A screwdriver in the stomach, perhaps that was what he deserved.
Suddenly someone was clawing at him. Henrik panicked before he realized it was just long leaves from the reeds, whirling around in the wind.
He stopped, closed his eyes, and curled up in the icy blast. If he just relaxed and stopped struggling, he would soon go completely numb, in his stomach and right through the rest of his body.
Was death warm or cold? Or somewhere in between?
Somewhere in his head were the Serelius brothers with their broad smiles. That got him moving again.
32
Joakim stood in the barn listening to the wind roaring over the huge roof. He could feel its power through the beams and the sheets of asbestos, but at least he was out of its reach.
He had climbed the ladder a few minutes earlier and was back in the room behind the hayloft.
Everything was silent here. The angular roof high above gave him the feeling of having stepped into a church.
The batteries in his flashlight were almost done, but he could still make out the old church benches in the darkness. And all the old objects lying on them.
This was the prayer room for those who had died at Eel Point; this was where they gathered every Christmas.
Joakim was sure of it. Would they come tonight or tomorrow? It didn’t matter, he would stay here and wait for Katrine.
Slowly Joakim moved forward along the narrow aisle between the benches, looking at the possessions of the dead.
He stopped by the front bench and shone the flashlight on the denim jacket lying there, neatly folded.
He had left it exactly where he found it-he had hardly dared touch it that night. He had taken the book Mirja Rambe had written into his bedroom and started to read it, but he didn’t want Ethel’s jacket in the house. He was afraid that Livia would start dreaming about her aunt again.
Joakim reached out and felt at the worn fabric, as if touching it could provide answers to all his questions.
When he got hold of one sleeve, something rustled and fell on the floor.
It was a small piece of paper.
He bent down and picked it up, and saw a single sentence written in ink. In the faint beam of the flashlight Joakim read the words, which had been pressed hard into the paper:
MAKE SURE
THAT JUNKIE WHORE
DISAPPEARS
Slowly he moved backwards, the note in his hand.
That junkie whore.
Joakim read the six words on the note several times, and realized this was not a message to Ethel. This had been written to him and Katrine.
Make sure that junkie whore disappears.
But he had never seen it before.
The paper had not been damaged by damp and the ink was black and clear, so the note couldn’t have been in the pocket the night Ethel fell in the water.
The note had been placed there later, he realized. Presumably by Katrine, after she had got hold of the jacket from Joakim’s mother.
Joakim thought back to the nights when Ethel would stand and scream out in the street at the Apple House. Sometimes
he had seen the neighbors’ curtains being pulled aside. Pale, terrified faces had peered out at Ethel.
A note with an exhortation from the neighbors. Katrine must have found it in the mailbox one day when she was home alone, and she had read it and realized that this couldn’t go on. The neighbors had had enough of the yelling, night after night.
Everybody had had enough of Ethel. Something had to be done.
Joakim was very tired now, and sank down on the bench next to Ethel’s jacket. He kept on staring at the note in his hand, until he heard a faint scraping noise through the wind.
It was coming from the opening in the floor behind him.
Someone was inside the barn.
When the northern lighthouse is lit, someone is going to die at Eel Point. I have heard that story, but that evening when I got home from Borgholm and saw the white light from the northern tower, I didn’t think about it. I was too shocked at seeing Ragnar Davidsson carrying Torun’s paintings down to the water, without taking the slightest notice of my cries.
He had dropped a few rolled-up canvases in the snow, and I tried to gather them up, but they scudded away in the wind. All I had in my arms were two paintings when I got back to the house.
– MIRJA RAMBE
WINTER 1962
With the wind at my back, I race into the outbuilding’s porch and on into the middle room, despite the fact that I know what I will see there.
Empty white walls.
Almost all of Torun’s blizzard paintings have gone from the storeroom-there are just a few rolled up on the floor, but there are several piles of fishing nets.
The door to our end of the house is closed, but I know that Torun is sitting in there. I can’t go in to her, can’t tell her what has happened, so I sink down onto the floor.
Over on the table are a half-full glass and a bottle. They weren’t there before.
I quickly go over to them, stick my nose in the glass, and sniff at the clear liquid. It’s schnapps-presumably Davidsson’s ration to keep him warm.
Here and there around the house are similar bottles with different contents, and when I think about them I know what I am going to do.
There is no sign of Davidsson as I hurry across the inner
courtyard, open the barn door, and slip into the darkness. I can find my way around in there among the shadows without a light, and go further inside to the garbage and the hidden treasures. In a corner stands a special metal container-a container on which someone has drawn a black cross. I take it back to the outbuilding with me.
In the storeroom I empty out most of Davidsson’s schnapps onto one of his piles of nets that stinks of tar, then top it up with the same amount of the equally clear and almost odor-free liquid from the can.
There is a wooden cupboard in the corner; I hide the can in there.
Then I sit down on the floor again and wait.
Five or ten minutes later there is a rattling at the door. The howling of the wind increases in volume, before the noise is cut off with a bang.
A pair of heavy boots step into the porch and stamp up and down to shake off the snow; I recognize the smell of sweat and tar.
Ragnar Davidsson comes into the room and looks at me.
“So where have you been?” he asks. “You just took off this morning.”
I don’t reply. The only thing I can think of is what I’m going to say to Torun about the paintings. She can’t find out what has happened.
“With some guy, of course,” says Davidsson, answering his own question.
He walks slowly around me on the cement floor, and I give him one last chance. I raise my hand and point toward the shore.
“We have to go and fetch the paintings.”
“That’s not possible.”
“It is. You have to help me.”
He shakes his head and walks over to the table. “They’re
already gone… they’re on their way to Gotland. The wind and the waves took them.”
He fills up the glass and raises it to his lips.
I could warn him, but I say nothing. I simply watch as he drinks-three good gulps that almost empty the glass.
Then he puts it down on the table, smacks his lips and says, “Right, little Mirja… so what do you fancy doing now?”
33
Henrik woke up to find his dead grandfather standing over him like a shadow in the whirling powdery snow. Algot leaned forward and raised his boot-clad foot.
Move yourself! Do you want to die?
He felt hard blows striking his legs and feet, over and over again.
Get up! Thieving bastard!
Henrik slowly lifted his head, wiped the snow out of his eyes, and screwed his eyes up as he peered into the wind. His grandfather’s ghost was gone, but in the distance he could see a searchlight sweeping silently across the night sky. The blood-red glow made the veils of snow above him sparkle.