Part 3 (1/2)

CHAPTER 57.

She opened the door.When she recognised his face she stepped to one side. No sooner had he entered the cottage than he wanted to turn and run out again. It was as if he had been enticed into a trap that he had set for himself. What was there for him to do here? This is madness, he thought, but a madness that I have been longing for.She put a stool in front of the open fire.'The storm blew up unexpectedly,' he said, holding his hands towards the fire.'Storms always blow up unexpectedly,' she said.She was keeping her face in the shadow, away from the fire.'I was out rowing and didn't manage to get back to the s.h.i.+p. I took shelter here in the inlet.''They'll think you've been drowned.''I had a smoke grenade with me that I fired. So they'll know I'm here, on Halsskar.' He wondered if she knew what a smoke grenade was, but she did not ask him to explain.She was wearing the grey skirt. Her hair was loosely tied at the back of her head, thick locks tumbled over her cheeks. When she handed him a cup, he wanted to take hold of her.The coffee was bitter, full of grounds. She was still keeping in the shadows.'You can stay here, of course,' she said from the darkness. 'I wouldn't turn anybody away in weather like this. But don't expect anything.'She sat on the bunk along the wall. It seemed to him that she was concealing herself in the darkness, like an animal.'I read in an old tax register that people used to live on this island,' he said. 'One, possibly two families settled here. But in the end it became too hard for them, and the skerry was uninhabited from then on.'She did not reply. The wind was cras.h.i.+ng into the walls. The cottage was draughty, although he could see that she had tried to fill the gaps in the walls.'I can remember word for word what it said in that tax register,' he said. 'Maybe it wasn't a tax register, but rather an official letter from an enforcement officer. I think his name might have been Fahlstedt.' He recited from memory: ”'They live on a barren skerry at the mercy of the sea, they are blessed with neither fields, meadows nor forest, but compelled to derive from the open sea, many a time in peril for their lives, all things they eat and require for apparel, or otherwise are in need of.”''It sounds like a prayer,' she said. 'Like a priest.'She was still in the dark, but her voice had come closer. Her voice had that special timbre that comes from being at sea and shouting from boat to boat, shouting in gales and headwinds. Her dialect was less p.r.o.nounced than he had heard in others from these parts. There were sailors on board the Blenda Blenda who came from this section of the archipelago, one from Grasmaro, and another was the son of a pilot from Haradskar. There was also a stoker from Kattilo and he spoke exactly as she did, like the voice from the dark. who came from this section of the archipelago, one from Grasmaro, and another was the son of a pilot from Haradskar. There was also a stoker from Kattilo and he spoke exactly as she did, like the voice from the dark.Suddenly she emerged from the darkness. She was still sitting on the bunk, but she leaned forward and looked him in the eye. He was not used to that, his wife never did that. He looked away.'Lars Tobia.s.son-Svartman,' she said. 'You are a naval officer and wear a uniform. You row around in stormy weather. You have a ring. You are married.''My wife is dead.'It sounded perfectly natural, not the least bit strained. He had not planned to say that, but on the other hand, he was not surprised at it. An imagined sorrowful event became reality. Kristina Tacker had no place in this cottage. She belonged to another life that he was keeping at a distance, as if looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope.'My wife Kristina is dead,' he said again, and thought that it still sounded as if he were telling the truth. 'She died two years ago. It was an accident. She fell.'How had she fallen? And where? How could he bring about the most meaningless of deaths? He decided to throw her over a cliff. The woman sitting here in the darkness would understand that. But he couldn't let her die alone. Inspiration was flooding into him with irrestible force.She would have a child with her, a daughter. What should he call her? She must have a name that was worthy of her. He would call her Laura. That was the name of Kristina Tacker's sister, who had died young, coughing her lungs away with tuberculosis, Laura Amalia Tacker. The dead gave the living their names.'We were travelling in Skne. At Hovs Hallar, with our daughter Laura. She was six years old, an angel of a girl. My wife stumbled on the edge of the cliff, and happened to b.u.mp into our daughter, and they went hurtling down. I couldn't reach them in time. I shall never forget their screams. My wife broke her neck in the fall, and a sharp piece of rock dug deep into my daughter's head. She was still alive when they raised her up the cliff. She looked at me, as if accusing me, then died.''How can you bear such sorrow?''You bear it because you have to.'She put some cut branches into the fire. The flames seemed to gather strength from the green wood.He noticed that he was enticing her closer. It was as if he were directing all her movements. He could see her face now. Her eyes were less watchful.It had been very easy to kill his wife and his daughter.The storm was roaring into the cottage walls. There was a long way to go before it reached its culmination.

