by Lars Sund
And that was out of the question.
Janne cannot tolerate the sea.
The moment Janne gets in a boat, irrespective of whether it’s a little dinghy or the ferry Arkipelag, he is sick. It’s been like that ever since he was a little lad. He can’t even cross Käringsundet, the sound between Fagerö and Lemlot, a stretch of water so narrow that given a run-up you could spit across it.
His affliction is not just the ordinary sort of seasickness that makes summer visitors and mainlanders go green around the gills when the wind blows up as they cross Norrfjärden. No, Janne collapses completely. His face turns as white as gull shit, he breaks out in a cold sweat and he shakes from head to foot. And the next moment the contents of his stomach squirt out at both ends. His eyes roll back in his head and he drops like a split sail.
It’s over thirty years since Janne last tried to go out in a boat. It was supposed to be no more than a short row just to see how it felt. The boat was less than two metres from the end of the quay when they had to turn back, fearing for his life. He was confined to bed for a week before he was more or less back to normal and he hasn’t been anywhere near a boat since.
Nor does the winter freeze-up provide Janne with a bridge to the big wide world, so it looks as though he is doomed to spend his whole life as a prisoner on Fagerö.
“What’s anyone want with the mainland anyway?” is what Janne says.
He is taking a break from his criminal activity and using some of the boiling water from the kettle to make himself a cup of herbal tea. He doesn’t offer us one. It’s hot in the kitchen. He fishes the teabag out of the mug and drops it in the rubbish bin, all the while holding his hand carefully under the teabag to catch any drips. He puts five lumps of sugar in the mug and stirs it, the spoon clinking on the china.
Janne drinks his tea noisily.
“I know what it’s like on the mainland even though I’ve never been there. I’ve got television. Over there … But you know better than I do what it’s like over there. You come from the mainland, after all, so I don’t need to tell you. I wouldn’t want to live over there. No way. All those strangers who don’t say hello and won’t stop to pass the time of day. You’re just a nobody over there.”
Janne stirs his tea a bit more to cool it down. He takes a slurp.
“It’s different out here. You probably don’t see it, you incomers. We know each other. And we know ourselves. We’re not always in a bloody hurry like you people. We make time, take things calmly. We can be ourselves … know what I mean? We look after one another out here on Fagerö. When my parents were lost out on the ice and I was left an orphan, I was taken in out at Bondas and grew up there along with Fride and Axmar – we’re cousins after all. And when I applied to the post office, it was K-D Mattsson who wrote a reference for me. That’s what we do out here, look out for each other like in the old days.”
Janne has finished his tea, washed the mug and spoon and put them away in the dish rack in the cupboard. He has dried his hands thoroughly on the tea towel and put on his white cotton gloves again. He has refilled the whistling kettle and put it back on the stove. Now he returns to the letters.
“This is all incoming mail. We don’t have Saturday deliveries any more so I’ve got plenty of time. It can get a bit hectic during the week when I’ve got both the incoming and the outgoing post to deal with …”
Another envelope surrenders to the steam and Janne’s knife. He reads the letter attentively.
“There’s not much that Janne the Post doesn’t know about what people are up to on Fagerö,” he says, his voice warm with satisfaction. He puts the letter back in the envelope, seals it, checks it in the bright light from the strip light while summarising the contents: “Siv at Östergrannas – well, her sister is coming out with her kids around the 20th of July. Some people would phone about that kind of thing but out here we still write letters. We do things differently in the islands. Like in the old days …”
Janne goes through the post systematically, passing on numerous pieces of information and insights into the lives and doings of the people of Fagerö.
The business correspondence of Abrahamsson from Busö with regard to his prosperous shipping firm – now known as Fagerö Shipping – is considerable. The company operates its ro-ro routes with a number of modern vessels, the newest of which was launched as recently as last year and named Oihonna, a name that has been carried by several of the company’s ships. As well as these new vessels, Abrahamsson also owns the motor schooner Kaleva, a relic from the past and long past the date she should have gone to the breaker’s yard, but for some reason Abrahamsson doesn’t have the heart to dispose of her.
