The Quarry

by Johan Theorin

  He was waiting for his children and grandchildren to arrive from the west coast. There were things he could be doing; he had customers waiting for ships in bottles, and he was paid well for making them. But it was a holiday, after all, and in any case his thoughts kept returning to the pile of Ella’s old diaries.

  He should never have started looking at them.

  In the end he got up and went to fetch the diary for 1957. He settled down in his chair, opened the diary somewhere around the middle, and began to read Ella’s neat handwriting.

  16th June 1957

  Last night we had a storm, and the children and I got up to watch the lightning. It struck three times out in the sound – we could hear the water crackling. Gerlof slept through the whole thing, but I suppose he’s used to noise out at sea.

  Yesterday he cycled up to Långvik, bought a new fishing net and cycled back to lay it out, then he got up at five this morning to check it – there were twenty-five flounder and six perch. So today we had fish in white sauce – delicious.

  This morning Lena and Julia saw a young deer run across the road into the forest.

  Today that poor widower Henry Fors who lives to the north of the village sold his last two calves for slaughter, the wagon came from Kalmar to fetch them at two o’clock, so now he just has the three cows that his daughter Vendela helps him with. It’s sad, but I suppose he needs the money.

  Ella was right about Vendela Larsson’s father, Gerlof thought; he had never had much money. A few skinny cows grazing on meadows that were anything but lush, and his job in the little village quarry that could no longer compete with the big companies. It wasn’t easy.

  He turned to the next page:

  27th June 1957

  It’s been a while since I wrote; time goes so quickly and I’ve got so much to do that the days just disappear. And I don’t always feel like writing, anyway.

  It’s hot and sunny – summer has definitely arrived.

  Gerlof has sailed down to Kalmar to measure the ship; he went yesterday and took the girls with him – they’re on holiday from school. I’m perfectly happy up here in the village on my own, though – I mean, there’s the sewing group down in Borgholm, but I don’t really miss it. It’s mostly talk and gossip about whoever hasn’t turned up that evening, so I expect they’ll be busy talking about me right now.

  There are cock pheasants all over the place in the evenings; I expect they’re attracted by the hen pheasants down on the farms. The owners of the hens have no intention of letting them get together!

  The little changeling from the pasture crept up to the cottage again today, and I gave him some oatcakes and lemonade. He’s full of life, he never stands still, but he doesn’t say much, and he won’t tell me who he is or where he comes from.

  He needs a wash. And his hair is really long and matted – I’ve never seen anything like it.

  Suddenly Gerlof heard the sound of a car engine, and almost jumped out of his seat. A car was coming along the village road; it slowed down and turned in.

  He quickly closed the diary and hid it under the blanket; he was sitting quietly and calmly in his chair when the gate was opened and the Volvo rolled slowly down the path, bringing his two daughters and their families. The car doors were flung open.

  ‘Hello Granddad! Here we are!’

  ‘Welcome!’ Gerlof shouted, waving cheerfully. ‘Happy Easter!’

  They all climbed out: Lena and her youngest daughter, then Julia and her two youngest stepsons, along with their suitcases and rucksacks.

  The family had arrived, and that was the end of his peace and quiet.

  The grandchildren gave Gerlof a quick hug, then raced into the cottage and switched on the TV or the radio – whatever it was, the volume was turned up high and loud music came pouring out of the windows.

  Gerlof stayed in his chair on the lawn, thinking about what Good Friday had been like when he was a child.

  ‘How are you, Dad? Is everything nice and quiet here?’

  It was Julia. She gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘It’s nice and quiet here at the cottage,’ said Gerlof. ‘I think the whole village is pretty quiet … but the people by the quarry have moved in.’

  ‘What are they like?’

  ‘Quite pleasant.’ He thought about the magazine Jerry Morner had suddenly thrown down on the table the other night. ‘And slightly odd, in some cases.’

  ‘Shall we go over and see them?’

