He looked down at the sea, foaming up around the bow and thought: It could sink here and it would be gone. There would be no sign of it at all. It would be lying down there.
A shudder ran down his spine and he put his arm around Anna-Greta’s shoulders as they approached Domarö.
A welcome committee was standing on the jetty. It consisted of the same people who had been in the mission house, apart from Tora Österberg and Holger, who were missing. And Karl-Erik.
Tora hadn’t felt strong enough to come, and Holger was sitting with Göran, keeping an eye on Karl-Erik. ‘So that he doesn’t come up with something else,’ as Johan Lundberg put it.
Lasse had been taken to the hospital in Norrtälje and had his wounds stitched, but had refused to stay one minute longer than necessary. When he was delivered back home his wife Lina had been just as unreasonable. She was normally the kindest, most helpful person you could imagine, but she had spat and hissed at Lasse’s companions, transformed beyond recognition. She had let her husband in, but that was it. She hadn’t even offered them coffee.
All this was relayed to Anna-Greta. Simon was deliberately ignored, and despite the fact that Anna-Greta took his hand to keep him within the circle, the group managed to close around her and exclude him. After a couple of minutes he had had enough. He squeezed Anna-Greta’s hand and whispered to her that he was going to see how Anders was getting on.
He felt a pang of guilt when he turned around after a few steps and saw her standing on the jetty surrounded by dark figures, like a flock of crows. Although perhaps it wasn’t guilt, he thought as he continued on towards the Shack. Perhaps it was jealousy.
She’s not yours. She’s mine. Mine!
The Shack was dark and silent, but when Simon went into the kitchen he could see light seeping out from beneath the bedroom door. He opened it gently and discovered Anders, fast asleep in Maja’s bed with his arms around Bamse the Bear. Simon stood looking at him quietly for a while, then went out and closed the door silently behind him.
In the kitchen he switched on the light, found a pen and some paper and wrote a note about the wedding. As he was just about to leave he caught sight of the bead tile. He studied it carefully. Then he added something to the note and left the house.
Anna-Greta was already home. There hadn’t been all that much to discuss, really. The only course of action on which they could agree had already been put in place: to keep Lasse and Karl-Erik under supervision and see how things developed. She pulled off her best boots and massaged her feet, which were feeling the effects of all that walking in Norrtälje. ‘I’m sorry the others were like that,’ she said. ‘I’m sure they’ll get used to the situation in time.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Simon, sitting down. ‘Did you tell them? About Elin?’
‘How could I possibly do that?’
‘No. Of course not.’
Anna-Greta put her feet up on Simon’s knee and he kneaded them absently. His hands were back in place, a natural part of his body.
Magic. Mysterious.
The whole thing was like a magic trick. An effect that could be seen on the surface, which seemed fantastic, but behind it all lay a mechanism that was basically very simple, if only you understood it. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Simon wished he could put his former talent to work on this particular effect and find the hidden compartment, the secret mechanism. Perhaps it was all as simple as an invisible thread or a false base, if you could just see it. But he couldn’t see it.
‘There is one thing I don’t understand,’ said Anna-Greta, wiggling her toes and making them creak slightly. ‘Elin. Anders. Karl-Erik. Lasse. Lina. Why those people in particular? Why them?’
‘There are a lot of things I don’t understand. And that’s one of them. Where are the strings?’
Hide and seek
When Anders managed to get hold of the alarm clock and decipher the position of the hands through eyes gritty with sleep, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was twenty to seven. Judging from the light outside it was morning, not evening. Which meant he hadn’t slept more than quarter of an hour, despite the fact that he had been bone weary.
He rolled on to his back and pressed the clock to his chest. Strangely enough, he felt rested in a way that he hadn’t felt for a very long time. His body was soft and his brain was empty, relaxed. It felt as if he’d slept…
Hang on a minute…
There was one other possibility. That he had slept for an entire day. That it was Saturday now. He closed his eyes, but they had already come to life and certainly didn’t want to be closed again. He had finished sleeping. There was no other explanation: he must have slept for fifteen minutes plus twenty-four hours.
Or forty-eight. Or seventy-two. Or…
He was desperate for a pee, his bladder felt like a huge tumour. But he still didn’t get up. It was so indescribably wonderful to lie there in bed feeling warm and rested. He hadn’t had one single peaceful night since he came to Domarö. Now he felt as if he had recouped everything in one fell swoop. He drew up his knees and turned to the wall, where he found an old friend.
Bamse.
The big Bamse bear had been Maja’s favourite when they were on Domarö. She hadn’t wanted to take it back home to the city with her, no, Bamse belonged on Domarö and had to stay here and wait for her until the next time she came over.
Anders stroked the blue felt hat, the wide-open eyes, the buttons on his overalls.
‘Hello, Bamse.’
He felt so calm. Yesterday or the day before his thoughts would probably have started whirling around in his head by now, scrabbling for an explanation of the fact that Bamse was lying next to him, even though he had been right under the bed when Anders fell asleep.