PART IV.

Autumn, Winter, Loneliness

CHAPTER 58.

Their conversations were spasmodic.He was close to her all the time in the cramped room, but it felt to him as if the distance between them grew.Late in the afternoon she stood up and left the cottage. He made no move, but glanced surrept.i.tiously at the window. He expected her to be standing there, watching him.The window was empty.He did not understand it. She was not behaving as she ought to have done. All the time when he was growing up he had kept his parents under constant observation. He would peer furtively through half-closed doors or use mirrors to see unnoticed into rooms where his parents were, together or alone or with others. In his imagination he bored invisible holes in the upstairs floor of the house they lived in at Skeppsbron, so that he could see down into his father's office.He had learned not to reveal his presence when he listened to their angry exchanges, watched them drinking themselves silly or, as was often the case with his mother, sitting alone, sobbing.His mother always wept silently. Her tears seemed to tiptoe out of her eyes.These memories shot through his mind, one after the other. He walked to the window, which was coated in a thin layer of salt spray.He caught a glimpse of her walking along the path to the inlet. He a.s.sumed that she wanted to make sure her boat was securely moored.He looked around the room. She had just put more wood on the fire. It smelled of juniper. The light from the flames danced round the walls. In one of them was a low door, closed. He tried the handle. It was not locked and led into a windowless closet. In one corner were a few wooden barrels; sheep shears and broken carding combs were scattered on the floor as well as some folded sacks for flour. On one of the walls hung a herring net, half finished. He made a mental inventory of the room and its contents, as if it were important to remember every detail.Sara Fredrika still had not returned. In the big room was a corner cupboard, rickety, with rusty hinges. Did he dare to open it? Would the door fall off if he did? He pressed his hand against the cupboard frame and turned the key.On the only shelf were two objects: a hymn book and a pipe. The pipe was similar to the one Lieutenant Jakobsson usually had in his mouth. He picked it up and sniffed at it. It seemed not to have been used for a long time. The remains of the burned tobacco were rock hard. It still smelled of old tar. He put the pipe down, eyed the hymn book without touching it, then closed the door.He squatted down and felt under the bed. There was something there. He could feel that it was an old-fas.h.i.+oned shotgun, but he did not take it out. He pressed his face against the pillow, trying to find traces of her smell. All he could feel was that the pillow was damp.Damp loneliness, he thought. That's her fragrance. The thought excited him.There had been a man in the house, a man who had left behind a well-used pipe and an old shotgun. Perhaps he was not gone altogether. Perhaps he was away selling fish in Slatbaken on the way to Soderkoping. Autumn was ending, and there were markets all over Sweden.The storm was still battering the walls. He tried to imagine the man, but was unable to give him a face.The door flew open. Sara Fredrika was back. The cold wind rushed into the room.'I went to check the boats,' she said. 'I've never seen one like yours before.''It's a tender. We have four of them, in case we need to abandon s.h.i.+p. And we also have two quite big launches. If the s.h.i.+p starts to sink, n.o.body need be left behind. You may find it hard to believe, but the tender is cla.s.sified as a wars.h.i.+p.'She poked at the fire. Her movements were precise and purposeful, he noticed, but she was trying to conceal a degree of worry or impatience. She sat down on the bunk. The fire was blazing away again, and he could see her clearly. Something was welling up inside him that he could not put his finger on. Somehow or other he felt tricked, deceived. The pipe in the corner cupboard belonged to somebody who had been in this cottage, who might even have built it, who had shared her bed and who might come back.He eyed her as he had looked at the sailor with the snotty nose. He wanted to hit her. Quickly he moved his stool back to avoid that happening. In order to have something to say he said: 'Do you not have any animals? I thought I saw a cat with bluish-grey fur. If there is such a thing as a cat with a touch of blue in its fur.''There are no animals here.''Not even a cat?''I wouldn't mind having a dog that could swim out and fetch the birds I shoot.''But I thought I saw a cat?''There is no cat. I know what there is on this skerry. There are two adders, one male