Sail of Stone

by Ake Edwardson

  He had missed Ada out there. It was a wonderful day. The sky was wonderfully blue. He had suddenly missed Martina.

  This is fucking nuts, he had thought. I’m here and they’re there.

  I’m sneaking around.

  I’m lying.

  We won’t see each other for a long time, he had said to Krister in the car on the way back.

  Okay, Krister had said.

  They had shaken hands at Sveaplan.

  Winter had told him about Macdonald. But that was just the small reason. He tried to explain the other one, the big one. It wasn’t easy.

  “I’m not usually wrong,” he said.

  Osvald looked out through the window again. It looked like dusk was coming, but it wasn’t time for that. A cloud must have come in over the island.

  “If there’s anything more to know, then of course it’s good if someone investigates,” said Osvald.

  Winter nodded.

  “So there is?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m going.”

  “I understand,” said Osvald.

  “Someone got your father to go over,” said Winter.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He got a letter, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, yes, right.”

  Winter looked at the two old sheets of paper that lay on the glass coffee table. He could see the rather jerky handwriting from here, but he couldn’t read it.

  “I would like to borrow those two letters for a while.”

  “Why?”

  “So we can take a closer look at them.”

  “Fingerprints?”

  “Why would you think that?” asked Winter.

  “Well, I don’t know, it’s just what I thought of.”

  Winter didn’t say anything. He heard the moped for the third time out there, brutt-brutt-brutt-bruuuuuuut as it passed, brutt-brutt-brutt. He suddenly thought of an old movie in which a motorcycle regularly, or rather irregularly, showed up in the middle of groups of people, in a city, suddenly it was there and then it was gone. Amarcord. Fellini.

  There was also another movie … it was the same thing, a character on a motorcycle, and it was an obvious wink at Fellini’s film. What was the other one called? He saw a village and a sea … it was called Local Hero. And as he recalled it was filmed somewhere in Scotland, a small community by the sea where everyone was suspicious of newcomers.

  “Isn’t it to look for fingerprints?” said Osvald.

  “Maybe,” said Winter.

  He thought of the letter that had come a month earlier and that had caused Axel Osvald to journey away toward his death. He looked at his son and saw that he was thinking about that too.

  “Are you going to compare?” said Osvald.

  “Maybe,” said Winter.

  “But surely you don’t think that …”

  Winter didn’t answer. The moped went by for the fourth time. It must be different mopeds, but in that case they sounded completely identical. He saw that film from Scotland pass by in his mind for a few seconds. The houses were close together. There was an inn. An artsy type ran it. He and an American had discussed selling a beach.

  “That’s completely idiotic,” said Osvald. “That would mean Grandpa was still alive.” He got up from his chair. “Do you really think he is?”

  “What do you think?”

  “No, no.”

  “What did your father think?”

  “Not that. Not that it’s … like that.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Maybe he hoped it was. At one time. But that’s another story.”

  Belief. Or hope. Was it different? In Winter’s world, in the world where he had thus far spent most of his time, in his adult life, belief and hope sometimes slid into each other.

  “I want to ask you about one more thing, Erik,” said Winter.

  “What is it, Erik?” said Osvald.

  “Do you have any photographs at home of your grandfather when he was young?”

  Osvald moved his hand up to his forehead again. He rubbed his hair. He was standing in the middle of the floor.

  “Anything other than that probably doesn’t exist,” he said. “We only remember him as young, you know.”

  “Is there a picture?” asked Winter.

  “Yes,” Osvald said, and left the room.

  Bergenhem was standing four rows away from the truck, which seemed to sway in the wind when the cover moved. He could see that it was stretched over a van, which was peculiar. He looked at his watch. He had been sitting there for half an hour. He got out and approached the truck. He looked toward the entrance, where hundreds of people were going in and out and pushing carts full of flat packages. IKEA’s business idea was flat packs, and they sailed around the world. All over the world people bought the packages and assembled their homes, their worlds. Bergenhem still had a scar on his knuckles from trying to assemble a TV stand in which the predrilled holes in the hard-as-stone glued sheets of beech didn’t match the hardware. He had sworn and bled. But it had been cheap. In the end he had pounded in the screws with a hammer.

  He looked at his watch again, at the truck again. He walked toward the entrance.

  Half an hour later the parking lot began to empty.

  The truck was still there.

  Bergenhem began to realize what had happened.

  Fifteen minutes later the truck was alone in its row. Bergenhem understood perfectly now. He called Meijner.

  37

  Harbour Office. It looked the way it always had, mostly like a wall against the sea. He had parked outside the shipyard and walked back along the quays. There was no wind.

  It fit in. It was quiet here, a quiet no one wanted to have. Peterhead had taken over everything now, or almost everything. The shipyard behind his back was empty and quiet. A hammer strike coming from there would have caused passersby to jump. But there were no strikes.

  He himself had held a hammer in there, in the red dust.

  Suddenly he turned around, right in front of the fish market, which was partially built on poles above the water. People streamed out on their way to the buses that waited in the parking lot. He heard American voices, like sheep bleating their way up to the buses. Brae-brae-brae-brae.

