After their break all three of them put on their ear protectors, started up their saws and set to work again. Mats was working his way through the root of one of the thicker fir trees. Progress was slow, and the saw got very hot. Therefore, when he had finished he switched off the saw, took off his ear protectors and began to sharpen the chain.
Lasse’s saw was also switched off, and so Mats was able to hear the sound of sawing from elsewhere, up towards the village and quite a distance from the newly felled trees they were busy clearing. He stood up and looked for the source of the noise. When he found it he dropped his saw and ran.
At the time when Holger’s father sold Kattudden to the agent from Stockholm, a couple of families from the village had managed to secure a promise that they could at least divide up and purchase a small area, so that not everything would pass into the ownership of strangers. They had been allocated a few small parcels of land furthest away from the sea, up towards the forest.
The Bergwall family, to which Lasse belonged, was one of them. His mother, Margareta Bergwall, now owned the two summer cottages that lay up on the hill to the west, perhaps three hundred metres from the shore, but with something of a sea view. The cottages were rented out to summer visitors, but Lasse’s brother Robert was planning to renovate one of them and move back home.
Between the two properties stood the largest birch tree on Kattudden: a real giant some twenty metres tall. A grown man could just about get his arms around it. And it was this birch that Karl-Erik was busy cutting down.
When Mats saw what he was up to, he dropped his saw as well and hurried towards Karl-Erik. The birch was between the two properties, but leaned slightly towards Lasse’s mother’s house, and judging from the way Karl-Erik was making the face cut, he intended to use the tree’s natural lean to ensure that it would land right on top of Lasse’s future inheritance.
‘Karl-Erik!’ yelled Mats as soon as he was within earshot. ‘Karl-Erik, what are you doing!’
But Karl-Erik was wearing his ear protectors, and couldn’t hear a thing. He was just cutting the final part of the wedge, and kicked it out so that a wide, deep cut at the base of the tree gaped towards Lasse’s house like a hungry mouth. He examined his work, seemed satisfied and went around the other side of the tree to start making the felling cut. It was no more than a minute’s work, and then the tree would fall.
Mats reached Karl-Erik just as the sawdust began to whirl up from the tree, grabbed his shoulder and shook him. Karl-Erik looked up and Mats took a step backwards. The eyes that were looking at him were neither angry nor confused. They were as empty and ice-cold as the sea in November. It is a testament to Mats’s courage that he still, when Karl-Erik revved up the saw again, pulled off his ear protectors and screamed, ‘Are you crazy! Stop it! You can’t chop this tree down! Stop!’
Karl-Erik jabbed at him with the saw and Mats was forced to step back again. He ran his hands over his sweaty face and thought: He’s gone completely mad. How am I going to stop him?
There was no time to think about that, because Lasse had realised what was happening and came running, with his own saw in his hands. When Karl-Erik once again inserted the blade of his saw into the felling cut he had started, Lasse came rushing towards him, and Mats saw that his eyes were also empty. They were staring straight at Karl-Erik, but showed no emotion whatsoever.
Only now did Mats begin to feel afraid.
Karl-Erik’s saw roared behind him, and the sawdust was tickling his calves; Lasse was racing towards him with his saw held high and the motor running at full speed. It’s no surprise that Mats did what anyone else would have done under the circumstances. He took a couple of steps to one side and yelled to the people who were clearing up down on the site of the fire, ‘Help! Up here! They’re going to kill one another! Help!’
When Mats screamed, Karl-Erik looked up and saw the approaching threat at the last minute. He pulled the saw out of the cut and jumped back as Lasse rushed forward, swinging the saw at him. The howling chain missed Karl-Erik by a fraction, and the force of his own action made Lasse fall down headfirst, with the saw in his hands and chain oil splashing over his face.
