CHAPTER 125
Not a word was spoken for two days. The maid crept round the flat, hugging the walls. Then everything returned to normal on the third day. Kristina Tacker smiled. Lars Tobiasson-Svartman smiled back. The snow had started to melt outside.
On 3 April he was notified that his leave without pay would last until 15 June 1915. It would only be cancelled if Sweden were drawn into the war. His suitcases were already packed.
CHAPTER 126
On 5 April he said goodbye to his wife. She went with him to the station. In his hand he had a ticket to Skövde and Karlsborg. She waved. He thought about how often her hand was cold.
In Katrineholm he got off the train and bought a new ticket to Norrköping. He emptied his cases and transferred the contents to his two rucksacks. After removing the luggage labels he stood the cases at the side of a luggage van.
CHAPTER 127
The ice was softer now. But it was still there, all the way to the outer skerries. The sky was obscured by a thin mist. He walked fast.
In one of the bays near Hässelskären he came upon a shoe frozen fast in the ice. The sole was facing upwards, as if the wearer had fallen through the ice while standing on his head. It was a man's lace-up boot, big, patched, a boot for a large foot. He paused and examined the ice all around it. Nothing but the boot. No footsteps, nothing.
He continued his trek, walking so fast that he became short of breath. He would occasionally stop and scan the ice he had already traversed through his telescope. There was, of course, nobody following him.
He stopped again at Armnö: it would be the third time he had spent the night there. Somebody had been in the boathouse in the meantime. The herring drift nets had gone, and a newly tied pike net was in one corner. He ate his tinned meat and made a fire. He was impatient. The frozen-in boot puzzled him.
The next day he rose early and continued his trek over the ice. A wind was getting up, gusting from the north-east.
When he came to Uddskärsfiärden, the other side of Höga Lundsholmen, he met two people coming the other way. They suddenly appeared from behind the skerry, as if out of nowhere. He slipped out of the harness he was using to pull his rucksacks over the ice. It was like laying down his guns.
It was a man about the same age as himself and a boy, twelve or thirteen years old. The boy was deformed, with a misshapen head. His skull was far too big, and his skin was stretched tightly over his projecting cheekbones. He was also one-eyed, his left eye being no more than a shrivelled bag of skin. Their clothes were shabby, the man's face gaunt, his eyes flickering. They eyed him anxiously. The boy took hold of the man's hand.
'It's not very often you come across anybody else walking over the ice,' Tobiasson-Svartman said.
"We're on our way to Kalmar,' the man said. 'We come from t' north. It's quicker to walk over f ice, when it's strong enough.'
The man spoke a dialect he could not place.
'From the north?' he said. 'How far north? Further than Söderköping?'
'I nivver 'eard of Söderköping. We come from Roslagen, near Öregrund.'
'Then you have come a long way.'
The boy said nothing. He made a snorting sound when he breathed. He suddenly burst out laughing and tossed his head about. His father took hold of him, gripping him tight like an animal you've just caught. The boy calmed down and sank back into silence.
'His mother's dead,' the man said. 'There was nowt for us up there. He's got an aunt in Kalmar. Mebbe it's better there. She's religious, so I reckon she ought to be willing to take in young ones and ailin' folk.'
'What do you do to earn a living?'
'We wanders frae farm to farm. Folks are poor, but they share with us. Specially when they clap eyes on my lad. I reckon it's mainly so as to get shot of us quicker.'
The father raised his shabby hat, took hold of his son's hand and started walking. Tobiasson-Svartman shouted to them to stop. He took some banknotes out of his inside pocket, at first low-value ones, but then he added a hundred-kronor note. He handed them to the father who stared at the money in amazement.
'I can afford it,' Tobiasson-Svartman said. 'It's not only poor people who go trekking over the ice.'
He set off again. He did not turn round until he was several hundred metres distant.
The father and son were as if rooted to the ice, gaping after him.
CHAPTER 128
He closed in on Halsskär in the afternoon of the following day.
The ice was soft still. The rucksacks he was pulling behind him were sucking up the surface slush and getting heavier and heavier. He avoided going too close to the shallows, round the rocks and skerries. He stopped three times to check the thickness of the ice. The sea was getting closer, pushing up from underneath.
