Arvid looked at Gry, but she was sitting with her back to him, staring across the bay, her hair hanging down quite still, like a yellow wall. He turned to his grandfather.
‘Grandfather, have you read Pelle the Conqueror?’ he said in a loud voice and his words hung in the air like a black cloud. Grandfather touched his moustache, stroked it with his index finger and looked around. No one said anything and his mother stopped crying.
‘Have you?’ he said, even louder.
‘It’s in the bookcase. Of course I have,’ Grandfather said.
‘You never warmed your feet in the cowpats, did you? You just read about it!’
‘What nonsense, Arvid,’ Grandfather said. ‘I’ve just told you—’
‘You’re lying!’ screamed Arvid. ‘You’re just a senile old man!’
‘Come now, Arvid,’ his mother said, and started to walk across the lawn and Arvid backed away a few steps and shouted: ‘He’s so damn senile!’ and turned away to run with the book under his arm, but by then his mother had reached him and she held him back.
A STORM ROUND CAPE HORN
HE WOKE UP early, before the others, climbed down from his bunk with the mattress not creaking and went into the living room. The brick floor was cold to the touch and he curled up his toes as he got dressed. They kept their swimming clothes in the dresser by the door. He took out his red trunks and a big towel and then he went over to his mother’s bag on the divan, put in a hand and pulled out a Cooly from the pack and a matchbox with Tordenskjold’s face on it without shaking it once. He placed the cigarette, the matchbox and the trunks on the towel and rolled it up tight and put it under his arm. In the kitchen he took a biscuit from the table and placed it between his teeth.
The door was more difficult, but if he held the handle and at the same time pushed hard he could open it without a squeak.
The sun was up, the sky still a pale blue, the grass was dewy and left damp marks on his yellow gym shoes. He ate the biscuit as he walked down between the pine trees, over the gravel path and the beach plot. The empty summer-house didn’t look empty now, there were flowery curtains in the window and the sun lit them up, it was Sunday and tomorrow his father was going home.
When he got to the beach he took off his gym shoes. The sand was cool and fine-grained against the soles of his feet. He held the shoes in his hands and walked through the water to the first sandbank, which was broad now and high above the sea. It was low tide and he walked along the sandbank until he came to the creek and waded across. It was deeper here, his shorts got wet at the bottom, the brackish water was cold and the slimy riverbed oozed between his toes, whirled up and made the water murky.
He walked on down the beach along by the rushes until he came to a sheltered clearing. The wind wasn’t blowing and the sea was dead calm, there was no one around, but he didn’t want to change clothes on the open beach. Out by the lighthouse there was a morning mist above the calm sea and the whole island hovered in the air like a Zeppelin.
He unrolled his towel and laid it across the sand and sat down and took off his jumper and shorts. He folded the shorts with the wet patch up so it could dry in the sun. He pulled off his underpants and quickly wriggled into his trunks and stood up and went to the water’s edge. He took a deep breath before walking into the shallows. The water was warm at first and then got colder and colder as he waded out, but he kept the same pace and didn’t stop. When it was up to his stomach he launched himself. He swam calmly, pushing powerfully with his legs and he thought about every stroke he made. He passed the second sandbank. It was so shallow the bottom scraped against his knees, but he didn’t stand up because then he would start to freeze.
Beyond the third sandbank he stopped, and trod water and the water was perfectly still, everything was perfectly still, and he heard himself breathing. The water was green and deep, the sun flashed on the smooth surface and into his face and it was hard to see. He turned to land, a brown and green strip in the distance. He held his breath. There wasn’t a sound anywhere. He felt an urge to sing. ‘Non ho l’età / Non ho l’età per amarti / Non ho l’età per uscire,’ he sang, but it sounded so odd with his voice all on its own that he stopped and saved his breath for the trip back. He swam around a little, but couldn’t see a ripple. He lay on his back and whistled and rested for a while and then he made for the shore. He kept the rhythm and breathed loudly with each stroke and stopped when his hands touched the sand.
