Sail of Stone (4 page)

The woman was about his age. She had dark hair but with a light sheen that might have come from the summer sun. She had a broad face and an open gaze, and he had the vague feeling that he’d seen it before, but in another time. She was wearing jeans and some kind of fisherman’s sweater, which looked expensive, and a short jacket. Now he recognized her.

He extended his hand.

“We’ve definitely met before,” he said.

She took his hand. Her hand was dry and warm. She fastened her eyes on his and he remembered that too.

“Johanna Osvald. From Donsö.”

“Of course,” he said.

They sat in his room. It still smelled like summer in there, the stuffy kind, dry. He still had last season’s documents on his desk. There was a smell to those documents, too, and it was death.

He hadn’t wanted to touch that damned pile since it happened.

He wanted only to forget, which was impossible. He must learn from
his mistakes, his own mistakes, but it was painful, more painful than anything else.

He would ask Möllerström to take everything down to the basement.

He looked at the woman. She hadn’t said anything as they walked here, as though she wanted to save it until they were alone.

It must have been twenty years ago.

He knew that he knew nothing about her, nothing more than that she had a birthmark on the left side of her groin. Or the right side. That she bit his lip once. That he had felt the stones drill into his back when she sat on him and moved faster and faster and finally exploded when he exploded, when he threw her off in that glowing instant.

The stones had stuck in his back. She had laughed. They had dived into the sea. He had rowed home to the islet. It was only one summer, not even that. One month. He hadn’t learned much about her, hardly anything. Everything was a mystery that he sometimes thought he had dreamed.

In some way, that’s a summary of youth, he thought. Dreamed mysteries. Now she’s sitting on the chair. I haven’t seen her since that summer. That’s a mystery too. Now she’s saying something.

“Did you remember my name, Erik?”

“Yes. When you said it, I remembered.”

He saw that she intended to say more, but stopped, and started again:

“Do you remember that we talked about my grandfather?”

“Yes …”

It’s true. Now I remember her grandfather. Even his name.

“John,” said Winter. “John Osvald.”

“You remember.”

“It’s not so different from your name.”

She didn’t smile; there was no smile in that face, and he remembered that too, that expression.

“Do you remember that he disappeared during the war?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not just saying that?”

“No. Your grandfather had to take shelter in some harbor in England during the war. I remember you told me that. And that he disappeared at sea later. During a fishing trip from England.”

“Scotland. He was in Scotland. They had to seek shelter in Aberdeen at first.”

“Scotland.”

“My dad wasn’t even a year old when he left,” she said. “The last time. It was in the autumn of 1939.”

Winter didn’t say anything. He remembered that too. The teardrop that suddenly burned on his shoulder. Was that how it was? Yes. He had felt it. She had told him about it then and there were still tears. Perhaps they were her father’s tears most of all. He could understand but he couldn’t really
understand,
not then. It would be different now, if he had heard it now. He was someone else now.

“My dad’s brother hadn’t been born when they made the final journey. He was born three months later.”

A brother. He couldn’t remember that. They hadn’t spoken about a brother.

“He died of rickets when he was four,” said Johanna. “My little uncle.”

Suddenly she opened the small pack she had carried on her back and took out a letter. She held it up expectantly. A distance. She kept that letter at a distance. Winter had seen it many times. Letters that flew to people, like strange birds, black birds. Letters with messages no one wanted to have. Sometimes the addressees came to him with the message. Who said that he wanted to have them?

“What is it?” he said.

“A letter,” she answered.

“I see that,” he said, and smiled, and maybe she smiled too, or else it was just the light that moved around the room in an unpredictable way. The Indian summer out there was starting to worry about the future.

“A letter arrived,” she said. “From there. This letter.”

“From there? From Scotland?”

She nodded and leaned forward and placed the envelope in front of him on the desk.

“It’s postmarked in Inverness.”

“Mmhmm.”

“There’s no return address on the back.”

