‘Yes.’
‘Are you inside, too?’
‘No, but I’m going in.’
‘On your own?’
‘With Mats.’
‘Who’s Mats?’
‘My older brother.’
‘And how do you and Mats get into this building?’
‘We go up a big stone staircase.’
‘And in through a door?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the man from the ship is waiting for you in there?’
‘Yes … He’s sitting there, and he’s, like, waiting.’
‘Does he say anything to you?’
‘No. I think he nods.’
‘Does he do anything else?’
‘He holds out his hand.’
Gerlof thought about this, then asked, ‘Does he want something from you?’
‘Yes, our money.’
‘Your money? How much money?’
‘All of it. From Mats. Mats gives him the money.’
‘Does the man give …’
… you anything in return? he was going to ask, but at that moment he heard the gate and the boys came running up the path. They were back from mini-golf.
‘Hi, Jonas!’ Kristoffer shouted.
Jonas opened his eyes, his concentration broken. He waved to his friend, then quickly got to his feet as if he were embarrassed, and mumbled to Gerlof, ‘Got to go.’
‘I know, but thanks for the chat.’
Jonas nodded and hurried over to join Kristoffer.
The memory of a man in a big red building. And Africa. Gerlof sat there puzzling over the mystery all evening, but he couldn’t solve it.
In the end, he went indoors.
Jonas had gone home but, as usual, his grandchildren were sitting there watching a film with lots of car chases and explosions. They put on a film most evenings, but turned down the volume when Gerlof was around. That was one thing they had learned.
He went to the bathroom, then into his bedroom.
‘Goodnight, boys,’ he said, closing the door.
He would sleep in the cottage tonight. It seemed like the quieter option, in spite of everything.
Two hours later, the cottage was quiet; the boys had switched off the television and gone to bed. Gerlof’s head sank deeper and deeper into the pillow; he was almost asleep.
But suddenly he opened his eyes; he was wide awake.
The boys watch a film almost every evening.
The thought made him sit up, turn on the light and open his notebook. He read through what Jonas had said with fresh eyes and blinked in surprise, because his almost-sleeping brain had worked through all those random memories and come up with a possible solution to the mystery of Jonas and Africa.
Gerlof picked up a pen with trembling hands and wrote down one word so that it wouldn’t go out of his head by morning. Then he reached for the phone book. He needed to speak to someone, an old acquaintance from the local history society.
He found the number and keyed it in. The person at the other end picked up after only three rings, and Gerlof spoke quietly, so as not to wake his grandsons.
‘Good evening, Bertil – it’s Gerlof Davidsson.’
‘Gerlof? Oh … good evening.’
‘Am I disturbing you? Were you asleep?’
‘Not at all – I stay up late in the summer. We’ve been sitting out on the veranda, my brother and I, so it’s absolutely—’
‘Good,’ Gerlof interrupted him. ‘It’s just that I have a question that might sound a bit odd. But it’s important, and it’s about the Marnäs manor house. Are you still running things up there?’
‘I am – I can’t get out of it.’
‘I’m looking for someone who had a summer job there five years ago, selling tickets. A young man, but I don’t know his exact age – just that he was young.’
‘Five years ago? ’94?’
‘That’s right. Can you think of anyone who fits the bill?’
Bertil didn’t say anything for a moment.
‘The only person I can remember who had a summer job was Pecka. He would have been about twenty back then …’
‘Pecka?’
‘That’s what he called himself, but his real name is Peter, Peter Mayer. He worked for us for one summer, then he moved on.’
‘Do you know where to?’
‘He had lots of different jobs. As far as I remember, he joined the crew of a fishing boat for a while, then he worked at a couple of campsites and in a grocery store. I don’t think things worked out too well for him; he had some problems with his temperament, and disciplinary issues, if you know what I mean.’
‘I think I do,’ Gerlof said. ‘One last thing … Do you have a list of the films you’ve shown at the manor house?’
