Depths

by Henning Mankell

Sub-Lieutenant Welander gave him a clumsy salute. His launch had already cast off.

  The rating Tobiasson-Svartman had struck in the face the day before had a swollen lip, but there was no snot hanging from his nostril. He had changed places and now had the oar furthest from the stern thwart It would be harder for Tobiasson-Svartman to reach him there, should he have another fit of rage.

  CHAPTER 46

  Late that afternoon the Svea appeared on the horizon.

  They stopped their work immediately. Tobiasson-Svartman had written up his notes by as early as six o'clock.

  He made his way over the gangway that had been set up between the two vessels. Anders Höckert welcomed him aboard. While they were on their way to Captain Rake, he politely asked after Lieutenant Sundfeldt and Artillery Captain von Sidenbahn.

  'Von Sidenbahn has done his stint and is back ashore,' Höckert said. 'That's where he prefers to be. He was damned annoyed, having to live on a moving floor. Sundfeldt is asleep – he was on bridge watch yesterday evening. He has an amazing ability to sleep, that man. Some of those who choose a seafaring life dream about being rocked to a sound night's sleep by their ship. I have a theory that says they are really longing for their mothers. So how's the work going?'

  'Well.'

  Höckert paused and eyed him up and down.

  'Well? Neither more nor less? Just "well"?'

  'Some things go brilliantly. Other days cause a few problems. Let's say, we're making progress.'

  Höckert knocked on the door and opened it before Rake had a chance to respond. Then he stepped aside and vanished down a companionway.

  Rake was waiting for him, his jacket unbuttoned.

  He held a letter in his hand.

  CHAPTER 47

  He saw right away that it was from Kristina Tacker.

  The handwriting was unmistakable, with marked, fancy flourishes on the capital letters. He would have preferred to leave Rake immediately and return to his cabin to read the letter.

  Previously he had been worried because she had not written. Now that had changed and he was anxious to know what the letter said.

  Rake picked up the brandy bottle. Tobiasson-Svartman noticed that he was wearing a black armband on his left arm.

  Rake saw what he was looking at.

  'My mother has died. I'll be going ashore in Kalmar and will hand the ship over to Lieutenant Sundfeldt for a few days while I deal with the funeral.'

  'I'm so sorry.'

  Rake filled his glass.

  'My mother was 102,' Rake said. 'She was born in 1812, so if she had lived in France she might have met Napoleon. Her own mother was born sometime in the 1780s, I forget the exact year. But it was before the French Revolution. When I touched my mother's hand it often occurred to me that I was feeling the skin of somebody who in turn had touched the skin of people born in the eighteenth century. In certain circumstances it's almost incomprehensible how time can shrink.

  'But it's hard to mourn a person who is 102 years old. For the last ten years she hasn't known who I was. Sometimes she thought I was her late husband, my own father, that is.

  'Extreme age is a spiritual pitched battle fought in the dark. A battle that inevitably ends in defeat. The darkness and degradation of old age is something for which religions have never been able to offer us consolation or a satisfactory explanation.

  'But death can come suddenly and unexpectedly even for one so very old. It might seem an odd thing to say, but death always disturbs us no matter when it comes. Although my mother was in spiritual darkness she had a strong will to live. She did not want to die, despite being so old.'

  Tobiasson-Svartman made to leave, but Rake was not finished.

  'There has been a military confrontation near the Gulf of Riga,' he said. 'Our clever radio operators who listen in to communications between the German and Russian ships and their high commands have been able to confirm the engagement. It happened at the end of last week. One German cruiser was damaged by torpedoes, but was able to limp back to Kiel. Two Russian vessels, a torpedo boat and a troopship, were torpedoed and sank.'

  'Is there anything to suggest that Sweden might be drawn into the war?'

  'Not a thing. But there are opinions, of course. Mine, for one. I think we should join in on the German side.'

  Tobiasson-Svartman was astonished. The captain was openly declaring that he was opposed to Swedish neutrality, which had been decided on by parliament and the government. A vigorous Navy Minister would have stripped him of his command forthwith if he had heard what Rake had just said. But it was an open question whether a Navy Minister would dare to fall out with his senior officers.

  Rake seemed to read his thoughts.

  'Obviously it is forbidden to say something like that. But I'm not especially concerned about the consequences. If the worst comes to the worst, I can always plead diminished responsibility due to the sudden death of my mother.'

  He stood up. The audience was over. He handed over the letter and opened the door leading to the deck. Rake accompanied Tobiasson-Svartman to the gangway sloping steeply down to the gunboat's deck.