Mats saw Karl-Erik push the speed to maximum and lower the saw over Lasse’s back; he just had time to think: He’s going to do it! before a reflex took over and hurled him towards Karl-Erik. The blade cut through the braces of Lasse’s overalls, reaching his skin, and Lasse would have been chopped in half like a rotten log if Mats hadn’t tackled Karl-Erik at that very moment, making him stagger sideways so that he couldn’t complete the incision.
Lasse got to his feet and his trousers fell around his ankles as the blood started to gush from the wound on his back. He raised his saw and bared his teeth. For a couple of seconds the two men stood face to face, their chainsaws screaming and their empty gazes locked together.
Mats could see that people were on their way up from the shore, but the closest still had at least a hundred metres to go, and he turned to the combatants and screamed like a despairing child, ‘Stop it, stop it, stop it!’ as the tears scalded his eyes.
It had no effect whatsoever. Lasse took a clumsy step forward, sweeping at Karl-Erik’s arm with his saw, but Karl-Erik managed to lift his saw and parry the blow. Sparks flew as the howling chains made contact.
Karl-Erik responded with a low sweep towards Lasse’s unprotected legs, but despite the fact that his trousers were in a heap around his feet, Lasse managed to jump backwards towards the birch so that the whirring blades missed his shins and merely tore up earth and grass.
Once again there was a brief lull as the two men measured each other and revved their chainsaws.
Mats looked around on the ground for something to throw, but as he spotted a stone the size of a fist, he realised it was pointless. If he managed to knock one of them down, the other one would kill the man who was down. He heard shouts behind him, and all he could do was hope that the others would get there in time.
A hint of emotion was now visible on Karl-Erik’s face. The corners of his mouth curled upwards in a nasty smile. He swung the saw backwards and took a step forward, while at the same time letting go with his left hand, so that he was holding the machine with his right hand on the throttle as he swung it in an arc towards Lasse’s head.
Mats let out a gasp, and it was all too late. But at the very last second Lasse managed to raise his blade in his defence, and the chains met a few centimetres from his ear. Sparks flew, then there was a dry snapping noise and Lasse fell back.
Later it was established that the chain on Lasse’s saw had broken and whipped him across the forehead. All they could see at the time was Lasse’s head jerking backwards as the saw flew out of his hand. With a heavy thud he hit the birch tree and slipped to one side.
Whatever Karl-Erik’s intentions might have been, he didn’t manage to carry them out. Göran got there first, closely followed by Johan Lundberg. Together with Mats they managed to wrestle Karl-Erik to the ground and get the saw off him.
But in another way it was too late. When they turned their attention to Lasse they saw that he was lying flat on the ground with a wound in his forehead, and that he was alive. But the birch tree…the birch tree into which he had thudded, its trunk now spattered with his blood—the birch tree had started to fall.
It had started to fall and it couldn’t be stopped. The tree was too big. Mats and the others could only stand watching open-mouthed as the enormous tree majestically and with studied slowness keeled over, tipped and fell.
The notch had been perfectly placed for its intended purpose, and the thick trunk went through the roof of the glass veranda first of all, shattering a number of panes, before smashing the chimney and snapping the roof beams. With a clatter of broken tiles, the entire roof of the little cottage folded and fell in. The trunk got halfway to the floor before its crown bounced in a cloud of splinters and brick dust, and lay still.
By this time several people had arrived and were taking care
of Lasse, who was bleeding profusely from the wound on his head and the cut on his back. The falling tree had so completely occupied everyone’s attention that they had forgotten about Karl-Erik for a while. He had a good deal to answer for, but when they turned around he was no longer there.
However, he wasn’t far away. As if nothing had happened he had got up, picked up his saw and was now on his way towards one of the neighbouring gardens, heading straight for a couple of tall pine trees with a swing between them.
This time there was no negotiation. Mats, Göran and Johan caught up with him, wrenched the saw out of his hands and grabbed him before he could cause any more devastation. Karl-Erik struggled, but whether he was crazy or not it was three against one, and they managed to hold him.