‘Not here, but there’s one in the office.’
‘Could I have a look at it?’
‘Of course,’ Bertil said. ‘I’ll drop by in the morning.’
‘Thank you, Bertil – thank you very much.’
Gerlof said goodnight and ended the call. Then he went back to his notebook to write down a name he had never heard before: PETER MAYER.
Then he turned off the light and went back to sleep.
Jonas
Jonas had finished sanding for the day and had treated himself to a dip in the pool afterwards. As usual, he was alone. Nothing that had happened over the past few days had changed that. Casper had gone off on his moped; he hadn’t really seemed to care when Jonas finally told him that his old rubber dinghy had sunk. Dad was at the restaurant, and Mats and Urban were working down at the Ölandic.
There were, of course, boys of approximately his own age in the village. Kristoffer was a year younger, and perhaps a little childish, but he was still a pretty cool companion. After his swim, Jonas cycled over to the Davidssons’ cottage.
‘Jonas!’
As he walked in through the gate, he saw Kristoffer’s grandfather Gerlof in his usual spot in the garden. He waved his little notebook at Jonas.
Gerlof seemed bright and cheery this Wednesday, as if he was bursting with news. Jonas went over to him, and Gerlof started talking right away.
‘Kristoffer’s inside, you can go and see him in a minute, but I just want to show you something first. I wrote something down after we’d had our chat yesterday. It’s about the ship, and the man you saw on board. Would you like to see?’
Jonas didn’t really want to think any more about the ghost ship, but he didn’t have much choice.
‘Good. Here it comes.’
Gerlof held out his notebook and pointed to three words written in pencil, in shaky handwriting. Jonas leaned forward and read, ‘The Lion King’. He read it twice, then looked up at Gerlof.
‘It’s a film,’ Gerlof said. ‘I’ve only seen it on video with my grandchildren, but it’s been on in the cinema, too … Do you remember it?’
Jonas nodded; he had seen it several times. ‘It’s about animals in Africa,’ he said. ‘A father lion is killed by his brother and thrown off a mountainside. And there’s loads of music.’
‘Exactly,’ Gerlof said, looking pleased. ‘It was when you said the word “Africa” … During the night, I got the idea that the man who was after you might have been working in a cinema when you and your brother went to see The Lion King. I checked with an acquaintance who’s involved in showing films on the island, and it was on at the manor house in Marnäs five years ago, in the summer of ’94. Were you here then?’
‘I think so.’
‘Good. Because Marnäs manor house is a big red building, made of wood. Just like the one you described to me.’
Jonas remembered now. He had been seven years old that summer; Mats had been twelve. Dad had taken them up to Marnäs, but he hadn’t stayed for the film, he had just dropped them off and picked them up afterwards. So they had gone to the cinema on their own, for the first time ever. They had gone into the building and up to the ticket office, and …
It was a
ll coming back to him now.
‘Yes, that’s where he was. The man from the ship, he was sitting in a little kiosk, and he sold us our tickets.’
‘Good,’ Gerlof said again. ‘And I managed to find a name … There was only one young man who worked in the cinema that summer, so I think we can identify him.’
He paused and leaned forward. ‘But if I tell you, will you promise not to tell anyone else?’
Jonas didn’t look too sure, but he agreed.
‘His name is Peter, Peter Mayer. But he’s known as Pecka. Do you recognize that name?’
Jonas shook his head. ‘The man on the ship didn’t tell me his name.’
‘No, of course not. But I looked in the phone book this morning, and there’s a Peter Mayer who lives up in Marnäs.’
Jonas stiffened. There was a sudden chill in the evening air. ‘So he lives here … on the island?’
‘Yes, if that’s him. But there’s nothing to worry about, Jonas. He doesn’t know who you are.’
Nevertheless, Jonas’s heart was pounding. Marnäs wasn’t far away; you could cycle there in half an hour. Casper went there on his moped virtually every day. And the man with the axe lived there.
