But it doesn’t go that quickly, because on the Örlands the custom is to fill in the grave while the widow stands at its edge and watches the coffin disappear beneath the soil of the churchyard. So thin it is, she thinks again. A miracle that anything can grow in it. Almost laughs out loud—a miracle, yes indeed. Sanna cries loudly, pushed dangerously close to the hole. Soon they’ll throw her in and shovel dirt on her until she dies!
Maybe I shouldn’t have brought Sanna with me, Mona thinks, distractedly. She floats a little, loses contact with the ground a bit, hears nothing even though they’re all making so much noise. The veil is good. She’d like to wear it always. No one can see you, it doesn’t matter that you’re not here. She feels nothing, everything slips and slides away, and just then her mother takes her under one arm, Sanna is still screaming, and her mother gives her a little shake. “Mona! They’re starting to go! What an ordeal! Poor Sanna!”
Through her veil she sees that several of the women curtsey to her before they turn to go. The men bow reluctantly, the way they do at the Communion table. She nods back, as is proper. “Goodbye. Thank you.” Quite clearly. Petter’s family stands by the grave, their arms around each other. Skog is with them, Berg by himself, near Mona and Sanna and Mrs Hellén. Sorrow or just fear? What is it he’s supposed to say? What should he do? Adele Bergman knows. She works her way to Mona. “Dear heart! God give you strength! We are all crushed. Such grief.”
“Yes,” Mona says. “Thank you.” She extends her hand in its black glove. Goodbye. Adele: “You’ll stay here with us! We can talk more later. Dear girl!” She walks away, bent over, black hat with veil among the women’s shiny black silk shawls. The men in black below their freezing heads, only putting on their fur hats after passing through the churchyard gate. While they were inside the church, the wind freshened and then steadily increased out in the churchyard. The dry grave soil whirled up into people’s eyes, and now the wind is whistling ominously and the wreaths are flapping and rustling, the soil left over from filling the grave is being swept away like smoke. Everyone needs to get home while it’s still light, and the sacramental wind cuts right through their coats!
It exceeds even Mona’s ability to treat five hundred people to funeral coffee. The refreshments are for family. Even the very dearest Örlanders leave. The organist takes her hand at the grave, unable to say anything at all, but she thanks him in a clear voice for his wonderful singing and lovely words, which she would like to have a copy of, and for his beautiful playing during the whole, long ceremony. The verger’s dignity has never suited him better as he says, “The funeral was a great tribute to you both. And this evening, Signe and I will do the milking.” “Thank you,” she says again. “Thank you for all your trouble. The duties of a verger are no easy task under these circumstances!” He moves on and says goodbye to the Kummels and the priests, while Signe, waiting down by the gate, doesn’t think she’s capable of walking up and taking her leave.
It is dreadfully cold, the gale cuts right through bone and marrow. In order to survive, they must abandon the dead priest to the earth and move towards the parsonage as quickly as decency permits. Hellén, a practical man, speaks for everyone. “Now we should go. It was a fine funeral, but the longest one I’ve ever seen. Look at Sanna! Poor little thing is blue with cold!”
Everyone looks at Sanna, half dead. Grandfather Hellén lifts her up and starts walking, and Mona follows. Sanna is what she still has, and now she lives for the sake of Sanna and Lillus. And then the whole group, nearly trotting as soon as they get through the churchyard gate. They struggle through the wind, and there is hope. Hot air welters from both chimneys, and they can see that Sister Hanna has put more wood in the kitchen stove. Now she greets them in the hallway. “You poor dears, you’re frozen solid. Come in. Come in where it’s warm. I’ve made coffee and tea.”
Mona adds her own, “Come in, come in.” Quickly, she hangs up her coat, and now that her icy outer wraps are off, Lillus can come up in her arms. Everyone is now concerned about Sanna, who gets wrapped in a blanket and placed in a chair where she falls asleep of exhaustion and distress before she’s had even a sip of hot currant juice or had time to bite into a raisin roll. “Poor little darling! Dreadfully thin!” says Grandma Kummel, and Mona hears the criticism—can’t she see to it that Sanna gets enough to eat? Lillus, on the other hand, still has her baby fat, she’s had a good long nap and is wide awake and happy, tries sitting in everyone’s lap and likes Frej’s best. When the mawkish Kummels see her enthroned in his arms, they get tears in their eyes. Quite clearly, she chooses the person most like her Papa!
Hanna has set the table and made everything ready, even warmed the rolls in the oven. “You’ve saved our lives!” they tell her, thinking but not saying: but not his, irretrievably dead. They look stealthily at Mona, who sits at the table drinking coffee and eating a roll as if it were a job. Poor, poor Mona, how can they reach her? How make her see that she’s not alone, that she’s surrounded by people who want nothing more than to support and comfort her?
There are many burning questions they need to discuss before they have to leave the next morning. Father Leonard, who has been quiet far too long, begins to discuss the funeral—the splendid speeches that warmed the soul and were comforting in a wonderful way. The fantastic flowers, in the middle of winter, way out here on the Örlands, an absolute miracle. The gripping expressions of sorrow from the Örlanders, the hymns they sang straight from the heart. The sheer number of condolence messages, greetings, letters and telegrams. Moving and touching, every one of them. They lie in great piles on the sideboard …
“Yes, please have a look,” Mona interrupts. “Feel free to go through them and read them. There are so many we’ll have to put a thank-you notice in the newspapers. It will be impossible to write a personal note to all of them. Although I mean to write to many of them, when things have become a little quieter.”
And then Martha Kummel can no longer control herself. “What are you actually going to do? Eventually, you’ll have to think about moving. Where will you find the strength?”
Mona is no frail little widow, and there is a gleam of triumph in her eye when she answers. “There’s no hurry about that. They probably won’t send a new priest until next summer. Until then, Berg will come out from Mellom now and then. He says in any case that I have the right to a year of grace and that I can live in the parsonage until February next year. So I think I’ll stay here, at least over the summer.”
Sensibly and rationally reasoned, and no problem talking to Mona as long as you stick to practical, concrete subjects.
Martha Kummel goes on. “That sounds sensible. You’ll have time to think things over and look around for a job. You’re lucky you have an education. But don’t be hasty, you maybe have more immediate things to think about.”
Fishhooks out, but she doesn’t bite. What Martha Kummel is referring to is what’s being discussed in every home on the Örlands and by many well-informed people on the mainland— what if the widow is with child! It’s not unthinkable. If the child is born in the summer or the autumn, that would put two years between the baby and Lillus. In fact, it’s not only possible, it is more than likely, and in many homes they already know that it will be a boy and that his name will be Peter. Mona knows very well what Martha is thinking, and she doesn’t intend to honour her with a reply. “Of course there’s a lot to think about!” she says, ready for a fight. “How else am I supposed to get through this?”