While Mats and Göran held on to his arms, Johan stood in front of him and tried to catch his eye. It was impossible. The eyes were there and they were looking into his, but it was impossible to make any kind of contact.
‘Karl-Erik?’ Johan asked anyway. ‘What’s got into you? What the hell are you doing?’
During the whole of the terrible duel Karl-Erik hadn’t made a sound, and they didn’t expect him to answer now either. But they still had to try to talk to him as if he were a sensible person who had a reason for his actions. And they got an answer.
Tentatively, as if he were unused to his mouth and in a voice that sounded like Karl-Erik but yet not like Karl-Erik, he said, ‘Those houses. Have got to go.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Johan. ‘They’re not our houses. It’s not up to us to decide.’
This objection made no impression on Karl-Erik. With stiff, grimacing lips he said, ‘Those houses have got to go.’
He twisted and turned in their grasp, but Mats and Göran managed to hold him. Elof Lundberg came over to them, glanced at Karl-Erik and asked, ‘What’s the matter with him?’
‘He’s lost the plot completely,’ said Johan. ‘If you can help out here I’ll go and fetch Anna-Greta. He’ll listen to her.’
So that was why Johan Lundberg got on his moped and rode off to the old village to ask Anna-Greta for help, then found himself standing on the jetty like an orphaned child, watching her and Simon disappearing towards the mainland in a cloud of gulls.
At something of a loss he climbed back on his moped and set off back to Kattudden to do what could be done.
That magician, he thought as he rode along, is someone we could do without.
In Norrtälje
At half-past three Simon and Anna-Greta were sitting in a pizzeria in Norrtälje, each with a capricciosa in front of them which they cut into small, easily chewed pieces, washed down with lukewarm Fanta. Simon had the required certificate in his inside pocket and two smooth gold rings in his outer pocket. Anna-Greta had asked to use the telephone in the national registration office and had rung Geir, the priest in Nåten, and booked the church for Sunday, in two days’ time, after High Mass. They were ready.
There was something…youthful about the haste with which they had gone about things. Perhaps it was that same feeling of rejuvenation that had led them to celebrate their speedily executed preparations with a pizza. Neither of them had eaten pizza since the days when it was a novelty, and they chose a capricciosa purely because they vaguely recognised the name.
When Anna-Greta had eaten about half of hers, she pushed the plate away and said, ‘It was tasty at first, but it seems to be growing.’
Simon had exactly the same feeling. His stomach felt as if he had shovelled down half a litre of flour with a teaspoon. It was bubbling and swelling, and he stopped while he still had a delicious taste in his mouth.
Anna-Greta looked out of the window as Simon poked at the remains of what was probably the last pizza he would eat in this life. If you contemplated it when you weren’t hungry, it didn’t even look like human food.
‘Simon,’ said Anna-Greta. ‘You have to be careful.’
Simon, who was still meditating on the suitability of pizza as food, replied, ‘You mean about what I eat?’
Anna-Greta shook her head. ‘If I’d known you were intending to do what you did this morning, I would never have let you go.’
‘Do we have to talk about this?’
Their errands at the registration office and the goldsmith’s had distracted Simon’s thoughts from the horror of the morning, and he wanted to remain in this blissful state of forgetfulness for as long as possible. Anna-Greta turned her palms upward to indicate that she had no intention of continuing along this line, took a deep breath and said, ‘A long time ago. When I used to travel around selling things. During the war. I was involved in something…something I haven’t told you about.’
Simon didn’t need to ask. Things had changed. He was now one of those in the know, someone who could be told. He leaned back as far as he could on the straight-backed chair as Anna-Greta went on.
‘I was allowed to travel with the soldiers sometimes because I was…popular. I don’t think they were really supposed to have civilians on board, but after all I knew the archipelago and so…’ Anna-Greta looked up and frowned. ‘What are you grinning at?’
Simon waved a hand. ‘Nothing, nothing. I’ll just say one thing. Belle of the boat.’
