The Preacher (40 page)

The smell of the hospital frightened her. There was something final about that sterile odour, the colourless walls and the dreary artwork. After not being able to sleep a single minute during the night, she thought that everyone around her seemed to be moving in slow motion. The rustling of the staff’s clothing was amplified so that in Solveig’s ears it sounded very loud. She expected the world to come crashing down around her at any moment. Sometime near dawn, the doctor had told her that Stefan’s life hung by a thin thread and she had already started to grieve. What else should she do? Everything she’d had in life had run through her fingers like fine grains of sand and been blown away with the wind. Nothing she had ever tried to hold on to remained. Johannes, their life at Västergården, her sons’ future – it had all faded to nothingness and driven her into a world of her own.

But now she could no longer flee. Not when reality was pressing in on her, taking the form of visions, sounds and smells. The reality that they were now cutting into Stefan’s body was too palpable for her to flee from.

She had broken with God long ago, but now she prayed with all the fervour she could muster. She rattled off all the words she could remember from her childhood faith, made promises she would never be able to keep, hoping that they would be enough to give Stefan at least a tiny advantage that might keep him alive. Beside her sat Robert with a shocked expression which didn’t change all night. Solveig wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch him, console him, be a mother. But so many years had passed that the chance of displaying any maternal feeling had vanished. Instead, they sat next to each other like strangers, united only by their love for the man who lay in the bed, both of them silent in their certainty that he was the best of all of them.

A familiar figure appeared at the end of the corridor. Linda slunk along the walls, unsure of how she would be received – but all desire to quarrel had been beaten out of Solveig and Robert, along with the blows that had been rained down on Stefan.

Linda sat down quietly next to Robert and waited a while before she dared ask, ‘How’s he doing? I heard from Pappa that you rang him this morning and told him about what happened.’

‘Yes, I thought Gabriel ought to know,’ said Solveig, still with her gaze fixed in the distance, ‘because after all, blood is thicker than water. I just thought he should know …’ She seemed to fade away and Linda merely nodded.

Solveig went on, ‘They’re still operating on him. We don’t know much more than … than it’s possible he might die.’

‘But who did this?’ said Linda, determined not to let her aunt escape into silence before she got an answer.

‘We don’t know,’ said Robert. ‘But whoever the bastard was, he’s going to pay for this!’

He pounded his hand hard on the armrest and woke up from his state of shock. Solveig said nothing.

‘What the hell are you doing here, anyway?’ Robert said, only now realizing how odd it was that this cousin they had so little contact with had come to the hospital.

‘I … we … I …’ Linda stammered as she searched for words to describe what the relationship actually was between herself and Stefan. It surprised her that Robert didn’t know about it. Stefan had told her that he hadn’t said anything about their relationship to his brother, but she still thought he would have said something. The fact that Stefan had wanted to keep their relationship a secret was proof of how important it must have been for him, and the insight suddenly made her feel ashamed.

‘We … we’ve been seeing a lot of each other, Stefan and I.’ She scrutinized her perfectly manicured nails.

‘What do you mean – seeing?’ Robert gave her a look of astonishment. Then it dawned on him. ‘Aha, so you’ve been … okay …’ He laughed. ‘Well, there you see. How about that? My little brother. What a stud.’ Then the laughter stuck in his throat when he remembered why he was sitting there, and the shocked expression returned.

As the hours passed, all three of them silently sat in a row in the depressing waiting room. Every sound of footsteps in the corridor made them anxiously watch for a doctor in a white coat who would come and give them the news. Unknown to each other, they were all praying.

When Solveig rang early that morning Gabriel had been surprised at the sympathy he felt. The feud between the families had gone on for so long that hostility had become second nature, but when he heard about Stefan’s condition, all the old grudges were flushed away. Stefan was his brother’s son, his own flesh and blood, and that was the only thing that counted. And yet it would not be entirely easy to go to the hospital. Somehow it felt like a hypocritical gesture, and he was thankful when Linda said that she would go. He had even paid the taxi fare to Uddevalla for her, even though under normal circumstances he regarded taking a taxi as the height of extravagance.

