Harbour

Simon stepped into the mosaic of shattered, multi-coloured plastic. 'What's happened?'

'What's happened?' said Holger. 'I'll tell you what's happened. Last night when we were fast asleep some bastards from Stockholm came over here in a boat and smashed our mailboxes for the hell of it.'

'Why?'

Holger looked as if he couldn't believe his ears. That was his normal reaction to anything he perceived as a challenge to his theories, and as usual he embarked on his reply by repeating the question, just to show how completely stupid it was.

'Why? Do you think they actually need a reason? Maybe they couldn't get a mooring in the harbour, maybe they weren't happy with the number of hours of sunshine last summer, or maybe they just think the most fun you can have is destroying something, and if you ask me I'd go for the last option. It makes me so bloody furious.'

Holger turned on his heel and limped down to the steamboat jetty, where Simon could see Mats, the owner of the shop, waiting for the tender.

Simon turned to Göran and asked, 'Is that what you think?'

Göran looked at the devastation around them and shook his head. 'I think we have no idea who did this. Could be anybody.'

'Someone on the island?'

'No one I can think of. But you never know.'

'Did nobody hear anything?'

Göran nodded in the direction of the jetty. 'Mats heard something, and then he heard an engine start up. But he didn't know if it was an outboard motor or a moped. The wind was in the wrong direction.'

'They must have made…a hell of a noise.'

'I don't know,' said Göran, scooping up some green and grey pieces and showing them to Simon. 'Look at these. What do you think?'

The pieces in Göran's hand, shark fins and rhomboids, all had sharp edges where they had broken off. The pieces on the ground were quite big too. No little bits.

'It doesn't look as if they were smashed.'

'No, it doesn't, does it? More as if they've been cut. With a box cutter or something. And look at this.'

Göran pointed at the metal box. It was dented and crooked, but the dents had sharp angles in the middle where the bare metal showed through. It was not blows that had created the dents, but a stabbing action. Someone had stood there stabbing at the mailbox with a big knife.

Simons shook his head. 'Why would someone do that?'

Göran hesitated before replying, as if he wanted to be sure that he was choosing the right words. Eventually he said, 'My experience of this sort of thing…is that people do this because they feel hate.'

'And what is it they-or he-hate in cases like this?'

'Us.'

Simon looked at the debris on the ground again, at the dented metal box. Rage. All the mailboxes represented the people on the island. Every box was an extension of the person to whom it belonged. A name.

Göran shrugged. 'Or else it's the simple urge to destroy things. How should I know. Sometimes that's what it is. But usually it isn't. So what are we going to do about this lot?'

Any kind of outrage or violent deviation from the norm has a tendency to create gaps in the chain of responsibility: no one guilty, no one responsible. In which case two old men who just happened to be passing can easily end up clearing up the mess. Göran crouched down and started picking up pieces, Simon fetched the rubbish bin from the steps leading to the shop. Then they worked together to gather up the wreckage. When the bin was full, Göran went down to the harbour for an empty barrel, while Simon sat down on the steps and wiped the sweat from his brow.

So bloody unnecessary. All this trouble just because someone… hates.

He pulled a face and rubbed his eyes.

Ha. There's no end to how much trouble there can be if someone hates hard enough. In fact, we ought to be grateful if it stops at mailboxes.

'Simon?'

Simon looked up. Anders was standing in front of him with a letter in his hand, looking around. 'Where are the mailboxes?'

Simon explained what had happened, and told Anders to give his letter directly to Mats, who was in fact just on his way up from the harbour with the blue mail crate in his arms. Göran and Holger were following behind.

Göran had got hold of a roll of black plastic sacks, and started putting the pieces in one of them. Holger pushed his hands into his pockets and stared at Anders.

'So,' he said. 'We've got a visitor. When did you get here?'

'Yesterday.'

Holger nodded over this nugget of information for a long time. He looked at the others for support, first at Mats and then at Göran, but no support was forthcoming. When the look he got in return from Göran was more annoyed than anything, Holger seemed to remember what the situation was.

'My condolences on your loss, by the way,' he managed to squeeze out.

They talked for a while about what to do about the post. For today, Mats would wait and explain to everyone what had happened. They would all need to get themselves a new mailbox as soon as possible. Meanwhile a plastic bucket with a lid would do instead, or even a bag. As long as everyone put his or her mailbox number on it.

Anders waved his letter. 'So what shall I do with this, then? It's a film to be developed. I wouldn't like it to get lost.'

Mats took the letter and promised he would make sure it was sent. Then he gave out the post to those who were there. No letters for Simon, just a newspaper, Norrtelje Tidning, and an advert for some pension fund.

As Simon and Anders set off home, Göran said, 'You won't forget, will you?'

'No,' said Simon. 'I'll call round one day.'

They took the route along the shoreline. The jetties belonging to the summer visitors were more or less empty. The odd individual would probably come out at the weekend, but otherwise the season was over for this year.

'What is it he doesn't want you to forget?' asked Anders.

'Göran moved back here a while ago, when he retired. But he hasn't got a well, so he wanted me to go over with my divining rod to find him some water.'

'How do you actually do that?'

'Practice, practice and more practice.'

Anders punched Simon playfully on the shoulder. 'Stop it. That isn't magic. I really am interested.'

'Well, it is a kind of magic, you know. Are you coming in to see Anna-Greta?'

Anders dropped the subject. For a number of years Simon had been the local water diviner. Whenever anyone needed to sink a well, it was to Simon they turned to find a spring. Simon would come, walk around with the rowan twig that was his divining rod, and eventually point out a suitable spot. He hadn't been wrong yet.

Anders snorted. 'Holger seemed to think I was the one who smashed up the mailboxes.'

'You know his wife drowned last year?'

'Sigrid? No, I didn't know that.'

'Went out in the boat to check the nets and never came back. They found the boat a few days later, but not Sigrid.'

Sigrid. One of the few people Anders had been genuinely frightened of when he was little. An overfilled cup just waiting for the drop that would make it run over. It could be anything. The weather, the sound of bicycles, a wasp that came too close to her ice cream. Whenever Anders sold her some herring he would make a point of picking out the biggest and best, and preferred to give her too much rather than a single gram too little.

'Did she drown herself?'

Simon shrugged his shoulders. 'I suppose some people think so, but…'

'But what?'

'Others think Holger did it.'

'Is that what you think?'

'No. No, no. He was much too frightened of her.'

'So now he's only got the Stockholmers left to hate?'

'That's right. But he can put even more energy into it now.'

Holger's thesis

This aversion towards people from the capital is not unique to Domarö, or even to Sweden. It exists everywhere, and sometimes with good reason. Holger's story is representative of what has happened in the Stockholm archipelago generally, and on Domarö in particular.