The Blood Spilt

by Asa Larsson

  * * *

  Rebecka draws up her knees. Pushes them down. Draws them up. Pushes them down. Shuts herself in the bathroom again. Can’t manage to get up. Crawls as far away as she can, into a corner. He’s coming back up the stairs.

  * * *

  It was so bloody simple for Mildred to say that Nalle was a blessing, Lars-Gunnar thinks. She didn’t have to look after him day and night. And she wasn’t the one with a broken marriage behind her because of the child they’d had. She didn’t need to worry. About the future. How Nalle would manage. About Nalle’s puberty and sexuality. Standing there with the soiled sheets, wondering what the hell to do. No girl would want him. A mass of strange fears in his head, that he could become dangerous.

  After the priest’s visit the village women came running. Let the boy be confirmed, they said. And they offered to organize everything. Said Nalle would be bound to enjoy it, and if he didn’t, they could just stop. Even Lars-Gunnar’s cousin Lisa came to say her bit. Said she could sort out a suit, so he wouldn’t be standing there in something that was too small.

  Then Lars-Gunnar lost his temper. As if it was about the suit or the present.

  “It’s not about the money!” he roared. “I’ve always paid for him, haven’t I? If I’d wanted to save money I’d have shoved him in an institution long ago! All right then, he can be confirmed!”

  And he’d paid for a suit and a watch. If you had to pick two things Nalle had no use whatsoever for, it would be a suit and a watch. But Lars-Gunnar didn’t say a word about it. Nobody was going to say he was mean behind his back.

  Afterward it was as if something had changed. As if Mildred’s friendship with the boy took something away from Lars-Gunnar. People forgot about the price he’d had to pay. Not that he had any big ideas about himself. But he hadn’t had an easy life. His father’s brutality toward the family. Eva’s betrayal. The burden of being the single parent of a disturbed child. He could have made other choices. Simpler choices. But he educated himself and returned to the village. Became someone.

  He hit rock bottom when Eva left. He stayed at home with Nalle, feeling as if nobody wanted him. The shame of being surplus to requirements.

  And yet he still looked after Eva when she was dying. He kept Nalle at home. Looked after him. If you listened to Mildred Nilsson, he was bloody lucky to have such a fine boy. “Of course,” Lars-Gunnar had said to one of the women, “but it’s a heavy responsibility as well. A lot to worry about.” And he’d got his answer: parents always worry about their children. He wouldn’t have to be separated from Nalle, as other parents were when their children grew up and left home. They talked a load of crap. People who hadn’t a clue what it was really like. But after that he kept quiet. How could anybody understand.

  It was the same with Eva. Since Mildred had arrived, whenever Eva came up in the conversation, people said: “Poor soul.” About her! Sometimes he wanted to ask what they meant by that. If they thought he was such a bastard to live with that she’d even left her own son?

  He got the feeling they were talking about him behind his back.

  Even then he regretted agreeing to Nalle’s confirmation. But it was already too late. He couldn’t forbid him to spend time with Mildred in the church, because that would just look like sour grapes. Nalle was enjoying himself. He hadn’t the wit to see through Mildred.

  So Lars-Gunnar let it carry on. Nalle had a life away from him. But who washed his clothes, who carried the responsibility and the worry?

  And Mildred Nilsson. Lars-Gunnar now thinks he was her target all the time. Nalle was just a means to an end.

  She moved into the priest’s house and organized her female Mafia. Made them feel important. And they let themselves be led along like cackling geese.

  It’s obvious she had a grudge against him from the start. She envied him. He had a certain standing in the village, after all. Leader of the hunting team. He’d been a policeman. He listened to people too. Put others’ needs before his own. And that gave him a certain level of respect and authority. She couldn’t stand that. It was as if she set herself the task of taking everything away from him.

  It turned into a kind of war between them, but only they could see it. She tried to discredit him. He defended himself as best he could. But he’d never had any aptitude for that kind of game.

  * * *

  The woman has crawled back into the bathroom. She’s curled up on the floor between the toilet and the hand basin, holding her arms up over her face to protect herself. He grabs her feet and drags her down the stairs. Her head thumps rhythmically on every step. Thud, thud, thud. And Nalle’s cry from outside: “What? What?” It’s hard to close his ears to that. There has to be an end to it. There has to be an end to it now, at long last.

