by Lars Sund
He stopped at the payazzo slot machine by the door, dug around for a coin in the pockets of his blue work trousers, stuck it in the slot and flicked the ring. Through the glass panel on the front of the machine he watched the coin bounce across the slots before sliding down into a half-empty one and coming to rest on the coins already there. He shrugged his shoulders and turned away. He could afford to lose his loose change to a payazzo machine.
Axmar got to his feet, gestured with his empty beer mug and staggered over to the bar. “Right ho, Kangarn, time for another one!” Meanwhile Roy Orbison on the jukebox was still singing.
Over by the bar Abrahamsson and Kangarn exchanged a few words. They had some sort of business dealings, that much everyone knew, but no more than that. Kangarn put a glass on the bar, poured a brandy without bothering to use the measure and pushed the glass over to Abrahamsson. Then he filled Axmar’s beer mug and put the money in the till.
“Why don’t you come and join us?” Axmar said to Abrahamsson.
The men squeezed up around the barrel and Fride pulled out a stool with a red plastic seat for Abrahamsson. Abrahamsson from Busö is not a man to stand on ceremony and in spite of the fact that the revenue returns suggest he is the richest man on Fagerö, the stools in the American Bar suit him fine.
“We were just telling Elis about the funeral,” Maximinus said.
“It won’t be forgotten in a hurry,” Abrahamsson said, producing a green packet containing North State cigarettes and lighting up. The blue-grey smoke curled up towards the ceiling.
“Ludi should have used thicker ropes,” Fride reckoned.
“Well, maybe. I’ll tell you something though. I’ve been a bearer at plenty of funerals and corpses are always heavier than you think. That’s the way of it.”
The conversation paused for a moment while they pondered what Abrahamsson had said.
“Did you see the inspector?” Maximinus asked. “His face went as black as thunder when we all started laughing. He looked as if he was ready to put the lot of us in the clink.”
“The bastard! Fucking Haartman!” Axmar slurred.
“Maybe it’s against the law to laugh at funerals, do you think?” Fride wondered.
“No, it’s just von Haartman,” Abrahamsson said. “After all, he’s from the mainland.”
“Yeah, he’s from the mainland. Can’t be expected to understand,” Maximinus added his piece.
They thought about this for a while.
“Pretty Woman” was almost finished. Axmar sang along with it, loud and out of tune:
… don’t walk on by …
“Can’t you just shut up, Axmar?” his brother Fride sighed wearily.
Axmar thumped his mug down on the table and sat there with his head hanging down like a withered tulip, a dead cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth and his torso swaying back and forth.
“You’ll be expecting the Kaleva back soon, I expect?” Elis from Nagelskär said to Abrahamsson.
“In a day or two,” Abrahamsson said.
Axmar slumped forward so that his forehead was resting on the herring barrel. He made snuffling noises and the cigarette fell from his mouth. Everything in the American Bar was as usual.
Shipping Forecast
A major area of high pressure will persist over northern Europe and Scandinavia and give good weather for the next few days. The wind will be light to moderate.
Outlook until Sunday night: Wind southerly, Force 4. On Sunday, Force 3, easing by evening. Visibility good or very good, generally over twenty-five kilometres.
No one on Fagerö fails to listen carefully to the weather reports and shipping forecasts on the radio at 6.00, 12.45, 16.45 and 22.05. Out here we live at the mercy of the wind and the weather. Approximate forecasts of the weather may be sufficient on land, where people just want to know if tomorrow is going to be rainy or sunny, but the islanders demand more exact prognoses.
The Meteorological Institute employs people with master’s degrees in atmospheric physics and they may even employ an occasional PhD with a thesis on the formation of low-pressure areas over the North Atlantic. These well-qualified men and women develop their forecasts with the help of advanced computer technology and a vast quantity of data that is continually being fed in from weather stations at home and abroad. Their predictions are generally considered to be very reliable.
Which is probably why the islanders are less than completely convinced by them.
The people of Fagerö listen to the shipping forecasts on the radio and then, just to be on the safe side, make their own assessments. How red the sun is during the evening; whether the sunlight is dazzling or not; whether the sun is resting on a bed of golden clouds or sinking beneath a clear and sharp horizon. Colour variations in the sky, the feel of the wind on their skin, the swell of the waves – these are the signs that people out here have always known how to interpret.
“It’s going to be a beautiful day tomorrow.”
Judit was talking to the girl who lived out on Aspskär with her.
Judit’s face glowed red in the light of the sinking sun. She looked as though she had just stepped out of the sauna, as though she was still glowing with the heat that remained within her. Morning and evening Judit would go up on the knoll behind her house and sweep the sea with her binoculars. That’s typical of the islands. With her binoculars raised she would stand up there on the knoll like a captain on the bridge. For the last few days she had spent longer at it, scanning the sea more carefully than before, as if looking for something in particular. That’s what the girl thought, anyway, though she didn’t know what and she didn’t want to ask. Or didn’t dare to. For some reason she had formed the impression that Judit wouldn’t like it if she asked questions like “What are you looking for?” or “Is there something out there?” She had a feeling that Judit might arch her back, show her claws and spit. She had this strange feeling gnawing away somewhere inside her.
