Although Anna-Greta and Gustav had a working business relationship and could perhaps even be called friends, it was still slightly embarrassing for Gustav to have womenfolk in the house overnight. He didn’t know what to do with himself, he felt like a spare part in his own cottage.
It was a relief to discover that Anna-Greta wouldn’t say no to a drop of schnapps. They sat across the kitchen table from each other, looking out over the rough sea, the breakers picked out by the flashing light, and drank a few glasses. Their embarrassment melted away.
No one who hadn’t heard it for themselves would have believed it, but as the evening wore on, Gustav became positively chatty. He built up the fire and, as the temperature rose, told tales of foundered ships, maritime maps scratched into flat rocks and birds that collided with the lighthouse during their autumn migration and died by the barrowload.
When he pulled off his woolly jumper, Anna-Greta noticed that he was wearing his vest inside out, and mentioned this to him. Gustav looked at her, his eyes half-closed. ‘Well, you have to protect yourself as best you can.’
‘Surely you don’t believe that nonsense, Gustav.’
‘No. But I do believe in this,’ said Gustav, taking out a bottle containing a cloudy liquid. ‘And so should you. If you’re going to spend the night here.’
Just to be polite Anna-Greta drank a shot glass of the bitter brew. She knew that many lighthouse keepers grew wormwood to use as a spice for their schnapps, but Gustav’s version was overdone to say the least. It tasted disgusting.
‘It’s not much of a pleasure to drink,’ said Gustav as Anna-Greta slammed her glass down on the table, ‘but it protects life, and that might be worth something after all.’
Anna-Greta wasn’t prepared to settle for a statement like that. The schnapps had made her eager to ask questions and it had made Gustav communicative, and so it happened that Gustav explained for the first time what the situation was with the sea.
It wanted him, he said. It called to him. It showed him things and made him false promises. It threatened him. He had turned to the Bible and found some guidance, but if the wormwood hadn’t been growing in such profusion around the lighthouse, he would never have got the idea.
And it seemed to work. The sea no longer dared touch him in a menacing way, and the whispers of the night had as good as fallen silent since he started thinning his blood with wormwood.
The next morning the wind had eased, and Anna-Greta was able to set off home. Before she left Gustav gave her a coffee tin in which he had planted a wormwood root in a little soil.
‘Take good care of it,’ he said, half-joking in his deep, prophesying voice, ‘so that it may be fruitful and fill the earth.’
Anna-Greta waved goodbye to Gustav and headed away from Stora Korset. She had gone no more than one nautical mile when she heard a strange noise coming from the engine. She cut the power immediately, afraid of doing more damage, and started to check connections and gaskets.
But the noise was still there, even though the engine was switched off. It was a caressing, whispering sound. She turned this way and that, but was unable to locate the source of the noise. She leaned over the rail and looked down into the water. The water was soft and welcoming, like the open arms of a lover. That was where she wanted to be.
That was the first time she heard the call.
She managed to break the spell by starting up the engine and concentrating on its even throbbing, but behind the sound of the cranks and pistons working away she could still hear the wordless whispering that held such a promise of warmth and simplicity.
Gustav had maintained that there were people on Domarö who knew the secrets of the sea, but never spoke of them. Anna-Greta thought she now understood why. There was one important detail missing from Gustav’s private insight.
You can’t hear it if you don’t know about it.
Anna-Greta continued with her trading around the islands for a few more years, but after meeting Simon she sold her boat to avoid hearing the siren call of the sea. As time went by it appeared to have lost interest in her, and the calling stopped.
She had planted Gustav’s wormwood on the edge of the shore down below the Shack, and there it spread in silence without anyone asking any questions.
Together with Simon, Anna-Greta entered a different life where the sea had no access. And things would probably have stayed that way if Johan had not come to her one evening many years later and told her about the island that was nagging at him, the voices that spoke to him.