  ‘No, I was at a party over there on Wednesday. That’s quite enough.’

  ‘So it’ll be just us for Easter?’

  Gerlof nodded. He had a young relative up in Marnäs, his brother’s granddaughter Tilda, but she had found a new man back in the autumn and was fully occupied with her new life.

  ‘So what else have you been up to, then?’

  ‘I spend a lot of time just sitting here thinking.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Julia held out her hands. ‘Do you want to get up?’

  Gerlof smiled and quickly shook his head. He didn’t want to get up right now. ‘I’m fine here.’

  Sooner or later he was going to have to talk to his daughters about Ella’s diaries, and find out what they knew about her visitor.

  29

  Up to the point when Nilla collapsed and started coughing up blood at the table, the Mörner family’s Easter lunch had been going very well.

  Per had managed to fool himself, and hadn’t realized how ill she was. But he should have sensed something, because she had seemed tired on Saturday morning. She had helped him prepare the vegetables after breakfast, but progress had been slow, and sometimes she just stood there staring at the chopping board.

  ‘Are you tired?’ he asked.

  ‘A bit … I didn’t sleep very well last night.’

  ‘Would you like to go back to bed?’

  ‘No, it’s OK.’

  ‘Well, you could go out for a bit later on,’ he said. ‘You could go for a walk along the coast – try to get Jesper to go with you.’

  ‘Mm-hmm,’ said Nilla quietly as she carried on chopping tomatoes with slow strokes.

  Per kept an eye on her and tried to relax.

  He had repaired the lower section of the stone steps on Tuesday, and had got into the habit of going to the edge of the quarry every morning and evening to check if it was still standing. He did the same on the morning of Easter Saturday, and the stones were untouched. He would carry on building soon, until the steps reached all the way to the top of the quarry.

  The pools of water were starting to dry up down below. In the summer, when the gravel was completely dry, he and Jesper would be able to have some fun down there, playing football perhaps.

  Nilla too, of course.

  He turned away from the quarry and walked around the house, stopping outside Ernst’s workshop. It was a square wooden box, two metres high, with traces of Falun red paint still visible on the weathered planks. There were small dusty windows on the shorter sides, and a black, creosoted door.

  A heavy chain ran from the door to a ring on the wall, but the only thing holding it in place was a large, rusty nail. Per pulled it out and opened the door.

  The air inside was dry because of all the limestone dust covering the floor. He had been in here three years ago, when Ernst’s family had come to collect the things they wanted to keep from the workshop. The finished sculptures standing by the door had disappeared that day: sundials, bird baths and lampstands. All that remained were the unfinished sculptures, or pieces that were such an odd shape nobody could quite work out what they were meant to be.

  They were clustered together at the back of the workshop. Blocks of stone formed into swollen, headless bodies or heads with deep eye sockets and gaping mouths. Some of them didn’t even remotely resemble people.

  Per didn’t go inside to take a closer look; he simply closed the door and went to fetch the paper.

  ‘So your father is
the famous Jerry Morner?’ said Max. ‘I didn’t know him, but I do remember the name.’

  Per hadn’t spoken to Max Larsson since the party, but they had bumped into one another by the mailboxes.

  ‘Really?’

  He took a couple of steps away from the mailboxes with the newspaper in his hand, but Max didn’t take the hint. He just smiled, one neighbour to another. ‘Oh yes. Jerry Morner, he was a bit of a celebrity in the seventies. He sometimes gave interviews and appeared on those noisy debates about porn on TV … and of course when I was doing my military service we all read those magazines of his.’ He winked at Per. ‘Well, I say read, but of course they were mostly pictures.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Per.

  ‘One of them was called Babylon,’ said Max. ‘Now, what was the other one called? Sodom?’

  ‘Gomorrah.’

  ‘That’s it, Babylon and Gomorrah. They were pretty upmarket … But you had to ask for them in the newsagent’s, they never had them out on display.’ He coughed and added, ‘Of course, I don’t read them these days. Are they still going?’

