Åsa Larsson - Until Thy Wrath Be Past

How sensitive? Martinsson wondered. Sufficiently sensitive for two young people to be killed to prevent gossip starting up again? Surely that could not be possible?

“It’s so long ago,” Svarvare said. “It happened, and now it’s in the past. Nobody wants to remember what went on. And before long all those who can will be dead and buried. The girls who used to stand by the railway lines and wave to the German soldiers in the trains on their way up to Narvik, all those who celebrated the arson attack on the Norrskensflamman in 1940 – you know, the attack on the Communist, anti-German newspaper based in Luleå – and all those who fraternized with the Germans stationed in the north. And my God, you should have seen the fuss in support of the German consul Weiler – all the miners who were excused military service because we were selling steel to Germany, they were all in favour of that. It was only afterwards that they started going on about how we had to do it because we’d have had our throats slit if we didn’t. Let’s face it, even the king was a sympathizer.”

Svarvare wiped away a drop of coffee that had trickled down the side of his mouth.

“I just thought it might be exciting for the kids to go looking for a wrecked aeroplane.”

Martinsson thought for a moment.

“You asked me not to tell anybody that you’d been speaking to me,” she said. “To whom shouldn’t I say anything? Are you frightened of anybody in particular?”

Svarvare took his time, then sat up straight and looked her in the eye.

“The Krekulas,” he said. “Isak has always been keen to jump in with both feet no matter what. He’d be quite capable of setting fire to a house while the occupants were asleep. And the boys follow in his footsteps. They were so put out when I said I’d told Wilma about that plane. All that was done and finished with, they reckoned. I’ve been working for them for God only knows how many years, helped them with anything that cropped up. I was always on call. Always. And then they come here and…”

His hand dropped down on the table like a full stop at the end of a sentence. Vera, who had been lying under the table, woke up with a bark.

“Why? Was there something special about that plane?”

“I don’t know. You’ve got to believe me. I’ve told you everything I know. Do you think that the Krekulas had something to do with Wilma’s death?”

“Do you think so?”

His eyes filled with tears.

“I should never have said anything to her. I just wanted to make myself interesting. I wanted her to think it was fun to talk to me. It’s no fun, dammit all, being on my own all the time. It’s all my fault.”

Once outside again, Martinsson took a deep breath.

As Strindberg said, she thought, you have to feel sorry for people. I don’t want to die alone.

She looked at Vera, who was standing expectantly by the car.

Dogs are not enough, she thought.

She switched on her mobile. Ten past seven. No messages. No missed calls.

Bollocks to you then, was her unsent message to Måns Wenngren. Screw some other woman if you want to.

I’m sitting on Hjalmar’s window ledge. Watching him as he wakes up with a start. Worry is pounding away inside him. That worry is sinewy and has fists as hard as Isak’s, his father’s. That worry has pulled his leather belt out of its loops.

He’s sleeping a lot now. He’s tired. Doesn’t feel up to doing anything at all. But sleep is spasmodic and unreliable. Worry drags him to his feet. Usually at about 3.00 or 4.00 in the morning. It’s light during the night now. Hjalmar curses the light, and tells himself that’s why. But he knows the truth. His heart is racing. Sometimes he’s afraid it will be the death of him. But he’s started to get used to it. Knows his heart will calm down after a while.

Just think: I shall never, ever sleep again.

Hjalmar dreams about me sometimes. How I hacked a hole in the ice from underneath. He dreams about the water squirting out through the hole when I stuck my hand through it. In his dream more and more water comes spurting out, and he drowns in it. He wakes up, gasping for breath.

Sometimes he dreams that my hand clamps itself like a vice round his, and that I drag him down into the water.

He dreams about thin ice. Ice that gives way beneath him. Black water.

He doesn’t have the strength to look after himself properly. He looked a right mess at my funeral. He hadn’t had a shower for ages, and his hair was greasy.

Hjalmar Krekula checked the time on his mobile: 7.10. He ought to have been at work ages ago. But Tore had not phoned to ask where the devil he was.

But maybe it was only fair to have a day off when you had helped to… No, he dismissed all thoughts and images involving Hjörleifur Arnarson. Pointless. The whole business was so bloody pointless.

I’m used to doing whatever Tore wants me to do, Hjalmar thought. I was forced to do it at first. But then it became a habit. No doubt it all goes back to when we got lost in the forest. I stopped thinking for myself. Making my own mind up. I just did as I was told.

It is October 1957. A Saturday. The older boys from the village are playing bandy on the ice covering the lake.

Tore Krekula asks his dad if he can go and watch. Yes, of course he can. He takes his bandy stick and sets off. Hjalmar is also going to watch, but first he has to carry firewood and water to the sauna down by the lake. Isak makes the sauna so hot that there is a danger of burning the whole place down. Tonight they are going to have a bath. He has sawn through the ice down by the jetty and made a hole so that Hjalmar can carry water up to the big tub that is heated by a wood fire.

Hjalmar does all the heavy stuff. Tore is excused, even though he has started school this autumn. On the first day of term Isak took Hjalmar by the ear and told him: “It’s your job to look after your brother, is that clear?”

It is just over a year since the incident in the forest. Tore is still receiving letters and parcels – but less often, of course. His new satchel is a present from the Friends of the Forest Club in Stockholm.

Hjalmar looks after Tore. That means that Tore rules the roost over his classmates, even the older pupils. Tore steals their money, threatens them, fights and decides which of his classmates is going to be beaten up after school every day. He concludes that it is going to be a skinny little lad with glasses by the name of Alvar. If anybody objects, or even hits back, Tore calls Hjalmar. Alvar has an elder brother, but nobody wants to get involved in a fight with Hjalmar Krekula, so he doesn’t intervene. Besides, their dad drowned a couple of years back. Tore and his mates have a lot of fun with Alvar. During the last lesson of the day, one of them might put up his hand and ask permission to go to the toilet. When the bell goes, Alvar finds that his shoes are full of water. Or perhaps the sleeves of his jacket are crammed full of wet paper. After P.E., they sometimes steal his trousers so that he has to go home in his underpants. Alvar is frightened all the time. He runs home from school. He begs his teacher to let him go before the bell rings. Tells her he has stomach-ache. That is no doubt true. He comes home to his mother with his clothes and school books in a mess, but he does not dare tell her who is responsible. His elder brother says nothing either.

That is what Tore Krekula is really like, the little hero of the forest from Piilijärvi. But needless to say, the Friends of the Forest Club in Stockholm know nothing at all about it.

Hjalmar has carried all the necessary water and firewood to the sauna, ready for the evening’s ablutions, so he can run to the other end of the village and watch the bandy match. They are using birch branches as goal posts. Not all of them have skates, some just have to run about in their ordinary shoes. Most of the bandy sticks are home-made.