Harbor

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

  Anders was still lost in boy-racer fantasies when his father slowed the engine. The chugging changed to a knocking sound, with longer and longer intervals between strokes. The flag was getting closer. Anders started moving just as his father shouted, ‘Action stations, captain!’ and put the engine in neutral.

  Anders jumped down and edged towards the helm as his father moved towards the prow. They crossed on either side of the engine. They had done this before. His father smiled and said, ‘Take it slowly and carefully now’. Anders pulled a face that said Have I done this before, or what? and sat down at the helm.

  His father got hold of the flag, hauled it in and grabbed the rope. Anders edged the boat gently into reverse, until it was completely motionless. As his father began to haul in the net, he edged forward so that the boat was following the line of the net. This was the time he loved best during their morning trips. When he was the one in charge. He could race the engine, slam the boat into reverse and turn the rudder if he so wished—but did he?

  Of course not.

  Slowly and carefully he adjusted the steering and the speed to make it as easy as possible for his father to lift the net. Anders was good at this. He was the captain.

  He leaned over the rail and looked down into the dark water. It was usually possible to glimpse enough of the shining silver on its way to the surface to get some idea of how big the catch was likely to be. Anders looked down and frowned.

  What’s that? Can it be…

  What he could see moving upwards was not the scattered, metallic shimmer of this many or that many herring, no, it looked more as if they had caught one single, gigantic herring in the net this morning, a compact mass being pulled slowly towards the boat.

  His father had stopped hauling the net and was now standing motionless in the prow, staring down into the water. Anders peered down and he could now see that the apparently solid body did in fact consist of individual herring. It was a record catch beyond all expectation. His heart began to beat faster.

  There’s fifty kilos there, at least. Maybe more. Will I be able to sell that much?

  He waited for the catch to get closer to the surface so that he would be able to see better, but nothing happened. His father was still standing in the prow, the rope dangling from his hands.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Anders. ‘It’s a massive catch!’

  His father turned to face him with an expression Anders didn’t understand. He looked…frightened. Frightened and worried. Anders shook his head.

  ‘Aren’t you going to bring them up, then?’

  ‘I think…maybe we shouldn’t.’

  ‘But why? I mean, it’s a record! There’s loads of them!’

  His father let go of the rope with one hand and pointed at the surface. ‘Feel the water.’

  Anders did as he said and dipped his hand in the water. He yanked it back quickly. The water was ice cold. He blinked and cautiously slipped his hand in once again. It nipped at the tips of his fingers, and the water was so cold it was on the point of freezing.

  How can it be like that?

  He looked enquiringly at his father, who was staring down into the water as if he were searching for something. Anders looked around. There was nothing to indicate that winter was suddenly on the way. The only explanation was an unusually cold and strong current. Wasn’t it?

  ‘Why is it like that?’

  His father sighed deeply. The rope began to slip out of his hands.

  ‘Dad!’

  The rope stopped. ‘Yes?’

  ‘We have to land this catch, don’t we?’

  His father turned his head towards the broad strip of sunlight and said quietly, ‘Why?’

  The question confused Anders and frightened him a little. He babbled, ‘Because…because there’s such a lot and you know that boat I’m saving up for, this is…and…it won’t do any good if we leave it, will it?’

  His father turned to Anders once again, nodded slowly and said, ‘No, I don’t suppose it will. You’re probably right.’

  He started hauling on the net again, the muscles in his jaw working as if he were chewing on something he was never going to be able to swallow. Anders didn’t know what had happened, what he’d said, but he was relieved it had worked. The catch would be brought in.

  Apart from the problem that Anders didn’t understand, it was very difficult for his father to lift such an enormous catch. Anders moved the boat as helpfully as he could, but the net his father was hauling into the prow was not a net full of individual fish, but rather a thick cable of silver enclosed in mesh.

  When the whole of the net was in the boat and the anchor had been raised, his father went over to the engine without a word and put his hands on the cylinder head gasket.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Anders. If his father’s behaviour during the later part of their trip had been strange, this was yet another new thing.

  His father gave a wan smile. ‘Warming my hands.’

  Anders nodded. Of course. That was understandable, at least. The water was cold—his hands had got cold. He left the helm and went to have a look at the catch. He was no expert, but surely this was a good bit more than fifty kilos? Seventy? Eighty? When he looked at the massive pile of fish ensnared in the net, he noticed something else unusual.

  Herring did not have the endurance of perch or flounder, which could live for a long time after being pulled out of the sea, but they would normally move about and twitch in the net for a good while after the boat had set off for home. But not this time.

  The herring were lying completely motionless, with not a twitch to be seen. Anders crouched down and felt at a fish that had fallen out of the net. The little body was stiff, almost frozen, and the eyes were milky white. He held it out to his father, who was still standing with his hands resting on the engine. ‘Why are they like this?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But…I mean…what’s happened?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But how can the herring just—’

  ‘I don’t know, I said!’

