“Hello, wake up, wake up!” he yelled as loud as he could, banging on the door, but the only response was the echo of his own voice.
He rushed over to the master keeper’s house and tried the door handle, pushing and pulling at it with all his might, but to no avail. The house was silent and deserted.
Desperately he looked around for some kind of chopping tool. The outline of Sandhamn was silhouetted against the horizon in the west. He couldn’t believe he had sailed into the harbor earlier, not knowing that his life was about to fall apart.
He pictured Nora trapped in the lighthouse, surrounded by flames. He bit his lip hard to push away the image. He had to stay calm. He was an experienced doctor and had seen his fair share of terrible cases.
But they hadn’t involved his own wife.
What would he say to the boys if they didn’t find her? How would he live with the knowledge of what his last words to her had been?
At that moment he would have sold his soul to the devil for an axe.
Down by the old small boat harbor on the northern part of the island he could just see a number of roofs. Perhaps there might be some tools in the old boathouses?
He ran with his fists clenched, panting. Suddenly he slipped on the grass, which was wet with dew, and fell over before getting back on his feet. His elbow struck a rock. He heard the sickening sound but didn’t have time to think about the pain; he just kept going.
Everything was quiet down by the water.
He tried the handle of the first door. Locked.
Shit, shit, shit.
There was a small window around the side. Henrik needed a decent-size stone; down by the water’s edge he found a substantial rock covered in seaweed. He picked it up and hurled it at the window with all his strength. The sound of breaking glass was like a pistol shot in the silence of the night. He quickly reached inside and unhooked the catch so he could open the window wide and climb in.
He could see the outline of various tools; in one corner, an axe was propped against the wall. He could have wept with relief. He grabbed it and climbed out of the window.
In his haste, he cut his shin badly, a nasty gash several inches long. He automatically registered that the wound would need stitching or it would leave a scar.
With blood dripping from his left leg, he raced back up the hill toward the lighthouse. He tore open the door and hurtled up the steps to the first level, where Thomas was waiting.
“Here,” he panted.
He could barely speak. His lungs were aching from the exertion, and the smoky air didn’t help. He had to bend down and rest his arms on his knees to stop himself from fainting.
Thomas grabbed the handle of the axe and took a swing at the door. He struck it again and again. On the fourth blow, the handle came off. The huge spanner fell to the floor, the metallic clang echoing through the lighthouse. Thomas stepped over it and tore open the door in a single movement. Henrik saw Nora lying on the floor, curled up on her side. The air was full of smoke, and it was almost pitch dark.
Henrik fell to his knees beside his wife and checked her pulse. In a second, he had transformed from a desperate husband to a physician.
“She’s in hypoglycemic shock. We need to get her to the hospital immediately.”
He put his arms around her shoulders and raised her gently so her head was resting on his lap. She was unconscious.
“Call the air ambulance. We need to get glucose into her at once. It’s the only way to counteract hypoglycemia; we have to inject the sugar straight into the bloodstream.”
Henrik looked at Thomas with terror in his eyes.
“I don’t know if we’re going to make it.”
Sandhamn, July 2005
Where shall I begin? What is done cannot be undone. But I have to explain what happened.
Krister Berggren was my nephew. He came to see me on Easter; he told me that he was my nephew, Helge’s son. I didn’t even know he existed. His mother had kept the identity of his father secret all those years.
When my brother, Helge, was twelve years old, he was sent to a school in Vaxholm. The distance meant he could come home only on the weekends, and in winter only if the steamboat could get through the ice. Therefore he boarded with the Berggren family in Vaxholm.
The youngest daughter in the family was called Cecilia. She was two years older than Helge, and as time went by, he fell head over heels in love with her. Their love bore fruit, and Cecilia became pregnant with Helge’s child when he was sixteen and she was eighteen.
Cecilia’s parents contacted Father, who was furious. He brought Helge back home to Sandhamn immediately, and then he paid Cecilia’s parents a significant sum of money. In return, he demanded that the matter be kept quiet, and that the child be given up for adoption as soon as it was born.
Just before he died, Father told me the whole story. Helge, on the other hand, said nothing. We never spoke of it. I don’t think he had any contact with Cecilia from the day he was put on board the boat back to Sandhamn. Perhaps he didn’t even know that he had a son; shortly after he returned, he went to sea following a terrible argument with Father.
Krister had only one thing on his mind when he came to see me: he wanted his inheritance. He looked me straight in the eye and threatened to force me to sell my house unless I bought him out. As if I had that kind of money! He had spoken to a lawyer who had assured him that the law was on his side.
I was beside myself. My home means everything to me. This is where I took my first breath and where my mother fell asleep forever. My life would be destroyed if he took it from me.
I offered Krister a bed for the night, hoping that I would be able to talk some sense into him the following day. I lay awake all night, sick with worry. There had to be a solution. How could I make Krister understand that this house wasn’t just a piece of property that could be sold on a whim?
The next day, I suggested that we should go out and lay nets, just as Helge and I used to do before he fell ill. Perhaps that would have some effect on Krister, help him to understand how unreasonable he was being.
It was a beautiful day. A pale winter sun hovered just above the horizon, and the sea was calm. I took him to Ådkobb, which was Helge’s favorite spot for laying nets.
As soon as I had laid the first net, I felt a sharp movement and saw silvery scales shining in the water. I called Krister to come and look, but when he leaned forward to get a better view, he put his hand on the cowl of the outboard motor to support himself. I hadn’t fixed the clamps properly when the motor was pushed up. As it dropped back down, Krister lost his balance and fell into the water, straight into the net.
I reached for the nearest rope and made a loop so that he could slip it around his waist, intending to try to haul him back on board. For some reason he had refused to put on a life jacket. “They’re only for women and kids,” he had muttered when I offered him one.
Suddenly I noticed that the rope I had used was actually the anchor rope, with the heavy grappling hook attached to the other end. The realization came in an instant. If I didn’t pull him out of the water, life would go back to normal. Nobody would be able to take my home away from me. Everything would be just as it had been before.