Revontuli by Andrew Eddy

Author:Andrew Eddy [Eddy, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Booktrope Editions
Published: 2013-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

Traundorf, 3 July, 2013

THE CHURCH WAS NOT WHAT MARIT HAD EXPECTED. It was modern, but built with old materials. The walls were stone, three feet thick. The windows were intricate stained glass. There were three large windows on each side, a few feet across and perhaps fifteen feet high. Each window had its own theme. Three quarters of the way down the aisle, high above the parishioners, was a massive Jesus carved in pine.

They must have used a solid trunk for the body, and hoisted it with a crane. His feet were two feet long. He stood, larger than life, hung on a cross beam from the rafters, with his arms outstretched, reaching down to earth. His open palms were even larger proportionally than the rest of the carving.

The altar captured Marit’s attention. Or rather the picture behind it. The altar itself was a large stone slab, open to all sides, not fenced off like in Karasjok. Behind the altar, a massive mosaic covered the entire wall. Its bright colors and strange shapes created a fragmented impression that left one a little broken. As she looked more closely, she could see the Virgin Mary, holding her bleeding son, her own eyes tearful, and his arms dropping to the floor.

The contrast with the risen Jesus in the rafters was striking. Marit knew this mosaic from somewhere else. The other image was more traditional: a painting, representative not abstract. It was a painting from the church in Karasjok. Blues and greens made up the Madonna’s features with twisted glass or broken stones around her eyes—they all conveyed a great sadness. Her body lay limp on the chair, her son limp in her arms, their courage sapped and their spirits spent.

The church began to fill up. Johannes gestured for her to sit, but instead of sitting next to her, he crossed the aisle. Just like the old days in Karasjok: women on the left, men on the right.

She sat down and turned to the closest of the windows. The morning sun streaming through gave each shard of glass its designated hue. The effect was a dazzling display of color, yet the overall impression was still of sadness. It was Joseph and Mary’s flight to Egypt. Mary perched upon the donkey’s back, her child cradled carefully in her arms, but her shoulders drooped and her eyes were again very small. Joseph, instead of leading the animal, sat to one side, looking away, perhaps looking back from whence they came, or perhaps only lost in thought.

The other windows all had a similar style, but each was executed along a separate theme. The next closest window to her was all about the flight from Egypt. Moses led the Jews of Egypt across the Red Sea, and the armies of Pharaoh were drowning in their wake. The Jews in the window were tall and blond, and the pursuing Egyptians wore Russian-styled headdresses that looked anything but pharaonic. To Marit, the scene depicted instead the retreat of the 20th Mountain Brigade of the Wehrmacht across Lappland from Finland, so many years ago.

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