Free Popular Music from Vittula by Mikael Niemi Page B

congregation cowered in their pews, and the old lady’s daughters, especially, shed many a crocodile tear into their permanent waves and fashionable dresses, while the men who had married into the family shuffled uneasily with hardened hearts. But here was an opportunity to sow the seeds of penitence and mercy over almost all the globe, and it would have been unpardonable not to try. Besides, Grandmother had filled a whole notebook with instructions on how the funeral was to be conducted, and there was to be much Holy Writ and a modicum of the Gospel in the service. None of your forgiveness scattered glibly hither and thither on an occasion like this.
    But when the heavenly gates finally opened at the end of the ceremony, when the angels breathed sweet-smelling Grace into the Pajala church and the earth trembled and Grandma was delivered unto the Heavenly Father, the women sniffled into their handkerchiefs and wept and quivered and hugged one another in the name and blood of Jesus Christ amen, the pews and aisles were filled with the scent of freshly mown hay, and the whole church rose half an inch from its foundations before crashing back in place with a resounding, deafening thud. And the faithful saw the light, the light of Paradise, as when you open your eyes briefly while sound asleep in a silent summer’s night, when you open your eyes toward a window and see the gentleglow of the midsummer sun gleaming in the night sky, a brief interlude in a dream, then close them again. And the next morning when you wake up there is only a faint memory left of something great and mysterious. Love, perhaps.
    * * *
    After the funeral everyone was invited back to the house for coffee and cakes. The mood was suddenly relaxed, almost exhilarated. Grandma was with Jesus. Time to breathe again.
    The only one not to thaw out was Isak. He prowled around in his old preacher suit, and although it was a long time since he’d left the straight and narrow, a few words over the coffin in praise of God had been expected from him. A testimony from the prodigal son. Some thought he might even have seen the light once again—greater things than that had been witnessed at the funeral of a parent after all, a time when one’s own transience and mortality crept one generation closer to home. The forefinger of God plunging like an iron rod into a hardened heart and breaking the ice, messages from the Holy Ghost, confessions of sins draining the penitent soul like the emptying of a brim-full chamber pot, then forgiveness transforming it into a highly polished Heavenly Chalice into which the Grace of God can fall like a summer shower. But Isak had merely mumbled over the bier, softly, to himself. Not even those in the front row had heard what he said.
    Juice and buns were served up at the children’s table. We had to eat in shifts as there were so many of us. Niila looked uncomfortable in his tightly buttoned Sunday shirt. While the old folk, clad in black, sat around cackling away like crows, we youngsters wandered off outside. The boys from Missouri followed us out. They were twins, aged about eight, dressed in smart suits and ties. They spoke English to each other while Niila and I conversed in Tornedalen Finnish; they kept yawning because of jet lag, and were shivering noticeably. They both had crew cuts and looked like miniature marines with ginger hair, like their Irish-Americanfather. You could see they were bewildered by being transplanted to the Old World and their mother’s roots. It was May, the snow was melting after the long winter, but the river was still covered in ice. The birches were naked, and the previous year’s grass was flat and yellow in the meadows where the snow had barely finished thawing away. They trod cautiously in their patent leather shoes, peering around uneasily on the lookout for Arctic predators.
    I was curious and started chatting to them. They told us in sing-song Swedish-American that on their way to Sweden