Do you remember that time in Tjärholmen?
Bengt remembers it well. They had once taken a trip to an island in Lake Mälar. With a little white motorboat that belonged to a coworker. It was the year before the war, just a Midsummer’s Eve. The father and his colleague, who was steering, were sitting in the stern, eating sandwiches and drinking beer and hard liquor. Bengt was lying in the prow and reading a book by Marryat. The mother was sitting next to the motor and mending socks. The boat was moving quite slowly, so they were already very drunk by the time they got to Stora Essingen. Then the boat started wobbling, and when they got to Tjärholmen, the father fell in the water. He had wanted to jump ashore and moor the boat. But it wasn’t very deep, so no harm was done. But the mother still started crying.
Yes, the father says, I remember Tjärholmen.
When he says it, he looks at the son and grins. It isn’t until Bengt sees his smirk that he perceives his own stupidity. Because for anyone who wants revenge, Tjärholmen is a dangerous memory. He mentioned Tjärholmen because they had once been on that island with Mama on a Midsummer afternoon. Now he remembers that they both hated his mother at the time because she had ruined their Midsummer. Every minute of that Midsummer was filled with her complaints. When they set up the tent, she complained that they were pitching it in the worst possible place, even though there was no other place to put it. When they ate, she complained that they didn’t appreciate the trouble she took with the food but that they ate voraciously like animals. At night, she kept them from sleeping by complaining with incessant stubbornness that the mosquitoes were keeping her awake. Of course, it was their fault there were mosquitoes since they were the ones who chose the spot for the tent. She complained about the island all Midsummer Day because everything on it was wrong: the rocky and dirty swimming spots; the ugly and brushy woods; the muddy ground. Bengt had wanted to get back at her, but he couldn’t. But on the way back home, the men got their revenge by drinking the rest of the alcohol together, and they most certainly would have been taken in by the police at Bergsund Beach if Bengt hadn’t managed to catch a taxi in time.
With his question, Bengt only intended to arouse the father’s memory of his mother and not all the embarrassing things that accompanied it. Or did he? In any case, he’s remorseful and tries to forget it, but he simply can’t. Though he doesn’t want to, he can’t help comparing this new, peaceful Midsummer with the old, forgotten one. And to his burning shame, he notices that he feels better now, and to escape his shame he drinks a little more, and his eyes become beautiful. He looks at Gun with these eyes. But you eventually long to touch the one you have been staring at, so when he gets up from the table, he notices that Gun has some salt on her shoulders. He wipes the salt off with his fingers because it needs to be wiped off. Then he ventures to ask why the dog isn’t there. Gun says that dogs are simply bothersome on trips. Besides, they don’t like small islands like this one. Bengt agrees.
From then on, that Sunday passes by rather peacefully. They lie on blankets and beach towels at the inlet’s shore. When they are warm and dry after a swim, they go for another, immersing themselves, splashing around boisterously, swimming to the bottom and snorting as they emerge in almost the same place, even though they thought they had swum several feet under the water. And when the speedy boats make swells, all three of them leap into them, laughing at whoever gets knocked down. Bengt laughs most of all. After all, it is Gun’s body that he hates, so he enjoys seeing it roughed up, if only by a wave of water.
Berit isn’t laughing. Every time they come in from the water, shouting and wet, she pretends to be asleep as she lies in her black dress with a thin blanket over her lap. To be sure, she does look up whenever they splash water in her face, but she doesn’t like it. Bengt is irritated with her because she isn’t having fun. For he knows they’ll be having fun for only so long. Being happy is just the beginning of his revenge. As they drink their afternoon coffee, made on an open fire in the cleft, he tries getting her to drink a shot of vodka. He just wants to arouse some pleasure in her. She drinks it because she’s still afraid, but even after she drinks it, she still isn’t happy. So when the father pushes out the boat to row them around the island, she doesn’t join them—she doesn’t want to. When Bengt climbs into the boat, Gun says to him very kindly:
You can’t leave Berit alone.
So he climbs out again, leaving Gun and his father alone in the boat, and flings himself furiously into the sand next to his sleeping fiancée. He watches the boat as it quickly glides away from the inlet and around the point, leaving only a streak of darkness in the water. He is furious with himself for letting himself be outwitted. He is furious at Gun because she has outwitted him and stopped him from taking out his revenge, the part that’s to make certain they aren’t alone for a single second. But when the fiancée pretends to wake up, he is most furious at her for pretending to be asleep and not joining them on the boat. However, Berit is glad when she wakes up and finds they are alone. She joyfully wipes the water from his hair, but, annoyed, he jerks away and starts digging a hole in the ground. He is digging out a footprint, digging deeply and laying wet sand over it.
Meanwhile, Berit is staring at the sea and the distant coastline. Because she is in good spirits, she thinks the ocean is beautiful. It is quiet and pristine and the sails are becalmed.
The sea isn’t cold today, she says, almost whispering. When the water is cold, it quakes and makes breakers, and children are told that the sea is wicked. But the sea isn’t wicked—it’s just cold.
Bengt flattens the sand over the buried footprint. He makes the mound hard, very hard, and he’s also hard on her. Harshly, he says:
I don’t want to be your child.
What do you want to be, then? she whispers, still very happy. Your lover, he says. He is still harsh.
Then she lies down, spreading the blanket over her face. He looks at the blanket to see if it will start quivering, but it doesn’t.
After a moment, he quietly gets up and begins exploring the island. A long time has passed, but the boat hasn’t returned. Not a cry was heard, not a splash of the oar, not even a whistle. He is walking very fast, and he is very upset. Maybe they rowed out far. It’s dangerous to row out so far when the boat is so small. But when he reaches the cliff facing the sea, the boat is there and very close to the shore. It is anchored and rocking in the swell. He cannot see them, so they are probably lying at the bottom. To scare them, he throws a rock pretty close to the boat, but only playfully. They don’t seem to hear the splash. In any case, neither of them looks over the gunwale, so he wants to scare them even more. He manages to slip silently into the water even though it’s even colder on this side. After about thirty long and quiet strokes, he glides underneath the boat’s thin shadow. Then he actually thinks about shouting, a high and playful yell, full of laughter and recklessness. But after swimming, he is now too strained to do anything but pant, so he’s content with only grabbing the edge and rocking the boat harder than the waves are able to do. As he rocks it, he doesn’t hear a single sound from the boat. And it feels suspiciously light. So when he heaves himself over the edge, it’s naturally empty.
Furiously, he swims back. He can’t help it, and he knows it’s absurd, but he feels betrayed. He is panting and thirsty when he reaches the shore. His mouth is full of saltwater and it burns. His rage subsides a little, but his thirst is unbearable. To get to the drinking water faster, he decides to climb over the porch and go straight to the kitchen, where the can is. One of the shutters is closed. When he climbs over the rail, the floor of the porch is damp from wet footprints. When he tugs at the kitchen door, it is locked. And when he runs around the cottage and tries to open the front door, it is locked, too. So he shakes it, pounds on it with clenched fists, and kicks it—what he wouldn’t do to quench his thirst. When the father comes and opens the door, he looks scared and pretends he was asleep.