In fact, he felt relieved.
He paused halfway along the gangplank, savouring the almost imperceptible motion of the ship. She was right. He had been longing to get away. But he was not at all sure what he was longing for.
Was there a secret inside him of which he was not aware?
He was very much in love with his wife. Every time he had to leave for a tour of duty and said goodbye to her, he unobtrusively breathed in the scent of her skin, kissing her hastily. It was as if he were laying down that perfume, as you do a fine wine, or perhaps an opiate, to take out whenever he felt so forlorn that he risked losing his self-possession.
His wife still used her maiden name. He had no idea why, and did not want to ask.
A tug boomed from the direction of Kastellholmen. A seagull hovered in the updraught over the ship.
He was a solitary man. His solitary nature was like an abyss that he was afraid he might one day fall into. He had worked out that the abyss must be at least forty metres deep, and that he would leap into it head first, so as to be certain of dying.
He was at the exact middle of the gangplank. He had estimated its total length by eye at seven metres. So now he was precisely three and a half metres from the quay and just as far from the ship’s rail.
His earliest memories were to do with measurements. Between himself and his mother, between his mother and his father, between the floor and the ceiling, between sorrow and joy. His whole life was made up of distances, measuring, abbreviating or extending them. He was a solitary person constantly seeking new distances to estimate or measure.
Measuring distances was a sort of ritual, his personal means of reining in the movements of time and space.
From the start, from as far back as he could remember, solitude had been like his own skin.
Kristina Tacker was not only his wife. She was also the invisible lid he used to cover the abyss.
Chapter 4
On that October day in 1914, Stockholm was enveloped by barely noticeable drizzle. His luggage had been brought by handcart from Wallingatan, over the bridge to Djurgården and the Galärvarv Quay. Although there were just the two of them, the porter and himself, he felt as if he were taking part in a procession.
His suitcases were of brown leather. The specially made, calf-leather bag contained his most precious possession. It was a sounding lead for the advanced measuring of the ocean depths.
The lead was made of brass, manufactured in Manchester in 1701 by Maxwell & Swanson. Their skilled craftsmen made optical and navigational instruments and exported them all over the world. The company had acquired renown and respect when they made the sextants used by Captain Cook on what was to be his final voyage to the Pacific Ocean. Their advertisements claimed that their products were used even by Japanese and Chinese seafarers.
Sometimes when he woke up during the night, filled with a mysterious feeling of unrest, he would get up and fetch his lead. Take it back to bed with him and hold it, pressed tightly to his chest. That usually enabled him to go back to sleep.
The lead breathed. Its breath was white.
Chapter 5
The destroyer Svea was built at the Lindholmen shipyard in Gothenburg, and had left the slipway in December 1885. She was due to be taken out of active service in 1914 as she was already out of date, but that sentence had been suspended because the Swedish Navy had not prepared for the Great War. Her life had been saved at the very last second. She was like a working horse that had been spared at the moment of slaughter, and allowed back into the streets again.
Lars Tobiasson-Svartman reminded himself of the most important measurements relevant to the ship. Svea was seventy-five metres long and at the broadest point just aft of amidships she was slightly more than fourteen metres. The heavy artillery comprised two long-range 254-millimetre guns of the M/85 type, made by Maxim-Nordenfelt in London. The medium-range artillery was made up of four 150-millimetre guns, also made in London. In addition there was some light artillery and an unknown number of machine guns.
He continued thinking over what he knew about the vessel he was about to board. The crew comprised 250 regular and conscripted ratings, and twenty-two regular officers. The driving power, currently making the ship throb, came from two horizontal compound engines whose horsepower was generated by six boilers. In trials she had attained a speed of 14.68 knots.
There was one further measurement that interested him. The gap between the bottom of Svea’s keel and the bottom of the Galärvarv Quay was just over two metres.
He turned round and looked down at the quay, as if hoping that his wife might have turned up after all. But there was nothing to be seen apart from a few boys fishing and a drunken man who slumped on to his knees then slowly toppled over.
The gusts from Saltsjön were growing stronger. They were very noticeable on deck next to the gangplank.
Chapter 6
He was jolted from his reverie by a first mate who clicked his heels and introduced himself as Anders Höckert. Tobiasson-Svartman responded with a salute, but felt uncomfortable doing so. He shuddered every time he was forced to raise his hand to the peak of his cap. He felt silly, as if he were playing a game he hated.
Höckert showed him to his cabin, which was situated below the port companionway leading up to the bridge and the artillery firing base.
Anders Höckert had a birthmark on the back of his neck, just above his collar.
Tobiasson-Svartman frowned and fixed his eyes on the birthmark. Whenever he saw a mole on somebody’s body he always tried to work out what it resembled. His father, Hugo Svartman, had a group of moles high up on his left arm. He imagined them to be an archipelago of small, anonymous islands, rocks and skerries. His white skin formed the navigable channels that combined and crisscrossed one another. Where were the deepest channels on his father’s left arm? Which would be the safest route for a vessel to take?
The secret affinity with leads, measurements and distances characteristic of his life was based on that image and the memory of his father’s birthmarks.
Lars Tobiasson-Svartman thought to himself: Deep down inside me I am still searching for unknown shallows, another unsounded depth, unexpected troughs. Even inside myself I need to chart and mark out a safely navigable channel.
Anders Höckert’s birthmark on the back of his neck, he decided, resembled a wild beast, ready to charge, horns lowered.
Höckert opened the door to the cabin Tobiasson-Svartman had been allocated. He was on a secret mission and hence could not share a cabin with another of the ship’s officers.
His luggage, the rolled-up charts and the brown bag containing his depth-sounding instrument were already stacked on the floor. Höckert saluted and left the cabin.
Tobiasson-Svartman sat down on his bunk and let the solitude envelop him. The engines were throbbing as the boilers were never shut down completely even when the vessel was in dock. He looked out of the porthole. The sky had turned blue, the drizzle had lifted. That cheered him up, or perhaps made him feel relieved. Rain tended to depress him, like small, almost invisible weights beating against his body.
For a moment he felt an urge to abandon ship.
But he did not move.
Then slowly he began to unpack his bags. His wife had carefully chosen every item of clothing for him. She knew what he liked best and would want to have with him. Each one was lovingly folded.