‘Dan, you know as well as I do that I won’t be here then. I’ll take the boat round to the restaurant when I get back. They’ll pull it up for me when they’re hauling up their own boat before the ice comes. Maybe the boys will use it again one day. I’m leaving the house to them, it’s all there is left. The trouble is I don’t have the strength to take the boat out on my own any more but if you have an hour to spare one day maybe we can do it together. It’s an easy boat to run. And the restaurant jetty is just around the headland.’
‘I know how to run an outboard engine. I’ll be glad to help you do it. Just say when.’
Since then Sune had not been in touch. He might be dead in Stockholm for all I know, Dan thought. How could I have forgotten him until this evening? But it was obvious how. And with that thought on his mind he nevertheless tumbled back into uneasy sleep.
When he woke it was still dark outside and the bed beside him was still empty. There was no sound from downstairs. It occurred to him that when Lena had finished talking to Gabriel she might have gone back to sleep at Johan Ek’s house. It was closer by far to the farm than Dan’s house was and she might well be exhausted.
Nevertheless, the sharpness of his unease took him by surprise. He should never have let her go to meet Gabriel in the middle of the night. Nothing good could come of it. But how could he have stopped her? By force? She’d make other arrangements. And never trust him again.
He lay consumed with longing for her. It was as though she had brought back a lost life to him, a life of resilience and beauty. A mirage no doubt, but it was enough to reinvigorate his hope of a future. He was still lying thinking of this when the bedside phone rang. He almost threw himself on the handset and said, ‘At last! Are you all right?’
‘Dan?’ a voice which was not Lena’s said. ‘Dan? You are there?’
It was Nahrin. She had never telephoned him before. He knew at once that something was wrong.
‘Dan? Is Gabriel with you?’
‘No, I haven’t seen him since Thursday. Why?’
‘I am sorry I ring now. Dan I am worried. Gabriel has gone. He has gone somewhere. I must find him.’
‘Has he been missing for long?’ Dan asked although he knew the answer.
‘Late. Is in the night. Dan, we worry.’
‘You have no idea where he might have gone?’
‘He was in barn. A telephone call come last night. Someone say he rings from France. He speak Swedish. He say must speak to Gabriel. I say who is? He say must speak to Gabriel. After he finish Gabriel say it is nothing, a friend from France. Just to say hello. But I do not believe this. How he know the number this friend from France?’
‘What did Gabriel say?’
‘That he is someone he give the number to. I say why but Gabriel say no reason, just a friend. Then when we are asleep I hear the dog in the kitchen. How does dog get into kitchen in the night? I go down and open for her and she run to barn and bark. When I go there, no one. Josef and I we are worry, worry. Such terrible things happen in Iraq. Who is this man who rings from France? We give the number to no one, only close family.’
‘Is there anywhere near by Gabriel could have gone?’
‘No. The only house near is the man Ek. Gabriel not go there.’
‘As soon as it’s light I’ll go over and look. I’ll ask Ek too. Don’t worry, Nahrin. He must be somewhere near by. He’ll be all right.’
‘I am sorry to ring now but we are worry. Worry, worry.’
‘Nahrin, as soon as it’s light I’ll come over. We’ll find him.’
It was impossible to think of sleep now. What had Lena got herself into? Where had she and Gabriel gone? Not to Svartholm in the first instance, surely. Of course she and Gabriel knew the island well. They could be anywhere where there were no people. Talking, arguing. He hoped it went no further than that.
But what if it did? He quenched the thought in his mind.
Suddenly he got up and dressed and went out. It was still dark. He walked carefully through the forest, listening for sounds. Very soon he realized it was hopeless and he turned towards the coast and the little strand with its semicircle of tall granite stones where Lena had taken him on the five-times-you day. It would be an ideal spot for them to talk undisturbed.
On the way there he saw that Sune’s house was silent and the shutters were closed. He went over to look. The windows hadn’t yet been sealed for the winter, so presumably Sune would be back before the cold started. Sune’s boat lay tied to the little jetty below the rock. Another good sign. Dan walked down to look. With the boat it would take no more than minutes to check the little beach Lena had called her chapel.
