Sail of Stone

by Ake Edwardson

  “Who the hell wants to live here?”

  “Your daughter, for one.”

  She turned her head and looked at him. He didn’t look at her. They had to stop at a roadblock. A soldier held up his hand, waving with his Uzi. No. A concrete worker showed them the way around with a spade. There was a rumble in the near distance. There were marks on the finish of a car that was parked behind the worker. The blast mats had been made of wide mesh. Stones fell from the sky.

  “It was a mistake,” said Lindsten.

  “That she moved here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did they move here, anyway?”

  “Back,” said Lindsten.

  “Sorry?”

  “They moved back. She and … Forsblad,” said Lindsten, and she heard how much trouble he had saying the name. He spat it out quickly. He rubbed his mouth. “The fact is that we lived here before we moved down to Fredriksdal.” He looked at her now. “This is like the home district of the Lindsten family.” He let out a laugh, a metallic sort of laugh that sounded heavy and hopeless. Heavy metal, thought Aneta. “It hasn’t always looked like this. It might never have been beautiful, but there was something else here, some vital culture around the factories.” He turned his head. “This is also some sort of native district.”

  She nodded.

  “Everything revolved around the factories.” He hacked out a laugh again; it scratched like iron filings. “And they revolved around us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, there wasn’t really anyone who thought about escaping.”

  “You did.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that how you look at it? As an escape?”

  “No.”

  “Why did you move, then?”

  “Well, my wife inherited some money and she wanted to live in her own house and she’s from down by Mölndal.”

  So that’s how it is, thought Aneta. The listener can fill in the rest.

  “When Anette was going to move away from home—it was several years ago—at the same time, an apartment that one of my cousins had been renting became available, and, well, it could be worked out.”

  “It’s quite a ways from home,” said Aneta.

  “She thought it was exciting. That’s what she said, anyway.”

  “Did she and Forsblad move in together right away?”

  “No.”

  “Were they together?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you think of them moving in together?”

  Lindsten turned to her again.

  “Do we have to talk about that damned Forsblad the whole time?”

  “Don’t you think about him? The whole time?”

  Lindsten didn’t answer.

  “When did you last speak to him?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Repressed?”

  “What?”

  “Maybe you’ve repressed it?” she said.

  “Repressed … yes … repressed. Yes. I have.”

  She could see that Lindsten had gotten a different expression on his face. He seemed to relax. It was something she’d said. What had she said? That he’d repressed the memory of his daughter’s husband?

  Later she would need to remember this conversation. Perhaps it would be too late then.

  They sped away from the powdery construction smoke and drove up in front of the building, which was made of one enormous section.

  Lindsten suddenly picked up the conversation from before. “Huge fucking monsters like this didn’t exist then. They were built later, when they thought that they could shove half a million slaves into a ghetto.” He looked up, as though he were trying to see the roof of the building. “First they built those piles of shit, and now they’re tearing them down. Ha!”

  She stopped in front of the door. A marked car was parked there. A colleague stepped out; one remained inside.

  “Cleaned out,” said the woman who had gotten out. Aneta didn’t recognize her.

  “Cleaned out as in cleaned out?” said Aneta.

  “Sure is.”

  Aneta and Lindsten went up in the elevator, which seemed newer than the rest of the building.

  “I have to ask you one more thing,” she said. “Has Anette been back here since she decided to move?”

  “Now I don’t understand.”

  “When she moved back home with you, did she come here any time after that? To get anything or something like that? To check on the apartment?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Damn it, of course I’m sure. She didn’t dare to come back here, for Christ’s sake!”

  “No one was going to take over the lease?”

  “No.”

  “A relative or something?”

  “No.”

  “Really?”

  “She didn’t own it, for Christ’s sake. And these days it’s even harder to work things like that out than it was before.”

  During their trip to the apartment she had tried to describe the two men to Lindsten. It hadn’t been of any help to her, or him. Could be any old bastard at all, any scoundrel at all. He had made a gesture in the air, as though he were sketching a face.

  They stepped out of the elevator and went to the apartment door. Aneta opened it with keys she’d gotten from her colleague. There were two locks.

  The apartment was cleaned out.

  “Well,” said Lindsten.

  “Why didn’t you move all her things when Anette moved?” she asked.

  “We were going to do it next week,” said Lindsten. He took a few steps into the hall. “Now that’s not necessary.”

  Detective Lars Bergenhem chased burglars, or the shadows of them. A wave of burglaries was washing over Gothenburg. That’s how the chief inspector at CID command had put it: a wave of burglaries.

  Homes were emptied, cleared out. Where did all their things go? There must have been space somewhere in the city for everything that was stolen. Not everything could join the camel caravan to the Continent.

  It was a search, as though in circles.

