Depths. Part 5

His fury subsided. The cat's death a memory already.As a child he had sometimes trapped birds, then killed them by cutting off their heads with a pair of scissors from his father's study. Afterwards he had always felt distaste and regret. When he was a naval cadet he had joined some colleagues in tying bags of gunpowder to stray dogs, which were then released with burning fuses attached to the bags. They used to make bets on which of the dogs would run furthest before being blown to pieces.But apart from that? He had never killed, he was afraid of death. The cat had come too close. It had trespa.s.sed on forbidden territory. The cat had crossed the barrier he surrounded himself with.He gazed up at the sky. Ten o'clock. The shape of the white sun could be seen through the thin clouds. He looked down at the cat lying on the ice. A pool of blood had formed round the body.In fact it wasn't the cat, he thought. What I attacked was something else. My father, perhaps? Or why not Lieutenant Jakobsson with his deformed hand and swollen face?Two shadows appeared over the ice. Two eagles were hovering overhead. They had discovered the dead cat. He could see through his telescope that they were young sea eagles. They continued circling for a while before landing on the ice. They approached the cat cautiously, as if suspecting a trap. Then they started eating.Life and death, he thought. My life, my death, my tins of American meat. The life and death of the cat, eagles on an endless expanse of ice.He added more wood to the fire, stuck his feet into the rucksack and tried once again to think calmly. When he got up it had turned noon. He kicked snow over the fire, divided the contents of the rucksacks so that he could leave one and take the other with him.The eagles were gone. All that remained of the cat was a dark patch of frozen blood.

CHAPTER 95.

He approached the cottage from the inlet where the boat was, paused uneasily behind a rock and observed the scene. The cottage door was closed, thin smoke drifted up from the chimney.He would wait for one minute. He would give himself a minute in which to have second thoughts. Even if he had run out of food he would still have enough energy to walk as far as Harstena where the biggest fis.h.i.+ng village in the archipelago was. He could still turn back.I'll leave, he thought. I'll walk back over the ice. Sara Fredrika has nothing to do with my life. I am risking something I do not want to lose.He set off towards the inlet, then turned on his heel, marched up to the cottage and hammered on the door. She did not open it. But he was only going to knock that one time. He stepped back a pace, so that she would be able to see him from the window.When she opened the door wide, not just a few centimetres, he knew she had seen him.'You,' she said. 'Are you here?'She did not wait for a response but let him in. The room was empty, he could sense that he had the upper hand. She had hidden the stranger in the cupboard with the nets and barrels and decoys. He could smell something unusual, old engine oil perhaps, or rifle grease. He squatted by the fire and warmed his hands.He had prepared his story carefully. It is easier in a desolate winter landscape than in cities, he had thought. It is more difficult to check the truth in the outer archipelago.Everything depended on the open channel.He had once met a petty officer in Karlskrona who had been bosun on the Svensksund. Svensksund. In the summer of 1896 the Swedish hot-air balloon expedition to the North Pole led by the engineer Salomon Andree had set off for Spetsbergen on board that s.h.i.+p. It had been fitted with reinforced bows so as to be able to sail through iced-over water and even force its way through pack ice. That was almost twenty years ago, n.o.body had ever heard a thing from the three ballooners who vanished in the fog over the Arctic Ocean. In the summer of 1896 the Swedish hot-air balloon expedition to the North Pole led by the engineer Salomon Andree had set off for Spetsbergen on board that s.h.i.+p. It had been fitted with reinforced bows so as to be able to sail through iced-over water and even force its way through pack ice. That was almost twenty years ago, n.o.body had ever heard a thing from the three ballooners who vanished in the fog over the Arctic Ocean.They talked about the expedition and about the ice and its mysterious qualities. The bosun had described how ice could suddenly crack, forming enormous open channels for no apparent reason. The crack appears out of the blue. The ice seemed to carry a secret inside itself. The bosun claimed that the Eskimos call it 'the frozen soul'. As recently as 1893 seven Swedish seal-hunters had been marooned on an ice floe by a gigantic crack that had made it impossible for them to get back to land. The only one to survive, a farmer from the island of oland, had told the bosun that the ice was thick and there was no wind when the seven of them had set off. Suddenly the hunters heard a roaring sound, the ice cracked and the sea rose up like the back of a gigantic whale and they were unable to turn back. They were doomed, the open channel grew longer and wider, and he was the only one to survive, albeit having lost both feet to frostbite; the only one who could tell the tale of that sudden crack.The ice was alive, it was not to be trusted.Tobia.s.son-Svartman now told Sara Fredrika that he had been one of a party of eight that had set out from the mainland to make holes through the ice and check some of the soundings made last autumn. Just on the other side of Krkmaro but before coming to the outer skerries, maybe Lokskar or Tyskarsarkipelagen, he had left the others to reconnoitre. The ice had cracked and he had been cut off from his colleagues by an open channel. He had very little food, and his only chance was to walk towards the open sea, towards Halsskar where he knew she lived.'You might not have been here, of course,' he said. 'The cottage might have been empty. But at least I would have had a roof over my head, I could have drilled holes through the ice, fished and survived.''I am still here,' she said.'No doubt the open channel will freeze over again, but you never know how long it will take.''I'm not alone,' she said. 'You are not the first person to come walking over the ice this winter. Somebody came from the other direction.''From the sea?''In a rowing boat, like the one you had.''I didn't see a rowing boat in the inlet.''He let it drift away when he came to the edge of the ice.''He?'She sat down next to him on the floor. She smelled awful.He was usually disgusted by people who smelled bad, such as their maid Anna. While serving on board the guns.h.i.+p Edda Edda as a cadet they were carrying out a rope-ladder manoeuvre and he had been a.s.signed to help a simple rating with rotten teeth. The smell from the man's mouth was unimaginable. Even when he was two metres away from the rating the smell hit him in the face, it was the smell of death emerging from the sailor's mouth every time he breathed. as a cadet they were carrying out a rope-ladder manoeuvre and he had been a.s.signed to help a simple rating with rotten teeth. The smell from the man's mouth was unimaginable. Even when he was two metres away from the rating the smell hit him in the face, it was the smell of death emerging from the sailor's mouth every time he breathed.Sara Fredrika did not smell of death. She just smelled of dirt, a friendly, sad little whiff of muck that he could put up with.Because I love her, he thought. That's the way it is. That's why I can put up with her.

