Sail of Stone

by Ake Edwardson

  “What is your dad’s name?” he asked gently.

  “Ax … Axel,” she answered. “Axel Osvald.”

  Winter got up, took her cup and his own, put them away to create a distraction, another way of thinking.

  He went back to his chair and sat down.

  “What do you think?” he said. “What could have happened? What are you thinking right now?”

  “I think something has happened to him.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “There’s no other explanation for why he hasn’t contacted me by now.”

  Winter thought. Thought like a detective. It felt like an effort after all his other thoughts this summer, all his other plans.

  “Did he rent a car?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “But your father has a driver’s license?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of work does he do?”

  “He’s … a carpenter.”

  “That took you a moment,” said Winter.

  “Yes. He was a fisherman before, like everyone else in the Osvald family. And like almost everyone else on the island. But he quit.”

  Winter didn’t question this further. He continued:

  “Maybe he found something, met someone, and maybe it was somewhere other than in Inverness and he’ll contact you soon.”

  “Oh, it’s such a relief to hear you say that,” she said with sudden irony.

  “Well, what do you want me to do?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “Forgive me. I just thought that you would know.”

  “We can register a description of him with Interpol,” Winter said. “If you want to do that, I can help you.”

  “Interpol—that sounds so formal. Will it really get results? Isn’t there something else you can do?”

  “Listen, Johanna. It hasn’t been very long yet. There’s nothing to indicate that your dad is in danger. He could—”

  “How do you explain that letter, then?” she interrupted, nodding toward the letter that was still on the table.

  “I can’t explain it,” said Winter.

  “You think it’s some nutcase?”

  “Is that what you think?” asked Winter.

  “I don’t know what to think. I only know that Dad took the fact that he was going very seriously. Or maybe he learned something new, like I said before. And that it’s weird that he hasn’t contacted me.”

  Inverness. Winter got up and walked over to the map of Europe that hung on the wall facing the hall. Inverness, the northern point of the Highlands. He had been there, twenty years ago. Only one time, on his way through from north to south. He thought of the woman who was sitting behind him. It must have been the same summer …

  He considered this as he looked at the map. Yes, it could have been that summer, or right after it. An Indian summer like this one, in September. He had been on his way somewhere in his life, but he didn’t know where. He had decided to quit studying law after the survey course, because that survey was quite enough, thank you very much.

  He had worked as a sorter at the post office. That was before the inheritance from his grandfather, which changed a lot. He had said adiós to the letters and decided to travel in Great Britain because he had never been there. He wanted to do it right. He took the ferry to Newcastle and the northbound train all the way to Thurso and out to Dunnet Head, which was the northernmost point of the island nation, and then he traveled south by train and bus and thumb to the southernmost point, Lizard Point; it was a mission he’d assigned to himself, and he realized that this was what his life would be like forever after: He was on his way, but he never really knew how, and yet his uncertainty was methodical and planned.

  I haven’t allowed myself to have confidence in my uncertainty until now, he suddenly thought, and he looked at the name “Inverness” on the map again. He had stayed there for one night, at a B and B.

  There was one particular memory. He thought of that place. He remembered it now because he had gone from the station to the streets where all the B and Bs were, and it had been a long way there, at least that’s how he remembered it; longer than they’d told him at the tourist bureau at the station, and they had called a place he didn’t remember the name of and gotten him a room and then he walked, walked through the city center and over a bridge and through a new city center that looked like it came from a different civilization and into a neighborhood of small houses, houses of stone, granite, and to the left and to the right and straight ahead and to the left and right and right and right and left. You can’t miss it, dear. It was one of his first experiences with the peculiar people of Britain.

  He had looked for the name of the street his B and B was supposed to be on for so long that the name was forever archived deep in his memory. He also remembered it because he had been looking for a fancy avenue but hadn’t seen one, especially not when he found the right street: Ross Avenue. A street like any other.

  Winter turned to her with a feeling of wonder in his body.

  “Didn’t you say that his B and B was on Ross Avenue?”

  “Yes.”

  He turned back to the map.

  “I’ve been there,” he said. “I stayed in a B and B on Ross Avenue. For one night.”

  “How strange,” he heard her say.

  Winter didn’t want to say that it was then, that it was after that summer. He turned to her again. He had been struck by another thought.

  “I know someone from the Inverness area,” he said. “A colleague, actually.”

  Anette’s dad poured her a cup and placed it in her hand. His son had been standing by the window looking out, and then he left and continued carrying things.

  Aneta sat on a stool in the bare kitchen. The table was folded up and leaning against the wall.

  “Why did you decide to come here now?” Lindsten asked.

  “I was here the other day, and it didn’t look so good,” she answered.

  “What didn’t?”

  Aneta sipped her coffee, which was hot and strong.

  “The situation.”

  “Did the neighbors call?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “And it wasn’t the first time.”

