Vällingby Parish

Vällingby Parish is represented through a Sunday mass at St. Thomas Church and the people who gather there: temporary minister Bror Ardelius, choir member Staffan, Yvonne, and her son Tommy. The service, planned around the theme of the youth of today, becomes the setting for Tommy’s covert act of disruption. When smoke rises from the baptismal font, Bror first mistakes it for a possible sign from God, then recognizes it as smoke and moves to clear the building. The episode brings religious expectation, ordinary institutional procedure, and family conflict into the same space.

Parish and Suburban Setting

The parish’s appearance is set against the novel’s account of Blackeberg as a planned suburb with little historical depth. Its buildings were laid out before residents arrived, and its public amenities included a town center, playgrounds, green spaces, and pedestrian paths. Yet the place lacked a local past for children to study: the old mill, tobacco king, and buildings by the water belonged to a history disconnected from the new neighborhood. The narration also emphasizes that Blackeberg had no church despite having nine thousand inhabitants, presenting the suburb as a rational, modern environment seemingly free of historical ghosts and terror.

The parish episode therefore takes place beyond Blackeberg itself. Tommy and Yvonne wait at the Blackeberg subway platform well before the eleven o’clock mass, then travel to Vällingby, where Staffan waits outside the brick building of St. Thomas Church. The contrast is concrete rather than abstract: the planned residential suburb has no church, while the nearby service gathers its participants in a distinct religious setting. The story does not provide a wider account of parish administration or activity; it presents the institution through this service, its clergy, its choir, and the people attending.

The Service and Its Participants

Staffan sings in the choir and has told Yvonne what the mass will address. She passes the theme on to Tommy and cautiously asks whether he wants to attend. His agreement surprises her. Their early arrival gives the visit the shape of a deliberate family outing, though Tommy remains reserved. A man on the subway speaks at length to them before getting off with Yvonne and Tommy in Vällingby; Staffan is waiting outside the church, dressed formally in a suit and pale yellow-striped tie.

Staffan greets Yvonne warmly and holds out his hand to Tommy, who shakes it. He says that he is glad both have come, especially Tommy, and begins asking what prompted the boy to accept. Tommy offers little in response. Staffan explains that he ought to be in Åkeshov but did not want to miss the occasion, although he will have to leave as soon as it is over. Tommy walks into the church before the conversation develops further. The service’s theme makes his presence especially pointed: an adult religious gathering has made room for a young person whose behavior and relationship with authority are already matters of concern.

Inside, the congregation is small. Tommy sees only a few older people seated in the pews. Yellow light from lamps along the walls falls across a red carpet patterned with geometric figures, a stone bench with flowers, and a large wooden cross bearing a modernist Jesus. The room’s formal religious objects are given particular prominence in his view. Among them, the baptismal font becomes the focus of his attention and the instrument through which he disrupts the service.

Tommy’s Disruption and Bror’s Response

The font is carved from a single large piece of stone and reaches Tommy’s waist. Its dark gray bowl is rough and entirely dry. Tommy has a two-liter plastic bag of white powder in his pocket. After looking around and seeing no one watching him, he makes a hole in the bag and pours its contents into the font. He puts the empty bag away and returns outside, already trying to work out an explanation for sitting far from his mother, beside the font. The deliberate placement of the powder in a baptismal object makes the act more than a private experiment: it is concealed in the central space of a religious rite, where its consequences will become visible to the congregation.

Bror Ardelius, the temporary minister of Vällingby Parish, is the first to notice the smoke rising from the font. He has waited all his life for a sign from the Lord, and for an instant the sight seems to answer that expectation. The impression quickly passes. He decides that the smoke is no miracle or divine sign but simply smoke from the font, and turns to the practical question of how it got there. The sequence sets a private hope of revelation against an observable disturbance; Bror’s initial reaction does not persist once the material explanation becomes apparent.

Bror leans toward the microphone and announces that there has been a small mishap and that the building should be cleared. His words initiate the evacuation rather than offering a theological interpretation of the smoke. The scene shows the minister using the platform and microphone to respond to an immediate danger, while the congregation’s religious purpose gives way to the need to leave the building.

Staffan and the Incident’s Significance

Staffan understands what has happened as soon as he hears Bror say there has been a mishap. He leaves the podium and walks quickly but under control toward the exit, identifying Tommy as the person responsible. His outward restraint contrasts with his anger: he thinks that if he catches Tommy immediately, he will give him a hiding. He also frames the boy’s behavior as a need for guidance and imagines that, after marrying Yvonne, he will assume responsibility for disciplining him. For the moment, however, he intends to find Tommy and at least shake him up.

The episode gives Vällingby Parish a precise narrative role without presenting it as a broad institutional portrait. The mass creates an occasion for Tommy and Yvonne to appear alongside Staffan in his religious capacity; the baptismal font becomes the site of Tommy’s concealed act; and Bror’s call to clear the church turns that act into a public incident. Religious expectation briefly colors Bror’s perception of the smoke, but the response that follows is practical. At the same time, the disruption exposes the unresolved strain among Tommy, Yvonne, and Staffan: what begins as Tommy’s unexpected attendance ends with Staffan hurrying after him, angry and already imagining the authority he expects to exercise in the family.