Elna is terrified of cancer and worried about her smear test. Having looked at the result Janne knows that it is negative. Generally speaking, Fagerö is a healthy place and its people stay well and live to a ripe old age – this is quite obvious from the regular reports the district nurse sends in to the regional health authority. The reason is twofold, or so Janne speculates: people eat a lot of fish and there is no doctor on Fagerö. Janne is of the opinion that doctors and hospitals are detrimental to people’s health.
Pettersson, the fellow who owns and runs Storby Camping and Cabins, receives responses to an advertisement he put in one of the national papers: Pettersson is going all out to attract visitors outside the high season, so he is doing a lot of advertising of all kinds. He even has his own website, thanks to his youngest son who does nothing apart from sit in his room and tap away on the computer all day every day.
There’s a letter for the Rev. Lökström from the diocesan office – it’s to do with the bishop’s proposed visitation to the parish of Fagerö. Lökström has already started to panic even though the visit is not due until August, but then he’s the sort of man who worries about everything.
Janne tells us everything, his mouth working as relentlessly as the pickup reel on the front of a harvester. Information pours from him at such a rate that our heads are in a spin by the end of it.
There is one last letter.
Brown envelope, stamp stuck on carelessly, typewritten address. We don’t manage to read the recipient’s name since Janne picks up the letter, casts a quick eye over it and drops it as if it has burned his fingers.
The letter lands face down on the kitchen table.
Janne rubs the palms of his hands on the grey material of his uniform trousers.
He licks his lips and says: “It’s for Kangarn.”
The kettle on the stove is whistling again but Janne takes it off the ring and switches off the heat.
“I don’t want to look at Kangarn’s post,” he says.
He picks up the letters.
“Kangarn has the evil eye,” he says and gives a shrill wheezing laugh. And he suddenly goes quiet.
He pushes past us almost rudely with the bundle of letters in his hand and doesn’t say another word. He goes out on to the landing and down the stairs, which creak under his weight. The door to the post office opens and closes. We realise that our audience is over for the time being so we make our way down the stairs and go outside. The air is cooler, dew is moistening the grass and there are streaks of red in the western sky above the tops of the fir trees. The buzz of an outboard can be heard from out at sea and in the tangle of brambles down by Kungshamn a nightingale is singing: chooking, chattering, peeping.
The Dreadful Voyage of the Motor Schooner Kaleva
On Sunday morning, accompanied by a light south-easterly wind, the Fagerö motor schooner Kaleva berthed in Tunnhamn. The Kaleva was an old vessel, weary in body and soul, and more and more wilful with the passing years. She often yearned for home and liked to spend her weekends in Tunnhamn where she could rub her gunwales against a familiar quay.
Fortunately her schedule and the location of Fagerö enabled her to have her own way quite often. That suited her crew, too, since all of them were Fagerö men and could thus spend weekends at home with their families.
> The Kaleva had sailed south with a cargo of timber and for her return journey she had taken on containers of clothes – jackets, shirts and jeans – which, as we know, are manufactured at advantageous prices down there. Trouble with a water pump had delayed her return departure and she didn’t get away until Saturday afternoon, which meant a shorter than usual weekend break in Tunnhamn. The Kaleva drew alongside the quay and settled at her moorings. No sooner had the gangway been run out than Abrahamsson from Busö, the Kaleva’s owner, came storming in through the harbour mouth in his Bayliner, foam spraying up like white wings on each side of her hull and the roar of the engine echoing back off the rocks and causing the gulls to hurl themselves into the air with shrill screams. Abrahamsson cut the throttle, glided along the outer side of Kaleva’s hull and threw up a rope. In spite of the fact that the years of his youth were far behind him, that he smoked like seven factory chimneys and never refused butter on his bread nor cream in his coffee, he was out of his boat and up on the deck of the Kaleva with the agility of an apprentice pilot. He nodded to the skipper, who was standing in the wheelhouse door.