  'I keep thinking about that dead German sailor,' he said. 'There will now be lots of dead bodies floating around in the Gulf of Riga. All seas are graveyards, but there are no remains at the bottom of the Baltic. It is a big cemetery that is devoid of any human remains. The lack of calcium means that bodies and skeletons very quickly decay here, or so I've been told.'

  They said their farewells when they came to the gangway. Rake asked how the work was going.

  'Some days everything goes well, other days bring setbacks. But we are making progress,' Tobiasson-Svartman said.

  On the way down the gangway he stumbled. For a moment he was in danger of dropping the letter.

  CHAPTER 48

  He shut himself away in his cabin and sat down to read the letter.

  Suddenly he was overcome by the conviction that she had not written before because she had been unfaithful. The letter was bound to contain a confession that she had met somebody else. He sat for a long while with the letter in his hand, not daring to open it.

  The letter contained nothing of what he had feared.

  First she apologised for the delay in writing. She had been unwell for a few days and unable to write. Then their maid, Anna Beata, had left without warning. Perhaps she had got herself pregnant – it had not been possible to extract any sensible reason for her resignation. That had meant she was forced to turn to Fru Eber, who had an agency for domestic servants in Brahegatan, and then she had had to interview the applicants. It had taken several days and evenings before she was in a position to appoint a girl from Ödeshög who spoke in a funny dialect but had good references, including one from the headmaster of the grammar school in Södertälje – she had worked for him, it seemed. She was also called Anna, was twenty-seven, and Kristina Tacker described her as 'on the chubby side, with large, foolish eyes, but she seems reliable and honest. She is also strong, which could be useful as our carpets are heavy.'

  The letter ended with her saying how much she missed him, how empty and dreary the flat seemed, how frightened she was by the war, and how she hoped he would soon come back home. He put the letter down and felt guilty about having suspected the worst. He had a wife who opened her heart to him, a letter that had been delayed by a maid who might have been made pregnant in the bushes at Djurgården and no longer wanted to fulfil her duties. He had a bad conscience about leaving her on her own to take care of all the practical details that she might have difficulty in coping with. She was like one of her own china figurines.

  It seemed to him that what he was feeling must be love. The tension that had eased, his bad conscience and her fragrance that filled the cramped cabin.

  He wrote a reply immediately: he made no mention of Rudin's illness and death, nor did the dead German soldier feature in the letter. He was afraid that any such detail would only worry her the more. He wrote positive things about the sea tha
t had a mind of its own, the endless hours in the launch, the lonely mealtimes. And how he longed for her and dreamed about her every night.

  When he had finished, it dawned on him that not a word of it was true. Nothing he had written was genuine. It was all fantasy, empty poetry, nothing more.

  It was as if something had come between him and Kristina Tacker. He knew what it was. Or, rather, who it was. It was Sara Fredrika, the woman who lived alone on Halsskär.

  It was as if she was in his cabin here and now, with her skirt pulled up above her knees.

  He went out on deck and gazed at Halsskär. It was hooded in darkness.

  That was where he was heading for.

  Late that night, just before midnight, Anders Höckert came across from the Svea and returned the main record book, which had been copied.

  Tobiasson-Svartman handed him the letter he had written to his wife. Höckert invited him to join a game of cards that was in progress in the destroyer's wardroom.

  He declined.

  He lay awake. He was longing to be with the woman on Halsskär.

  CHAPTER 49

  The Svea weighed anchor during the night.

  He was woken by the powerful vibrations as the destroyer backed away from the Blenda. The letter to his wife was on its way. The carrier pigeon was made of steel and instead of wings it had powerful steam engines.

  CHAPTER 50

  When he got up at dawn he was greeted by Lieutenant Jakobsson looking grim. He asked Tobiasson-Svartman to accompany him to the bows of the ship.

  Lying among several large capstans was Sub-Lieutenant Welander. He was covered in vomit and smelled strongly of spirits. There was an empty vodka bottle between his feet. His hair was matted, his eyes bloodshot and when he tried to stand up he was incapable of maintaining his balance and fell backwards among the hawsers.

  Jakobsson watched him in disgust.

  'I suspected something like this,' he said. 'I could sometimes smell it, but he'd turn away and speak with his mouth almost closed. I've been waiting for the bubble to burst. Well, it has burst now. We'll let him lie here for the time being.'

  They went to Welander's cabin. Beneath his bunk Jakobsson unearthed a collection of bottles, most of them empty, some unopened. He made a rough calculation.