  Bergenhem was used to driving in circles; that’s what he did with the portion of his free time that felt more forced, like a compulsion, than it did free. He drove back and forth.

  What’s going on? he had thought more than once. What’s going on with me? What’s going on with my life?

  I should be happy, what they call happy, or secure, what they call secure.

  He worked overtime. He didn’t need to, but he might as well have: He drove around town on the thoroughfares and he was paid for it when he was on duty.

  Am I someone else? he sometimes thought. Am I on my way to becoming someone else?

  Martina’s face had become darker and darker. Concerned, maybe.

  Ada’s face was still bright; she didn’t understand, didn’t understand yet. That was possibly the worst part: How could he sit here, out on the streets, when his little daughter was there at home?

  They hadn’t spoken, he and Martina. She had tried; he had not tried.

  He continued to chase burglars. He drove to the sea; they weren’t there. He could drive down to Hjuvik and just stand there. It wasn’t far from home, but it still seemed like the other side of the water.

  He could get out of the car and go down to the beach and try to see his reflection in the water if it was calm.

  Who am I?

  What is it all about?

  Who are you?

  He saw his face from a strange angle. Maybe it was more real.

  In the car on the way home, he tried to think back. He had always carried a restlessness within him, as far back as he could remember. But this was more than restlessness, worse than regular restlessness.

  Or maybe it’s just that I can’t live with anyone.

  But it’s not just that.

  Do I need drugs? If I need drugs like that I have to talk to a brain doctor first.

  Do I need somet
hing else?

  When he parked in the carport, he didn’t know if he wanted to get out of the car or stay in it.

  Is this what they call being burned out? he thought.

  He heard sounds against the window. He saw small fingers. He saw Ada.

  12

  In the morning, Winter called Johanna Osvald’s number, but she didn’t answer; no one answered. There was no answering machine.

  It was Saturday. He had the day off. There had been a suspected case of manslaughter or possibly homicide on Tuesday night, but it wasn’t a case for him and hardly for any other detective either. The deceased and the perpetrator had both been identified and linked to each other both figuratively and literally, by matrimony among other things. Till death do us part. Some people certainly take that seriously, a detective had said this past week, and then wanted to bite off his tongue when he saw that Halders was sitting there with the remains of his personal grief. But Halders had just said, It doesn’t matter, Birkman, I have been like that myself.

  Till death do us part.

  It was more than just words.

  Winter had proposed to Angela and she had said yes: Are you finally going to make an honest woman out of me?

  That had been some time ago. She hadn’t said anything more, and neither had he.

  Now you have to take responsibility, Winter. You can’t just talk about things like that. It’s a big responsibility, and you have to take it.

  He drove south. The sun was on its way up. It was still early morning, and a transparent haze was in the air.

  Go ahead, Angela had said. If it will really help. I really hope it helps.

  On Monday they had to settle the deal. Okay. He would settle it, clinch it, get the ball rolling. It was just a piece of land. They wouldn’t move there right away. He had promised, or whatever it was called … offered his decision, a future, yes indeed, the everlasting future up until. Until.

  Decisions like this were heavy as stones. You couldn’t release them just any way, at any time.

  The sun began to hit just right between the roofs of the houses on the field outside of Askim. He pushed in the CD. It was Angela’s disc and it was Bruce Springsteen. He had given the guy a few chances and he was worth it. Springsteen was not John Coltrane, and he didn’t pretend to be, either. But Springsteen’s melodies were filled with pain and a melancholy light that Winter appreciated. There was almost always death there, just like in his life. Springsteen sang nakedly:

  Well now, everything dies, baby, that’s a fact.

  Fact. Dead. That is my job. Sometimes in that order, most often the opposite.

  But maybe everything that dies someday comes back.

  Not always as you’d like. But death comes back in a new cloak. But is it life, then?

  Everything floated up, returned in a new guise. Nothing could be hidden.

  Sooner or later.

  Even secrets that lie on the bottom of the sea don’t stay. He drove past the swimming beach. All the parking lots were empty and there were no bikes. He caught a glimpse of the sea, but it was empty too, rolling in toward the end of the season. Not even on the bottom of the sea. He dialed Johanna Osvald’s number again. No answer. That didn’t ease his worry, not enough to forget it. He felt that he had betrayed something or someone when he hadn’t answered, hadn’t answered the first time. At first it had felt good, but now it didn’t feel good. What had he betrayed? His duty? Himself?

  For Christ’s sake, you don’t need to chase after adventure.

  The mystery will come to you when it’s become a mystery.

  Do you chase after crime? Are you calling because you want affirmation?

  What’s the next step? Are you going to take out an ad in the paper?

  Wanted: crime. Contact the eager inspector.

  The obsessed inspector.

  Everybody’s got a hungry heart.

  No, no. Come on.

