Anders asked the water to close slowly around the gulls. The passageway shrank, and the birds hurled themselves up over the edges or dived out into the water, swam a short distance and then rose to the surface. Silence fell. Anders was standing on the sixth step in a bubble of air, and it was as dark as late twilight. He could sense the next step, but nothing more.
He carried on downwards.
After seven more steps it was almost completely dark around him. The seaweed and bladder wrack thinned out and disappeared. If he raised his head he could still see the surface up above, dark blue like a summer night sky, but hardly any light penetrated. He kept on going.
The steps became shallower the deeper he went. When he had covered thirty or forty metres in total darkness, they had the same dimensions as a normal staircase. He had no concept of time or space, he was merely a body moving downwards. To avoid losing contact with himself and being swallowed up by the darkness, he began to count the steps.
He conjured up the numbers in yellow against the graffiti wall of the darkness. He embellished them with flowery touches and had little animals hopping around them, to fend off the final separation from the essence of himself, a thinking being. He walked. He walked.
Seventy-nine… eighty… eighty-one… eighty-two…
He was so busy creating flourishes and colours around his numbers, asserting his humanity in the great darkness, that he didn't notice when it happened. He was just considering whether to have a squirrel or a magpie on the branch sticking out from step eighty-two when he noticed that the steps were no longer heading downwards, but upwards.
He stopped. Looked around. Pointlessly. He was in total darkness. He could swear he hadn't reached any kind of landing, any place where the steps leading down had stopped and the steps leading up had begun. At some point the flight of steps had just…changed direction.
He tried to picture it, to see how such a construction might be possible. He couldn't do it. The only idea that came close was a flight of steps that turned itself inside out, becoming an upside-down mirror image of itself.
There is no way hack. There are only steps. And they don't work.
These were Maja's words from the dream. Now he understood them. The steps didn't work. They were all wrong. But he kept on going. Upwards.
After twenty more steps he could just make out the summer night sky above him. Ten more and it became an ordinary sky, seen through water. The steps had become deep once more, and when he tried to climb up on to the next one he stumbled and banged his knee on the edge.
He sat down and looked up at the sky. The air in his bubble was beginning to run out, and he asked the water to part all the way up to the surface. The passageway opened up as if he had used unnaturally long arms to draw back a pair of curtains. What he saw made him lower his head in despair.
No, no, no! All this, and now…
The windows of Gåvasten lighthouse were glittering in the sunlight far above him. Now he understood what the impossible behaviour of the steps meant. He had been led back to his starting point. Spiritus had allowed him to slip through, but he was not allowed to slip inside. The only thing he had got for his efforts was a sore knee.
He leaned back against the next step and pulled up his trouser leg. The jagged edge of the step had gashed his skin, and a small amount of blood was seeping out. He grinned scornfully at it and tipped his head back. The sky was clear, and what he could see of the lighthouse over the edge of the rock was shining white. He wondered what would happen if he simply asked the water to close around him. Presumably he wouldn't die, but there was always that possibility.
Exhausted, he blinked at the bright light up above and decided to wait a while after all. It was beautiful anyway. There was nothing to hope for, but…
The gulls.
Where had the gulls gone? His field of vision was limited, but at least one bird should have been visible. But nothing was moving across the sky except thin veils of cloud, and he could hear nothing of the birds.
He got to his feet and climbed up the next step. And the next. He had to heave himself up the last step, and once again he was standing on the rocks of Gåvasten.
It was late spring.
The air was pleasantly mild, and flowers were growing in every crevice. Mayweed and chives danced in a gentle breeze coming off the sea. The lighthouse glowed chalk-white beneath an afternoon sun that was just warm enough. A wonderful day.
Anders looked around. No gulls on the water, no gulls in the sky. Not a single bird as far as the eye could see. His woolly jumper was making him itchy in the warmth, and he pulled it off and knotted it around his waist, over the top of Maja's snowsuit.
He wandered dumbstruck over the rocks. When he caught sight of Simon's boat, neatly pulled up on to the shore instead of lying abandoned out at sea, he sat down and rested his chin on his hands.
Where am I? When am I?
He squinted into the sun, sparkling on the sea, and studied the boat. It didn't look the same, somehow. It looked newer, or…healthier. There were no scratches or cracks in the hull, and the engine cowling shone. Anders was seized by a sudden sense of unease, and turned his head to the south.
Domarö was exactly where it should be. A tangled thickening of the horizon, a brushstroke of fir trees against the pale sky. But it was just the same as with the boat, it somehow looked more…newly made. Healthier. Stronger.
He felt a movement in his stomach, like the first perceptible movements of a foetus. He stuck his hand inside his shirt, placed it over his stomach and, with a feeling of disgust, realised that the black larva in there was living its own life. They had moved apart and were no longer one and the same. He was Anders, and an insect was crawling around inside his stomach.
He stood up and walked down to the boat. The mooring rope lay neatly coiled up on the prow; the freshly varnished oars shone. He pushed off and the boat slipped easily off the pebbles as he climbed in.
He pulled the string and coolant sprayed out through the little hole beneath the cowling. He felt the engine. It was vibrating. It was running. It just wasn't making any noise. He engaged the gear lever and the boat moved smoothly forward. He accelerated and the boat moved more quickly, still without a sound.
He turned the prow towards Domarö and picked up speed. The mild air should have been cold against his face as he moved faster, but it maintained exactly the same pleasant temperature whether he increased his speed or slowed down. Everything was perfect, and the fear inside him grew stronger and stronger.
The trip across to Domarö passed with incomprehensible speed, as if the distance had contracted while he was travelling. After no more than a minute he swung in alongside one of the smaller jetties next to the steamboat jetty, tied up the boat with the soft, white cotton rope and climbed out.
The boathouses were prettily painted Falun red, and looked as if they were made of velvet in the soft afternoon light. Anders looked around and noticed someone up on the steamboat jetty, with their back turned towards him.
He walked along the shoreline and when he looked up in the direction of the village he could see that the shop was open and the pennants advertising ice cream were fluttering gently. Giant Cornet, Pear Split. Neither of those was available nowadays, as far as he knew. Someone was standing up there studying the advertising posters.
MINCE 7.95/KG, GHERKINS 2.95/KG.
I know what this is, thought Anders, as he climbed up on to the steamboat jetty and went over to the person standing with his back to him. I know where I am.
'Excuse me,' said Anders, and thought he had uttered the words only in his mind, as they didn't come out of his mouth. The person in front of him was a man dressed in blue jeans and a checked shirt, not unlike the one he himself was wearing. The man did not react to the inaudible words. Anders moved closer.