Harbor Read online

  Since then he had been careful to spit into the matchbox every morning. He didn’t know what was waiting at the end of this pact he had entered into, but he knew he had to fulfil its terms for as long as he lived.

  And then?

  He didn’t know. But he feared the worst, in some form. And he regretted the fact that he hadn’t swept Spiritus off the jetty that day. Down into the sea where it belonged. He regretted that. But it was too late now.

  He took a sip of his coffee and looked out of the window. The sky was high and clear, the way it looks only in the autumn, with a few yellow birch leaves drifting down. There was nothing to indicate that a storm was on its way, which Simon knew it was, just as he knew many other things. Where to find water under the ground, when the ice would form, how much rain would fall.

  When he had finished his coffee and rinsed the cup, Simon put on his knee-high boots and went out. This was one of the islanders’ habits that he had adopted: knee-high boots in every situation. You never knew what you might end up squelching through, and it was best to be prepared.

  Perhaps the post and newspapers might have arrived on the early boat today, and if they hadn’t there were always some old men by the mailboxes who, like Simon, had nothing better to do than to go and see if the post had come on the early boat. Which it almost never had.

  On the way up to the mailboxes he glanced along the track to the Shack. There was plenty to do there, and perhaps that was a good thing for Anders. Something to occupy the hands is an excellent cure for gloomy thoughts, he knew that from personal experience. During the worst periods with Marita, his first wife, it was practising with packs of cards, handkerchiefs and other things that had stood between him and panic-stricken terror.

  With Anna-Greta things were very different, of course. In that relationship it was mostly melancholy he had driven away with sleight of hand and miscalculations.

  As far as he knew, Anders had no particular hobby to occupy his mind, so undergrowth that needed clearing, flaking paint and wood that needed chopping could well do him some good.

  From a distance of a hundred metres away, he could already see that today’s conversation group by the mailboxes consisted of Holger and Göran. They were instantly recognisable. Holger stooped and miserable from disappointments that had started when he was only young, Göran still straight-backed after forty years in the police service.

  But what the…?

  The two men were deep in an intense discussion. Holger was shaking his head and waving one arm in the direction of the sea, while Göran was kicking at the ground as if he were annoyed. But that wasn’t what was peculiar.

  The mailboxes were gone.

  The wall of the shop, closed for the season, was completely empty. Only the yellow box for outgoing post was still hanging there, and that looked odd as well.

  Have they stopped the postal service?

  As Simon got closer he realised that wasn’t the problem. Ten metres away from the shop he stood on the first splinters. Splinters of plastic and splinters of wood, bits of the mailboxes that had been hanging on the wall only yesterday. The yellow metal box for outgoing post was dented and crooked.

  Holger caught sight of him and burst out, ‘Oh, here comes the Stockholmer. We’re not likely to get much sympathy there.’

  Simon stepped into the mosaic of shattered, multi-coloured plastic. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘What’s happened?’ said Holger. ‘I’ll tell you what’s happened. Last night when we were fast asleep some bastards from Stockholm came over here in a boat and smashed our mailboxes for the hell of it.’

  ‘Why?’

  Holger looked as if he couldn’t believe his ears. That was his normal reaction to anything he perceived as a challenge to his theories, and as usual he embarked on his reply by repeating the question, just to show how completely stupid it was.

  ‘Why? Do you think they actually need a reason? Maybe they couldn’t get a mooring in the harbour, maybe they weren’t happy with the number of hours of sunshine last summer, or maybe they just think the most fun you can have is destroying something, and if you ask me I’d go for the last option. It makes me so bloody furious.’

  Holger turned on his heel and limped down to the steamboat jetty, where Simon could see Mats, the owner of the shop, waiting for the tender.

  Simon turned to Göran and asked, ‘Is that what you think?’

  Göran looked at the devastation around them and shook his head. ‘I think we have no idea who did this. Could be anybody.’

  ‘Someone on the island?’

  ‘No one I can think of. But you never know.’

  ‘Did nobody hear anything?’

  Göran nodded in the direction of the jetty. ‘Mats heard something, and then he heard an engine start up. But he didn’t know if it was an outboard motor or a moped. The wind was in the wrong direction.’

  ‘They must have made…a hell of a noise.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Göran, scooping up some green and grey pieces and showing them to Simon. ‘Look at these. What do you think?’

  The pieces in Göran’s hand, shark fins and rhomboids, all had sharp edges where they had broken off. The pieces on the ground were quite big too. No little bits.

  ‘It doesn’t look as if they were smashed.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t, does it? More as if they’ve been cut. With a box cutter or something. And look at this.’

  Göran pointed at the metal box. It was dented and crooked, but the dents had sharp angles in the middle where the bare metal showed through. It was not blows that had created the dents, but a stabbing action. Someone had stood there stabbing at the mailbox with a big knife.

  Simons shook his head. ‘Why would someone do that?’

  Göran hesitated before replying, as if he wanted to be sure that he was choosing the right words. Eventually he said, ‘My experience of this sort of thing…is that people do this because they feel hate.’