“Is it signed?”

“No. Open it and you’ll see.”

“No white powder?” said Winter.

She might have smiled.

“No powder.”

He took the letter out of the envelope. The paper was lined, thin and cheap; it looked as though it had been torn from an ordinary notebook. The words were printed, two lines in English:

THINGS ARE NOT WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE.

JOHN OSVALD IS NOT WHAT HE SEEMS TO BE.

Winter looked at the front of the envelope. A stamp with the British monarch on it. A postmark. An address:

OSVALD FAMILY

GOTHENBURG ARCHIPELAGO

SWEDEN

“It made it to you,” he said, and looked at Johanna Osvald. “All the way out in the archipelago.”

“Clever mail sorters at the terminal.”

Winter read the message once more.
Things are not what they look like.
No, he was aware of that; it practically summed up his opinion of detective work.
John Osvald is not what he seems to be.
Seems to be, is thought to be. He is thought to be dead. Isn’t he dead?

“He has never officially been declared deceased,” she said, although he hadn’t asked. “At least not by us.”

“But by the authorities?”

“Yes.”

“But you thi—”

“What are we supposed to think?” she interrupted. “Of course we hope, we’ve always had hope, but the boat sank out in the North Sea. No one has been recovered, as far as I know.”

“As far as you know?”

“Well, it was during the war. They couldn’t search without risk, or
whatever you say. But we … my grandmother, Dad, none of us have ever heard anything about Grandfather being alive. Or that anyone else from that boat was found.”

“When did it happen?” asked Winter.

“The accident?”

“Yes.”

“Not long after they had to seek shelter after they made their way through the mines to the Scottish coast. The war had begun, of course. And the boat disappeared in 1940. It was in the spring.”

“How old was your grandfather then?”

“Twenty-one.”

“Twenty-one? With a year-old son?”

“Our family marries early, has children early. My dad was twenty-two when I was born.”

Winter counted in his head.

“In 1960?”

“Yes.”

“That’s when I was born, too.”

“I know,” she said. “We talked about it, don’t you remember?”

“No.”

She sat quietly.

“I broke that trend.”

“Sorry?”

“Marry young, have children young. I broke that.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t get married and I didn’t have children.”

Winter noticed that she spoke in the past tense. But she looks younger than she is, he thought. Women today have children when they’re older. I know nothing about her life now.

“How are things with your mom?”

“She’s gone. She died three years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

Her eyes slid toward the window. He recognized that look. In profile, she looked like that young girl on the slab of stone, in the sunshine.

“When did you receive this letter?” he asked, holding up the envelope. He thought about how his fingerprints were on it now, along with tens of others from both sides of the North Sea.

“Two weeks ago.”

“Why did you wait until now to come here?” And what do you actually want me to do? he thought.

“My dad went there ten days ago, or nine. To Inverness.”

“Why?”

“Why? Is it so strange? He was upset. Of course. He wanted to know.” She looked at Winter now. “He took a copy of the letter and the envelope with him.”

What did he think he would find? Winter thought. A sender?

“It isn’t the first time,” she said. “He … we have tried to investigate, of course, but it hasn’t led anywhere.”

“But how would he be able to find anything new with only this to help him?” asked Winter.

She didn’t answer, not at first. He saw that she was considering her next words. He was used to seeing that. Sometimes he could even see the words that were on their way, but not this time. She moved her eyes from him to the window and back to him and then to the window again.

“I think he got a new message,” she said now, with her eyes turned away from him. “Maybe a telephone call.”

“Did he say so?”

“No. But that’s what I think.” She looked at the letter, which Winter had put back on the desk. “Something more than that.”

“Why do you think that?”

“It was his decision, sort of. He didn’t say anything in particular when the letter arrived. Other than being upset, of course. We all were. But then, suddenly, he wanted to go. Right away. And he went.”

“And you say that was ten days ago?”

“Yes.”

“Has he found anything, then?”

