“Booze?”
“Drugs,” said Joakim. “Anything, really, but mostly heroin over the last few years.”
“I’ve never really been into drugs,” said Mirja. “But of course I agree with people like Huxley and Tim Leary…”
“About what?” asked Joakim.
“That drugs can open doors in your mind. Particularly for artists like us.”
Joakim stared at her. He thought of Ethel’s blank expression, and realized why Katrine had never told Mirja about her.
Then he quickly finished his coffee and looked at his watch: quarter past eight.
“We’d better get back.”
“So what do you think of your grandmother, then?” asked Joakim as they drove back across the Öland bridge.
“She was nice,” said Livia.
“Good.”
“Will we be going there again?” she asked.
“Maybe,” said Joakim. “But probably not for a while.”
He decided not to think about Mirja Rambe anymore.
19
“My daughter called me last night,” said one of the elderly ladies on the sofa next to Tilda.
“Oh yes, what did she say?” asked the other elderly lady.
“She wanted to talk things through.”
“Talk things through?”
“Talk things through, yes,” said the first lady. “Once and for all. She says I’ve never supported her. ‘You only thought about yourself and Daddy,’ she said. ‘All the time. And us kids have always been in second place.’”
“That’s what my son says as well,” said the other lady. “Although with him it’s the exact opposite. He rings before Christmas every year and complains and says that I gave him too much love. I destroyed his childhood, according to him. Don’t you give it another thought, Elsa.”
Tilda stopped eavesdropping and looked at her watch. The weather report should be over by now, and she got up and knocked on Gerlof’s door.
“Come in.”
Gerlof was sitting by the radio when Tilda went in to collect him. He had his coat on, but didn’t seem to want to get up.
“Shall we go?” she said, holding her arm out ready to support him.
“Maybe,” he said. “Where was it we were going?”
“Eel Point,” said Tilda.
“Right… and what exactly is it we’re going to do out there?”
“Well, I suppose we’re going to talk,” said Tilda. “The new owner wants to hear some stories about the place. I said you knew lots of stories.”
“Stories?” Gerlof got up slowly and looked at her. “So now I’m designated as some kind of canny old man, sitting in a rocking chair with twinkling eyes telling tales of ghosts and superstitions?”
“It’ll be fine, Gerlof,” said Tilda. “Just look on yourself as a spiritual mentor. To someone who is grieving.”
“Oh yes? There’s no pleasure in grief, said the old man who sat weeping beside the wrong grave.”
Gerlof set off, leaning on his stick, and added, “We’ll just have to talk some sense into him.”
Tilda took his other arm. “Shall we take the wheelchair?”
“Not today,” said Gerlof. “My legs are working today.”
“Do we need to tell anyone we’re going?”
Gerlof snorted. “It’s nothing to do with them.”
It was Wednesday, the second week in December, and they were on their way out to Eel Point for coffee. Gerlof and the owner of the manor were to meet at last.
“How are things going at work, then?” asked Gerlof as they drove through the center of Marnäs.
“I only have one colleague at the station here in Marnäs,” said Tilda. “And he tends to keep out of the way… he’s usually down in Borgholm.”
“Why?”
Tilda remained silent for a few seconds.
“You tell me… but I happened to bump into Bengt Nyberg from Ölands-Posten yesterday, and he told me that the new police station in Marnäs already has a nickname.”
“Oh?”
“They call it the old women’s station.”
Gerlof shook his head wearily. “That’s what they used to call the train stations on the island that only had female staff in the old days. The male stationmasters didn’t think the women could do the job as well as them.”
“I’m sure they did it better,” said Tilda.
“Well, no one ever complained, as far as I know.”
Tilda drove out of Marnäs and down along the deserted road. The temperature was zero, and the flat coastal landscape seemed to have stiffened into a gray and white winter painting. Gerlof looked out through the windshield.
“It’s so beautiful here by the sea.”
“Yes,” said Tilda. “But you’re biased.”
“I love my island.”
“And you hate the mainland.”
“No, I don’t,” said Gerlof. “I’m not some narrow-minded local patriot… but love always begins at home. Those of us who live on the island have to preserve and defend the dignity of Öland.”
Gerlof’s sullen mood gradually lifted and he became more and more talkative. As they were passing the little churchyard in Rörby, he pointed toward the side of the road.
“Speaking of ghosts and superstitions… would you like to hear a story that my father told every Christmas?”
“Sure,” said Tilda.
“The father of your grandfather and my father was called Carl Davidsson,” Gerlof began. “He worked as a servant over in Rörby when he was a teenager, and he once saw a very strange thing here. His older brother had come to visit
him, and they were out walking here by the church in the twilight hour. It was around New Year, very cold and with plenty of snow. Then they heard a horse-drawn sleigh coming up behind them. His brother glanced over his shoulder, then cried out and grabbed hold of Carl’s arm. He pulled him down off the road and out into the snow. Carl didn’t understand what was going on until he saw the sleigh, which was coming closer along the road.”
“I know this story,” said Tilda. “My father used to tell it.”
But Gerlof carried on, as if he hadn’t heard her:
“It was a load of hay. The smallest load of hay Carl had ever seen, and it was being pulled by four tiny horses. And up in the hay little men were clambering around. They were less than three feet tall.”
“Goblins,” said Tilda. “Weren’t they?”
“My father never used that word. He just said they were little people dressed in gray clothes and hats. Carl and his brother didn’t dare move, because the men didn’t look friendly. But the load drove past the boys without anything happening, and once it had passed the churchyard the horses turned off the road and disappeared out into the darkness on the alvar.” Gerlof nodded to himself. “My father swore it was a true story.”
“Didn’t your mother see goblins too?”
“Yes indeed, she saw a little gray man run straight out into the water when she was young… but that was in southern Öland.” Gerlof looked at Tilda. “You come from a family that has seen many remarkable things. Perhaps you’ve inherited the ability to see things?”
“I hope not,” said Tilda.
Five minutes later they had almost reached the turning for the manor, but Gerlof still wanted to take a break and stretch his legs. He pointed through the windshield to the grassy landscape on the other side of the stone wall.
“The peat bog has started to freeze. Shall we take a look?”
Tilda pulled up at the side of the road and helped Gerlof
out into the cold wind. A thin layer of shining ice covered the watery patches all over the bog.
“This is one of the few old peat bogs left on the island,” said Gerlof as he looked out over the stone wall. “Most of the others have been drained and have disappeared.”
Tilda followed his gaze and suddenly saw a movement out in the water, a black shiver between two thick tussocks of grass that made the film of ice quiver and crack.
“Are there fish in here?”