She snuggled down under the covers. He sat down on the floor next to the bed, she stroked his hair.
Then he started to tell her about another goddess, the one who stood guard on the edge of the great city in the west, far away over the sea, and bade welcome to everyone who went there seeking sanctuary.
‘I’ll take you there,’ he said. ‘It’s time for me to make a new start as well. You have your dead husband, I have my dead family.’
‘I want to go to somewhere far away from the sea. I don’t want to see it, or hear it, or smell it.’
‘There are towns surrounded by desert. It’s a long way to the sea from there.’
‘What would you do there? In the middle of a desert? With your sounding leads and your sailor’s book and your navigable channels?’
‘There are things to measure in deserts as well. I could explore the depth of the sand. I could keep track of how it keeps moving.’
‘But what about the water?’
‘If I started to long for it, I could no doubt find a sea out there to start sounding out.’
She fell asleep. He lay close to her, felt her warmth.
That night he dreamed about a ship sailing backwards across the horizon. It felt like somebody being taken to be executed.
Chapter 139
One night in the middle of May she woke him up and put his hand on her stomach. The baby was kicking.
The cry of a bird rang out through the night.
They said nothing, just the hand, the baby kicking, the cry of a bird.
He tried to conjure up the baby. Sara Fredrika’s baby. Kristina Tacker’s baby.
Kristina Tacker’s had a face, it was his own.
Sara Fredrika’s looked like the skeleton of a foot.
When she fell asleep again he got up and went out. It was a bright spring night, damp, with a breeze blowing over the rocks. He went to the highest point of the skerry and looked out to the sea.
He was overcome by his helplessness. All his lust and desire had gone. All he could envisage was dirt and misery.
I have to get away from here, he thought. Without her. I have to find a way of following her from a distance. Of seeing her without her seeing me.
I will have to enjoy my child from a distance. I cannot stay here.
Chapter 140
Although it was now May, it was still on the cold side.
A short but devastating storm demolished the cottage’s chimney. He climbed on to the roof and repaired the damage. He could hear Sara Fredrika talking to herself inside the cottage.
As he was about to climb down he noticed a sailing dinghy approaching the island along the narrow Lindöfjärden channel. It was making good progress, its sail positively bulging.
He jumped down from the roof, and told Sara Fredrika about the dinghy.
‘It will be Helge,’ she said. ‘You must remember him, and his son.’
He prepared to receive the dinghy.
‘I want to talk to him in private,’ she said. ‘But I’m not going to say a word about my husband’s foot in the net.’
He went into the cottage, lay down on the bed and went to sleep. When he woke up again it was already evening. He walked down to the inlet. Sara’s dinghy was still there. But there was no sign of the visiting boat.
Nor was there any sign of Sara Fredrika.
He shouted for her all over the skerry. No response. It was only when he came to the steep north edge of the island that he found her, where the breakers were rolling in to the battered rocks.
She was asleep. Beside her among the rocks was a broken bottle.
Chapter 141
She woke with a start and sat up.
She started coughing, the smell of strong drink slapped him in the face. When she tried to stand up she stumbled and grazed her cheek on a rock. He stretched out a hand, but she pushed it away with a laugh.
‘I’m drunk. Helge realised that I needed something to drink. He always has aquavit in the boat. It doesn’t happen often. I’ll be back to normal tomorrow.’
‘You can’t spend the night out here.’
‘I shan’t freeze to death. No birds are going to come and peck at me. I have to lie here in order to gather strength to stand up again.’
She stretched, pulled up her skirt and straightened her legs.
‘You won’t be able to get me to the cottage tonight. But you can stay here with me if you like.’
She grabbed hold of his leg and almost succeeded in pulling him over. She was strong, her hands were like monkey wrenches. When he tried to pull himself free she laughed even more and tightened her grip.
‘Haven’t you got it? I’m not going to let go of the man who’s going to take me away from here.’
‘I’ve gathered that.’
She let go and curled up in the hollow.
I have to get away, he thought. One of these days she’ll stick an axe into my head when she finds out that I’m not the person who’s going to rescue her. It had dawned on him that he was afraid of her. He could not control her, whether she was drunk or sober. She tore some moss off a rock and covered her face with it.
‘Leave me alone now,’ she said. ‘Everything will be back to normal by tomorrow.’
There is no normality, he thought. She’ll discover the abyss inside me if I do not leave the island. Her abyss is hers, mine is mine. I’m too close to her.
Later that night he returned to the hollow in the rocks.
He could smell that she had been vomiting. He left her there.
Chapter 142
The next day it was drizzling and blowing a gale from the east.
When he woke up she was sitting outside the door like a wet, shivering dog.
‘I’m not taking a dead woman with me to America,’ he said. ‘Go inside, take your wet clothes off and get warm. Otherwise you’ll be ill. The baby will die.’
She did as he said. He went down to the inlet and sat down on a broken corf.
Why would he not tell her the truth, that he could not come back and fetch her?
He knew the answer. He had killed his wife, and he had killed his daughter. He had been caught by the nets he had set out. He was being pulled down, just as her husband had been when he got caught in a herring net.
He went back to the cottage and stole a look through the window. She was sitting in front of the fire, wrapped up in a blanket, with her head turned away. Just like Kristina Tacker, he thought. Two women who turn their faces away from me.
Later that day he started to prepare for his departure. He talked to her, convinced her that she would not have long to wait. He would soon be leaving, but he would soon be back.
They continued fishing together, sleeping together, and he tried to look her in the eye all the time.
After a week he was convinced. She believed he would be coming back.
He could leave the island.
Chapter 143
It was 7 June, at the crack of dawn.
They were sailing northwards, with Harstena and the seal rocks to starboard, and were making good progress towards the skerries where they would turn westward towards the Slätbaken approach. He was sitting by the mast, in charge of the sail. They did not speak much, nor did they pass any other boats.