Harbor

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

  For the last part of the journey he was guided by the faint lights from the village, and at that point he wobbled for the first time and almost went over. He managed to brake and get one foot on the ground before the bike tipped sideways. He looked back at the forest path. They didn’t seem to be following him.

  He set off again and pedalled through the village, feeling slightly protected by the pale street lamps. Only when he had passed the hostel did he allow his thoughts to come belching out. A cloud of horrible, incomprehensible pictures filled his head, and suddenly he felt as if he had a temperature of forty degrees. His body lost all stability and he just wanted to let himself fall. Down on to the track, down into the darkness. To rest.

  However, he managed to whip himself on to the point where the track split in two, and headed off to the left. The slight slope down towards Anna-Greta’s house meant that he could simply roll along, his legs dangling. As he wobbled on to the drive leading to the house, he saw that there was still a light in the kitchen window.

  He dropped the bike on the grass and dragged himself to the door, his legs heavy. He was sweating and shivering, managed to miss the handle once before he grabbed it and pulled open the door.

  Simon and Anna-Greta were sitting at the kitchen table, bent over a whole lot of photographs spread all over the surface. When Simon saw Anders his face lit up for a moment, then his expression changed to one of horror.

  ‘Anders, whatever have you done?’

  Anders leaned against the stove and waved in the direction of Kattudden, but no sound emerged from his lips. Simon and Anna-Greta reached him and he let his body fall into their arms, let himself sink down on to the rag rug. When he was lying on his back and had taken a couple of breaths he said; ‘Just need to…have a little rest.’

  He stayed where he was while the kitchen lamp was lit, while Simon and Anna-Greta fetched water and placed a pillow under his head. By this stage the shivering had stopped and he might possibly have been able to get up, but he stayed where he was and let them take care of him, just because it was so utterly blissful to leave everything to someone else for a while.

  They took off his trousers and washed the cuts on his legs, dressed them with compresses and gauze bandages. Simon gave him two painkillers and some more water. After a couple of minutes of drifting blissfully in the care of others, Anders hauled himself up on to a kitchen chair. He tried to gather his thoughts and looked at the photographs, spread out across the table.

  They were old photographs, very old. They showed houses and farms, people working, close-ups. Many of them were yellow with age, and the people in them wore that expression of grim concentration that is so common in old pictures, as if the very act of being photographed demanded a special effort.

  Directly in front of him lay a close-up that made him give a start. It was taken outdoors, and printed on something that looked like matt card. Across the picture ran a couple of flames of patchy yellow, as if someone had splashed urine over it. The picture showed a woman of about sixty, staring angrily into the camera.

  ‘Yes,’ said Simon. ‘I thought I recognised her.’

  On the table in front of him Anders found another picture of the same woman, this time taken from further away. She was standing in front of a scrubby little house on a headland.

  ‘Who is she?’ asked Anders.

  Anna-Greta came to stand behind him, and pointed. ‘Her name was Elsa Persson, and she was a cousin of Holger’s father. She used to live in that house. On Kattudden. Until Holger’s father sold the lot. She was evicted and the house was torn down. Then the summer visitors came.’

  ‘It was your great-grandfather who took the pictures,’ said Simon. ‘Torgny. He took photographs of all the houses on the island, according to Anna-Greta. I like to sit and look at them from time to time. That’s why I recognised her.’

  The stubby chin, the flat nose, the deep-set eyes and the thin lips. The woman in the photograph was the image of Elin as she looked now. Or rather, Elin was a somewhat clumsily executed image of the woman in the photo. All the details weren’t there yet, but just as it’s obvious that a cheap plastic mask of George Bush is meant to represent him and no one else, it was obvious that…

  …that this is the woman Elin is meant to look like.

  Anders pointed to the house behind the woman. He recognised the location, the position of the island of Kattholmen in the background, but still he asked, ‘This house. It was where her house, Elin’s house is now, wasn’t it?’ He corrected himself. ‘Where Elin’s house was. Until the other night.’

