“What a cold hand,” said the woman who took her money.
She wrapped her warm, dry hand around Rebecka’s fingers and squeezed them briefly before she let go.
Rebecka smiled at her in surprise.
I’m not used to it anymore, she thought, chatting to strangers.
The car was icy cold. She ripped off the skin and gobbled the banana. Her fingers were getting colder and colder. She thought about the woman in the newsagent’s. She was around sixty. Powerful arms and plump bust in a pink mohair cardigan. Home-permed hair, cut short in a style that was fashionable in the eighties. She’d had kind eyes. Then she thought about Sara and Lova. About how warm their bodies were when they slept. And about Virku. Virku with her velvety eyes and her soft woolly coat. Misery suddenly overwhelmed her. She turned her face up to the roof of the car and wiped the tears from her eyelashes with her index finger so that she wouldn’t get mascara under her eyes.
Pull yourself together, she told herself, and turned the ignition key.
Virku is lying in darkness. Then the lid above her is opened and the light of a torch dazzles her. Her heart shrinks with fear, but she does not try to resist when two rough hands reach in and lift her up. Dehydration has made her passive and obedient. But she still turns her face up toward the man who is lifting her out of the trunk of his car. Shows him as much submission as she can, with silver tape bound tightly around her muzzle and paws. In vain she exposes her throat and presses her tail between her back legs. For there is no mercy to be had.
Pastor Vesa Larsson’s newly built modern villa was behind the Folk High School. Rebecka parked the car and looked up at the impressive building. The white geometric blocks of stone blended in with the white landscape all around. In snowy weather it would have been easy to drive straight past without realizing there was a house here, if it hadn’t been for the connecting sections, which glowed in glorious bright red, yellow and blue. It was obvious the architect had been thinking of the white mountains and the colors of the Sami people.
Vesa Larsson’s wife, Astrid, opened the door.
Behind her stood a small Shetland sheepdog, barking frantically at Rebecka. Astrid’s eyes narrowed and the corners of her mouth curved downward in a grimace of distaste when she saw who was at the door.
“And what do you want?” she asked.
She must have put on thirty pounds since Rebecka last saw her. Her hair was tied back messily, and she was wearing Adidas tracksuit bottoms and a washed-out sweatshirt. In an instant she had registered Rebecka’s long camel coat, the soft Max Mara scarf and the new Audi parked outside. A hint of uncertainty flickered across her face.
I knew it, thought Rebecka nastily. I knew she’d lose the plot as soon as they had their first child.
In those days Astrid had been a little on the plump side, but pretty. Like a chubby little cherub on a fluffy cloud. And Vesa Larsson was the unmarried pastor, fought over by all the prettiest girls in the Pentecostal church who were desperate to get married.
It’s very liberating not to have to try to love everybody, thought Rebecka. I never did like her.
“I’ve come to see Vesa,” said Rebecka, walking into the house before Astrid had time to reply.
The dog backed away, but was now barking so hysterically that it was making itself hoarse with the effort. It sounded as if it had a hacking cough.
There was no hallway and no porch. The whole of the ground floor was open plan, and from her position in the doorway Rebecka could see the kitchen, the dining area, the seating around the big open fireplace and the impressive picture windows looking out at the snow. On a clear day you would have been able to see Vittangivaara, Luossavaara and the Crystal Church up on Sandstensberget through those windows.
“Is he in?” asked Rebecka, trying to speak over the sound of the dog without shouting.
Astrid snapped back: “Yes, he is. Will you shut up!”
This last remark was directed at the furiously barking dog. She rummaged in her pocket and found a handful of reddish brown dog treats, which she threw onto the floor. The dog stopped yapping and scurried after them.
Rebecka hung her coat on a hook and pushed her hat and gloves into her pocket. They’d be soaking wet when it was time to put them on again, but that couldn’t be helped. Astrid opened her mouth as if to protest, but closed it again.
“I don’t know if he’ll see you,” she said sourly. “He’s got the flu.”
“Well, I’m not leaving here until I’ve spoken to him,” said Rebecka calmly. “It’s important.”
The dog had now eaten all its treats and come back to its mistress, grabbed her leg and started rubbing itself against her, once again yapping excitedly.
“Don’t do that, Baloo,” Astrid protested halfheartedly. “I’m not a bitch.”
She tried to push the dog off, but it clung frantically to her leg with its front paws.
Good God, you can see who’s in charge in this house, thought Rebecka.
“I mean it,” said Rebecka. “I’ll sleep on the sofa. You’ll have to call the police to get rid of me.”
Astrid gave up. The combination of the dog and Rebecka was just too much for her.
“He’s in the studio,” she said. “Up the stairs, first on the left.”
Rebecka took the stairs in five long strides
“Knock first,” Astrid called after her.
Vesa Larsson was sitting in front of the big white-tiled stove on a sheepskin-covered stool. On one of the tiles “The Lord Is My Shepherd” was written in elegant letters the color of birch leaves. It was pretty. Presumably Vesa Larsson had written it himself. He wasn’t dressed, but was wearing a thick toweling dressing gown over flannelette pajamas. His tired eyes looked at Rebecka from two gray hollows above his stubble.
He feels bad, all right, thought Rebecka, but it’s not the flu.
“So you’ve come to threaten me,” he said. “Go home, Rebecka. Leave all of this alone.”
Aha, thought Rebecka. They didn’t waste any time ringing to warn you.
"Nice studio," she said, instead of answering.
“Mmm,” he said. “The architect nearly had a stroke when I said I wanted an untreated wooden floor in here. He said it would be ruined in no time by paint and ink and all the rest of it. But that was the idea. I wanted the floor to have a patina, from everything I’d created.”
Rebecka looked around. The studio was large. Despite the gloomy snowy weather outside, the daylight flooded in through the huge windows. Everything was tidy. On an easel in front of the picture window stood a covered canvas. There wasn’t the least speck of color on the floor as far as she could see. It had been a bit different in the days when he used to work in the cellar of the Pentecostal church. There were sheets of drawings all over the floor, and you could hardly move for fear of knocking over one of the many jars of turpentine and brushes. The smell of turpentine gave you a slight headache after a while. In this room there was just the faint smell of smoke from the stove. Vesa Larsson saw her inquiring look and gave a crooked smile.
“I know,” he said. “When you finally get the studio other people can only dream about, you…”
He finished the sentence with a shrug of his shoulders.
“My father used to paint in oils, you know,” he went on. “The Aurora Borealis, Lapporten, the cottage in Merasjärvi. He never grew tired of it. Refused to take an ordinary job, sat drinking with his mates instead. Then he’d pat me on the head and say: ‘The lad thinks he’s going to be a truck driver and all sorts of things, but I’ve told him, you can’t get away from art.’ But I don’t know, these days it just seems pathetic, sitting here with my dreams of being a painter. It wasn’t so hard to get away from art after all.”