“Morning, Jalle! You said on the radio that you wanted to talk to me. Good voyage otherwise?”
The skipper didn’t answer. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, blew out air and for some reason seemed unwilling to meet Abrahamsson’s eyes. Instead he stared aft at the Kaleva’s lifeboat hanging in its davits.
He said, “Let’s go below. There’s probably some coffee left.”
Without waiting for an answer the skipper disappeared down a hatchway immediately aft of the wheelhouse and Abrahamsson suddenly became aware that all the rest of the crew of the Kaleva – mate, engineer and three deckhands – were standing on deck looking at him. Not one of them said a word. The gulls were screaming, small waves were lapping against the hull and an auxiliary engine was throbbing away below deck.
Wondering what it was all about, Abrahamsson followed the skipper down to the tiny mess and squeezed his generous frame on to one of the wall-mounted benches.
The skipper produced cups and saucers, poured coffee from the glass jug and slid the packets of sugar and cream across the laminate tabletop to Abrahamsson, who extracted a couple of sugar lumps from their paper, poured cream into his cup and stirred it.
“So?” he said.
The skipper of the Kaleva was called Jalle Enros and he looked more like a bookkeeper in a small family firm than a sea captain. He pushed his gold-rimmed glasses up on his head and moistened his lips. Abrahamsson tried to catch his eye, but Enros was still avoiding him.
Afraid, that’s how it seemed to Abrahamsson anyway. There was a hint of some strange fear in Enros’s eyes.
Abrahamsson stirred his coffee, removed the spoon, tapped it a couple of times on the side of the cup to get rid of the last few drops, put it down in the saucer and waited. The silence stretched out. He knew there was no point in trying to hurry Enros: even in normal circumstances he thought carefully before he said anything.
At last Enros cleared his throat.
“The voyage itself went well enough, I suppose,” he said in a voice that was expressionless and dead. He still wouldn’t look Abrahamsson in the eye. “But then … this morning that is …”
The Kaleva settled more comfortably against the quay, her hull creaking a little. The heavy dull throb of the auxiliary engine could still be heard behind the engine room bulkhead. Footsteps crossed the deck above their heads.
“It was three o’clock,” Enros continued after another pause and his voice was hoarse. He was doing his best to sound factual, as if he was giving evidence at a captain’s protest. “We were heading north-west, 320 degrees by the compass, and doing eight knots. Eskil was on watch and I had just gone up to join him. I reckoned we’d have Estrevlarna in sight in about an hour.”
Abrahamsson nodded and at last took a sip of his coffee. Enros was breathing heavily, gulping air. Under the loose skin of his throat his Adam’s apple was bobbing like a float on the waves.
“And then Eskil suddenly gave a shout: ‘Bloody hell, Jalle! There are people in the sea!’ There were hundreds of them,” Enros said. “Men and women … and children,” he said after a pause.
“Hell’s teeth …” was all Abrahamsson managed to croak hoarsely, helplessly.
“The sea was full of them … lying there … floating around us … It’s impossible to describe. Words fail me …”
And yet the skipper of the Kaleva did try to describe it and Abrahamsson wanted to put his hands over his ears, but he couldn’t.
“But the worst thing … the worst thing of all was the gulls,” Enros said.
“The gulls?” Abrahamsson echoed in a hollow voice.
“Yes, the gulls had started to peck at the bodies in the sea,” Enros said.
“Bloody hell, Jalle …”
“I couldn’t bear to watch it. I keep a gun locked in my cabin, just to be on the safe side, you can never tell these days. I went down and fetched it and started shooting at the gulls as fast as I could. To scare them away. I had to do something, I’d have gone mad otherwise …”
Abrahamsson from Busö sits face-to-face with the crew of the motor schooner Kaleva in the tiny mess.