So she bit back her questions and waited silently behind Judit until Judit eventually lowered her binoculars with what sounded like a sigh of relief. She might have been mistaken there, of course: it’s not always easy to interpret someone else’s grunts and sighs.
The western horizon was as bright and clear as a child’s eye. The sea lapped softly, slowly. The air, warm and still, was filled with the good scent of the burning juniper with which Judit was smoking the perch she had caught that morning. They would soon be ready. Together the two women, the one young and the other who would soon be old, walked down from the knoll.
The harsh cry of a great black-backed gull sounded from the steely grey sea.
The girl stopped for a moment and listened. She suddenly felt there was something strangely ominous in the call of the great blackback in the still summer evening.
Janne the Post
A visit to Janne the Post is on our list. As evening draws in this fine early summer’s day, with the sun melting gently into the western horizon, the cows milked, dinner eaten and the television news not yet started, it’s a good time to pay him a visit. And there are not likely to be any dramatic events demanding our attention in the next couple of hours, anyway, so we can go ahead and call on Janne.
His occupation will be obvious from his nickname, but he also acts as Fagerö’s official flag-bearer, local historian, amateur archaeologist, and guide to tourists and anyone else interested in ancient monuments and sites of historical interest. These include locations such as the church, the foundations of various medieval buildings at Tunnhamn, the famous stone maze at Kattrombärje and the Empress’s Cludgie in Söder Karlby.
The latter was erected ready for a projected visit to Fagerö by Empress Maria Feodorovna when she was on a summer cruise in the 1880s and it must be the most luxurious privy in the south-west archipelago. The Empress’s Cludgie is constructed in Renaissance Revival style and divided into two sections. The posh part is dominated by a raised throne designed for the use of Her Imperial Majesty herself, the
throne being reached by a couple of steps and flanked by two lower seats for the use of the tsarevnas or ladies-in-waiting. Behind a partition there is a washroom with a cabinet. There used to be a mirror in there, but it was removed long ago. The walls are panelled with birch, the upper portion being decorated with gilded brocade wallpaper, now rather moth-eaten and with black patches from decades of damp. Light was given leave to enter through barred windows, located high up and glazed with diamond-shaped panes of coloured glass, red alternating with yellow. The steep hipped roof is crowned with a weathervane that bears the empress’s monogram stamped into the sheet metal plate. A staircase of dressed granite blocks leads up to the grand entrance, which is framed by two white-painted posts on which the architect has placed a lintel with a carving of a heraldic double-headed eagle. Finally, to the rear of the cludgie, there is a less extravagant compartment with its own entrance: this was for the convenience of the adjutants and other courtiers.
Maria Feodorovna, however, did not actually need a pee during her short morning visit to Fagerö and thus – unfortunately – the Empress’s Cludgie was never put to use.
But all this is an unplanned digression on our part and we should avoid mentioning it to Janne since he is not at all keen for anyone but himself to guide visitors to this unique architectural monument. Janne lives just a stone’s throw away in what’s called the Post House, the ground floor housing the Fagerö Post Office and Janne living on the floor above.
We should take the path leading past those ash trees over there.
Hidden in the dark green spruce hedge behind the Empress’s Cludgie, the robin chinks its little silvery note and farther away a blackbird is warbling melodiously. Mosquitoes are buzzing, the last of the wood anemones show white in the tender green of the grass, and the lilies of the valley already have small hard buds.
Janne’s house stands at the roadside where the road runs down to Kungshamn. It’s in the shadow of an immense oak tree with branches as thick as a giant’s arms and bark coarsened by age and hardship. Parked in the yard is an orange Lada, Janne’s official vehicle, provided by the state.
With a practised touch the scribe quickly deals with the lock on the back door of the post office and the hinges squeak in complaint at being forced to function when they thought the day’s labours were already over. We step in and instantly pick up the unmistakeable smell of a post office: a slightly sweet mixture of ink pads, glue, rubber and sealing wax. The numbered pigeonholes in the small sorting office are all empty. On one shelf there are a couple of packages that are still awaiting delivery. All the equipment essential to the handling of outgoing and incoming mail is present: scales for weighing letters and parcels, rubber stamps, an adding machine under a grey plastic cover, forms and leaflets, a damp sponge in a red rubber ring for wetting your finger to sort the letters, a bundle of rolled-up mailbags on the floor, lead seal tongs, elastic bands, address labels and lists. Everything is in its proper place ready for Monday morning. Hanging on a hook on the end of a sorting rack is a well-worn postman’s bag, its black leather mouth gaping open in an enormous yawn.
Through the half-open door to the front office you can see the switched-off computer on the counter and the cashier’s empty chair. That’s where Antonia sits between nine and one, Monday to Friday.
Right, we’ve seen enough down here. Over there, that’s the door we want. It goes out to the porch and from there we can take the stairs to the upstairs flat.
As soon as we reach the upstairs landing we can hear a muffled whistle coming from behind the door to Janne’s flat.
We knock, open the door and go in.
The whistle gets louder. There’s a steady shrill note coming from the kitchen.
