Until Thy Wrath Be Past (25 page)

Martinsson turned back to the photograph of Viebke by the pine tree. That page had been opened often; the edge was well-thumbed and darker than the others. The photographer’s shadow was visible.

He’s a charmer, she thought. He’s really posing. Lolling back against the pine trunk, pipe in hand.

“Were you the photographer?” she said.

“Yes,” Pantzare said, his voice sounding hoarse.

She looked round the room. Pantzare had no pictures of children hanging on the walls. There were no wedding photos among the framed ones on the bookshelf.

You did more than just like him, she thought, looking hard at Pantzare.

“He would have approved of you telling us about this,” she said. “That you continued to be brave.”

Pantzare nodded and his eyes glazed over.

“I don’t know all that much,” he said. “About the haulier in question, that is. The British said there was someone reporting to the Germans, and that we should watch our step. They were particularly concerned about the intelligence stations, of course. They called him the Fox. And there’s no doubt that Isak Krekula was on good terms with the Germans. He made lots of shipments for them, and it has always been the money that counted as far as he was concerned.”

“Pull yourself together!” Tore Krekula said.

He was standing in Hjalmar Krekula’s bedroom looking at his brother, who was in bed with the covers over his head.

“I know you’re awake. You’re not ill! That’s enough now!”

Tore opened the blinds with such force that it sounded as if the cords were going to snap. He wanted them to snap. It was snowing.

When Hjalmar had failed to turn up for work, his brother had taken the spare key and gone to his house. Not that a key was necessary. Nobody in the village locked their doors at night.

Hjalmar did not respond. Lay under the covers like a corpse. Tore was tempted to rip them off, but something held him back. He did not dare. The person lying there was unpredictable. It was as if a voice under the covers were saying: Give me an excuse, give me an excuse.

This was not the old Hjalmar who could be kicked around however you liked.

Tore felt helpless. This was an emotion he found difficult to handle. He was not used to people not doing as they were told. First that police bitch. Now Hjalmar.

And what could Tore threaten his brother with? He had always threatened Hjalmar.

He made an impatient tour of the house. Piles of dirty dishes. Empty crisp and biscuit packets. The kitchen smelled of stale slops. Big empty plastic bottles. Clothes on the floor. Underpants, yellow at the front, brown at the back.

He went back to the bedroom. Still no sign of movement.

“For fuck’s sake,” he said. “For fuck’s sake, what a mess this place is. What a pigsty. And you. You disgust me. Like a bloody big beached whale, rotting away. Ugh!”

Turning on his heel, he marched out.

Hjalmar heard the door bang closed behind him.

I can’t go on, he thought. There’s no way out.

There was an opened packet of cheese nibbles next to the bed. He took a few handfuls.

He heard a voice inside his head. His old schoolmaster, Fernström: “It’s up to you to decide what you’re going to do next.”

No, Fernström never understood.

He did not want to think about all that. But it made no difference what he wanted. Thoughts came flooding in like water through an open sluicegate.

Hjalmar Krekula is thirteen years old. On the radio Kennedy is debating with Nixon in the run-up to the presidential elections. Kennedy is a playboy; nobody thinks he is going to win. Hjalmar is not interested in politics. He is sitting in the classroom with his elbows on the varnished lid of his desk. His head is resting on his hands, his palms against his cheekbones. He and Herr Fernström are the only ones there. Once all the other children have gone home and the smell of wet wool and stables has disappeared along with them, the smell of school takes over. The smell of dusty books, the sour smell of the rag used to clean the blackboard. The smell of soft soap from the floor, and the peculiar smell of the old building.

Hjalmar Krekula can sense Herr Fernström occasionally looking up as he sits at his desk, correcting exercise books. Hjalmar avoids meeting his gaze. Instead, his eyes trace the wood grain of his desk lid. It resembles a woman lying down. To the right is an imaginary creature, or perhaps a ptarmigan: the mark where a twig branched off is an eye.

The headmaster, Herr Bergvall, enters the room. Herr Fernström closes the exercise book he has been marking and pushes it to one side.

Bergvall greets him.

“Well,” he says, “I’ve spoken to the doctors in Kiruna, and with Elis Sevä’s mother. His wound needed six stitches. His nose wasn’t broken, but he has concussion.”