CHAPTER 96.

She sat down next to him and started speaking in a low voice.But the man hidden in the cupboard with all the nets could not understand, he could only guess at what the voices were now saying about him.He must be scared, Tobia.s.son-Svartman thought. A German sailor could not have any plausible reason for being on Swedish soil. On a rocky skerry like Halsskar, with the widow of a fisherman.He had let his rowing boat drift away. Whoever he was, he must have burned a bridge behind him, and that was dangerous.She said: 'I am not alone here. There's somebody in there among the nets.'He pretended to be surprised.'Who are you hiding? Who's hiding there?''You spoke about the war last autumn when you were here. Sometimes I was woken up by dull thuds that made the house shake. I went to the highest point on the skerry, and there were times when I could see fires in the distance. Once when I was taking in nets at Jungfrugrunden, a hawser floated towards me. It was like a long snake in the water. The rope was as thick as my arm. It smelled of gunpowder, it smelled of death. I didn't touch it, it just wriggled past as if it were alive. It was clear that this bit of hawser had something to do with the war. A few days after Christmas two Finns turned up in a boat. One is called Juha, the other one is known as Arvo but is actually called something else that I can't say because round here it means something rude in Swedish. They hunt seals in these parts, but mostly they smuggle hard liquor. They've never done me any harm. They had an lander with them in their sloop. He was called Ville, his surname was something like Honka. He told me about the war, and he started crying and cursed us Swedes for not sending troops to land to defend the islands. I started to understand what the war was all about, those fires in the night and the shock waves and the thudding noises it meant that people were dying in their thousands.'And then he came? The man who's been caught in your nets in there?''I was scared when there was a knocking at the door. I didn't open up. I grabbed a knife. He was wearing a uniform and talking in a language I couldn't understand, it sounded like somebody who used to buy eels off us when I was a child. But when he collapsed on the doorstep, he wasn't threatening any more. I dragged him inside. His ribs felt like chicken bones under his jacket, I thought he might be ill, maybe he would die. I could have invited my own death, perhaps he had an infection. I slept in the boat two nights. He came round and was rambling, he had a fever, but he wasn't injured, just hungry and dehydrated. I eventually realised that he was German. He has tried to explain to me who he is, but I can't understand what he says. His words are like slippery stones. But I'm scared, I've noticed that he listens, he listens all the time, all the time, even when he's asleep his ears are c.o.c.ked and his head and eyes are concentrating on something behind him.''Am I a danger too?''I don't know.''I've slept here.''You could be dangerous even so.''You can believe what you like. I can't make up your mind for you.'She hesitated. Her face was twitching, she shook her head impatiently to get her hair out of her eyes. Then she stood up, as if she were going to do a standing jump, and opened the cupboard door.The sailor came out. He stood there, on his guard, ready to defend himself.Sara Fredrika said, although she knew he didn't understand: 'He's not dangerous, he's a sailor like you are, he's been here before.'Tobia.s.son-Svartman eyed the man. He was wearing the same uniform that Karl-Heinz Richter had on when they hauled him, sodden and semi-decayed, on board the Blenda. Blenda. His face was pale, his hair thin, he must have been about twenty-five, maybe twenty-six. His face was pale, his hair thin, he must have been about twenty-five, maybe twenty-six.But there was something special about the sailor's eyes: he did not only try to see with them, but also to listen, to smell, to mind-read.Tobia.s.son-Svartman held out his hand and spoke slowly in German: 'My name is Lars Tobia.s.son-Svartman, my job is to sound depths, I was cut off from my friends by a crack in the ice.'He didn't know the German expression for 'an open channel', but 'crack in the ice' would do. The German seemed to understand. Cautiously, he held out his hand. His grip was limp, a bit like Kristina Tacker's.'Dorflinger.''You've come here over the ice?'The German hesitated before replying.'I have run away.'A German deserter, a young man who had jumped s.h.i.+p in a desperate attempt to get away. Tobia.s.son-Svartman was filled with disgust. Deserters were cowards. Deserters deserved to be executed. There was no other way to treat people who failed in their duty. People who maintained that they were being true to themselves, when they were in fact letting everybody else down. What right had this deserter to appear here and get in his way, when he was risking his marriage and his career because of an inner urge that he had to fulfil? What was the deserter risking? A man who was defending no more than his own cowardice?They stood in the room like the tips of a triangle. He tried to decide if Sara Fredrika was closer to him than to the deserter, but there was no distance in the room, the house itself seemed to be moving, or perhaps it was Halsskar that was s.h.i.+fting, driven by the ice that was beating against the rocks.The ice, he thought, the ice and the dead cat. Everything is linked. And now there is a man in my way.He smiled.'Perhaps we should sit down,' he said to Sara Fredrika. 'I think Herr Dorflinger the sailor is tired.''What does he say? I don't even know his name.''Dorflinger.''Is that his first name?''No.'He asked Dorflinger what his first name was.'Stefan. My name is Stefan Dorflinger.''Where do you come from?''A little town between Cologne and Bonn, in the heart of Germany. You can't get further away from the sea.''Why were you drafted into the navy?''I asked to be put in the navy. To see the sea. We sailed from Kiel, in one of Admiral Wettenberg's naval units.'Dorflinger slumped down on the bed. Sara Fredrika was hovering in the shadows. Tobia.s.son-Svartman sat on the stool by the fire, tried to do so without making a sound, he did not know why. All too often he did certain things without knowing why, and without holding back.'You are safe here,' he said. 