and one female. I kill the young ones every spring. Maybe I ought to let one or two live so that the skerry doesn't become snakeless if the parents upped and died or are caught by an eagle. There was a fox here once.'She pointed to a fox fur lying on a bench.'Had it swum here?''Sometimes the winters are so cold and long that ice forms on the sea even as far out as this, and occasionally further as far as the outermost herring grounds. That's when the fox came. It stayed when the ice melted. I shot it through the door when it was scavenging for food. It had seaweed and bits of stone in its stomach. I think it had gone mad and started chewing stones in desperation. I suppose it's worse for a fox than for a person to be all alone. But it may be easier for animals to do away with themselves.''Why?' he said, surprised.'They have no G.o.d to be afraid of. Unlike me.'He hoped she would start talking about herself. He did not care about the snakes and the fox. But she kept on about the animals.'Seals sometimes bask on the reefs north-west of Sandsankan if it gets too crowded on their usual rocks. Occasionally a seal comes ash.o.r.e here. But there are no animals apart from those. I think this is the only skerry out here where there aren't any ants. I don't know why.''I see no sign of a rifle,' he said. 'But you say you shot a fox?'She pointed under the bed she was sitting on.'I have a shotgun. And crampons for my boots. And also a seal club. My father made it. He was born in 1851 and died when I was a little girl. No picture of him exists, nothing. A photographer from Norrkoping visited the islands in the 1890s, but my father didn't want to have his picture taken. He ran away and hid in a rock crevice somewhere. Some of the old men out here used to believe they would lose the ability to aim straight at seabirds if they had their photo taken. There was a lot of superst.i.tion in the archipelago when I was a girl. That seal club is the only thing I have that belonged to my father. A club covered in dried seal blood instead of a face.'He tried cautiously to wheedle out an answer to what really interested him.'Are there any other people on this skerry?''Not any more. There used to be.''That's hard to understand.''Understand what? That anybody would stay here? I've stayed here. But there'll be no one when I've gone. When I leave, the island will revert to what it used to be. The snakes will be able to live in peace. They might multiply. There might be so many of them that no humans will dare to land here any more. Once, a long time ago, people rowed out to here. They used their ribs as oars. Now they've all gone. Even the stones that were carried up here from the sh.o.r.e to make the foundations for the houses have started to go away. I go out and look at them. It's like trying to watch the elevation of the land. You would have to stand in the same place for very many years to check if the land really was rising. It's the same with the stones they lugged up here, the first of the people who came to the skerry hundreds of years ago. Now the stones are slowly sliding back again, to the places they were taken from.'He listened in astonishment. Ribs used as oars? Stones that move? What was she talking about?'I'm not used to people,' she said. 'Not since I became alone.''Why do you live here on your own?''Is there more than one answer?''Either you have chosen to do so, or you haven't.''Who would choose loneliness?''Some people would. You can shut yourself away in a house, but you can also do it on an island where the sea is a sort of terrifying moat.''I don't understand that. I'm twenty-seven years old, nothing can scare me any more.''I just wonder what happened.'A ma.s.sive gust of wind shook the cottage to its foundations.'One of these days it can simply collapse,' she shouted, in a sudden burst of emotion. 'I'll let it fall to bits all round me.'She went on talking, in long sentences. She expressed herself clearly, as only people who talk a lot to themselves can. Afterwards, when she had fallen silent, abruptly, as if she regretted having spoken, he realised that he could no longer hear the wind. Had the storm blown over so soon?He listened. She had shrunk back into the shadows again.Then the wind started once more.She had spoken without hesitation, known in detail exactly what she wanted to say. It was as if she had told the story many times, but only to herself, the story of why she was alone on Halsskar. Or perhaps, in the evenings, in the darkness, she had practised so that she could tell the story to somebody she hoped might one day come to the skerry.He had the feeling that he had come to Halsskar for one specific reason. He had come so that she would have somebody to listen to her.

CHAPTER 59.

