Her feet were icy cold and damp.
“No, I don’t want to go in,” whined Sanna. “I want to help you find your keys. We’ll find them. They’ve got to be here somewhere.”
Curt was the only one who seemed to be in a good mood. It was as if the darkness gave him some protection against his shyness. And the exercise and the fresh air had made him wake up.
“It was just unbelievable last night!” he told Sanna excitedly. “God was just reminding me of His power all the time. I was completely filled by Him. You should go to the church, Sanna. When I prayed, I could feel His strength pouring over me. I could speak fluently in tongues. Shakka baraj. And my soul was dancing. Sometimes I sat down and just let the Bible fall open where God wanted me to read. And it was all about promises for the future. Bang, bang, bang. He was just bombarding me with promises.”
“You might like to pray that I find my keys,” muttered Rebecka.
“It was just as if He was burning some of the words from the Bible into my eyes with a laser,” Curt went on. “So that I would pass them on. Isaiah 43:19: ‘Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.’ ”
“You could pray yourself that you find your keys,” said Sanna to Rebecka.
Rebecka laughed. It sounded more like a snort.
“Or Isaiah 48:6,” droned Curt. “ ‘Thou hast heard, see all this; and will ye not declare it? I have showed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them.’ ”
Sanna straightened up and shone her torch straight into Rebecka’s eyes.
“Did you hear what I said?” she asked in a serious voice. “Why don’t you pray for your keys yourself?”
Rebecka raised her hand against the blinding light.
“Stop it!” she said.
“And I think God showed me every single place in the New Testament where it says you can’t pour new wine into old bottles,” said Curt to Virku, who was now standing at his feet and appeared to be the only one listening to him. “Because then they crack. And everywhere it says you can’t mend an old garment with a piece of new cloth, because then the new cloth rips along with the old, and the tear is worse.”
“If you want us to pray to find your keys, we’ll do it,” said Sanna, without shifting the light from Rebecka’s face. “But don’t you stand there and pretend God would listen to my prayers and Curt’s more than yours. Don’t trample the blood of Jesus under your feet.”
“Pack it in, I said,” hissed Rebecka, pointing her torch at Sanna’s face.
Curt fell silent and looked at them both.
“Curt,” asked Rebecka, staring straight into the dazzling beam of Sanna’s torch, “do you believe God listens equally to everyone’s prayers?”
“Of course,” he said, “there is never anything wrong with His hearing, but there can be obstacles in the way of His will being done, and obstacles in the way of prayers being answered.”
“What if you don’t live according to His will, for example. Surely God can’t work in your life in the same way then?”
“Exactly.”
“But then that’s just some kind of doctrine,” exclaimed Sanna in despair. “Where’s the grace in that? And God Himself, what do you imagine He thinks of that kind of read-the-Bible-say-your-prayers-for-an-hour-a-day-and-you’ll-have-successful-faith doctrine? I pray and read the Bible when I long for Him. That’s how I’d want to be loved. Why should God be any different? And all this about living according to His will. Surely that should be one of our goals in life. Not a way of winning the star prize for effective praying.”
Curt didn’t answer.
“Sorry, Sanna,” said Rebecka eventually, lowering her torch. “I don’t want to fight about Christian faith. Not with you, at any rate.”
“Because you know I’ll win,” said Sanna with a smile in her voice, and lowered her torch as well.
They stood in silence for a moment, looking at the pools of light on the snow.
“This business with the keys is going to drive me mad,” said Rebecka eventually. “Stupid dog! It’s all your fault!”
Virku barked in agreement.
“Don’t you listen to her,” said Sanna, throwing her arms around Virku’s neck. “You’re not a stupid dog! You’re the best, most wonderful dog in the whole wide world. And I love you to bits.” She hugged Virku, who reciprocated these declarations of affection by trying to lick Sanna’s mouth.
Curt stared jealously at them.
“It’s a rented car, isn’t it?” he asked. “I can drive into town and pick up the spare keys.”
He was talking to Sanna, but it was as if she couldn’t hear him. She was completely taken up with Virku.
"I’d really appreciate that," Rebecka said to Curt.
Not that you could care less whether I appreciate it or not, she thought, contemplating the slump of his shoulders as he stood behind Sanna, waiting for her to pay him some attention.
Sivving Fjällborg, she thought then. He’s got a spare key to the house. At least he used to have. I’ll go and see him.
It was quarter past seven when Rebecka walked into Sivving Fjällborg’s house without ringing the doorbell, just as she and her grandmother had always done. There was no light in any of the windows, so he was presumably still asleep. But that couldn’t be helped. She switched on the light in the little hallway. There was a rag rug on the brown lino floor, and she wiped her feet on it. She had snow over the tops of her boots as well, but she couldn’t get much wetter now. A staircase led up to the top floor, and next to it was the dark green door down to the boiler room. The kitchen door was closed. She shouted upstairs into the darkness.
“Hello!”
A low bark came at once from the cellar, followed by Sivving’s strong voice.
“Quiet, Bella! Sit! Now! Stay!”
She heard footsteps on the stairs, then the cellar door opened and Sivving appeared. His hair had turned completely white, and he might have gone a bit thin on top, but otherwise he hadn’t changed at all. His eyebrows were set high above his eyes, making him look as if he were always about to discover something unexpected or to hear some good news. His blue-and-white-checked flannel shirt just about buttoned over his paunch, and was tucked well into a pair of combat trousers. The brown leather belt holding up the trousers was shiny with age.
“It’s Rebecka!” he exclaimed, a huge smile splitting his face.
“Come, Bella!” he called over his shoulder, and in a trice a pointer bitch came galloping up the stairs.
“Well, hello there,” said Rebecka. “Is it you that’s got such a deep voice?”
“She’s got a really manly bark,” said Sivving. “But it keeps the people trying to sell raffle tickets and the like away, so I’m not complaining. Come on in!”
He opened the kitchen door and switched on the light. Everything was terribly neat, and it smelled slightly musty.
"Sit down," he said, pointing to the rib-backed settee.
Rebecka explained why she was there, and while Sivving fetched the spare key she looked around. The freshly washed green-and-white-striped rag rug was in precisely the right place on the pine floor. Instead of an oilcloth on the table, there was a beautifully ironed linen cloth, decorated with a little vase of beaten copper, holding dried buttercups and everlasting flowers. There were windows on three sides, and from the window behind her you could see her grandmother’s house. In daylight, of course. All you could see at the moment was the reflection of the pine lamp hanging from the ceiling.
When Sivving had given her the keys he sat down at the opposite side of the table. Somehow he didn’t look quite at home in his own kitchen. He was perched on the very edge of the red-stained chair. Bella didn’t seem able to settle either, but was wandering about like a lost soul.