Finally I approach the rough wooden pier. A boat is docked here, another aluminum fishing boat. I tie my dinghy to a post and follow a trail up through the trees, a steep climb through further groves of birch and spruce. As I climb the path I can hear talking and laughing ahead of me. Near the top of the hill the forest opens into a sloped clearing with two wooden houses, both stained the same deep shade of red with white window frames. A field of pristine grass separates the houses. The smaller house is perched higher than the other. It looks far older. At the edge of the clearing beside the larger house, a group of young people sit at a table, talking and laughing. They haven’t seen me. I walk closer slowly.
The group is sipping from tall beer cans, their empty paper plates before them. The young man at the head of the table notices me and stares as the others go on talking. He stands. Now they are all looking at me. A girl in a comic cone-shaped paper hat gets up and says something in Swedish.
I shake my head. — I’m sorry, I only speak English. I’m looking for a house that used to belong to my family. They were named Soames-Andersson.
The Swedes keep staring. I look up at the yellow sun above the trees, feeling dizzy. I explain I’ve come to Sweden to research my family’s history, and I know my relatives once had two buildings here, a summerhouse and a barn. In 1917 my grandmother was born in the summerhouse and the barn was being used as a painting studio.
The girl shakes her head.
— There’s no barn. That other house is really old, but my family doesn’t use it.
— Do you know when they bought this place?
She shrugs. — A long time ago. Maybe the fifties?
The girl studies me for a moment. She has long straight hair and wears round plastic eyeglasses.
— I’ve brought my friends up here for a party—
The girl’s voice trails off. Her friends are all still looking at me. The young man says something to her in Swedish and she snaps at him. They talk for a moment longer, then the girl turns back to me.
— Have you eaten? There’s more food in the house. Why don’t you join us?
After a moment she remembers to smile.
Once I’ve sat at the table the party resumes its course. The young man in cut-off jean shorts introduces himself as Christian, explaining that they’ve all come here for a traditional late-summer crayfish party. He asks a few polite questions about my trip to Sweden, then goes into the house to look for food. He comes back with a plastic tub of potato salad, then puts a cold beer before me and pats me on the shoulder.
— There’s your lunch. We’ll start dinner soon anyway.
The girl with eyeglasses is named Karin. I’m introduced to the other three friends, two girls and another young man, but I’m too distracted to remember any of their names. They’re all drinking heavily. Beside the table there is a cardboard box brimming with empty beer cans. Twice I ask if I can see the old house, but my request is deflected.
— It’s a mess in there, Karin says. I don’t even know where we keep the key, I’d have to call my uncle.
— Is there stuff inside?
Karin shrugs. — A lot of junk, tools and furniture. The house is so old we’re not supposed to knock it down, but it’s not practical to use it. My uncle says he’s going to clean it out and restore it, but he never does.
Christian puts another beer in front of me.
— Have another one, Christian says. How’d you get here, anyway?
— I took the train from Uppsala.
— But how’d you get on the island?
— I slept on the beach last night. In the morning I found a boat on the shore and rowed it over.
Everyone laughs, considering this a joke.
— We should get started with cooking, Karin says. Tristan, will you stay for dinner?
Christian grins. — He only just rowed over.
As dusk falls we go into the newer house to cook, emptying bags of frozen crayfish into a boiling pot. Karin spreads a cloth over the table outside and I help one of the girls hang paper lanterns from the trees above. We sit and Karin makes a toast in Swedish, then we all drink aquavit, a golden Swedish liquor with a strong taste of caraway seed. Everyone devours dozens of crayfish, sucking the juice noisily from the tiny red shells. I eat only the salad and potatoes.
— You don’t like crayfish? Karin asks.
— I’m vegetarian.
— Then have another beer, Christian says. There’s your dinner.
We drink beer and vodka and more aquavit. At every toast the Swedes insist that we look one another in the eye. They talk in English at first, asking me questions about San Francisco and my Swedish relatives. But as the dinner goes on most of them switch back to Swedish. Karin is on the far side of the table and our eyes meet a few times, but she never speaks to me.
After dinner we walk down to a fire pit beside the shore. Christian and I light a bundle of newspaper under a teepee of spruce logs. We begin to drink the aquavit in earnest, for we’ve finished everything else. Someone staggers drunkenly into the woods. A second person sent to find him never returns. I throw more logs onto the fire and it grows larger and hotter until we all have to move a step back. Suddenly I realize it must be after midnight. That makes it August 28.
— It’s my birthday, I say. I’m twenty-three.
The Swedes cheer and congratulate me. Christian gives me a bear hug and Karin gently scolds me for not telling her sooner. They sing to me in Swedish and we swig the aquavit in a toast. I throw more wood onto the fire, watching the smoke spiral up to the sky, the stars seeming to go in and out of focus. Twenty-three. I’d come here at least, and that was something. I break a branch in half and throw it onto the fire. Karin nudges me with her elbow.
— How’s it feel, spending your birthday with a bunch of strangers?
— I don’t mind. It’s really beautiful up here.
She nods. — Sorry I was weird this morning, it just spooked me when you showed up—
— I’d be spooked too. It scared the hell out of me when I was coming up from the lake and I heard you guys. I wasn’t expecting to find anyone here.
— What were you expecting?
I shake my head. — Nothing. I figured I’d come here, the house would be gone, and I could forget—
— The house, she gasps. I totally forgot.
Karin grabs the bottle of aquavit and we start up the hill. She takes her cell phone from her pocket and selects a number, holding it to her ear. She winks at me.
— My uncle.
As she talks on the phone in Swedish, we walk up to the new house and go into the kitchen. She kneels down and pulls out the lowest drawer, fishing out a jar of keys. She finishes talking and puts the phone back in her pocket.
— He wasn’t even asleep, he watches TV all night. He said there used to be a few boxes from the old owners. Come on—
I follow her down the sloping field between the two houses, the stars bright above the trees. We reach the old house, its pine planks stained dark red, weathered by centuries of frigid winter and evening sun. Karin wiggles the key in the lock and pushes open the small wooden door.
— Happy birthday.
The inside is a mess. A dark mass of boxes and furniture stacked high, in some places nearly to the ceiling. We search for the light switch, but the wall is blocked by a huge table covered in boxes. I leave to get my headlamp from my bag, but when I return Karin has cleared a path to the light switch. She flips it on and off. Nothing happens.