He arrived at the parking lot of the chapel, stepped out onto the gravel, and looked around. Perhaps he was trying to determine which of his old selves was waiting.
Over the years, the ranks had grown smaller in their village. But those who remained, and who saw Sander Eriksson when he came, thought he looked the same. He was over forty now, but he was still slim and gangly, although perhaps his posture, which people recalled as having been very upright, was a bit more slumped. It must have been the endless hours he spent at the lectern in front of his pupils each day. Silver strands threaded the dark hair at his temples.
Isidor Enoksson was standing near the steps outside the chapel doors. He was over eighty now, but his eyes were still lively; he was holding a hymnal and seemed unbothered by the summer heat. When he saw Sander, his face litup.
Inside the chapel, the windows were open. A white casket stood at the front, surrounded by floral wreaths with white ribbons, memorial phrases. A portrait sat on a small easel. It must have been taken beforethe illness struck. The face in the portrait was furrowed but warm, hopeful; a sharp and curious gaze meeting the lens of the camera.
Sander took a seat behind a woman with dark hair. Was that Felicia? Yes, it was. Or maybe not.
Isidor had left his spot by the front steps. The doors shut behind him, and he slowly closed window after window in the chapel. After exchanging a few words with those in the front row, he left the last two windows open. The scent of aftershave lingered in his wake. Bells rang out.
When the doors of the chapel opened again, Isidor was startled and turned around. He seemed surprised, as though he’d been expecting someone else, but he offered a kind nod and a big smile. There weren’t a lot of people who could smile that way at a funeral without raising some eyebrows, but Isidor had the knack.
It was Filip Söderström. He stepped in wearing snow-white sneakers, black suit trousers, and a short-sleeved black linen shirt. As old as he was now, the years were visible on his face.
Now someone else arrived; maybe this was the person Isidor had been waiting for. She wasn’t alone. Two helpers propped open the doors, adjusted the ramp, and helped get the emerald-green mobility scooter through so Filip’s mother, Lillemor, could steer into the chapel. Frail and white-haired, skin and bones. There was no trace of the beauty she had undeniably been. A few people turned to look, but most didn’t bother. Filip was among them. He didn’t move from his spot in the pew until his mother was parked next to him. Then he reached out one hand and mechanically placed it on top of hers.
What were they doing here? Some said it was reconciliation. Some said duty. Maybe it was both.
No one bothered to close the doors again, and the sun shone in on the chapel floor, bright and strong. Hymnals were opened in silence. Place-keeping ribbons adjusted.Beautiful nature, beautiful pilgrimage of the souls,they sang.
Sten Persson had lived the last season of his life in Åled, not far from here, in a small house with stone steps leading to the front door,and a driveway where he could park the car. He had come to the brink of self-destruction more than once over the years. A few years after Killian’s death, he and Linda tried to live together again, but it was hard. Sten had been too far gone, and maybe the same went for Linda. Then she suddenly got sick and died. That was ten years ago now. Following Linda’s death, many people had noticed the marks on Sten’s forearms and feared that there were more to come, that it would happen on a day when no one dropped by for a visit or had time to call an ambulance. Sooner or later, they said, because that was so often how it went.
In recent years, though, he seemed to have come to terms with what had happened, or maybe just with himself. Was that possible, to come to terms with yourself? Yes, presumably it was. Maybe that’s what everyone was doing all the time.
And if anyone needed to do it, it was Sten.
The cancer was in his pancreas. Sten got the diagnosis only last winter and now, just six months later, he was gone too. Almost exactly the same course of events as Linda.
—
The bells faded, but hardly anyone noticed.
Sander sang along with the rest of the congregation. His voice was smooth and gentle and seemed to come from a lonely place inside his skinny chest. Suddenly he was distracted. The shapes of the shadows on the chapel floor transformed, as if something outside the chapel doors were blocking the sun. Sander glanced at the entrance for a third time.
It was as if he wasn’t entirely alone after all, but it was hard to describe exactly how. No one had accompanied him to the chapel. At least, no one visible.
The last notes of the hymn lingered in the chapel, as though they didn’t want to let go, and then Isidor began to speak. In time, he mentioned both Linda and Killian.
It was almost eerie to hear their names after so long. Thinking thenames was one thing, but listening to them come out of someone’s mouth—it stung.
Sander sat perfectly still. His face was under control. Only his hands needed to twist and clasp each other, as though the pain dwelled inside his skin.
In the summer of 2022, it sometimes felt like everyone had lost the ability to remember places and people and things, and most of all, who they had once been. Events in life happen once, they’re not repeated, they never return. Except in memories, and without memories it’s hard to make it all fit together.
When they were little, they heard that the coffin maker made the lids thinner than the rest of the casket so it would be easier to rise again when the time came. Sometimes, for children, he didn’t make a proper lid at all, just a flimsy slab. He didn’t want to cause himself a fright if he could avoidit.
The question was, what would have happened in their case, those who had been lying in the ground at the cemetery in Oskarström for over twenty years? Were they children or not? How old were they, really? It seemed unthinkable that they could have been as old as eighteen, yet so young.
By the time Sten Persson was buried, a few years after his ex-wife and over twenty years after his son, a lot had changed. The young people of Skavböke had grown up, gotten married, and become parents, and, all things considered, had turned out okay—most of them, at least. But for an instant there in the chapel, it didn’t feel that way at all. As if time were something other people could take hold of and bend violently to their will, could use as a weapon.
56
An hour later, it was over. As the congregation filed out of the chapel, God felt far away. Voices spoke, low and tense and restrained. For some, the heat was a heavier burden than the grief. Men stood with their hands in their pockets; women held their small clutches.
“It was a nice service,” said Sander’s mother, Eva.
“If only it weren’t so damned hot.”
