Harbor

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

  More photographs of the two of them in front of the lighthouse, the two people he had cared about most in all the world, both gone. Different degrees of zoom, the hands in different positions. Pictures from a distance, head and shoulders, close-ups. Maja up by the reflector.

  A lump formed in Anders’ throat, and he found it difficult to breathe. How could they be gone? How could they have ceased to exist for him, when he was sitting here holding them in his hands? How could that be?

  The tears began to fall; a screw was boring its way through his chest. He lowered the pictures and let it happen. He wrapped his arms around himself and thought: If there was a way…

  If there was a way, a machine, a method of releasing people from photographs. Of capturing those frozen moments and thawing them out, making them real and bringing them back into the world. He nodded to himself as the tears continued to flow and the screw was twisted around and around.

  ‘It ought to be possible,’ he mumbled. ‘It ought to be possible…’

  He sat like that until the pain began to subside and the tears had dried. Then he looked at the photographs one by one, running his finger over the two-dimensional faces that would never be his again.

  That’s funny…

  He flicked back and forth through the pile. Maja wasn’t looking into the camera in one single picture. Cecilia was gazing obediently into the lens every time, in one she had even managed a beaming smile. But Maja…

  Her eyes were looking away, and in a couple of pictures it wasn’t only her eyes. Her whole face was turned to the left. To the east.

  Anders studied the pictures more closely and could see that in every picture her eyes seemed to be fixed on a particular point. Even when she was directly facing the camera, in the close-up for example, her pupils were drawn to the left.

  He lowered the bundle of photographs and stared straight ahead, open-mouthed. He remembered. Up in the lighthouse. How she had pointed and…

  Daddy, what’s that?

  What do you mean?

  There. On the ice.

  Far away in the distance Gåvasten was no more than a diffuse elevation in the grey-blue sea. With his index fingers and thumbs Anders made a small diamond-shaped hole, and looked through it to sharpen his focus. The contours of Gåvasten became slightly clearer, but he couldn’t see anything in particular.

  What was it she saw?

  He got up from the steps, pushed the photographs in his pocket, and strode purposefully home. He had a job to do.

  Anders walked around the upturned boat, looking at it from a more pragmatic point of view. Yes, it looked scruffy, but could it serve its purpose: to stay afloat, and to carry an engine that would get him to Gåvasten?

  The weakest element from a practical point of view was the mounting for the engine. The metal plate in the stern had virtually fallen to bits with rust, and if you tried to attach an engine to it, it would probably fall into the sea. Anders studied the construction. With a couple of bolts through the whole thing, the metal plate could be reinforced with a piece of wood. It wasn’t a complicated job, but the boat would have to be turned over so that he could get at it.

  He went up to the house and asked Elin to help. It was hard work, but eventually they managed to tip the boat up so that it was balanced, and Anders was able to go round to the other side to take the weight and break the fall as it landed the right way up.

  Elin looked at the cracked seat, the splits around the rowlocks and the fringes of fibreglass along the broken gunwale. ‘Are you intending to go out in this?’

  ‘If the engine works, yes. What are you going to do?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About everything. Your life. What are you going to do?’

  Elin tore off a couple of wormwood leaves and crushed them between her fingers, sniffed at them and pulled a face. Anders glimpsed a movement behind her, and saw that Simon was heading towards them. When Elin caught sight of him she whispered, ‘Don’t tell him it’s me. If he asks. I can’t…’

  She had no time to say any more before Simon reached them. ‘So,’ he said, nodding towards the boat. ‘Are you off to sea?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Simon turned to Elin and gave a start. He stood there frowning for a couple of seconds, staring at her face. Then he held out his hand.

  ‘Hello. Simon.’

  He continued to stare at Elin’s face as if he were trying to remember something. Anders couldn’t understand his reaction. OK, Elin looked ghastly, but Simon’s behaviour was downright rude, and not like him at all. If you bumped into a person whose face was scarred from severe burns, for example, you didn’t stand there gawping at them like that.

  Simon seemed to realise this himself; he let go of Elin’s hand, smoothed away his stunned expression and asked, ‘So, are you…’

  Elin didn’t stop to listen to the question, but excused herself and went back up to the house. Simon watched her go. Then he turned to Anders. ‘Is she a friend of yours?’

  ‘Yes. Or…it’s a long story.’

  Simon nodded and waited for Anders to continue. When he didn’t oblige, Simon contemplated the boat instead and said, ‘This doesn’t look too good.’

  ‘No, but I think she’ll float.’

  ‘And what about the engine?’

  ‘Don’t know. I haven’t tried it.’

  ‘You’re welcome to borrow my boat if you need it, you know that.’

  ‘I want something of my own. But thanks.’

  Simon clasped his hands together and walked around the boat, saying ‘Hmm’ to himself at regular intervals. He stopped beside Anders and rubbed his hands over his cheeks. It was obvious he had something to say. He cleared his throat, but it wouldn’t come out. He tried again, and this time things went better.

  ‘There was something I wanted to ask you.’

  ‘Ask away.’

  Simon took a deep breath. ‘If Anna-Greta and I were to…if we were to get married. What would you think about that?’

  Simon looked deeply worried. Something burst out of Anders’ chest and for a fraction of a second he didn’t know what it was, he was so unused to the feeling, but it was a laugh. ‘You’re going to get married? Now?’

  ‘Well, we’re thinking about it, yes.’

  ‘What about all that business of not knowing another person?’

  ‘I think we’d better regard that as…somewhat exaggerated.’

  Anders looked up at Anna-Greta’s house as if he expected to see her standing up there, anxiously eavesdropping. He didn’t get it. ‘Why are you asking me about this? What do you want?’

  Simon scratched his head and looked embarrassed. ‘Well, I want to, of course, but I mean it’s also a question of…I mean, I’d inherit everything, if she were to die before me. Which doesn’t seem particularly likely, but…’

  Anders placed his hand on Simon’s shoulder. ‘I’m sure we can get something in writing. Something that says I can keep the Shack. If it comes to that. I’m not bothered about anything else.’

  ‘That’s OK with you? Are you sure?’

  ‘Simon, it’s more than OK. It’s the first piece of good news I’ve heard in a long, long time, and…’ Anders took a step forward and gave Simon a hug. ‘Congratulations. It’s about time, to say the least.’

  When Simon had gone, Anders stood with his hands in his pockets for a long time, staring at the boat without thinking about the boat. For once his internal organs felt warm and easy to carry. He wanted to hang on to that feeling.

  When he went up to the timber store after a while, he discovered that he could take the feeling with him. It stayed with him while he cut a piece of treated wood, lingered as he drilled holes in it and fixed it to the stern.

  Will there be a wedding?

  He hadn’t asked Simon if they were planning a proper wedding in the church at Nåten, or if they were planning to have it at home, or just a civil ceremony. They probably hadn’t thought about it themselves either, since nothing w
as decided yet.

  Who proposed to whom?

  He just couldn’t picture it, how it had happened or what had led to it. But it was fun to think about it. The feeling remained with him.

  It was only when he had nailed a plank between two trees, hauled the engine on to it and connected a pressure tank that the usual gloom began to take over once again. The engine wasn’t co-operating. He pumped up the petrol, pulled out the choke and yanked at the starter until his arm started to go numb. Nothing.

  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 Lönndahl. 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 Sändare 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 Måstersson 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 Sändare. Don’t you think he’s brilliant?’

  ‘Not reall
y.’

  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 Sändare. 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 Anders 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 Sändare 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 Sändare 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.