Depths

by Mankell Henning

  Tobiasson-Svartman wrapped a scarf round the lower part of his face. In his pocket he had a hammer with an old sock round the head. He took it out and followed Welander along the path.

  Yet he could not summon the courage to hit him, and he turned and ran away. He was afraid Welander would see him and follow, but there was no sound from the path behind him. He put the scarf and the hammer back into his overcoat pockets and forced himself to walk slowly.

  When he came to Wallingatan he took his pulse. He did not go up to the flat until the rate had sunk to sixty-five.

  CHAPTER 150

  He continued leaving the flat every morning. He told Kristina Tacker that he was going to a meeting of the secret committee. He spent the days in museums and cafes. Eventually he reconciled himself to the fact that he had not dared to attack Welander. He was still furious, but unsure of where he should direct his rage.

  Weeks passed. Kristina Tacker's stomach became bigger and bigger.

  He tired of going to museums first, then cafes. Instead he went for very long walks. As dusk fell he would imagine the lighthouses, the ones that had not yet been switched off on account of the war. He could see in front of him a beam of light over the sea. Soon he must start measuring it. It was time to give himself the order to set out.

  He thought about Sara Fredrika and the skerry on the edge of the open sea.

  The sea is calm, he thought. For once the sea around me is dead calm.

  CHAPTER 151

  One evening it dawned on him that he was outside the building where Ludwig Tacker lived, the place where those dreadful Christmas dinners were held.

  He recalled that his father-in-law went out for an evening walk every week.

  Ludwig Tacker had once visited the British protectorate in southern Africa ruled autocratically by Cecil Rhodes. He never stopped telling his family about the long journey that had taken him to distant Lusaka via Gothenburg, Hull and Cape Town, and then by rail and on horseback to the copper mines at Broken Hill. He had never seen anything like it. Veins of copper were exposed on the ground in some places, so that you only needed to bend down to gather the valuable ore.

  The object of his journey had been for Tacker to invest in the copper mines, but Rhodes had enough money and did not want anybody else to become involved. It had come to nothing. But Tacker was still interested in mining. That is why one evening every week he would meet a group of men roughly his own age who shared his interest in minerals. They met at the home of a mining consultant who lived at Järntorget in the Old Town.

  As he walked home that evening it struck him that he might have found an outlet for his fury after all.

  CHAPTER 152

  The next week he followed his father-in-law through the streets to the mining consultant's home. He had no specific plan, he only wanted to find out what route Tacker took. He remained hidden in the shadows. It was a warm evening, and he waited for four hours until Tacker emerged and went back home accompanied by two other men. One of them stumbled occasionally, they were laughing a lot, kept stopping, then moving on again, all the time engrossed in talk.

  That night, when his wife had gone to bed, he sat in his study and worked out a plan. On his desk were the hammer and the dark-coloured scarf. He was perfectly calm. It was like preparing for one of his expeditions. He did not notice that on two occasions his wife had appeared in the doorway, looking at him.

  CHAPTER 153

  It was a windy evening, with occasional showers.

  He had put the scarf and the hammer with the sock round its head in his overcoat pockets. When Ludwig Tacker came out of his front door, Tobiasson-Svartman hurried to waylay him at a spot where it was especially dark and usually deserted. He hid in the shadows next to a wall. His father-in-law passed by so close that he could smell his cigar. The old man's walking stick tip-tapped on the paving stones. Tobiasson-Svartman wrapped the scarf round his face and took out the hammer. Seven paces, eight at most and he would have caught up.

  Tacker spun round and raised his walking stick.

  'Who are you?' he yelled. 'What do you want?'

  Tobiasson-Svartman was terrified. He was sinking, hitting out was a way of coming back up to the surface. Tacker bellowed and defended himself stoutly, hitting with his walking stick and trying to pull off the scarf round Tobiasson-Svartman's face. Tacker was strong. He pulled and tugged and the scarf was half off when the hammer hit him on the nose. There was a crunching sound. Tacker fell heavily. Tobiasson-Svartman ran away. He threw the hammer into the water at Nybroviken, having first knotted the scarf tightly round its handle.

  All the time he was afraid that somebody was going to grab him. But nobody came. He was alone with his fear.

  He stood in Wallingatan for a long time. He had never been so terrified in all his life. Ludwig Tacker had almost exposed him. Everything would have collapsed.

  In the end he opened the front door and walked up the stairs to his flat. Kristina Tacker was asleep. He listened outside her door.