  ‘No, they’re not around any more.’

  ‘I suppose videos took over, and now there’s the internet too,’ said Max. ‘Things move on.’

  Per didn’t respond.

  ‘So how did he find the models?’ Max went on.

  Per shook his head. ‘I was never involved.’

  ‘You have to wonder what kind of girls would be willing to do that sort of thing,’ said Max.

  ‘Haven’t a clue,’ said Per, but a picture of Regina’s smile came into his mind.

  ‘I mean, you could see their faces quite clearly, and some of them were really pretty.’

  Per shrugged his shoulders and set off towards the quarry. He had been nice for long enough now.

  ‘I suppose they were well paid,’ Max persisted behind him. ‘And it must have been an experience.’

  Per stopped and turned around. He decided to go for the Children Test. He’d done it several times before.

  ‘Have you got children?’ he asked.

  ‘Children?’ Max looked bewildered, then replied, ‘Yes, I’ve got three from my first marriage.’

  ‘Daughters?’

  Max nodded. ‘One. Her name is Annika.’

  ‘Max,’ said Per, lowering his voice, ‘what would you say if you found out Annika had worked with my father?’

  ‘She hasn’t,’ Max said quickly.

  ‘How do you know? Do you think she’d tell you?’

  Max didn’t speak. Per allowed the silence to continue, and set off again. He had gone several metres by the time Max hissed behind him, ‘You bastard!’

  Per just kept on walking. He was used to that reaction when he tried to make people see Jerry’s models as people.

  But of course, that meant that good relations between the neighbours by the quarry had been destroyed once more.

  You bastard.

  The comment was in Per’s mind as he prepared the Easter lunch.

  Jerry, Per, Nilla and Jesper – three generations celebrating Easter together. It was too cold to sit out on the patio, so he laid the table in the living room, in front of Ernst’s wooden chest. As he set out the plates he stared at the drawings on the chest; he wondered why the troll running into its cave was smiling, and why the princess was sitting weeping. Had the knight not arrived in time to defend her virtue?

  ‘Pelle?’ said a voice behind him. His father had come into the room.

  ‘We’ll be eating soon, Jerry. You can sit down … You like Easter eggs, don’t you?’

  Jerry nodded and sat down.

  ‘You can have as many as you like,’ said Per, and carried on setting the table.

  Before he went to fetch the children, he turned back to Jerry and added, ‘But no magazines on the table, thank you.’

  Jerry kept quiet during the meal. The twins didn’t say much either. Everybody ate their eggs and sat there in a world of their own.

  ‘Did you go out today?’ Per asked.

  Nilla nodded slowly. She looked pale and tired, and her voice was quiet. ‘We went down to the quarry. And Jesper found a skeleton.’

  But Jesper shook his head. ‘It was only a little piece of bone … I think it was part of a finger.’

  ‘A finger?’ said Per, looking at him. ‘A human finger?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Where did you find it?’

  ‘At the bottom of a pile of stones. It’s in my room.’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be part of some animal, we can have a look at it later,’ said Per, peeling an egg. ‘But you shouldn’t really pick up bits of bone you find on the ground, there could be germs and—’

  But Jesper didn’t seem to be listening; he was staring past Per, his eyes full of fear. ‘Dad!’ he shouted. ‘Nilla!’

  Per looked to his right and saw that Nilla had dropped her egg and was leaning over the table beside him; her head was drooping and she was about to topple sideways.

  There were red splashes of blood on the tablecloth. When she coughed, more appeared.

  Per moved fast. ‘Nilla!’ He grabbed her just before she fell.

  She looked at him, but her eyelids were heavy. ‘What? What is it?’ she said, as if she were talking in her sleep. ‘Shall I …’

  Then she fell silent and slumped against him.

  Per held her tightly. ‘It’s OK,’ he said quietly. ‘Everything’s OK.’

