Stalker

118

On top of a linen cloth lies a rusty hairgrip, a pocket watch, a white hymnbook bearing the name ‘Anna’ in gold writing, a page of old church accounts, Luther’s Small Catechism and the priest’s diary, with a lilac strap round its stained leather binding.

The old woman looks at Joona with frightened eyes as she opens the case and removes the diary. On the front page, in ornate handwriting, are the words ‘Peter Leer Jacobson, priest, volume XXIV’.

‘I don’t think it’s right to read other people’s diaries,’ she says with a hint of anxiety in her voice.

‘No,’ Joona says, and opens the book.

He sees at once that it’s old: the first entry is dated almost twenty years ago.

‘We don’t have the right to-’

‘I have to,’ Joona interrupts.

He leafs through, staring at the handwriting in the hope of finding something about the person who wrote Peter’s sermons.

The administration of the parish has become more onerous, the guidelines stricter. I fear that finances will come to govern my church more and more. Why not start selling indulgences again [Sic!].

Today is the fifth Sunday after Epiphany, and the liturgical colours are getting darker again. The theme is ‘Sowing and Reaping’. I don’t like the warning in Paul’s Letter to the Galatians about not mocking God. ‘For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’ But sometimes you haven’t sown, yet must still reap. I can’t say that to my congregation – they want to hear about the riches of heaven.

Joona looks up and sees the old woman leave the room with her hands hanging by her sides.

I met the pasty-faced contract priest in Lerbo for a private conversation. He was probably expecting me to talk about my drinking. He’s young, but his faith is so strong that it makes me feel bad. I decided not to visit him again.

My daughter is growing up now. The other day I watched her without her knowing. She was sitting in front of the mirror, she had her hair just like Anna’s, and was smiling to herself.

Today is the fifth Sunday after Easter. The theme for the sermon is ‘Growing in Faith’. I think about Grandmother and Grandfather who went to Guinea before they moved to the farm in Roslagen. In my congregation there is no place for missionary work, and that makes me wonder.

Joona sits down on one of the old chairs beneath the photographs. He leafs through the book, reading about the duties of the liturgical year, Christmas carols, summer services at some mill or other. He goes back through it again, looking for any further mention of the priest in Lerbo, and finds himself in the middle of Easter.

The Gospels turn their attention to the empty grave, but around the dinner table we talked about the Old Testament text describing the last plague to strike Egypt. My daughter said that God loves blood, and referred to one of Easter’s biblical texts: ‘And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are: and when I see the blood I will pass over you.’

My wife and I haven’t shared a bedroom for a year now. I usually stay up late, and I snore like a mechanical digger (according to her). But we often sneak in to each other at night. Sometimes I go with Anna to her bedroom in the evening just to watch her get ready. I’ve always liked watching her take off her jewellery at night, pressing the little studs back on to her earrings and putting them in the case next to each other. Anna is quietly attentive to detail. She doesn’t reach behind her back when she takes her bra off, but slips the straps over her shoulders, slides the bra down to her waist and turns it round before unfastening it.

When I sat on her bed last night watching her plait her hair ready for bed, I thought I could see a face at the dark window. I got up and went over, but I couldn’t see anything, so I went out on to the veranda, then into the garden, but everything was quiet and I looked up at the starry sky instead.

Joona looks out of the window and sees that Rocky is still sitting under the tree, with his eyes closed and legs outstretched. He carries on reading.

I saw the pasty-faced priest from Lerbo in the supermarket yesterday, but didn’t have to say hello.

Fourth Sunday in Lent.

So we have reached the midpoint of Lent. Headache, sat up late drinking wine, reading and writing.

Today we think about ‘the bread of Life’. The holy days of Easter are almost upon us, and the heavy fist of existence presses us to the ground.

Joona leafs forward, glancing at the pages about Trinity Sunday and the transition to the gentler half of the church calendar, before stopping abruptly and reading:

It has happened, terrible, impossible. I shall write about it here, and beg God for forgiveness, then I shall never mention it again. My hand is shaking as I write this, two days later:

Like old Lot I was tricked into breaking the Lord’s commandment, but I am writing to understand my role in this, my share of the guilt. It got rather late, and I drank more wine than I could handle, more that I usually do, and I was drunk when I went to bed and fell asleep.