Johanna turned to Winter.

“He has contacted me three times. Most recently four days ago.”

“Yes?”

“The last time, he said he was going to meet someone.”

“Who?”

“He didn’t say. But he was going to contact me afterward. As soon as he knew more.” She leaned forward in Winter’s guest chair. “He sounded, well, almost agitated.”

“How did it go, then?”

“Like I said, it was the last time I talked to him. There’s been no news since.” He saw fear in her face. “He hasn’t contacted me since then. That’s why I’m here.”

A
neta Djanali was back in Kortedala. It was a rainy day, and suddenly it was colder than early spring. Maybe autumn had arrived.

It seemed like the masses of houses on Befälsgatan and Beväringsgatan were marching away in the fog, or maybe it was like they were floating. They’re like battleships of stone, she thought. It’s like a living drawing, a film.

She suddenly thought of Pink Floyd, “Another Brick in the Wall.” The walls enclosed the people here, led them into the fog.

We don’t need no education.

But that’s what everyone needed. Education. A language. Communication, she thought.

She parked on one of the season streets, maybe spring, maybe autumn. She didn’t see a street sign. She walked toward one of the walls. Anette Lindsten lived behind it. It was a name that somehow fit in here, in this environment.
Lindsten,
“linden stone.” It was a very Swedish name, a compound of things in nature. That’s how it is with most Swedish last names, she thought. Everything has something to do with nature. Something soft and light, along with something hard and heavy. Something compound. Like the hovering houses. Stones in the wind.

She thought of the eyes in the crack of the door; they had also been like stone. Had she spoken with her husband? Really had a conversation? Had it been possible? Did he have a language? A language to speak with? Aneta knew one thing: A person who lacked any other method of expression often resorted to violence. Words were replaced by fists. In this way, violence was the ultimate form of communication, the most extreme, the most horrible.

Had he hit Anette? Had he even threatened her? Who was “he,” really? And who was she?

Aneta went in through the doors, which were propped open. A pickup with something that looked like a rented cover stood parked
outside. She could see the corner of a sofa in the truck bed; two dining chairs, a bureau. A paper bag that contained green plants. Someone is coming or going, she thought.

A man in his sixties came out of the elevator with a packing case and walked past her and put it on the truck bed. Someone is going, she thought.

The man walked back and into the elevator, where she was waiting with the door open.

“Fifth floor for me,” he said.

“I’m going there, too,” she said, and pushed the button.

There were three apartments on the fifth floor. When they came out into the stairwell, she saw that the door to Anette Lindsten’s apartment was wide open.

That was a change from last time.

She realized that the woman was on her way out.

The man went in through the door. She could see boxes in the hall, clothes on hangers, more chairs. Some rolled-up rugs. She heard faint music, a radio tuned to one of the local commercial stations. Britney Spears. Always Britney Spears.

Aneta hesitated at the door. Should she ring the bell or call out? The man had turned around in the hall. She could see into the kitchen, which seemed completely empty. She didn’t see anyone else.

“Yes?” said the man. “Can I help you with something?”

He wasn’t unfriendly. He looked tired, but it was as though his tiredness didn’t come from lugging things down the stairs. His hair was completely white and she had seen the sweat on the back of his shirt, like a faint V-sign.

“I’m looking for Anette Lindsten,” she said.

A younger man came out from a room holding a black plastic bag with bedding sticking out of it.

“What is it?” he said, before the older man had time to answer. The younger man might have been her own age. He didn’t look friendly. He had given a start when he saw her.

“She’s looking for Anette,” the older man said. “Anette Lindsten.”

Aneta would later remember that she had wondered why he said her last name.

“Who are you?” asked the younger man.

She explained who she was, showed her ID. She asked who they were.

“This is Anette’s father, and I’m her brother. What does this concern?”

“I want to talk to Anette about it.”

“I think we know why you’re here, but that’s over with now so you don’t need to talk to her anymore,” the brother said.