To cut a long story short, she eventually managed to get out of Margareta Bergwall what there was to know about the sea. She was holding a trump card, because she could also provide something that had been lacking until now: a defence. Within a few years the wormwood was flourishing in several gardens belonging to those in the know, and Anna-Greta went up in everyone’s estimation.
She took care not to involve Simon. Even if the sea was capricious and sometimes selected its victims from those who knew nothing, it was evident that the more you knew, the greater the risk of hearing the call. Or being taken.
So what became of Gustav Jansson, then?
Nobody knew what had happened. Perhaps he ran out of wormwood, perhaps something else went wrong, but in the bitter winter of 1957 the lighthouse was suddenly dark. It was a night of heavy snowfalls, and it wasn’t until the following morning that anyone was able to get out to Stora Korset.
Gustav’s outdoor clothes and boots were not in the cottage, so therefore he must have gone out on to the ice. However, the snowfall during the night had obliterated any tracks.
It was not until spring, when the snow on the ice melted, that they were able to find an indication of what had happened to Gustav. On the shining ice off Stora Korset, footprints could be seen. The snow had been compressed where Gustav had walked, and was melting more slowly than the loose snow around it.
A line of ghostly white footprints led across the ice in the direction of the mainland. It was possible to follow them for over a kilometre. Then they stopped. In the middle of nowhere, with Ledinge barely visible, the last footprint could be seen. Then the trail came to an end.
Perhaps the wind had managed to sweep away the rest of the trail after all, perhaps Gustav had collapsed on that very spot and then been collected or dragged or lifted in some unknown way.
He was gone, at any rate, and the following year the lighthouse on Stora Korset was automated. The lighthouse keeper’s cottage was rented out to an ornithology group who mounted warning lights around the lighthouse to alert small birds to the danger.
Correction
Anna-Greta had just finished her story when the outside door opened. From the way it was yanked open and the footsteps that followed, they could tell it was Anders. When he came into the kitchen his eyes were staring and he was rubbing his hands in a way that Simon recognised from Johan. Nervously, impatiently.
‘Just wanted to let you know I borrowed your boat,’ said Anders. ‘And that I’ll be there tomorrow. Congratulations.’
Anders seemed to be on his way out, and Anna-Greta said, ‘Sit down. Have a cup of coffee with us.’ Anders chewed his lips and rubbed his hands, but then took off his jacket and hat and pulled out a chair.
‘You’ve been out in the boat, then?’ said Simon, and Anders nodded. Anna-Greta poured him a cup of coffee and Anders drank with both hands wrapped around the thin cup, as if he were frozen. ‘I was on Gåvasten.’
Anna-Greta laid her hand on his arm. ‘What’s happened?’
Anders shrugged his shoulder jerkily. ‘Nothing. It’s just that I’m possessed by my own daughter and she’s somewhere out there in the sea and the gulls are keeping watch…’
‘There are several people,’ said Anna-Greta. ‘Several people who have become…possessed.’
Simon was surprised that Anna-Greta was speaking openly about something to do with the sea. Perhaps she judged that the information could not be kept from Anders, that it was bett
er if he found out like this. Anders’ foot, which had been drumming on the floor, suddenly stopped and he listened carefully as Anna-Greta told him what had happened to Karl-Erik, and to the children on the jetty.
‘Why?’ asked Anders when she had finished. ‘Why does this happen? How can it happen?’
‘I can’t answer that question,’ said Anna-Greta. ‘But it does happen. And you’re not the only one.’
Anders nodded and stared into the bottom of his coffee cup. His lips were moving slightly, as if he were reading an invisible text in the coffee grounds. Suddenly he looked up and asked, ‘Why are they horrible? I mean, it seems as if they’re just…horrible.’
Anna-Greta replied as if she were weighing every single word before she uttered it. ‘It’s…it’s virtually only horrible people…who have disappeared. Over the years. Horrible. Or aggressive. Elsa Persson. Torgny. Sigrid. And so on, back through time.’
