Daniel moved restlessly in the straw. He wondered whether Sanna would come to church, or whether the man who dragged her away would lock her in at home. Maybe he was like Father and tied her up.
The milkmaid was clattering the pails. She was singing. It sounded terrible, but he still liked her voice. Sometimes she would laugh and pat him on the head. She wasn’t like the other milkmaid, who never touched him and flinched if he happened to brush against her.
He got up from the straw. The girl was milking the last cow. He sneaked out of the barn. The yard was empty. He ran out onto the cart track. When he turned round he was surrounded by the fog. He tried to catch it in his hands. Then he listened. Sounds were louder in the fog. He turned round slowly and tried to listen for the sound of drums. From somewhere he thought he could hear beasts of prey growling or somebody laughing, but if he headed in the direction the sound was coming from they would move.
He was just about to go back when he stopped short. On the road in front of him lay a snake, frozen stiff. It was brown and had a pattern on its back. At first he thought it was dead. He took a few steps backwards without taking his eyes off it. It didn’t move. Then he realised that it was so cold that it couldn’t move. It had come up out of the ground too soon. Maybe it had dreamed of the sunshine and then, when it woke up, could not go back to sleep.
It was Father who once told him about the snakes. There weren’t any really dangerous snakes in this country. One of them was poisonous but people rarely died from its bite. From his description Daniel gathered that it was a snake like the one that lay before him on the road. He took a stick from the ditch and poked at the snake. It moved sluggishly, but didn’t whip about or coil. He hit it with the stick, but it still didn’t move.
He thought about the visit they would soon pay to the church.
He made a quick decision, ran back through the fog and fetched a wooden pail that no one was using from the barn. When he came back the snake was still lying there. Cautiously he bent over and grabbed it behind the head. When he lifted it up its body moved weakly. He shivered from the cold and dropped the snake in the pail. Then he hurried back to the barn, where he set the pail behind some spades that the hired hand used for mucking out. He covered the pail carefully so that the snake couldn’t escape if it livened up from the warmth.
He went in the house and sat down by the fire. Alma looked at him.
‘You’re not walking about with no shoes on, are you?’
Daniel shook his head.
Edvin stretched as he sat on the stool near the fireplace. ‘He’s learning fast. And now it’s time to go.’
Daniel got up quickly and ran out to the barn. The snake was still stiff. He wrapped it up in a piece of old burlap and stuffed it in his pocket.
The fog was as thick as ever when they reached the church. Daniel had a tight grip on the snake in his pocket. It hadn’t moved. He looked around for Sanna. Finally he saw her, standing behind the man who had dragged her off by the hair. She cast down her eyes when Daniel looked at her. She had a big bruise on one cheek. Daniel felt a violent urge to rush up to the man and stuff the snake down his shirt. Maybe the snake wouldn’t be able to bite and inject its venom, but the man would have a good fright and understand that there was someone who was prepared to defend Sanna. When the church bells began to ring Daniel tried to shift closer to her, but she moved away and shook her head almost imperceptibly. Daniel understood. She was afraid. The man who had pulled her by the hair had a firm grip on her arm.
Daniel sat between Alma and Edvin. The snake still lay motionless in his pocket. He wondered if he had been mistaken after all, that it wasn’t just frozen stiff but dead. Snakes were cold-blooded though. And he knew that when you least expected it they could sink their fangs into a person or an animal.
Hallén climbed into the pulpit. He looked at Daniel and smiled. Daniel looked down. Then Hallén began to talk about grace. It was a word he almost never used. Grace and sin. Daniel tried to comprehend what he was saying, but the snake in his pocket and the man with the chipped knee hanging on the cross in front were more important. He understood that someone had placed the snake on the road. It hadn’t got there by itself. Someone who knew where snakes hid had found it and laid it at his feet. No one had been as good at knowing where to find snakes as Be. She was the one who usually dug them up and caught them. Once she caught a snake that was more than twice as long as he was and as thick as Kiko’s arm. They had eaten it, and it was enough to feed everyone in the group for a whole day.
Be had placed the snake before him, and since it was Sunday that could only mean that she wanted him to give it as an offering. In this country people didn’t eat snakes. So there was only one possibility, and he knew what he was supposed to do.
He looked at the man hanging motionless on the cross. He too was an antelope frozen in the midst of flight, but he wasn’t about to take a leap. He was nailed fast and someone had stuck a sword in his chest. He had frozen at the moment of death, in the middle of his last breath. While Hallén was speaking, Daniel tried one more time to understand. Why did these people have a god that they nailed to planks? Why did they treat him like an enemy? Why didn’t anyone take him down from the cross and fix his chipped knee? But he could find no answer.
Hallén finished speaking and left the pulpit. Everyone stood up and prayed. Daniel had almost learned the entire prayer by heart. Then they sat down again. The whistling and wheezing organ began to play. Daniel felt the snake. The moment would soon arrive. Alma sat with her eyes closed. Cautiously he took out the coiled snake and held it below his knees. The two men who were carrying the long poles with bags at the end would appear soon. Edvin already had a coin in his hand. When the pole was thrust towards him Daniel quickly dropped the snake into the bag. He did it so quickly that no one noticed.
Then he felt that Be was right next to him. He closed his eyes and felt her warm breath against his neck.
Edvin gave him a poke.
‘I’m awake,’ said Daniel. ‘I believe in God.’
At the same moment he heard a loud howl. Hallén, who was kneeling before the altar rail, gave a start and stood up. One of the men with the poles came rushing up the centre aisle.
‘There’s a viper in the offering pouch!’ he yelled.
He held out the bag so Hallén could see. The organist had stopped playing. There was total silence in the church. Hallén stared. The man dropped the bag to the floor. The snake was no longer frozen; it wriggled out of the bag onto the stone floor. The man who had yelled was standing behind the pew where Daniel was sitting. He pointed at him and kept on yelling.
‘He was the one who put it in there!’ he shouted. ‘It looked like a rag. I thought there was money wrapped inside it. But it was a snake.’
Daniel’s stomach was churning. He hadn’t expected this. He had thought that the offering he gave, the fact that he had caught a poisonous snake, would be greeted with joy.
The snake wriggled slowly across the stone floor. People rushed out of the pews and the church door was thrown open. Finally a man who Daniel knew was an old seaman brought a spade and chopped the snake in two. Daniel had seen snakes cut in half many times before. The two halves usually kept moving very fast, whipping back and forth. but the viper just kept moving slowly and soon it was quite still. Hallén had come down from the altar and stood in front of Daniel.
‘Did you put the snake in the offering pouch?’
Daniel didn’t answer. He got ready to kick off his shoes and run out of the church.
‘You must answer,’ said Edvin. ‘The pastor is asking you a question.’