A shock wave swept over them, then came the debris. The gravel didn’t reach them, but Lisa heard a cascade of tiny stones splashing into the water.
For a few seconds there was silence.
Almost complete silence.
Then came a series of loud noises up on the ridge, along the coast road and over at Villa Kloss. Something large and heavy was crashing down on to the ground, like the irregular beat of a bass drum.
The noise continued; Lisa could hear planks of wood creaking and breaking at Villa Kloss. The air was filled with great clouds of dust. She pictured a Roman warship out in the Sound, firing enormous rocks at the island. A cloud of black grenades.
‘Come on!’ a voice yelled in her ear.
A definite order. Paulina was no longer pressed against her on the ground; she was on her feet, tugging at Lisa’s arms.
The crashing had stopped, but Lisa still wanted to stay where she was.
‘Move!’ Paulina insisted.
In the end, Lisa obeyed; she got to her feet and staggered north along the inlet, afraid of more flying stones. However, they hadn’t reached this far; in the moonlight she could see that most had landed in the garden at Villa Kloss, and on Kent’s house.
Lisa held her breath and stumbled on. Paulina was a shadow moving determinedly beside her, pressing on.
‘What happened?’ Lisa asked.
There was a smell of burning in the air now, and in the distance Lisa could hear the roof of Kent’s house beginning to collapse as several load-bearing beams cracked under the weight of the rocks.
She couldn’t see a great deal; the electricity seemed to have gone off all the way along the inlet. The village was in darkness, and she tripped over a root or a stone on the ground and almost fell; she couldn’t even see her own shoes.
The explosion was still reverberating, but perhaps it was only inside Lisa’s head.
‘What happened?’ she asked again.
The shadow beside her uttered one single word with great calmness, as if she had control over the chaos surrounding them: ‘Ammonal.’
The New Country, April 1998
The Soviet Union has collapsed and Russia is an independent country, but it is a country that Aron Fredh does not recognize. Everyone in this new country is becoming more and more obsessed by money, or so it seems. Nightclubs have opened in the area around Lubyanka Prison where he used to work; men who shun the light park their black Mercedes nearby and step out with giggling teenage girls on their arm. Capitalist gangsters who would never have dared to show their faces in the days of the Soviet Union now go out of their way to be seen.
Aron and Mila’s daughter is twenty-five years old, a dark-haired beauty who still lives at home. She samples the nightlife of Moscow sometimes, goes to nightclubs run by Westerners, but returns home disappointed. She is bored by the nouveau riche and their courtiers. Aron is glad, because this new Russia is a dangerous place, where capitalism is king and none of the old rules seems to apply. There are no new rules either. Young men are shot dead, girls are raped.
He rarely goes out. It is too stressful; there are too many big cars. Moscow is no longer his city, and that makes him sad. He longs for Öland, for the old world, where everything was so simple.
Mila doesn’t go out either, but for different reasons. She can hardly breathe these days. Her lungs are worse than ever. Some days, she doesn’t even get out of bed. Their home is filled with the sound of coughing and, eventually, Aron manages to get his wife to see a doctor, who sends her to a specialist clinic at the Pirogov Hospital.
She undergoes a series of tests and X-rays. The doctors confer in whispers. Finally, a consultant at the hospital explains the gravity of the situation.
‘I expect your wife has been a heavy smoker?’ he says to Aron when they are alone.
‘Definitely not. But she was involved in a serious accident when she was young — a huge explosion involving poisonous gases, and a terrible fire.’
The doctor nods; now he understands. ‘I’m afraid the diagnosis is incurable emphysema.’
‘Incurable...?’ Aron says.
‘She needs oxygen,’ the doctor explains. ‘You have to make sure that she has a supply of oxygen, and the best possible care. Private care... You know how things are these days.’
Aron knows that private care in the new land costs money, like everything else. Lots of money. He has heard tales of ambulance drivers demanding hard cash from the sick and injured.
‘What about overseas?’ he says quietly. ‘In... Sweden, for example?’
‘They have excellent health care over there, and it could well be cheaper, but of course that only applies to Swedish nationals,’ the doctor explains.
Aron goes home. Mila has been given her verdict. He thinks about Sweden, and Swedish health care. It’s free to Swedes, no doubt to their families as well. Perhaps it is time to go back to Öland.
There is another reason why Aron is keen to get away. The archives from the days of Stalinism are being opened, and citizens of the former Soviet Union are trawling through mountains of documents, searching for the names of victims of the Great Terror. And for the names of those few executioners who are still alive.
Aron begins to think about changing his identity for a second time. Leaving Vladimir Jegerov behind. Going home to the old country, and taking Mila with him.
But he needs help. Someone who can confirm who he really is.
It is much easier to make overseas telephone calls from Russia now; there is no need to fill in any forms — but Aron does not have any numbers to call. He has no idea which members of his family are still alive.
However, one evening he picks up the phone to try to find out more. A helpful Russian operator finds someone by the name of Greta Fredh on Öland. She is living in a residential home for senior citizens, but she does have her own telephone.
The operator puts him through. He hears the phone ringing out, and after a moment a woman’s voice says, ‘Greta Fredh.’
The voice is old and weak, but Aron recognizes his sister. He begins to explain who he is, stumbling over the Swedish words and phrases.
Greta doesn’t remember him. She doesn’t know who he is. Against the background of a faint rushing sound, he tries to explain. That he emigrated to another country, that he is thinking of coming home. To Rödtorp, the place where they grew up, by the water between the island and the mainland.
Doesn’t she remember?
There is only silence on the other end of the line.
‘Aron?’ his sister says at long last. ‘Is that really you?’
‘Yes, Greta. I’m coming home. To our croft.’
‘Our croft?’ Greta says.
‘Yes. The Kloss family own land — lots of land — and we’re related to them.’
‘Kloss...’ Greta says. ‘That’s right, Veronica is coming to the home to give a talk this summer. I’m looking forward to it.’
‘Tell her you’re a relative,’ Aron says.
‘I will.’
Aron thinks his sister is beginning to understand but realizes that her mind works slowly and that her memories are muddled.
‘It’s coffee time now,’ Greta says. ‘Bye, then, Aron. Goodbye.’
He puts down the phone, his hand trembling.
Mila is gazing at him from her bed. ‘What about your other relatives in Sweden?’ she says. ‘The Kloss family?’
The Kloss family. Aron is indeed related to them; he is Edvard’s son, even if his paternity was never acknowledged — it was such a closely guarded secret that Sven never spoke of it, and Aron’s mother, Astrid, only ever hinted at it. And Edvard died rather than admit it.