‘You’ve come back,’ she would say. ‘You can go home now.’
He had never questioned her judgement, simply settled his bill, and left.
Chapter 72
She gave him watered-down aquavit and beer that morning, and made him eat some sandwiches with lots of butter and thick slices of ham.
He drank quickly. He was merry after only half an hour. Sally sat down at his table and looked hard at him. Her white teeth glistened. They were like seashells. Straight, polished seashells in a row, stuck down in dark red sand.
‘How close is the war?’ she wanted to know.
He searched in his befuddled brain for an answer.
‘Firelight,’ he said eventually. ‘In the distance, over the sea. A terrible silence.’
‘I asked how close the war was, not what it looks like.’
He pointed to his forehead.
‘Inside here,’ he said. ‘That’s how close the war is.’
‘How can a clever man like you talk such a lot of crap?’ she said.
He emptied his glass, but she shook her head when he asked for more.
‘If you have any more now, you’ll pass the limit.’
‘What limit?’
‘The limit where a woman no longer recognises the man she married.’
He put what he owed her on the table. There was a strong smell of old leather and wet wool as he left the room and its tobacco-laden fug. He stumbled, emerging into the street. He walked round the block and stopped at his front door in Wallingatan. The man who was supposed to be guarding his luggage had fallen asleep, propped up against one of the wheels. Tobiasson-Svartman gave him a kick. The man jumped to his feet and unloaded the cases.
He opened the door. He left everything that had happened in the bright light of the street. In the darkness of the stairwell he had the feeling that he had docked at the Wallingatan quay.
Chapter 73
Kristina Tacker was waiting for him in the dim hall.
That made him feel insecure, it went against his plans. He had not sent her a telegram, nobody else would have had a reason for letting her know when he was due. She noticed his confusion, also of course that he was a bit drunk.
‘I saw the wheelbarrow with your luggage. I could almost smell it from the flat window. But I was beginning to wonder when you were going to appear.’
‘I went for a walk round the block to shake off the spray and the seaweed and the smell of mud. Leaving a ship is a complicated process.’
He embraced her, sucked in all her fragrances, the wine, her perfume with the hint of lemon zest. She didn’t hug him tightly, there was a gap between them, but he hoped she was pleased to have him home.
Somebody started giggling behind them. His wife gave a start, whipped round and dealt the maid a mighty box on the ear.
‘Go away,’ she said. ‘Leave my husband and me in peace.’
The girl ran. Her rapid footsteps made no sound. He had never known his wife physically violent before and was scared by the force of the blow, as if he had been on the receiving end.
‘Did you get my letter? The one where I wrote about her?’
‘I got all your letters.’
Nothing was said as he hung up his naval overcoat, removed his shoes and followed her into the living room where the china figurines were standing on their shelves.
Nothing had changed. It was like entering a room that nobody lived in.
They sat on the chairs by the window. The light from the low sun came in through the thin curtains.
He told her about his mission in great detail. He could hide among the details. Everything he said was true, and he only omitted one detaiclass="underline" the existence of an island in the sea called Halsskär.
He erased it from the map, let the skerry sink down to the seabed.
Recalling that he had said his wife and daughter were dead upset him for a moment. He felt a pain in his stomach.
She was as sharp as a bird.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Just a shooting pain in a tooth.’
‘Where?’
‘My lower jaw.’
‘You must go to a dentist.’
‘It’s gone. It was only a shooting pain, nothing to worry about’
He continued with his story as if nothing had happened.
When she got up to instruct the maid to serve coffee, it seemed to him that he had measured out a considerable distance between himself and his wife.
He had planted a lie between them. A lie that would continue to grow, even if everything else he had told her was true, or at least honestly meant. The lie did not need feeding. It would continue to grow of its own accord.
He wondered if it were possible to live without lying. Had he ever met a person who did not tell lies? He searched his memory, but he could think of no one.
Chapter 74
They sat by the window drinking coffee.
The maid who had had her ears boxed seemed timid and scared. He felt sorry for her, and remembered the snotty-nosed oarsman. We are people who hit others, he thought, that is one thing, at least, we have in common, my wife and I, we deliver powerful blows that resound against people’s heads. But one can always discuss the servants. We have to keep quiet about everything else, for the time being anyway.
‘I find her so annoying,’ Kristina Tacker said. ‘She smells of sweat despite my telling her over and over again to wash herself properly, she doesn’t dust the top of picture frames, it takes her ages to empty the bins or to go shopping and she can never get the amounts right in recipes.’
She spoke softly so that her words could not be heard outside the room.
‘I’ll have a word with her, of course,’ he said. ‘If necessary we shall have to sack her and find somebody else.’
‘People don’t want to be in domestic service any more,’ Kristina Tacker said. ‘We live in an unwilling age.’
Chapter 75
They had a candlelit dinner.
The heat from the tiled stove spread all round the room. Tobiasson-Svartman would have dearly liked to find peace, and for everything that had happened around the Sandsänkan lighthouse to slip out of his memory. Then there would be no truths or lies, just the navigable channel he had redefined.
He drank wine with the dinner and afterwards port. Kristina sat in the low light embroidering a tablecloth. He could feel that he was not yet ready for bed.
She stood up soon after ten. He waited until he heard her settling down in bed, then he drank two glasses of cognac, washed, drank two more glasses of cognac, brushed his teeth and went into the dark bedroom. The alcohol made his desire stronger than his insecurity.
When it was over, the act that had taken place in total silence, it seemed to him that their love was a bit like running for your life. What he felt most was relief. He tried to think of something to say, but there was nothing.
He lay awake for a long time, knowing that she had not gone to sleep either. He wondered if there was a greater distance than the one between two people in the same bed pretending to sleep. It was a distance he was not able to assess, using any of the measuring instruments at his disposal.
Chapter 76
It was almost three before he was sure that she was asleep.
She was breathing deeply, snoring slightly. He got out of bed, put on his dressing gown and left the room. He took a pair of white gloves out of a cupboard.