Harbour

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

  Why does everything have to fucking play up? Why can't anything work?

  He lifted off the cover and saw that he'd flooded the engine, the petrol had run out of the carburettor and gathered in a puddle underneath the fuel filter. He did all the things he could think of, checked all the connections and cleaned the spark plug. It was starting to get dark by the time he put the cover back on and yanked at the starter until he was sweaty, with no success.

  He resisted a powerful urge to lift the engine off the plank, carry it down to the jetty and throw it in the sea. Instead he took the cover off once again, sprayed the whole engine with WD-40 with an air of resignation, put the cover back on and left it.

  Major and minor questions

  As Simon approached Anna-Greta's house with the evening drawing in, he saw that she had lit candles in the kitchen. His stomach contracted, and he suddenly felt nervous. He felt he was on her wavelength to a certain extent, having put his best pullover on under his jacket, but he perceived a ceremonial air that he wasn't quite sure he could rise to.

  When he looked back at his life it seemed to him that he had lived it without making any actual decisions. Things had turned out the way they had turned out, and he had just gone along with it all. His alliance with Spiritus was perhaps an exception, but that had been dictated by necessity. He couldn't have done anything else.

  Or could he?

  Perhaps it was just that he had never been faced with such a clear question before, such a definite choice as this proposal. He had probably made decisions and choices, but it had happened quietly, so to speak. No bells and whistles, no candles, no sinking feeling in his stomach.

  The business of children, for example. He and Anna-Greta had been unable to have children, and presumably he was the weak link. They had never consciously tried to have children. If their love had resulted in a child they would no doubt have accepted it with joy, but when it didn't happen, they left the matter alone. They didn't have any tests and they never discussed adoption.

  It just didn't turn out that way.

  That expression contained the essence of an attitude to life that was embraced by many people on Domarö, and that Simon also shared. A kind of fatalism. The meeting in the mission house had shown him where the roots of this fatalism lay. Things happened, and that was just the way it all turned out. Or they didn't happen, and things just didn't turn out. Nothing to be done about it.

  But now he was on his way to the prettily illuminated house to answer a question that wasn't just going to turn out one way or the other by itself. It was Yes or No that mattered here, and his best pullover was chafing slightly at the neck. He wished he had brought a present, a flower, or something to hold in his hands at least.

  With his customary combination of city behaviour and village behaviour he knocked on the door first and then opened it. He hung his jacket in the hallway, ran a finger inside the neckline of his pullover and went into the kitchen.

  He stopped by the stove. The ceremonial air he had sensed was definitely there. The candelabra had been brought out, there was a clean white cloth on the table, and a bottle of wine was waiting. Anna- Greta was wearing her blue dress with the high neck and the Chinese embroidery. Simon hadn't seen it for ten years, at least, which was why he stopped dead.

  There she was, the woman he...

  the woman he...

  the woman.

  Her. The other one. You. And wasn't she beautiful, wasn't she elegant. She certainly was. The candles made the silk of the dress shimmer, and the glow spread to her face, which seemed to lose its age altogether rather than looking twenty years younger. It was just her, Anna-Greta, through all the years and all the different ways she had looked. Just Anna-Greta.

  Simon swallowed and didn't know what to do with his hands. There should have been something in them, something to hand over, some kind of gesture to be made. Instead he waved vaguely in the direction of the table, the room, Anna-Greta, and said, 'This is...lovely.'

  Anna-Greta shrugged, said, 'Sometimes you just have to make a bit of an effort,' and a little of the communion-like atmosphere eased. Simon sat down on the opposite side of the table and reached out his empty hand, palm upwards. Anna-Greta took it.

  'Yes,' he said. 'Of course.'

  Anna-Greta leaned forward. 'Of course what?'

  'Of course I want to marry you. Of course I do.'

  Anna-Greta smiled and shut her eyes. With her eyelids closed she nodded silently. Simon swallowed around the lump in his throat and squeezed her hand.

  This is how it is,

  he thought. This is how it's going to be.

  With his free hand he dug in his trouser pocket and took out the matchbox, placing it on the table between them.

  'Anna-Greta?' he said. 'There's something I have to tell you.'

  Bloody tourists go home

  Anders and Elin dedicated the evening to a lot of wine and a little chat. Elin lit a fire in the living room and stayed in there, Anders sat in the kitchen staring at the bead tile, trying to find a pattern. Nothing occurred to him. The silence that had been acceptable when he was alone in the house was suffocating with Elin there.

  From one of the kitchen cupboards he dug out his father's old cassette player and a plastic bag of tapes. They were well used and grubby, and had been played many times. They were mostly compilations from a program of top twenty hits, Alf Robertsson and Lasse Lonndahl. He had come to terms with the idea of listening to Alf Robertsson's growling voice for a while when he found a tape that was so worn that the label was almost illegible. It didn't matter, he recognised it and knew what it said, 'Kalle Sandare Makes a Call'.

