‘Where I am going you cannot follow me. But one day you shall leave the island and you will be happy. As it is written in the Bible: “I shall depart from a foreign land across a which the Lord shall build.”’
These were the stranger’s last words. Bjorn called Harald, and blinking, watched as the man’s silhouette, heading after the ever smaller figure of the lamb, disappeared against the burning disc of the sun, somewhere in the middle of Alvaret.
Towards the end of September, the reverend pastor Jons, parish priest at Ventlinge, found Bjorn standing outside his door. He asked humbly if the pastor would possibly be willing to lend him a Bible. He promised to come to church on Christmas Day and to return the book undamaged. If needs be, he would work in the reverend’s field for as many days as he saw fit. The pastor said nothing, but told him to wait outside, and vanished into the house. He came back with a half leather-bound family Bible and handed it to Bjorn.
‘Open it at any page and read aloud, if you are able to!’
It was Chapter Twelve of the Book of Daniel. Bjorn, who had last pieced together the letters of Swedish script many years ago, stammered syllable after syllable, but with each sentence he found it easier, and when at the end he read out fluently: ‘But you, go your way till the end; for you shall rest, and will arise to your inheritance at the end of the days,’ the pastor, somewhat amazed, nodded benignly. Then he asked: ‘What do you need it for?’ and at once added, as if to himself, under his breath: ‘If such people begin to prophesy too, what will it come to?’ However, he lent the Bible, sternly instructing him to treat it like a treasure, for although he had not bought it, merely inherited it from his predecessor, it was still worth a lot of money.
When, like the others, he drove his flock to the great barns at Ventlinge where the sheep spent the winter, a different time set in for him. He only went to the estate to work off his debt five days a week, and had two for himself. Until the snow fell, he caught and smoked fish, and chopped a supply of firewood. After work he read by the fireside: first the Gospels, the Letters and Acts of the Apostles. He was a little disappointed that only Matthew wrote about the Three Kings. He mentioned gold, frankincense and myrrh, but did not say a word about the lost Book. And he only added that ‘they returned another way to their own land, the land of the rising sun.’ Afterwards, to find the sentence about the ‘fragile bridge which the Lord shall build,’ he carefully read book after book, starting from Genesis. Days went by, his eyes were watering from the flickering firelight, but so far there was nothing about any sort of bridge, let alone a fragile one. Sometimes, when he awoke after a short doze, fearing that he may have overlooked something, he went back two or three chapters and read them again – in vain. If not for the silver cup, he might have thought he dreamed it all one balmy summer’s night, when he fell asleep outside the shelter, stupefied by the scent of herbs and grasses. He set aside the Bible and picked up the vessel. The letters running around it in relief were intertwined with the leaves of a plant he did not recognise. He raised the cup to his nose and slowly drew in air, as if at the very bottom a dried-up drop of wine might give him any sort of explanation.
The day before Christmas Bjorn finished reading the Bible. In none of the books had he found the sentence with which the stranger had so deeply moved him. But the next day he did not return the book to the pastor. There was such a strong blizzard and the snowdrifts were so high that even in the village no one could possibly have dared to go outside. It continued to rage and to snow for the next few days, until finally the sun came out, the wind dropped and a biting frost took hold. Bjorn went out onto the cliff and saw a white expanse, stretching all the way from the island to the distant line of the mainland. The sea had frozen. Never before, since he had been on Öland, had he seen the strait ice-bound. He went home, wrapped some food, the cup, a shirt and foot cloths in a bundle, placed the Bible at the very centre of the table, put out the fire, tied some short, wide slats to the soles of his winter boots, put on his sheepskin coat and hat, called the dog and for the last time closed behind him the door of the house that had never been his property.
He glided across the creaking snow, occasionally sinking up to his knees, but the further he was from the island, the easier the going, because the drifts were smaller. He also crossed places where the layer of snow blown in by the wind was only a few centimetres deep. At those points he paused, swept aside the snow and looked at the ice, under which was the sea. Harald followed along the trail he cut, pleased not to be sinking up to his belly. The red sphere of the sun had passed midday when they came onto the mainland. Bjorn was not sure whether the trickles of grey smoke rising beyond the hill belonged to Brömsebro or perhaps another village, but it didn’t matter. He had no goal, he felt joy in his heart, and he never once looked behind him.
They spent a long time climbing up a hill, now master before dog, now dog before master. And once they were at the top, standing beneath the boughs of trees stripped of their leaves, they could see the roofs of a village and fields covered in snow. There were small, dark figures moving along a frozen river and on ponds. The shouts of children, laughter, the grating of skates and the clash of curved sticks could be heard from afar on the crystal-clear air. Sleighs in harness were driving along the road, with people in fancy dress riding in them. On a bonfire outside a tavern, the innkeeper and a woman were roasting a pig. Harald tensed like a string as he scented the smell of fat mixed with the odour of burning bristles. Perhaps it would induce the master to take them there, perhaps for chopping wood and carrying water the master would be given a bowl of pig’s blood soup and a black pudding, and the dog a bone and some gristle; but Bjorn, whose gaze was following a bird soaring over the valley, had spotted something he couldn’t tear his eyes away from.
At the edge of the village, outside a small building that could have been a stable or a forge, or both of them at once, some horsemen were riding up; there were people crowding among them, and some musicians were approaching. A man in a turban was driving a camel covered with a saddlecloth, another was leading a laden donkey by the halter, a drunkard lying in the snow was singing a serenade, a cripple was hobbling along on a crutch and some beggars were plying their trade. Bjorn headed down the hill, with Harald after him; they crossed a stone bridge over a river, passed a few houses, and finally reached the gathering. Snow began to fall in large flakes, despite which more and more people kept coming, trumpets blared, pipes wailed, cymbals crashed, and a pair of village ragamuffins started to dance. Bjorn pushed his way to the entrance, but the local strongmen would not let him through, demanding a penny in payment for this unexpected show; finally by some miracle he managed to slip inside, but only to the door, from where, on tiptoes, he could see something. The same man, one of the three, was kneeling down, holding a long copper canister. Bjorn recognised him, in spite of the fact that he was wearing a shining coat richly shot with golden threads. From his tube he removed a scroll, unfurled it a little and, bowing his head, showed it to the child. The brilliance that shone out in the chamber dazzled everyone, but not Bjorn. People were coming outside, some astounded, some already bored by this spectacle, and now he could go nearer. The King held the scroll up so close to the child that he could touch it with his small, chubby finger. And just then, on the unrolled page Bjorn caught sight of himself and his father, disembarking from a galleon into a gondola. Slowly they went sailing past the church of Santa Maria della Salute. A bright, warm morning heralded a beautiful day.