  The dead eyes of the china figurines glinted in the light from the street lamps. He sat down in the warm room and hoped that Ludwig Tacker was dead.

  CHAPTER 154

  The attack on Ludwig Tacker aroused a lot of attention. There were prominent articles in the newspapers. Everybody agreed that the assailant must be a madman.

  But his father-in-law did not die. He had a broken jaw, a badly broken nose and he had bitten deeply into his tongue. The doctors treating him established that he also had concussion.

  It was evening. Kristina Tacker had been to see her father. Tobiasson-Svartman was in his study, reading a meteorological journal, when she came into the room.

  'I don't want to disturb you,' she said.

  He put the journal down and pointed to the sofa in front of one of the two high windows. She slumped down.

  'You're not disturbing me,' he said. 'How could you do that?'

  I've been thinking about what happened.'

  'We must be grateful that he wasn't more badly injured.'

  She shook her head. 'What kind of a person would try to kill a man he didn't know?'

  'It's like in a war.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'You don't kill people, you kill enemies. And the enemy is nearly always faceless. This man is conducting a secret war. Everybody is his enemy, nobody is his friend.'

  She asked no more questions but left the room. He picked up a newspaper and read about himself. About the madman they were looking for.

  I am completely calm, he thought. Nobody is going to arrest me, nobody knows. The man who appeared out of the darkness has vanished. He will never reappear. He will remain a riddle.

  CHAPTER 155

  The next day they went to visit his father-in-law; he was in bed at home, receiving only a few visitors.

  He was tempted, just for an instant, to tell Ludwig Tacker who it had been, hidden behind the scarf.

  'I'm very sorry to hear about what happened,' he said. 'It's the duty of the police to track down the madman. Let us hope they succeed. Thank goodness it didn't end in catastrophe, at least'

  Ludwig Tacker looked hard at him without saying a word. Then he made a dismissive gesture. He wanted to be left in peace.

  Tobiasson-Svartman sat down on a bench in Humlegården.

  It's not me, he told himself. For short periods I am somebody else, perhaps my father, perhaps somebody I could never imagine. I am searching for something, a bottom that does not exist, neither in the sea nor in myself.

  His thoughts faded away. Children were playing in the park. His head was a complete vacuum. He started to feel extremely weary, it was like a bank of fog creeping up on him.

  When he woke up it was late afternoon. He went home.

  In the flat he found the maid waiting for him, red-eyed. Kristina Tacker had been rushed into hospital some hours previously. She had gone into labour, although the baby was not due for a long time yet.

  The shock, he thought. Her shock a
nd fear are now mine as well. I hoped her father would die. It might end up with me killing my own child instead.

  CHAPTER 156

  Kristina Tacker gave birth to a daughter that evening.

  The doctors were very doubtful if the baby would live. For the next few days Tobiasson-Svartman did not leave the flat. He sent the maid back and forth, bringing news from the Serafimer Hospital.

  The days were sultry. At night, when the maid had fallen asleep in exhaustion, he took to wandering about the flat naked. He frequently sat at his desk to write down his thoughts. But over and over again he discovered that he did not have any thoughts. All around him and inside him was nothing but a vast vacuum.

  One night when he could not sleep he packed a suitcase. He tried to fold his clothes as if it had been his wife doing the packing for him.

  The china figurines stood silently on their shelves. He waited.

  CHAPTER 157

  On 2 August he received a telephone message from a hospital consultant by the name of Edman.

  He was asked to attend the hospital as soon as possible. His panic reaction was such that he had stomach pains. He hurried out of the flat doubled up in agony.

  If the baby had died his wife would be very critical. He had stayed away for too long, had avoided his responsibilities. Or had something happened to her? Had she caught an infection? He had no idea, and sat shivering in the cab.

  Then it struck him: Ludwig Tacker. Has he realised that I was the one who attacked him? Has he told her?

  When he arrived at the hospital the first thing he needed to do was to go to the lavatory. Then he knocked on the consultant's door, heard a loud 'Come', and went in. Dr Edman was tall and bald. He invited his visitor to take a seat.

  'You look very frightened.'

  'Obviously, I was very worried when I was summoned here.'

  'Everybody always fears the worst when they are bidden to come to the hospital. I've tried to drum it into my staff that they should try not to sound so damned dramatic on the telephone. But hospitals are frightening places, whether one likes it or not. However, you have no need to worry. Your daughter will survive. She is strong and has a powerful lust for life.'