Anders looked from Anna-Greta to Simon. ‘Maja wasn’t horrible,’ he said, seeking support in their eyes. It wasn’t there. Both of them avoided meeting his eye and said nothing. Anders leapt up from his chair and flung his arms wide.
‘Maja wasn’t horrible! I mean, she was only a child. She wasn’t horrible!’
‘Anders,’ said Simon, reaching for his arm, but Anders pulled it away.
‘What are you saying?’
‘We’re not saying anything,’ said Anna-Greta. ‘We’re just—’
‘No, you’re not saying anything. You’re not saying anything. You’re saying that Maja…that she was horrible. She wasn’t. That’s completely wrong. It’s crazy, what you’re saying.’
‘You’re the one that’s saying it,’ said Anna-Greta.
‘No, I’m not! It’s completely wrong!’
Anders turned and rushed out of the kitchen. The outside door opened and slammed shut. Simon and Anna-Greta sat in silence at the kitchen table for a long time. Eventually Anna-Greta said, ‘He’s forgotten.’
‘Yes,’ said Simon. ‘He’s made sure of that.’
The way it was
Anders wandered around the village. He went over to Kattudden and looked at the devastation there, sat on the shore for a while tossing pebbles through the thin covering of ice closest to the shoreline, went back to the old village and stood for a long time on the steamboat jetty staring over towards Gåvasten.
It was starting to get dark by the time he got back to the Shack. There was a note on the door from Simon, saying that he should come up to Anna-Greta’s so that they could have a sensible conversation. Anders ripped it off and screwed it up.
The house was cold but he didn’t want to light a fire, they would see the smoke from the chimney and would come down wanting to talk. He didn’t want to talk, he didn’t want to discuss this matter at all.
He fetched a blanket from the living room, wrapped it around himself and sat down at the kitchen table. In the last of the fading light he studied the photographs from Gåvasten. Cecilia’s smile, Maja’s absent expression, her gaze turned to the east.
He had put everything from his apartment in storage, thinking that he would make a completely fresh start here on Domarö. He hadn’t even brought the photograph of Maja, the photograph of that mask.
The devil troll.
Anders rubbed his eyes and shook his head. He knew the photograph off by heart, didn’t need it there in front of him. Maja’s expectant expression when she had scared them.
Father Christmess, Christmess presents…
‘No!’
Anders got up from the table and put his hands over his ears, as if he could stop the memory of her voice from finding its way in. Her thin little voice as she sat next to the tree singing…
‘I saw Daddy killing Santa Claus, I…’
All children do that sort of thing!
Anders tore open the door of the larder and found one last wine cask, which he ripped open and drank so greedily that it ran down the sides of his mouth.
It was a wonderful life, I loved her so much…
‘Stupid stupid idiots! I hate you!’
He spun around and caught sight of the bottle of wormwood, took a swig and swilled down the burning nausea with more wine. His stomach churned in protest and he ran to the toilet to throw up, but when he leaned over the bowl he could manage nothing more than a couple of sour belches. He sat down on the floor with his back against the warm radiator.
It wasn’t true that Maja was horrible. Yes, she got annoyed easily. Yes, she had a lively imagination. But she wasn’t horrible.
Anders jerked his head and hit the back of his neck on the edge of the radiator; shades of red flickered before his eyes. He staggered into the kitchen and pulled the photographs towards him again, looking at his family. Cecilia’s warm, kind eyes gazing into his. His lower lip trembled as he picked up the phone and keyed in her number. She answered on the second signal.
‘Hi, it’s me,’ he said.
He heard a faint sigh at the other end of the line. ‘What do you want?’
Anders dragged his hand through his hair a couple of times, rubbed at his scalp. ‘I have to ask you something. I have to say something. Maja wasn’t horrible, was she?’
There was no reply, and Anders scratched at his scalp so hard that he drew blood.