  It was very rare for his father to raise his voice. As he did so now a hot stabbing sensation went through Anders, making his cheeks flush bright red, and he closed his mouth on any further questions. He didn’t know what he’d said that was so wrong, but it was something, and he was upset. Because he had destroyed the great atmosphere between them without knowing how.

  The herring had softened in the warmth of his hand. He dropped it on the deck and crept into the prow, squinting into the sun with a heavy feeling in his stomach. The big catch was no fun any more. As far as he was concerned, they could chuck the whole bloody lot back in the sea.

  He rested his cheek against the wood and lay still. Strange…

  He lay still for a while, listening. Then he raised his head and gazed out across the bay.

  Why hadn’t he noticed until now? There wasn’t a single gull in sight. Normally they would have been screaming and fighting over the fish that had fallen out of the net as it was being hauled up, flapping wings or white, dipping bodies waiting for Anders to throw them scraps or herring that were too small to sell.

  But now: Not a sound. Not one bird.

  Anders was still considering this when he felt his father’s hand on his foot.

  ‘Listen, I’m sorry I…shouted like that. I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘OK.’

  Anders stayed where he was, lying on his stomach, and waited for more. When nothing was forthcoming, he said, ‘Dad?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Why aren’t there any gulls?’

  A brief pause, then his father sighed and said without anger, ‘Don’t start again, Anders.’

  ‘OK. But it’s odd, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  His father patted Anders on the calf, then went to start the engine. After a few minutes Anders sat up and gazed out over the sea. Not one gull anywhere in sight. And no other birds either. The sea was des
erted. The only movement was the bow wave around the boat, the only sound the even chugging of the engine.

  During the trip home, Anders fantasised that he and his father were the only survivors of a disaster that had wiped out all life on earth. What would their lives be like from now on?

  Other creatures had evidently survived the disaster, since Simon’s cat Dante was waiting for them on the jetty. Anders grabbed the stern rope and jumped up by the outermost capstan. As the cat wound around his legs, he carefully tied the half hitch he had learned the previous summer.

  When the boat was safely moored he stroked Dante’s head, climbed down into the prow and threw a couple of herring on to the jetty. He was curious to see how the cat would react. At first everything seemed just the same as usual. Perhaps because his pride demanded it, Dante always pretended that he had caught the prey himself. He crouched down, crept towards the lifeless fish as if the utmost vigilance was essential to ensure that his food would not escape.

  Then he leapt forward and sank both paws into one of the herring, holding it firmly with his claws extended. When he was absolutely certain the fish was not going to get away, he would sink his teeth into it. What happened next looked so funny that Anders laughed out loud.

  Dante stopped with his teeth on the way to the herring, then raised his head and sneezed twice. He looked at Anders as if to ask: Is this some kind of joke?, and poked at the herring with his paw, rolling it around the jetty a couple of times.

  His father was sitting on his haunches, watching the cat’s movements with tense interest. When Dante felt he had spent enough time rolling the fish around, he settled down and sank his teeth into the herring, and this time they could hear the crunch of breaking bones. The cat polished off the herring in a minute, then picked the other one up in his mouth and left the jetty with his tail pointing straight up in the air.

  His father stood up and rubbed his hands together. ‘We’d better make a start, then.’ Before Anders had time to set off ashore to fetch the necessary equipment, his father glanced down into the boat and added, ‘You know, that’s quite a catch.’

  Oh, so now you’ve noticed, have you? thought Anders, but all he said was, ‘How much do you think there is?’

  His father pursed his lips. ‘About ninety kilos. That’ll keep us busy for a while.’

  Ninety…two hundred and seventy kronor. But I won’t be able to sell that much. If I drop the price…

  Anders went ashore and fetched the rinsing net and the boxes. Meanwhile his father swung out the beam, hoisted up the net and started to shake it. The herring flew out of the net into the bottom of the boat. A few landed in the water, but still there wasn’t a single gull there to snap them up. However, a couple of crows had arrived at the bottom of the jetty. They stood there moving their feet up and down, unsure how to behave now they didn’t have to compete with the gulls.

  Anders jumped into the boat with the rinsing net and threw a couple of herring to the crows. They swallowed them whole, croaked excitedly, and after a couple of minutes three more crows had arrived.

  The herring whirled around Anders’ head and it was all he could do to pour them into the rinsing net, sluice them in the sea and tip them into the boxes. It was more difficult than usual because the herring were still stiff, and kept slipping out of his hands. When he looked up from his work after filling one box, he saw a couple of gulls bobbing on the water just off the jetty.

  When he bent down to his task again he heard the sound of flapping, and a splash next to the boat. The gulls had started to help themselves to the fish that had sunk to the bottom, and everything was back to normal.

  It took his father a good hour to shake out all the fish, and then they worked together rinsing them and tipping them into boxes. When they had finished they each sat down on a capstan and contemplated the pile of five full twenty-kilo boxes on the jetty.

  Anders took off his cap and scratched his sweaty scalp. ‘Are we going to be able to sell this much?’

  His father pulled a face. ‘I doubt it. I’ll have to take a box with me to work, and…well, I suppose we can smoke whatever’s left over.’