'Even if you are what I think you are.''What's that?''A deserter.''I could not endure any more.' It came out like a scream.When he spoke again he was calm: 'I could not suffer all that killing. I can describe what is really impossible to describe, things that even words try to escape from. Some things happen that words are even frightened of, that words do not want to be used for describing. I have dreamt about words running for their lives, like I did.'He paused and drew a deep breath. Tobia.s.son-Svartman thought for a moment that someone else was going to drop dead at his feet. But Dorflinger continued, as if he had fought his way up to the surface and was able to breathe normally again.'I was on the cruiser Weinshorn. Weinshorn. On Christmas Eve in the morning, north-east of Rugen, we spotted two Russian troop carriers. The sea was calm, but it was very cold, steam was coming from the water, making it look as if cold can also reach boiling point. On Christmas Eve in the morning, north-east of Rugen, we spotted two Russian troop carriers. The sea was calm, but it was very cold, steam was coming from the water, making it look as if cold can also reach boiling point.'I was on a team looking after one of the heavy guns amids.h.i.+ps. It was a 254-millimetre gun and could fire salvos at targets more than ten kilometres away pretty accurately. We were given the command "Battle stations!" and we raced to our positions. I was on the lower section of the magazine, and my job was to load powder cartridges into the hoist that took them to the loading ramp on the deck above.'We shot nineteen sh.e.l.ls from my gun, it was an inferno, I couldn't see if we hit the target, couldn't see what we were aiming at, every shot sent us sprawling against the walls. Some people had blood coming from their eyes and noses, and the first shot burst my eardrum.'I didn't realise when we'd stopped firing, the lad in charge of the other hoist had to come and shake me and point. The guns were silent, we had to go back on deck. I couldn't hear a thing, it was like being behind thick panes of gla.s.s. You discover a different kind of reality when you only have your eyes to help you. When there are no sounds or voices, reality is different.'The Weinshorn Weinshorn closed in on the troops.h.i.+ps. They were sinking now. The water was covered in burning oil. Hundreds of men were struggling to escape drowning, the fire, the oil. But the closed in on the troops.h.i.+ps. They were sinking now. The water was covered in burning oil. Hundreds of men were struggling to escape drowning, the fire, the oil. But the Weinshorn Weinshorn did nothing. Not one lifeboat was launched, not a single lifebuoy was thrown into the sea, not a single rope, nothing. did nothing. Not one lifeboat was launched, not a single lifebuoy was thrown into the sea, not a single rope, nothing.'I looked at the rest of the crew. Just like me they were staring in horror at all those dying men, and n.o.body could understand why we did nothing to save them. We were at war with Russia, OK, but these people were already beaten. We watched them dying, I can remember how our knuckles turned white as we grasped the rail. We looked at the officers up on deck, watched them laughing and pointing.'I couldn't hear the screams, nor the laughter. I could only watch the horrific deaths in the freezing water and the burning oil. In the end there was n.o.body left, they were all dead, most of them had sunk, one or two bodies were still floating, some of them so badly burned that you could see only their craniums sticking out of their tattered uniform.'Then the Weinshorn Weinshorn moved away. That was probably the most awful part. We didn't even stay. We sailed southwest, and in the afternoon Christmas trees were raised on the afterdeck, and carols were sung. I still couldn't hear anything, I could only see my comrades jumping and dancing round the tree and I felt I had to join them. moved away. That was probably the most awful part. We didn't even stay. We sailed southwest, and in the afternoon Christmas trees were raised on the afterdeck, and carols were sung. I still couldn't hear anything, I could only see my comrades jumping and dancing round the tree and I felt I had to join them.'Two days after New Year's Eve, late at night, I cleared off. The rating on guard duty realised what I was doing. He wanted to come with me, but didn't dare. He was frightened of being shot as a deserter and upsetting his parents. I rowed away and a week later I ended up here. I clambered on to this island and let the boat drift away. I can't stay here, of course, but I don't know where to go. I have tried to explain that to the woman, but we can't understand each other.'Tobia.s.son-Svartman translated for her. Not everything, only what he thought was appropriate. The storyteller owns the story. He adapted it, made no mention of the Russian s.h.i.+ps that had been sunk, but instead made Dorflinger desert after killing one of the officers in cold blood.'You have to understand his dilemma,' he said in conclusion. 'Military law is hard, there is no mercy, no sympathy, just a rope or an execution squad. In circ.u.mstances like that you run away. I would have done the same thing.''Why did he kill a man? Who was it?''I'll ask him.'Dorflinger was watching him uneasily.He still has all those images in his mind's eye, Tobia.s.son-Svartman thought. Those silent images, the jerky movements of war, with no sound.'What was the name of the rating standing guard? The one who didn't dare go with you?''Lothar Buchheim. He was the same age as me.'Sara Fredrika was waiting impatiently.'What did he say?''The man he killed was a bosun called Lothar Buchheim. He was a bully. In the end he went too far.''You don't kill people. Should I kill every Finnish b.a.s.t.a.r.d who comes here and tries to rape me? Or the men from the islands in the inner archipelago who think that a widow is a b.l.o.o.d.y wh.o.r.e who ought to be taken in hand and made to work?'He was surprised by her language. It reminded him of that night in Copenhagen.'I can't have a murderer in the house,' she said. 'Even if he can't cope with the war.''We have to protect him.''If he's a murderer, shouldn't he be sentenced?''He's already doomed. They'll hang him. We must help him.''How?''I'll take him with me when I've finished my work.'Sara Fredrika looked at Dorflinger. Tobia.s.son-Svartman realised that he had misunderstood the situation.The pair had become close. Dorflinger had been on Halsskar for a month. Sara Fredrika did not want him sentenced. She wanted to keep him. Her anger was not genuine.He moved his stool closer to Dorflinger.'I've told her what you said. I've also told her that I intend to help you. You're a marked man as a deserter from the German Navy, but I'll help you.''Why? You are also in the navy.''Sweden and Germany are not at war with each other. You are not my enemy.'He could see that Dorflinger was doubtful. He smiled.'I'm not sitting here telling you lies. I'll help you. You can't stay here. When I've finished my work you can come with me. Do you understand what I'm saying?'Dorflinger said nothing.Tobia.s.son-Svartman knew that he had understood. But he did not yet dare believe that it was true.