But not now. No problem. Bamse was here. Nice.
Besides, he now knew how things worked. He was the one who had dug out Bamse, or rather his body had done so. Maja had wanted Bamse next to her while she was sleeping, and had used Anders to get what she wanted.
‘Morning, sweetheart.’
He listened inside himself for a reply, but none came. That was OK too. He thought he ought to be able to feel something, to be able to find a place inside himself that was Maja, but he had no intention of going into that right now. Things were OK as they were, with Bamse and everything. She was there.
He smiled. ‘Do you remember this?’ He cleared his throat and silently sang Maja’s version of the Bamse song:
‘Hey there Bamse, strongest bear of all
But oh, how he loves to fight!
Thunder honey, Grandma’s thunder honey
That’s what he eats when it’s time to start a fight.’
She had really loved to play with songs and expressions, with language. Above all she liked making things…well, worse. It would often start with a mispronunciation, which she would then develop. A favourite had been to exchange the word ‘Christmas’ for ‘Christmess’. They gave each other Christmess presents, brought in the Christmess tree and before Christmas they sat making different kinds of Christmess puzzles. Then Father Christmess came.
Pain shot through Anders’ midriff and he frowned. He remembered how she had sat there gabbling a list of different things that were ‘messy’. Christmess music and the Christmessy atmosphere. The verse she had added to ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus’, which involved Daddy coming in and killing Santa Claus. Father Christmess.
I can’t go on like this.
Anders rolled over quickly and slipped out of bed, half-crouching as he ran to the toilet where he achieved what was probably a world record in pissing for the longest time. His body felt purified, capable, ready for anything. He flushed the toilet and Elin came into his mind. Her hair floating outwards around her head as she sank down…
No!
He rinsed his face with cold water and slaked his thirst. He wouldn’t think about that. Ever. It was over, it was gone, it belonged in the past. It was as if he had been given the gift of a new body and
a new brain this morning. He had no intention of using them to wade around in the sludgy mess of things that couldn’t be altered. He’d done enough of that.
He was famished, and stood by the fridge wolfing down three pieces of crispbread smothered in cheese spread while the water trickled through the coffee machine. He chewed and chewed, hearing the crunch inside his head as he gazed out of the window and noticed that the bay was full of gulls. He was not afraid.
I am not afraid.
He munched the last of the crispbread and studied the movements of the gulls as they drifted with the currents, taking off and blinking as they were caught by the light of the low-lying sun, then drifting back down towards the surface again.
I am not afraid.
He had been walking around more or less in a state of horror and fear for so long that it had become part of his nature. Now it was gone. There was only the bay, the blue sky, the gulls and his own body, unafraid, seeing everything in the autumn light.
It was wonderful.
He turned away from the window and caught sight of the bead tile. His eyes opened wide and he went across to it, ran his hand over the smooth surface, which was now larger than the knobbly area. Beads had been added, many beads had been added—
I have added the beads.
—while he was asleep. Lots and lots of blue beads had been added, and the large white patch in the middle was finished, surrounded by blue, and had been joined by a smaller white patch diagonally up to the left.
As he stood contemplating the incomprehensible picture an idea began to take shape, but before he managed to catch it he spotted the note.
Anna-Greta and I are getting married in Nåten on Sunday at two o’clock. We would very much like you to be there. Simon.
Under the signature was a postscript, and when Anders read it he slapped his forehead and shouted, ‘Idiot! It’s so obvious!’ He studied the bead tile again and couldn’t understand why he hadn’t seen it straight away.
P.S. Isn’t it a maritime chart?
The blue was the sea, the white patch in the middle was Domarö, and the smaller white patch was Gåvasten. It was clumsily executed and light and dark were transposed in comparison to a normal maritime chart, but he was still annoyed that he hadn’t spotted it long ago, as soon as the contours of Domarö began to form.
It was a revelation, along the lines of: at last the pieces fell into place, the penny dropped, the veil was swept aside. The discovery made Anders feel quite intoxicated, and he clapped his hands in pure delight, but stopped in the middle of a clap. He stared at the beads.
It’s a maritime chart. Right. So?
What he had in front of him was a rudimentary chart showing Domarö, Kattholmen and Gåvasten, with Ledinge gradually emerging.
So?
It looked just like an ordinary chart, but executed less skilfully. An ordinary chart that he already had on the bookshelf. What was he supposed to do with this one? What could it tell him that he didn’t already know?
‘Why are you doing this? Why have you made this…messy chart?’
He was suddenly furious, and was seized by a powerful urge to throw the whole fucking thing away, had even reached out for the tile with both hands before he managed to stop himself. He looked at his hands, got hold of one hand with the other and shook it.
One of his own plays on words popped into his head. It hadn’t gone down very well with Maja, but he’d thought it was funny. Swapping the word ‘hand’ for ‘hound’ in different expressions. Holding someone by the hound. Give me your hound, I am your right hound. And then there was his favourite. He looked at his hands and said it out loud, ‘One hound doesn’t know what the other is doing.’