  Simon nodded. Anders sat with his mouth open, staring at the photographs. Then he said, ‘Let me guess. She drowned herself?’

  Anna-Greta picked up the photograph of Elin looking furious and sighed. ‘This all happened before my time, but…Torgny said she threatened to drown herself if they took her cottage away from her. Then they took her cottage away from her. And then she disappeared.’

  If you can imagine that all the impressions that have poured into Anders since he came back to Domarö have been collected in a kind of container, then this last drop of information was the one that made the container overflow.

  The words just came flooding out of his mouth. He told them everything. From the first sense of Maja’s presence to the growing conviction that she was in the house. The bead picture slowly growing, the photographs he had had developed and the letters scratched on the kitchen table. From the first blows on the door in the middle of the night and the feeling that he was being watched to tonight’s encounter with Henrik and Björn. It all finally came pouring out.

  Simon and Anna-Greta listened attentively, without any interruptions for questions. When Anders had finished, Anna-Greta pulled out a kitchen chair and climbed on it so that she could reach the top cupboard. She took out a bottle and placed it on the table. Simon didn’t seem to know what it was either, as he was looking enquiringly at Anna-Greta.

  Whatever was in the bottle looked like some kind of infusion. Twigs and leaves filled the entire space, surrounded by a liquid that half filled the bottle. Anna-Greta fetched a shot glass and filled it with the cloudy liquid.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Anders.

  ‘Wormwood,’ said Anna-Greta. ‘It’s supposed to protect you.’

  ‘From what?’

  ‘From things that come out of the sea.’

  Anders looked from Simon to Anna-Greta. ‘So does this mean that…you believe me?’

  ‘I do now,’ said Simon, pointing to the glass. ‘Although I didn’t know about this.’

  Anders sniffed the contents. It was alcohol, which was fine up to a point. But the aroma carried on the alcoholic fumes was oily and bitter, with a hint of putrefaction. ‘Isn’t wormwood poisonous?’

  ‘Well yes,’ said Anna-Greta. ‘But not in small quantities.’

  Of course he didn’t think his grandmother was trying to poison him, but he had never smelt anything closer to the essence of poison than the one that was rising from the glass in his hand.

  Wormwood…

  A whole series of associations ran through his mind as he raised the glass to his lips.

  The wormwood meadow by the shore…the plastic bottle in the woodshed that the bird was sitting on…and the name of the star was Wormwood…Chernobyl…and the rivers shall be poisoned…wormwood, enemy of the water…

  What decided the matter was the fact that he was desperately in need of a drink. He knocked back the contents of the glass.

  The taste was horribly bitter and his tongue curled up in protest. It felt as if the alcohol had gone straight to his brain, and everything was spinning around as he put down the empty glass. His tongue felt as if it were paralysed, and he managed to slur, ‘Didn’t taste very nice.’

  The heat coursed through his veins and reached the very tips of his fingers, then turned around and raced through his body once again. With lips that were still curling from the vile taste, he asked, ‘Can I have another?’


  Anna-Greta refilled his glass, then put the top back on the bottle and replaced it in the cupboard. Anders emptied the glass, and since his palate was already numb from the first shock, it didn’t taste half as bad this time. When he put down the glass and smacked his lips, he even got a hint of an aftertaste that was…good.

  He got to his feet, using the table for support. ‘Could I borrow a pair of trousers? I have to go down to the Shack to check if Elin’s there, otherwise…I don’t know what we’re going to do.’

  Simon went to check in the ‘hidey-hole’, the little storeroom where clothes and belongings from past generations were kept. Anders was left alone in the kitchen with Anna-Greta. He looked longingly at the empty shot glass, but by putting the bottle away Anna-Greta had made her point.

  ‘Protection from the sea,’ said Anders. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘We’ll talk about it another time.’

  ‘When?’

  Anna-Greta didn’t answer. Anders examined the photograph of Elsa. She looked angry; angry and disappointed. If the people in the other pictures looked as if it were hard work being photographed, Elsa looked as if she regarded it as an insult. Her furious gaze reached him through seventy years, making him feel distinctly uncomfortable.

