you know that?” Sanna burst out. “I don’t think he ever got over you. If you’d stayed…”
Rebecka spun around. Rage flared up in her like a burning torch. She was trembling and shaking, and the words that came out of her mouth were broken and jerky. But they came out. She couldn’t stop them.
“Just stop right there,” she screamed. “Just shut the fuck up and we’ll get this sorted out once and for all.”
A woman with an overweight Labrador retriever on a lead stopped dead when she heard Rebecka’s scream, and she peered curiously into the car.
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” Rebecka went on, without lowering her voice. “Viktor was never in love with me, he was never even keen on me. I never want to hear a single word about it again. I don’t intend to take any responsibility for the fact that he and I didn’t end up together. And I certainly don’t intend to take responsibility for the fact that he was murdered. You’re not fucking right in the head if that’s what you’ve come up with. Please feel free to carry on living in your parallel universe, but leave me out of it.”
She fell silent and pounded on the side window. Then she banged her head with both hands. The woman with the dog looked alarmed, took a step backwards and disappeared.
For God’s sake. I must calm down, thought Rebecka. I’m in no fit state to drive the car. I’ll have us off the road.
“That’s not what I meant,” whined Sanna. “I’ve never blamed you for anything. If anyone’s to blame, it’s me.”
“What for? Viktor’s murder?”
Something inside Rebecka stopped and pricked up its ears.
“Everything,” mumbled Sanna. “The fact that you were forced to move away. Everything!”
“Pack it in!” spat Rebecka, filled with a new rage that swept away the shaking and turned her legs to ice and iron. “I have no intention of sitting here, patting you on the shoulder and telling you none of it was your fault. I’ve done that a hundred times already. I was an adult. I made my choice and I took the consequences.”
“Yes,” said Sanna obediently.
Rebecka started the car and screeched out onto Malmvägen. Sanna raised her hands to her mouth as an oncoming car tooted angrily at them. From Hjalmar Lundbohmsvägen they could see the mining company’s offices glowing in front of the mine. Rebecka was struck by the fact that they no longer seemed so big. When she used to live in the town, the offices had always been massive. They passed the town hall with its stiff tiled façade, its remarkable clock tower outlined against the sky like a black steel skeleton.
What I said was true, thought Rebecka. He was never in love with me. Although I can understand everybody thinking he was. That’s what we let them think, Viktor and me. It began that very first summer. During the summer church with Thomas Söderberg in Gällivare.
In the end there are eleven young people attending the summer church. They are to live, work and study the Bible together for three weeks. Pastor Thomas Söderberg and his wife, Maja, are leading the group. Maja is pregnant. She has long, shiny hair, doesn’t wear makeup and always looks so sweet and cheerful. But sometimes Rebecka sees her move to one side and press her fist into the small of her back. And sometimes Thomas puts his arms around her and says:
“We can manage without you. Go and lie down and have a little rest.”
She usually looks at him with relief and gratitude. It’s hard work, being the unpaid wife of a pastor.
Maja’s sister, Magdalena, is there too, helping out. She does everything quickly, like a cheerful mouse. She can play the guitar, and teaches them hymns.
Viktor and Sanna are among the eleven. Everyone notices them straightaway. They are very much alike. They both have long, fair hair. Sanna’s is naturally curly. Her snub nose and big eyes give her face a doll-like expression.
She’ll still look like a child when she’s eighty, thinks Rebecka, and forces herself not to stare.
Sanna is the only one of the young people who is a committed Christian. She’s only seventeen, and has a small child with her. Sara, who is three months old.
“Jesus and I have an exciting, loving relationship,” says Sanna with a crooked smile.
They have different kinds of belief, Sanna and Thomas Söderberg. Thomas demonstrates his belief in several different ways.