When he came rushing onto the dusty main street of Jonestown he half expected to catch the two of them in their duel. But God was nowhere to be seen. Jim Jones was there, the dogs barked like crazy in their cages, and there were bodies everywhere. He could see at once that they were all dead. It was as if they had been struck down by a giant fist from the sky. Jim Jones and the six brothers who were his personal assistants and bodyguards must have gone around and shot children trying to crawl away from their parents’ corpses. He ran around among the dead looking for Maria and the child, but without success.
It was when he shouted Maria’s name that he heard Jim calling him. He turned around and saw his pastor cocking a pistol at him. They were about twenty meters apart, and between them, outstretched on the burned brown earth, were the bodies of his friends, contorted in their death throes. Jim pulled the trigger, but missed. Before Jim had the chance to shoot again, he ran. He heard many shots being fired and he heard Jim roar in rage, but he had not been hit and he made his stumbling way across the bodies and kept running until it was dark. He didn’t know if he was the only survivor. Where were Maria and the girl? Why was he the only one who was safe? Could one person escape the Day of Judgment? He didn’t know, he only knew it was no dream. This was all too real.
At dawn, the heat began to rise like steam from the trees. That was when he finally realized that no dogs were coming. He crawled out from under the tree, shook his aching limbs, and stood up. He started back toward the colony. He was exhausted and extremely thirsty. Everything was still very quiet. The dogs are dead, he thought. Jim must have meant it when he said no one would escape judgment. Not even the dogs. He climbed over the fence and started to run. The first bodies he saw were those who had tried to escape. They had been shot in the back.
Then he stopped by the corpse of a familiar-looking man. Shaking, he turned the body face up. It was Jim. His gaze has finally softened, he thought. And he’s looking me straight in the eyes. He had a sudden impulse to hit Jim, to kick him in the face. But he quelled this urge for violence and stood up. He was the only living soul among these dead, and he would not rest until he found Maria and the girl.
Maria had tried to run; she had fallen forward when they shot her in the back. The girl was in her arms. He bent over and cried. Now there’s nothing left for me, he thought. Jim has turned our paradise into a hell.
He stayed with them until helicopters started circling over the area. He reminded himself of something Jim had told them shortly after they first came to Guyana, when life was still good: “The truth about a person can just as well be determined with the nose as with your eyes and ears,” he said. “The devil hides inside people and the devil smells of sulfur. Whenever you catch a whiff of sulfur, raise the cross for protection.”
He didn’t know what the future held, if anything. He didn’t want to think about it. He wondered if he would ever be able to fill the void that God and Jim Jones had left behind.
Part I
The Darkest Hour
1
The wind picked up shortly after nine o’clock on the evening of August 21, 2001. Small waves rippled across the surface of Marebo Lake, which lay in a valley to the south of the Rommele hills. The man waiting in the shadows next to the water stretched out his hand to determine the direction of the wind. Almost due south, he thought with satisfaction. He had chosen the right spot to put out food to attract the animals he would soon be sacrificing.
He sat down on the rock where he had spread out a sweater against the chill. It was a new moon, and no light penetrated the thick layer of clouds. Dark enough for catching eels, he thought. That’s what my Swedish playmate used to say when I was growing up. The eels start their migration in August. That’s when they bump into the fishermen’s traps and wander the length of the trap. And then the trap slams shut.
His ears, always alert, picked up the sound of a car passing by some distance away. Apart from that, there was nothing. He took out a flashlight and directed the beam over the shoreline and water. He could tell that they were approaching. He spotted at least two white patches against the dark water. Soon there would be more.
He turned off the light and tested his mind — exactingly trained — by thinking of the time. Three minutes past nine, he thought. Then he lifted his arm and checked the display. Three minutes past nine — he was right, of course. In another thirty minutes it would all be over. He had learned that humans were not alone in their need for regularity. Even wild animals could be trained to respect time. It had taken him three months to prepare these animals for tonight’s sacrifice. He had proceeded with patience and deliberation. He had made himself their friend.
He turned the flashlight back on. Now there were more white patches, and they were nearing the shore. He briefly illuminated the tempting meal of broken bread crusts that he had laid out on the ground, as well as the two gasoline containers. Then he turned the light off and waited.
When the time came he did exactly as he had planned. The swans had reached the shore and were pecking at the pieces of bread he had set out for them, either oblivious of his presence or simply used to him by now. He set the flashlight aside and put on his night-vision goggles. Altogether there were six swans, three couples. Two were lying down while the rest were cleaning their feathers or still combing the ground for bread.
Now. He got up, grabbed a can in each hand, and sprayed the swans with gasoline. Before they had a chance to fly away, he emptied what remained in each of the cans and set fire to a clump of dried grass among the swans. The burning gasoline caught one swan and immediately spread to the rest. In their agony they tried to fly away over the lake, but one by one plunged into the water like fireballs. He tried to fix the sight and sound of them in his memory: both the burning, screeching birds in the air and the image of hissing, smoking wings as they crashed into the lake. Their dying screams sound like broken trumpets, he thought. That’s how I will remember them.
The whole thing was over in less than a minute. He was very pleased. It had gone according to plan, an auspicious beginning for what lay ahead.
He threw the two gasoline containers into the lake, tucked his sweater into his backpack, and shone the flashlight around the place to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind. When he was convinced he had remembered everything he took a cell phone out of his coat pocket and dialed a number. He had bought the phone in Copenhagen a few days before.
When someone answered, he asked to be connected to the police. The conversation was brief. Then he threw the phone into the lake, put on his backpack, and walked away into the night.
The wind was blowing from the east now and was growing stronger.
2
It was the end of August and Linda Caroline Wallander was wondering if she took after her father in ways she hadn’t already thought of, even though she was almost thirty years old and should know who she was by now. She had asked her father, had even tried to press him on it, but he seemed genuinely puzzled by her questions and brushed them aside by saying that she was most like her grandfather. These “who-am-I-like” conversations, as she called them, sometimes ended in fierce argument. They kindled quickly but also died away almost at once. She forgot about most of them and assumed that he did too.