  ‘Was she always alone?’ asked Anders. ‘Elsa?’

  ‘No, she had a husband who was quite a bit older. Anton, I think his name was. He had heart problems, and…he had a heart attack and died.’

  ‘When he was out fishing?’

  ‘Yes. How did you know that?’

  ‘And she was the one who found him in the boat. Some of the fish were still alive, but he was dead.’

  ‘I don’t know about that, but she was the one who found him, that’s definitely true. Who told you all this?’

  ‘Elin.’

  Simon came into the kitchen with a pair of flimsy trousers that looked as if they might have had something to do with the army. He gave them to Anders along with a belt, and said, ‘I don’t know if these will do, but they’re all I could find.’

  Anders pulled on the trousers, which were much too big, and fastened the belt around his waist. The wide legs felt good, because they weren’t tight over his cuts. Simon stood looking at him, his arms folded.

  ‘Are you really going out again? Is that a good idea? Shall I come with you?’

  Anders smiled. ‘I don’t think there’s much you can do, and besides…’ he nodded at the kitchen cupboard ‘…I’m protected now, aren’t I?’

  ‘I don’t know about that, and I don’t think Anna-Greta does either, not really.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Anna-Greta. ‘It’s only hearsay.’

  ‘I’ll go down and check,’ said Anders. ‘I’ll call you. Whether she’s there or not. Then we can decide what to do.’

  He borrowed a torch, hoisted up the trousers and grimaced as his wounds pulled. On his way to the outside door he stopped and turned around. He had suddenly realised something. He had been carrying the knowledge with him for quite some time, but it wasn’t until that moment it became obvious and possible to say out loud.

  ‘Ghosts,’ he said. ‘There are ghosts.’

  He nodded to Simon and Anna-Greta and went out into the darkness.

  Before he switched on the torch he gazed at the sky. Wasn’t that a tinge of orange in the thin clouds over Kattudden? Yes, it was, and he couldn’t have cared less. However, he turned, went back into the kitchen and said indifferently, ‘I think there’s a fire over by Kattudden again.’

  If Simon and Anna-Greta wanted to do something about it, they were welcome. He just couldn’t. It had been a long night, and it was almost three o’clock. He wanted Elin to be fast asleep in bed when he got home, as if everything that had happened to her had happened in her sleep, and could be forgotten.

  As he approached the Shack he veered off to the toolshed and picked up an axe. It might well be as useless as the fence post he’d used but it felt good in his hand, and perhaps a sharp weapon would work better.

  The fire alarm up in the village went off just as he pushed down the handle of the outside door. The door was locked. He thought about it. No, he hadn’t locked it when he went out. And there was no light in the kitchen window. It had been on when he left.

  ‘Elin!’ he shouted through the closed door. ‘Elin, are you there?’

  The door was old and in poor condition; many winters of patient work had made it settle in the frame. He pushed the blade of the axe into the broad gap above the lock and prised the door open with a cracking sound. He stepped into the hallway and said tentatively, ‘Elin? Elin, it’s only me.’

  He took off his shoes and locked the door, which was now even more warped, behind him. Despite an exhaustion that felt much too big to be accommodated in his skinny body, fear kicked the adrenaline into action once again as he crept through the hallway, clutching the shaft of the axe.

  No more now, he thought. No more.

  The beam of the torch made the perfectly ordinary kitchen furniture look ominous, creating shadows with unpleasant shapes.

  ‘Elin,’ he whispered. ‘Elin, are you there?’

  The kitchen floor creaked beneath his feet and he stopped, listened. The fire alarm could be heard less clearly indoors, but still covered all the small noises that might indicate the presence of another person.

  He went on into the living room. A little warmth was still emanating from the Roslagen stove, and he swept the beam of the torch around him without noticing anything strange, apart from the fact that the bedroom door was closed. He licked his lips. His tongue was still stiff from the wormwood, and the taste seemed to have penetrated so deep into the flesh of his palate that it would never be possible to wash it away.