CHAPTER 97.

During the night he slept next to the fire.The deserter had hidden himself inside his overcoat, halfway under the bunk where Sara Fredrika was curled up with furs pulled over her head.Tobia.s.son-Svartman slept deeply, then woke up with a start. He thought he could hear breathing that he recognised, his father's.The dead, he thought. They're getting closer and closer. My father is also here, somewhere in this cottage. He is watching me without my being able to see him.His watch told him that it would soon be dawn. He got up gingerly and went outside.It was cold. He followed the path down to the inlet.When dawn broke he discovered a seabird frozen into the ice. Its wings were spread, as if it had frozen to death just as it was about to take off.He observed it for some considerable time, then walked on to the ice and broke its outstretched wings, bending them back against its body. Now the bird was resting, its attempt to escape was over.He continued, following the route he used to row and approached the spot where the Blenda Blenda had been anch.o.r.ed. Thick cloud drifted in from the east. He had measured the precise distance to the s.h.i.+p and stood on the ice in the exact same place where the rope ladder had hung down. The clouds were dark, and it started snowing. He contemplated Halsskar. The grey rocks, interspersed by patches of white, looked like a shabby overcoat spread out in a field. had been anch.o.r.ed. Thick cloud drifted in from the east. He had measured the precise distance to the s.h.i.+p and stood on the ice in the exact same place where the rope ladder had hung down. The clouds were dark, and it started snowing. He contemplated Halsskar. The grey rocks, interspersed by patches of white, looked like a shabby overcoat spread out in a field.He had left his telescope on top of his luggage. It was a modern model, with double lenses that could be adjusted by sliding a cylindrical ring in a clockwise or anticlockwise direction. If the ring had been moved he could be certain that Sara Fredrika had taken the telescope and kept him under observation.He was in the middle of a vast stretch of ice. Directly underneath him the distance to the bottom of the sea was forty-nine metres. He knew the precise depth at every spot on all sides.For a fraction of a second he hoped the ice would break, that it would be all over. All this pointless searching for a place where there was no bottom, where every measuring device had to accept defeat.Then he felt that Kristina Tacker was standing at his side. She leaned forward and whispered something in his ear, but he could not hear what it was.He went on over the ice. The surface was rough, there were ridges that looked like seams on a garment. He went to the place where they had sunk the body of the dead sailor, and paused over the deepest part of the sea in this area.He took his ice drill from his backpack. It had been made by the skilled craftsmen at Motala Verkstad in accordance with his own design. Unlike the ice drills used by the navy, his had a short handle. He found it made the work less strenuous because he could kneel on the ice and press down with his chest as he worked his way through the ice. He used one of his crampons to mark out a one-square-metre area. Then he started drilling.Somewhere in the distance Sara Fredrika would be watching him through the telescope. Maybe she had Dorflinger by her side. The deserter was suspicious, of course, and for his sake if for no other reason it was necessary to put on this performance.He made the first hole and was sure Sara Fredrika would be deceived into thinking he was sounding the depth. He drilled another hole and noted that the ice was fourteen centimetres thick.Then he drilled two more holes in the remaining two corners of his square. He made the holes big enough for him to be able to force his fist through them. When he had finished he pressed down with his foot in the middle of his square. He took off his hat and listened.The ice creaked loudly. He would be able to carry out his plan.The light was dazzlingly bright. The ice reflected it into his eyes. He turned round and s.h.i.+elded them with his hand.He thought he could see Sara Fredrika on a ledge just below the highest point on Halsskar. If he was right, the thing by her side was not a misshapen juniper bush, but the deserter he had promised to protect and a.s.sist.He didn't want to mention his name, it was easier to think of him as the despicable deserter, the man who had abandoned his duty and got in the way.

CHAPTER 98.

He returned over the ice.Where the dead cat had been was only the patch of dried blood. He forced his way through the bushes growing by the sh.o.r.e and made his way towards the cottage.Gunfire could be heard from out to sea. Then came the shock wave. Then another shot and another shock wave. Then all was silent again. Perhaps it was a warning signal. Perhaps the deserter was surrounded, perhaps the whole German Fleet was moving towards them at the edge of the ice? He sat down on a ledge to the north of the cottage. From there he could keep watch on it. A solitary bird flew over his head, its wings flapping madly. He imagined it to be a projectile, aimed at n.o.body.Sara Fredrika came out, followed by the deserter. He had taken off his tunic and replaced it with an old jacket that must have belonged to her husband.Jealousy.He thought about the revolver locked away in a cupboard in Stockholm. If he had had it with him, he could easily have killed them both.She pointed towards the inlet, they set off. The deserter suddenly stopped, took hold of her arm and pulled her towards him. She let it happen. At first the jealousy had been minor, creeping and not especially worrying. Now it had grown into something intolerable.Then came fury.His father had once spoken to guests at dinner about the importance of people learning to act like snakes. Cold blood, endless patience and poisonous fangs that struck at exactly the right instant. He had not been at the table, it was a dinner for grown-ups and he was only a child. But he had listened from behind the door.Afterwards he had played snakes. He had dressed in brown, painted a stripe on his tongue so that it seemed to be forked, and tried to wriggle his way forward, wait patiently in the shade cast by a tree, stretch himself out on some rocks. He had even taught himself to spit thin squirts of saliva through his front teeth.When he was eight he had forced himself to endure the ultimate snake test. He had caught a mouse in a trap, still alive, and bitten it and killed it. He had not been able to eat it, though.Now here he was confronted by the unexpected. A deserter had got in his way. I shall kill him, he thought. And I'll cut off her hair that he has touched.He lay motionless on the ledge until they were out of sight. Then he went to the cottage, found the deserter's papers in his tunic pocket and studied them. Stefan Dorflinger, born in Siegburg on 12 September 1888. Parents, Karl, regular seaman, bugler, and Elfriede Dorflinger. Signed on as a rating in the gunnery section of the cruiser Weinshorn Weinshorn in November 1912. A number of regular appraisal reports were positive. There was also a photograph of his parents. Karl Dorflinger had a prominent moustache; a friendly seeming, smiling man, but on the stout side. Elfriede Dorflinger was also large, her head seemed to rest on her shoulders with no neck. A bugler and a housewife pictured at a pavement cafe in a park. A shadowy, blurred waitress was walking by in the background with a tray of empty beer gla.s.ses. They were holding hands. in November 1912. A number of regular appraisal reports were positive. There was also a photograph of his parents. Karl Dorflinger had a prominent moustache; a friendly seeming, smiling man, but on the stout side. Elfriede Dorflinger was also large, her head seemed to rest on her shoulders with no neck. A bugler and a housewife pictured at a pavement cafe in a park. A shadowy, blurred waitress was walking by in the background with a tray of empty beer gla.s.ses. They were holding hands.He studied the photograph at length. Two fat people holding hands.He thought about the pictures that existed of him and Kristina Tacker. They used to go to the photographer's studio at least once a year. But there was not a single picture in which they made physical contact with each other, no holding hands, not even a hand on the other's shoulder.He replaced the doc.u.ments and picked up his telescope from on top of his rucksack. He opened the door and put the telescope to his eye.The image was blurred. She had used it.