  But it wasn’t fine – his daughter’s face was suddenly bright red. Per could feel the blood pulsing in her arm, and suddenly there was no strength in her thin body, it was completely limp. She had fainted.

  The meal had come to a complete standstill. Jerry was sitting on the opposite side of the table with an egg in his hand, staring blankly at the red drops on the table. Jesper was on his feet, gazing wide-eyed at his sister.

  Per carried Nilla over to the sofa. When he had laid her down on her side, she coughed and opened her eyes.

  ‘I’m cold,’ she said.

  Per remembered the doctor in Kalmar saying that the new medication could leave her open to infection, and he looked over at Jesper. ‘Nilla will be fine,’ he said. ‘But I need to take her back to hospital. Will you be OK here with Granddad?’

  Jesper nodded.

  ‘And can you ring Mum?’

  The hospital was silent and empty on Easter Saturday, but of course the emergency department was open. Nilla was wheeled off down the corridor on a trolley. All Per could do was go up to her old ward and wait.

  He sat down on a chair in the corridor; he was used to waiting, after all. He waited and waited.

  After almost an hour, the door opened and Marika and her new husband came in. Georg was tanned and was wearing a dark suit, just as he had been on the two previous occasions when Per had met him.

  ‘We’ve come to see the doctor,’ said Marika.

  Per didn’t recognize the doctor who was on duty this evening. His name was Stenhammar and he was younger than Nilla’s previous doctor, but his expression was serious as he took them into his office and sat down at the desk.

  ‘Well, I have good news and bad news.’

  Nobody said anything, so the doctor went on: ‘The good news is that we’ve managed to bring down her temperature; Pernilla will be coming back from intensive care shortly.’

  ‘Can we take her home this evening?’ said Marika, in spite of the fact that this was Per’s weekend.

  Dr Stenhammar shook his head. ‘That’s the bad news,’ he said. ‘Pernilla won’t be coming home … she needs to stay here.’

  ‘How long for?’ asked Marika.

  The doctor didn’t speak for a few seconds. Then he began to elaborate at length on the thorough examination they had done, on Nilla’s test results, and on what they had found. He talked and talked, and he kept using long words.

  ‘Epithelioid … what was it again?’ said Per.

  ‘The usual abbreviation is EHE,’ said Dr Stenhammar, ‘and it’s
very rare, an extremely uncommon type of cancer that usually affects the soft tissues. I know it’s no consolation to you, but as a doctor I—’

  ‘What does this mean for Nilla?’ Marika interrupted.

  The doctor started to speak again. Afterwards Per could remember only two words: malignant tumour.

  ‘… so it’s best if she stays here until the surgery,’ said Stenhammar, linking his hands on the desk.

  Surgery. Per could feel the floor swaying beneath his feet.

  ‘So you’re going to operate?’

  The doctor nodded. ‘We have to, radiotherapy alone won’t be enough, unfortunately … We’re on the way to a vital indication.’

  Per didn’t ask what the final words meant, but they didn’t sound good.

  ‘When?’ Marika asked quietly.

  ‘Soon, very soon.’ The doctor paused. ‘And I’m afraid it’s not a straightforward operation.’

  ‘What are the odds on her recovery?’ asked Per. A terrible question – he wanted to take it back. But Dr Stenhammar merely shook his head.

  ‘We don’t bet in here.’

  They walked out into the corridor in silence. Georg went to get some coffee. Per had nothing to say to his ex-wife, but Marika suddenly looked around.

  ‘Where’s Jesper?’

  ‘Back at the cottage.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘No, my father’s with him.’

  ‘Jerry?’

  Marika had raised her voice in the empty corridor. Per lowered his: ‘Gerhard, yes. He came to us a few days ago …’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s sick,’ said Per. ‘He’s had a—’

  ‘He always has been, hasn’t he?’

  ‘… and he needed some help,’ Per went on. ‘But I’ll be taking him home soon.’