  In one of the docks there were still boats with meaningful existence, trawlers from here and from the horn: the Three Sisters, Priestman, Avoca, Jolair, Sustain. A familiar name: Monadhliath.

  That couldn’t be right.

  A man came up onto the quarterdeck. He walked by as fast as he could, with his eyes on the Marine Accident Investigation Branch on the other side.

  He shifted his gaze. He didn’t need any reminders.

  Absolutely nothing had happened to the houses behind the shipyard. The stone walls were like the bottom of the sea; it would take millions of years to get them to change, to wear away. He walked up and down Richmond. It took four minutes; the street wasn’t even a hundred yards long. He had lived in number four. The windows were black. The door was new, of a type of wood he didn’t recognize. It could be from a ship. It ought to be. The wind from the sea that swept through Richmond Street was the sea, as damp as the sea. Anyone who walked here became wet and cold. Not right now, the wind was from the south, but often otherwise.

  The street was one of ten identical ones. Without the names no one would be able to find their way home. The shipyard workers had been too drunk to remember which street was theirs. Even though most of them could read, at least the names of their streets, their birth certificates; the family had been able to read the death certificates. It was a hard life; it was cold. He hadn’t been here during the terrible years, and yet he had been so close. He had burned away most of the memories. It hurt to return. He knew how it would feel.

  At the Marine Hotel, a single room cost twenty-five pounds. Back then, that had been his livelihood for a month.

  He walked around the building. The bar had been moved. There was a notice about the “Cunard Suite” by the entr
ance. It had been there then, too.

  He stood in the cramped hallway to the reception area.

  It was the same smell.

  Jesus.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  She wasn’t from that time. Her hair was blond. Her skirt was long; that was unusual on a young person. She didn’t look at him, really. It was surprising that she had seen him at all.

  “I just wanted to …,” he said, and that was all, and he turned and went out again, and up past Forsyths and Moray Seafoods, up the hill to the square.

  The old hotel looked untouched. No bombs had fallen on it. He had to sit down on one of the benches in front of the city hall. It wasn’t a city hall anymore, he could see that much. Old folks were going in and out; some seemed to be fifty years older than him. An old person was sitting on the bench across from him, sitting and sleeping in the pale autumn sun.

  It was here. It was here. He had panicked and never returned. This was where it started.

  It was all the people, thousands, tens of thousands.

  The war was over. What was it, the twentieth anniversary of the monument? Yes. Maybe. They had celebrated peace, and that monument, which was twenty years old. It had been so crowded that he thought it might become hard to breathe.

  He looked at the monument; naturally, it was still there, in front of the city hall in the old part of the square. You could touch it.

  The War Memorial.

  The memorial for the dead of the first great war.

  In Proud and Grateful Remembrance.

  Their Name Liveth For Ever.

  That’s what it looked like. But that’s not how it was.

  He got up with his memories and crossed the street. He had stood here, among all the others. Then he had turned around. There was a sound. A clicking sound.

  They had stocked up a few times in Buckie. Maybe it was only twice. Arne had wanted to stay. Not this time, they had said. We’ll come back. That was the last time. The Buckie boys are back in town, Arne had said when they docked. He repeated it as they drank beer at the Marine.

  They had gone out at the same time as the Monadhliath. It was the next day.

  The Monadhliath had run into drifting mines. That was another day later. He might have heard the explosion. He had seen a light in the night.

  Two hours later the Marino had gone under.

  He had convinced Bertil not to come along. No. He had forced him not to! That was in Fraserburgh. They had received their final instructions.

  Arne wasn’t coming along anyway. He had a meeting in the mountains. He traveled hidden under a tarp in the bed of a truck. More weapons. Always more weapons.

  Arne didn’t know German. Others knew German.

  Egon came along out to sea. He couldn’t force him to stay on land. He tried. Egon forced himself along on the last trip.

  He didn’t speak to Frans. They weren’t speaking to each other anymore. Only when necessary. Only if the worst happened.

  “John, you are lost,” Frans had said.

  “We’re all lost,” he had said.

  Frans had talked about Ella. Crazy talk, insane. Frans had accused him. Don’t try to take her, he had said. Ella is mine. It was insane. It was lies. Frans drank. Frans talked like a madman. Frans was careless with the weapons. Frans was afraid.

  Egon looked afraid. Egon stayed away. Egon kept to himself in the mess. Egon was afraid.

  He stood in the cabin. He drank. He froze. He listened to the wind. He was afraid. He had a premonition. He hadn’t been able to explain it to Egon.

  A gale was blowing when they went out, sheltered by the cliffs of Clubbie Craig.

  The meeting was outside of Troup Head. He couldn’t see the village in there under the cliffs. Everything was dark. Suddenly they could see the signal above Cullykhan Bay. The other boat came out.

  They went north. They unloaded and loaded up again. They kept going. They unloaded. They kept going. The wind increased. They couldn’t go home yet. They went into the storm.

  He wasn’t afraid now. Egon was afraid.

  Frans wasn’t afraid. Frans came into the cabin. Frans was waving a German army pistol.

  “Should we shoot the haddock?” he screamed.