CHAPTER 99.

He was standing with the telescope in his hand when he heard them approaching. He put it down on the ground, closed the door and sat down in the sun, his back resting against the house wall.They were running. Both of them were out of breath.'There are people on the ice,' she said.'Did they see you?''Yes.''Who are they?''Presumably hunters. But you can never be sure.'He thought for a moment.'Did they get a good view of you, or just sufficient to see that there were two of you?''They are a long way away, in among the little reefs at Handelsoarna.'The Handelsoarna islands were more than a kilometre away from Halsskar. Unless the hunters had a telescope they couldn't possibly have been able to identify the people they had seen.'If they come here we can say that it was me and you they saw. Will they be sleeping here?''They can build huts on the ice. They all know that I don't allow strange men to sleep in my cottage. Unless there's a storm or they've been in an accident.''He'll have to hide himself outside.'He explained rapidly in German. The deserter seemed to trust him now and did not hesitate when they went out on to the rocks shortly afterwards. Tobia.s.son-Svartman led him to a crevice big enough for him to curl up in.'Why are you doing this for me?''I would have done the same as you, and I would have hoped to meet somebody who was prepared to give me the same help.''I would never have survived if Sara Fredrika hadn't taken care of me.'The deserter had lain down in the crevice and looked up at him. He had a scarf round his head, and the mad fox's pelt wound round his neck.'I love her,' he said. 'I shall never forget her. One day when the war is over I shall come back here.''Does she know that?''We can't talk to each other. But I think she knows.'Tobia.s.son-Svartman nodded slowly.'Yes,' he said. 'I am sure you're right. No doubt she does know.'He returned to the cottage and explained where the deserter was hiding. She had tied up her hair and was wearing a shawl.She shrank back when he touched her.'I promise to help him,' he said. 'But does he want to be helped? I'm afraid that one of these days he'll simply wander off over the ice.''Why would he do that?''He has been through something that n.o.body can put up with. It's important that we keep an eye on him. I'll let him come with me when I'm working on the ice. He can be of a.s.sistance.'She stood by the window. 'I remember the first time you came here,' she said. 'I thought you were a man I could never trust. Now I'm ashamed when I recall that.''Why did you think you couldn't trust me?''I thought you were l.u.s.tful and up to no good. Now I know I was wrong.''Yes,' he said. 'You were wrong.''I keep thinking about your dead wife and your dead daughter.''That's something we have in common,' he said quietly. 'The dead.'

CHAPTER 100.

The men were from the inner archipelago. They carried shotguns and were going to hunt seabirds that were overwintering in the area. They were father and son, the father thin with sunken eyes, the son tall with a stutter. The father had a gold ring in one ear perhaps he had been a seafarer who believed that the ring would save him from drowning, or at least pay for his funeral. Sara Fredrika had seen them before. They would call in now and then every winter, asking for nothing more than to know if she had seen any seabirds. They had decoys in baskets which they carried on their backs, and Tobia.s.son-Svartman noticed that the father smelled of strong drink.They eyed him curiously and made no attempt to conceal the fact that they were wondering what on earth a naval officer was doing out here on the skerry. He told them about his depth-sounding mission in the late autumn, and that he was now checking a number of measurements.'I remember people sounding the depths here when I was a young lad,' said the father, whose name was Helge Wallen. 'It must have been about 1869 or 1870. There were boats anch.o.r.ed at Barosund, measuring. My dad sold them groceries, eggs, milk, he even slaughtered a pig cos they paid him well. Us kids were half starved, but Dad knew what he was doing. He was able to buy our farm the year after, with all the dosh he raked in. They were here for ages, measuring. Can there really be so much going on down there that you have to go through it all again?''It's because of the boats,' Tobia.s.son-Svartman said. 'Bigger s.h.i.+ps, bigger draughts, the need for wider navigable channels'They were standing outside the cottage. The son had stammered when he introduced himself as Olle.'So you're still here, then?' the father said to Sara Fredrika.'I'm still here.''We saw that you weren't on your own as we were pa.s.sing Handelsoarna. I says to Olle, Sara Fredrika's got herself a husband.''I'm still here,' Sara Fredrika said, 'but my husband is still my husband, even if he's lying at the bottom of the sea out here.'They stood a while outside the cottage. The father was chewing over Sara Fredrika's answer. Then he spat and lifted his bags.'We'd best be off,' he said. 'Have you seen any birds?''At the edge of the ice. But further south, on the way to Haradskar. That's the place to put your decoys.'The men wandered off towards the inlet. Tobia.s.son-Svartman and Sara Fredrika clambered up a high rock and watched them leave, saw how they turned southwards when they reached the edge of the ice.'I'm related to them somehow or other,' she said. 'I can't quite work out how. But the link is there somewhere in the past.''I thought everybody in the skerries was related to everybody else?''We get quite a few incomers,' she said. 'The types who like to hide away, the ones that aren't tempted by the towns. I was in Norrkoping once. I can't have been more than sixteen. My uncle was going to sell a couple of cows and he wanted me with him. The town has some kind of smell that made it hard for me to breathe.''But even so, you want me to take you away from here?''I reckon you can learn. Like swimming. Or rowing. You can learn how to breathe even in a town.''I'll take you away from here,' he said. 'But not now. First I have to help this man.'She looked at him doubtfully.'Do you really mean what you say?''I always mean what I say.'Sara Fredrika went back to the cottage. He watched her jumping from rock to rock, as if she knew them, every one.He waited until she had gone inside. Then he fetched the deserter, who was s.h.i.+vering in his crevice.

