Bodyguards, the right building, set up the bank transfer, telephones, phone numbers, email . . . The receptionist certainly had a lot on his plate. In his capacity as marketing manager, he was also thinking along the lines of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram . . .
Thus far, Facebook had not been his favorite scene. He had his own account, but he had only one friend, and that was his mother in Iceland; she had stopped responding to him some time ago.
There was no way for her son to know that she had moved and ended up in a barracks at the edge of Europe’s largest glacier, Vatnajökull. This had occurred after the husband-slash-banker had made a serious blunder in Reykjavik and felt the need to escape to the ends of the world along with his still sufficiently attractive wife (if only she weren’t so damned angry all the time). Her husband said it would be best to stay put until things cooled off in Reykjavik, London, and, really, everywhere else. There was something about a statute of limitations, that everything would be fine as long as three years went by first.
“Three years?” said the receptionist’s mother.
“Yes, or five. The legal situation is a tad unclear.”
The receptionist’s mother asked herself what she had done with her life. “I have removed myself to a barracks next to a glacier on an island where no one understands anything I say, even if I were to come across someone to speak to. God! Why have you done this to me?”
It’s not clear whether it was, in fact, God who answered. But after the despairing woman’s question came a dull yet vigorous rumble. An earthquake. Right under the glacier.
“I’m afraid Bárðarbunga is waking up,” said her husband.
“Bardar who?” asked the wife, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
“The volcano. It’s a quarter of a mile below the ice. It’s been dormant for a hundred years, so I imagine it’s thoroughly rested . . .”
Since there hadn’t been any internet service in the receptionist’s mother’s barracks even before the volcanic eruption, the son had no contact with his sole Facebook friend. Thus he had limited experience of how the media platform worked, with sharing and all of that. But he quickly discovered that he had a talent for it:
Church of Anders
More blessed to give than to receive
A nice touch, if he said so himself. And an image of a backlit Hitman Anders, Bible and iPad in hand.
“What do I need this computer for?” the hitman had protested, when the picture was taken.
“It’s not a computer, it’s an iPad, and it’s to contrast the old with the new. Our message is for everyone.”
“And what was it again?”
“That it’s better to give than to receive.”
“So true, so true,” said Hitman Anders.
“Not really, but still,” said the receptionist.
As soon as the priest had put together the religious message to be preached, the receptionist could add the finishing touches. But he already disliked the “Like” button, because it gave people the ability to give something a thumbs-up instead of going to the trouble of sending in a hundred-krona bill. Or even a twenty.
Finding a location was another concern. The receptionist searched for hangars, barns, warehouses, and all sorts of places before he realized he didn’t need a sledgehammer to swat a fly.
All they had to do was buy a church.
There had been a time when the Evangelical Lutheran State Church ruled supreme in Sweden. It was forbidden to believe in anything else, it was forbidden to believe in nothing at all, and it was forbidden to believe in the right God in the wrong way.
The Church was at its nadir in the eighteenth century, but it was challenged now and again by a Pietist who, with inspiration from horrid foreign lands, believed that a person ought to be allowed to experience a bit of enthusiasm about religious life, something more than just the cut-and-dried Lutheran ways.
Enthusiasm? The State Church made sure to have anyone whose beliefs were right but wrong arrested and sentenced before things got out of hand.
Most of them apologized and got off lightly in that they were merely deported. But now and again someone stood his ground. The most stubborn of these was named Thomas Leopold. Instead of falling into line, he said a prayer for the judge in the courtroom, thus annoying the judge to such an extent that Leopold received seven years’ imprisonment in Bohus Fortress.
When even that did not cause Pietist Leopold to give in, they added five years at Kalmar Fortress, and then just as long at Danviken Hospital.
After seventeen years, one might think that Leopold would have softened around the edges, but no such luck.
All they could do was give up. He was sent back to Bohus, locked up in the cell where his prison journey had begun, and then they threw away the key.