  * * *

  He remembers the trip to Majorca. It was one of Mildred’s bright ideas. All of a sudden the young people in the church were going to a camp abroad. And Mildred wanted Nalle to go too. Lars-Gunnar had said no, definitely not. And Mildred had said the church would send an extra member of staff along, just for Nalle. The church would pay. “And just think,” she said, “how much kids of this age normally cost. Slalom gear, trips, computer games, expensive stuff, expensive clothes…” And Lars-Gunnar had understood. “It’s not about money,” he’d said. But he’d realized that in the eyes of the villagers, that’s exactly what it would look like. That he begrudged Nalle having things. That Nalle had to do without. That when Nalle finally had the opportunity to do something that would be fun…So Lars-Gunnar had to give in. All he could do was get out his wallet. And everybody said to him how nice it was that Mildred was so good to Nalle. Lucky for the boy that she’d moved here.

  But Mildred wanted to see him go under, he knows that. When her windows got smashed, or when that idiot Magnus Lindmark tried to set fire to her shed, she didn’t report it to the police. And so there was talk. Just as she’d intended. The police can’t do anything. When you really need them, all they can do is just stand there. It really got to Lars-Gunnar. He was the one who had to put up with the embarrassment.

  And then she turned her attention to his place on the hunting team.

  It might be the church’s mark on the paper. But the forest belongs to him. He’s the one who knows it. It’s true that the cost of the lease has been low. But really, in all fairness, the hunters ought to get paid for shooting. Elk cause enormous damage to the forest, chewing the bark of the trees.

  The autumn elk hunt. Planning with the other guys. Walking through the forest in the early morning. Before sunrise. The dogs are excited, pulling on their leads. Sniffing at the gray darkness deep in the forest. Somewhere in there is their quarry. The hunt itself, during the day. Autumn air, the sound of dogs barking far away. The sense of togetherness when you’re dealing with the kill. Struggling with the body in the slaughterhouse. Chatting around the fire in the cabin in the evening.

  She wrote a letter. Didn’t dare bring it up face-to-face. Wrote that she knew Torbjörn had been convicted of breaking the law on hunting. That he hadn’t lost his firearms license. That it was Lars-Gunnar who’d sorted it all out. That he and Torbjörn couldn’t be permitted to hunt on church land. “It isn’t only inappropriate, but also objectionable in view of the fact that the church is intending to offer protection to the she-wolf,” she wrote.

  He can feel the pressure squeezing his chest as he thinks about it. She would plunge him into isolation, that’s what she wanted. Make him into a fucking loser. Like Malte Alajärvi. No job, no hunting.

  He’d talked to Torbjörn Ylitalo. “What the fuck can we do?” Torbjörn had said. “I’ll be glad if I can just hang on to my job.” Lars-Gunnar had felt as if he were sinking into a swamp. He could see himself in a few years. Growing old, stuck at home with Nalle. They could sit there like two idiots, gawping at game shows on TV.

  It wasn’t right. All that business about the license! It was nearly twenty years ago, after all! It was just an excuse to do him some da
mage.

  “Why?” he’d said to Torbjörn. “What does she want to do to me?” And Torbjörn had shrugged his shoulders.

  A week went by without him speaking to a single soul. A fore-taste of what life would be like. In the evenings he drank, just so that he could get to sleep.

  The night before midsummer’s eve he was sitting in the kitchen having a little celebration. Well, maybe celebration wasn’t quite the word. Shut in the kitchen with his own thoughts. Poured himself a drink, talked to himself, drank the drink on his own. Went to bed in the end, tried to sleep. It was as if something was thumping in his chest. Something he hadn’t felt since he was a child.

  Then he got in the car and tried to pull himself together. He remembers he almost put the car in the ditch when he was reversing out of the yard. And then Nalle came running out in just his underpants. Lars-Gunnar thought he’d fallen asleep hours ago. He was waving and shouting. Lars-Gunnar had to switch off the engine. “You can come with me,” he said. “But you need to put some clothes on.” “No, no,” said Nalle, refusing to let go of the car door. “It’s okay, I’m not going anywhere. Go and put something on.”