In hindsight I think I was aware on some level that it wasn’t Anna who crept into my bed in the darkness, she smelled like Anna, she was wearing my wife’s jewellery and nightshirt, but she was scared, her body was trembling as I lay on top of her.

She didn’t whisper at all, she didn’t sigh like Anna, she was breathing as if to resist giving in to pain.

I tried to turn on the lamp, I was still so drunk that it fell to the floor, I stood up, staggered, followed the wall with my hand and turned on the main light.

In my bed sat my daughter. She was wearing make-up and smiling, even though she was scared.

I roared, I shouted, and rushed over and tore Anna’s earrings from her ears, I rubbed her face on the bloodstained sheet, I dragged her down the stairs and out into the snow, I slipped and fell, got up again and shoved her away.

She was freezing, and her ears were bleeding, but she was still smiling.

I shall be punished, I must be punished, I should have seen this coming. Isolation and blossoming, her creeping, spying, always fiddling with Anna’s jewellery and make-up.

Joona stops reading, looks at the rusty key and the black earrings in the case, and at the text about having to take on the last priest’s wife. He leaves the exhibition with the diary in his hand, passing the picture of the skinny widows. Out in the café Ellinor is putting small coffee cups on saucers on the shelf behind the counter. The porcelain tinkles gently as she stacks it. A lethargic fly has flown in through the open doors and is now bouncing against the window as it tries to get out.

Ellinor turns round when she hears Joona come in. It’s clear from her face that she regrets mentioning her brother’s diary.

‘Can I ask how Peter’s wife died?’

‘I don’t know,’ she says curtly and carries on stacking cups and saucers.

‘You said you were friends, you and Anna.’

The old woman’s chin trembles.

‘I think you should leave now,’ she says.

‘I can’t,’ Joona replies.

‘I thought you were interested in Peter’s sermons, that’s why I…’

She shakes her head, picks up a tray containing coffee and two pastries, and starts to walk towards the door.

Joona follows her, holding the door for her and waiting as she takes the tray over to the customers in the garden.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she says weakly.

‘It wasn’t an accident?’ he asks sharply.

Her face becomes completely helpless and she looks like she’s about to cry.

‘I don’t want to,’ she pleads. ‘Don’t you understand? It’s too late…’

She lowers her face and sobs quietly to herself.

The other woman comes in and puts her hands on Ellinor’s shaking shoulders. The other customers get up and change tables.

‘I’m a police officer,’ Joona says. ‘I can find this out, but-’

‘Please, leave now,’ the other woman says, hugging Ellinor.

‘It was just an accident,’ the old priest’s sister says.

‘I don’t want to upset you,’ Joona goes on. ‘But I need to know what happened, and I need to know now.’

‘It was a car accident,’ Ellinor whimpers. ‘It was pouring with rain… they drove straight into the church wall, the car buckled and crushed Anna, she hit her face so badly that…’

She sits down unsteadily at one of the tables and stares ahead of her.

‘Go on,’ Joona says gently.

The woman looks up at him, wipes the tears from her eyes and nods.

‘We saw it from the rectory… My brother ran out, down the road… and I followed him through the rain, and saw their daughter fighting to get her out, she was using the car-jack… kept hitting it against the car… and I just screamed and ran off through the thicket of willow…’

The woman’s voice cracks, and she opens and closes her mouth a couple of times before she goes on:

‘There was broken glass and wreckage from the car everywhere, and there was a smell of petrol and hot metal… Their daughter had given up, she was just standing there waiting for her father to get there… I can still remember the look of shock in her eyes, and her peculiar smile…’

Ellinor raises her hands and looks down at her palms.

‘Dear God,’ she whispers, ‘the girl had just got home from Klockhammar School and there she was, standing there in her yellow raincoat looking at her mother. Anna’s face was crushed beyond recognition, there was blood everywhere, all over…’

Her voice fails her again and she swallows, then continues slowly.

‘Memory is a strange thing,’ she says. ‘I know I heard a very high voice as I got closer through the rain, it was like a child talking… And then it started to burn, I saw a blue bubble enclose Anna, and the next moment I was lying in the wet grass in the ditch and the flames were spiralling around the whole car. The birch-tree alongside caught fire, and I-’

‘Who was driving?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it…’

‘The daughter,’ Joona says. ‘What’s her name?’

‘Nelly,’ the old woman replies, looking up at him with exhaustion etched on her face.