No, the leaf was not lying on the ground and Simon wasn't lying dead beneath the apple tree or dead among the reeds. Their paths had crossed, and here they stood. Simon was perhaps a little oversensitive after everything that had happened, but it seemed to him like a miracle.
He no longer wanted to go home. He changed direction and headed up to Anna-Greta's house with the leaf in his hand, as some lines by Evert Taube played in his head.
Who has given you your sight, your senses? The ears that hear the waves come rushing, the voice you lift in song.
The autumn world was beautiful around him, and he walked with careful steps to avoid disturbing it. Gently he opened Anna-Greta's door and crept into the hallway, lingering in the feeling that the world was a holy place and every sensory perception a gift. He could smell the aroma of her house, he could hear her voice. Soon he would see her.
'No,' said Anna-Greta in the kitchen. 'I just think we have to talk about the whole thing. Something has changed, and we don't know what that means.'
Simon frowned. He didn't know who Anna-Greta was talking to or what she was talking about, and it made him feel as if he were eavesdropping. He was turning to close the door and thus announce his presence when Anna-Greta said, 'Sigrid is the only case I know, and I have no idea what it means.'
Simon hesitated, then grabbed the door handle. Just before the door slammed shut he heard Anna-Greta say, 'The day after tomorrow, then?'
The door closed behind him and Simon walked through the hallway, making sure he could be heard. He reached the kitchen just in time to hear Anna-Greta say, 'Fine. I'll see you then.' She put the phone down.
'Who was that?' asked Simon.
'Only Elof,' said Anna-Greta. 'Coffee?'
Simon turned the leaf between his fingers and tried to sound unconcerned as he asked, 'So what were you talking about?'
Anna-Greta got up, fetched the cups, brought the coffee pot over from the stove. Simon had asked his question so quietly that she might not have heard it. But he thought she had. He twisted the leaf and felt like a small child as he asked again, 'What were you talking about?'
Anna-Greta put down the coffee pot and snorted, as if the question amused her. 'Why do you ask?'
'I'm just curious, that's all.'
'Come and sit down. Would you like a biscuit?'
The joy that had been bubbling through Simon withdrew, leaving behind a dry riverbed in his stomach. Stones and thorny bushes. Something was wrong, and the worst thing was that he had experienced this before, on a couple of occasions. Anna-Greta had been away, and when he asked her where she had been, she avoided his questions until he gave up.
This time he had no intention of giving up. He sat down at the table and put a hand over his cup when Anna-Greta tried to pour him some coffee. When she raised her eyes to meet his, he said, 'Anna- Greta. I want to know what you and Elof were talking about.'
She tried a smile. When it found no response whatsoever in Simon's face, it died away. She looked at him and for a second something…dangerous crossed her expression. Simon waited. Anna- Greta shook her head. 'This and that. I don't understand why you're so interested.'
'I'm interested,' said Simon, 'because I didn't know that you and Elof had that kind of relationship.' Anna-Greta opened her mouth to give some kind of answer, but Simon carried on, 'I'm interested because I heard you talking about Sigrid. About the fact that something has changed.'
Anna-Greta abandoned the attempt to keep the conversation on an everyday level. She put down the coffee pot, sat up straight and folded her arms. 'You were listening.'
'I just happened to hear.'
'In that case,' said Anna-Greta, 'I think you should forget that you just happened to hear. And leave this alone.'
'Why?'
Anna-Greta sucked in her cheeks as if she had something sour in her mouth that she was just about to spit out. Then her whole posture softened and she sank down a fraction. She said, 'Because I'm asking you to.'
'But this is crazy. What is it that's so secret?'
That hint of danger, of something alien, appeared in Anna-Greta's eyes once again. She poured herself a cup of coffee, sat down at the table and said calmly and reasonably, 'Regardless of what you say. However disappointed you might be. I have no intention of discussing it. End of story.'
Nothing more was said. A minute later Simon was standing on Anna-Greta's porch. He still had the maple leaf in his hand. He looked at it and could hardly remember what he had thought was so special about it, what had made him come here. He threw it away and walked down towards his house.
'End of story,' he mumbled to himself. 'End of story.'
Old Acquaintances
Way back in the Bible
our nursery teachers
had made a note of our real origin:
floated ashore out of the shadows.
Anna Ståbi -Flux
About the sea
Land and sea.
We may think of them as opposites; as complements. But there is a difference in how we think of them: the sea, and the land.
If we are walking around in a forest, a meadow or a town, we see our surroundings as being made up of individual elements. There are this many different kinds of trees in varying sizes, those buildings, these streets. The meadow, the flowers, the bushes. Our gaze lingers on details, and if we are standing in a forest in the autumn, we become tongue-tied if we try to describe the richness around us. All this exists on land.
But the sea. The sea is something completely different. The sea is one.
We may note the shifting moods of the sea. What the sea looks like when the wind is blowing, how the sea plays with the light, how it rises and falls. But still it is always the sea we are talking about. We have given different parts of the sea different names for navigation and identification, but if we are standing before the sea, there is only one whole. The sea.
If we are taken so far out in a small boat that no land is visible in any direction, we may catch sight of the sea. It is not a pleasant experience. The sea is a god, an unseeing, unhearing deity that surrounds us and has all imaginable power over us, yet does not even know we exist. We mean less than a grain of sand on an elephant's back, and if the sea wants us, it will take us. That's just the way it is. The sea knows no limits, makes no concessions. It has given us everything and it can take everything away from us.
To other gods we send our prayer: Protect us from the sea.
Whispers in your ear
Two days after the storm, Anders was standing down in the wormwood meadow inspecting his boat. It was upside down on blocks, and it was a depressing sight. There were good reasons why he had got it for nothing five years ago.
Since there was no system for the disposal of worn-out plastic boats, they were either left lying around, or given away to someone in need. The last resort, if you were really determined to get rid of the wretched thing, was to tow the boat out into the bay, drill holes in it and let it sink. Anders' boat looked as if it might be ready for that final journey.
There were cracks all over the hull, and the engine mounting was split. The fibreglass around the rowlocks was so brittle that it would probably splinter if you attempted to row. Anders did actually have an engine, an old ten-horsepower Johnson up in the shed, but he wasn't sure if he'd be able to get it started.
The boat was really beyond repair, it was just a matter of having some kind of vessel, something to put in the water so he didn't have to borrow Simon's boat when he wanted to stock up on supplies.