  There’s a kind of fog in his head when he tries to remember. He wanted to talk to her. She was going to fucking listen to him. Nalle fell asleep in the passenger seat.

  He remembers hitting her. Thinking: That’s enough. That’s enough now.

  She wouldn’t stop making a noise. However much he hit her. Rattling and squeaking. Breathing. He dragged off her shoes and socks. Shoved her socks in her mouth.

  He was still furious when he carried her up to the church. Hung her up by the chain in front of the organ pipes. As he stood up there in the gallery he thought it didn’t matter if anybody came, if anybody had seen him.

  Then Nalle came in. He’d woken up and came stumbling into the church. Suddenly he was standing down there in the aisle gazing up at Lars-Gunnar and Mildred with huge eyes. He didn’t say a word.

  Lars-Gunnar sobered up at once. He was angry with Nalle. And suddenly terrified. He remembers that very clearly. Remembers dragging Nalle to the car. Driving away. And they didn’t speak. Nalle didn’t say anything.

  Every day Lars-Gunnar was expecting them to come. But nobody came. Well, they came and asked if he’d seen anything, of course. Or knew anything. Asked him the same questions they were asking everybody else.

  He remembered he’d put his work gloves on. They’d been in the trunk of the car. He hadn’t done it intentionally. Hadn’t been thinking about fingerprints or anything. It had just been automatic. If you’re using a tool like a crowbar, you put your gloves on. Pure luck. Pure luck.

  And then everything carried on as usual. Nalle didn’t seem to remember anything. He was just the same as always. Lars-Gunnar had been just the same as always too. He slept well at night.

  * * *

  I was lying there like a wounded animal, he thinks now, as he stands there with this woman at his feet. Like an animal that lies down in a hollow, but it’s only a matter of time before the huntsman catches up with it.

  When Stefan Wikström rang he could hear it in his voice. That he knew. Just the fact that he was ringing Lars-Gunnar, why would he do that? They saw each other when they were hunting, but he didn’t have anything to do with that milksop of a priest otherwise. And now he was ringing up. Telling him the parish priest seemed to be changing his mind about the future of the hunting team. Bertil Stensson might suggest to the church council that it was time to revoke the lease. And he talked about the elk hunt as if…as if he had something quite different to say about the whole thing.

  And when Stefan rang, the fog in Lars-Gunnar’s head cleared. He remembers standing by the jetty waiting for Mildred. His pulse throbbing like a jackhammer. He looked up at the priest’s house. And somebody was standing at the upstairs window. He didn’t remember that until Stefan Wikström rang.

  What did he want with me? he thinks now. He wanted power over me. Like Mildred.

  Lars-Gunnar and Stefan Wikström are sitting in the car on the way to the lake. Lars-Gunnar has said he’s going to lift the boat out of the water for the winter and chain down the oars.

  Stefan Wikström is whining about Bertil Stensson like a baby. Lars-Gunnar is listening with only half an ear. It’s all about the hunting permit and the fact that Bertil doesn’t appreciate the work Stefan does as a priest. And then Lars-Gunnar has to listen to his unbearable infantile babble about hunting. As if he understood anything about it. The little boy who got his place on the team as a present from the parish priest.

  The constant babbling is confusing Lars-Gunnar. What does he want, the priest? It feels as if Stefan is holding the parish priest up to Lars-Gunnar as a small child holds up its arm when it’s fallen over. Kiss it better.

  He has no intention of being under the thumb of this little runt. He’s prepared to pay the price for his actions. But that price is not going to be paid to Stefan Wikström. Never.

  Stefan Wikström keeps his eyes on the section of the road that can be seen in the headlights. He gets carsick really easily. Has to keep looking ahead.

  A sense of fear is beginning to steal over him. He can feel it writhing in his stomach like a slender snake.

  They talk about all kinds of things. Not about Mildred. But her presence is tangible. It’s almost as if she were sitting in the backseat.

