I don’t think he really grasped my situation. He noted down the details with an air of indifference, as if he wanted to let me know from the start that this was going nowhere and that a prosecutor would immediately dismiss the possibility of an investigation.
Oslovski was like a piece of human flotsam that had drifted onto our shores. Jansson had started a collection for a headstone, but it was difficult to get people to contribute. I think he ended up paying most of the eventual cost himself, but at least I was there when the stone was erected in the churchyard. Oslovski was placed between one of the archipelago’s last pilots, who happened to be a relative of Veronika from the cafe, and a landowner from Röda Furholmen who was notorious for his unpleasant behaviour when he’d been drinking. Occasionally some unknown person would lay flowers on her grave.
In the middle of December a storm swept in across the archipelago. It came from the Baltic to the south-west, and struck with full force in the middle of the night. The gusts of wind were so strong that the caravan shook. I went out into the sleety darkness with my torch, shoring up my home with tree stumps and plastic barrels filled with water. I had just finished and gone back inside when there was a power cut. I undressed and dried myself with a recently purchased towel made in Cambodia. I still had the LPG stove, and I made some coffee in spite of the fact that it was four o’clock in the morning. I had a candle on the table, its flame flickering in the draught.
My telephone rang. I immediately assumed it was Jansson, wanting to know if my electricity had gone too, but instead it was a man speaking English with an accent. I couldn’t work out who it was and thought it must be a wrong number. Then I realised it was Ahmed.
‘I am at the hospital. Louise is having the baby.’
The child was coming, much too soon. I could hear the anxiety in Ahmed’s voice, but he told me there was no need to worry. Louise had asked him to call me; he promised to let me know as soon as the child was born.
I didn’t get any more sleep that night. The child was so premature that it would have to be placed in an incubator. The storm and the hurricane-force gusts outside the caravan felt like an ominous backdrop as I awaited the birth of my first and perhaps only grandchild.
I thought about Harriet. Once again I pictured her making her way across the ice with her wheeled walker. I found it difficult to remember what she had looked like on that occasion, but in my mind’s eye I could picture her as a young woman, back in the days of our messy relationship. I experienced an intense sense of loss. Or perhaps it was longing. Which isn’t quite the same thing.
One night she and I and Louise had slept together in the caravan before it was moved to this spot. Now Harriet was gone, and Louise was lying in a hospital bed in Paris, giving birth to her child.
The candle flickered again, and memories passed through my mind like uneasy shadows. My father was there, my mother, my grandparents — and various women with whom I had had relationships or whom I had never managed to conquer. I was there too, among the shadows. Perhaps I was the one slinking along close to the walls of the caravan, making sure the light never fell on my face?
At ten to six the phone rang again. It was Ahmed: Louise had had a girl. The baby didn’t weigh much, but everything had gone well. She was in an incubator, as I had expected.
Ahmed said the baby looked like me.
That wasn’t true, of course. Newborn babies, especially if they are premature, don’t look like anybody except themselves. They are unfinished sketches that will develop in an unknown direction.
I went out into the darkness and the wind. Still no power. I used the torch to light my way, dizzy with joy. I hadn’t expected to have such strong feelings. I went into the boathouse, with the wind howling and whistling through the gaps. I sat down on one of my grandfather’s old eel traps, which he had used right up until the last year of his life. By now the net was so fragile with age that it tore if I pushed two fingers into one of the holes and spread them apart.
I felt a tremendous urge to tell someone what had happened, but who could I call? Jansson or Lisa Modin. Perhaps Veronika or Oslovski? But Oslovski was dead, and I had never had her phone number anyway.
I tried Lisa, hoping I would wake her. Which I did.
‘You,’ she said. ‘At this hour — what time is it?’
‘Half past six. I’ve just become a grandfather.’
‘Congratulations. Is it a boy or a girl?’
‘A girl.’
‘Did everything go well?’
‘I believe so, but the baby is premature. That always carries risks.’
‘Will they put her in an incubator?’
‘They already have. I must confess I’m lost for words.’
‘And you chose to call me? That’s nice.’
‘I don’t have anyone else to call.’
‘I’m sure you do.’
‘Perhaps we could have a drink, wet the baby’s head?’
‘Not at half past six in the morning.’
‘At the weekend?’
‘Maybe. Ring me in a couple of days.’
‘You ring me.’
She promised to get in touch, and I immediately began to look forward to seeing her again. It was a long time since the trip to Paris.
I called Jansson.
‘I’ve got no power,’ he said. ‘If that’s what you wanted to know.’
‘Louise has had her baby. A little girl.’
There was a pause, then he said, ‘Isn’t that a bit early?’
‘Yes, but everything’s fine. I hope.’
‘In that case allow me to congratulate you on behalf of the entire archipelago.’
Sometimes Jansson expresses himself in the most peculiar way. His words can border on pomposity, but right now it felt as if he really meant it: he was representing the collective joy of the islanders. He had made me a part of the ever-dwindling population of the archipelago. I was no longer an outsider.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
Then we talked about the storm. Jansson had contacted the electricity company, and they hoped to have the power back on by nine. Apparently a substation where the cable left the mainland had been damaged. In addition, the wind had brought down a large number of trees.
When the conversation was over, I went back to the caravan, lay down and waited for the dawn. As the grey light filtered in, I went outside again. Up on the hill, not far from my grandfather’s bench, an oak tree had come down, the roots sticking up like a giant mushroom that had been kicked to pieces. I walked all the way around the island and was able to ascertain that the fallen oak was the only casualty. All the other trees had survived. The topsoil might not be very deep out here, but the trees are tough, clinging on with their claw-like roots.
I fetched my handsaw and cut a slice from the trunk of the oak. It seemed to take forever; I was dripping with sweat by the time I finished. I went down to the jetty for a dip, then dried myself off in the caravan. I took my magnifying glass to the boathouse, sat down and counted the rings. To my surprise, the tree was older than I could have imagined. After checking again to make sure, I concluded that the first ring dated from 1847. The following year, when the oak was no more than a sapling, the European revolutions took place. I worked my way outwards, as if I were on the edge of eternity. I placed my finger on the line separating 1899 and 1900. A war begins in 1914, another in 1939. I was born in 1944, the year before the war ended. And now the tree had fallen in a December storm, all those years after it began to grow.
I left the slice of wood in the boathouse, went outside and sat down on the bench, which was sheltered from the wind. The waves were still choppy, and there was the odd squally shower from time to time.