CHAPTER 101.

At some point he was woken by a movement during the night.The man lying by his side got quietly to his knees. The embers in the hearth had almost gone out, and the chill had already started to take over the room. He heard the man groping his way to the bunk, a few faint whispers, then silence, only their breathing.He stayed awake until the man made his way quietly back to his place on the floor. His jealousy started rising from out of the depths and reached the point where he knew it was ready to burst to the surface.

CHAPTER 102.

There was a change in the weather. It was warmer during the day and the snow started to melt, but the nights were still cold. Every morning for a week he took Stefan Dorflinger with him on to the ice. It developed into a peculiar sort of game, with him drawing up an imaginary line a hundred metres from where he had prepared the trapdoor in the ice. He taught the deserter how to drill, explained the principles of depth sounding and let him drop the lead down to the seabed and do the calculations. Tobia.s.son-Svartman played the role of magician who would occasionally predict an accurate measurement even before the lead had reached the bottom.Nothing is as magical as exact knowledge, he thought. The man who had run away from his German naval s.h.i.+p had found a strange magician in the Swedish winter landscape. A man who can see through the ice, who can measure depths, not by using a sounding lead but by using his magical powers.The deserter became calmer as the days went by. Every morning he would gaze out to sea, but when there was no sign of a s.h.i.+p he seemed to forget all about being tracked down.He would occasionally talk about his life. Tobia.s.son-Svartman asked his questions diplomatically, always politely, never intrusive. He soon formed his opinion of the deserter's character. Dorflinger was a limited young man, with no knowledge, no interests. His greatest resource was his fear, the fear that had driven him to try to row away to freedom.They spent the mornings out on the ice. They drilled and measured. Now and then they could see Sara Fredrika on the rocks on Halsskar.In the afternoons he left them on their own. Every evening he told Sara Fredrika about the sailor's progress, about his increasing trust.'I'll take him with me when I leave,' he said. 'I have colleagues who hate the German military, they will help him. I'll take him with me, look after him. Then I'll come back here and fetch you.'Her response was always the same.'I don't believe it. Not until I see you on the ice.''I'll leave you my telescope,' he said. 'That will help you to see me sooner. It will make your wait shorter.'He spent an hour every afternoon writing up his diary. He wrote about the deserter. On 17 February he wrote:The day is approaching when I can do my duty and capture the German deserter who has fled to Sweden and is in hiding here. One can well ask oneself if he has made up the whole story. Perhaps he has been placed here as the furthest outpost in a network of spies preparing for a German attack on Sweden. Since I think he could well resist, I am planning for all possible circ.u.mstances.He hid his diary, wrapped up in a waterproof pouch, in a clump of hawthorn bushes next to the path to the inlet.It seemed to him that he was living in many different worlds at the same time. Each one of them was equally true.The day was approaching. He was waiting for a change in the weather. He was waiting for a chilly morning with fog.

CHAPTER 103.

On 19 February, at about nine in the morning, he trained his telescope on the two hunters, father and son, who were returning to the inner archipelago over the ice. They pa.s.sed to the south of Halsskar and had evidently had plenty of success. They were pulling a net behind them over the ice, full of dead birds.Then he aimed his telescope out to sea. He sensed that a change of weather was on the way. The sun was hidden behind thick cloud and the temperature was falling. Everything suggested that they would have fog for the next few days. That day he had asked Dorflinger to drill some holes and take some measurements without supervision.He scrutinised the man on the ice, hunched over the drill. Sara Fredrika came up to him. She had spent the morning catching cod with lines through several holes in the ice on the west side of the skerry. He suspected that she had been watching him before making her presence known.'Why does one man watch another through a telescope?'I once saw you naked, he thought. Without a telescope. I watched you getting washed, I saw your body. I have never forgotten that. I might forget you you eventually, but I'll never forget your body. eventually, but I'll never forget your body.'I'm just checking to make sure he's doing it right.' She grabbed hold of his arm. 'I can't stay here.' 'What would have happened if I hadn't come?' 'I'd have asked him to take me with him.' 'Would you have gone with a man who was doomed o die?''I didn't know that then.''No,' he said. 'You couldn't have known that.'When she went back to the cottage he followed her at safe distance to make sure she went inside.Dorflinger continued drilling the pointless holes in the ce.Tobia.s.son-Svartman looked for a sufficiently big stone o act as a weight and kicked it on to the ice. It had a ounded bottom and slid along without him needing to ut much effort into it. Then he collected some sticks nd branches, broke them into pieces and left them next o the upturned boat.The temperature went on falling. He could see the unters again. He watched them on their way back to and until they were no longer visible.

CHAPTER 104.

The next day the island was covered in fog.Tobia.s.son-Svartman waited until the others were awake.'I'm going out now,' he said. 'You can follow me in an hour. Wait to see if the fog lifts.''I won't get lost,' Dorflinger said.'I'll leave a trail from the inlet. It's easy to get overconfident when it's foggy. Shout as you are walking over the ice, and I can put you right if you are off-course.'He did not wait for a response. He strapped on his rucksack with the ice drill sticking out and set off. When he stepped on to the ice he left a trail of sticks marking the way to the holes that had been drilled. The fog was very thick. He kicked the stone a few metres ahead and took a step back, then another. The stone was lost in the fog. Visibility was four metres at most.He thought he could hear a foghorn in the distance. He listened, but there was no second foghorn. He left his trail of sticks until he came to the place where he had bored the first holes at the corners of a square. He tried the ice with his foot. It creaked. He had kept the holes open by clearing away any ice and snow in them every other day or so. Now he bored ten more holes. He was dripping with sweat by the time he had finished. When he put his foot on the ice and pressed lightly, it cracked along all four sides. He got down on his knees and spread loose snow over the cracks, making them invisible.It suddenly struck him that Sara Fredrika might accompany the deserter, being afraid that he could get lost. That would mean he would be forced to postpone what he planned to do. He hoped she would not appear. Changing plans would be a defeat.He opened his rucksack and took out a piece of rope he had found in Sara Fredrika's dinghy. He tied it round the stone, which he then kicked into the fog.He took a few deep breaths and measured his pulse. It was a little higher than normal, eighty-two beats per minute. He took off his gloves and held his hands out in front of him. His fingers were not shaking. He was a stranger, somebody who was himself, but at the same time somebody else.Then he heard the crunch of footsteps on the ice. Dorflinger appeared out of the fog. He was alone. Tobia.s.son-Svartman smiled.

