by Lars Sund
A floorboard creaks and we hear the inspector walk across the living room floor. It will be difficult to pick out what he says if he shuts the window or goes into another room. We can’t push our way into his house, more’s the pity, so we have to make do with eavesdropping from outside. It will only be for a short while, anyway, as we shall have to hurry down to Tunnhamn to see what’s going on there.
“This will be our thirteenth midsummer in a row out here, Elisabeth,” we hear the inspector’s voice say in the living room. “You can remember the first midsummer’s eve you and I celebrated on Fagerö, can’t you? We were complete newcomers and we were happy … well, I was happy.”
He stops talking. It would be interesting to see what he is doing but we can’t take the risk of peeping in through the window.
“We had agreed, hadn’t we, that Fagerö was just going to be temporary, a short interlude along the path of my career. I would apply for a posting away from here as soon as possible and then you wouldn’t have to commute to work by ferry. At last we could have risked starting a family. But I’ve been here ever since. Thirteen years.”
He pauses again, the creak of the floorboards emphasising the silence.
“You know I don’t blame you, Elisabeth, you know that don’t you? I do understand. I would perhaps have done the same thing had our situations been reversed. But it grieves me that I never managed to make you understand – really understand, Elisabeth – what my encounter with the archipelago meant to me. Colours are stronger out here, the cliffs more barren and the autumn storms wilder. And the sea, the endless sea, moving all the time, changing all the time.”
He falls silent again and sighs.
“I didn’t stay here because I suffered from a lack of initiative, as you said on one occasion. I just wish I’d been able to make you understand, dear Elisabeth.”
That’s as much as we were able to hear and any further explanations will have to wait. Riggert von Haartman’s footsteps are coming towards the window. From where we are crouching close to the wall – hold your breath, dear reader, not a sound! – we can see the signet ring on his little finger as he reaches for the window catch. But there is one more thing we manage to hear before the window closes. He mutters: “Almost six o’clock. Ghita must be on the plane south by now.”
And so another window shuts on Fagerö.
Even though the Tunnhamn midsummer dance had been cancelled, the harbour area was not completely deserted after six o’clock on midsummer’s eve. A gang of teenage boys were doing circuits on their mopeds and taking turns to make long skid marks in the gravel with their rear wheels. And out by the ferry mooring Axmar was staggering around like an inexperienced logger trying to keep his balance on logs being floated downriver. Improvised midsummer parties were being held on a Finnsailer 49 and a couple of other boats in the marina at the other end of the harbour, but the sailors and their guests had already retreated below decks. Light the colour of butter seeped out of the cabin windows and a raucous drinking song rang out through the open hatchway of a large Nimbus cruiser.
The Fagerö islanders’ boats rocked at their moorings and the wind tugged at the flag Fride had hoisted that morning on the flagpole in front of the little red-painted harbour pavilion with the lifebuoy on the wall below the window. Common gulls and herring gulls hung on the wind, wings motionless. A length of builder’s polythene round the screened-off area at the other end of the harbour had come loose at one corner and was flapping ominously. There was the shrill clatter of moped engines.
The daylight was grey and damp and the wind carried in the raw salinity of the sea.
Judit came riding along on her moped, her girl sitting cross-legged on the baggage platform with her pale earnest face turned half-upwards. Judit did midsummer cover at Solgård, the old people’s home we have on Fagerö, and she had just finished for the day. The girl had been there with her. Judit seems to find it more difficult than ever to let the girl out of her sight.
Judit pulled in by Gottfrid’s shed and the girl hopped down from the baggage platform. They would probably have managed to get down to their boat and set off back to Aspskär without any delay if the girl had not pointed over to the ferry mooring and shouted “Look!”
Axmar seemed to be doing everything he could to try the patience of the long-suffering angels Heaven had set to guard over him and all the other drunks in the world.
“We’re going to have to help him or he’ll fall into the sea,” the girl exclaimed.
“Oh Lord, just sent to try us!” Judit said as she strode across the harbour yard. As she passed the cohort of youths on their mopeds she snapped: “Can’t you see that Axmar’s about to drown himself? The stupid idiot!”
Axmar tripped over his own feet right on the edge of the quay but miraculously managed to regain his balance. Judit broke into a run. Axmar then stepped out into empty space and it looked as if his guardian angel had finally deserted him. But Judit hadn’t! Just as Axmar began tilting over like one half of a closing bascule bridge Judit leapt forward, grabbed the back of his football shirt and dragged him back.
Axmar staggered backwards, regained his footing and glared at Judit with vacant and unfocussed eyes.
“Wh … what you do that for?” he slurred uncomprehendingly.
“You were about to drown yourself!” Judit yelled at him, pushing him hard to move him farther from the edge of the quay. “Go home and lie down! Where did you leave Fride?”
“They chucked me out of the American Bar … shitty bastards.”
“Have you got Fride’s mobile number so he can come and fetch you?” Judit asked. The girl was with them by this time. She looked at Axmar with her blue eyes and carefully and gently stroked his arm. He didn’t notice.
“Kangarn … the b-bastard!” Axmar hiccupped.
