“Yes,” replied Anna-Maria, and realized she was embarrassed in case her colleague thought she’d gone behind his back. “Pohjanen rang and he was just about to leave and…”
She stopped, angry that she’d tried to explain herself and to make excuses.
“That’s fine,” said Sven-Erik cheerfully. “You can tell me all about it in the car. We’ve got problems with our pastors. Hell, I’ve been looking everywhere for you. In the end I asked Sonja on the switchboard who’d phoned you. We need to go now.”
Anna-Maria glanced questioningly at Pohjanen; he shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows at the same time, as if to say that their business was finished.
“I see Luleå got hammered by Färjestad.” Sven-Erik smirked as a parting shot to the doctor, at the same time hustling Anna-Maria along with him.
“Go on, rub it in,” sighed Lars Pohjanen, fumbling in his pocket for a cigarette.
The plane to Kiruna was almost full. Hordes of foreign tourists off to drive a dog team and spend the night on reindeer skins in the ice hotel at Jukkasjärvi jostled for space with rumpled businessmen returning home clutching their free fruit and newspapers.
Rebecka sank down and fastened her seat belt. The murmur of voices, the synthetic ping as the signs lit up and went off overhead and the humming of the engines lulled her into a restless sleep. She slept for the whole journey.
In her dream she is running across a cloudberry bog. It is a hot August day. The heat of the sun is making the moisture rise from the bog. Sweat and midge repellent are pouring down her forehead and into her eyes. It stings. There are tears in her eyes. A black cloud of midges creeps into her nostrils and ears. She can’t see. Someone is chasing her. They’re right behind her. And as always in her dreams, her legs won’t carry her weight. They have no strength and the bog is waterlogged. Her feet sink deeper and deeper into the peat moss and someone, or something, is chasing her. Now she can’t lift her foot. She’s sinking into the bog. She tries to shout for her mummy, but only a faint sound comes from her throat. Then she feels a hand, heavy on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry, did I frighten you?”
Rebecka opened her eyes and saw a flight attendant bending over her. The woman smiled a little uncertainly and took her hand from Rebecka’s shoulder.
“We’re preparing to land in Kiruna; I’ll have to ask you to put the back of your seat into the upright position.”
Rebecka’s hand flew up to her mouth. Had she been dribbling? Or worse, screaming? She didn’t dare look at her neighbor, but turned to look out into the darkness. It was down there. The town. It shone like a jewel glittering at the bottom of a well, its lights surrounded by the darkness of the mountains. It felt like a blow to the stomach and the heart.
My town, she thought, the melancholy of seeing it again blending with happiness, rage and fear in a strange mixture.
Twenty minutes later she was sitting in the rented Audi on the way down to Kurravaara. The village lay fifteen kilometers outside Kiruna. As a child she had often traveled the whole way from Kiruna down to the village on her kick sledge. It was a happy memory. Especially in the late winter when the road was covered with a wonderful layer of thick, shining ice, and nobody spoiled it with sand, salt or grit.
The moon lit up the snow-covered forest around her. The snowdrifts along the sides of the road formed a frame.
It’s not right, she thought, I shouldn’t have let them take this away from me. Before I go back I’m going to bloody well get the kick sledge out and have a go.
From when should I have started to handle things differently? she thought as the car swept through the forest. If I could go back in time, would I have to go right back to the first summer? Or even further back? In that case it would have to be that spring. When I first met Thomas Söderberg. When he visited my class at the Hjalmar Lundbohm School. Even then I should have behaved differently. I should have seen through him. Not been so bloody naïve. The others in the class must have been much smarter than me. Why weren’t they tempted?
“Hi, everyone, may I introduce Thomas Söderberg. He’s the new pastor