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 relationship, 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 glass 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 ships 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 passages of his guts.
But now? Having killed off Kristina without her knowing was a special triumph.
He contemplated the Blenda, riding the waves some way out to sea. He tried briefly to erase the ship 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 ship, nor the ship’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 associated 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 ship,’ 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 scraped 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 shore, 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 Tobiasson-Svartman used the term ‘Chapter’ in his private diary concerning the various stages of the depth-sounding mission. Now the Chapter involving Sandsänkan and Halsskär would soon be concluded. The new navigable channel would reduce the north-south passage by a little more than one nautical mile. Another advantage was that ships 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 unanticipated underwater ridge, his soundings had gone far better than expected.
But there was one thing that disturbed Tobiasson-Svartman. When he returned to the mother ship after the storm, Lieutenant Jakobsson had made no attempt to conceal his anger at Tobiasson-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 Tobiasson-Svartman thought that his superior’s unsympathetic behaviour was a passing phase, but it persisted. He made cautious attempts to find out why. Jakobsson went into his shell, and did not speak over dinner.
Captain Rake had returned to take charge of his ship. Tobiasson-Svartman wrote a long letter to Kristina Tacker and handed it over for delivery three days after his night on Halsskär.