Camilla Lackberg - The Preacher

The house was not big enough to keep the general disarray from reaching catastrophic proportions. She had taken out some games for the kids, but the only result was that alphabet blocks now lay strewn all over the living room in a glorious mess along with Monopoly houses and playing cards. Laboriously she bent down and gathered up the tiny game pieces, trying to bring a little order to the room. The conversation out on the veranda where Britta and Conny were sitting grew more and more heated, and she began to understand why the kids had not acquired any manners. With parents who quarrelled like five-year-olds it wasn’t easy to learn respect for others and their belongings. If only this day would be over! As soon as it stopped raining she would send the Flood family packing. Never mind good manners and hospitality – she would need to be Saint Birgitta herself not to have a fit if they stayed much longer.

The bombshell dropped at lunch. With aching feet and a pain in her lower back she had stood at the stove for an hour, making a lunch that would suit Conny’s voracious appetite as well as the children’s finicky tastes, and in her own estimation she had succeeded rather well. Falun sausage au gratin with macaroni would satisfy all takers, she thought. But she soon learned that she had been dreadfully mistaken.

‘Yuck, I hate Falun sausage. Gross!’

Lisa demonstratively shoved away her plate and crossed her arms with a sullen expression.

‘That’s too bad, because that’s what we’re having.’ Erica’s voice was firm.

‘But I’m hu-u-u-ungry. I want something else.’

‘There isn’t anything else. If you don’t like Falun sausages then you can eat the macaroni with ketchup.’ Erica was making an effort to keep her tone of voice steady, even though she was boiling inside.

‘Macaroni is gross. I want something else. Mam-ma-a-a-a!’

‘Could you possibly get her something different?’ Britta patted her little whiner on the cheek and was rewarded with a smile. Confident of victory, Lisa’s cheeks took on the glow of triumph as she gave Erica a defiant look. But now the line had been crossed. Now it was war.

‘There isn’t anything else. Either you eat what’s in front of you or go hungry.’

‘But dear Erica, I think you’re being unreasonable,’ said Britta. ‘Conny, explain to her how we do things at home, what our policy on childrearing is.’ But she didn’t bother to wait for a reply. ‘We don’t force our children to do anything. That would stunt their development. If my Lisa wants something different, we think it’s her right to have it. I mean, she is an individual with just as much right to express herself as the rest of us. And what would you think if somebody tried to force you to eat food that you didn’t like? I don’t think you would accept it.’

Britta lectured in her best psychologist voice, and Erica suddenly knew this was the last straw. With icy calm she took the girl’s plate, raised it over Britta’s head, and then turned it over. The shock when the macaroni ran down over her hair and inside her blouse made Britta stop in the middle of a sentence.

Ten minutes later, they were gone. And would most likely never return. In all probability she would now be blacklisted by that side of the family, but no matter how hard she tried Erica couldn’t say that she had any regrets. She wasn’t ashamed either, even though her behaviour could at best be called childish. It had felt fantastic to find an outlet for the aggressions that had built up over their two-day visit, and she had no intention of apologizing.

The rest of the day she planned to spend on the sofa on the veranda with a good book and her first cup of tea of the summer. All at once life seemed much brighter.

Although it was small, the dazzling greenery in his glass veranda could compete with the best of gardens. Each flower was tenderly cultivated from seed or a cutting, and thanks to the hot weather this summer the air was now almost tropical. In one corner of the veranda he raised vegetables, and there was nothing to compare with the satisfaction of going out to pick tomatoes, squash, onions, and even melons and grapes that he had grown himself.

The little row-house stood on Dinglevägen, near the entrance to Fjällbacka from the south. It was small but functional. His veranda stuck out like a green exclamation mark among the more modest plantings of the other row-house residents.

It was only when he sat out on the veranda that he didn’t miss the old house. The house where he had grown up and later created a home together with his wife and daughter. They were both gone now. The pain of their absence had intensified until one day he realised that he needed to say goodbye to the house too and all the memories that clung to its walls.

Of course the row-house lacked the character that he loved about the old house, but it was also the impersonality of his new lodgings that made it possible to ease the pain in his breast. By now his grief was mostly like a dull rumble constantly heard in the background.

When Mona disappeared he thought that Linnea would die of a broken heart. She was already sickly, but she proved to be of tougher stuff than he thought. She lived for ten more years. For his sake, he was sure. She didn’t want to leave him alone with the grief. Every day she struggled to continue a life that for them was only a shadow existence.

Mona had been the light of their life. She was born when they had both given up hope of ever having a child, and there were never any more. All the love they had was embodied in this bright, happy creature, whose laugh had ignited small fires in his breast. It was utterly inconceivable that she could just disappear like that. Back then it had felt as though the sun should have stopped shining. As though the sky should have fallen. But nothing happened. Life went on as usual outside their sorrowful abode. People laughed, lived, and went to work. But Mona was gone.

For a long time they lived on hope. Maybe she was still alive somewhere. Maybe she was living a life without them and had decided to disappear of her own accord. At the same time they both knew what the truth was. The other girl had disappeared just before Mona, and it was just too great a coincidence for them to be able to fool themselves. Besides, Mona wasn’t the type of girl who would deliberately cause them such pain. She was a nice, lovable girl who did everything she could to look after them.

On the day that Linnea died, he received final proof that Mona was in Heaven. The illness and the grief had reduced his beloved wife to a shadow of her former self, and as she lay in the bed and held his hand, he knew that this was the day he would be left alone. After hours of keeping vigil she had squeezed his hand one last time, and then a smile spread across her face. The light that was ignited in Linnea’s eyes was a light that he had not seen in ten years – not since the last time she had looked at Mona. She fixed her gaze somewhere behind him and died. Then he knew for certain. Linnea died happy because her daughter was the one who met her in the tunnel. In many ways it made the loneliness easier to bear. Now, at least, the two people he loved most were together. It was only a matter of time until he would be reunited with them. He looked forward to that day, but until then it was his duty to live his life as best he could. The Lord had little patience with quitters, and he didn’t dare do anything to risk his place in Heaven, where he would join Linnea and Mona.

A knock on the door interrupted his melancholy thoughts. Slowly he got up from his easy chair and ploughed through the greenery, leaning on his cane. He made his way down the hall to the front door. A serious-looking young man was standing outside, with his hand raised to knock again.