‘No one by that name belongs to our parish,’ she continued.
She picked up a psalm book that had fallen on the ground.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
‘A visitor,’ he said.
‘Your face seems familiar.’
Humlin thought of the clerk at the subway station.
‘I don’t think we’ve met.’
‘But I feel sure I’ve seen your face. Not here. Somewhere else.’
‘I’m afraid you’re mixing me up with someone else.’
‘But you’re here looking for someone?’
‘You could say that.’
‘There’s no one else here apart from me.’
Humlin wondered why she wasn’t telling the truth. She started walking towards the exit and he followed her.
‘I was about to lock up,’ she said.
‘I thought you said a church should always be open?’
‘We always lock up for a few hours every afternoon.’
Humlin walked outside.
‘You are always welcome,’ the minister said before she locked the doors behind him.
Humlin walked across the street, then turned around. She wanted me to leave, he thought. But why? He walked around to the back of the church. There was a little garden. It was empty. He was about to leave when he thought he saw something moving in one of the windows. Whether it was a person or a curtain he couldn’t say.
There was a door in the back. He walked over and tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. When he opened it he saw a staircase leading down to the basement. He turned on the light and listened. Then he started walking down. It led to a corridor with a number of doors leading off on either side. On the floor were some toys, a plastic bucket and a little shovel. He frowned. Then he opened the closest door and found himself staring at a woman, a man and three small children sitting on a couple of mattresses. They gave him frightened looks. He mumbled an apology and closed the door. He understood. The church was sheltering refugees in its basement, like a modern-day catacomb.
Suddenly the minister turned up behind him. She had taken off her high-heeled shoes and approached him without making any sound.
‘Who are you?’ she demanded. ‘Are you from the police?’
She is the second woman in the space of a few days to compare me to a policeman, he thought. First my crazy mother, then a minister wearing high-heeled shoes. No Swedish minister should be dressed like she is. No minister should be dressed that way, full stop.
‘I’m not from the police.’
‘Are you from the Department of Immigration?’
‘I’m not going to tell you who I am. Do I have to show my ID in this church?’
‘The people who live down here live in fear of deportation. I don’t think you know very much about that kind of fear.’
‘Perhaps I do know a little about that,’ Humlin said. ‘I’m not completely without feeling.’
She looked at him in silence. Her eyes were tired and worried.
‘Are you a reporter?’ she asked finally.
‘Not exactly. I’m a writer. But that’s neither here nor there. I’m not going to tell anyone that you harbour refugees in your basement. I don’t know if I think it’s right or wrong — we do have laws and regulations in this country that ought to be followed. But I won’t say anything. The only thing I want to know is if the girl with the big smile lives here.’
‘Tea-Bag comes and goes. I don’t know if she lives here right now.’
‘But she does sometimes?’
‘Sometimes. Other times she stays with her sister in Gothenburg.’
‘What’s the name of that sister?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you have her address?’
‘No.’
‘How come she lives here when she spends so much time in Gothenburg?’
‘I don’t know that either. She just turned up one morning.’
Humlin was more and more confused. She’s lying, he thought. Why can’t she just tell me the truth?
‘Which room does she stay in?’
The minister pointed it out to him. She told him her name was Erika as she walked over and knocked on the door. A hotel of the underworld, Humlin thought. Erika tried the door handle, then let him into the room. There was a bed, a table and a chair inside, nothing else. He thought he recognised the jumper hanging on the chair. It looked like the one she had been wearing on the train.
Erika shook her head.
‘Tea-Bag comes and goes. I never know when she’s here. She keeps to herself and I let her be.’
They walked back up the stairs and into the garden. Humlin watched with fascination as she put her high-heeled shoes back on.
‘You have beautiful legs,’ he said. ‘But maybe that’s not the kind of thing one should say to a minister?’
‘People should feel free to say what they want to a minister.’
‘Who are the people down there right now?’
‘Right now we have a family from Bangladesh, two families from Kosovo, a single man from Iraq and two Chinese men.’
‘How did they all get here?’
‘All of our guests simply turn up at the door, either early in the morning or late at night. They hear rumours that they can stay here.’
‘Then what happens?’