  When he pushed down the handle, the door was barricaded from the inside. But it had been done badly, and the chair that had been placed behind the door fell over when he pushed.

  Elin was sitting in the bed, leaning against the bedpost. She had wrapped the quilt around her so that only her head was sticking up. The sheet at the foot of the bed was streaked with blood and covered in lumps of mud.

  ‘Elin?’

  Her eyes were staring at him in terror. He didn’t dare go into the room or switch on the light, because he didn’t know how she would react. He became aware of the axe in his hand, and put it down next to the door. He shone the torch around the room, listened to the fire alarm. He looked at Elin, and a shudder ran through his body.

  She’s dead. They’ve killed her and put her here.

  ‘Elin?’ he whispered. ‘Elin, it’s Anders. Can you hear me?’

  She nodded. A faint, faint nod. He made a gesture, just hang on, and turned away. Behind him he heard Elin say, ‘Don’t leave me.’

  ‘I’m just going to make a phone call. I’ll be right back.’

  He went into the kitchen, switched on the light and rang Anna-Greta’s number; he told her Elin was back, and they would deal with everything when they’d had a couple of hours’ sleep. When Anna-Greta had hung up, Anders stood with the receiver in his hand, staring at the grubby tape on the table.

  The music you play, would you say it was…just between ourselves… cheerful music?

  He wanted to ring somewhere and ask for help. He wanted to ring Kalle Sändare. Sit at the kitchen table with the phone pressed to his ear listening to Kalle’s gentle Gothenburg accent, like balm to the soul, talking about little things and laughing from time to time.

  How can the world be like this? How can what happened tonight exist at the same time as Kalle Sändare exists?

  He put the phone down and felt a strange pain in his chest. It wasn’t Kalle Sändare he missed, but his father. Kalle was just a simpler and more manageable substitute. Because they had had so much fun together with Kalle, Kalle had come to mean Dad, but without the difficult associations.

  It was really his father he wanted to talk to. The sense of loss that he had refused to recognise came crawling up through his chest, reaching for h
is heart with its long claws. He pushed it back and went into the bedroom.

  Elin was sitting just as he had left her. Cautiously he sat down beside her on the edge of the bed. ‘Shall I put the light on?’

  Elin shook her head. The light from the kitchen was enough for him to be able to see her face. In the half-light it was even more like Elsa’s. Elin had had quite a prominent chin. It was gone now, running on from her throat just like Elsa’s.

  How did they do it? They must have…smashed her legs.

  His eyes moved to the signs of blood and mud at the foot of the bed. ‘We need to…get you bandaged up.’

  Elin pulled the quilt more tightly around her. ‘No. I don’t want to.’ Anders didn’t have the strength to insist. It was as if he had an anchor chain around his neck. His head kept trying to droop, and all he wanted was to go to bed. From time to time flashes of white shot through his eyes, and he didn’t know if it was just tiredness, or if the wormwood really had poisoned his exhausted body.

  ‘There’s something wrong with me,’ whispered Elin. ‘I’m insane, I ought to kill myself.’

  Anders sat there with his elbows on his knees, staring at the wardrobe. He didn’t know what was best: to tell or not to tell. In the end he sought refuge in one simple sentence: It’s better to know. He’d heard it in the context of illness, and didn’t know if it was appropriate here, but he hadn’t the energy to work it out.

  ‘Elin,’ he said. ‘Somebody is making you do all this. All these operations. The things you do at night. Your dreams. They’re not yours.’

  In the silence that followed Anders noticed that the fire alarm had stopped, he didn’t know how long ago. He could hear Elin breathing. The sound of his own poisoned blood in his ears.

  ‘Whose are they then?’ she asked.

  ‘Someone else’s. Another woman. She’s inside you.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I don’t know. But she lived at Kattudden before your house was built. She wants revenge, and she’s using you.’ Anders hesitated, then added, ‘She looked exactly the way you do now. She’s the one who’s made you…recreate her through all this surgery.’