‘We just need to find out more about him,’ Gerlof went on. ‘You said he mentioned an old man, an American?’
‘Aron,’ Jonas said.
‘Aron,’ Gerlof repeated thoughtfully.
Jonas wanted to tell Gerlof about the figure he had seen by the cairn the previous day, the figure that reminded him of the man on the ghost ship – but now he was no longer sure whether he might have imagined it.
They sat in silence for a moment, then Gerlof looked down at his notebook.
‘Right, Jonas. I’ll try to find the American, too. If he exists.’
Gerlof
Tilda’s phone was still engaged. Gerlof had things to tell her, but he hung up. He knew that it wasn’t against the law for a private individual to look into things, but he thought it was time to let her know what he had found out about Peter Mayer. And the mysterious Swedish-American.
Gerlof thought about the period of mass emigration from Sweden to the United States, the great exodus from Sweden that had lasted from the 1840s into the 1920s and beyond.
These days, as the summer residences in Stenvik kept on getting bigger and bigger, and all the shiny, expensive cars zoomed along the coast road, it was easy to forget how poor this area had been a hundred years ago. Poverty had reigned throughout the whole of Sweden – a remote country in the north without any great wealth. Hunger and lack of work had driven a fifth of the population overseas, mainly to America.
Öland and America were linked by all those journeys – first of all, the journey to the new country, then the journey home. Most of those who returned were poverty-stricken; the odd one had made it and was rich.
Gerlof didn’t know of any emigrants who were still alive, so he picked up the phone again and called someone who might just have the answer. Bill Carlson in Långvik was the only elderly American he knew; Bill was an interested descendant of genuine emigrants from the island.
A young Swedish relative answered, but he quickly called Bill in from the veranda.
‘Yeah?’
‘Hello Bill, it’s Gerlof Davidsson.’
There was a brief silence at the other end of the phone, then an enthusiastic ‘Gerlof! Hello-o! How are you?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘How’s your little boat?’
‘Well, we’re working on her …’ He cleared his throat and went on. ‘Bill, I need your help with something. I’m looking for an American.’
‘An American?’
‘Yes. I think he’s on Öland at the moment, but I don’t know where.’
‘Good luck with that. There are more of us than you might think in the summer. I was in the grocery store here in Långvik yesterday, and I met a whole bunch of kids from Washington who—’
‘This is an old man,’ Gerlof broke in. ‘A Swedish-American who might be called Aron. He comes from northern Öland, I think – at least, he seems to be familiar with the coast around here. And I think he’s interested in ships.’
‘Doesn’t ring any bells. Anything else?’
‘No … but he seems a bit of a dubious character.’
Bill laughed quietly. ‘You mean he’s a criminal?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know him.’
‘There were all kinds of emigrants,’ Bill said. ‘Have you heard of Oskar Lundin from Degerhamn?’
‘No, who was he?’
‘An old Swedish-American from Chicago … I met him one summer many years ago, and he claimed he’d been a driver for the Mafia back in the thirties. For Al Capone. Lundin said he used to drive Capone to meetings, until he was arrested and locked up in Alcatraz.’
‘Is he still alive, this Lundin?’
‘No, he’s every bit as dead as Capone. Most of those who came home are dead now.’
Gerlof sighed. ‘You’re absolutely right.’
‘But some are still alive,’ Bill said. ‘We’re meeting up for lunch on Friday.’
‘Who’s meeting up for lunch?’
‘Those who’ve come home to northern Öland … Those of us who are left. There’s always an annual get-together for all Swedish-Americans at the Borgholm Hotel, just after midsummer.’
‘And does everyone come along?’
‘Who knows?’ Bill said. ‘But I’ve got something I can show you, if you want more names. It’s taken from the church registers – it’s a list of everyone who emigrated from Öland during the twentieth century. My cousin has been to the House of the Emigrants in Gothenburg to do some research; he got the list from their archive.’