‘That’s what they’re saying,’ he went on. ‘That’s what they think. But you and I…we know that’s not true, don’t we?’
With every second that passed without a word from Cecilia, something was growing inside his head, something that was so big and hurt so much that he could have ripped off his entire skull.
‘Anders,’ said Cecilia at last. ‘Afterwards…you turned her into something else. Something different from what she was.’
Anders’ voice sank to a whisper. ‘What are you saying? She was wonderful. She was just…wonderful.’
‘Yes, she was. That too. But—’
‘I never thought anything else. I thought she was terrific. All the time.’
Cecilia cleared her throat, and when she spoke again there was a sharp impatience in her voice. ‘If that’s the way you want it. But that’s not the way it was, Anders.’
‘How was it, then? I always thought she was…the best you could imagine.’
‘You made that up afterwards. You couldn’t cope with her. You once joked about swapping her for—’
Anders slammed the phone down. It was dark outside the window now. He was so cold he was shaking. He sank to his knees and crawled to the bathroom, where he sat down with his back to the radiator again, staring into the washbasin and gnawing on his lips until there was a metallic taste in his mouth.
His hands lay loosely, the backs resting on the floor. There was a faint smell of piss and his mouth was sticky after a day without any liquid apart from wine and wormwood. He was a dried-up little nothing, the shrivelled remains of something that had perhaps not even existed.
‘I am nothing.’
He said it out loud to himself in the darkness and there was consolation in those words, so he said them again, ‘I am nothing.’
The fact that his life had been shit for the past few years wasn’t exactly news. He knew that. But at least he had believed he had his memories of a life lived in the light, those precious years together with Cecilia and Maja.
But that wasn’t true either. Not even that.
He sniggered. He sniggered a little more. Then he lay down flat on his stomach and licked the floor around the toilet, carried on up the pedestal. It tasted salty. Odd hairs stuck to his tongue, but he went on licking. He cleaned along the edges, licked off the coating on the seat and finished off by swallowing the gooey mess that had gathered in his mouth.
So. That was that. So.
He hauled himself to his feet, took a couple of deep breaths and said it again, ‘I am nothing.’
There, he’d said it. All done. On steadier legs he went and sat down at the kitchen table again, looked over at Gåvasten which had begun to send its signals out into
the night. He was floating on a sea in a state of dead calm. No waves of expectation or false memories obscured his view.
You have left me.
Yes. He had not been able to put his finger on the feeling when it was there, but now it had left him he felt its absence. Maja was no longer within him. He had driven her out. She had left him.
Nothing.
He sat for half an hour with his head resting on his arms, chilled to the bone as he accepted the way things had been. Maja had been dreadful. He had often wished they had never had her. He had said it out loud several times: that he wished she would just disappear. That they could swap her for a dog, a well-behaved dog.
I wanted her to disappear. And she disappeared.
She wept and screamed and kicked as soon as she didn’t get her own way. She immediately smashed things that didn’t behave in the way she wanted. She had no boundaries. They didn’t dare let her watch children’s programs after she threw a vase at the screen when a cartoon character said something stupid. How many hours had they spent sweeping up beads after Maja had tipped them on the floor, how many hours dealing with ripped-up drawing pads and comics?
That was the way it was. That was the way it had been. Like having a monster in the house, you had to be wary of every step, constantly on the alert to avoid provoking its fury. They had been to the clinic, they had seen a child psychiatrist, but nothing helped. Their only hope was that it would pass as she got older.
Anders’ teeth were chattering, and he pulled the blanket more tightly around him.
This was the reason behind his enormous burden of guilt, the one he had tried to get rid of by drinking, then managed to suppress with patient effort: the fact that it was all his fault. He had wished she would disappear, simply disappear, and that was exactly what had happened. He had made it happen.
‘All parents blame themselves when something happens to their children,’ the family therapist had said when Cecilia forced him to go along with her.
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