He says nothing for a while, waiting for Hjalmar Krekula to react. Hjalmar does what he always does: says nothing, fixes his eyes on something else, on the wall chart featuring a map of Palestine, on the harmonium, on the pupils’ drawings pinned up on the wall. Tore had taken young Sevä’s bicycle. Sevä had told Tore to give him the bloody thing back. Tore had said, “Come on, I’m only borrowing it.” A fight had ensued. One of Tore’s mates had gone to fetch Hjalmar. Sevä had been furious, hitting out left, right and centre.

Herr Fernström looks at the headmaster and with a barely noticeable shake of the head indicates that there is no point in waiting for an answer from Hjalmar Krekula.

The headmaster’s face becomes somewhat flushed and he starts breathing heavily, provoked by Hjalmar’s silence. He says that this is bad, very bad. Assault and battery, that is what it is – hitting a schoolmate with a spanner: for God’s sake, there are laws against that, and those laws apply in school as well.

“He started it,” Hjalmar says, as usual.

The headmaster’s voice goes up a tone, and he says he thinks Krekula is lying to save his own skin. Says his friends might back up Krekula’s story to save their own skins.

“Herr Fernström tells me that Krekula is a talented mathematician,” the headmaster says.

Hjalmar Krekula says nothing, looks out of the window.

Now the headmaster loses his patience.

“Whatever good that will do him,” he says, “when he is failing virtually every other subject. Especially conduct and attitude.”

He repeats the last sentence.

“Especially conduct and attitude.”

Hjalmar Krekula turns to face the headmaster. Gives him a disdainful look.

The headmaster immediately starts to worry that he might have his windows smashed at home.

“Krekula must try to keep his impulses under control,” he says in a conciliatory tone.

And he adds that Krekula will have one-to-one tuition with the deputy head for two weeks. Get away from the classroom for a while. Have an opportunity to think things over.

Then the headmaster leaves.

Herr Fernström sighs. Hjalmar has the impression that the sigh is a reaction to the headmaster rather than to himself.

“Why do you get involved in fighting?” Herr Fernström says. “You’re not a fool. And you’re really gifted when it comes to maths. You ought to continue your education, Hjalmar. You have the chance to catch up in your other subjects. Then you could go on to high school.”

“Huh,” Hjalmar says.

“What do you mean, huh?”

“My father would never allow it. We have to work in the haulage business, me and Tore.”

“I’ll have a word with your father. It’s up to you to decide what you’re going to do next. Do you see that? If you stop fighting and . . .”

“I couldn’t give a toss,” Hjalmar says vehemently. “I’ve no desire to continue at school anyway. It’s better to get a job and earn some money. Can I go now?”

Herr Fernström sighs again. And this time the sigh is definitely aimed at Hjalmar Krekula.

“Yes, you can go,” he says. “Go away.”

But Fernström really does have a word with the old man. One day when Hjalmar comes home, Isak Krekula is bubbling over with rage. Kerttu continues making pancakes with a grim expression on her face while Isak lays down the law in the kitchen.

“I want you to be quite clear that I sent that schoolmaster of yours packing with a flea in his ear,” he bellows at Hjalmar. “I’ll be damned if a son of mine is going to become an anaemic calculating machine, and I made sure he understood that. Maths, eh? Who the devil do you think you are? Too posh to work in the transport business, is that it? Not good enough for your lordship? I’ll have you know that it’s the haulage business that has put food on your table for your entire life.”

He gasps for breath, as if his fury is well on the way to choking him, as if it were a pillow over his mouth.

“If it doesn’t suit you to help to take responsibility for your family, then you’re not welcome to stay here, is that clear? Work away at your maths if you like, but in that case you’ll have to look elsewhere for a place to live.”

Hjalmar wants to tell his father that he has no intention of going to high school. This is all something thought up by Herr Fernström. But he does not say a word. His fear of his father gets in the way of what he wants to say. But there is something else as well. A flash of insight.

The insight is that he really is good at maths. Even talented. Just as the headmaster said. He is a talented mathematician. Fernström told the headmaster, and Fernström drove all the way to Piilijärvi to tell his dad.