  Anders nodded gloomily, but inside he was jubilant. Although selling herring could be a bit slow, buckling was snapped up in no time on those rare occasions when his father decided to fire up the smoker. The tourists went mad for buckling, and his father’s considered opinion was that they regarded it as quaint.

  Anders took the wheelbarrow and went down to the steamboat jetty to fetch some ice from the store that was run by the village committee since the fishing industry had come to an end. When he got back, his father had carried the boxes ashore and hung the net up to dry. They packed the boxes with ice and placed a thick tarpaulin over the whole lot.

  Anders went down to the shore and rubbed his hands with sand to get rid of the fish scales, then he squatted down on a rock for a while and warmed his face in the sun, which had now climbed high above the pine trees on North Point.

  When they got home, Anders went to bed to sleep for a couple of hours more. To him, this was the best part of their fishing days. Lying there in the fiery yellow light pressing against the blind as his hands thawed out under the covers, sleepily listening to the cries of the gulls from the sea. If he didn’t fall asleep straight away he would lie there for a while, satisfied with a job well done, picking individual scales off his hands. Then he would drop off as the summer day came to life around him.

  Weight

  But we’re not there yet…

  Anders had been so far away in his memories that he didn’t realise why the engine had been cut, why the boat was slowing down when they were only halfway to the inlet. The net wasn’t here, right in the middle of the bay.

  Then he noticed that the deck he was lying on was made of fibreglass, and that he was so big there wasn’t really room for him. He was a grown man, his father was dead and everything that had happened later that day had nothing to do with the task in hand.

  Although it does. Everything is connected to everything else here. I’m the only one who doesn’t see it.

  The engine died and silence fell. Simon was sitting in the prow looking around. There wasn’t a boat in sight, no eyes that might spy on them. Anders stepped back into the present, although he wished he could have stayed in the past. The black sacks at Simon’s feet were real, and demanded an act of which he would never have believed himself capable.

  It’s all my fault. I have to…contribute.

  He gathered up the chain and hauled it forward, letting it coil down on top of the black bundle. Simon smiled sadly. ‘Do you know where that chain comes from?’

  ‘Is it the one you used when you…?’

  ‘Mmm. It’s been in the sea before.’ Simon nodded to himself, and neither of them spoke for a while. Simon stroked the plastic covering Elin’s head.

  ‘She’s dead. Nothing we do now will make any difference. To her. She drowned. Somebody drowned her. And now she’s going into the sea. There’s nothing strange about that. It isn’t wrong. We just have to do it. Because we need to go on living.’ Simon looked Anders in the eye. ‘Don’t you agree?’

  Anders nodded mechanically. That wasn’t really the problem. The problem was actually starting to touch the dead body, feeling muscles and bones through the black plastic without knowing for certain… that she was really dead.

  ‘What’s the plastic for?’ asked Anders.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Simon. ‘I thought…it would be better.’

  ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘No.’

  Anders understood the thought behind it, the idea of hiding what they were doing from themselves. And yet it was a relief when they pulled off the sacks and had Elin’s corpse at their feet. Her skin had lost all its lustre, and the colour had faded from her wide-open eyes. It was a horrible sight, and yet it was better.

  As Simon bent down and grabbed hold of the chain, he caught sight of the scars on her face and body, glowing white in t
he morning light. ‘What are these? Scars?’

  ‘I’ll tell you all about it,’ said Anders. ‘But not now.’

  They worked together to lift the body, turn it, wrap the chain around and secure it with a couple of locking pawls. However tightly they pulled the chain, there was no response from Elin’s skin, no reddening or swelling. Her eyes stared up at the sky without blinking, and Simon was caught in her empty gaze.

  ‘Who was she?’ he asked.

  That was the question that needed to be asked, the final question. Unfortunately, Anders didn’t know the answer.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I think she was someone who…was looking for approval. Someone who tried, in a lot of…roundabout ways…to get the whole world to think she was wonderful. But…’

  The memory of Elin’s smile when Henrik and Björn were being humiliated by the boathouse flashed through his mind, and Anders lowered his head.

  ‘In that case, we will remember someone who wanted to be wonderful,’ said Simon, taking hold of the chain around her thighs and stomach.

  They heaved Elin over the rail. Her legs hooked over the edge and she hung there for a few seconds with her head and upper body in the water. Then Simon gently lifted her feet. The body came free and slipped into the water with a faint splash.

  Anders leaned over and watched her sink. A few air bubbles escaped from her mouth and rose to the surface like transparent beads. Her hair floated outwards and hid her face as she was dragged down into the depths. After a few seconds she had sunk so far that she was nothing more than a blurred, pale patch in the great darkness. Anders kept on staring until he was no longer sure he could see her, until she was replaced by the shifting pattern of the light on the surface of the water.

  The black water. He was so dreadfully tired, he could sleep for a year. He leaned his head against the rail, closed his eyes and whispered, ‘I’m so tired, Simon. I just can’t cope any more.’