  “But it was the last,” he said.

  “At least from here,” she said, looking around the kitchen. “From this place.”

  “No,” said Lindsten, and she saw the resolve in his face. “There will be no more times.” He drank from his cup, with the same resolve. She could see that the hot coffee hurt his throat.

  “Where is Anette now?” Aneta asked.

  He didn’t answer at first.

  “In a safe place,” he said after a bit.

  “Is she staying at your house?”

  “For the time being,” he said, and looked away.

  “Do you know where her husband is?”

  “No,” he answered.

  “What we’re discussing now is very important,” said Aneta. “From a general perspective, too. There are many women who are afraid of their husbands. Or their exes. Who try to stay away. Who must go into hiding. Or who sometimes hope for a change. Who stay.”

  “Well, that’s over with in this case,” said Lindsten.

  “Who rents the apartment?” asked Aneta.

  “It’s always been in Anette’s name,” he said. “There are two months left on the lease but that’s our treat, if I can say so. It will be empty.”

  “Have you spoken with the husband? Her husband?”

  “That damn bastard? He called yesterday and I told him to stay away.”

  “Will he?”

  “If he shows up at our house, I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop Peter from beating him up, and then we’d really have to deal with the police, wouldn’t we?”

  “Yes. That’s not a good way to go about it.”

  “He’d be getting a taste of his own medicine,” said Lindsten. “His own bitter medicine.”

  They heard
a box thud in the hall, a curse from Peter Lindsten. The dad motioned toward the hall with his head. “The difference would be that that devil would be dealing with someone his own size.”

  Forsblad, Hans Forsblad. That was the man’s name. Aneta had seen the name in the papers at the dispatch center, and later with her colleagues in Kortedala. The matter was on its way to the coordinator for the violence against women program.

  Forsblad’s name was very Swedish too, she thought—“rapids leaf”—it came from nature, and just like his wife’s it linked something with great power to infinite lightness. An airiness. Who stood for what? Should it be interpreted physically?

  “Doesn’t he have the keys to this place?” she asked.

  “We’ve changed the locks,” said Lindsten.

  “Where are his things?”

  “He knows where he can collect them,” said Lindsten.

  Somewhere where the sun doesn’t shine, thought Aneta.

  “So you’ve made him homeless.”

  Lindsten laughed suddenly, a laugh without joy.

  “He hasn’t stayed a night in this apartment for a damn long time,” he said. “He’s been here, it’s true. But only to … to …” And suddenly it was as though his face cracked and she saw his eyes fill and how he suddenly turned toward the window, as though he were ashamed of his behavior, but it wasn’t shame.

  “She didn’t have a restraining order,” said Aneta. “Unfortunately.”

  “As though it would help,” said Lindsten in a muffled voice, with his head lowered.

  “He could have been issued a restraining order if Anette had reported him,” said Aneta. “Or someone else. I could have made the decision myself, for the short term. I was prepared to do it now. That’s why I came here.”

  He looked up, his eyes still glistening.

  “It’s not a concern anymore,” he said, “none of it.”

  Suddenly it was as though the father didn’t believe his own words. She heard another thud in the hall, another curse. It was time for her to go. These people had a move to undertake, a departure that would lead to a new era in their lives. She truly hoped that it would be so for the woman whose face she had seen for only three seconds.

  “You know someone from there?” asked Johanna Osvald. She looked like she was about to get up. Winter remained standing by the map. “From Inverness?”

  “I think so.”

  “A colleague? You mean a policeman?”

  “Yes. He lives in London but he’s a Scot.”

  Winter thought, searched the archives of his memory. There were many corridors. He saw London, an inspector his own age with a Scottish accent, a picture of a beautiful wife and two beautiful children who were twins, the inspector’s face, which perhaps couldn’t be called beautiful, but was probably attractive to one who could judge such things.

  The face had an origin. A farm outside of Inverness. That’s what Steve had said. Winter looked at the map; it was of an impossibly large scale.

  “Steve Macdonald,” said Winter. “He’s from there.”

  “Do you mean that you could ask him?” said Johanna.

  “Yes,” said Winter.

  “He could probably check if Dad rented a car?” she said.

  “We can do that,” he said. “You can do it yourself.”

  “Yes, but if your colleague is from there maybe he knows someone who can … oh … check if it … no, I don’t know.” Now she was standing next to Winter, in front of the map. It seemed as though she didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to see any of the country that had played such a large and tumultuous role in the Osvald family’s lives. And might continue to do so, he thought.

  He felt her nearness, heard her breathing. At that second, he thought of how the years go by, a completely banal thought, but true.

  “If you want to know more, maybe Steve knows who we should ask,” said Winter, turning toward her.

  What am I getting roped into here? he thought. In normal cases, this conversation would have been finished before it started. Now it has almost become a case. An international case.