His legs were heavy when he came ashore, but still he ran to keep himself warm. Back in the rushes he shook his towel and rubbed himself hard, stretched it out again and lay down. He was longer than the towel, his legs came over the end and he dug his heels into the sand until his feet were almost completely covered. He sat up and shovelled sand over his legs until they were no longer visible and carefully lay back. With his arms outstretched he pulled dry, white sand on to his stomach and chest and after a while the sand became darker and damp. He wriggled and squirmed so his body sank even further and he kept adding more sand and in the end only his head and his arms could be seen. He carried on until he could feel the weight of what was covering him. He thought, now I’m part of the beach.
At first the sand was cold, but the sun warmed it from the outside and his skin from the inside and he sensed it only as a firmness around his body.
He lay staring up at the sky. There was just one small cloud there. He looked at it and it dissolved and was gone. He stretched out a hand for his trousers and grasped his mother’s matchbox and cigarette, slowly, so the sand wouldn’t run off his shoulders and show his skin. He poked the cigarette in his mouth and with both hands he struck and held the match and lit the Cooly. He inhaled and forced himself not to cough. It didn’t taste good, the menthol was out of place here on the beach and the smoke smarted on his tongue, but he inhaled deeper with every drag. He closed his eyes and smoked and felt the sand on his skin and suddenly his body felt heavier and it spiralled down into the earth and then he had to open his eyes again.
Someone was coming. He heard sandals flip-flapping behind him somewhere and he saw her appear by the opening to the clearing where he was lying, blue dress against blue sky, he lay so still and she spotted him at once. She put her bathing things on the sand, looked out to sea and loosened a blue slide from her long, dark hair and then she turned and looked him straight in the eye.
‘Oh, sorry, is this taken?’
He didn’t answer and she bent down to pick up her towel and then she looked at him again and smiled.
‘It’s you, isn’t it. I didn’t recognise you without a body. You aren’t out running today then?’
‘No.’
‘No, I suppose it must be tiring after a while.’ She laughed.
He took a drag of the cigarette, forgot to concentrate and coughed. She cast her eyes over his sandy body, and he said: ‘Where’s your boyfriend then?’
‘Boyfriend? Oh, him. Well, he was a waste of space, so he had to go. You’re Norwegian, aren’t you?’
‘No, I’m Italian.’
‘But you speak Norwegian. I can hear you do.’
‘That’s where I live now.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Well, you do look a bit Italian. Have you been in for a swim?’
He nodded and sand slid down his nose. He screwed up his eyes and blew it away.
‘I always have a morning swim when the weather’s nice,’ she said. ‘I’m staying in a summer-house further up, but this is the best place. It’s not crowded here. Aren’t you a little too young for that?’ She pointed to the cigarette.
‘I’m twelve,’ he said, trying to make it sound like eighteen. His back itched and he wanted to turn, but the sand covering him was set, and if he did turn, it would crack and his body would be revealed. The cigarette was burning between his fingers, down to his fingertips, and suddenly it hurt and he quickly flicked it into the rushes. He felt strange, he squinted and looked at her, the blue dress waving against the sun, but there was no wind, everyt
hing around them was still and the sun burned his stomach through the sand. It felt like a red-hot patch.
‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘You’re a good-looking boy. That much I can see. But twelve is a bit too young.’ She laughed loudly, teasingly and walked over to him and crouched down and stroked his hair. He twisted his head and swallowed, his face was burning and the sand was like concrete on his legs and chest. He turned back and looked at her neck, it was brown and there were tiny beads of sweat in the faint, fine wrinkles that ran down to her shoulders. She kissed him on the cheek and she smelled of roses, he gasped and she stood up and said: ‘I think I’ll have that swim now, and let her blue dress fall to her feet. She had nothing on but a bikini bottom and she was just as brown everywhere and looked like nothing he had ever seen before. He didn’t know if he could breathe any longer. She stood like a pillar before him in an instant that stretched between them and grew until she turned and went down to the water. Her spine was an unbroken line and she reached the sea and waded out, sinking as she walked and then fell forward and started swimming. He saw her dark hair against the shiny water. She didn’t turn and he had to force his body up through the armour of sand. It had forgotten everything it had ever known.