Light was edging the sea in front of him. When he lifted the tarpaulin from the gunnel and put his hand in he felt rainwater. The hull was plastic, with a curved windshield but no cabin. There were two seats in front and one at the back where he could just make out the small outboard fixed to the wood transom, and the portable fuel tank. When he lifted the tank he heard the fuel splash about inside. About a third full. He found a bailer under the rear seat and started to empty the hull.
18
The Selavas’s pick-up was waiting in front of his house when he got back. Nahrin climbed down and called to him, asking if he had seen anything of Gabriel. He shook his head.
‘Something happen to him, I know!’
He had not seen her as tense as this before and he tried to think of how much he could tell her without giving Lena away.
‘Where he go? Where he go?’ Nahrin repeated.
‘Let’s look,’ Dan said.
When they arrived at the farm Josef was in the kitchen with Jamala. They both raised their eyes questioningly. Jamala ran to her grandmother and clutched hard at her dress. They stood there, unsure what to do next. Then Nahrin took charge. She asked Josef to go out with Jamala and the dog, to go down along the coast, calling Gabriel’s name.
‘Cake will know, she bark if he near.’
When they had gone Dan wondered again if Lena had gone back to Johan Ek’s house. Ek’s was by far the easiest place to get to from here, no more than ten minutes’ walk. Could she have gone there with Gabriel? It had struck him before that Gabriel might have been the one who shot Johan Ek’s dog to keep it from worrying Jamala and Nahrin when they were picking herbs.
‘Were there any other calls?’
‘No. Seldom we have telephone calls. Before calls were for Solveig. Not many. Why from France? Why Gabriel not say?’
Dan decided to tell her. He explained that Lena had come out to the island yesterday evening with Johan Ek.
‘She came to my house for a while. Then she left to meet Gabriel. But that was before midnight. In a little while I’ll go and ask Johan Ek if she went back to him.’
‘What she do that girl? She make trouble. Always. She try to have Solveig to tell us go. She is evil.’
‘Nahrin—’
‘No. I tell you. I tell you truth. I not tell anyone, not even Sune, but I tell you now.’
‘Let’s get in the truck and start searching while you’re telling me.’
Nahrin drove. They tried to search methodically, anywhere there might be a shelter where Lena and Gabriel could have gone to be out of sight. He didn’t think they’d cross the water to Svartholm in the first instance, not if they could find a safe spot closer at hand.
He asked Nahrin to drive to the church, but it was locked. They drove to the shelter by the summer people’s beach. They drove to the club huts by the football pitch. And all the time Nahrin talked.
‘I tell you. I tell you truth. Gabriel not with us when we first come to this island. He come later. Too long to tell now but Gabriel is in France and Lena is here in summer. Then Gabriel comes from France. What does he know, a boy seventeen? Lena teach him and he changes, like he has a devil in him. He follow her everywhere, he see her meet summer boys on beach, Stockholm boys who take her with them in their fathers’ cars. She knows he suffers and she does not car
e. He cries tears! Then Lena pretend he try to rape her, she come back almost naked, she tell this horrible story and Solveig get angry and for first time I tell Solveig truth about Lena but Solveig will not believe. Lena is like a grandchild to Solveig, Solveig will not believe she be so evil. But she is evil! I do not say such a thing easy. She is evil. To protect Gabriel we decide to go to France again.’
Dan sat listening in silence. He thought over what Nahrin had said but made no remark on it. After a few minutes she went on in a calmer voice.
‘Before we go there is an accident here on the island, a boy dies driving drugged, and the police come. It becomes known that Lena has sex with many of these summer boys. They do what she say, they steal money from their parents to take her in the cars. There is drugs and alcohol. The police come to Lena for questioning, they question Solveig and Solveig is crying. When police have finished she ask Lena to leave. Then Solveig in hospital, we go every day to see her.’
They were coming back towards the seaward coast when he suddenly asked her to stop.
