The Lost Village

picture him standing up there with his sleeves rolled up, those beautiful, angelic features red in animation. My image of his face is so clear that I’m sure I must have seen it somewhere before; it probably belongs to some innocent passing stranger, someone who happened to match the image I’ve formed of him in my mind. Smooth skin, a high forehead, piercing eyes and long eyelashes. Thick, pronounced eyebrows and a narrow nose. Like a renaissance painting of an angel—a Scandinavian prophet for the deep forests.
He was always what fascinated me most about Grandma’s story.
He was a young man, scarce over thirty, with a smooth, boyish face. He wasn’t particularly tall, but he had broad shoulders and a pleasant smile. The village women suddenly started wearing their best dresses to church of a Sunday, where they would sit in the front pews and listen, eyes gleaming, to Pastor Mattias’s sermons.
I’ve toyed with the idea of trying to do a reenactment for the documentary, to bring in some actors and shoot here, on location. I’ve even scripted a few short scenes: a church sermon; a scene with Birgitta. We could even do something with the stoning. It would give the documentary something extra, sensationalize it. But it’s just not realistic: we don’t have the budget to make it look good enough. Better to stick to a straight documentary format and focus on making the story enough of a hook.
You have to do whatever you can to stand out. With Netflix, HBO, and a media market full to bursting point, we’re going to have to throw everything we can at getting ourselves seen.
I look up again. I wonder how the pastor’s voice sounded in here as it bounded up toward the ceiling. I tried to ask Grandma about his accent a few times, but she could never give me an exact answer, only something vague about it sounding different, like he wasn’t from these parts. I could never get any more from her than that.
My eyes are drawn to the small, closed wooden door beside the altar. A closet of some kind? I walk around the altar toward it, take hold of the small brass doorknob, and twist.
There is a small but homely room behind it. The windowpanes have lasted pretty well in here, too, and the dull gray light from the spring day outside filters in through dirty glass panes. Beyond them I can see the blurred image of a pleasant little churchyard. It’s perversely idyllic, lush and green.
The room feels most like a kitchen or living room, with a small kitchenette and a simple pinewood table. An empty glass jar with a few extremely crisp, faded dried flowers balances on the windowsill, and there’s a small, old-fashioned coffeepot on one of the stovetops on the kitchenette. I walk over to it and lift the lid. The inside is thick with a black, dried-in slush. I smell it and, impossible as it may be, think I can almost make out the faint scent of coffee grounds.
Was this where the Bible group held their meetings?
He had an unshaking belief in the Bible, Pastor Mattias. He said that he had read it four times cover to cover, and thought that every good Christian should do the same. And so Aina started plodding her way through the Bible, too. She wrote that she read it every evening. Pastor Mattias had asked her to help him set up a youth group for Bible studies, and she was so proud she could almost have burst.
Grandma’s voice always lost its color when talking about Aina. As though it were easier for her to put a lid on those feelings.
“What’s this?” Emmy asks behind me. I look around, startled by her voice.
“I think it’s some sort of meeting room,” I say. “Or office,” I add, as my gaze lands on a messy pile of papers on one of the corduroy seat cushions.
I pick them up cautiously. They are filled with dense, tight handwriting. The paper has yellowed and the ink faded with time, but the writing is still legible.
I hardly dare touch the pages for fear of damaging them; I don’t know how brittle paper can get after sixty years. So I put them down on the table and lean in to read the top page.
He who is true and faithful to God need have no secrets.
“What is it?” Emmy asks as her eyes skim the writing.
“I think it’s a sermon,” I say, suddenly breathless.
Pure hearts have nothing to hide—neither from God, nor from each other. Standing here, I can see that you want to hide; that you want to flee His penetrating gaze and true light; to conceal the darkness within you; to suppress that of which you are ashamed. That is the Devil speaking, the rot within you that shuns the light, for your souls know no fear. But they are drowning, drowning from the weight of evil. They want to see, and be seen by, God.
It is only in completely submitting yourself to the Lord that you can become one with Him; only in giving up your worldly possessions, your petty worldly thoughts and concerns, that you can be pure. And only when you are pure can you be free.
You cannot move forward or change until you are pure. He who is pure does not sink down into darkness; he walks on water, like Jesus himself.
“Not particularly forgiving,” Emmy remarks quietly.
“No.”
There’s a boom overhead. I jump, look up, and see the first raindrops start to land on the windowpanes.
“Shit,” I swear, grinding my teeth so hard my jaws hurt. I had hoped that the rainclouds would hold out.
“We’ll have to get back to the vans,” I say, shuffling the papers into a neat pile and taking off my rucksack to put them inside. “Abandoned buildings aren’t safe in heavy rain. It can be too much on the joints—the weight from the water can make them collapse.”
Emmy nods.
“I’ll let the others know,” she says.
She walks