  ‘And what is it they—or he—hate in cases like this?’

  ‘Us.’

  Simon looked at the debris on the ground again, at the dented metal box. Rage. All the mailboxes represented the people on the island. Every box was an extension of the person to whom it belonged. A name.

  Göran shrugged. ‘Or else it’s the simple urge to destroy things. How should I know. Sometimes that’s what it is. But usually it isn’t. So what are we going to do about this lot?’

  Any kind of outrage or violent deviation from the norm has a tendency to create gaps in the chain of responsibility: no one guilty, no one responsible. In which case two old men who just happened to be passing can easily end up clearing up the mess. Göran crouched down and started picking up pieces, Simon fetched the rubbish bin from the steps leading to the shop. Then they worked together to gather up the wreckage. When the bin was full, Göran went down to the harbour for an empty barrel, while Simon sat down on the steps and wiped the sweat from his brow.

  So bloody unnecessary. All this trouble just because someone… hates.

  He pulled a face and rubbed his eyes.

  Ha. There’s no end to how much trouble there can be if someone hates hard enough. In fact, we ought to be grateful if it stops at mailboxes.

  ‘Simon?’

  Simon looked up. Anders was standing in front of him with a letter in his hand, looking around. ‘Where are the mailboxes?’

  Simon explained what had happened, and told Anders to give his letter directly to Mats, who was in fact just on his way up from the harbour with the blue mail crate in his arms. Göran and Holger were following behind.

  Göran had got hold of a roll of black plastic sacks, and started putting the pieces in one of them. Holger pushed his hands into his pockets and stared at Anders.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a visitor. When did you get here?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  Holger nodded over this nugget of information for a long time. He looked at the others for support, first at Mats a
nd then at Göran, but no support was forthcoming. When the look he got in return from Göran was more annoyed than anything, Holger seemed to remember what the situation was.

  ‘My condolences on your loss, by the way,’ he managed to squeeze out.

  They talked for a while about what to do about the post. For today, Mats would wait and explain to everyone what had happened. They would all need to get themselves a new mailbox as soon as possible. Meanwhile a plastic bucket with a lid would do instead, or even a bag. As long as everyone put his or her mailbox number on it.

  Anders waved his letter. ‘So what shall I do with this, then? It’s a film to be developed. I wouldn’t like it to get lost.’

  Mats took the letter and promised he would make sure it was sent. Then he gave out the post to those who were there. No letters for Simon, just a newspaper, Norrtelje Tidning, and an advert for some pension fund.

  As Simon and Anders set off home, Göran said, ‘You won’t forget, will you?’

  ‘No,’ said Simon. ‘I’ll call round one day.’

  They took the route along the shoreline. The jetties belonging to the summer visitors were more or less empty. The odd individual would probably come out at the weekend, but otherwise the season was over for this year.

  ‘What is it he doesn’t want you to forget?’ asked Anders.

  ‘Göran moved back here a while ago, when he retired. But he hasn’t got a well, so he wanted me to go over with my divining rod to find him some water.’

  ‘How do you actually do that?’

  ‘Practice, practice and more practice.’

  Anders punched Simon playfully on the shoulder. ‘Stop it. That isn’t magic. I really am interested.’

  ‘Well, it is a kind of magic, you know. Are you coming in to see Anna-Greta?’

  Anders dropped the subject. For a number of years Simon had been the local water diviner. Whenever anyone needed to sink a well, it was to Simon they turned to find a spring. Simon would come, walk around with the rowan twig that was his divining rod, and eventually point out a suitable spot. He hadn’t been wrong yet.

  Anders snorted. ‘Holger seemed to think I was the one who smashed up the mailboxes.’

  ‘You know his wife drowned last year?’

  ‘Sigrid? No, I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Went out in the boat to check the nets and never came back. They found the boat a few days later, but not Sigrid.’

  Sigrid. One of the few people Anders had been genuinely frightened of when he was little. An overfilled cup just waiting for the drop that would make it run over. It could be anything. The weather, the sound of bicycles, a wasp that came too close to her ice cream. Whenever Anders sold her some herring he would make a point of picking out the biggest and best, and preferred to give her too much rather than a single gram too little.

  ‘Did she drown herself?’

  Simon shrugged his shoulders. ‘I suppose some people think so, but…’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Others think Holger did it.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘No. No, no. He was much too frightened of her.’

  ‘So now he’s only got the Stockholmers left to hate?’

  ‘That’s right. But he can put even more energy into it now.’

  Holger’s thesis

  This aversion towards people from the capital is not unique to Domarö, or even to Sweden. It exists everywhere, and sometimes with good reason. Holger’s story is representative of what has happened in the Stockholm archipelago generally, and on Domarö in particular.

  Just like Anders and many others on Domarö, Holger came from a family of pilots. Through a series of clever acquisitions, marriages and other manoeuvres, the Persson family eventually ended up owning the entire north-eastern part of Domarö, an area covering some thirty hectares, measured from the shoreline inland, and comprising forest, meadows and arable fields.