  The cassette player had no lead. He searched through the drawers frantically, with growing anticipation. He had listened to this particular tape with his father many times. As a child he had thought Kalle s mischievous phone calls were very funny, and he was looking forward to finding out what he thought of them now.

  He found the lead and pushed it in, inserted the cassette and pressed Play. He heard the faint beep indicating that the conversation was starting, and turned up the volume; the tape was so old and worn that the sound itself seemed to have been eroded.

  'Ah, good afternoon, my name is Mastersson and I'm an engineer...'

  Anders sat with his ear pressed close to the machine, listening as Kalle pretended to be interested in buying some Svea brand beehives, asking detailed questions about his prospective purchase. The innocent victim on the other end willingly answered his questions, which became more and more insane.

  Anders laughed out loud when Kalle asked if the beehives had reflector aggregates like those in boat tanks, and laughed even more when he started talking about the buried beehives he'd seen in Germany. Towards the end, when he told a completely pointless story about a little dinghy that had been stuck in the ice over the winter, 'and then, when the spring came...the boat just floated up!' Anders found himself so helpless with laughter that he missed a bit and had to rewind the tape.

  When the conversation was over, Anders pressed the Stop button. He had a pain in his stomach and tears in his eyes. But it was a good pain, and they were good tears. He wiped them away and poured himself another glass of wine. Just as he was about to restart the tape to listen to the next call, Elin came into the kitchen.

  'What are you listening to?'

  'Kalle Sandare. Don't you think he's brilliant?'

  'Not really.'

  Anders got annoyed, and had to restrain himself from making a nasty comment. Elin yawned and said, 'I'm going to bed.'

  'You do that.' She lingered for a moment, and Anders added, 'I'm staying here for a while. You carry on.'

  Elin went off to the bedroom and Anders was alone in the kitchen with Kalle Sandare. He drank a toast to the cassette player, lit a cigarette and kept listening. Kalle was looking for a job as a drummer in a dance band, investigated tree-felling opportunities and was interested in buying an electric guitar. There were no more belly laughs, but Ander
s giggled almost non-stop.

  When the tape ended there was silence in the kitchen, and he felt more abandoned than ever. Kalle's gentle, friendly voice had kept him company. Anders took out the tape, twisting it over and over between his fingers. It was recorded in 1965.

  This is culture.

  The humour consisted almost exclusively of linguistic twists and turns, and was nice through and through. There was nothing harsh or cynical in Kalle's treatment of his unsuspecting victims, he was just a funny little old man, an eccentric part of Swedish life.

  Anders thought about the comedy programs he had seen on television in recent years, and started to cry. Because Kalle Sandare wasn't around any more, and because everything was so terrible nowadays. After he had cried for a while he stood up, rinsed his face in cold water and tried to pull himself together.

  Stop it. You can't carry on like this.

  He dried his face on a tea towel and felt somehow purged inside. Laughter and tears had followed on from one another, and at last he was tired enough to be able to sleep. A good evening, in spite of everything. On his way to the bedroom he ran a finger over the tape.

  Elin must have been able to hear Kalle Sandare as well; the bedroom door was ajar, and the tape had clearly acted as a lullaby. She was fast asleep, breathing deeply, and Anders was grateful he didn't have to talk. He undressed and got into Maja's bed, then lay for a while looking at the bundle in the big bed that was Elin.

  What am I going to do with her?

  There wasn't much he could do. She had to reach her own decision. He would tell her that she could stay on for a few days if necessary, but after that she would need to find a different solution. He didn't want anyone else living here, he wanted to be alone with his ghosts. And Kalle Sandare.

  Anders smiled. There had been another tape, where had that gone? 'The Tales and Adventures of El Zou-Zou the Magician'. There was some story about a monkey who went in and out through the handles of a paper bag and fetched out different tools...

  With the monkey by his side he tumbled into dreams.

  He was woken by a cold draught and sat up blinking, trying to see the clock on the floor next to the bed. Half-past twelve. He had been asleep for maybe an hour.

  One night. Can I please be allowed to sleep for

  one whole night?

  The bedroom door was wide open, and the big bed was empty. Anders flopped back on his pillow and listened. There wasn't a sound inside the house, but the outdoor noises sounded much too clearly, as if the outside door was open. He had forgotten to barricade the bedroom door, and now he had to deal with the consequences.

  Yawning, he pulled on his clothes and went into the kitchen. The outside door was indeed open to the night, and the house was bitterly cold. The thermometer outside the kitchen window was showing four degrees. Elin's clothes had been neatly folded on the bedroom chair, so she must have gone out in her bra and pants.

  Gone home.

  That was where she had been heading the previous night, and that was presumably where she had gone now. Right across the island, perhaps two kilometres to Kattudden.