That’s it.
He sat down heavily on a kitchen chair. The sudden rage had not been his, it was Maja who could be so unreasonably angry over little things. Like her socks the day she disappeared. She had just got angry with the chart, through him. Just as she had been so happy when she saw that it was a chart showing the sea and the islands.
No. Yes.
He leaned over the bead tile again. If she was the one who had made the chart, then she couldn’t be delighted at the discovery that it was a chart. And besides…how on earth could Maja build a maritime chart with beads? He had probably shown her the chart at some point when they were out in the boat, but there was no possibility that she would be able to make an…image of it.
He was the only one who could do that. Therefore, he was the one who had made the chart without knowing, and she was the one who had…
He put his head in his hands.
One hound doesn’t know what the other is doing.
If she wanted to communicate with him, why do it in this complex, time-consuming way? Why not just write or say what needed to be said?
Because one hound doesn’t know what the other is doing.
And besides…
Anders took a deep breath and held it, listened inside himself and outside. There was nothing there. Nobody was watching him, nobody was after him. For the moment. But they did exist.
You can’t be here either, little Maja. We’ll take you too, in time.
It was a question of being careful. If you showed yourself too much, they would spot you. That was what had happened to Elin. Perhaps. So you had to be careful. Take a little bit at a time and avoid discovery.
Maja had been good at hide and seek. Almost too good. She could stay hidden for a long, long time if she found a good hiding place. She wouldn’t even come out when they gave up and shouted to her. They always had to find her.
That last summer they had played hide and seek outside, and it was the same as always. She could be extremely impatient in other contexts, but when it came to games, her patience was endless. She would remain hidden far away until the person who was supposed to find her dropped their guard and set off in the opposite direction. Then she would come running out. She could wait for as long as it took.
Anders poured himself a cup of coffee and drank it slowly and methodically, visualising the hot, slightly poisonous liquid running through his body, once again cleansing the channels. His brain was beginning to feel clogged up again, and he didn’t want that to happen.
He looked at the sea, the sky, the gulls, and concentrated on the warmth in his throat, his chest, his stomach.
It worked, to some extent, and with reasonably clear eyes he looked at the bead tile again. If it was as he thought, if Maja was playing some kind of hide and seek where the important thing was to avoid discovery, then there should still be some kind of clue.
He went and fetched the real chart, compared it with the bead tile. The distances and proportions were accurate, by and large. The shape of the islands was too square, but more or less correct. There was no noticeable deviation that stood out from the original.
He put down the chart and rubbed his eyes. When he looked again he spotted something that didn’t stand out, quite the opposite.
There’s something missing here…
He bent over the tile and studied the patch of white beads representing Gåvasten. At the top there was a narrow corridor where no beads had been fixed, a band of emptiness.
What does that mean? Does it mean anything?
He got the photographs out of the kitchen drawer and spread them out on the table. He concentrated on Maja’s face, Maja’s eyes. Yes, it was just as he had thought. Her attention was drawn to something over in the east, by that empty band.
Daddy, what’s that?
Anders looked out of the window. Beyond the carpet of gulls covering the bay he could just see the tiny white lighthouse. No more than a glint in the morning light, a dot on the sky.
Ten minutes later he had pulled on his outdoor clothes, fetched his tools and mounted the outboard engine on the plank of wood. The temperature had fallen by several degrees and was now close to zero, but after yanking on the starter cord several times he was quite warm.
He checked everything that could be checke
d, sprayed lubricant on all the moving parts and starter fluid into the air filter, took out the spark plugs and dried them even though they were already dry, put them back, pumped up the petrol and slapped the engine with the palm of his hand.
‘Now start, you bastard.’
He yanked the cord five times without the engine making the slightest effort to start, not even a cough from the carburettor.
He yelled, ‘What the fuck’s the matter with you, you evil fucking bastard!’ and pulled on the cord as hard as he could. He put his entire body weight behind it, and when the cord ripped off in his hand he fell backwards and hit the bottom of his back on the hard ground.
A red mist descended in front of his eyes and he leapt to his feet, lifted the engine off the plank and staggered down to the jetty, where he pushed from the shoulder and hurled it as far out into the water as he could.
A few gulls bobbing close to the jetty panicked and flapped away as the engine hit the water and sank from view. Anders was panting with the exertion; he bent over, his hands resting on his knees, and whispered, ‘That’ll teach you. You weren’t expecting that, were you?’
The gulls settled back on the surface, watching him with their black eyes.
When he came to his senses he realised that what he had just done wasn’t particularly clever. It could have been a simple fault, and there were people in the village who knew about these things. At the same time he had a sudden urge to run away and hide. He had done something wrong, and now he needed to go and sit in a dark place where nobody would be able to find him.
The woodshed flashed through his mind. If he crept in beside a pile of wood and pulled a sack over his head, nobody would be able to see him.
Quick! Before somebody comes!
He turned and was halfway along the jetty, taking short, creeping steps before he pulled himself up. He shook his head and wrapped his arms around his body.
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