” she said.

  “And I think God showed me every single place in the New Testament where it says you can’t pour new wine into old bottles,” said Curt to Virku, who was now standing at his feet and appeared to be the only one listening to him. “Because then they crack. And everywhere it says you can’t mend an old garment with a piece of new cloth, because then the new cloth rips along with the old, and the tear is worse.”

  “If you want us to pray to find your keys, we’ll do it,” said Sanna, without shifting the light from Rebecka’s face. “But don’t you stand there and pretend God would listen to my prayers and Curt’s more than yours. Don’t trample the blood of Jesus under your feet.”

  “Pack it in, I said,” hissed Rebecka, pointing her torch at Sanna’s face.

  Curt fell silent and looked at them both.

  “Curt,” asked Rebecka, staring straight into the dazzling beam of Sanna’s torch, “do you believe God listens equally to everyone’s prayers?”

  “Of course,” he said, “there is never anything wrong with His hearing, but there can be obstacles in the way of His will being done, and obstacles in the way of prayers being answered.”

  “What if you don’t live according to His will, for example. Surely God can’t work in your life in the same way then?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But then that’s just some kind of doctrine,” exclaimed Sanna in despair. “Where’s the grace in that? And God Himself, what do you imagine He thinks of that kind of read-the-Bible-say-your-prayers-for-an-hour-a-day-and-you’ll-have-successful-faith doctrine? I pray and read the Bible when I long for Him. That’s how I’d want to be loved. Why should God be any different? And all this about living according to His will. Surely that should be one of our goals in life. Not a way of winning the star prize for effective praying.”

  Curt didn’t answer.

  “Sorry, Sanna,” said Rebecka eventually, lowering her torch. “I don’t want to fight about Christian faith. Not with you, at any rate.”

  “Because you know I’ll win,” said Sanna with a smile in her voice, and lowered her torch as well.

  They stood in silence for a moment, looking at the pools of light on the snow.

  “This business with the keys is going to drive me mad,” said Rebecka eventually. “Stupid dog! It’s all your fault!”

  Virku barked in agreement.

  “Don’t you listen to her,” said Sanna, throwing her arms around Virku’s neck. “You’re not a stupid dog! You’re the best, most wonderful dog in the whole wide world. And I love you to bits.” She
hugged Virku, who reciprocated these declarations of affection by trying to lick Sanna’s mouth.

  Curt stared jealously at them.

  “It’s a rented car, isn’t it?” he asked. “I can drive into town and pick up the spare keys.”

  He was talking to Sanna, but it was as if she couldn’t hear him. She was completely taken up with Virku.

  "I’d really appreciate that," Rebecka said to Curt.

  Not that you could care less whether I appreciate it or not, she thought, contemplating the slump of his shoulders as he stood behind Sanna, waiting for her to pay him some attention.

  Sivving Fjällborg, she thought then. He’s got a spare key to the house. At least he used to have. I’ll go and see him.

  It was quarter past seven when Rebecka walked into Sivving Fjällborg’s house without ringing the doorbell, just as she and her grandmother had always done. There was no light in any of the windows, so he was presumably still asleep. But that couldn’t be helped. She switched on the light in the little hallway. There was a rag rug on the brown lino floor, and she wiped her feet on it. She had snow over the tops of her boots as well, but she couldn’t get much wetter now. A staircase led up to the top floor, and next to it was the dark green door down to the boiler room. The kitchen door was closed. She shouted upstairs into the darkness.

  “Hello!”

  A low bark came at once from the cellar, followed by Sivving’s strong voice.

  “Quiet, Bella! Sit! Now! Stay!”

  She heard footsteps on the stairs, then the cellar door opened and Sivving appeared. His hair had turned completely white, and he might have gone a bit thin on top, but otherwise he hadn’t changed at all. His eyebrows were set high above his eyes, making him look as if he were always about to discover something unexpected or to hear some good news. His blue-and-white-checked flannel shirt just about buttoned over his paunch, and was tucked well into a pair of combat trousers. The brown leather belt holding up the trousers was shiny with age.

  “It’s Rebecka!” he exclaimed, a huge smile splitting his face.