CHAPTER 105.

It was their last conversation and it was very short.Tobia.s.son-Svartman had positioned himself so that the hole in the ice was between him and Dorflinger.'You know the fate lying in wait for a deserter,' he said. 'They'll hang you from a tree or a lamp-post. Or they'll shoot you or even behead you. They'll hang a plaque round your neck. Deserter. Deserter. And there will be no shortage of volunteers willing to pull the rope tight or to press the trigger. A deserter is a man who stole other people's lives.' And there will be no shortage of volunteers willing to pull the rope tight or to press the trigger. A deserter is a man who stole other people's lives.'He took a step back. Dorflinger took a pace forward. He stepped on to the square, the ice gave way and he fell into the water. Tobia.s.son-Svartman raised his sounding lead and hit him hard on the back of his head. To his surprise, it made a bloodstained dent in the bra.s.s. Then he saw that Dorflinger was still alive. His hands were grasping at the edge of the ice in an attempt to stay above water. He stared at Tobia.s.son-Svartman with gaping eyes.Tobia.s.son-Svartman took one of the ice prods hanging round his neck and stabbed at Dorflinger's eyes. They must stop seeing, he must destroy what they have seen.Dorflinger screamed just once, a sound like one coming from a little child. Then he was silent.Tobia.s.son-Svartman kicked the stone to the edge of the hole and fastened the rope round the waist of the man in the hole. The water was cold, the broken ice covered in sticky blood. He tried not to look at the man's face, the mutilated eyes. When he pushed the stone into the water the body sank immediately and vanished.

CHAPTER 106.

He thought of the burial of Karl-Heinz Richter.Now Herr Richter and Herr Dorflinger would meet in the cemetery 160 metres under water. Two men with no eyes, two men who spent five or six minutes sinking to the bottom of the sea.He listened. Not a sound. He wiped his sounding lead clean and sc.r.a.ped away the blood that had spurted on to the ice.When everything was clean around the hole, it dawned on him what he had done. For the whole of his life he had been afraid of death, of dead people. Now he had killed a man, not in a war, not obeying an order, not in self-defence. He had acted in cold blood, with malice aforethought, without hesitation or regret.He looked at the hole in the ice, the grave opening. Down there in the depths, he thought, two people are sinking to the bottom of the sea. One is a German deserter. I killed him because he got in my way. But there is another person sinking with an invisible weight tied round his neck.Me. The person I was. Or possibly the person I have at last discovered that I am. He felt dizzy. So as not to fall over, he sat down on the ice. His heart was pounding, he had difficulty in breathing. He stared at the hole and had a powerful feeling that Stefan Dorflinger was about to climb out of the ice-cold water.What have I done? he thought, horrified. What is happening to me? There was no answer. The panic taking possession of him was incapable of words.He stood up and prepared to throw himself into the water. But Kristina Tacker appeared by his side and said: 'It's not you who's going to die. It's your enemies who die. Lieutenant Jakobsson, who despised you, he dropped dead. You are alive and the others die. Never forget that I love you.'Then she was gone.Love is unfathomable, he thought. Unfathomable, but perhaps invincible.He stayed for half an hour by the hole in the ice, then walked slowly back to the skerry that was still shrouded in fog. Every time he saw a piece of wood marking out the path, he bent down and threw it as far as he could, one to the left, the next to the right.The hole would soon freeze over again. There was no longer a path behind him.There was nothing behind him.

CHAPTER 107.

It would not be difficult to explain to Sara Fredrika what had happened. The deserter quite simply could no longer cope. There were people who tried to get the better of death by taking their own lives. That was nothing special, it often happened, particularly in wartime. When living in the proximity of death, it was usual for people not only to hang on to life but also to take out an advance on death.As he came to the skerry he threw the last bit of wood out into the fog.She was gutting cod, and now and then a ba.s.s, up by the cottage. She knew right away that something had happened. She dropped her knife and sat down, not on the stool behind her but on the ground.'Tell me,' she said. 'Don't beat about the bush, tell me now.''There's been an accident.''Is he dead?''Yes, he's dead.''Did the ice give way?''He must have drilled holes so as to create a potential trapdoor when he was alone on the ice. He stepped on the weakened patch and just disappeared.'She shook her head.'He took his own life,' Tobia.s.son-Svartman said. 'I was taken completely by surprise. He didn't say a word. He just appeared out of the fog, walked up to where he must have drilled the holes and stepped straight on to it. He didn't hesitate. He can only have wanted to die.''No. He didn't want to die. He wanted to live.'She was adamant. She bit hard on her hair. He had the impression that she was in a hole in the ice, hanging on by her own hair.'He was scared. He was surrounded by fog, but even so he was alert to pursuers. When he was asleep, he tossed and turned and looked to see if there was somebody behind him. There's a limit to what can be endured by a person who is being hunted down even in his dreams.''He didn't want to die.'She put out a hand to the cottage wall and stood up. When he tried to help her she pushed him away. She flopped down on to the stool. The fog had started to lift. The sun glinted on the layer of ice covering the roof ridge.'I don't understand this,' she said. 'He wanted to live. Didn't you see his eyes? I've never seen anything like them.''They were full of fear.''They were self-contained. self-contained. He had eyes that made sense, that could see there was something you could reach if only you could get away from what was causing you pain.' He had eyes that made sense, that could see there was something you could reach if only you could get away from what was causing you pain.''You must have been mistaken. He was so scared that, in the end, he couldn't deal with it. He had evidently thought it all out, drilled the holes in the right places, filled his pockets with stones. He stepped into the water just as you would step on to the dance floor, or into a warm room out of a cold one. He did what he wanted to do. When he stepped into the water, he wasn't frightened any more.''I thought I heard a scream.''It must have been a bird crying through the fog.'The ice on the roof had started dripping. He stood up, stretched his legs and thought that Dorflinger had never really existed: he was just a figment of the imagination.'Why didn't he kill himself when he first drilled the holes to create the trapdoor in the ice? Why did he wait?''If you've decided you're going to die, there's no hurry. Perhaps he wanted to be properly prepared.''When he touched me he wasn't scared. There was no hint of suicide in his hands.'He winced when she mentioned the sailor's hand. He tried not to think about it. I should tell her the truth, he thought. That I killed him, and that now she has to make up her mind: stay here or go away with me.'He had accepted the fact that he could not go on,' he said. 'He had seen the war, he had run away from it and he was being eaten up inside by his pursuers. I might well have done the same in his situation.'She ran away down the path to the inlet. He followed slowly after.She was sitting on the upturned boat, crying.He felt sorry for her, but mostly he felt sorry for himself. Did she not understand? She was the one who had forced him to kill the deserter because she had put her cottage and her bed at his disposal.The clouds had dispersed, and the fog. He returned to the cottage and sat down to wait.She took her time. But when she did come, it was to him, and to n.o.body else.