CHAPTER 129
He was trembling when he focused the telescope.
There was smoke rising from the chimney. He had expected that to make him feel relieved. Instead he was nervous.
I will turn back, he thought. I must put a stop to this madness, I will go back.
Then he continued walking towards the skerry. The boat was beached, the sail furled tightly round the mast. The snow had melted away on the path to the cottage, he could see no footprints.
He sat down on one of the large stones used as a sinker and took a bottle of aquavit from one of the soaking rucksacks. He took two deep swigs, and could feel the heat spreading through his body.
He took another drink, then set off for the cottage.
I'll knock on the door, he thought. I'll open it and go inside. When I've closed the door behind me I'll start looking for a way of escape right away.
Before he had time to knock the door opened. Sara Fredrika flung it open. She was wearing different clothes, patched, worn, but clean. Her hair was not in a mess, she had put it up. She was shaking. He had never seen so much happiness.
'I knew you'd come,' she said. 'I have had my doubts, but I had not given up.'
'I said I would come. It took time. But now I've trekked over the ice and here I am.'
They went into the cottage. She had tidied. A lot had been taken away – bits of rag, odd pieces of worn carpet – but the skin of the mad fox was still there. He wriggled out of his rucksacks.
She grabbed hold of him. It was as if she were sticking fish hooks into him. She started pulling and tugging at his clothes. They tumbled to the floor in front of the fire. He burned his back, but the hooks were so deeply embedded that he could not get away.
Afterwards they got dressed in silence. He eyed her back furtively.
When she turned round he saw that her expression was different. He recognised it, he'd seen it before, but on somebody else's face. He knew straight away. She had the same look in her eyes as when his wife told him she was pregnant.
CHAPTER 130
Sara Fredrika told him the next day, as if it were the most straightforward thing in the world.
They were walking along the shore, collecting driftwood for the fire.
'I'm pregnant,' she said.
'I thought as much,' he said.
She eyed him expectantly.
'Will you be disappearing again now?'
'Why should I want to do that?'
'A naval officer and a slut from the sea. What sort of a future is there in that? We're on the edge of a precipice.'
'I came to fetch you.'
'You ought to know that I'd made up my mind. I'm pleased about the baby, even if you hadn't come back.'
'I'm here.'
She was still looking at him. He had the feeling that a rope was being drawn taut around them.
CHAPTER 131
The baby was surrounded by silence.
Sara Fredrika said nothing that was not necessary. Lars Tobiasson-Svartman tried to understand what was happening. Nothing was clear any more. He could feel an unusual sense of peace, but it was misleading. It was frequently broken by a pain that seemed to encroach from all sides at the same time.
They shared her bed at night. Their bodies asked no questions that made him feel ill at ease.
CHAPTER 132
On 19 April a strong south-westerly wind blew up and dispersed the remains of the ice that was still covering the bays.
They went to the highest point on the island and saw that they were now surrounded by open sea. Further in towards the mainland they could still see traces of the broken-up, greyish-white ice.
The next day they launched the sailing dinghy. He was surprised by how strong she was. He stayed on shore while she rowed out to check that the boat was still water-tight, and that the sail smacking against the mast did not have any tears.
'I'll sail around the island,' she shouted.
He stretched out his arms. He did not want to go with her, he stayed on the skerry. He followed her progress through his telescope. She suddenly turned to look at him, smiled and waved. She was saying something, but he could not read her lips. Further out to sea he could see another sail. He could see through the telescope that it was a little cargo boat coming from the east, heading for Barösund.
He was standing in the inlet waiting for her to round the headland. She was rowing now, with the sail furled round the mast.
They beached the boat and he fastened a rope round one of the big stones.
'She's completely dry. Shipping no water at all. Did you see that I was talking to you?'
'Yes, but I couldn't understand what you were saying.'
'You will do next time.'
'What about that cargo boat?'
'It's on its way here.'
They walked up the path to the cottage. Spring flowers were starting to appear, moss campion and sand couch.