  He turned off the impassioned Springsteen on his way from one relationship to the potential other one. He had arrived. The sea rolled gently and heavily like before. He got out of the car, left it in the stand of trees. The grass was still equally green on both sides of the path he and Angela and Elsa had recently made. They had trampled it down as though it would always be there.

  He stood at the edge of the beach. He took off his shoes and walked into the water, which was cold but became warm. He turned around and looked across the field. He closed his eyes and saw the house; it could be standing there within a year, maybe even sooner. Would he be happy there? Here. What would it involve, living a life so close to the sea? Could it involve anything other than something positive?

  He turned toward the water again. He thought of the conversation he’d had in his office with Johanna Osvald. She had lived close to the sea, much closer than he would ever get. Her entire family. Not just close to the sea, on the sea. The sea had been their life, was their life. Life and death. Death was real in a different way for fishing families; he thought he understood that much. A working life of hazards, a life of worry for those who stayed home.

  It must have been very dangerous before. The war. The mine barriers, the U-boats, the destroyers, the coast guard. The storms, the waves, the collisions, the crush injuries, the pressure from all directions. It must have been a very great pressure. How did they handle it?

  The colleagues. What sort of life did they live together?

  He had listened to Johanna Osvald and he started to understand what she had really been talking about. Behind her words there was an unease that he had not been able to understand but that he thought of now. A fear that had been passed down from generation to generation to generation.

  He sat down in the sand, which was still warm after the summer. He heard two seagulls laughing at some inside joke. He could see them now, on approach to his land, soon to be his land. Were they part of the deal? Was that what they were having such a damn good time about? Now they were laughing again, belly-landing elegantly on the path, taking off again, rattling out another laugh in his direction, returning to the winds in the bay and gliding out toward the sea. He followed them with his gaze until they disappeared and he could see only the contours of the islands in the southern archipelago. He got out his phone again and called right across the bay to those islands, but no one answered this time either.

  Johanna had been the most beautiful person he had seen up to then. She was dark like no one else, as though she came from a different group of people, which was of course true in a way.

  He had met her brother, but he was already on his way out to sea in earnest. His name was Erik, too.

  Johanna hadn’t mentioned him when she came to see Winter.

  He and Erik had drunk a beer down at Brännö pier one time, but they never went up to join the dancing. They had spoken, but Winter didn’t remember about what. He remembered that Erik hadn’t cursed. He remembered that he’d talked to Johanna about it. No one on the islands cursed, ever. There were no curses there.

  Life could be hard, but it wasn’t necessary to reinforce that fact with words.

  He remembered that the Mission Covenant Church was important for the people on the islands, and it became more important the closer they lived to the open sea. Vrångö farthest out. And Donsö. Donsö in particular, she had said, and laughed a laugh that glimmered like the crests of waves around them where they lay on the cliffs on southern Styrsö, looking out over the more God-fearing island on the other side of the sound.

  Then she had sat atop him and started to move, slowly, and then faster and faster. The church may have guided her life as well, but she was still just a person, sinful like him.

  In the car on the way home his phone suddenly blared from its place on the dash.

  “Yes?”

  Möllerström again, always Möllerström.

  “She called again. You obviously haven’t contacted her.”

  “I haven’t done anything but!”

  “Okay.”

  “Ar
e you in the office?” asked Winter.

  “Where else?” said Möllerström.

  “Can she be reached at this number I got before?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thanks, Janne. And take a vacation now.”

  Möllerström hung up without saying anything more. Winter called again, a number he now thought he would never forget. She answered after the first ring.

  13

  He came back with trembling hands.

  He prayed.

  Jesus!

  Outside, a child biked by. He went to the window. There was a wind from the sea. The wind tugged at the child’s hair, which was black. There were no blond children here. He had thought about that. No blue eyes, no blond hair. Not like on the other side. Why was it like that? It was the same sky, the same sea.

  The other place was only a night and a day away, in navigable weather. Maybe it went even faster now. No minefields.

  He could see a ferry now and then, when the hard winds forced the vessels closer to land. They were too far north, sometimes too far south. He didn’t know where they were going, and he didn’t care.

  He was finished with the sea.

  He lived next to it, but never on it, or off it, never again.

  He had been on board when the trawler went under. He carried what had happened with him. What he himself had done. His guilt. The thing that could never be forgiven. He had been there. He knew more than anyone else.

  There was no one else left.

  Jesus had not been able to forgive him.

  But ’tis strange:

  And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

  The instruments of darkness tell us truths,

  Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s

  In deepest consequence.

  He felt the sea in his face as he walked across the breakwater. He had salt in his face that would never leave his skin. What hit his face now didn’t stick, but it wasn’t because he washed it away. The wind took it.

  He had sores all over his body.

  The eczema from the oilcloth had dried and turned into scars all over his body, like patterns.

  Like a map of his life at sea. Yes.