“Thanks for today,” he said to John. “I’ll call you when I get back.”
“You do that.”
John nodded and held his cane as Gerlof struggled up the high steps onto the bus. He took his cane, paid the driver for his journey, including his senior citizen’s discount, and went to sit on the right by a window. He watched John walk back to his car and get inside.
Gerlof leaned back, closed his eyes, and heard the bus rumble into life. As slowly as an old cargo boat, it began to pull away from the station.
Fridolf or Fritiof, he thought. And a meeting in Ramneby, where Ernst grew up.
Fridolf? Fritiof?
Gerlof didn’t know anyone on Öland with either of those names.
28
“No, I’m not married,” said Lennart. “Never have been, either.”
“No children?” said Julia.
Lennart shook his head. “No children, either.” He looked down into his half-empty glass of water. “I’ve had precisely one serious relationship in my life, but on the other hand, it lasted almost ten years. It ended five years ago... she’s living in Kalmar now, and we’re still friends.” He smiled at Julia. “Since then I’ve devoted most of my energy to the house and the garden.”
“Perhaps northern Öland isn’t the best place,” said Julia. “If you want to meet somebody, I mean.”
“You mean there’s not much choice,” said Lennart, still smiling. “That’s very true. I suppose it’s much better in Gothenburg?”
“I don’t know...” said Julia. “I’ve almost stopped looking.” She drank some of her water and went on: “I’ve really only had one serious relationship as well. And it was even longer ago than yours... It was with Jens’s father, Michael; he was always restless, and it ended... well, afterward. You know.”
Lennart nodded. “You have to be very determined to maintain a relationship.”
Julia nodded.
“But what are your plans now?” said Lennart. “Are you going to stay on Öland?”
“I don’t know... maybe,” said Julia. “There isn’t much to keep me in Gothenburg. And Gerlof isn’t all that well. He probably doesn’t want anybody keeping tabs on him, but I think he might need it.”
“Northern Öland needs nurses, I know that,” said Lennart, looking at her. “And I’d like you to—”
He was interrupted by a persistent bleeping, and Julia jumped. Lennart looked down at the pager on his belt.
“They’re after me again,” he muttered.
“Is it something important?”
“No. It looks as if I just need to call in at the station for a little while.” He got to his feet. “I’ll go and pay our bill.”
“We can split it.”
“No, no.” Lennart waved the suggestion away. “I was the one who dragged you over here.”
“Thanks,” said Julia.
As usual she was short of money.
“Shall we say we’ll meet up at...” Lennart looked at his watch. “... a quarter to four over at the station? I should be done by then, and we can get out of the big city and head home.”
“Fine.”
“Perhaps you’d like to come and see where I live? It isn’t a big house, but it’s right by the sea north of Marnäs. The sun rises out of the sea with each new day, if you want to put it poetically.”
“I’d like that,” Julia told him.
They parted outside the restaurant. Lennart walked off quickly toward the station, and Julia hopped much more slowly toward Kungsgatan on her crutches to have a look at the shops. There didn’t seem to be any clothes sales on this week, but at least she could study what was in the windows.
She went past a newsagent’s and automatically read some of the headlines on the placards outside — SERIOUS ACCIDENT ON E22 — DEAD NOT YET IDENTIFIED; CAROLA HAPPY AGAIN; ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THIS WEEKEND; HAVE YOU WON THE LOTTERY? — without them affecting her in any way.
She felt fine now, despite her broken bones. She even felt... happy. Happy that she and Gerlof had grown closer to each other than ever before, happy that she and her sister Lena had parted more or less as friends, and happy too that Lennart Henriksson seemed to enjoy her company.
She was even happy that the police had let Anders Hagman go. It would have been terrible if anyone in Stenvik had been involved in her son’s disappearance. Despite everything, it would be better if Jens had gone down to the shore in the fog that day without anyone seeing him. He had conquered his fear of the sea and started jumping around on the rocks out in the water, just like any little boy would, and he’d slipped.
Julia believed that now.
Jönköping, April 1970
“It’s not large, but it does have a view over Lake Vättern,” says the owner of the property, pointing out of one of the windows. “And the kitchen equipment and the bed are included in the rent.”
The owner is puffing and blowing in the narrow room. The elevator in the building is broken, and his forehead is shiny with sweat after plodding up four flights of stairs. He’s a man in a suit, with a very big belly beneath his shirt.
“Fine,” says his potential tenant.
“There’s good parking too.”
“Thanks, but I don’t have a car.”
It takes no more than five minutes to inspect the whole apartment, less than five minutes actually. One room and a kitchen, right at the top of Gröna gatan in the south of Jönköping.
“I’ll take it. For six months. Maybe longer.”
“A traveling salesman? With no car?”
“I use the train and the bus,” says his tenant. “I move around quite a bit... and I’m waiting for my bosses back home to send for me.”
Nils is still trying out his new name and his new life. He is slowly growing into it, and can feel his old life fading away. But it never disappears completely. It’s like having another life preserved beneath a cheese-dish cover. His new life is freer — it has an ID number and a passport that is accepted at borders — but despite that, it never feels completely real. Not in Costa Rica, not during the years in Mexico or the year outside Amsterdam or the last six months in an almost completely empty apartment out in Bergsjön outside Gothenburg, when he sometimes woke up in a cold sweat, believing he was back in the steaming heat of Costa Rica.
“Do you mind if I ask how old you are?” says the landlord.
“Forty-four.”
“Best time of life.”
“Maybe.”
When Nils asks when he’s actually going to be able to go home to Öland, all he’s had so far from Fritiof are evasive answers.
“An impatient person makes mistakes,” Fritiof had said to him over a crackling telephone connection three weeks earlier. “Just be patient, Nils. The coffin is buried in Marnäs; the grave is starting to get overgrown with grass and your old mother puts flowers there from time to time. She’s waiting for you.”
“Is she all right?” he wanted to know.
“She’s fine.”
Fritiof pauses, then goes on: “But she’s had postcards. Lots of postcards. First of all from Costa Rica, then from Mexico and Holland. Did you know that?”
Nils did know that. He has sent letters and postcards to his mother throughout all those years, but he’s always been careful.
“I didn’t put my name on them,” says Nils.
“Good. I’m sure they made her happy,” says Fritiof, “but now there’s a rumor that Nils Kant is alive. The police aren’t listening, of course, they’re not interested in village gossip, but that’s what people are saying down in Stenvik. That’s why you mustn’t be impatient. You do understand that?”
“Yes. But what happens when I get home to Öland?”