The man whose pipe was here was called Nils Ferdinand Persson.He had been Sara Fredrika's husband.The story began several years ago when they were newly married and worked as domestic servants for a relative of hers, Axel Theodor Homeros Lundberg. He was well-to-do, owned farms in both Gusum and in the archipelago near Finno and as far north as Riso. They did not enjoy working for Lundberg. He was miserly and vindictive, and the only things he seemed to like were his riding boots, which he was forever treating with seal fat. No one was allowed to touch them, not even his wife, who was scared stiff of getting a beating. They stuck it for a year, but left in acrimonious circ.u.mstances and went to live on one of the islands near Turmulefjarden. It was a very poor smallholding, but at least there was n.o.body there polis.h.i.+ng boots and shouting at them. They stayed there for a year, then heard that there was an abandoned cottage on Halsskar. They were able to secure the lease cheaply, for practically nothing a barrel of herring every spring and autumn, that was all.They sailed out to Halsskar one chilly Sunday in March. It had been a severe winter and the ice had not altogether loosened its grip. Her husband said that nothing could be worse than loud-mouthed gentleman farmers. Houses could be made windproof, nets and drift nets could be patched up and repaired, but n.o.body could shut the mouth of a gentleman farmer who bellowed and yelled.They moved in as summer approached, made repairs on the house and started to prepare for whatever was in store: autumn, winter, ice, isolation.Every now and then farmers from the inner archipelago would appear, sailing along the channel known as Marsfjarden that led to Halsskar and Krampbdorna. They were heading for the herring fis.h.i.+ng grounds or shooting birds, and were astonished to see Sara Fredrika and her husband. Hadn't Halsskar been abandoned a century ago? In 1807 an old spinster lived there, but she froze to death and was pecked to the bone by gulls and crows. Ever since then the skerry had been uninhabited. The outhouses had collapsed, the jetties in the inlet had rotted away and the houses that could be dismantled were moved, plank by plank, to the green islands closer to the mainland.It was said that Nils Ferdinand Persson and his wife Sara Fredrika had their noses in the air, and people with noses in the air ire the first to fall.They were also visited by people from land and Finland, who were hunting seals illegally. They would shake their heads and shout warnings to them in their incomprehensible language.Autumn arrived in September. The first storm was quite unexpected, it blew in from the east in the middle of the night and it was sheer luck that they did not have any nets out. They soon learned their lesson, and every day as night closed in they would keep a close eye on the sea, and try to identify signs indicating that dangerous winds might be approaching.In November one of the sheep they had two, but no cow slipped from a rock and broke its leg. Then the surviving one died, and they were even more isolated, if that were possible.On the morning of Christmas Day, six months after they had settled on the skerry, catastrophe struck. They had laid out nets a few days earlier when the weather was cold and clear with virtually no wind, just a gentle breeze from the south. The nets were in two shallows and did not need too many heavy stones to anchor them. They had experienced good catches there ever since early December. As the shallows had no name, Nils Ferdinand christened one of them Sara Rocks and the other Fredrika Shallows.The storm came late on Christmas Eve. It attacked from the south, charging towards them with a dense blizzard as the first line of a.s.sault. When dawn came it was obvious that if they were not to lose their nets they would have to go out and take them in. The winds were storm force, but that couldn't be helped, they had no choice. They launched the boat and managed to haul in one of the nets. Then came a colossal wave that crashed into the starboard side of the boat and capsized it.When she managed to get out of the floating coffin she saw her husband. He had become enmeshed in the net he had been trying to take in, and it was writhing around him like a sea monster. He fought and screamed, but was dragged down and she was unable to do anything except cling to an oar and the stern seat that had broken loose, struggle back to land and crawl to the cottage, half frozen.That was her story. She had hewn it from deep inside her as if sculpting a block of stone with violent blows from a chisel. A block of stone, a headstone for her husband.She said no more. It was getting dark when she finished. The shadows were lengthening.He sat on his stool and watched while she made a soup. They ate in silence.Tobia.s.son-Svartman thought: It must be like staring straight into h.e.l.l, watching somebody you love die screaming.

CHAPTER 60.

