It was a chilly day. He found a crevice on the south side where he could half lie, well protected. He tried to imagine Sara Fredrika, her struggle to force the baby out. But he saw nothing, only the sea.
My innermost longing is a dream about horizons, he thought, horizons and depths. That’s what I am searching for.
It was as if he had some kind of invisible seal that made him inaccessible to everybody apart from himself. The surface was calm, like a sea when there is no wind blowing, but underneath it lurked all the duplicitous forces he was forced to fight against. Ambition, insecurity, the memory of his furious father and the silent weeping of his mother. He lived through a constant battle between control, calculation and outrageous risk-taking. He did not do what other people do and adapt to different situations, but he changed his personality, became somebody else, often without being aware of the fact.
Without warning, he started crying, forlornly, uncontrollably. Then he stopped, just as suddenly as he had started.
Late in the afternoon he heard them shouting for him. He went back to the cottage, convinced that he had a son. But Angel Wester held out a daughter to him. This time he did not think the baby looked like a shrivelled mushroom, more like heather in the spring before it acquires its full colour.
‘She’s healthy and strong. She will survive if God wishes her to and you look after her properly. I reckon she weighs three kilos, and a bit more.’
‘How is Sara Fredrika?’
‘Like all women are after they’ve given birth. Relief, happiness at the fact that all has gone well, a great desire to sleep. But first she should greet her husband.’
He went inside. Angel and the maid left them alone. Her face was pale and sweaty.
‘What shall we call her?’
Without hesitation, he replied, ‘Laura. That’s a pretty name. Laura.’
‘She’s born now. And now we can leave this hellish island and never return.’
‘We shall leave as soon as I’ve finished my last reports.’
‘Are you happy about your child?’
‘I’m indescribably happy about my child,’ he said.
‘You got a new daughter to replace the one that fell over the cliff.’
He did not say anything, just nodded. Then he went outside and invited Angel and the maid to a celebratory drink. As it was already late, they stayed overnight.
He spent the night in a hollow covered by his oilskin coat.
He thought about his two daughters, both called Laura.
Laura Tobiasson-Svartman.
The younger sister of Laura Tobiasson-Svartman.
They’ll live their lives in ignorance of each other. Just as their mothers will never meet.
Chapter 180
A few days after Sara Fredrika had given birth, Tobiasson-Svartman found something extraordinary next to the rocks on a headland at the extreme eastern edge of Halsskär.
He could see something bobbing up and down close to the edge of the rocks. When he clambered down to the water he saw that it was a collection of military-issue boots, tied together to form a chain. He tried to find some marking or other that would reveal if they were German or Russian boots, but there was nothing.
There were nine boots in all, four left ones and five right. They had been in the water for a long time. Somebody had tied them together and sent them drifting over the sea.
He threw them up on to the rocks.
He had the feeling that once again he had been surprised and challenged by the dead.
Chapter 181
Their daughter cried a lot and kept them awake at night.
For Tobiasson-Svartman it was like being exposed to an agonising pain. He cut pieces of cork and stuck them in his ears when Laura was crying at her loudest, but nothing seemed to help. Sara Fredrika was immune to all noise, and he observed her love with envy. As for him, he had difficulty in feeling any connection with the child.
But with Sara Fredrika, it was as if he had finally understood what love was. For the first time in his life he felt terrified of being abandoned. He was scared by the thought of what would happen if one of these days it dawned on Sara Fredrika that there was no plan to leave the skerry. That the only things in existence were the barren island and all the new reports that had to be written for a secret committee.
Chapter 182
Sara Fredrika took every opportunity to talk about leaving.
Her questions now made him feel profoundly desperate. He wanted to be left in peace, he did not want to talk about the future.
‘I’m scared,’ she said. ‘I dream about water, about the depths that you measure. But I don’t want to see that. I want to see Laura growing up, I want to get away from this hellish skerry.’
‘We shall. Soon. Not just yet.’
It was early one morning. Their daughter was asleep. It was raining. She looked long and hard at him.
‘I never see you touching your child,’ she said. ‘Not even with your fingertips.’
‘I daren’t,’ he said simply. ‘I’m afraid that my fingers will leave a mark.’
She said no more. He continued to balance on the invisible borderline between her worry and her trust.
Chapter 183
At the beginning of October Tobiasson-Svartman could see that Sara Fredrika’s patience was close to breaking point. She did not believe him when he said that soon, not just yet, but soon he would have finished writing his reports.
One night she started hitting him while he was asleep. He defended himself, but she kept on hitting.
‘Why can’t we go away? Why do you never finish?’
‘I’m nearly finished. There’s not much left. Then we can go.’
He got out of bed and went outside.
Chapter 184
A few days later. Drizzle, no wind.
He walked round the skerry. He suddenly had a flash of insight. All these rocks formed a sort of archive. Like books in a library with infinite holdings. Or faces that will eventually be picked out and examined by future generations.
An archive or a museum, he could not be quite specific about his insight. But autumn was creeping in. Soon this archive or museum would close down for the winter.
Chapter 185
Nights now brought frost with them. As day broke on 9 October, the baby started to cry.
That same day Angel Wester sailed out to the skerry to check up on Sara Fredrika and the baby. She was satisfied, the baby was growing and developing as it should.
He accompanied her down to the inlet when her visit was over.
‘Sara Fredrika is a good mother,’ she said. ‘She is strong, and she has plenty of milk. And she seems to be happy as well. I can see that you are looking after her properly. I think she has forgotten her husband, the one that drowned.’
‘She will never forget him.’
‘There comes a day when the dead turn their backs on us,’ she said. ‘It happens when a new being enters our lives. Make the most of the opportunity. Don’t let there be a distance between you and the baby.’
He pushed the boat out as she raised the sail.
‘Will you be staying here over the winter?’ she asked.