Christmas before. Our tradition is that all the pastors’ families eat breakfast together after Christmas Day services here in the Fellowship Hall. Of course, the rest of the staff is also welcome to join us, if they want. Both of my boys were home, so I brought the camera with me to the Christmas breakfast.”
As she was speaking, she laid out the pictures in a particular order. When she was satisfied, she said, “In the first pictures you have the Schyttelius family. And there is our family. And in the later ones you can see the rest of the staff.”
For the first time, Irene saw what the Schyttelius family had looked like when they were all intact and alive. Sten Schyttelius was smiling in three of the four pictures. In the fourth, he was laughing as he raised a schnapps glass to Bengt Måårdh in a toast.
“Is the early service the only thing a pastor does on Christmas Day?” Irene asked.
“No. Then there is High Mass and Evening Service. Why?”
“Sten Schyttelius and your husband are drinking schnapps in the morning.”
“Just a small one, to go with the herring. Don’t worry, it would have worn off before High Mass. The service is divided among the pastors and the churches. It would be too much otherwise.”
Sten Schyttelius had been a tall, impressive man. His large hand which grasped the foot of the schnapps glass looked more as if it belonged to a day laborer than a clergyman. His face was powerful, dominated by a large, meaty nose. His hairline had receded, but his steel gray hair was thick, worn en brosse. His smile in the pictures seemed warm and heartfelt. His eyes almost disappeared in laugh lines in the photos where he was beaming at the camera.
Next to the rector was his wife. She looked plain next to her sparkling husband. A dark-blue suit jacket and a high-necked gray blouse added to that impression. Her thinning gray hair was cut short and lay flat on her head. Irene thought that she looked a bit like Rut Börjesson, but the deaconess had at least some sense of life about her. Elsa Schyttelius had none. She was looking straight into the lens in one of the pictures. Her gaze was empty and her facial expression stiff. Had she been sick during that Christmas season?
A young woman was seated next to Elsa. It had to be Rebecka. She was also big, and the contrast made Elsa look even smaller and more colorless. The similarity to her father was apparent. Rebecka wasn’t heavy like him, but her large bone structure was like his. She wore a light-brown suit jacket, under which a yellow turtleneck could be seen. Her thick hair was dark and shoulder-length. Loose curls softly framed her face. Based on what Irene could make out, she wasn’t wearing makeup, but her own coloring was strong enough to accent her distinct features. When she saw Rebecka’s face, Irene thought of a Mediterranean movie star from the fifties. She didn’t fit the twenty-first century ideal of anorexic good looks, but she was a beautiful woman.
“She must be tall,” Irene said, looking up at Louise Måårdh.
“We are exactly the same height: One hundred seventy-eight centimeters,” Louise responded.
She smiled faintly when she saw Irene’s surprise at this exact reply.
“We started talking about it during breakfast. She had bought that nice brown jacket at a London shop. Long Tall Sally, I remember it was called. You, of course, will appreciate how difficult it can be to find clothes,” she said.
Irene nodded. She knew the problem well. The church accountant placed a long well-manicured index-finger nail on one of the photos and said, “Jacob is sitting there next to my Per. Jacob and Rebecka were the same height.”
Jacob Schyttelius smiled at the camera and looked happy and relaxed. He had light hair and a slender build. Irene couldn’t see the slightest resemblance to his father or sister, but it was possible to see some similarities with his mother. The only thing the siblings had in common were brown eyes and dark eyebrows.
In the last three photos, Irene saw the people she had met a little while ago in the hall, but also a number of others whom she hadn’t met.
“Who are these people?” she asked.
“The church association’s employees. The secretary of information, the parish hostess, parish assistants, childcare workers, activity director, youth director, and our three preschool teachers.” Louise pointed at each as she identified them.