Harbour

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

  Anna-Greta leaned towards him and lowered her voice to a whisper. 'Haven't you heard the sea? Heard it calling?'

  Only a week ago Simon would have been concerned about Anna-Greta's mental health if she had asked him a question like that with such quivering earnestness. A week ago he hadn't seen the depths, hadn't sunk a body into those same depths.

  'I don't know,' he replied. 'Maybe. Have you heard it?'

  Anna-Greta looked out of the window and her gaze reached far into the distance, to the outermost shipping lanes. 'Have I told you about Gustav Jansson?' she asked. 'The lighthouse keeper? On Stora Korset?'

  'Yes. You knew him, didn't you?'

  Anna-Greta nodded. 'It all started with him. For me.'

  The keeper

  Stora Korset is the last outpost facing the Aland Sea. The island is so remote that the lighthouse keeper there receives what is known as an isolation supplement in addition to his normal pay. A little bonus for enduring the loneliness.

  From the end of the 1930s to the beginning of the 1950s, it was Gustav Jansson who ran the whole show out there. He originally came from Domarö, but found it difficult to get on with people, and when the post of lighthouse keeper became available he took it as an opportunity to be left in peace at last. Then he spent thirteen years there with four hens as his only company.

  He did not like the war. The din of practice firing and drift mines that had to be rendered harmless was one thing, but the worst thing was that visitors came to the island. Military personnel knocking on his door and asking questions about this and that, boats mooring at his jetty on reconnaissance missions. For a while there was talk of some kind of fortification on Stora Korset, but fortunately the plan came to nothing.

  How terrible would that have looked! A tower with a gun emplacement down on the rocks below, soldiers stomping around smoking and frightening the hens. No, if that had happened he would have demanded to leave forthwith.

  However, the war did bring one good thing.

  Gustav Jansson had never been married. Not because he had anything in particular against women, no, he disliked men just as much. He was a solitary soul by nature and not suited to the companionship of marriage.

  However, the war brought a woman he was able to tolerate. Not that he would have married her even if the possibility had existed, but he could tolerate her company and gradually found himself looking forward to the days she came to the island with snuff and newspapers.

  He was enough of a man to appreciate female beauty in spite of everything, but what he liked most about Anna-Greta was that she didn't talk unnecessarily. Gustav's taciturnity made other people nervous, and they would chat away even more as if there were some kind of quota that had to be filled.

  Not Anna-Greta. It was only after they had been acquainted for a year or so that they said any more than was absolutely necessary to carry out their transactions. At that time Gustav had bought a jigsaw puzzle from Anna-Greta. When he had done that one he wanted to buy a new one, which led to a certain amount of discussion. What kind of picture, how many pieces?

  He ended up being a subscriber, and was particularly fond of puzzles with a sea motif. Since he had neither the space nor the inclination to keep the puzzles once he had completed them, he would place the pieces carefully, then when he had finished he would take the puzzle apart and put the pieces back in the box. Once a month Anna-Greta would come and replace the completed puzzle with a new one. At half price, because she could sell the old one again.

  Over the years they had the odd conversation that was unrelated to their business dealings. A certain level of intimacy grew between them.

  A couple of years after the end of the war, the general view was that Gustav Jansson had lost his mind. He did his job as lighthouse keeper extremely well, there were no complaints on that score, but you just couldn't talk to the man. He had spent too much time reading the Bible.

  Anna-Greta knew better. It was true that reading the Bible was Gustav's only diversion apart from jigsaw puzzles out on his little island. He knew it inside out, and would even conduct conversations with himself, where one party was an austere prophet and the other a free-thinker.

  But he wasn't mad. Gustav had simply realised that the surest way of frightening away unwelcome visitors was to preach at them. People became strangely uncomfortable when they heard the word of the Lord being intoned as they were tying up their boats at Gustav's jetty, and visits were kept short. Gustav was left in peace with his lighthouse and his God.

  One afternoon at the beginning of the 1950s, Anna-Greta arrived later than usual for her monthly visit. With the north wind blowing at twelve metres per second, Gustav was surprised to see her at all. As Anna-Greta unpacked Gustav's purchases in the lighthouse keeper's cottage, the wind picked up even more. Some gusts made the wind gauge shoot up to twenty.

  It looked as if Anna-Greta was going to have to stay on Stora Korset overnight. Gustav managed to get in touch with Nåten via short-wave radio, and they promised to make sure that Torgny, Maja and Johan would be informed that Anna-Greta was fine and was waiting for better weather conditions before setting off for home.

  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 powe
r 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 better 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 everyth
ing 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...'