‘I was not a belle of the boat! I knew every single…’
‘Yes, yes. But I’m sure there were plenty of others who knew the archipelago even better. They just weren’t as pretty as you.’
Anna-Greta gasped for breath, but stopped herself and looked suspiciously at Simon. ‘Are you jealous?’ she asked. ‘Are you sitting here sixty years on feeling jealous?’
Simon thought about it. ‘Now you come to mention it, yes.’
Anna-Greta looked at Simon, then shook her head at the absurdity of it all.
‘They were thinking about laying mines. Out towards Ledinge. Since the major shipping lane to Stockholm runs along there. And I went along on one of those…reconnaissance trips where they were diving to check out the conditions on the seabed. They had just started using modern diving equipment with tanks on their backs. But because visibility in the water was poor and they still weren’t sure about these new things, they used a safety line, attached to the diver.’
Anna-Greta nodded to herself and pointed vaguely in the air as if she’d just thought of something. ‘That was probably why I went along, I think. Because I wanted to see the diving.’
Simon had a very witty comment on the tip of his tongue, but he kept it to himself and Anna-Greta went on:
‘So down he went, this diver, and the line ran from a pulley on deck. There was something hypnotic about it. I mean, you couldn’t see the diver, you just had this pulley to look at, and it made a clicking sound as it turned, paying out the line as he went down. And then… it stopped. The line stopped moving, as if he’d reached the bottom. But that couldn’t be right, because only about seven or eight metres of the line had been paid out, and it was at least thirty metres deep there. The line just didn’t move for a good while, and I thought he must have found a new reef, that he was standing there speculating about what it should be called, if it should be given a name. And then…’
Anna-Greta flicked her hand so that it made a small circular movement.
‘…and then the line started moving again. But more quickly than before. Much more quickly. Ten metres, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. And the pulley was no longer clicking, it was…clattering. Then the speed increased until it was just a continuous hum. Thirty, forty, fifty metres. In just a few seconds. As if he were falling through the air rather than sinking through water. There was nothing we could do. Somebody tried to grab hold of the line, and burned the palms of their hands. Then it ran right to the end, another thirty metres, came off the pulley and disappeared into the water. At the same speed.’
Anna-Greta drank some of her Fanta and cleared her throat.
‘That’s what happened. And that’s why I want you to be careful.’ She put down her glass and added, ‘They had to come up wi
th some kind of explanation, of course. So they decided he’d somehow got himself attached to a submarine. Stupid but true. He was never found. But perhaps you suspected that already.’
Simon looked at her as she sat there wiping her mouth with her serviette. She didn’t give the impression that she had just described something incomprehensible; it was more as if she had just been forced to explain this business of electricity so that you wouldn’t poke your fingers in the socket.
‘I am careful,’ said Simon. ‘I think.’
They went for a walk through Norrtälje and discussed to what extent they would change their current living arrangements after they were married. Well, it wasn’t so much a discussion—they joked about it. In fact they were both in agreement from the start that they wanted to carry on as before.
There was no question of a honeymoon, but they decided to take a trip on the ferry to Finland and back. Some fine dining and a few symbolic dance steps, God (and their hips) willing.
At five o’clock they caught the bus back to Nåten, and at quarter to six they were on board the tender once again. Simon looked out over the dark sea and thought that it had changed. He no longer saw the surface, he saw the depths. He had studied the maritime charts, he had talked to people and he knew that the bay was between twenty and sixty metres deep outside Nåten. To the north and east there were deep trenches of a hundred metres or more.
The depths.
The colossal extent of it, the immense amount of water just between Domarö and Nåten, just lying there biding its time in its darkness, showing only its shining, harmless surface.
In his mind’s eye Simon could see the ferry to Finland they would travel on before long. Silja Symphony. Hundreds of cabins and a long shopping mall down the centre. Ten storeys; at least one hundred and fifty metres from prow to stern.
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