Joakim listened, his body tense, but remained where he was.
It was quiet on the church benches now.
But someone else was walking slowly along the aisle beside them. He heard careful noises in the darkness, the scraping sound of footsteps from a figure passing all the benches behind him.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw that a shadow with a pale face had stopped beside his bench, and was standing there motionless.
“Katrine?” whispered Joakim, without daring to turn his head.
The shadow slowly sat down beside him on the bench.
“Katrine,” he whispered again.
Tentatively he groped in the darkness and his fingers brushed against another hand. It was stiff and ice cold when he took hold of it.
“I’m here now,” he whispered.
There was no reply. The figure bent its head, as if in prayer.
Joakim also lowered his eyes. He looked down at the denim jacket beside him and carried on whispering:
“I found Ethel’s jacket. And the note from the neighbors. I think… Katrine, I think you killed my sister.”
And still there was no reply.
So we sat there in the outbuilding staring at each other, Ragnar Davidsson the eel fisherman and I.
I was extremely tired by this time. The blizzard was on its way, but I had managed to rescue only a few of Torun’s oil paintings, half a dozen canvases that were lying on the floor next to me. Davidsson had thrown the rest into the sea.
– MIRJA RAMBE
WINTER 1962
Davidsson has refilled his glass with schnapps.
“Sure you don’t want some?” he asks.
When I clamp my lips together, he takes a deep draft from the glass. Then he puts it down on the table and smacks his lips.
He seems to get various inappropriate ideas when he looks at me, but before he has time to select one of them, his guts are suddenly twisted into a knot in his belly. That’s what it looks like to me, anyway-his body jerks, he bends over and presses his arms against his stomach.
“Shit,” he mumbles.
Davidsson tries to relax. But then he suddenly goes rigid again, as if he has suddenly thought of something.
“Oh shit,” he says, “I think…”
He falls silent and looks to one side, still thoughtful-then the whole of his upper body jerks in a violent attack of cramp.
I sit there motionless, staring at him; I don’t say a word. I could ask if he’s not feeling well, but I know the answer: the poison in the glass has finally begun to work.
“It wasn’t schnapps in that glass, Ragnar,” I say.
Davidsson is in a lot of pain now, he is leaning against the wall.
“I put something else in there.”
Davidsson manages to get to his feet and staggers past me toward the door. This suddenly gives me a burst of fresh energy.
“Get out of here!” I yell.
I pick up an empty metal bucket standing in a corner and hit him on the back with it.
“Out!”
He does as I say, and I follow him out into the snow and watch him aim for the fence. He manages to find the opening, and heads on down toward the sea.
The southern lighthouse is flashing blood-red through the falling snow; the northern tower is dark now.
In the darkness I can see Ragnar’s open motorboat bobbing in the sea out by the jetty. The waves are breaking along the shore with a long drawn-out roaring sound, and I ought to try and stop him, but I stay where I am, just watching as he teeters out along the jetty and loosens the ropes. Then he stops, bends over again, and vomits into the water.
He drops the rope and the waves begin to play with the boat, nudging it away from the jetty.
Ragnar seems to be feeling too ill to bother about the boat. He glances out to sea, then begins to stagger inland instead.
“Ragnar!” I yell.
If he asks me for help, he can have it, but I don’t think he can hear me. He doesn’t stop when he reaches the shore, but sets off northward. Heading for home. Soon he has disappeared in the darkness and the snow.
I go back to the outbuilding and Torun. She is still awake, sitting in her chair by the window as usual.
“Hi, Mom.”
She doesn’t turn her head, but asks, “Where is Ragnar Davidsson?”
I go and stand by the fire and sigh. “He’s gone. He was here for a while… but now he’s gone.”
“Did he throw out the paintings?”
I hold my breath and turn around. “The paintings?” I say, a lump forming in my throat. “Why do you think he would do that?”
“Ragnar said he was going to throw them out.”
“No, Mom,” I say. “Your canvases are still in the storeroom. I can fetch-”
“He should have done it,” says Torun.
“What? What do you mean?”
“I asked Ragnar to throw them in the sea.”
It takes four or five seconds for me to understand what she’s saying-then it’s as if a membrane breaks inside me and dangerous fluids begin to mingle in my brain. I see myself rushing over to Torun.
“Fucking sit here, then, you fucking old cow!” I scream. “Sit here till you die! You fucking blind old…”
I hit her over and over again with the palm of my hand, and Torun can do nothing but take the blows. She doesn’t see them coming.
I count the blows, six, seven, eight, nine, and I stop hitting her after the twelfth.
Afterward both Torun and I are breathing loudly, almost wheezing. The mournful howling of the wind can be heard through the windows.
“Why did you leave me with him?” I ask her. “You should have seen how dirty he was, Mommy, and the stench of him… You shouldn’t have let me go in there, Mommy.”
I pause for a moment.
“But you were blind even then.”
Torun stares rigidly ahead, her cheeks red. I don’t think she has any idea what I’m talking about.
And that was the end for me at Eel Point. I left and never came back. And I stopped speaking to Torun. I made sure she got a place in a care home, but we never spoke again.
The next day the news came that the evening ferry between Öland and the mainland had capsized in the waves. Several passengers had died in the icy waters. Markus Landkvist was one of them.
Another victim of the storm was Ragnar Davidsson, the eel fisherman. He was found dead on the shore a day or so later. I felt no guilt over his death-I felt nothing.
I don’t think anyone ever lived in the outbuilding again after Torun and me, and I don’t think anyone really lived in the main house again, apart from the odd month in the summer. Sorrow had permeated the walls.
Six weeks later, when I had moved to Stockholm to start at the art school, I found that I was pregnant.
Katrine Månstråle Rambe was born the following year, the first of all my children.
You had your father’s eyes.
36
“Hello?” Henrik shouted to the figure down in the snow. “Are you okay?”
It was a stupid question, because the body below him was lying motionless with a bloody face. The snow had already begun to cover it.
Henrik blinked in confusion; it had all happened so quickly.
He thought he had spotted the Serelius brothers outside. When the first of them opened the veranda door, Henrik had thrown his grandfather’s ax as hard as he could, and it had hit the intruder on the head. With the blunt edge-not with the blade, he was sure of that.
He stayed in the doorway of the veranda. In the glow of the outside light he suddenly saw that it was a woman he had hit.
A few yards behind her stood a man, as if he were frozen solid in the whirling snow. Then he strode forward and knelt down.
“Tilda?” he shouted. “Wake up, Tilda!”
She moved her arms feebly and tried to raise her head.
Henrik walked out onto the steps, with his back to the warmth of the house and the cold and wind in his face, and discovered that the woman was wearing a dark-colored uniform.