‘Do you remember our holiday in Oslo?’ she asked. ‘That day when we went to Bygdøy, the beach, the young boys bathing naked in the water, a bunch of balloons climbing up into the sky?’
He remembered, but decided to deny it.
‘Of course you remember. Above all you must remember the cross we drew in the sand, and said that the most important thing in our lives would always be telling the truth. Good Lord, I believed it, I really did believe that I had met a man who was as good as his word.’
A quick gust of cold wind made them shiver.
‘Who are you?’ she said. ‘I try to understand, but I can’t. I simply can’t pin you down, my image of you cracks and breaks up, you become an incomprehensible creature that seems to thrive on deceiving others.’
‘I can explain,’ he said.
Her response came with no hesitation at all.
‘If there is one thing you can never do it is to explain. I have followed in your footsteps and it has been like climbing down into a well where the stench at the bottom gets more and more putrid. I have realised that I am married to a man who doesn’t exist, a shadow with a circulatory system and a brain that is nothing more than an invention, a figment of the imagination. It is intolerable to think that my child had a figment of the imagination for a father. Can you make me understand? You are driving me mad.’
‘I have to know how you found me.’
‘I come here and tell you that Laura is dead. You don’t react, you say you feel sorrow, but all you ask about is how I found you.’
‘You can think whatever you like. But I mourn the death of my child.’
‘You ought to mourn the fact that you are who you are. It was my father who helped me. When Laura died he contacted Naval Headquarters and told them what had happened. He forced his way through all the barriers, I can hear his voice inside my head: A baby has died, my granddaughter. Her father is on a secret mission, but of course he has to be told about the tragedy that has befallen him. There was silence. My father said that everybody seemed to be astonished. Jaws dropped on the faces of the entire Swedish high command. In the end a vice admiral informed my father that you no longer held a commission in the Swedish Navy. Then they became secretive, they couldn’t go into details about why, they could only say that you were no longer enlisted. My father insisted that I personally should be given an explanation. The following day I went with him to Skeppsholmen. The vice admiral was there, and several other people, I can’t remember who they were. They expressed their condolences. But when I asked them for an address so that I could send you a letter, they said that they didn’t have one. My father was with me, he was standing behind my chair and put his hand on my shoulder when he heard that you were no longer in the navy. There was no mission, they knew as little about where you were as my father and I did. How do you think that felt? First I lost my baby, then I found out that I was married to a man who didn’t exist. How do you think that felt?’
He said nothing. He was searching feverishly for a way of escape. It must have been Welander, he thought. There’s no other possibility. Perhaps he suspected that I would head for here.
‘I went home, and my father came with me. I was numb, but I was kept going by his fury. Especially after I gathered that he suspected it was you who had tried to kill him.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘I would put nothing past you, Lars.’
She used his first name. It felt as if she were using it to hit him.
I can hit back, he thought. That is the ultimate escape route. I can kill her.
He asked a question to give himself a breathing space.
‘Whose is the boat?’
‘Does it matter? It belongs to one of my father’s friends.’
‘I didn’t know you could sail.’
‘I learned when I was a child. When I realised where you might be hiding I decided to get a boat and come here. My father protested, but I paid no attention to him.’
‘Was it Welander who told you where you could find me?’
‘He came a few days after I’d been to Skeppsholmen. I didn’t want to let him in at first, but he said he’d heard rumours about your disappearance, and that you had lied to the admirals about him. He also said he knew where you might be, that you used to row to a skerry when you were working together.
‘I didn’t want to know at first, I never wanted to see you again. The first night after I realised what kind of a man you were I gathered together all your clothes, your overcoats, uniforms, shoes, and piled them up on the floor. The next day Anna fetched a rag-and-bone man who took the lot. I didn’t even accept any money. I wanted you to cease to exist.
‘But my father talked me round. He said that you shouldn’t be allowed to die in sin. He contacted Welander, who came round again a few days later. He had been talking to a police superintendent or maybe it was a parish constable from round here who said he thought you were on a skerry at the far edge of the archipelago.
‘I sailed into the archipelago then turned south. Somewhere round about Landsort I was becalmed, I had plenty of time to think. And I still ask myself: Why did you marry me if your only intention was to hurt me, to lie to me? Why do you hate me?’
He gave a start. A shadow had moved on a high rocky ledge, but it wasn’t Sara Fredrika. It was a bird, a crow that soared up and flew off northwards over the island. There wasn’t much time. He needed to drive her along in front of himself instead of cowering in the face of her accusations.
‘The fact that I was dismissed from the navy is due entirely to a misunderstanding, which was due in turn to the fact that I was disgracefully slandered by Welander. I tried to protect him when he hit the bottle. Everything else is a pack of lies. He is getting his revenge for having shown me his weakness, because I saw his humiliation. He was lying on deck in a pool of vomit and had to be carried away. I couldn’t tell you that I had been dismissed, that was too shameful, too much of a disgrace. I came here to think out a way of telling you about it. Not everything I have told you has been entirely correct, but there has always been a kernel of truth.’
And what would that be?’
‘My love for you. I came here in solitude to punish myself for not being able to tell you exactly how things were. I needed time, time to think, time to summon up courage.’
‘But the letters? The inventions, the fantasies?’
‘The same thing: shame, disgrace.’
‘How can I possibly believe you?’
‘Look me in the eye.’
She did as he asked. He could feel that he was starting to regain control, was able to regulate the distances.
‘What do you see?’
‘A person I don’t know.’
‘You know me. We have been married for nearly ten years. We have been intimate.’
‘If I come too close to you I’m frightened of getting burned. You give off a corrosive acid, all those untrue —’
She broke off without completing the sentence.
‘What I understand least of all is why you tried to kill my father.’
He felt an overwhelming urge to tell her the truth, that it was all those accursed Christmas dinners, his father-in-law’s contempt for the naval commander who had married his daughter. But there was no place for the truth yet.
‘It wasn’t me who attacked your father. I would never turn to violence.’
‘You hit me, not long ago.’
‘That was only because I had to stop you screaming.’
‘Can’t you tell the truth for once? Can’t you try? Your lies are wrapping themselves round my legs like heavy weights.’