She had inspected him suspiciously. Perhaps she despised people who dug? Or else she was angry at her colleague, thought that he was wasting time, and then let her displeasure spill over on him.
What surprised Karsten was the information that new threats had been made against the professor. What the threats consisted of Nilsson would not say, other than that it concerned something that was placed by the mailbox. No, Karsten had not seen anything, he was fully occupied with excavating and could not possibly perceive what was happening in the neighboring yards, especially on the other side of the houses. The policeman seemed content with that.
It was obvious that the professor was being attacked from several directions. The morning’s article in the newspaper spoke for itself. The academic feuding was a fact, and clearly not only in Sweden. It serves him right, thought Karsten contentedly, taking the pot from the stove and pouring the pasta into the colander, rinsing it with cold water, adding a little butter, and tilting it up onto the plate.
But who had set something by the gate, and what? You might think it was a bomb, the way the police were acting.
The meat sauce, bought ready-made, was not especially good, but he still shoveled it in with good appetite. Perhaps the associate professor knew more? He decided to look him up. There was a witch alder waiting for him, after all.
He picked up his workbook, opened to a new page, and noted how many hours he had put in at Lundquist’s, how many kilometers he drove during the day and how much he had spent on plants. Everything had to be noted for later accounting, but also for his own sake.
There was a certain joy in this, browsing back in the workbooks, recalling things large and small, plantings or stone paving that he was especially pleased with, which customers had been grateful, or for that matter who had complained. The latter were, however, clearly in the minority.
It struck him that this was as good a diary as any. Since his return to Sweden he had filled a combined thirty-eight workbooks. All were lined up on the bookshelf.
He was a lonely man, it had gradually occurred to him. Not because he thought about himself and his own situation that much but because he observed other people. He saw how they sought each other out, clumped together, terrified to have dinner at a restaurant on their own or sit on a park bench down in the City Garden and philosophize, read a book or simply casually watch people passing by. Not to mention going to a concert or a play alone. Everyone tried to look as if they were waiting for an acquaintance, looking at their watches, taking out their cell phones, conversing with someone or at least pretending to converse.
That was foreign to him. He was usually most content being by himself. Recently, however, a new type of worry had come over him, perhaps triggered by his mother’s death. He became dazed by the new thought that the loner’s existence was in opposition to the very idea of life, the African thought and attitude to life that he was so familiar with, where loneliness was considered an illness.
For it occurred to him, late in life it might seem, that everything he did was measured not only against his own conceptions but also other people’s dreams and needs. Of course your own satisfaction counted for a lot, but still it was a little sad now: Lundquist was out of town, he had no one to talk with, show his progress to. Even if most of his customers were ignorant, and downright thankful not to have to think and decide on something, they were still polite, pretending to be interested or impressed by the progress in their gardens.
Now he was groping along, in principle sure of his business, he knew every species and its characteristics and needs, but subjected to the vacuum of loneliness he was listless and perplexed. The notes of the workbook became hours and kronor, nothing more.
He was a solitary person who erected monuments that people barely noticed.
The dishes were soon done and there were hours until it was time to go to bed. He sat down in the sparsely furnished living room and continued thinking. He was not particularly good at it, he was a man of action, but the recent years’ practice in brooding was starting to produce results. He was getting ever more persistent and capable. Just so I don’t get like Father, he thought, who could sit for hours staring into space.
Karsten understood early on that it was the war that was raging in his father. The eighth of May 1945 meant peace but not the end of the war. He was marching as long as he lived inside himself the long way from East Prussia to Stralsund, over and over again.
On lampposts and provisional gallows to the right the “traitors” were hanging and to the left the “Nazi swine” were swaying in the wind. Their tongues were swollen. Often they had pissed and shit on themselves. Birds were sitting on their shoulders. Flies buzzed. At their feet were dogs.
Between them marched columns of the destitute, hungry, terrified, stinking, apathetic, wounded, dying. Westward. Karsten was in this parade of human wreckage too, secured to his father’s body with a belt from a German soldier. Karsten still had the belt with the eagle.
He remembered nothing himself, he was an infant. What was he fed on? A mystery. “On love,” said his father, who then burst into tears; Karsten saw how he struggled to hold it back. He hugged Karsten, then age fourteen, so hard it hurt. He still felt that grip, almost fifty years later.
Karsten Haller smiled. What strength, he thought. What love that surrounded him. The gratitude of his parents’ energy and consideration shot up like laughter.
He understood that he had turned his thoughts around. It was here that the skill showed itself. Only a couple of years ago it would have gone in the other direction, right toward the abyss. Nowadays he could stop and reset his course. The happy memories took over.
He stood up, went over to the window. On the other side of the street was a woman who usually had dinner at this time. She was perhaps in her forties, had moved in a year ago. Karsten thought she was divorced. No children were ever seen. Her kitchen table was lit up by a red lamp, shaped like a funnel. It was like a painting: the gentle light, the woman with small, deliberate movements, she always ate slowly, always alone, sometimes she browsed in a magazine.
He observed her awhile, let his eyes rest. It was like at Okanga, the southern water hole, where he also used to stand concealed for a half hour or so and study the animals that came to drink.
Eighteen
The low-built church was shrouded in haze. On the cemetery wall out toward the road sat an old man dangling his legs. It was such a peculiar sight that Ann got the idea that something was not right. It was dark and a little raw, it had rained hard.
As she drove past the man turned his head and followed her with his eyes. She was driving very slowly and could see that he was smiling. She accelerated up the rise and turned left, passed the store, and was struck by a sensation of dizziness. So many years ago. She tried to figure out exactly to the day how long it was, but gave up at once. During the drive there she had decided to live in the present, not let herself be dragged down into a morass of guilt and wasted chances.
Should she have brought Erik with her? It only struck her now, with just a few kilometers left. Viola certainly would have appreciated that. But probably not Edvard.
Ann had said that she would be back no later than nine. Now it was ten past six. She had checked the ferry schedules. She would have to leave Viola’s no later than seven thirty.
She did not need to hesitate about the way. She had driven here many times as if intoxicated, filled with expectation and desire, sometimes in jubilant joie de vivre. And the fact was that despite her intention the old feeling took hold of her. She felt it purely physically as a thrill through her whole body.