It was twenty-six more fretful years before Thomas Leopold finally had the good sense to die, at the age of seventy-seven. It certainly was a sad story, but it demonstrated the resolve of the State Church. Order and discipline, services on Sunday.
But the severe eighteenth century turned into a significantly milder nineteenth. A few free churches were allowed to exist for real, not just in secret. And then came misery upon misery: the Freedom of Religion Act in 1951 and the separation of Church and State fifty years later.
So, there had been a time when you would get forty-three years in prison (before you died and were carried off) because you didn’t believe in the correct thing. Just two hundred and fifty years later, five thousand Swedes left the State Church each month without so much as a parking ticket by way of punishment. They could go wherever they liked, or nowhere; this was guaranteed by law. Those who remained attended Sunday services not because they didn’t dare do otherwise, but because they really and truly wanted to. Or, like most people, they didn’t go.
Congregations merged at the same rate as they shrank. The consequences of the eighteenth century becoming the twentieth meant, in the end, that empty churches stood all over the proud kingdom of Sweden, falling into ruin unless great investments kept them in good order.
Of course, large amounts of money were something the Church of Sweden did possess. Its cumulative capital lay somewhere just short of seven billion kronor. But the annual dividends brought a ridiculously low three percent, since for many years the Church had virtuously (and a little reluctantly) refused to invest in oil, tobacco, alcohol, bombers, or tanks. A portion of that three percent was reinvested in the Church’s own operations, but if it’s raining on the priest that doesn’t mean the bell-ringer will get wet. Or, translated loosely: the individual congregations were often on their last legs. Anyone who looked one of these up and offered a bag containing three million kronor in cash in exchange for taking over a church building that was nothing but a boarded-up money pit—that person would find an audience.
“Three million?” said the Reverend Mr. Granlund, who suddenly realized all the lovely things he could do with that money in the parish’s main church, which was also in need of sprucing up.
Sure, the asking price was set at 4.9 million, but the building had already been for sale for more than two years with no interested parties.
“Did you say the Church of Anders?” wondered Granlund.
“Yes, after our main pastor, Johan Andersson. A fantastic life story. Truly a miracle of God,” said the receptionist, thinking that if God did exist he would probably aim a bolt of lightning down at his head any second now.
“Yes, I’ve been following that in the papers,” said the reverend. He was thinking that there would be advantages to having another Christian community take over. It was, after all, a holy building, and in this way it could continue to be so.
Granlund obtained full negotiation rights from his congregation and decided to accept the three million. The church building was of considerable size; it had passed its best-before date about a hundred years earlier; it was far too close to European Highway 18, and it had a cemetery scattered with gravestones, all at least fifty years old. Granlund thought about the graves and how lucky it was that no one had been buried there for so long. How restful could it be to have your final resting place right next to one of Sweden’s most heavily trafficked highways?
And yet he happened to bring up the matter of gravestones with his potential buyers. “Do you intend to respect the peace of the burial grounds?” he wondered, well aware that there were no legal restrictions on doing the exact opposite.
“Of course,” said the receptionist. “We won’t dig up a single grave. We’re just going to even it out a little on top and put down some asphalt.”
“Asphalt?”
“Parking lot. Shall we settle this now? A speedy deal: we get access on Monday, and there’s cash in hand for you now as long as I can have a receipt.”
Granlund regretted asking about the gravestones and decided to pretend he hadn’t heard the answer. He extended his hand. “Deal,” he said. “Mr. Persson, you’ve got yourself a church.”
“Lovely,” said Per Persson. “I don’t suppose you’d consider joining our faith, sir? It would be quite a feather in our cap. We’ll throw in a free parking space if you like.”
Granlund had the feeling he was bringing misfortune upon the building he had just unloaded. He and the congregation most assuredly did need the three million kronor. But that didn’t mean they had to suck up to the buyer. “Get out of here, Persson, before I change my mind,” he said.