When Klara finally starts to cry, she can’t stop. She cries like a child, shuddering, sobbing, in the church pew. She cries for Grandpa and Grandma. For everything they’ve done for her, because it’s incomprehensible that she’ll never sit with Grandpa in his boat again, unimaginable that she’ll never hear him sigh or see him shake his head in disappointment when she doesn’t recognize some distant birdcall. She cries through a veil of tears when she catches sight of Grandma’s resolute face, and realizes she doesn’t know what her life will be like now. But most of all she cries for herself.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers and looks up at her grandmother. ‘I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I can’t control it.’
Grandma turns to her and caresses her cheek; there’s warmth and something almost like relief in those eyes.
‘Crying is the best thing you could do for me,’ she whispers back. ‘You’ve kept too much inside for too long, little love.’
Klara knows it’s true. She knows that for the last few years she’s been carrying a weight inside her. Ever since Mahmoud died on the dirty floor of a Parisian supermarket, ever since a man who turned out to be her father died in the snow out here in the archipelago. A father she was never able to meet or get to know. She hasn’t cried, hasn’t grieved, not really. Didn’t know she deserved to, didn’t know she was entitled to relief and the atonement grief would bring. And she hasn’t wanted to let go, hasn’t dared to let go, to move on. Instead, she’s buried herself in work and wine, late nights and short, empty relationships, pushing things deep inside and keeping a stiff upper lip, that’s how you live. You keep it together, you buck up, you do what you have to do.
But now, in the church, with the sound of the organ and the priest’s dry, monotonous voice, surrounded by ritual and candlelight, with Grandma and Gabriella and her relatives, she realizes it was always impossible, not everything will fit inside, you have to let go of something. You have to find a way to reconcile with yourself.
*
Afterwards, Klara stands in the darkness, in blowing snow in front of the church receiving hugs and condolences and pointing people in the direction of the reception at the parish house near the newer, bigger church. The wind is blowing faster now and heavy snow drifts across the fields, through birches and firs. She feels Gabriella’s hand around her elbow.
‘How’s it going?’ she whispers. ‘Keeping it together?’
Klara turns to her and smiles weakly. The tears have finally stopped, but she still takes sobbing breaths, like a little child whose crying fit just ended. She shakes her head. ‘No,’ she says. ‘I’m not holding it together at all.’
Gabriella smiles back. ‘Good,’ she says. ‘We’ve all been waiting for you to stop doing that.’
It’s just them now. Klara, Gabriella and Grandma, who exits the front door of the church and squints her eyes at the wind and the snow, while pulling her hat lower over her ears and forehead.
‘He gets his way to the very end,’ she says. ‘There was nothing he was so fond of as a nasty autumn storm. Right, Klara, my love?’
Klara smiles cautiously and nods. ‘He would have liked this,’ she says. ‘No doubt.’
‘Come on,’ Grandma says, walking firmly past them down towards the parking lot. ‘They can’t very well have a funeral reception without us.’
Klara feels Gabriella lean towards her ear, feels her breath.
‘She can handle this,’ she whispers. ‘You know that, right?’
Klara turns to her and feels something like the contours of a distant calm inside, the promise of a feeling she’s almost forgotten. She nods. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘She can.’
Klara peers into the gloom, searching for Grandma’s slender figure through sheets of snow. She still moves smoothly, surely and quickly across the uneven surface. It’ll be some time before Klara has to convince her to leave Aspöja, where she and Grandpa have lived all their lives, and where Klara herself grew up. Grandma is well over seventy, but for a few more years she’ll manage the everyday hardships that come with living on an island in the archipelago. And then? Klara doesn’t even want to think about it. Not yet. Not today.
Klara thought only Grandma’s and Gabriella’s cars were still in the parking lot. But something slightly further down the road catches her eye. In the darkness it’s hard to make out, but Klara thinks it looks like a shadow jumping into a car. Then the dull thud of a door closing and a motor starting, dampened by the snow and the wind. No headlights are turned on. But Klara could swear a car backs out and disappears down the road. With a couple of quick steps she catches up with Grandma.
‘Who was that?’ she says, pointing to the spot the car just left. ‘I thought everyone was already at the parish house by now.’
Grandma turns around and follows her finger, but there is only darkness there now. She shrugs. ‘Maybe somebody couldn’t find their car keys until now.’ She turns and smiles at Klara. ‘We’re not so young any more, you know.’
Klara turns around and sees Gabriella coming down to the parking lot a few metres behind them with the phone in her hand, a worried look in her eyes. She gestures that she’ll follow them in her own car.
‘Maybe,’ Klara says. But something gnaws at her. Maybe it’s just habit after what she’s been through in the past few years, just the after-effects of suspicion and fear from twice landing in the middle of strange and dangerous circumstances. But when they cross Highway 210 driving to the parish house, Klara throws a glance westward, towards the mainland. Halfway up the hill she thinks she sees two red tail lights in the snow. A car parked by the road? She lingers on the sight while Grandma drives them to the parish house. Someone lost in the snow? But it’s unusual to see unfamiliar cars here at this time of year. She feels a tingle run down her spine. Something doesn’t seem right.