  His relief was beyond words. Once he had injured his arm when he fell from a companionway. The pain was intense and he had been given a morphine injection by the ship's doctor. He had never forgotten the feeling of relief when the injection started working. It was the same now, as if somebody had pumped some drug into his veins. His stomach pains ceased, Dr Edman stood before him like a beaming redeemer, dressed in white.

  'They had better stay in hospital for a while yet,' the doctor said. 'We learn a lot every time we have an opportunity to study a premature baby.'

  He left Dr Edman's office and walked along the corridor.

  I do not deserve this, he thought. But my daughter wants to live, she has more of a will to live than I have.

  He went to look at the little miracle.

  CHAPTER 158

  It seemed to him that she looked like a dried mushroom. But she's mine, he thought. She's mine and she's alive.

  Kristina Tacker had a small private room. She was pale and tired. He sat down on the bed and took her hand.

  'She's a beautiful baby,' he said. 'I want her to be called Laura.'

  'As we had agreed,' she said with a faint smile.

  He did not stay for long. Just before he left, he told her that he would have to set out on his mission now. He ought to have left already, but he had asked for a postponement until he could be confident that the baby would survive.

  'Thank you for staying,' she said.

  'Everything will be all right,' he said. 'I'll soon be back.'

  He left the hospital. It was a relief, like sinking into warm water.

  CHAPTER 159

  That night he wandered around the flat naked.

  Shortly before dawn he opened the door of the maid's room. She had thrown off the covers and was lying naked in her bed. He stood looking at her for a long time before leaving.

  When she woke up he was no longer there.

  PART IX

  The Imprint of

  the German Deserter

  CHAPTER 160

  He was walking beside the river, a winding path between dry nettles and patches of tall ferns.

  It was the third day after his flight from Stockholm, Kristina Tacker and the baby. In the market square at Söderköping he had gone round the fish stalls looking for somebody who would be sailing home through Slätbaken and then turning off in the direction of Finnö. A couple of farm labourers from Kättilö were willing to take him with them, and wanted paying in aquavit. They were due to meet at the mouth of the river two days later, by which time the labourers hoped to have sold all the fish they had caught in their spare time to boost their income.

  There was an opening by the side of the path, a clearing leading down to the brown river. He sat on a large stone and closed his eyes. Although he had been moving slowly without exerting himself, he was breathing heavily, as if he had been running. It was not only when he moved, but also when he was sitting down, or sleeping. He was still running.

  Even before he went aboard the train that was to take him south he had written a letter to Kristina Tacker. He explained his sudden departure by telling her that the war had entered an unexpected and very worrying phase. As usual, everything was top secret, every letter he wrote to her, especially if it contained the slightest reference to the character of his work, meant that he was exposing himself, his wife and the baby to danger.

  He sat at a table in the first-class dining room at the Central Station. His hand shook as he wrote the name Laura. He lost control of himself and burst into tears. A waitress watched him nervously but said nothing. He pulled himself together and started to invent his new, urgent mission.

  The war is coming closer to our shores. The people cannot be told anything about it yet, but military men like myself are aware of the situation. The work of securing our borders must be intensified. I shall be on board several different ships. The location will vary, to both the north and the south of the Baltic Sea, or along the Halland and Bohus coast in the west. My letters will not be channelled via the military post office in Malmö. They will be sent from special Swedish Navy bases along the east coast. You must not mention anything I write to anybody. That would put me in danger, there could be repercussions, I could even be dismissed. I shall write again soon.

  He posted the letter at the railway station, bought a ticket to Norrköping and left Stockholm. Before Södertälje the train passed through a local forest fire. The smoke was like fog outside the windows.

  That is what I am looking for, he thought. I can row into the fog, just like when I approached a remote skerry and found Sara Fredrika.

  He continued as far as Söderköping and spent the night in the hotel on the bank of the canal. Without understanding why, he checked in under an assumed name. He called himself Ludwig Tacker, gave no occupational title and stipulated Humlegårdsgatan as his home address.

  It was a sultry night. He lay awake, on top of the covers.

  Nobody here knows who I am, he thought. I am safe at present. When my position can be fixed, I have gone astray.

  As dawn broke, he went for a walk along the canal, strolled up to the top of Ramunderberget, went back to the hotel, had coffee and wrote another letter to his wife. He described himself as exhilarated, happy about the birth of their child, but at the same time very conscious of his duty.