‘That would be very useful,’ Gerlof said. ‘And this lunch …’
‘It’s usually very good. You’re welcome to come with me.’
‘Really? I’d love to, but I’m not a Swedish-American, Bill. I’ve never even been to America.’
‘Don’t you have any emigrants in the family?’
‘Well, yes… my grandfather’s two brothers. They set off across the sea in the early 1900s. One ended up in Boston and became quite wealthy; the other is supposed to have died on the street in Chicago. That’s the closest I can get.’
‘In that case, you can be an honorary homecomer,’ Bill said.
‘Thank you.’
‘People won’t ask you many questions anyway. They’ll just go on and on, like windmills. All they want to do is talk about their own stories and adventures.’
‘Then I’m happy to listen,’ Gerlof said.
The Homecomer
Everyone seemed to be carrying around their own little telephones these days. Everyone except the Homecomer. He had to rely on the public kiosks that still stood in the squares and picnic areas on the island, and he was standing in one of those kiosks right now.
He keyed in a number, and a hoarse male voice answered, sounding suspicious.
‘Hello?’
‘Wall?’
‘Yes …’
‘Do you know who this is?’
‘Yes …’
The arms dealer’s voice was slurred, as if he had been drinking all day.
‘I’d like to do some more business with you,’ the Homecomer said.
‘We need to sort out the last lot first,’ Wall said. ‘What the hell did you do with the ship?’
The Homecomer was silent.
‘Nothing that can be undone,’ he said eventually.
‘Exactly. Pecka called me yesterday; he was really shaken up. He told me you sank her.’
‘Yes. We had no choice … There was poison gas on board.’
Wall didn’t speak; the Homecomer heard him swigging something at the other end of the line, then he said, ‘So you want to come here and do some more business?’
‘Yes. And I’ve got money now.’
‘Tomorrow evening,’ Wall said.
The Homecomer put the phone down. He thought ab
out the bunker not far from Villa Kloss, then about a man he had once met, a man who had made rocks fly through the air.
The New Country, April 1932
‘We have to be prepared to make sacrifices,’ Sven says. ‘You do understand that, don’t you?’
Aron looks at his sore hands and says nothing. Sven’s hands are in just as bad a state as his own. The skin is cracked, the nails are coming away from the flesh, there are cuts along almost every finger. They’re actually quite lucky, because some of the other workers have already lost a couple of fingers. It’s the mud and the rocks that destroy the hands, the sticky mud that hides beneath the grass, keeping the rocks firmly in place. The workers stab at the ground with their spades, trying to gain some leverage, but the clay and the rocks refuse to give way.
Life in the new country consists only of sleep and work.
Every night they sleep in a kind of hut with twenty other men, or perhaps more, on beds that are not beds. Sven’s is made up of three empty boxes, while Aron’s slightly shorter one is a few planks of wood balanced on two sawhorses.
Every day is full of digging, from morning till night. Sven, Aron and the other immigrants are building a canal through the forests, or perhaps a wide ditch. Aron doesn’t really know which, he just keeps digging. There are poles in the ground to show where they have to dig, a straight line leading towards the mountains on the horizon, and Aron doesn’t think about the eventual goal. He just keeps toiling away with his spade, but over and over again it gets stuck in the unforgiving ground. He tugs, he pulls, he sobs. He digs and digs.
Winter turns to spring, and they carry on digging.
One day when the snow has melted, the work suddenly gets easier. An energetic man in a black cap arrives from the direction of the railway, pushing a cart containing some wooden boxes. He greets the workers with a cheery wave, and when he hears that some of them are Swedish he raises his hat to them.
‘Ruotsi!’ he says, using the Finnish name for Sweden before continuing in Swedish. ‘I come from Esbo in Finland, but I became a mining engineer and wanted to get out and see the world. This is a fantastic country, isn’t it?’
The Voices Beyond: (Oland Quartet Series 4) Page 14