'It's a sailor from Aland,' she said. 'He always comes here in the spring. He says he knows when the sea is open. In fact, I think he hangs around in one of the pools where the ice never forms.'
'What do you mean, pools?'
'Holes in the ice. That never freeze over.'
He had never heard of any such thing before. 'Have you seen them?'
'How on earth could I have seen them? But others have. They are like big gills in the ice. The sea has to breathe when it's covered in ice. This man who's on his way here, ask him, his name's Olaus, he usually rows over to the island and asks if I need anything from civilisation. Or if I have any letters he can post for me.'
'Letters?' He looked at her in surprise.
'Olaus is a nice man. He thinks there might be somebody for me to write to. He thinks he's doing me a favour when he offers to post letters for me.'
They went into the cottage.
1 have a letter,' he said.
'I haven't seen you writing anything.'
'I haven't written it yet. Now that I know there's somebody who could post it, I can write it.'
'Who do you have to write to?'
'The hydrographic engineers, my superiors in Stockholm. I have various observations to report.'
'What have you seen that I haven't seen?'
That made him angry, but he did not show it. When she had gone outside he took writing paper and an envelope from one of the rucksacks and sat down at the table. He found it difficult to produce the words.
The letter was one long prevarication. It was about why it had been posted on the east coast and not from the part of Sweden where he was supposed to be. Complications, sudden changes of plan, tasks that had been cancelled, all of them secret. He ought not really to send this letter, but he was writing it even so. He would soon be going back to the fortress in Karlsborg; no doubt by the time she received this letter he would have left the melting ice of the Baltic Sea.
He finished by saying: 'I'll soon be home again. Nothing is fixed, but it will be before summer. I'm always thinking of you and the baby'
* * *
He went over to the window and looked at the woman outside.
For one brief moment the faces fused, one half was Kristina Tacker's, the eyes, the hair and the forehead were Sara Fredrika's.
She came in and sat down on the bed.
'Read it to me.'
'Why?'
'I've always dreamed of receiving a letter one day.'
'It's secret.'
'Who is there I could tell it to?'
He unfolded the paper and read aloud: '"The ice has melted away, the channels are navigable once more, meteorological forecasts suggest lower water levels and an increased risk of mines drifting into our waters. No sightings of foreign warships. Lars Tobiasson-Svartman."'
'Is that all?'
'I only write the bare minimum.'
'What's secret about that? Ice and water levels? I don't know what mines are.'
'Mines are a sort of iron driftwood that can explode. They blow ships and people to pieces.'
'Can't you write a letter to me?'
'I shall write a letter to you. If you leave the room. I have to be alone when I write.'
She left him alone. He sealed the letter to his wife and then wrote a couple of lines to Sara Fredrika.
'I'm so happy at the thought of having a child, after the tragic loss of my daughter Laura. I'm dreaming of the day when we can go away together'.
He did not sign the letter, but put it into the envelope and sealed it.
To Sara Fredrika. Halsskär.
CHAPTER 133
The man whose name was Olaus lay to anchor north of the skerry and rowed into the inlet. He was an old man with stiff joints who showed no sign of surprise when he saw Tobiasson-Svartman. It was a short visit, a sailor had gone ashore to make sure that the lady who lived on the skerry was in good health.
He did not seem to notice the signs, only slight as yet, that Sara Fredrika was pregnant. Tobiasson-Svartman gave him the letters, and money for the stamps.
'She wants a letter,' he said.
'Of course Sara would like a letter,' Olaus said. 'I'll post them in Valdemarsvik.'
He rowed back to his boat. When Tobiasson-Svartman got up the next day, it had already sailed. He had not asked any questions about the ice-free pools Sara Fredrika had spoken about.
CHAPTER 134
It was 9 May, warm weather, calm sea.
They got up early in order to bring in the nets that had been laid close to the little rocks that did not even have names. They rowed into the morning sun, she had unbuttoned her blouse and he was in his shirtsleeves. He rowed, she sat in the stern. He enjoyed the morning atmosphere, wanted for nothing, and just for now was liberated from all measurements and distances.
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