That night he lay on the floor close to the fire.His 'bed' comprised the pelt of the mad fox, some rag mats and sealskins. His 'pillow' was some logs of wood covered by his sweater. He spread the oilskin coat over him and worried that the draught would make him ill.She had offered him the bunk. For one intoxicating moment he had thought she was inviting him to share it with her. Did she suspect what he was thinking? He could not be sure. She stroked her hair away from her face and asked him again. He shook his head, he could sleep on the floor.She wrapped herself up in a thick quilt that he a.s.sumed was stuffed with feathers from the birds she had shot. She turned her back to him. Her breathing became deeper. She was asleep. When he adjusted the logs under his head he could hear that she had woken up, listened, then gone back to sleep.I am not a danger as far as she is concerned, he thought. I'm not a temptation, I'm nothing.The embers in the fire died down. He opened his pocket watch and managed with difficulty to make out the hands. It was half past nine. The cold from the floor had already started to penetrate through the skins.The storm was still raging. The wind came and went in powerful gusts.

CHAPTER 61.

His thoughts wandered to his wife moving around in their warm flat in Wallingatan. No doubt she was still awake. Last thing at night she would usually walk around from room to room, smoothing the heavy curtains in the windows, adjusting cloths and covers, straightening out a crease in a carpet.He worked out distances, lived by checking where he was in relation to others. His wife looked for irregularities, in order to put them right. Before shutting the bedroom door behind her she would check that the flat's front door was locked and that the maid had put the light out in her room behind the kitchen.He realised that he was having difficulty in picturing her face here in the darkness. It was in the shadowy part of his memory, he could not get through to her. Nor could he conjure up her voice, that tense, slightly harsh tone with just a hint of a lisp, barely noticeable.He sat up. The woman in the bunk gave a snore. He held his breath.'I love my wife,' he whispered softly, 'but also the woman in the bunk next to me. Or at least, I desire her and am jealous of the man who died screaming, tangled up in a herring net. I hate that accursed pipe she keeps hidden in her cupboard.'Again he was tempted to creep into her bed. Perhaps that was what she expected, perhaps he had not grasped her intention when she spread the skins out on the floor. Perhaps something he could never have imagined was in store for him in this draughty little cottage.He recalled with dismay his and Kristina Tacker's wedding night. They had spent it in a hotel, one of the suites at the Grand Hotel, paid for by her rich father. They had groped after each other in the darkness, tried to ignore each other's angst over what was about to happen. All he had hitherto experienced was some torn and well-thumbed photographs, which had been pa.s.sed round furtively in various wardrooms, pictures taken in French photo studios. They showed fat women, their legs wide apart and their mouths open wide, with stuffed lion heads on the walls behind them. And he had undergone a degrading experience in a squalid room in Nyhavn. He was serving as a cadet on board the Loke, Loke, an old frigate that was due for the sc.r.a.pyard but was making an official naval visit to Copenhagen. One evening he was off duty and got drunk in several harbourside cafes, together with the s.h.i.+p's mate and a petty officer. Late on he had become separated from the others, and in his drunken state had ended up in a room with a toothless old wh.o.r.e who dragged off his trousers, and kicked him out with a mocking laugh when it was all over. He had vomited in the gutter, a group of Danish urchins had stolen his cap, and for that he had received an almighty dressing-down from the captain the following day. an old frigate that was due for the sc.r.a.pyard but was making an official naval visit to Copenhagen. One evening he was off duty and got drunk in several harbourside cafes, together with the s.h.i.+p's mate and a petty officer. Late on he had become separated from the others, and in his drunken state had ended up in a room with a toothless old wh.o.r.e who dragged off his trousers, and kicked him out with a mocking laugh when it was all over. He had vomited in the gutter, a group of Danish urchins had stolen his cap, and for that he had received an almighty dressing-down from the captain the following day.That was the sum total of his experience, and he had never asked his wife how much she knew about what was coming. It deteriorated into a convulsion with both of them scratching like tigers and in the end they had retreated to opposite sides of the bed, she crying and he confused. But as time went by they had worked it out and sealed a relations.h.i.+p, always in the dark, not very often.He lay awake, listening to Sara Fredrika's breathing. He could hear that she was not asleep. He stood up, went to her bed and crept inside. To his surprise she received him willingly, naked, warm, wide open. It was, soon afterwards, as if all distance had ceased to exist. The storm could carry on raging for another day, perhaps more.He had time. He had come close to her.

CHAPTER 62.