This is who they are: Captain Jarl Enros, mate Eskil Ginström, engineer Alfons Bergström, and deckhands Axel Hamnström (also the ship’s carpenter), Aldur Lillkvist and Tor Strömberg.
The mess is silent, with a heavy expectant silence.
The crew of the Kaleva are looking at Abrahamsson and their eyes are like open wounds in which everything is raw and naked and trembling. It’s unbearable, this great silent horror that fills their eyes. Abrahamsson feels forced to look down at the table. His eyes seek some kind of refuge in the half-full coffee cup – white china with a green rim that has a chip out of it – and the packet of sugar lumps and the carton of cream. He studies the patterns in the laminate tabletop. He senses the small movements of the Kaleva’s hull. A good vessel is never really at peace in harbour even if it’s old and needs its rest – it wants to get back to sea.
Now Abrahamsson has the crew and skipper of the motor schooner Kaleva in front of him and they are seeking his guidance, they are seeking words to help them.
They are seeking absolution.
They believe that he – Abrahamsson – has the power to give them forgiveness for what they have been forced to witness.
“We ought to have cut the engine and tried to pick some of them up,” Enros said.
“We ought at least have radioed the coastguards at Högskär,” Eskil Ginström, the mate, said.
“But we didn’t,” Enros said.
Using his little finger Abrahamsson dug out a piece of food stuck between the molars in his bottom jaw. He sucked the finger clean and inspected the fingernail. He scratched his wrist and rubbed his jaw. His beard felt as coarse as sacking and made a rasping noise.
Eventually Abrahamsson looked at the men sitting in front of him.
“I think we’d best keep this business to ourselves,” he said.
The scream of a herring gull could be heard through the open hatch.
“Agreed?”
After some time Enros nodded silently, hesitantly.
The Kaleva sailed north that evening. From the hillock on Busö, Abrahamsson watched her as she chugged her way across the waters of Norrfjärden with a white moustache of foam around her bows. He kept her in sight through his binoculars until she was passing between Lilla Pungö and Tistronskär. The last thing he saw was the top of her main-mast poking above the fir trees on Pungö.
Then that, too, disappeared and Abrahamsson felt a strange sense of relief.
He thought, “I’m going to have a brandy even though it’s Sunday evening. I don’t care what the wife says.”
II
The Sad Story of Celia and her Great Misfortune
Celia has gone walkabout!
Janne the Post, our very own Hermes in his orange Lada, spread the ne
ws at the same time as delivering letters and other remittances to the people of Fagerö on Tuesday morning. Celia has gone walkabout! There was no need to say more. Four words were enough. The people of Fagerö immediately understood the significance of the news and took a breath before they started humming and hawing and oh dear, oh dearing.
Oh dear, oh dear! What else was there to say?
People immediately forgot the debacle that had occurred at the funeral of the unknown young man a couple of days before, though it could hardly be seen as over and done with. But in spite of the shambles no one had been hurt, and the fact that several of the island’s most prominent citizens had taken a tumble was, on the whole, quite exhilarating. But Celia was a different matter. Her situation was the kind of thing that could only be talked about in a low voice, with much sighing, tutting, shaking of the head and frequent exclamations of things like “Lord Above!” “Sweet Jesus!” “How Dreadful!” and “What Times We Live In!” In the midst of all this sighing, people experienced a warm feeling in their hearts, that special feeling of satisfaction that is induced by the misfortunes of others. And in their silent thoughts, people did not fail to thank God and all the higher powers for consistently ensuring that things are worse for others than for themselves.
Celia has gone walkabout! The last time was years ago. The news gave the islanders a welcome opportunity to bring the story of Celia down from the attic of their memory, dust it off and put it on public display again.
Celia’s wedding was the talk of the islands. Well, that’s how silver-tongued storytellers usually introduce one of the most common, though not necessarily most trustworthy, versions of the sad story of Celia and her great misfortune.