  This was what Holger’s father had to look after when he came of age at the beginning of the 1930s. Summer visitors had begun to come, and like many others on the island he had a couple of boathouses done up and extended so that he could rent them out.

  To cut a long story short, however, there were debts in the family, and Holger’s father had an unfortunate tendency to hit the bottle when things were not going well. One summer he got to know a broker from Stockholm. Generous amounts of alcohol were proffered, and fraternal toasts shared. There was even talk of Holger’s father becoming a member of the Order of the Knights Templar, the legendary masonic lodge headed by Carl von Schewen.

  Well. Somehow the whole thing ended up with Holger’s father selling Kattudden to the broker. A piece of land measuring about fifteen hectares where no trees grew and the grazing was poor. He got a price that was rather more than he would have expected if he’d sold the land to another islander.

  But of course the broker was not interested in either grazing or forestry. Within a couple of years he had divided Kattudden into thirty separate plots, which he then sold to prospective summer visitors. Each plot went for a sum approximately half what he had paid for the whole piece of land.

  When Holger’s father realised what had happened, how thoroughly deceived he had been by the broker, the bottle was waiting to console him. At this point Holger was seven years old, and was forced to watch as his father drank himself into a morass of self-pity, while the Stockholmers happily erected their ‘summer cottage’ kit homes on land that had belonged to his family for generations.

  A couple of years later his father took his shotgun out into the forest they still owned, and didn’t come back.

  Different versions of this story are told on many of the islands in the archipelago, but this was the Persson family’s version, and it is undeniably one of the uglier tales. These transactions have given rise to a great deal of bitterness everywhere, and Holger was the most bitter of all.

  His basic thesis was simple: Stockholmers were the root of all evil; some were guiltier than the rest, and the biggest villains of them all were Evert Taube and Astrid Lindgren.

  Holger never tired of explaining his thesis to anyone who was prepared to listen: the archipelago had been a living community with a hard-working population, until Evert Taube came along and romanticised the whole thing, with his ‘Rönnerdahl’ and ‘Calle Schewen’s Waltz’. The real Carl von Schewen had become something of a recluse in his old age, thanks to all the curious Stockholmers who took a trip out to his jetty or lay there spying on him through telescopes from their boats to see if Calle might be busy building a haystack or dancing with the rose of Roslagen.

  But this was merely a boring detail under the circumstances. The worst thing was that Taube’s romantic portrayal opened the eyes of the Stockholmers to the archipelago, where people wore flowers in their hair, danced to the sound of the accordion and enjoyed a little drink in a picturesque manner. Those who could afford it bought themselves a summer cottage. The plots were bought up, and the archipelago became depopulated.

  Just as the worst of the frenzy was dying down and the residents of the archipelago began to think they might be able to relax, the killer blow came with Astrid Lindgren’s book Life on Seacrow Island, and the subsequent TV series. Now it wasn’t only the rich who had to have a summer cottage. Brokers bought up everything they could get hold of in order to build small houses which they could sell or rent out by the week or month. Everybody wanted to go to the archipelago, to have exactly the right knack for starting up an outboard motor, and to find a pet seal of their very own.

  The young people of the archipelago got to know the summer visitors, and began to long for the nightclubs and cinemas of the capital. Houses and farms were left with no one to inherit them, and of course the brokers popped up again, buying everything in sight until the archipelago resembled a corpse that came to life for a couple of months in the summer, then sank back into its silent grave.

  This was the gist of Holger’s thesis, and he would usually end with some
detailed fantasy concerning what he would like to do to Evert and Astrid if they were still alive. These were terrible things involving both lead weights and petrol, and he would brook no contradictions.

  The archipelago had been romanticised to death. That was Holger’s considered opinion.

  Anna-Greta

  A wall of yellowing lilacs hid Anna-Greta’s house from view. The only thing visible above the hedge was the metal roof of the tower, covered in verdigris. When Anders was a child he used to think it was a real tower, the kind you found in castles where knights lived, and he was frustrated because he could never find the way to it, and no one would show him.

  Later he had realised that the pointed tower was purely decorative and the window on the gable was painted on. A hundred and fifty bygone years slumbered in that wind-battered wooden panel, and the impression of a haunted house lost in its own memories would have been complete, had it not been for the woman who opened the front door and came running down the garden path.

  Anna-Greta was wearing jeans and a check shirt. On her feet she had rubber boots. Her long, white hair was woven into a plait that thudded against her back as she rushed up to Anders and threw her arms around him.

  ‘Oh, Anders!’ She hugged him, she shook him. ‘It’s so good to see you!’

  She squeezed him so hard that for a moment Anders thought she was actually going to lift him off the ground, the way she used to do when he was little. He didn’t dare respond with the same force—she was eighty-two, after all—so he stroked her back and said, ‘Hello Gran.’

  Anna-Greta suddenly let go and stared closely at his face for five seconds. Only then did she appear to notice Simon. She tilted her head to one side. Simon leaned over and kissed her cheek. Anna-Greta nodded as if to indicate that he had behaved correctly, and grabbed Anders’ hand.