We’ve already referred to the beer-loving youths from the mainland and now it is their turn to enter the drama accidentally being played out in Tunnhamn.
And a loud and unsteady entrance it was.
“Halt!” shouted the fellow at the head of the gang, raising his hand. “Gobs shut!”
The flock of youths came to a stop in the middle of the harbour yard, swaying like a bed of reeds stirred by a summer breeze. Things went reasonably quiet.
The leader of the gang, if that’s what he was, looked older than the others and he was distinctly steadier on his feet and less red in the face. He surveyed the harbour yard, furrowed his brow, scratched his jaw on one side and curled his lower lip against one of his upper canines before walking over to Judit, the girl and Axmar. He saluted, bringing one finger to the peak of his black, military-style cap, and then asked remarkably politely: “Excuse me, but where is everyone?”
“We’re here, aren’t we?” Judit responded.
“I’m sorry, what I meant is that there is usually a midsummer party here. We thought there were going to be loads of people around.”
The girl had started to hum quietly to herself. With two fingers she was still holding on to Axmar’s arm and her back was half turned to the youths. The one who had spoken to Judit gave her a bemused look.
“The party’s been cancelled,” Judit informed him.
Axmar waved his index finger in the air as if to claim his right to speak. He slurred: “Boys, boys, as Bellman shaid to the shwine, Axmar’s a wee bit pished …”
The Fagerö teenagers had moved closer, but not too close. They were ranged in a semicircle, spluttering mopeds between their thighs, hands on the throttle and feet ready to kick their machines into gear. To be on the safe side, so to speak. They pricked up their ears, exchanged hurried glances and kept their eyes expressionless.
The leader of the mainland gang was big and broad-shouldered. His black jacket was open and revealed a gleaming white T-shirt which clung to the contours of his well-developed pectorals and flat stomach. He appeared to be more or less sober, speaking clearly and apparently in full possession of his senses.
“What’s that?
The party’s cancelled? Why’s that?” he asked.
“Come on, surely you’ve heard about the bodies that have been washed ashore here? In the circumstances it wouldn’t be proper to hold a dance,” Judit said.
“We came out here to celebrate midsummer,” the leader of the youths said. “We came to celebrate midsummer in the same Nordic way as our Aryan forefathers have done since time immemorial. And now these dead foreigners are stopping us. Strangers, unknown intruders without any right to be here! They should be buried in the soil of their homeland! We shouldn’t have to put up with them coming here and ruining our midsummer, should we, lads?”
“Right on, right on!” a couple of members of the gang yelled. There were scattered shouts of “Down with the incomers! Keep the islands pure … ha, ha!”
A spotty youth who couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen years old was bent double, vomit spraying from his mouth and splashing all over his high boots.
Judit turned to the girl and said, “We’d better see about getting Axmar home somehow or the other. I’ll ring Lenni and see if he’s prepared to risk taking him in the taxi.”
“I’m not going home!” Axmar protested. “I’m going up to give that bastard Kangarn what for.”
“You most certainly are not,” Judit said patiently.
“I was ch-chucked out of the American Bar!” Axmar screamed in a sudden drunken rage. “By Kangarn! The foreign bastard!”
Axmar spits out the word “foreign” and the youths from the mainland hear it and to their ears it is something hateful. They have been swilling beer half the afternoon, whipping themselves up into a rage, pecking at one another like a flock of young magpies. Now anger is raging within them and it needs to be vented in action. They hear the word “foreign” and they stand legs apart, fists clenched, glaring all round.
Quickly and accurately their leader reads their reaction. He has already recognised that their attempt to demonstrate in Tunnhamn is a fiasco. He can already see the youths’ growing disappointment. He is disappointed too. And annoyed. He knows what they are demanding of him. He can smell the sour reek of aggression. He can feel the tremors of violence below the surface waiting to erupt. He has brought them out to Fagerö with the promise that something will happen. So something must happen. He knows that if he can’t fulfil his promise he will lose his authority.
He turns to Axmar and asks in a smooth voice: “Foreign, you said? What’s it all about?”
“Kangarn … the bastard! He’s got the pub on Fagerö. Not one of us, the bastard. He’s a sod. Chucked me out an hour ago …”
“Kangarn’s not a foreigner,” Judit tried to intervene.
But all of a sudden Axmar perked up.
“Tell you what, boys! Got an idea! Come with me and we’ll have a word with Kangarn. We’ll take the boat, that’s the quickest way. There’s a boat here!”
“You’re not getting in any boat with that much drink in you!” Judit shouted.
“Come on boys, what the fuck are you waiting for?” Axmar said, waving to the youths.
Judit rushed forward and physically tried to prevent Axmar from staggering out to the landing stage.
It’s hard to know in retrospect whether Judit’s effort to intervene was what sparked off what followed. Everything happened too quickly. Language can’t keep up and it’s not possible to give an account.
The only thing to stick in the mind is the shouting, odd comments here and there.
“Time to give Kangarn a thumping!”
“Bloody foreigner!”
“For fuck’s sake, Pete and Lasse are having a piss. Get a move on!”
“Is there room for us all in the boat?”
“Watch where you’re putting your feet, you bloody idiot!”
