The old man who had come home looked up.
‘Have you got some?’
‘I brought some back last winter,’ Pecka said proudly. ‘From a road construction project in Kalmar. Fuses, detonators, the lot.’
Wall looked equally pleased.
‘It’s all carefully hidden and locked away,’ he said. ‘Nobody will find it. The cops were here back in May, but they left empty-handed.’
‘We can take a couple of charges,’ the old man said. ‘What about payment?’
‘Afterwards,’ Wall said. ‘Do your job and take care of the safe, then we’ll split everything later.’
‘We’ll need balaclavas as well, Einar,’ Pecka said. ‘Did you get them?’
Wall didn’t ask any questions. He simply opened a cardboard box underneath the table and took out a packet of rubber gloves and several grey balaclavas with holes cut out for the eyes.
‘Burn them when you’re done,’ he said.
The old man looked at them and said, ‘I don’t need any protection.’
‘You’ll be recognized,’ Pecka said.
The man shook his head.
‘That doesn’t matter,’ he said, gazing out of the cracked window. ‘I’m not here.’
The New Country, May 1931
The journey begins one sunny summer’s day, eleven months after the death of Edvard Kloss. Aron has almost stopped thinking about that night. About the wall that fell down, about Sven giving him a shove. ‘In you go! Get in there and fetch his money.’
Sven had been Aron’s new father for just a couple of years, but he did as he was told. Otherwise he might face a beating.
They don’t talk about that night, just about the trip. It feels as if they have been preparing for today all through the spring, but everything they are taking with them still fits into one suitcase each.
Sven has brought the old snuffbox made of apple wood. Aron wants to bring something as well, something precious.
‘Can I take my gun to America?’
Aron has his very own single-barrel shotgun, which he fills with pellets so that he can shoot partridge and seabirds.
‘Of course you can’t,’ Sven says. ‘They wouldn’t let you on board the ship.’
So Aron has to leave his shotgun behind. It was given to him by his grandfather, who is a huntsman himself; he told his daughter, Astrid, that the boy is a pretty decent shot. That sounds good, ‘a decent shot’.
And indeed he is; he was only ten years old when he shot his first seal. It was lying on an ice floe that came drifting towards the island one cold, sunny spring day. The seal raised its head, Aron raised his gun and when he fired the seal’s body jerked, then lay still. He had hit the back of its neck and broken its spine. It was over a metre long and provided over twenty kilos of blubber.
‘But I need a gun,’ Aron says. ‘How am I supposed to be a sheriff without a gun?’
Sven laughs; it sounds like a dry cough.
‘We’ll find you a new one when we get there.’
‘Do they have shotguns in the new country?’
‘Lots of them. They have everything there.’
Aron knows one thing they don’t have in the new country: a waiting family. His mother, Astrid, and his sister, Greta, are staying behind in Sweden, and saying goodbye to them is hard. Greta is only nine, and gazes at her brother in silence. His mother clamps her lips together.
‘Stay out of trouble,’ she says. ‘Look after yourself.’
Aron nods, then he picks up his bag and goes with Sven, taking long strides to stop him from turning back.
The day of their departure is dry and sunny.
They walk side by side along the dirt track. Sven has longer legs, but he limps with his right foot, so Aron is able to keep up with him.
‘You’re off to the new country in the west,’ his mother had said, ‘the country they call America. You’re going to work hard over there for a couple of years, then you’ll come home with money.’
And Sven says the same thing, but more concisely.
‘The new country. That’s where we’re going. Away from all this.’
They head north, across the Kloss family’s extensive land, almost all the way up to the cairn. It’s on top of the ridge in the west and it looks like a harmless pile of stones, but Sven spits anyway, just to be on the safe side.
‘I hope it falls into the sea!’
Then they turn to the east, moving inland past several tall windmills, standing on their thick wooden feet with their sails in the air, ready to catch the wind from all directions. Sven glares at the windmills, too.
‘We won’t have to look at those damned things where we’re going either!’
He lopes along, addressing the horizon as if he is giving a speech: ‘Free at last — free from all those filthy jobs! As white as a ghost every time I come out of the mill — never again!’ He looks at Aron. ‘Where we’re going, they have machines that take care of everything. They have huge agricultural factories, where the grain goes in at one end and sacks of flour come out at the other. They just press a button, and hey presto!’
Aron listens, but he has just one question: ‘When are we coming home?’
Sven slows down, then he turns around and wallops Aron across the back of the head.
‘Don’t ask me that question! We’re not going to think that way! We’re going to the new country — forget about home!’
It’s not the hardest blow Aron has ever received, it’s just making a point, so he feels brave enough to carry on: ‘But when are we coming home?’
‘Impossible to say,’ Sven replies.
‘Why?’
‘Because not everyone comes home.’
The summer air feels colder when Aron hears those words. He doesn’t say any more — he doesn’t want to provoke any further blows, but even before they reach the train he makes his mind up that he will do what his mother told him to do, and that he will come back home.
Home to the island.
Home to the croft.
Jonas
‘What’s going on, Officer?’ asked Uncle Kent. ‘Has there been an accident?’
‘No,’ replied the policeman, who had just got off his motorbike. ‘It’s just you.’
‘Me? What have I done?’
‘You were driving too fast.’
‘Me?’
Uncle Kent had lowered the window with the press of a button so that he could speak to the police officer, and the faint smell of flowers drifted into the car from the ditches along the roadside, reaching Jonas in the back seat. He could see a profusion of yellow and purple flowers swaying in the breeze. Their scent mingled with the aroma of his uncle’s aftershave and a hint of perspiration from his father, who had arrived late and had to run to catch the train. Mum had told him off on the platform, and Mats and Jonas had just looked at one another.
His father sat in silence next to Kent; he seemed tense in the presence of the police officer. But Jonas had a clear view of his uncle’s profile and could see a slight smile playing around the corner of his mouth.
‘Driving too fast?’
‘Much too fast.’
The Öland sunshine was bright, dazzling Jonas when he looked out of his own window. The traffic cop was no more than a dark shape next to the car, dressed in a blue uniform.
‘Could you tell me how fast?’ Uncle Kent said.
‘Twenty-two kilometres over the speed limit.’
Kent sighed and leaned back in his seat.
‘It’s all down to this bloody car. A Corvette only runs really smoothly when you take her up above a hundred.’
Jonas had encountered the police on only one occasion previously, when two officers came to talk to his class in Huskvarna about traffic awareness for cyclists. They had been really nice, but he still felt a bit nervous.