When he opened his eyes the next morning, the storm had abated.All was silent, and he tried to orientate himself. Silence could be large or small, but it always came from somewhere; there was a southern silence, and a northern one, and an eastern and a western.Silence was invariably under way.Sara Fredrika's bed was empty. She must be a very silent person. He was a light sleeper and normally woke up every time his wife got out of bed. But he had heard nothing when Sara Fredrika left the cottage.It was cold, the embers had gone out and turned white. Without warning, the room was filled with Kristina Tacker's fragrance. He knew that she would never discard him, she would never turn in secret to another man. In the early years he had followed her like a shadow when she woke up in the middle of the night and slunk out of the bedroom. But all she ever did was go to the bathroom or pour herself a gla.s.s of water from the carafe that was on the table in the drawing room. Sometimes she would pause in front of the shelves containing the china figurines: lost in thought, so far away that he thought she might never return.He never said anything to her. He did not think she noticed him following her.He sometimes thought that they were like s.h.i.+ps in crowded channels. Channels with leading lights, meaning that you had to keep a lookout straight ahead and astern, but not to either side.The floor was cold. He stood up, put on his boots, jumper and jacket and went out. The wind had not died down completely, it still crashed into the rocks at irregular intervals. He looked around, but could not see her. He walked to the inlet where the boats were moored. Before he reached there, he took cover in a hawthorn thicket.She was sitting in the stern of her boat, baling it out. Her skirt was hoisted over her knees, and she was holding on to a lock of hair with her teeth. He observed her and decided to christen her Sara Fredrika Kristina. But he could not imagine her in the silent rooms in the flat in Wallingatan. He could not picture her wearing a long skirt, adjusting with deft fingers the china figurines. He could not conjure her up with her skirt hoisted above her knees when he said goodbye to her in the hall before setting out on one of his missions.Not being able to find a place for her in his life made him so upset that he started panting. He backed out of the bushes and clambered up on to a rock from which there was a more open view of the sea, and where the wind was more biting.He thought about what he had said to her the previous evening, about his wife and daughter being killed. Whenever he lied to his father he felt ill or suffered diarrhoea. Terror was at home in his stomach, and always tried to flee through the dark pa.s.sages of his guts.But now? Having killed off Kristina without her knowing was a special triumph.He contemplated the Blenda, Blenda, riding the waves some way out to sea. He tried briefly to erase the s.h.i.+p from his consciousness. No Lieutenant Jakobsson, no crew, an empty sea, navigable channels meaningless. The only thing in existence was this rock, and Sara Fredrika. But it was not possible to erase the s.h.i.+p, nor the s.h.i.+p's master, nor the navigable channels; it was not possible to erase himself. riding the waves some way out to sea. He tried briefly to erase the s.h.i.+p from his consciousness. No Lieutenant Jakobsson, no crew, an empty sea, navigable channels meaningless. The only thing in existence was this rock, and Sara Fredrika. But it was not possible to erase the s.h.i.+p, nor the s.h.i.+p's master, nor the navigable channels; it was not possible to erase himself.He went down to the path again, stamped on the stones so as not to surprise her. When he got there he saw how dirty her skirt was. There were layers of muck. The light was clearer now that the clouds had scudded away, and it was not possible to disguise the filth. He could see that her hair was matted and sticky thanks to all the grease and sea salt. Her hands were black, her neck coated in dirt. But she did wash, he thought, confused. I saw her naked. The dirt must have some recent cause.She had stowed away the baler and left the boat. As he approached her now, he noticed that she smelled of everything a.s.sociated with being unwashed, of sweat and urine. Why hadn't he noticed that before, in the cottage? Why now, out in the open?'It wasn't much of a storm,' she said. 'The weather was impatient.''They say that a storm lasts for three days,' he said. 'It takes three days for a storm to declare itself the winner.'I'm talking rubbish, he thought. I know nothing about a storm lasting for three days, I know nothing about what people ought to believe or not believe about a storm.'Now you can row back to the s.h.i.+p,' she said.He held out his hand. She hesitated before shaking it. Then she took back her hand, like a shot. Like a fish that changes its mind and spits out the bait it has tasted.She went back to the cottage and fetched his oilskin coat. He untied the painter, the boat sc.r.a.ped over the stony bottom and he jumped aboard.There is still a possibility, he thought. A moment when everything could change. I can confess that what I told her yesterday was a he.But, of course, he said nothing. She remained on the sh.o.r.e, watching him.She did not raise a hand to wave. A bit like when you know that somebody who is leaving will never return, he thought.

CHAPTER 63.

