He opened the door and was welcomed by the little collection box and the request for money. He rummaged in his pockets but didn't find any, and walked past. He stopped and giggled.
Perhaps the birds will attack now.
No. As he walked up the stairs he could hear them outside, still screaming and clucking to one another. Did they understand each other's language, the different species? Probably not, but in that case how did they know they were supposed to gather like this?
Everything is talking. Everything is listening.
He stroked the outside wall with his right hand as he climbed upwards. He passed the circular room and carried on up the stairs to the reflector.
The room looked just as he remembered it, nothing had changed. The big windows and the gleaming mirrors on the reflector bounced the daylight around so that the room seemed brighter than outdoors. He went and stood in the spot where Maja had asked him What's that? and looked out across the sea, waiting to see what he might feel.
At first there was nothing.
His eyes were unusually sensitive to the light, and despite the fact that the sky was covered in clouds, he was forced to squint in order to be able to see out across the slightly foaming water. He looked down at the sharp edges of the rocks, the congregating birds, and felt the poisonous liquid running through his body like a fluorescent green thread.
Nothing.
Then it came. Faintly at first, like the perception of another person's breathing in a darkened room. Then stronger. A knowledge that was hard to describe. Anders gasped and stumbled, leaned against the glass case surrounding the reflector.
The depths.
The depths. How deep…
He was standing on nothing. The depths were everything.
It is said that only ten per cent of an iceberg protrudes above the surface of the water. What Anders perceived throughout his entire body in one cold, burning moment was similar, only much bigger, more intense: what was sticking up, what he was standing on wasn't even one per cent. It was almost nothing. A strand of cotton over an abyss.
His legs gave way and he sank down, falling backwards until his head hit the wooden floor.
We are so small. Just poor little people with our flashing lights.
He had foolishly thought that the lighthouse had something to do with it all. Its ghostly eye flashing across the sea at night had misled him. But what is a lighthouse? A human invention of wood and stone. A building with a lamp inside it, nothing more. The light can be extinguished and the building can decay, but the depths…
The depths remain.
The insight slipped out of him like a wave retreating from the shore, and he lay on the floor with only the dry knowledge left. The rivulets of poison were diluted in his blood, and he breathed deeply, out and in, out and in.
He rolled over on to his side and glanced over the graffiti on the whitewashed interior walls of the lighthouse.
FRIDA WAS HERE 21/06/98
JM
NÅTEN BOYS = IDIOTS
One sentence was written in bigger, clearer letters than most of the rest. Anders thought he remembered seeing it the last time he was here, but he hadn't attached any importance to it. Now he did.
Printed beneath the date 28/01/89 it said:
STRANGE WAYS, HERE WE COME.
Henrik and Björn had disappeared some time around that date.
Strangeways, Here We Come was the title of The Smiths' last album.
They had sat here and written, almost carved that final message on the wall with a ballpoint pen and then…set off. Along the strange ways.
They knew. They knew what they were doing.
Anders got to his feet and raced down the stairs.
'I'm going to get you, you bastards! I know where you're hiding and I'm coming to get you! Somehow, I swear to God, I'm going to get her back!'
Anders was standing on the eastern rocks screaming to the sea and the wind, screaming along with the birds that drifted past his face like a gigantic curtain that his arms were too short, his knowledge too limited, to be able to peep through. But he would do it. Somehow he would do it.
He went on screaming and threatening the sea until his throat was swollen and his rage had subsided.
When he came to his senses again he saw that the birds had moved closer. Almost all the golden-eyes, ducks and swans had gathered on the surface of the water off the eastern side of Gåvasten. They were there in front of him, bobbing on the waves. Thousands of birds packed so tightly together that it looked as if it would be possible to walk a hundred metres out to sea on their backs. The gulls had stopped circling around the island and were now flapping directly in front of him in a single white cloud that seemed to rise from the sea and drift towards the spot where he was standing.
At any moment an audible or inaudible command would reach them and he would drown in a swarm of hacking, tearing beaks.
They understand. I have to get away from here.
Slowly, one step at a time, he walked backwards towards the boat, never taking his eyes off the birds. If they showed the least sign of attack there was a chance he could make it into the lighthouse before they tore him apart-just as long as he made sure to keep watching them.
The lichen made the rocks slippery as soap on this side and he lost his footing once. But still he kept his eyes on the birds and although he banged his hip sharply, he managed to stop himself from falling.
The flock of gulls had moved closer; they were circling above the rocks on the eastern side as he undid the mooring rope without looking at his hands, and shoved the boat out into the water with his back. The agitated screams of the gulls shredded through the air and filled his head, making it impossible to think rationally. The only thing he could see in his mind's eye was: Get the boat out. Get away from here.
The boat moved smoothly away from the rocks and he walked backwards in the water, pushing off from the seabed with one foot as he climbed aboard. The boat glided a few metres away from the island. There was no longer any chance of making it to the lighthouse. He didn't dare turn his back on the gulls to start the engine, so he grabbed an oar and paddled backwards like a gondolier, one side at a time.
"When he was about a hundred metres from Gåvasten, the birds began to calm down. The flock of gulls broke up and spread out into a thinner cloud that encompassed the whole island. Anders dropped the oar, sat down and let out a long, quivering breath. He put his head in his hands and caught sight of the plastic bottle, rolling around on the deck.
He had forgotten about it, forgotten that its contents could have protected his retreat from the menacing birds. Perhaps it had done so anyway. He looked at the bottle, which did a half roll as a wave lifted the boat. The label with his father's childish handwriting came into view: WORMWOOD.
He understood. At last he understood what had happened to his father. That day and all the other days.
Wormwood
He really ought to go home and put the cash in his money box, but Anders wanted to hang out for a while enjoying the feeling of being rich. His pockets full of money. Like the boy with the golden trousers, he could simply peel off a note with a rustling sound, and another, and another.
He went up to the shop with no other plan in mind: just to saunter around as the richest boy on Domarö for the time being.
The boats were still out searching for Torgny Ek, but the crowd on the jetty had thinned out. Anders hesitated. If he went down to the jetty there would be a load of adults asking him questions, and he didn't know if he wanted that. 'Hi.'
Cecilia pulled up beside him on her bike. Anders raised a hand in greeting. When the hand was in the vicinity of his nose, he realised it smelled of fish. He shoved both hands in his back pockets and adopted a relaxed attitude.