I continued to scream, convinced I was face to face with death.
I knew that she was the last person capable of helping me out. She could barely stand on her own two feet.
But she astonished me as much as she astonished herself. She came towards me with her walker, as fast as she was able. She tipped the walker over, then lay down on the ice and pushed it towards the edge of the hole so that I was able to grab hold of one of the wheels. How I managed to pull myself up I shall never know. She must have pulled at me and tried to shuffle backwards through the snow. When I scrambled out, I staggered as best I could towards the car. I could hear her calling behind me, but I had no idea of what she was saying: what I did know was that if I stopped and fell over in the snow, I would never have the strength to stand up again. I couldn’t have been in the water for more than two minutes, but that had almost been enough to kill me. I have no memory of how I got from the hole in the ice to the car. I said nothing, probably closed my eyes so that I couldn’t see how far there was still to go to the car. When I eventually pressed my face against the boot, I had only one thought in my head: to strip off all the soaking wet clothes I had on, and roll the blanket on the back seat round my body. I have no recollection of how that was achieved. There was a strong smell of exhaust fumes around me as I wriggled out of the last piece of clothing and somehow managed to open the back door. I wrapped the blanket round me, and after that I lost consciousness.
When I woke up, she was embracing me and was as naked as I was.
Deep down in my consciousness, the cold had been transformed into a sensation of burning. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was Harriet’s hair and the back of her neck. My memory slowly returned.
I was alive. And Harriet had undressed and was hugging me under the blanket to keep me warm.
She noticed that I had come round.
‘Are you cold? You could have died.’
‘The ice simply opened up underneath me.’
‘I thought it was an animal. I’ve never heard a scream like that before.’
‘How long was I unconscious?’
‘An hour.’
‘So long?’
I closed my eyes. My body was scorching hot.
‘I didn’t want to see the lake only for you to die,’ she said.
It was over now. Two old people, naked on the back seat of an old car. We had spoken about such things earlier, of young people in the backs of cars. Making love then perhaps denying it. But we two, with a combined age of 135, simply clung on to each other, one because he had survived, the other because she hadn’t been left all alone in the depths of the forest.
After what might have been another hour, she moved to the front seat and got dressed.
‘It was easier when I was young,’ she said. ‘A clumsy old woman like me finds it difficult to get dressed in acar.’
She fetched dry clothes for me from the rucksack in the boot. Before I put them on, she warmed them up by spreading them over the steering wheel, where the heat from the engine was being blown into the car. I could see through the windscreen that it had started snowing. I was worried in case the snow should start drifting, and prevent us from driving back to the main road.
I dressed as quickly as I could, fumbling as if I was drunk.
It was snowing heavily by the time we left the forest pool. But the logging road was not yet impassable.
We returned to the guest house. This time it was Harriet who went out with her walker to fetch the pizza we had for our evening meal.
We shared one of her bottles of brandy.
The last thing I saw before falling asleep was her face.
It was very close. She may have been smiling. I hope she was.
Chapter 10
When I woke up the next day, Harriet was sitting with the atlas open in front of her. My body felt as if it had been subjected to a severe beating. She asked how I felt. I said I was fine.
‘The interest,’ she said with a smile.
‘Interest?’
‘On your promise. After all these years.’
‘What are you asking for?’
‘A diversion.’
She pointed out where we were on the map. Instead of moving her finger southwards, she moved it eastwards, towards the coast, and the province of Hälsingland. It came to a halt not far from Hudiksvall.
‘To there.’
‘And what’s in store for you there?’
‘My daughter. I want you to meet her. It will take an extra day, perhaps two.’
‘Why does she live there?’
‘Why do you live on your island?’
Needless to say, I did as she requested. We drove towards the coast. The countryside was exactly the same all the way: isolated houses with their satellite dishes, and no sign of any people.
Late in the afternoon Harriet said she was too tired to go any further. We checked into a hotel in Delsbo. The room was small and dusty. Harriet took her medicine and painkillers, and fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. Perhaps she took a drink without my noticing. I went out, found a chemist’s and bought a pharmaceutical handbook. Then I sat down in a cafe and read about her medication.
There was something unreal about sitting in a cafe with a cup of coffee and a cream bun — with several small children shouting and screaming to attract the attention of their mothers, who were absorbed in well-thumbed magazines — and discovering just how ill Harriet was. I felt increasingly that I was paying a visit to a world I had lost contact with during my years on my grandparents’ island. For twelve years I had denied the existence of anything beyond the beaches and cliffs surrounding me, a world that had no relevance for me. I had turned myself into a hermit with no knowledge of what was happening outside the cave in which I was hidden away.
But in that cafe in Delsbo, it became clear to me that I couldn’t continue to live the life I was leading. I would return to my island, of course: I had nowhere else to go. But nothing would ever be the same as it was. The moment I noticed that dark shadow on the expanse of white snow and ice, a door had slammed behind me and would never be opened again.
I had bought a picture postcard in a corner shop. It depicted a fence covered in snow. I sent it to Jansson.
I asked him to feed the animals. Nothing else.
Harriet was awake when I got back. She shook her head when she saw the book I was carrying.
‘I don’t want to talk about my woes today.’
We went to the neighbouring grill bar for dinner.
When I saw the kitchen and breathed the smell of cooking, it occurred to me that we were living in an age of deep-frying and ready-made meals. It was not long before Harriet slid her plate away and announced that she couldn’t eat another mouthful. I tried to urge her to eat a little bit more — but why? A dying person eats no more than is necessary to sustain the short life remaining.
We soon returned to our room. The walls were thin. We could hear two people talking in a neighbouring room. Their voices rose and fell. Both Harriet and I strained our ears, but we were unable to make out any words.
‘Are you still an eavesdropper?’ she asked.