The days grew shorter, darker, and the sea more choppy.One afternoon a lone seal swam past, on its way to a distant reef. Flocks of migrating birds headed south, especially at dusk.Lars Tobia.s.son-Svartman used the term 'chapter' in his private diary concerning the various stages of the depth-sounding mission. Now the chapter involving Sandsankan and Halsskar would soon be concluded. The new navigable channel would reduce the north-south pa.s.sage by a little more than one nautical mile. Another advantage was that s.h.i.+ps would be able to come rather sooner into the protection afforded by the islands from mines and U-boat attacks.So far his mission had enjoyed good fortune. Apart from the matter of the unantic.i.p.ated underwater ridge, his soundings had gone far better than expected.But there was one thing that disturbed Tobia.s.son-Svartman. When he returned to the mother s.h.i.+p after the storm, Lieutenant Jakobsson had made no attempt to conceal his anger at Tobia.s.son-Svartman's absence. He was openly sceptical, hardly bothered to speak to him and asked no questions about the night spent on the skerry. At first Tobia.s.son-Svartman thought that his superior's unsympathetic behaviour was a pa.s.sing phase, but it persisted. He made cautious attempts to find out why. Jakobsson went into his sh.e.l.l, and did not speak over dinner.Captain Rake had returned to take charge of his s.h.i.+p. Tobia.s.son-Svartman wrote a long letter to Kristina Tacker and handed it over for delivery three days after his night on Halsskar.When he read through what he had written, he had the sense that what he was putting into the envelope was a packet of silence. The words had no meaning. He had written about the storm, but nothing about the night on the skerry. He wrote about life on board s.h.i.+p, the food and the outstandingly good cook, and nice things about Lieutenant Jakobsson. But none of it was true, none of it about what he was thinking. He was mapping navigable channels so that other people would be able to travel in safety, but the charts he was mapping for himself led to chaos.When he sealed the envelope he had the vague idea that he was lying to avenge himself, to get his own back because his wife never dropped any of her china figurines.

CHAPTER 64.

Captain Rake had a very nasty case of eczema on his cheeks and forehead. Tobia.s.son-Svartman felt uncomfortable when he saw Rake's face. Red patches fused together forming raised islands; yellow abscesses seemed on the point of bursting in this archipelago of spots.Rake himself appeared unconcerned. He spoke enthusiastically about the war. The German invasion of France was going exactly as intended under the so-called Schlieffen Plan.'It's one of the most detailed war strategies ever made,' Rake said. 'General Schlieffen devoted the last part of his life to working out the best way for Germany to crush France once and for all. He found the solution in the end. The route through Belgium, the closing in on Paris by armies forming an extensive right flank. Every eventuality is covered in this unique plan. How many railway wagons are needed to transport the troops, horses, guns and stores; precise calculations of how fast each train must travel so as to avoid jams. A great many military engineers have been turned into advanced railway administrators. Sadly, Schlieffen died some years ago and so is unable to see his strategy realised. Everything is going well. Too well, some might think. There's just one thing missing in Schlieffen's plan. Recognition of the fact that not everything can be planned. No war can be won without a moment of improvisation. Just as no significant work of art can be created without that element of irrationality that is in fact the artist's talent.'They were drinking brandy. The cryptographer collected the main record book, Rake continued talking about the war and took Tobia.s.son-Svartman's letter. He had no letter from Kristina Tacker to deliver.They shook hands on the port wing of the bridge. It was cold, and dead calm. The sky was clear.'Sweden will probably stay out of the war,' Rake said. 'Only time will tell if that's the best thing that could have happened.'Tobia.s.son-Svartman negotiated the steeply sloping gangway on to the deck of the Blenda. Blenda. He was about to go into his cabin when he noticed the smell of pipe tobacco. He turned and saw Lieutenant Jakobsson standing by one of the gun turrets. His face was in shadow. His pipe glowed. Tobia.s.son-Svartman found himself feeling uneasy. The shadow of the commanding officer alarmed him. He was about to go into his cabin when he noticed the smell of pipe tobacco. He turned and saw Lieutenant Jakobsson standing by one of the gun turrets. His face was in shadow. His pipe glowed. Tobia.s.son-Svartman found himself feeling uneasy. The shadow of the commanding officer alarmed him.

CHAPTER 65.