He was sitting at his big desk, at a loss what to do. The whole world seemed turned upside down, and things were just getting worse and worse. Everything seemed to have come to a head over the last twenty-four hours: Jacob taken in for interrogation, the search of Västergården, the whole family having to give blood samples, and now Stefan in hospital, hovering between life and death. The whole sense of security that he had spent his life creating was now crashing down before his eyes.

In the mirror hanging on the opposite wall, he saw his face as if for the first time. And it was, in a way. He saw for himself how he had aged over the past few days. The vitality in his eyes was gone, his face was lined with worry, and his usually well-groomed hair was dishevelled and dull. Gabriel had to admit that he was disappointed with himself. He had always considered himself a man who could cope with any difficulty, someone people could rely on in hard times. But instead it was Laine who had emerged as the stronger of the two of them. Maybe he had always known that was true. Maybe she had known it too, but allowed him to live in his illusions, since she knew that would make him happier. A warm feeling filled him. A quiet love. Something that had long been buried deep beneath his egocentric contempt, but which now had a chance to break out. Maybe something good could still come out of all this misery.

A knock on the door interrupted his meditations.

‘Come in.’

Laine came in cautiously and he noticed once again what a transformation had taken place. Gone was the nervous expression on her face and the hands that fidgeted; she even looked taller, since now she stood up straight.

‘Good morning, dear. Did you sleep well?’ he asked.

She nodded and sat down in one of the two armchairs he kept in the office for visitors. Gabriel gave her a searching glance. The circles under her eyes contradicted her affirmative reply. And yet she had been asleep for more than twelve hours. Yesterday when she came home after collecting Jacob at the police station he could hardly get a word out of her. She had merely mumbled that she was tired and then went to lie down in her room. Something was brewing, he could feel that now. Laine hadn’t looked at him even once since she came into the room. Instead she was studying her shoes with extreme care. He could feel his anxiety rising, but first he had to tell her about Stefan. She reacted with surprise and sympathy, but it was as though the words didn’t really reach her. Something so monumental was occupying her thoughts that not even Stefan’s beating could make her focus on anything else. Now all of Gabriel’s warning lights were flashing at once.

‘Has something happened? Did anything happen at the police station yesterday? I spoke with Marita last night, and she said that they’d released Jacob, so the police could hardly have …’ He didn’t know quite how to continue. His thoughts darted about in his head as he rejected one explanation after the other.

‘No, Jacob has been freed of all suspicion,’ Laine said.

‘What? Well, that’s fantastic!’ Gabriel’s face brightened. ‘How … what is it that …’

Still the same grim expression, and Laine refused to look him in the eye.

‘Before we get into that, there’s something else you ought to know.’ She hesitated. ‘Johannes, he, he …’

Gabriel squirmed impatiently in his chair. ‘Yes, what is it about Johannes? Is it about that unfortunate exhumation?’

‘Yes, you could say that.’ Another pause. Gabriel felt like shaking her to make her spit out what she was trying to say. Then Laine took a deep breath and everything spilled out so fast that he could hardly keep up with what she said.

‘They told Jacob that they’d examined Johannes’s remains and confirmed that he did not commit suicide. He was murdered.’

The pen Gabriel had been holding in his hand fell to the desk. He looked at Laine as if she’d lost her mind.

‘Yes, I know it sounds utterly crazy,’ she went on, ‘but they’re apparently quite certain. Somebody murdered Johannes.’

‘Do they know who?’ It was the only thing he could think of to say.

‘Obviously not,’ Laine snapped. ‘They just discovered it, and since so many years have passed …’ She threw out her hands.

‘Well, that’s some news, I must say. But tell me more about Jacob. Did the police apologize?’ said Gabriel brusquely.

‘As I said, he’s no longer a suspect. They managed to prove what we already knew,’ Laine snorted.

‘That’s hardly a surprise. It was only a matter of time. But how … ?’

‘The blood samples they took from us yesterday. They compared his blood with some traces the killer left behind and it didn’t match.’