  Anders rubbed his face angrily with the palms of his hands.

  Shit! Shit shit shit!

  There was nothing else he could do. He found a warm sweater and a jacket, shoved Elin's clothes into a carrier bag, pulled on a woolly hat and set off. If he was lucky she hadn't been gone long, and he would catch up with her along the road.

  His head was buzzing with the intoxication that had been on its way towards a hangover, but had been stopped in its tracks. The dancing beam of the torch moving along the track made him feel slightly unwell. When he got to the point where the track divided, he had a stroke of genius and turned off for Simon's house.

  Simon's bike was propped up against the birch tree by the track. It wasn't locked. It was an old army bike and not really worth stealing, even for the most desperate thief. Besides which, Simon had said he couldn't use it any longer, and anyone who needed it was welcome to take it.

  Anders took it. He noticed something unusual: Simon's house was in darkness, but there was a light on in Anna-Greta's. Then he remembered.

  They're probably sitting up making plans.

  The thought cheered him up, and the chilly night air had cleared his head. He hung the bag of clothes on the handlebars, got on the bike and pedalled off, using the torch to light his way, since the lamp on the front of the bike had been broken since time immemorial. There was a chance that someone else might have stopped Elin, but it wasn't great. It was only in summer that people on Domarö were moving about at night.

  He passed the shop and the mission house without seeing any sign of the sleepwalker. By the time he got on to the track through the forest, he was puffing and sweating. There was a sour, smoky taste in his mouth, and as he swept the torch over the gloomy trees, despondency came over him once again and a line from 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now' popped up in his head.

  The Smiths. It was many years since a line from one of their songs had come unbidden into his mind, and it made him follow a chain of thought back through the years as he pedalled through the forest. He came out into the opening leading towards Kattudden, continued for fifty metres or so, then caught sight of something that made him brake so sharply that the tyres skidded through the gravel.

  He tried to correct the bike, but couldn't keep it upright. It slid sideways and he went down with a clatter and a ping from the bell. His right knee scraped along the gravel then the speed took him and rolled him over a couple of times before he was eventually stopped by a fence. He pulled himself up into a sitting position and tried to make sense of what his eyes were seeing.

  Henrik's platform moped was parked under a lamppost. In the garden next door, Elin was walking with two other people. The sound of Anders crashing his bike made them turn around. It was Henrik and Björn. They both looked roughly the same age as when Anders had last seen them, eighteen years earlier.

  This isn't real. This isn't happening.

  Henrik and Björn were contemplating him calmly as he sat there like a dazed animal, caught in the glow of the lamp. Elin carried on along the side of the house. It wasn't a house Anders was familiar with. Just one of many summer cottages. Elin was carrying something heavy. It was hard to see what it was, because the light didn't reach that far.

  The taste of blood seeped into Anders' mouth and he looked around for the torch. It was by his feet, and it was still shining. He pointed it at Henrik, who gave a start as the bright light hit him. Then he smiled.

  'Unfortunately it's not that simple, Anders.'

  Something in Henrik's hand reflected the light and dazzled Anders before the reflection vanished. A knife. The blade was so long it almost reached the ground as Henrik held the handle between his index and middle finger, letting the sharp edge swing to and fro. If it hadn't been for the shape of the blade, it could have been a machete.

  Anders got to his feet. His trousers were ripped over his right knee, which was throbbing with pain. There was no point in questioning the evidence of his own eyes. Henrik and Björn were standing there. They looked the same as they had done all those years ago, Henrik's voice was the same. Anders spat out a gob of saliva mixed with blood and asked, 'What are you doing?'

  Henrik looked at Björn and Björn said, 'Burning down the discotheque.'

  Henrik gave him the thumbs-up sign. Anders shone the torch towards the house. Elin really was wearing only her underclothes, and the narrow band of her bra glowed white against her back. She was carrying a can of petrol in her hands, and was just throwing the last of the petrol over the corner of the house.

  Why...

  The thoughts whirled around in Anders' head, tinged with red and with no sense of order. The only thing he could manage to get out was that one simple question, '...why?'

  Henrik pursed his lips and frowned, as if Anders' lack of knowledge annoyed him. He said, 'I think you know.' 'No.'

  'Oh, come on.'

&n
bsp; 'I don't understand what you mean.'

  Henrik waved the knife around and said to Björn, 'Now I'm fucking disappointed. Aren't you disappointed?'

  The corners of Björn's mouth turned down. 'Truly disappointed.'

  They were playing some kind of game, and Anders didn't want to join in. The fact that they were standing there in front of him, alive and talking and playing their game, was just too much to take in, so Anders clung to the reason he had come here. 'What's Elin got to do with all this?'

  Björn shook his head. 'You really don't understand anything, do you? Mind or body? Which rules the other? I dunno.'