  5

  He stood at the summit. The church lay below him. He had prayed there sometimes, in earlier years, prayed to Jesus for his soul. The church was the only thing from the really old days that was still there in Newtown.

  When Lord and Lady moved the village in 1836, the church was allowed to remain where it was. It was from the 1300s, after all. That sounded like before all time, before the great sailing voyages. The great discoveries.

  Still, what a brutal story it was! Lord and Lady moved the village. They didn’t want it next to the castle.

  They didn’t want the railroad next to the castle.

  He could see the viaducts down there, clanging in the air from the bite of the wheels. They had to be built down there, far away from Lord and Lady. A superhuman act, but possible.

  Lord and Lady were gone now, like so much else here. The sea remained, but even that seemed to pull away, little by little each year. The trawlers ended up farther away during ebb, their shining bellies like jaws in the twilight, as though a school of killer whales had started to attack the city but had gotten stuck in the ebb.

  He stood above the docks. There was sulfur in the air. In the air, he thought: What seemed to be physical floated away in the wind.

  His hips hurt, more each day. He shouldn’t have walked, but he did. It was his body, after all. This was nothing. He knew what was something. He knew.

  When he came there for the first time, the city was the primary harbor for fishing fleets along this part of the coast, south of Moray Firth.

  Bigger than Keith, Huntly; even bigger than Buckie.

  The Buckie boys are back in town.

  He didn’t stay long that time. It was when he still didn’t know who he was or where he was. That’s how it had been. Like a blindness. He knew now that he had walked and stood and talked then, but he hadn’t been aware of it.

  It could make him scream at night. He could be awoken by his own screams and discover that he was sitting straight up in bed in the ice-cold room with his own breath like a white cone before him. The scream was caught in that breath. It was a dreadful feeling, dreadful. His whole throat felt mangled, as though it had been squeezed in an iron grip. What had he screamed? Who had heard him? He had gone out into the street but hadn’t seen any movement behind the black windows in the house on the other side.

  No one had heard him.

  He had seen the light from the city above, only a few lights.

  He had thought of her then, briefly.

  He had seen the telephone booth that shone in the fog. It never rang.

  He would ask her.

  She would do it.

  She had done as he’d asked.

  Now he was no longer certain.

  She had looked at him last time with an expression he didn’t recognize.

  He hadn’t asked.

  He left the harbor behind him and walked through Seatown. The houses clung to one another, squatting under the viaducts. He walked toward his house through the streets that didn’t have names. This is where the streets have no names, he thought. He often thought in English, almost always.

  Sometimes there might be a fragment of the old language, but it was only when he was very upset. There were only two other places where the streets had no names, and those were heaven and hell.

  He had been to both places. Now he was traveling between them.

  The houses had numbers, apparently without any order. Number seven stood beside number twenty-five, six beside thirty-eight. He lived in the black house, at the southern gables. It was number fourteen. That meant that the house had been the fourteenth one built in Seatown. That was the system here. His was the only black house.

  6

  Fredrik Halders lay on the sofa with his feet on its arm. An odd lamp hung from the ceiling above the sofa. Or maybe it was his perspective.

  “Have I seen that lamp before?”
he asked, pointing up.

  “That’s a question you probably have to ask yourself,” said Aneta Djanali from the floor, where she was sitting and leaning over some photographs.

  Halders giggled; at least that’s how it sounded to Aneta’s ears.

  He tried to turn his head from his supine position, but that was a mistake. His neck would never be the same again. He had taken a blow once when he was being a bigger idiot than usual, and it could have been his last mistake. He would never regain his original bull neck. That was just as well. Everyone knew what happened with bull necks in the end.

  “Is it from Africa?” he asked.

  “What do you think?” she asked, without looking up.

  He studied the underside of the lamp again. It had a pointed base and something else above that was green.

  “It’s from Africa,” he said.

  “Good, Fredrik.”

  He applauded himself. That was called Chinese clapping.

  “Can you guess from which country?” He heard Aneta’s voice from the floor. “And to make it harder I want to know what the country was called before what it’s called now.”

  “That is a tricky question,” he said.

  “I realize that.”

  She was aware of the level of difficulty. They had talked about her homeland only three times per hour every day since they started working together and since they started to see each other during their free time. Speaking of talking. It was Fredrik who kept on talking about her exotic origins and her wonderful homeland, which he pretended not to be able to find on any map of the world, but which he, under all the talking, kept close tabs on, just as he actually kept close tabs on most things, under his tough exterior.

  “This country’s former name starts with the letter u,” she said.

  “Uuuuuh …,” he said.

  “Yes, that’s a good start,” she said.

  “Ukraine,” he said.

  “That’s not in Africa,” she said.

  “Well, shit.”

  “The second letter is p,” she said.

  “Uuu … Upper Silesia!” he shouted at the ceiling.