Before the Frost
- Автор: Манкелль Хеннинг
- Серия: Linda Wallander #1
- Год: 2004
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Harvill Press
- ISBN: 978-1-84343-113-8
- Переводчик: Ebba Segerberg
- Жанр: Полицейские детективы
Электронная книга - «Before the Frost». Краткое содержание книги:
Langaas came to see him in the vestry, where he was making his preparations.
“Everything is ready.”
“Tonight I will let them wait,” Westin said.
He gave the remaining hawser to Langaas.
“Put this on the altar. The hawser inspires fear, fear inspires faith.”
Langaas left. Westin sat down at the pastor’s table with a candle in front of him. When he closed his eyes, he was back in the jungle. Jim Jones came walking out of his hut, the only one that was supplied with electricity from a small generator. Jim was always so well groomed. His teeth were white, his smile carved into his face. Jim was beautiful, he thought, even if he was a fallen angel. I cannot deny that there were moments with him when I was completely happy. I also cannot deny that what Jim gave me, or what I believed he gave me, is what I am trying to give the people who now follow me. I have seen the fallen angel; I know what to do.
He folded his arms and let his head come to rest on them. He was going to let them wait for him. The hawser on the altar would be a stimulus of the fear they should feel for him. If the ways of God were inscrutable, so too would be the ways of his servant. He knew Torgeir would not disturb him again. He started to dream. It was like stepping down into the underworld, a world where the heat of the jungle penetrated the cold stone walls of the church. He thought about Maria and the child; he slept.
He woke up with a start at four o’clock in the morning. At first he wasn’t sure where he was. He stood up and shook life back into his stiff body. After a few minutes, he walked out into the church. They were all sitting in the first few pews, frozen, fearful, waiting. He stopped and looked at them before letting them see him. I could kill them all, he thought. I could get them to cut off their hands and eat themselves. Because I too have a weakness. I do not completely trust my followers. I am afraid of the thoughts they think, thoughts I cannot control. He walked out and stood in front of the altar. This night he was going to tell them about the great task that awaited them, the reason they had made the long journey to Sweden. Tonight he would pronounce the first words of the text that would become the fifth gospel.
He nodded to Langaas, who opened the old-fashioned brown trunk on the floor next to the altar. Langaas walked down the row of people, handing out the death masks. They were white, like masks in a pantomime, devoid of expression, of joy or sorrow.
God has made man in his image, Westin thought. But no one knows the face of God. Our lives are his breath, but no one knows his face. We have to wear the white masks in order to obliterate the ego and become one with our Creator.
He watched while they put on the death masks. It always filled him with a sense of power and strength to see them cover their faces.
Finally, Langaas put on a mask. The only one not wearing one was Westin.
He had learned this too from Jim. The disciples always have to know where to find their Master. He is the only one who should not be masked.
He pressed his right thumb against his left wrist. His pulse was normal. Everything was under control. In the future, this church may become a shrine, he thought. The first Christians who died in the catacombs of Rome have returned. The time of the fallen angels is finally over.
The day he had chosen was the eighth of September. This had come to him in a dream. He had found himself in a deserted factory with puddles of rainwater and dead leaves on the floor. There had been a calendar on the wall. When he woke up, he remembered that the date in the dream was the eighth of September. That is the day everything ends and everything begins again.
He stepped closer to them and started to speak.
“The time has come. I had not intended that we should meet before the day that you undertake your great task, but God has spoken to me tonight and told me that yet another sacrifice is necessary. When we meet again, another sinner will die.”
He picked up the hawser and held it above his head.
“We know what God demands of us,” he intoned. “The old scriptures teach us the law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. He who kills must himself be killed. We must remove all doubt from our minds. God’s breath is steel and he demands hardness from us in return. We are like the snake who wakes from his winter sleep, we are the lizards who live in the crevices of the rock and change color when threatened. Only through complete devotion and ruthlessness will we conquer the emptiness that exists inside men. The great darkness, the long days of degeneration and impotence are over.”
He paused and saw that they understood. He walked along the row and stroked their foreheads, then gave the sign that they were to stand. Together they said the holy words that he told them had come to him in a vision. They did not have to know the truth, that it was something he had read when he was a young man. Or had the words in fact come to him in a dream? He could not be sure, but it was of no importance.
Later they left the church, locked up, and drove away in the bus. A woman who came in to clean in the afternoon did not notice that anyone had been there at all.
Part IV
The Thirteenth Tower
41
The telephone woke her up. She checked the time: a quarter to six.
There were noises coming from the bathroom. Her father was already up but hadn’t heard the phone. Linda ran out into the kitchen and picked up.
“May I please speak to Inspector Wallander?” a woman’s voice said.
“And who is this?”
“May I please speak to him?”
The woman spoke in a cultured way. Hardly a cleaning lady at the station, Linda thought.
“He’s busy right now. Who may I say is calling?”
“Anita Tademan from Rannesholm Manor.”
“We’ve met, actually. I’m his daughter.”
Anita Tademan ignored her last comment.
“When will I be able to speak to him?”
“As soon as he gets out of the bathroom.”
“It’s very important.”
Linda wrote down the number and put some water on for coffee. The pot had just started to boil when Wallander came into the kitchen. He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that it did not even strike him as strange to see her up so early.
“Anita Tademan just called,” Linda said. “She said it was important.”
Wallander looked at his watch.
“It must be, at this hour.”
She dialed the number for him and held out the phone.
While he was speaking with Mrs. Tademan, Linda looked through the cupboards and discovered there were no more coffee beans.