And when Isak Krekula yells, “Well, how’s it going to be?” Hjalmar does not reply. Isak gives him a box on the ear, two in fact, making his head spin and throb. Hjalmar has the feeling that he can become “an anaemic calculating machine”. And that is something way beyond the reach of the rest of the family, something that makes Isak froth at the mouth with rage.

Then Hjalmar goes to the lake to sit on the shore. Has to turn the cheek that has been smacked away from the autumn sun, to prevent it hurting even more.

He watches two ravens playing tag with a twig. One of them performs wild acrobatics with the twig in its beak, the other chases close behind it. They loop the loop, spin round on their own axes, dive down towards the water, then shoot back up again.

The one with the stick flies straight into the crown of a tree; it seems certain that it will collide with the trunk or a heavy branch and break its neck, but the next second it emerges on the other side – it has found its way through the network of branches like a black throwing knife. It sails out over the lake and gives a reckless “korrrp” – and drops the twig, of course. Both ravens circle above the water before they decide they cannot be bothered and fly off above the tops of the pine trees.

I land on the jetty next to Hjalmar. He’s thirteen years old, and his cheek is flaming red. Tears are streaming down his face, although he’s trying hard not to cry. And then comes the anger. It hits him with such force that he starts trembling. He hates Isak, who bawled and yelled so violently that spit was flying in all directions. He hates Kerttu, who simply turned her back on it all, as usual. He hates Herr Fernström – why the hell did he have to go and have a word with his father? Hjalmar didn’t ask him to. He has never even thought about going to high school. He’s had something taken away from him that he didn’t have in the first place. So why is he crying?

The fury inside him is like a red-hot poker. He stands up, has to struggle to stay on his feet. He goes looking for Tore, who is messing about with his Zündapp moped, fitting a bigger jet to the carburettor.

“Come on, there’s a job we need to do,” he says.

Herr Fernström’s black Volkswagen is parked in its usual place, a hundred metres from the school.

Hjalmar has brought a crowbar with him. He starts with the rear and front lights. Soon the glass is lying like heaps of diamonds on the tarmac. But that’s not enough: he still has so much anger pulsating inside him that needs to come out, out. He smashes the windscreen, the side windows, the back window. There is a loud bang as the panes splinter, the glass shoots out in all directions, and Tore takes a couple of paces backwards. Some children walk past.

“If you squeal on us, it’ll be your skulls next time,” Tore says, and they run off like startled mice.

Tore places one foot on the frame of a shattered side window and vaults up onto the roof, bounces up and down several times until it is completely dented and ruined, then jumps down onto the road via the bonnet.

It happens very quickly, all done within three minutes, and then it’s time to run.

“Come on,” Tore shouts, already on his moped, having driven some way off.

Hjalmar’s arms ache, and he feels sweaty. He’s calm now. He’ll never cry again.

Opening the car door, he searches through the briefcase on the front passenger seat. Tore is shouting away, worried in case some adult should turn up at the scene. There is no wallet, just three maths textbooks –
Tekno’s Giant Arithmetic Book, Practical Arithmetic, Geometry Manual
– and a paperback entitled
Turning Points in Physics – A Series of Lectures Given at Oxford University
. Hjalmar tucks them all inside his jacket – apart from the
Giant Arithmetic Book
, which is simply too big: he has to carry that under his arm.

I leave them to it. Soar up with the thermals. Up, up.

I shall start things moving with regard to Prosecutor Rebecka Martinsson and Hjalmar Krekula.

Martinsson is sitting in her office after the morning’s proceedings. They comprised cases of dangerous driving, G.B.H. and fraud. The documentation needs putting in order, and decisions must be made. She knows that if she knuckles down, it will take half an hour, no more. But she doesn’t feel like it; she is finding it hard to concentrate.

The snowy weather has passed over. Quickly. As it tends to do in the mountains. Just when it felt as if it would never cease. When the wind was raging and howling, and the sticky April snow was forcing its way inside people’s upturned collars, wet and icy. Suddenly, everything died down. The clouds blew away. The sky became light blue and cloudless.

Martinsson checks her mobile. Hopes her man will ring or text her. Outside the sun is shining down on the facades and roofs of buildings, onto all the newly fallen snow.