Borrachon has been so grateful, exhaustingly grateful. He has found a new friend, someone who understands him. Someone he would die for.
Nils has nodded and smiled at Borrachon, but inside he has been constantly wishing that Fritiof Andersson would return as quickly as possible and help out. Here comes Fritiof Andersson... Nils doesn’t want to become friends with this defeated Swede who is so much like him; he just wants to go home to Öland. Fritiof has promised to organize it, and all he wants in return...
Hey, if you want, just say the word,
and we’ll go home...
— all Fritiof wants are the hidden gemstones.
This is what Nils suspects. On the occasions when Fritiof has visited him, he’s mentioned the stones several times. He knows what happened to Nils out on the alvar just after the war.
“Did they say where they came from, those Germans?” Fritiof has asked. “Is it true they’d brought something with them to Öland — some treasure? And if they did have something with them... what happened to it? What did you do with it, Nils?”
So many questions, but Nils suspects that this man who calls himself Fritiof already knows the answers to most of them.
Nils has answered the questions, briefly, but he isn’t telling anyone where he hid the gemstones. That treasure is his, whatever it’s worth. He’s earned it, after living with no money for so many years now.
Very soon Borrachon became restless in the little room in San José, but Nils had to keep him there until Fritiof arrived. After three days they had run out of conversation, and after a week all that Nils and Borrachon had in common was drinking wine. They sat in the hotel room, surrounded by empty bottles, and outside the sun beat down on the street.
At last Fritiof’s plane landed out at the airport, and he turned up at the hotel with a broad smile below his sunglasses. Borrachon woke from his drunken state without really grasping who this new Swede was and what he wanted, but Fritiof provided more bottles of wine and the party continued. Fritiof sang and laughed, but kept control all the time; he studied Borrachon with a steady gaze.
The day after Fritiof’s arrival, Nils went on ahead to Limón by train. He returned to his little room, paid a final installment of rent to his landlady, Madame Mendoza, and had his hair cut just as short as Borrachon’s. Then he went to the bar by the harbor and nodded to all the poor bastards who would never leave Limón. He drank wine and made sure he was seen on the muddy streets of the town for several evenings in a row, apparently very drunk indeed.
“Echa,” he said. He thanked everyone.
And he told Madame Mendoza and several bartenders that he would soon be off on a little walking trip north along the coast, past Playa Bonita — but that he’d be back in a few days, when a Swedish friend was coming to visit.
“Echa,” he says. “Hasta pronto.”
At dawn on the final day in Limón he got up, left a little money in the kitchen drawers, and most of his possessions; he just took a few clothes and some food, his wallet, and the letters from Vera. Then he left Limón at long last. He went through the market in the square where the old fishmongers were already setting up, silent witnesses to the start of his journey home. He went on past the railway station and continued northward, out of the town, on the way to his meeting with Fritiof Andersson without looking back.
Not running away — going home.
For the first time in almost twenty years, Nils is on his way home to Öland.
26
It wasn’t the young nurse who opened the heavy door of Martin Malm’s house this time. It was an elderly woman with long gray hair, dressed in a blouse and pale-colored pants. Gerlof recognized her: Martin’s wife, Ann-Britt Malm.
“Good afternoon,” said Gerlof.
The woman was standing stiffly in the doorway. Her pale face remained serious; he could see that she didn’t recognize him.
“Gerlof Davidsson,” he said, moving his cane into his left hand and holding out his right hand. “From Stenvik.”
“Oh yes,” she said. “Gerlof, yes, of course. You were here last week, with a woman.”
“That was my daughter,” said Gerlof.
“I was at the window upstairs when you were leaving, but when I asked Ylva, she couldn’t remember your names,” said Ann-Britt Malm.
“Not to worry,” said Gerlof. “I really wanted a chat with Martin about old times, but he wasn’t too well. Perhaps he’s feeling a bit better today?”
The ice-cold wind from the sound was on his back, and Gerlof was trying not to shiver. But he was desperate to get inside, into the warmth of the house.
“Martin isn’t really much better today,” said Ann-Britt Malm.
Gerlof nodded sympathetically. “But a little bit better, maybe?” he said, feeling like a door-to-door salesman. “I won’t stay long.” He didn’t move from the doorway.
In the end she relented.
“We can see how he’s feeling,” she said. “Come in.”
Gerlof turned before he went in, and looked back toward the street.
John was still sitting in his car. Gerlof nodded to him. “Thirty minutes,” he’d told him. “If they let me in, come back in thirty minutes.”
Now John raised a hand and started the engine. He drove away.
Gerlof walked into the warmth, and his limbs gradually stopped shaking. He put his briefcase down on the stone floor of the large hallway, and took off his coat.
“It’s almost like winter out there today,” he said to Ann-Britt Malm.
She merely nodded, clearly uninterested in small talk.
The door on one side of the room was ajar, and she went over and pushed it open. Gerlof followed her.
It led into a larger room, a drawing room. The air was musty and stuffy, and there was the smell of stale cigarette smoke. Several windows looked out onto the back garden, but the dark curtains were closed. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, swathed in white fabric. There were tiled stoves in two of the room’s corners, and in a third a television was showing cartoons, with the sound turned low.
The Flintstones, Gerlof noticed.
A wheelchair was positioned in front of the television; in it an old man was slumped, a blanket over his knees. His bald head was pitted with dark liver spots, and an old white scar ran across his forehead. His body shook constantly.
This was Martin Malm, the man who had sent Jens’s sandal.
“You’ve got a visitor, Martin,” said Ann-Britt.
The old shipowner jerked his head from the television. His gaze fastened on Gerlof and stayed there.
“Good afternoon, Martin,” said Gerlof. “How are you?”
Malm’s quivering chin dropped an inch or so in a brief nod.
“Are you feeling all right?”
Malm shook his head.
“No? Me neither,” said Gerlof. “We get the health we deserve.”
On the television screen Fred Flintstone jumped into his car and disappeared in a cloud of dust.
“Would you like some coffee, Gerlof?” asked Ann-Britt.
“No, thanks, I’m fine.”
Gerlof sincerely hoped she wasn’t intending to stay in the room.
Evidently she wasn’t. Ann-Britt Malm turned with her hand on the doorknob and looked at Gerlof for one last time, as if they understood one another.