‘I could have told them that from the first. And I did, unless my memory deceives me,’ Gabriel declared pompously, feeling that a huge knot was loosened. ‘Why don’t we have a little champagne to celebrate, Laine? I don’t understand why you look so glum.’

Now she raised her head and looked him straight in the eye. ‘Because they also managed to analyse your blood.’

‘Well, it certainly couldn’t have been a match,’ said Gabriel with a laugh.

‘No, not with the murderer’s. But … it didn’t match Jacob’s, either.’

‘What? What do you mean? Didn’t match? In what way?’

‘They could tell that you’re not Jacob’s father.’

The silence that followed was like an explosion. Gabriel again caught a glimpse of his own face in the mirror. This time he didn’t even recognize himself. A stranger with a gaping mouth and wide eyes stared back at him. He couldn’t look at himself and had to turn away.

Laine looked as if the cares of the world had fallen from her shoulders, and a radiance came over her face. He understood it was relief. He suddenly realized what a burden it must have been for her to bear such a secret all these years, but then his anger struck with full force.

‘What the hell are you saying?’ he roared, so loud that she jumped.

‘They’re right. You’re not Jacob’s father.’

‘Who the hell is, then?’

Silence. Slowly the truth dawned on him. He fell back in his chair and whispered, ‘Johannes.’

Laine didn’t need to confirm it. Suddenly everything was clear as crystal to him, and he cursed his own stupidity. Imagine that he had not seen it earlier! The stolen glances, the feeling that someone was in his home when he wasn’t there, Jacob’s almost uncanny resemblance to his brother.

‘But why … ?’

‘Why did I have an affair with Johannes, you mean?’ Laine’s voice had taken on a cold, metallic undertone. ‘Because he was everything that you were not. I was second choice for you, a wife chosen for practical reasons, someone who would know her place and see to it that your life would be the way you had always imagined, with the least possible aggravation. Everything would be organized, logical, rational – and lifeless!’ Her voice softened. ‘Johannes didn’t do anything that he didn’t want to do. He loved when he wanted to, hated when he wanted to, lived when he wanted to … Being with Johannes was like experiencing a force of nature. He really saw me, saw me. He didn’t just pass me on the way to his next business meeting. Every time we made love it was like dying and being reborn.’

Gabriel trembled at the passion he heard in Laine’s voice. Then her tone changed and she looked at him solemnly.

‘I’m really sorry that I deceived you about Jacob for all these years. Believe me, I really am, and I apologize with all my heart. But I don’t intend to beg forgiveness because I loved Johannes.’

Impulsively she leaned forward and placed her hands on Gabriel’s. He resisted the urge to pull them away.

‘You’ve had so many chances, Gabriel. I know that there is a lot of what defined Johannes in you as well, but you don’t ever let it come out. We could have had many good years together, and I would have loved you. In a way I did come to love you, in spite of everything, but I also know you well enough to know that now you will never let me keep on loving you.’

Gabriel didn’t say a word. He knew that she was right. All his life he had struggled against living in his brother’s shadow. Laine’s betrayal struck him in his most vulnerable spot.

He remembered the nights when he and Laine had kept watch together at their son’s hospital bed. He remembered wishing that he’d been the only person there and that his son would see how unimportant all the others were, including Laine. In Gabriel’s eyes he had been the only one that Jacob needed. It was the two of them against the world. It seemed ridiculous to think about it now, since he was actually the one who was superfluous in that connection. Johannes was the one who had had the right to sit at Jacob’s side, hold his hand, tell him that everything would be all right. Along with Ephraim, who had saved Jacob’s life. Ephraim and Johannes. The eternal duo that Gabriel could never join. Now they appeared invincible.

‘And Linda?’ He knew the answer but had to ask. If for no other reason than to needle Laine. She just snorted.

‘Linda is your daughter. There’s absolutely no doubt about that. Johannes is the only lover I had during the time we’ve been married, and now I’m going to have to take the consequences.’

Another question bothered him more.

‘Does Jacob know?’

‘Jacob knows.’

She stood up, giving Gabriel a sad look. Then she said quietly, ‘I’ll be packing today. I’ll be gone by this evening.’