For the moment at least Axmar was their leader and their real leader was just following along. He had no choice. He would have to regain the initiative.
Judit had been knocked to the ground and was struggling to her feet. The girl ran over to her and tried to help, her blue eyes wide with fear. Axmar took the boat belonging to the volunteer fire service. The gang from the mainland poured down into the boat, in which there was plenty of room for all of them. Axmar staggered to the cockpit and started the engine at the first attempt.
“Cast off the bloody rope!” he yelled.
He may have been close to falling into the sea just a short time before, but now he handled the clumsy boat with incomprehensible dexterity. He backed out from the quay, turned the boat and opened the throttle.
“You lot! Has one of you got a mobile?” Judit shouted to the boys on the mopeds, who had been standing watching with their mouths hanging open. Several of them nodded. “Ring the police and tell them to get down to the American Bar at once! Understand?”
Judit ran out along the quay to her own boat. The girl followed, untied the mooring rope without being told and jumped into the boat.
Axmar sailed his storm troopers over to Miners’ Place. Shouting and yelling he drove the boat’s bows up on to the pebbles at full speed before dropping the front ramp. The youths swarmed ashore and marched up to the American Bar, their leader once more at the head of the band. They were very noisy, screaming fuck, bugger and cunt, and laughing. Their harsh young voices echoed back from the Eternit weatherboarding of Kangarn’s holiday village.
His guests interrupted their midsummer celebrations to watch in amazement as the bawling staggering column went past. Youngsters playing volleyball on the beach cut their game short and families gathered around midsummer bonfires with their children turned to watch. On the terrace of the American Bar drinkers put down their beer mugs and forgot to light the cigarettes they had just put in their mouths.
Staggering alongside the gang of youths, arms swinging wildly, was Axmar.
They came to a halt in front of the American Bar and a level of uncertainty seemed to succeed the triumphant first stage of the operation. Their greedy eyes swept across the mugs, glasses and bottles with which the outdoor tables were laden. They became the focus of interest and the summer visitors gathered around them. But the house martins nesting under the eaves of the nearest of the old miners’ houses carried on chasing insects with total unconcern.
Slightly unsure of himself, the leader of the troop looked all round.
Even Axmar’s Dutch courage seemed to be deserting him and he stood hanging on to the handrail at the side of the steps to the terrace, swaying back and forth with one foot on the bottom step.
One of the youths standing close to the terrace leant over the rail, stretched out a long arm and grabbed a mug of beer from the nearest table. The owner of the beer jumped up, his plastic chair tipping over behind him. The thief swigged the contents of the mug, much of which missed his mouth and ran down his spotty cheeks and over the collar of his dark-green bomber jacket. A couple of his comrades laughed.
Then the door of the American Bar burst open and out stormed Kangarn roaring, “What the hell is going on here?”
At that moment a police car turned into the gravel car park. It must already have been in the vicinity, and although the siren was silent the warning light on the roof was flashing with the same blue light as a welding torch.
“Now, jus’ you shee here, Kangarn,” Axmar bellowed.
“Get out, Axmar!” Kangarn snarled. “You’re barred!”
“Come on … be reasonable. Me and me mates just want a beer …”
And Axmar began to totter up the steps, but tripped and swore. He tried to get back on his feet with the help of the handrail, but the link between brain and feet was no longer functioning and he fell back against the railings with a grunt. Along with a good number of customers, Kangarn’s sons had come out on to the terrace and Ludi and his junior constable Juslin had stepped out of the police car. There must have been close to a hundred people gathered below the terrace of the American Bar.
“Just push off! The whole lot of you!” Kangarn yelled, pointing at the youths.
> One of the youths raised his right arm, opened his mouth and shouted: “Sieg Heil!”
Several more arms shot into the air: “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!”
“Jesus Christ, fucking hell!” Ludi groaned. His hand went instinctively to the service pistol in the holster on his hip and he fingered the grooves on the pistol grip of his Glock.
Judit’s girl was standing at the top of the steps to the terrace of the American Bar.
Her eyes were closed and she was humming to herself.
Her voice was weak and frail.
They looked at her – all of them – and did not know what to make of it: Kangarn and his sons, Judit, the customers on the terrace of the American Bar and the people gathered down below, the two policemen by their car and the fifteen youths in bomber jackets and high boots who were fired up by beer and aggression.
The girl carried on humming.
The youth who had grabbed the beer mug from the table screamed at her: “Shut your gob, you fucking spastic whore!” His arm went back and he hurled the mug at the girl.
His throw went low, thank God! The mug hit the rail around the veranda and broke in two with a loud crack.
The girl went quiet.
She stood at the top of the steps, and now she lowered her head and wrapped her arms around herself and her shoulders heaved.
Suddenly it was as if all the air had gone out of the gang of youths.
They looked at one another. They looked at the girl. They looked at the people standing around.
One of them shouted: “Fuck this for a pile of shit!”
And another one shouted: “We’re wasting our fucking time here!”
And a third shouted: “Come on boys, back to the campsite for some booze!”
“Yeah, fuck it! Let’s go!”
“Get pissed out of our skulls!”
“Pissed! Pissed! Pissed!” they chanted.