  'Sub-Lieutenant Welander has drunk a litre of spirits per day since he came on board. Only an advanced alcoholic can drink that much. He has done his job and not given himself away. But there are limits. He passed the alcoholic's meridian last night. Everything has fallen to pieces, he couldn't give a fig for his responsibilities or his reputation. He couldn't care less about his commission or his family. All he cares about is his damned bottles. It's tragic but not unusual. And very Swedish.'

  They went back on deck. Jakobsson gave the order to carry Welander back to his cabin. They watched the sorrowful procession, with Welander's arms hanging limply between two strong ratings.

  'He must leave the ship immediately, of course,' said Jakobsson. 'I'll send for the gunboat Thule to take him to port. But how are we going to resolve the business of his launch?'

  Tobiasson-Svartman had started working on that problem the moment he saw the drunken officer sprawled among the hawsers. At the same time he was asking himself why he had not suspected that Welander was concealing his alcoholism behind a mask of correctness. He was irritated that Lieutenant Jakobsson had sharper eyes than he did.

  He preferred not to wait for another naval engineer. One of the oarsmen in Tobiasson-Svartman's boat, Karl Hamberg, was older and more experienced than the rest. He could take over the responsibility until the soundings in this area were completed. The people in charge in Stockholm could come up with a successor to Welander for the next stage, the soundings at the approaches to Gamlebyviken.

  Jakobsson listened to his proposals and gave his approval. Hamberg was a conscientious and energetic sailor from Öland. They called him in and explained the situation. He seemed to be honoured and not overawed by the responsibility he was being given.

  Late that afternoon the Thule set sail from Slätbaken to fetch Welander. The crews of the launches watched with interest as Welander staggered over to the sister ship.

  Tobiasson-Svartman could hear the oarsmen muttering contentedly among themselves. They made no attempt to conceal their Schadenfreude over the fact that an officer had been caught out.

  Never again would Tobiasson-Svartman meet Sub-Lieutenant Welander. The thought scared him. It was like a cold wave hitting him from behind.

  I will never learn how to cope with leave-taking, he thought. Never ever. Every leave-taking implies a threat.

  CHAPTER 51

  That evening he felt restless and started listing his assets.

  He had settled into his bunk and snuffed out the paraffin lamp. Then it took possession of him, as if he were starving. He lit the lamp again and took out the black notebook in which he wrote up his accounts.

  It was a habit he had inherited from his father. Throughout his childhood and youth, at the most unlikely times, sometimes at midnight, but just as often at dawn, Hugo Svartman would sit hunched over his black notebooks, checking his assets and the stock exchange index.

  Hugo Svartman had left a fortune. When he died in 1912, his estate was valued at 295,000 kronor. Most of it was in equities, bonds and debentures. There was also a portfolio of industrial shares. He had invested mainly in Separator, Svenska Metallverken and Gas-accumulator.

  His son calculated, checked, crossed out and started all over again. It was as if he were suffering from a fever. By two in the morning he felt satisfied. His insecurity had melted away.

  Not only were his assets still there, they had grown. Since the death of his father the fortune had swollen to more than 300,000 kronor. The share index had shot up after the outbreak of war. Trenches and naval battles supplied the stock exchange with bloodstained energy.

  He put out the light and lay down ready for sleep, on his left side, with his hands clenched by his crutch.

  He was at peace.

  CHAPTER 52

  The next day it was grey and foggy again.

  The temperature was plus two. He woke up with a start and saw that it was 5 a.m. He could hear the watchman walking on deck, but no coughing. It was a new watchman. They followed a rota drawn up by Lieutenant Jakobsson which, for some reason unknown, kept changing.

  He stayed in his bunk until it started to get light. Then he got up and had coffee in the galley, where the cook was preparing breakfast. He climbed down into one of the tenders and pushed off, having turned down the offer of a rower.

  The tender glided into the fog of its own accord. He established his course then started rowing. Somebody had oiled the rowlocks, which no longer squeaked like awkward children.

  The silence was split by a desolate sound, a whining noise, possibly from birds gone astray in the fog.

  When he came to the skerry he could not work out at first where he was. Nothing alters a shoreline so much as negotiating it in fog. He rowed cautiously alongside the shore, scraping the bottom now and then, and eventually found his usual landing place.

  It was damp and he was freezing. The dinghy was moored in the inlet. The sail was furled round the mast and the tiller was lying on the rocks. Nets hung wet from the hooks on the grey poles, and he gathered that she had already been out that morning and taken in the nets. He continued walking, but stopped dead when he heard a noise he could not identify. He waited until it had stopped then advanced with caution to his hiding place. He raised his head and looked down at the cottage. Fog was streaking in among the cliffs.