They would be able to count up to a thousand, and still I wouldn’t get up.
A few hours later, I opened up my hole in the ice and stepped into the freezing cold water. This morning I forced myself to stay there for an unusually long spell.
Jansson turned up on time but he had nothing for me, nor I for him. Just as he was about to leave, I remembered that it was ages since he had complained of having toothache.
‘How are your teeth?’
Jansson looked surprised.
‘What teeth?’
I asked no more. The hydrocopter vanished into the mist.
On my way back from the jetty, I paused by the boat and raised the tarpaulin once again. The hull was going rotten. If I left it untended for another year, it would be beyond repair.
That same day I wrote another letter to Louise. I apologised for everything I could remember and also for everything I’d forgotten, and for the annoyance I would cause her in the future. I concluded the letter with a few lines about the boat:
‘I have an old wooden boat that used to be my grandfather’s. It’s on trestles under a tarpaulin. It’s a disgrace that I treat the boat so badly. I just haven’t looked after it properly. I often think that ever since I came to live on this island, I’ve also been lying on trestles under a tarpaulin. I’ll never be able to sort out the boat until I’ve sorted out myself.’
A couple of days later I gave the letter to Jansson, and the following week he brought a reply. After a few days of thaw, it had turned cold again. Winter refused to loosen its grip. I sat down at the kitchen table to read the letter. I had shut the cat and the dog out — sometimes I simply couldn’t bear to see them.
Louise wrote: ‘I sometimes feel that I’ve lived my life with dry and chapped lips. Those are words that came to me one morning when life felt worse than usual. I don’t need to tell you about the life I’ve led because you already have an indication of what it’s been like. Filling in the details would change nothing. Now I’m trying to find a way of living with the knowledge that you exist, the troll who emerged from the forest that turned out to be my father. Even though I know Harriet ought to have explained, I can’t help feeling upset with you as well. When you stormed off, it felt as if you’d punched me in the face. At first it was a relief you’d gone. But the feeling of emptiness became too much. And so I hope we might be able to find a way of becoming friends at least, one of these days.’
She signed the letter with an ornate L.
What a mess, I thought. Louise has every reason in the world to direct her anger at the pair of us.
The winter wore on, with letters travelling back and forth between the caravan and the island. And occasionally I would receive a letter from Harriet, who was back in Stockholm by now. It was not explained how she got there. She said she felt very tired, but the thought of the forest pool and the fact that Louise and I had met at last kept her going. I asked questions about her condition, but never received an answer.
Her letters were characterised by quiet, almost reverential resignation, in stark contrast to what Louise wrote, where between the lines there was always a hint of imminent anger.
Every morning when I woke up, I resolved to start making a serious attempt to put my life in order. I could no longer allow the days to slide past without anything constructive being done.
But I got nowhere. I made no decisions. I occasionally lifted the tarpaulin over the boat and had the feeling that I was in fact looking at myself. The flaking paint was mine, as were the cracks and the damp. Perhaps also the smell of wood slowly rotting away.
The days were getting longer. Migratory birds started returning. The flocks usually passed by during the night. Through my binoculars I could see seabirds on the outermost edge of the ice.
My dog died on 19 April. I let him out as usual when I came downstairs to the kitchen in the early morning. I could see that he had difficulty in getting out of his basket, but I thought he would live through the summer. After my usual dip through my hole in the ice, I went down to the boathouse to look for some tools I needed to repair a leaking pipe in the bathroom. I thought it was odd that the dog hadn’t appeared, but didn’t go in search of him. It wasn’t until around dinner time that I realised he hadn’t been seen all day. Even the cat seemed concerned. She was sitting on the steps outside the front door, looking pensive. I went out and called for him, but he didn’t appear. I realised something must have happened. I put on a jacket and started searching. After almost an hour I found him on the far side of the island, by the unusual rock formations that rose up out of the ice like gigantic pillars. He was lying in a little depression, sheltered from the wind. I don’t know how long I stood looking at him. His eyes were open, glistening like crystals — just like the seagull I had found earlier in the winter, frozen to death by the jetty.
He could hide from the wind, but there was nowhere to hide from death.
I carried his body back to the house. It was heavier than I had expected. The dead are always heavy. I fetched a pickaxe and slowly hacked a big enough hole under the apple tree. The cat sat on the steps, watching the whole procedure. The dog’s body was stiff as I pressed him down into the hole, then filled it in.
I leaned the pickaxe and the spade against the house wall. The morning fog had returned, but now my eyes had misted over too. I was grieving for my pet.
I noted the death in my logbook, and calculated that the dog had been nine years and three months old. I had bought him as a puppy from one of the old trawlermen who used to breed dogs of doubtful descent.
For some time I considered acquiring another dog; but the future was too uncertain. Before long my cat would also be gone. Then there would be nothing to tie me down to the island if I no longer wanted to stay here.
I wrote to Louise and Harriet about the death of the dog. Both times I burst into tears.
Louise understood how I must miss him, while Harriet wondered how I could possibly feel sad about an old cripple of a dog who was finally at peace.
Weeks passed, and still I didn’t start work on the boat. It was as if I were waiting for something to happen. Perhaps I ought to write a letter to myself, and explain what my plans for the future were?
The days became longer. The snow in the rock crevices started to melt. But the sea was still frozen.
In the end, the ice began to lose its grip. I woke up one morning to find navigable channels running all the way to the open sea. Jansson arrived in his motorboat: he had put the hydrocopter in store. He had decided to buy a hovercraft in time for next winter. I’m not sure that I understood what a hovercraft was, despite the fact that he gave me a detailed description without my asking for it. He begged me to examine his left shoulder. Could I feel that there was a lump there? Might it be a tumour?
There was nothing. Jansson was still as fit as a fiddle.
That same day I removed the tarpaulin from the boat, and started to scrape the shell. I managed to clear the stern of old paint.
My intention was to continue the following day. But something happened to prevent that. As I was on my way down to take my morning bath, I discovered that a little motorboat was beached by the jetty.
I stopped dead and held my breath.
The door to the boathouse was open.
Somebody had come to pay me a visit.
Chapter 2
There was a glint of light inside the boathouse. Sima emerged from the darkness, sword in hand.