‘There’s Ek’s house. He’ll surely be awake by now. Let’s go and see if he’s heard anything from Lena. If not, there’s only one place left.’
‘You go,’ Nahrin said. ‘He not like us.’
Dan didn’t argue.
When Ek opened the door to Dan’s knock he immediately whispered, ‘Come in. But we’ll have to be quiet. Pernilla got to bed at five o’clock this morning. The ferries were blocked half the night because of the fog.’
Dan followed him down a corridor. His study was at the back of the house and once they were there Ek asked if he’d like a coffee. Dan said no, he didn’t have much time.
‘Is Anders Roos staying with you?’ Ek asked suddenly. The question took Dan by surprise. He said, ‘No. Why?’
‘Just wondering. Pernilla thought she saw him in a car queuing at the quay but there was a lot of confusion because of the fog. People were trying to turn around and head back home, others trying to get into the queue. Anyway he wasn’t on the boat. Not many people stuck it out. Lena arrived all right?’
‘Yes. But she left before midnight. I was hoping she’d be here.’
Ek seemed perplexed. He said, ‘I understood she was staying with you.’
‘Do you mind my asking what time she left here?’
‘Around eleven, I’d say. We got here fairly late. The ferries were off schedule because of the fog. In fact the one we got on was the last. Pernilla arrived at the quay thirty minutes later and had to wait until four this morning.’
‘Lena went straight to my place?’
‘Yes. She asked to make a call and we had a coffee while I waited for Pernilla to ring. Then some young man called back for Lena. After that I drove her over and came home.’
‘She’s missing. And so is Gabriel Rabban. Gabriel’s grandaunt is worried.’
‘I see.’
‘Can you think of anything that might help me look for her? Anything she said?’
‘No. I assumed she spent the night at your place. Anders rang here late last night. He was very angry. Maybe he was drunk. Is there something wrong?’
‘He’s changed. He seemed to think you were having an affair with Lena.’
‘To me he said they’re going to get married. Is that true?’
‘No.’
‘I told him she’d gone over to talk to you and then she was going to meet someone from the Arab family to discuss business with them. I thought that would calm him down but it didn’t. He said he didn’t want her meeting any Arabs, she couldn’t handle them, that he’d already told her that. I said goodnight and hung up.’
‘If she comes here would you ask her to go to my place and stay there until I get back?’
‘She has a key?’
‘The kitchen door isn’t locked. She knows that.’
In the pick-up Dan decided it was time to tell Nahrin what he knew about Lena’s plan, despite his promise to keep it to himself.
‘She said if you came after Gabriel they’d go to Svartholm.’
‘Why Gabriel go to Svartholm? No!’
When they got back to the farmhouse she spoke with Josef. He nodded and took Jamala with him into the kitchen. Jamala looked anxiously at Nahrin but there was no time to explain anything. Nahrin and Dan went down to the water. A tarpaulin sheet lay on the jetty where it had been thrown. The boat was gone.
‘She get him to do it,’ said Nahrin grimly.
Dan didn’t answer.
‘And why he not tell us?’
‘I don’t know, Nahrin.’
‘But why?’ She stared at him. Her small fists were clenched and her breathing was heavy, uneven.
‘It hurts!’ she said. ‘She do it to take him in her power again. Like earlier. Wicked woman!’
Dan asked her if they had another boat. She said there was an old rowing boat in the stable.
‘You row to the island?’ she asked, surprised.
‘It’s worth a try.’
‘You must wait.’ She looked out over the ocean where thin clouds spread like an ink blot torn apart. ‘Storm high up,’ she said.
But Dan did not want to postpone it any longer.
‘We’ll go and get the boat,’ he said.
The boat was an old-fashioned, flat-bottomed rowing boat, built with overlapping planks. The wood smelt sour. Nobody had scraped it down and re-tarred it in years. A neglect that surprised Dan. Gabriel would surely have seen that it risked going to pieces.