CHAPTER 108.

They shared her bed that night. For the second time.For one brief, giddy moment he thought he could smell the fragrance of Kristina Tacker's body, hear her panting breath.Then he was back to reality. Sara Fredrika's long hair imprisoned him, as if he had been woven into a net and was being pulled towards a point where he felt like bursting. Afterwards they were calm, still. He could not tell if she was awake or asleep. But she was there. He was there. It was not like sharing a bed with Kristina Tacker, with each of them heading off in different directions all the time.He was woken up at dawn by her looking at him. Her face was very close.'I shall soon have to leave you,' he said. 'But I'll come back. I'll come and take you away from here.''I hope so,' she said. 'I have to have something to believe in. Otherwise I couldn't go on.'Otherwise I couldn't go on. What would happen then?

CHAPTER 109.

He left her early in the morning of 27 February.He had made preparations for starting to walk back to the mainland. She went with him to the edge of the ice.'The cat,' he said when they were saying goodbye. 'I saw a cat once, here on the island. But you said there wasn't one?''I don't know why I lied. Of course there is a cat. But I don't know where it's got to.''I thought you would want to know. Dorflinger killed it with a stone and threw it on to the ice. He killed the cat in a spasm of violent rage. I don't know why. But I thought you would like to know.'She did not reply.Their leave-taking was awkward, a handshake, no more.He counted to two hundred paces. Then he turned round. She had gone. She was left behind.

PART VII.

Capture

CHAPTER 110.

The train came to a halt between stations. They had just pa.s.sed through by. The station had been in darkness, but a fire was burning next to the line. It was evening, with a wind blowing from Brviken. Tobia.s.son-Svartman was in the carriage next to the engine. He was sharing a compartment with a man fast asleep in a corner, his head buried in a moth-eaten fur coat. He listened to the sighing noise coming from the steam engine, and was overcome by a feeling of unreality: he would be stuck here, the train would never start moving again. There were no rails ahead of him, only an endless vacuum and sighs from the engine.It was the second day after he had left Halsskar and started his trek to the mainland. He had spent the night in the boathouse on Armno, but he had been unable to sleep and as soon as dawn broke he went on walking over the ice towards Gryt.Round about Kattilo he had heard rifle shots, first one, then another. Apart from that all was silent: the ice, the islands, solitary birds.When he came to Gryt, walking up the hill towards the church, he had a stroke of luck. A car approached and they gave him a lift as far as Valdemarsvik. The driver said not a word all the twenty-kilometre journey. There were big rust holes in the car, and Tobia.s.son-Svartman could see the road beneath his feet.On the back seat was the body of a child, a little girl, wrapped in a blanket Only when they reached Valdemarsvik did he ask what had happened.The man replied wearily: 'She scalded herself. Knocked over a bowl of boiling water. She was soaked in it from her stomach downwards. She screamed something awful before she died. But her face wasn't burned.'The girl was lying with her face turned towards him.As he sat on the train he did not think about Sara Fredrika or Kristina Tacker. He thought about the girl who had scalded herself. Who had died from the stomach downwards.

CHAPTER 111.

A conductor came past. Tobia.s.son-Svartman was standing in the corridor between the first and second coaches, and he asked the man why the train had stopped. He noticed that he had a Bible in one of his uniform pockets.'It's the cold. A set of points has frozen. A couple of linemen are thawing it out. We're twenty-five minutes late.''Twenty-nine,' Tobia.s.son-Svartman said.They started off again shortly after midnight. The man in the corner woke up, gave Tobia.s.son-Svartman a bleary look and went back to sleep.Tobia.s.son-Svartman had killed a man. Was he now less scared of death than before? Or more scared? There was no answer. His instrument was dead. His sounding lead was silent in his rucksack.They arrived in Stockholm as dawn was breaking on 2 March. Outside the Central Station he pa.s.sed the conductor from his train, but the man did not recognise him.

CHAPTER 112.

Stockholm greeted him with snow flurries and freezing temperatures. He stood with his luggage and a porter, wondering where he should go. At first he gave his home address, then changed his mind and named a little hotel at Norra Bantorget. The porter disappeared into the snow and Tobia.s.son-Svartman went back into the station. He ordered breakfast in the first-cla.s.s dining room, but the food stuck in his throat and he was forced to run to the toilets and throw up. The waitress looked at him in astonishment when he returned with tears in his eyes.She can see, he thought. She can see that I have killed a man.He paid his bill and left. The city and the falling snow made him dizzy. He came to the hotel where the porter was waiting for him. When the receptionist told him that the hotel was full, he was furious. The receptionist turned pale and gave him a room that was in fact already booked. The porter carried up his luggage.'That's the way to treat them b.u.g.g.e.rs,' he said with a smile as he pocketed his payment.Tobia.s.son-Svartman closed the door, locked it and lay down on the bed. It was like being back in the boathouse on Armno. He closed his eyes and clutched his sounding lead to his chest. n.o.body knew where he was, n.o.body knew where he was heading for, least of all himself.There was a draught from the window. He wrapped a scarf round his head, moved as close as possible to the wall and waited for the strength to make a decision.

CHAPTER 113.