Harbour

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

  She was sitting on the edge of his bed with her hand on his hip. 'Good morning,' she said. Simon nodded in response, and Anna-Greta lowered her voice, as if someone might hear.

  'How did it go? This morning?'

  When Simon came ashore he had simply told Anna-Greta that he was too tired to talk about what had happened, then he had gone straight home and fallen asleep immediately.

  He still didn't want to talk about the morning's outing, so he just said it had gone as well as it could, and asked what time it was.

  'Half-past eleven,' replied Anna-Greta. 'I didn't know whether to wake you, but...I have a suggestion. You might not like it. In which case, feel free to refuse.'

  'What kind of suggestion?'

  Simon thought he'd probably had enough surprises to last for some considerable time. Anna-Greta's posture, the way she was picking at her cuticles, suggested she was about to ask a difficult question. Simon sighed and flopped back on the pillow; he was about to say that the answer to all suggestions at this particular moment was No, when Anna-Greta asked, 'Do you still want to marry me?'

  The no would have to wait a while. Simon gave the opposite answer, but added, 'Why do you ask?'

  'Do you want to marry me now?'

  Simon blinked and looked around the room as if to check whether there was a priest hiding somewhere. There didn't appear to be. He didn't understand the question.

  'Now} What do you mean by now}'

  'As soon as possible.'

  'Is it.. .urgent?'

  Anna-Greta rested her chin on one hand. There was sorrow in the look she gave Simon, her eyes fixed on his for a while until she said, 'Perhaps it is. You never know. And I want to be married to you if... if anything happens.'

  'What do you mean?'

  Anna-Greta traced the lifeline on her palm with her index finger, not looking at Simon as she replied, 'You know I'm not particularly religious. But still. There's something in all that. I want us to be...' She took a deep breath and expanded her chest, as if she had to make an effort to get the big words out, '...to be married in the sight of God. If anything should happen.' She looked at Simon apologetically. 'So there.'

  'OK,' said Simon. 'I understand. What's the suggestion, then?'

  Anna-Greta had made a number of calls that morning. In order to marry, it was necessary to have proof that there was no impediment to the marriage. That had to be obtained from the national registration office in Norrtälje. It would normally take a week or two to receive the papers, but it was possible to obtain them more quickly if it was urgent. The same day, in fact.

  'I said we'd booked the church for tomorrow,' said Anna-Greta. 'But that we'd forgotten this one detail.' She glanced out of the window. 'We'll just make it if we catch the one o'clock boat.'

  Simon had forgotten that he was going to say No, and started to take off his pyjama jacket. When he was halfway he stopped and let the jacket fall back down over his head. 'And have you? Booked the church?'

  Anna-Greta laughed. 'No. I didn't know if you'd think this was a good idea.'

  She moved up so that Simon had room to get out of bed. He took off the jacket and stood up, using the bedpost for support. 'I'm not so sure about good, but I understand the reasoning. Would it be possible to have a cup of coffee before...the wedding trip?'

  Anna-Greta went into the kitchen to make the coffee. Simon leaned against the bedpost. He wobbled as the morning's events hurled themselves at him from behind. He suddenly felt dizzy, and sat down on the bed again. With hands that felt unreal he took off his pyjama trousers and pulled on his underpants and socks. Then he came to a full stop. He held his hands up in front of his eyes.

  These fingers of mine.

  His entire life's work had been built on what he could do—or what he used to be able to do—with these fingers. Thousands of hours in front of the mirror, polishing the tiniest movement to make it look natural, even though it was hiding something else. He had trained his fingers to obedience, and had had them under control.

  Earlier that morning those same fingers had wound his old chain around a dead person, those same hands had tipped a pair of feet over the rail and let a young woman disappear into the depths. To escape awkward questions. To avoid problems. These things his trained fingers had done.

  The thought wouldn't go away. As he got up from the bed and opened the wardrobe door, he was looking at his hands the whole time as if they were prostheses, alien things that had been screwed on to the ends of his arms while he was asleep.

  He took out a pair of trousers, a shirt and a jacket. His best clothes. He put them on. Perhaps the disruption to his normal daily routine had done something to his head, but it really did seem as if his fingers were behaving as if they had a will of their own, and it was only with some difficulty that he could get them to do as he wished. Fasten his buttons, buckle his belt.

  He stopped dead as he was fastening the top button of his shirt.

  Is this what it feels like? To he possessed?

  He looked at himself in the mirror on the wardrobe door. Not that he knew how it was supposed to feel, but he didn't think that was what was going on here. It was more like the English expression: he was beside himself One person carrying out the actions, another looking on, side by side.

  He pushed back his long grey hair, pulled on his jacket and looked at himself in the mirror again.

  Here I am.

  He tried to recall the feeling that had come over him when a maple leaf had crossed his path. Without success. But still he made a slight bow to the mirror, said thank you for the divided life that had been given to him, in spite of everything.