  Stefan Wikström thinks about the night before midsummer’s eve. How he stood by the bedroom window. He saw somebody standing next to Mildred’s boat. Suddenly the person took a few steps. Disappeared behind a little log cabin on the museum’s land. He didn’t see anything else. But he thought about it afterward, of course. That it was Lars-Gunnar. That he’d had something in his hand.

  Even now, he doesn’t think it was wrong not to tell the police. He and Lars-Gunnar are among the eighteen members of the hunting team. That makes him Lars-Gunnar’s priest. Lars-Gunnar is part of his flock. A priest lives by different laws from normal citizens. As a priest, he couldn’t point the finger at Lars-Gunnar. As a priest, he must be there when Lars-Gunnar is ready to talk.

  This was another burden laid upon him. And he accepted it. Placed it in God’s hands. Prayed: Thy will be done. And added: I cannot feel that thy yoke is gentle, thy burden light.

  They’ve arrived, and get out of the car. He is given the chain to carry. Lars-Gunnar tells him to walk in front.

  He sets off along the path in the moonlight.

  Mildred is walking behind him. He can feel it. He’s reached the lake. Drops the chain on the ground. Looks at it.

  Mildred climbs into his ear.

  Run! she says inside his head. Run!

  But he can’t run. He just stands there waiting. Hears Lars-Gunnar coming. Slowly he takes shape in the moonlight. And yes, he is carrying his gun.

  * * *

  Lars-Gunnar looks down at Rebecka Martinsson. After the trip down the stairs she’s stopped shaking. But she’s still conscious. Staring at him all the time.

  * * *

  Rebecka Martinsson looks up at the man. She’s seen this image before. The man who is an eclipse of the sun. The face in shadow. The sun coming in through the kitchen window. Like a corona around his head. It’s Pastor Thomas Söderberg. He is saying: I loved you like my own daughter. Soon she will smash his head.

  When the man bends down over her she grabs hold of him. Well, grabs hold is putting it a bit strongly; the forefinger and middle finger of her right hand creep in under the neck band of his sweater. Only the weight of the hand itself draws him closer.

  “How can a person live with that?”

  He detaches her fingers from his sweater.

  Live with what? he wonders. Stefan Wikström? He felt a greater sorrow that time when he shot a female elk over in Paksuniemi. That was over twenty years ago. The second after she fell, two calves emerged from the trees. Then they disappeared into the forest. He thought about his mistake for a long time. First the female. And then the fact that he hadn’
t reacted in time and shot the calves as well. They must have faced an agonizing death.

  He opens the trapdoor in the kitchen that leads down to the cellar. Grabs hold of her and drags her toward the hole.

  Nalle’s hand is knocking on the kitchen window. His uncomprehending gaze between the plastic pelargoniums.

  And now the woman comes to life. When she sees the hole in the floor. She begins to wriggle in his grasp. Grabs the leg of the kitchen table, the whole table is dragged along with her.

  “Let go,” he says, unclasping her fingers.

  She scratches his face. Writhing and lashing out. A silent, jerky struggle.

  He lifts her by the collar. Her feet leave the floor. Not a word comes out of her mouth. The scream is in her eyes: No! No!

  He hurls her down like a bag of garbage. She falls backwards. A thud and a bang, then silence. He lets the trapdoor fall shut. Then he gets hold of the cupboard that stands over by the southern wall and drags it over the trapdoor with both hands. It weighs a ton, but he has the strength.

  * * *

  She opens her eyes. It takes a while for her to realize that she’d lost consciousness for a little while. But she can’t have been out for long. A few seconds. She can hear Lars-Gunnar dragging something heavy over the trapdoor.

  Her eyes are wide open, and she can’t see a thing. Pitch dark. She can hear the footsteps and the dragging noise up above. Up onto her knees. Her right arm is dangling uselessly. Instinctively she places her left hand over her right arm at shoulder level and pulls the arm back into joint. It makes a crunching sound. A bolt of pain shoots from her shoulder down her arm and her back. Everything hurts. Apart from her face. She can’t feel anything there at all. She touches it with her hand. It’s somehow numb. And something is hanging off, loose and wet. Is it her lip? When she swallows she can taste blood.