ASA LARSSON ~ THE SAVAGE ALTAR by Åsa Larsson Read Free Book Online Page B

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?
    “H
i, everyone, may I introduce Thomas Söderberg. He’s the new pastor at the Mission church. I’ve invited him along as a representative of the free churches.”
    It is Margareta Fransson who is speaking, the Religious Studies teacher.
    She’s smiling all the time, thinks Rebecka, why is she doing that? It isn’t a happy smile, it’s just submissive and conciliatory. And she buys all her clothes from A Helping Hand, an ideologically run boutique that sells products made by a women’s collective in the Third World.
    “You’ve already met Evert Aronsson, a priest from the Church of Sweden, and Andreas Gault from the Catholic Church,” continues Margareta Fransson.
    “I think we should be allowed to meet a Buddhist or a Muslim or something,” says Nina Eriksson. “Why do we only get to meet a load of Christians?”
    Nina Eriksson is the class spokeswoman and chief busybody. Loud and clear, her voice echoes round the classroom. Many support her statement and murmur in agreement.
    “There isn’t such a wide choice in Kiruna,” Margareta Fransson apologizes halfheartedly.
    Then she hands over to Thomas Söderberg.
    He looks good, you have to admit. Dark brown curly hair, and long black eyelashes. He laughs and jokes, but from time to time he becomes totally serious. He’s young to be a priest—or pastor, as he says. And he’s wearing
jeans and a shirt. He draws on the board. The picture of the bridge. It’s all about how Jesus gave up his life for them. Built a bridge to God. Because God so loved the world that he gave up his only son. He addresses the class with the friendly “du” form, although he is talking to twenty-four people at the same time. He wants them to choose life. Say yes. And he answers all the questions they put to him at the end. At some of the questions he falls silent for a while. He frowns and nods thoughtfully. As if it’s the first time anyone has asked these questions. As if they have given him something to think about. Much later Rebecka realizes that it was far from the first time he’d heard those questions. That the answers had been prepared a long time ago. But the person who asks the questions is made to feel special.
    He ends the visit with an invitation to the Mission church summer gathering in Gällivare. Three weeks’ work and Bible studies, no pay but free board and lodging.
    “Dare to be curious,” he urges them. “You can’t be sure the Christian faith isn’t for you unless you’ve found out what it really stands for.”
    Rebecka thinks he’s looking straight at her as he speaks. She looks straight back at him. And she can feel the fire.
    T he snowplow had cleared the road right up to her grandmother’s gray cottage. There was a light upstairs. Rebecka