  Clap, clap.

  Anna-Greta was leaning against the doorframe watching him, and she brought her palms together a couple more times. 'Very elegant. Coffee's ready.'

  Simon followed her into the kitchen. Once he had drunk the first cup of coffee, his thoughts began to clear. He looked out of the window and his eye caught the spot on the grass where Marita had sat that time. When he had stood in front of her with a shotgun, considering whether to execute her.

  On that occasion too he had felt as if he had been thrown outside himself, standing beside himself and looking on.

  It's all just excuses, he thought, pouring himself another cup. We talk about being out of our mind, that we weren't ourselves, that we lost control. Different ways of saying the same thing. But we are always ourselves. There are no imaginary friends carrying out actions in our name.

  Except... except...

  'What are you thinking about?' asked Anna-Greta.

  Simon told her what Anders had said to him in the boat. That Maja had entered into him and was influencing him, guiding his hands at night. That he was possessed, just as Elin had been.

  When he had finished, Anna-Greta sat quietly for a while, looking over towards the Shack. Eventually she said, 'Poor little soul.'

  Simon didn't know if she was referring to Anders or Maja, and it didn't really matter which it was. Everything suddenly seemed utterly impossible, and Anna-Greta's simple compassion merely intensified the feeling.

  'Do you really believe that's what's happening?' he asked. 'That the souls of the dead come up from the sea and.. .and...'

  'There's no guarantee they're dead. We know nothing. Nothing. Not for certain.'

  'But what can we do?'

  Anna-Greta reached across the table and placed her hand on top of his. 'What we can do right now,' she said, 'is to take the one o'clock boat over to Norrtälje and sign some papers so that we can get married.'

  Simon glanced at the clock. It was twenty to one, and they would have to leave right away if they were going to get there in time. He picked up the matchbox from the windowsill and said, 'Yes. This is our day. Let's do it. Could you just.. .wait outside for me for a minute?'

  Anna-Greta raised her eyebrows enquiringly, and Simon showed her the box. 'I have to...'

  'Go on, then.'

  'I'd prefer to be on my own.'

&
nbsp; 'Why?'

  Simon looked at the white silhouette of the little boy on the box. Why? He could have come up with reasons, but instead he told the truth, 'Because it's embarrassing. It would be like.. .having an audience when you go to the toilet. Can you understand that?'

  Anna-Greta shook her head and smiled. 'If we're going to grow even older together, there's a good chance that one of us will have to wipe the other's backside before it's all over. Go on, do what you have to do.'

  Simon hesitated. He hadn't realised how suffused with shame his relationship with Spiritus was, and he felt dirty as he pushed open the box. He glanced at Anna-Greta and saw that she was kindly looking out of the window.

  The insect really didn't look healthy. It's skin, once black and shiny, was dull and parchment-like. It was beginning to look more and more like the dead specimen he had seen in the great magician's display case. Simon cleared his throat and gathered up spit.

  The clock was ticking. Time was passing. The boat was getting closer.

  Let go.

  The bubble of spit emerged, fell and spread across the dry skin. The insect moved, absorbed the liquid and came to life a little. Simon looked up. Anna-Greta was watching him.

  'Shall we go?' she asked, pointing at his chin. Simon wiped away a string of saliva, stood up and put the box in his pocket. When they got outside, Anna-Greta took his hand and said, 'That wasn't too bad, was it?'

  'No,' said Simon, and meant it.

  They were going to get married. So it was probably time to embrace the words from the letter to the Corinthians, the words that form part of the promise of love, 'When I became a man I put away childish things.'

  Let go.

  He followed Anna-Greta up on to the track, and the morning stiffness in his limbs began to ease. He looked out to sea and saw that the tender had covered half the distance between Nåten and Domarö. They hurried along, and Simon was worn out by the time they reached the jetty.

  Anna-Greta stood in front of him and pushed back his hair, brushing a few loose strands from his shoulders.

  'Will I do?' he asked.

  'You'll do. In fact, you'll more than do. Do you know which word suits you?' 'No.'

  'It's a beautiful word. You're mysterious.'

  The tender slowed down as it approached the jetty. Simon was just about to say something about glass houses and throwing stones when the angry roar of an engine came up behind them. Just as the prow of the boat touched the jetty and Roger came forward to throw the mooring rope, Johan Lundberg arrived beside them on his platform moped and pulled up.

  'Here you are,' he said. 'Good.'

  However, his expression did not suggest that things were good— quite the opposite, in fact.

  He ignored Simon and turned to Anna-Greta.

  'You have to come. Karl-Erik has lost it completely. You have to talk to him. He'll listen to you.'

  'What do you mean, lost it?' asked Anna-Greta.

  'We're busy clearing up around the house that burned down and he...you have to come. He's out of his mind.'