Nahrin switched on the floodlight in the barn and he saw that the boat was in a worse state than he thought. The rowlocks were worn and decayed. The oars lying in the bottom were grey, their ends were cracked. The paint had flaked along the gunwales, exposing the wood beneath. No wonder Gabriel hadn’t bothered to re-tar it. It was fit for nothing but a bonfire.
‘I hope it doesn’t take in too much water,’ he said.
Nahrin shook her head but whether it was in answer to his question or at the boat he didn’t know and there was no point in asking. Even if the boat leaked the island lay only five or six kilometres across the sound. It should last that far at least. Especially as he saw there was a good-sized bailer in the bottom.
‘We’ll need Josef,’ he said, as he tested lifting the fore. ‘I can take the fore but you’ll have to be two to carry the stern.’
Nahrin said she did not want Josef to lift anything. His back wasn’t good.
‘You think Gabriel go to Svartholm?’ she demanded. ‘He not go since the day she lie about him. He is not stupid! He not go!’
‘Nahrin, get Josef and the truck. We don’t have any time. We’ll use the truck to pull the boat down.’
Nahrin looked at him.
‘I come with you,’ she said.
‘No.’ Something in his voice, some tone that wasn’t usually there, convinced her that he meant it. She didn’t argue. She turned and walked towards the stable door.
As he watched her go he thought he caught a sorrow hang about her now. Living here might not, after all, be enough to keep her family safe.
It proved easy to drag the flat-bottomed boat down the meadow behind the pick-up. They heaved it through a break in the reeds and let it float on the shallow water. All three of them were silent then, looking over towards Svartholm.
It was already half past nine but the sky was covered with dark clouds making the light dull. The water lay still, a gloomy jewel between two black-green forests. There were tiers of silence in the eerie calm until a new breeze touched the trees behind them, bringing the dry whisper of autumn to the topmost foliage.
‘Best I set out,’ Dan said.
The other two didn’t protest. When he stepped into the boat it careened from side to side.
‘Sit! Sit!’ Nahrin called sharply. ‘You want drown?’
He sat on the middle seat and used one of the oars to push off from the muddy bottom until he floated out into the clear water. It was a heavy boat and it took time to get even a jerky rhythm
to his rowing. Josef and Nahrin stood watching. He wished they wouldn’t but they obviously weren’t going to leave. He gave a single wave and after that decided to ignore them.
It took about twenty clumsy strokes before he found a rhythm and then he had to rest. Despite the gathering morning cold his shirt was already damp with sweat beneath the parka. While the boat floated forward he twisted round on the seat to make sure he was still on course. All that was visible of Svartholm from here was the rocky coastline and the dark forest.
As the sweat dried on his skin he began to shiver. The temperature was cooler out here. The curtain of rain still hung somewhere beyond Söderöra Island to the north. Even with his poor rowing, he assumed that getting to Svartholm wouldn’t take more than half an hour or so. He told himself that he would be there well before the rain reached it. He started to row again.
He tried to concentrate on what he was doing and not think of Lena. He pulled harder on the oars and the foot support gave way, exposing rotten wood at the break. He kicked forward the front part of the flooring to act as a support but it too broke almost at once. Water had begun to seep in at the bottom and pieces of wood floated by his feet. He stopped, took off his boots and tied the laces around his neck. He took off his socks and pushed them into his trouser pockets. Then he rolled his trousers to his knees and went on rowing.
After no more than a few minutes his feet began to ache with the cold of the water. He made four fast strokes and then lifted his legs in the air. As the boat continued to move forward he looked over his shoulder and made sure he was still headed in the right direction before he started rowing again.
The beginning of a colder sea breeze began to reach him. As he continued to row he found that the further out he got, the more the breeze struck the boat in erratic gusts. The rhythmic forward motion he’d managed to find starting out from Bromskär changed to crabby sideways jerks. After a while the port side had come parallel to the island. He rested a bit, letting the boat drift, while he tried to work out what he should do. The best idea seemed to be to change his rowing and row so the boat swung round with the fore to the north, and then let the rising wind correct the course. That way he would be using its force while he rested.
In the Name of Love Page 22