It's Sunday morning. The christening, which has been about three months in the planning, is going to start in just over two hours. I am at Haga Kyrkan, the church V and I were married in. Any moment now, a well-organised army of relatives bearing various cakes will arrive to set up for the party in the church hall after the service.
The church hall is locked. Nobody answers the door when I ring. I don't have the number for the office. My wife is getting ready elsewhere; this is down to me. Me and my grasp of emergency Swedish.
The weather remains hot, thunderous and potentially violent, just like Aftonbladet predicted.
There are two possible outcomes (three, if you allow for the outside chance of a punch-up round the font). Either I manage to sort this out and it all goes swimmingly. Or I screw up my daughter's christening because instead of improving my Swedish daily for the last three months, I have, instead, not.
Taking a deep breath, I head into the church. There is a beggar of middle Eastern extraction, optimistically clutching a polystyrene cup on the church steps. She is surrounded by rice from yesterday's wedding. She can't be all that hungry, a uncharitable part of my brain suggests. She could be picking it up.
Inside, there is a service about to start. The white-robed choir girls standing in the entry hall are amused by my kilt, but I sweep by them purposefully. The church is decorated with pale wood and green painted trimmings; I head for the vestry.
"Ershekta mey," I enunciate in my best Swinglish, "Yaag surker fer clé pour la samlingshuset. Kan ni hyelpa mey?"
Once we've establish that Clé is the French for key, rather than the Nyckel I'm looking for, everything works out. Sort of, at least. The choir mistress lets me into the church hall, but the room we've booked is definitely locked, and she says there isn't going to be anyone here today to open it. I mark this resolution 5/10, mainly for effort, but write 'must try harder. See me' in its margin.
The christening will now begin in an hour and a half.
"Can't homeless people just eat the rice thrown at weddings?" is going to be placed right up there with "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" in the collection of Scroogisms.
ReplyDeleteAnd the name of your church is 'Kraken?'
Nope - Haga. 'Kyrkan' is 'Church', the first K is soft as in 'chapel'. Or, well, 'church'.
ReplyDeleteThe name of my religion, however, once I get official state recognition, will of course be Kraken. I shall be recruiting Krakenist Ministers in due course.