He poured himself a glass of cognac and went over to her escritoire. He listened to be sure she had not woken up, carefully turned the key and took out her diary. It seemed to him that the white gloves would lessen the gravity of his intrusion, not touching the pages with his hands.
She had made an entry every day since he left. She had not recorded her sudden unwillingness to accompany him to the quay. It just gave the time, the weather, and said: Lars has left.
He leafed through the pages, listening all the time for her padding footsteps. In the street outside a drunken man gave vent to his anger and cursed God.
Her notes were usually short, non-committal. I have had a letter from Lars. But nothing about the contents, nothing of her reaction to what he had written. Her life is like a slow sinking process, he thought. One day she will drag me down into the depths with her. One day she will no longer be the lid over the abyss on whose edge I am balancing.
When he came to 14 November he found something that broke the pattern. She had recorded the temperature, the wind direction, a light snowfall at about nine that soon passed over, but then something more, the first personal comments.
She described a dream she had had that night. It had woken her up and she had immediately got out of bed and written down what she could remember. She concluded with the words: Some nights the silence is cold and unresponsive, other nights it is soft and inviting. Tonight the silence has gone away.
After that the entries reverted to the previous pattern. Falling temperatures, gusts of wind, having a new water pipe installed in the kitchen.
During the night of 27 November she had another dream:
I wake up with a start. In the dark bedroom I think I can detect the presence of some person, but when I sit up there is nobody there, only the white glint of the moon on the door. I remain sitting up, and I know the dream is important. Suddenly I find myself standing in a street in an unknown town, I have no idea how I got there or where I am going. Nor do I recognise the town. The people all around me are speaking a foreign language I cannot understand. I start walking down the street, the traffic is lively, it’s very hot and I have a thick black veil over my face. I come to a big open square where there is a cathedral. People are bustling back and forth over the square, they are all blind, but they are playing a violent game, bumping into one another, crashing into the cathedral walls or the fountain in the middle of the square and drawing blood. So as not to be in the way I go into the cathedral. It is cold and dark inside there. The floor is covered in newly fallen snow, individual flakes are still drifting down from the high-vaulted ceiling. It is a gigantic church, like a vast expanse of ice. A few people are sitting in the pews. I walk down the centre aisle and sit in a pew. I don’t say any prayers, just sit there; I still don’t know what town I’m in, but I’m not afraid. That surprises me because I’m always made anxious by unfamiliar things, I can never bring myself to travel alone but must always have a companion. I sit in the pew, it’s still cold, snow is swirling around over the stone floor, then somebody sits down in front of me. I can tell it is a woman, but am unable to see what she looks like. She turns round, and I see that it is in fact me sitting there. She whispers something I can’t understand. Who am I, if that really is me sitting in front of me? Then I wake up. I have some idea of what the dream means, of course, perhaps I am unsure about what is the real me. But the most important thing is that I wasn’t afraid in the dream
That was the end of the entry, there wasn’t even a full stop.
He put the diary back and locked the escritoire. He stood in a window and looked down at the street. A rat ran along the bottom of the house wall and disappeared through a basement window. He thought about the dream his wife had described in her diary. A dream that got the better of her comfort, he thought. It takes a lot to make her get up once she’s in bed, unless she really has to. She leads a very lazy life. But a dream about visiting a cathedral, an unexpected mirror image of her own face, makes her get out of bed and make an effort.
He paused on the words. His wife had made an effort. How often had she done that? When she dusted and polished her china figurines. But other than that?
He tried to interpret the dream. It was like breaking and entering her in secret. He sat in a rocking chair, cognac in hand, and rehearsed the dream in his head. But he could not find a way in. The moment she stepped inside the snow-filled cathedral, the dream closed its doors.
He drank another glass of cognac, realised he was becoming very drunk but continued walking around the apartment. He paused to listen outside the maid’s door. He could hear her snoring. Very gently he opened the door and peered inside. The girl was sleeping on her back with her mouth wide open. The quilt was pulled right up to her neck. For a moment he was tempted to lift it up and see if she was sleeping naked. He closed the door and went to the room where his wife kept her china figurines. He overcame his urge to smash one of them. What an awful indictment, he thought — I am jealous of a collection of lifeless, mostly badly made china figurines.
Their lifeless eyes stared at him in the pale light seeping in through the windows.
Chapter 77
On the morning of 17 December the city was covered by thick fog, the temperature was a few degrees above zero. He felt nervous in advance of the meeting he had to attend at Naval Headquarters. The measurements he had carried out had been conducted and reported in exemplary fashion, and he had no reason to think that they would not be pleased with his work. Even so, he was on edge.
The invisible torpedo was still hurtling towards him.
He went for a long walk through the town, having left home before six without waking his wife. Nor had he roused the maid, but made his own coffee. She had pressed his uniform the day before, supervised by Kristina Tacker. He strolled up the hills to Brunkebergstorg where the coachmen had set up braziers to keep warm, as usual. He crossed the bridge at Strömbron and continued through the alleys of the Old Town, where shadowy figures scuttled in all directions. He was going through everything that had happened at the Sandsänkan lighthouse. It was all there: Captain Rake, Lieutenant Jakobsson, Welander with his vodka bottles, the sailor Richter with no eyes.
The only thing missing was Sara Fredrika.
The woman who, day after day, dreaded catching her own husband in her nets.
Chapter 78
At eight o’clock he walked through the main entrance to the Swedish Navy Headquarters on Skeppsholmen. An adjutant invited him to sit down and wait as not everybody on the committee had arrived. A vice admiral who lived out at Djursholm had telegraphed to say that he would be late.
Tobiasson-Svartman shuddered in the cold corridor. He listened to some bugle calls drifting in through the window, followed by the dull thud of a single artillery shot.
After half an hour or so the adjutant informed him that the committee was ready to receive him. He entered a room with previous Admirals of the Fleet staring down at him from the walls. The committee comprised two vice admirals, a captain and a lieutenant whose job it was to keep the minutes. A chair had been placed in readiness for him, in front of the committee who were sitting in a row behind a table covered in a green baize.
Vice Admiral Lars H: son-Lydenfeldt was the chairman. For many years he had been the driving force behind efforts to increase the Swedish Navy’s operating capabilities. He had a reputation of being impatient and arrogant, and dominated all those around him by means of sudden outbursts of fury. He invited Tobiasson-Svartman to sit down.