A whistling kettle is boiling on the stove and it’s living up to its name. Janne the Post is over by the kitchen table, busily thumbing through a bundle of letters. He selects one of them, walks over to the stove and removes the whistle from the spout of the kettle, thereby silencing the ear-piercing noise. He carefully moves the letter backwards and forwards in the stream of steam pouring from the spout of the vigorously boiling kettle. He holds the envelope rear side down, moving the sealed flap in the scalding steam and waiting for the glue to soften. Then he picks up the thin-bladed knife he has lying ready on the edge of the stove, neatly slides the point of the blade under the flap of the envelope and carefully starts rolling back the flap. Janne is wearing thin white cotton gloves: it’s obvious we are watching a real expert at work.
The dampened flap of the envelope yields to Janne’s knife and he gives a satisfied grunt. He goes back to the kitchen table, throwing a few words over his shoulder as he goes:
“Aha, so there you are. I’d been expecting you a bit earlier.”
He takes hold of the sheet of paper in the envelope with the tip of his thumb and forefinger and removes it as cautiously as an archaeologist lifting a fragile shard of pottery from the earth. He places the sheet on the surface of the table and uses a ruler to unfold it.
Janne reads: “K-D Mattsson, Lassfolsvägen 8, Fagerö Storby.” His eyes scan the typewritten text, but since the tongue is usually a good deal slower than the eye he only mutters an occasional phrase: “Reminder … payment overdue … fifth invoice … immediate settlement … late payment interest …” Janne tut-tuts. “My oh my! Yet another reminder!”
He folds the sheet, carefully ensuring that the original folds are not disturbed.
“K-D’s business isn’t going well,” Janne remarks cheerily. “The salmon farming isn’t paying its way, the competition is too fierce. Wouldn’t be surprised to see him go bankrupt in the end.” He chuckles contentedly at the thought.
Janne sets about resealing the letter to K-D Mattsson as carefully and as skilfully as he opened it. Once he has finished he holds the envelope up to the striplight on the kitchen ceiling and studies it closely, examining it for any marks and stains that might reveal it’s been opened. His nostrils flare, almost as if he is smelling the envelope. Satisfied with his handiwork he puts down the envelope and returns to the bundle of letters. “Letter for Elna from the Central Hospital,” Janne mutters. “Must be about the smear test she went for …”
He picks up the envelope and returns to the stove and the boiling kettle.
We are left standing open-mouthed in astonishment at witnessing Janne’s systematic infringement of the statutory privacy of the mail and his breach of post office regulations. The fact that Janne is a postman himself is an aggravating circumstance. If we can’t rely on a postman who can we rely on? As responsible citizens we ought to report this ongoing criminality to the authorities.
Janne the Post stares at us, his eyes blank with incomprehension.
“How in Heaven’s name am I supposed to stay informed about what is happening on Fagerö if I don’t open their letters and read them?” he asks with a level of ingenuous candour that rocks us back on our heels.
Janne the Post – Johan Mauritz Verner Styris as his entry in the parish register reads – looks like a beer barrel with chicken’s legs and a pebble for a head, as Axmar put it on one occasion. Axmar can get foul-mouthed when he has had a bit too much in the American Bar.
Fortunately Axmar’s crude description does not fully match reality. In terms of stature there can be no denying that Janne does bear some resemblance to a solid tree stump and that his crooked legs are on the spindly side, and that his head is as smooth and bald as rocks polished by the waves. But his face is quite attractive. He has a wide mouth, a well-shaped nose, friendly eyes – though they are rather sunken – and the lines etched into his high brow are suggestive of contemplative thought. The impression of the philosopher is further emphasised by his Abraham Lincoln beard, in which the presence of occasional greying strands suggests that he has a goodly number of years under his belt.
Janne is a man who reads, as we can see from the bundles of newspapers in his porch – we were in too much of a hurry to mention them before – and from the bookcase in
his living room, as well as the frequency of his visits to the Fagerö library. Most of the volumes in his bookcase are nonfiction, and there’s not much poetry nor many novels, with the exception of the collected works of Runeberg in the red cloth binding of the 1892 Stockholm edition and Zacharias Topelius’s Tales of a Barber-Surgeon. He has ploughed his way through the Bible, all the way from Genesis to Revelation, including the glossaries and commentaries. In addition to the local history of Fagerö he is interested in the ethnology and folk traditions of the archipelago and the biographies of well-known Fagerö people. He has masses of notes which he is contemplating organising and publishing in book form at some stage.
We shouldn’t underestimate his crooked legs. In his youth, Janne the Post was an unbeatable runner and outstanding at both long and high jump. He is said to have done a hundred metres in 10.8 seconds when he was eighteen, an astonishing performance for the day. There can be no doubt that Janne had ability and could have become a sprinter at the elite level in spite of his short legs. Indeed, he might even have turned out to be another Lindy Remigino, the unknown runner who surprised the world with his sensational victory in the men’s hundred metres at the 1952 Olympic Games. But that would have entailed Janne going over to the mainland, that being where the Olympic Games and most other athletic competitions of any significance are held.