  He didn’t answer. There was a strong gust. Frans reeled.

  “We have lots of these!” screamed Frans, waving the pistol. “And bigger ones too!” He waved it again. “We can shoot whales!”

  Frans had stolen weapons. How much had he stolen?

  It was punishable by death. It didn’t matter how little you kept. Or how much.

  Almost everything was punishable by death.

  “Put that down,” he yelled.

  “Should we set the trawl?” Frans screamed. “Ha ha ha!”

  “Go belowdecks,” he yelled.

  Frans lost his balance in the rough sea. The Marino fell, fell twenty yards, thirty. The sea was crazy. The water was a wall. The water was hard as stone. The water was a stone wall. The water was death.

  Frans dropped the pistol, then picked it up. Frans lost his balance. Then Frans was on his way out, a yard from the door. He reeled suddenly.

  Egon was on his way in. The storm threw him in.

  A shot went off. Another shot.

  Egon exploded. Egon’s head split. Egon’s body fell.

  Frans was still holding the pistol in his hand. He dropped it. He ran out through the cabin door.

  Egon was motionless on the wet floor. The water rushed in through the doorway.

  He turned the rudder. He dragged the body to shelter. He looked for Frans. He called his name through the storm. Frans didn’t answer. He knew that he was still on board. He found him. Frans tried to say something. He didn’t listen. Frans looked at him. He closed his eyes.

  Jesus!

  38

  They landed at Inverness Airport at eleven thirty. The sun was out, but it was low and weak. In the taxi to the city Winter saw an open landscape and a glimpse of water to the north and the silhouettes of the big mountains south of the city. It was the Highlands.

  “They’re higher than I thought,” said Angela. “It’s beautiful.”

  Inverness was built of old and new. Loathsome concrete roundabouts spun their way in toward a medieval downtown. They could see the castle high above. The taxi slowly made its way through town and crept along the river Ness. They passed a bridge and continued on Ness Bank along the river for five hundred yards and stopped outside the little Glenmoriston Hotel, which Winter had booked on Macdonald’s recommendation. Cozy and well kept and expensive, as Macdonald had said.

  The room was large and it was on the second floor, and they had a panorama view over the river and the park beyond it, as well as the three-hundred-year-old granite houses on either side of the cathedral. Winter opened the window. The wind was still warm. He could see people on park benches on the other side. It wasn’t far. Gulls circled over the benches. Pigeons hopped around them. People were eating their lunches on the benches, spread-out papers of fish and chips. Haddock that had been pulled up by Erik Osvald. Potatoes that had been delivered by Steve Macdonald’s dad. Vinegar from whatever distillery was available.

  Winter could see two bridges over the river. It was still early October, but the sky above the river was very low and had a color like stone; the sun was gone now.

  The sky brushed the bridges.

  Angela stood beside him.

  “The ceiling’s a little low here,” she said, looking out at the sky.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Winter.

  “Haven’t you been here before?”

  “That was in the summer. The sky was blue, if I remember correctly.”

  “Don’t you always remember correctly?”

  She smiled kindly.

  “Not anymore,” said Winter, thinking of Arne Algotsson. No one knew what was in store, at least if you didn’t analyze your DNA. He didn’t intend to do that.

  Angela hung up some clothes. He let his bag
lie unopened. She sat on the bed, which was large and yet looked small in the room.

  “I like this room,” she said.

  Winter looked in the bathroom, which was tiled in a warm shade. It was the same color as the low sky outside.

  “Nice hotel,” he heard Angela say behind him.

  It was. The lobby was small but not too small. To the right there was an inviting bar with leather chairs and a counter and shelves well stocked with bottles. To the left was the restaurant.

  “I’m going to call home,” said Angela.

  He washed his hands and heard her voice and walked out into the room. She held out the phone: “Elsa.”

  He took it and heard his daughter, who had already started telling him what had happened during the day. No day care while they were gone. Elsa was totally the center of attention, with Grandma Siv, Aunt Lotta, and her cousins Bim and Kristina in a circle around her. Total spoiling. But that was nothing new. He believed in spoiling young children. All the laws and rules and decrees and prohibitions would still be there, soon enough. Most people didn’t escape adult life, and there was no one to spoil you there. You were alone there. Out there you’re on your own, he thought.

  “We’re making Christmas candy!” said Elsa.

  Why not. There were only three months left until Christmas.

  Or maybe his mother had lost her sense of the seasons after almost fifteen years under an eternal sun.

  “Have you spoken English, Papa?” she asked in the impatient, half-stumbling way of children.

  “Sure have. With the taxi driver and people here at the hotel,” he answered.

  “Not with Mama?” she said, giggling.

  “Not yet,” he said, laughing too.

  “Is it a nice hotel?” said Elsa.

  “Very nice,” he said.

  “I want to stay at a hotel too,” she said, but he didn’t hear any disappointment in her voice. It was only a statement.

  “You’ll get to stay at lots of hotels, sweetie.”

  “Promise!” she yelled.

  Of course he promised. Up to a certain age, you could promise things, and perhaps sometimes later too, but at some point she would have to keep her own promises. Out there. On her own.