  Roger came up to them with the mooring rope in his hand.

  'Are you coming? I have to go now.'

  Anna-Greta nodded and turned to Johan. 'Unfortunately I'm busy today. We'll be back at six.'

  Johan's jaw dropped, as if Anna-Greta's response had just revealed one of the great mysteries of the universe to him. Before he had time to come up with any objections, Simon and Anna-Greta stepped on board. Roger followed them and climbed up to the cockpit. The boat reversed away from the jetty.

  Johan stood there gazing after them with the expression of a foundling left to rely on the kindness of strangers. If Simon had needed any proof that Anna-Greta was the unofficial leader of the village, he had it now.

  As the boat began to swing around to head for Nåten, Johan raised his hand feebly in farewell, straddled his moped, kicked it into life and set off back towards the village.

  Anna-Greta and Simon stood leaning against the rail as they swung away from Domarö, towards the mainland. The bay was busy, dotted white with gulls taking off one by one or in groups, flying around in circles then coming in to land once again.

  'What do you think all that was about?' asked Simon.

  Anna-Greta was gazing out to sea. 'I don't know,' she said. 'And I don't want to know, either. Have you seen how many gulls there are? I don't think I've ever seen so many.'

  The boat carved its way through a throng of white bodies that paddled or flew away at a leisurely pace. It really was unusual to see so many.

  Wedding guests,

  thought Simon. And here come the happy couple.

  He put his arm around Anna-Greta and let his thoughts turn to the mainland.

  Duel

  This time there was no room for doubt: it was arson. As they worked to put out the fire, the smell of petrol had been noticeable, and when the worst was over they had also found the can. Someone had set the fire in the Wahlgrens' summer cottage, and it was a small step to assume it was the same person who had set fire to the Grönwalls' place.

  For a while during the night it had looked as though things might go very badly. The fire had taken hold in the conifers in the Wahlgrens' garden, and sparks and burning fragments were being carried inland. Before the fire service arrived, a panic-stricken decision had been taken to fell a number of trees that might otherwise have led the fire up into the forest. It had been a dry autumn, and if the fire caught in the tops of the fir trees, it could be a disaster. The flames would spread through the forest all the way down to the old village, not stopping until they reached the sea.

  Three men worked with chainsaws to fell some forty fir and pine trees that ran along a spur from the forest, an arm that was just dying to grab hold of the fire. It was the kind of feat about which songs are sung. But such songs are no longer sung, and at best Karl- Erik, Lasse and Mats had a small mention in the local newspaper to look forward to.

  The report should, however, mention that they had to work fast, that the trees could not be felled in the direction of the fire, and that they also had to make sure the trees did not fall on to any of the cottages in the area, which meant they had to fell every single tree with precision, and of course all this was done in darkness, with little more than the light of the street lamp and the fire itself to help them.

  Who would have taken on such a task, and who succeeded?

  Why, Karl-Erik, Lasse and Mats!

  OK, so they nearly knocked down the Carlgrens' outhouse, and those people from Örebro might have lost a few panes of glass from their greenhouse, but by and large nobody could have done a better job and the three musketeers, wielding chainsaws instead of rapiers, were the heroes of the night. Since the fire was under control, they could go home and sleep as long as they pleased. They had done their part, and more besides.

  That was how they were greeted when they turned up the following day to chop up the felled trees, 'Here come the three musketeers again!'

  But Mats was the only one who grinned and tossed out a reply. Lasse’s expression was grim, and Karl-Erik looked furious, to put it mildly. It was as if the memory of the previous night's co-operation had been blown away. What happened next could only be described as incomprehensible, an event not unlike that business in Soderviken with Gustavsson and the swan.

  Gustavsson used to feed a swan. It came back to him year after year, accepting pieces of bread from him and providing him with a little company. As soon as you met Gustavsson he would start talking about that swan, how beautiful and clever it was, what a good friend it had become.

  And then one day Gustavsson took his shotgun down to the bay and shot the swan, fired a blast at its neck so that the head flew off. Afterwards he had been inconsolable, unable to come up with any explanation for his behaviour, except that he had got it into his head that he was going to shoot the swan.

  However, this incident with Karl-Erik was more extensive in that it went on for longer than the time it took to load a shotg
un, take aim and fire. And it wasn't only Karl-Erik—Lasse was seized by the same irrational behaviour.

  The morning's work of removing branches and chopping up the trees proceeded more or less as normal, although Mats did say later that there was something slightly odd about Karl-Erik and Lasse. They had each kept themselves to themselves, working in silence. When they took a break to have a drink of water and eat their sandwiches, they sat a long way from each other.

  After their break all three of them put on their ear protectors, started up their saws and set to work again. Mats was working his way through the root of one of the thicker fir trees. Progress was slow, and the saw got very hot. Therefore, when he had finished he switched off the saw, took off his ear protectors and began to sharpen the chain.