Hinumegin garðin
“The words kept us in check; reminded us that the price for sin was death and eternal damnation. I was granted temporary mercy for my sins during the hour I was at Sunday school, but as soon as I left, I was surrounded by sin and temptation again, and I was damned and perhaps eternally doomed until the next time I went to Sunday school.”
The kid narrating this autobiographical novel gets drawn into the religious fantasies of his Sunday school teacher. His teacher assures him, that most of what he does and thinks is sinful, and that unless he is saved, he is bound for eternal damnation in Hell. No matter how much he tries, the kid never manages to fulfil the requirements for salvation.
But the sanctuary on the border between salvation and damnation is the intimate relationship between the kid and his grandmother. Surrounded by the smell of camphorated spirits and her murmuring conversations with God and Jesus, the kid finds his temporary grace.
Right until merciless doubt enters to tell them something different.