Rites of Spring

38

David is playing the good husband. Preparing meals, asking about her work. In spite of his efforts, Thea can tell that his thoughts are elsewhere. He’s irritable, flares up at the least thing. She can’t help recalling his outburst the other day when he attacked the builder; he still hasn’t said anything about the incident. He gets phone calls until late into the evening, and he doesn’t protest when she says she’s tired and closes the bedroom door so that she can concentrate on the file the archivist gave her.

David, Nettan, Sebastian and Jan-Olof were interviewed at the police station in Ljungslöv. Together, apparently, which Thea finds a little strange. On the other hand, the police had also questioned Bertil and Erik together earlier that same day, so maybe it wasn’t against the rules.

The interviews seem to have been taped and then transcribed. In a couple of places whoever did the transcription has added brief notes in brackets.

Present in the room were the children and their fathers. All the men are listed in an old-fashioned way, with their professions: bank manager Bertil Nordin, headmaster Staffan Hellman, engineer Pawel Malinowski, machinist Eskil Leander.

David answered most of the questions. Sometimes he was prompted by Nettan, less often by Sebastian. Jan-Olof, on the other hand, says nothing unless he is asked directly, and then he answers in monosyllables.

INTERVIEWER: What were you doing in the stone circle?

DAVID NORDIN: We . . . We were pretending to act out a ceremony.

JEANETTE HELLMAN: Carry out a ceremony.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of ceremony?

DAVID NORDIN: A spring sacrifice. Like they used to do in the old days.

JEANETTE HELLMAN: They pretended to sacrifice a virgin so that spring would come.

INTERVIEWER: I see. And whose idea was that?

DAVID NORDIN: Elita’s. She’d read about it. Seen old photographs. She’d sorted out animal masks for us so that it would look exactly the same.

INTERVIEWER: And what did this ceremony consist of?

JEANETTE HELLMAN: We were going to sacrifice Elita to him. Pretend to, I mean.

INTERVIEWER: To him?

(SILENCE)

INTERVIEWER: Who were you going to sacrifice Elita to?

SEBASTIAN MALINOWSKI: (clears his throat) To the Green Man.

INTERVIEWER: The Green Man? The figure that people burn on the Walpurgis Night bonfires?

DAVID NORDIN: Yes . . .

INTERVIEWER: OK . . . So you were at the circle because you were going to play at sacrificing Elita to the Green Man.

JEANETTE HELLMAN: It wasn’t a game.

INTERVIEWER: No? What was it, then?

DAVID NORDIN: Well, maybe it was a kind of game. But it didn’t feel that way. It felt kind of . . .

JEANETTE HELLMAN: Real.

DAVID NORDIN: Yes. Real.

INTERVIEWER: What do the rest of you have to say?

(INAUDIBLE MURMURING)

INTERVIEWER: Can you repeat that, Leander?

JAN-OLOF LEANDER: Too fucking real . . .