“It’s been a long time.” Sivving smiled, looking closely at Rebecka. “I was just about to have my first cup of coffee. Would you like one?”
“Please,” said Rebecka, sketching out a timetable in her head.
It wouldn’t take more than five minutes to pack her case. Tidying up, half an hour. She could catch the ten-thirty plane, provided Curt turned up with the car keys.
“Come on,” said Sivving, getting up.
He went out of the kitchen and down the cellar steps, with Bella at his heels. Rebecka followed them.
Everything was cozy and homely in the boiler room. A made-up bed stood against one wall. Bella climbed straight into her own bed, which was next to it. Her water and food bowls were sparkling clean, newly washed. There was a washstand in front of the water heater, and an electric hot plate stood on a little drop-leaf table.
“You can pull up that stool,” said Sivving, pointing.
He took down a little coffeepot and two mugs from a string shelf on the wall. The aroma from the tin of coffee blended with the smell of dog, cellar and soap. A pair of long johns, two flannel shirts and a T-shirt with “Kiruna Truck” on it were hanging on a washing line.
“I must apologize,” said Sivving, nodding toward the long johns. “But then, I wasn’t expecting such an elegant visitor.”
“I don’t understand,” said Rebecka in bewilderment. “Do you sleep down here?”
“Well, you see,” said Sivving, running his hand over the stubble on his chin as he carefully counted scoops of coffee into the pot, “Maj-Lis died two years ago.”
Rebecka muttered a few words of sympathy in reply.
“It was stomach cancer. They opened her up, but all they could do was stitch her back together. Anyway, the house was too big for me. The kids had moved out long ago, and with Maj-Lis gone too… First of all I stopped using the top floor. The kitchen and the little bedroom downstairs were enough. Then Bella and I realized that we were only using the kitchen. So then I moved the TV into the kitchen and slept in there, on the sofa bed. And stopped using the bedroom.”
“And in the end you moved down here.”
“Well, it’s much less cleaning. And the washing machine and the shower were down here. I bought that little fridge. It’s big enough for me.”
He pointed toward a little fridge in the corner with a plate rack on top of it.
“But what does Lena say, and…” Rebecka fumbled for the name of Sivving’s son.
“Mats. Ah, the coffee’s ready. Well, Lena makes a lot of noise and plays hell and reckons her dad’s lost the plot. When she comes to visit with the kids, they run about all over the house. And in some ways that’s good, because otherwise I might as well sell up. She’s moved to Gällivare, and she’s got three boys. But they’re getting quite big now, and starting to live their own lives. They do like fishing, though, so they usually come over quite a bit in the spring to fish through holes in the ice. Milk? Sugar?”
“Black.”
“Mats is divorced, but he’s got two kids. Robin and Julia. They usually come on the holidays and so on. What about you, Rebecka? Husband and children?”
Rebecka sipped at the hot coffee. It went all the way to her cold feet.
“No, neither.”
“No, I suppose they wouldn’t dare come near you…”
“What do you mean?” laughed Rebecka.
“Your temperament, my girl,” said Sivving as he got up and fetched a packet of cinnamon buns from the fridge. “You’ve always been a bit fierce. Here, have a bun. God, I remember that time you lit a fire in the ditch. You were a tiny little thing. Stood there like a policewoman with your hand raised when your grandmother and I came running. ‘Stop! Don’t come any closer!’ you shouted, full of authority, and you were so cross when we put the fire out. You were going to grill fish on it.”
Sivving was laughing so much, he had to wipe away a tear at the memory. Bella raised her head and barked happily.
“Or the time you threw a stone at Erik’s head because you weren’t allowed to go with the lads on their raft,” Sivving went on, laughing so that his stomach quivered.
“All barred by the statute of limitations.” Rebecka smiled as she gave Bella a piece of her bun. “Is it you who’s been clearing the snow over at Grandmother’s?”
“Well, it’s nice for Inga-Lill and Affe to be able to do other things when they come here. And I need the exercise.”
He patted his stomach.
“Hello!”
They heard Sanna’s voice on the stairs. Bella jumped up, barking.
“Down here,” called Rebecka.
“Hi,” said Sanna, and came down. “It’s okay, I like dogs.”
She was speaking to Sivving, who was holding on to Bella’s collar.
She bent down and let Bella sniff at her face. Sivving looked serious.
“Sanna Strandgård,” he said. “I read about your brother. It was a terrible thing. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” said Sanna, her lap full of friendly dog. “Rebecka, Curt rang. He’s on his way with the keys.”
Sivving stood up.
“Coffee?” he asked.
Sanna nodded and accepted a thick china mug with a pattern of brown and yellow flowers around the top. Sivving offered her the bag of buns so that she could dunk one in her coffee.
“They’re good,” said Rebecka. “Who’s been baking? Was it you?”
Sivving’s reply was an embarrassed grunt.
“Oh, that’s Mary Kuoppa. She can’t cope with the idea that there’s a freezer somewhere in the village that isn’t full of decent buns.”
Rebecka smiled at his pronunciation of “Mary.” He said it so that it rhymed with “Harry.”
“The poor woman’s called Mary, surely?” said Sanna, and laughed.
“Well, that’s what the teacher at our school thought too," said Sivving, brushing a few crumbs off the cloth; Bella licked them up straightaway. “But Mary just used to stare out of the window and pretend she didn’t realize he was talking to her when he said ‘Maaaary.’ ”
This time he sounded like a bleating sheep. Rebecka and Sanna started giggling, and looked at each other like a couple of schoolgirls. Suddenly it was as if all the awkwardness between them had been swept away.
I still care about her, in spite of everything, thought Rebecka.
“Wasn’t there somebody in the village called Slark?” she asked. “After the parents’ idol, Slark Gabble?”
“No,” laughed Sivving, “that must have been somewhere else. There’s never been anybody called Slark in this village. Then again, when your grandmother was young she knew a girl she felt really sorry for. She was very delicate when she was born, and because they didn’t think she was going to survive, they got the schoolteacher to do an emergency baptism. The teacher was called Fredrik Something-or-other. Anyway, the little girl lived, and then of course she was to be baptized properly by the priest. Of course, the priest understood only Swedish, and the parents only spoke Tornedalen Finnish. So the priest picked up the child and asked the parents what she was to be called. The parents thought he was asking who had baptized the child, so they answered, ‘Feki se kasti,’ it was Fredrik who baptized her. And so the priest wrote ‘Fekisekasti’ in the church register. And you know how people respected the priest in those days. The child was called Fekisekasti for the rest of her life.”
Rebecka glanced at the clock. Curt was bound to be here by now. She could catch the flight, even if there wasn’t an awful lot of time.
“Thanks for the coffee,” she said, and stood up.
“Are you off?” asked Sivving. “Was it just a flying visit?”
“Arrived yesterday, leaving today,” replied Rebecka with a brief smile.
“You know how it is with these career women,” said Sanna to Sivving. “Always on the move.”