When he came up to the summer-house the others were sitting at the table. His mother’s eyes were swollen and red, but otherwise everything seemed calm. He went out, shook the towel and hung it over the clothes line along with his trunks. Then he went in and on his way to the table slipped the matches into the bag, which was still on the divan, and he sat down and took a slice of rye bread.
‘You should have woken me,’ his father said. ‘Then we could have gone swimming together.’ He smiled at Arvid, but Arvid just shrugged and buttered the bread and ate.
‘You didn’t swim too far out, did you?’ his mother said. Arvid looked straight at her.
‘No, I did not,’ he said loudly. And then she knew he had.
Gry was as she always was, sitting with her chin in her hands, a faraway look and a yawn every three minutes. She rubbed her eyes and stretched her arms above her head. ‘Hope the weather holds so we can have a nice trip,’ she said.
They were going to the lighthouse. Twice a week the post boat chugged out and moored for two hours. His mother had spoken to the skipper and he said it was fine, lots of people went out with him for a small fee. His mother hadn’t been there for fifteen years and she was the only person in the family who had.
Grandmother and Grandfather were going, and Mogens. The three who lived in town had decided to board in the harbour where the boat lay alongside the Læsø ferry. Arvid and the others didn’t have to go that far, because when the tide was high, at twelve, the boat came to the jetty where they used to dive. Everyone was pretty keen to get out and see the coast from the sea for once and not, as always, the other way.
‘Don’t worry. The weather will hold,’ his father said. As usual he had listened to the weather forecast. They had a portable Kurér radio on the window-sill in the living room and it was on every morning. Now it was the morning service and Arvid went over and switched it off.
‘I can’t eat with that racket on,’ he said.
After breakfast his father went into the bunk room. There wasn’t a door, only a curtain, and they could hear him rummaging around. He was packing, and was trying to do it in a discreet way, but they knew what he was up to.
At half-past eleven they fetched their bikes from the shed. His father strapped the bag with the picnic to the luggage rack and they cycled off, down the gravel road and then along by the sea. There was an offshore wind, the air was thick with the scents of the fields and the warm earth and they could see the island all the way. It was no longer floating but lay where it was supposed to.
At the jetty the boat still hadn’t come, and there was no one there waiting. They placed their bikes on the stand by the green beach hut. It looked run-down when you got up close. Arvid had never seen anyone use it.
They walked slowly on to the jetty and along to the very end of it. Arvid sat down on the edge and dangled his legs, his father stood with his hands in his pockets and Gry lay on her stomach and looked down into the water. His mother picked up the pack of Cooly cigarettes, counted them twice and shook her head. She lit one and stood smoking with her eyes closed and her face to the sun. She had tanned a deep brown in a matter of weeks, her face was calm now and all of a sudden Arvid could see she was good-looking. Perhaps she always had been.
No one said anything. The sun was baking hot. Then the boat came round the headland by Tordenskjold’s Redoubt. It was yellow and rode high in the water with no other cargo than the post. It was an old fishing smack that had been renovated and repainted and Arvid didn’t like the colour. Jaundice yellow, he thought, and he knew it was something he had read in a book. Grandfather and Grandmother and Mogens and a woman with a rucksack stood in the bows. The skipper cut the engine and started up again in reverse to brake and the boat glided in to the jetty. The water churned at the rear, and the boat stopped perfectly, and the side of it barely touched the poles. They climbed on board and Mogens smiled at Gry.
‘Hi, Goldilocks,’ he said. He was wearing a blue shirt with green palm trees on, his hair was washed and combed like Tommy Steele used to have it and Gry smiled back. The boat started up again right away and Arvid went to the bows and looked down at the frothing water as the boat veered out and headed for the island. The long chimney banged and clanked and the exhaust was spat out in tiny, angry wisps. Like smoke signals, Arvid thought. There was the smell of diesel and seawater.
The trip took longer than expected. The island slowly grew in size, there were bushes and trees they hadn’t known about and he had never thought there was anyone actually living on the island except for the lighthouse keeper, but as they approached he saw the roofs of houses and a little harbour. There was a yacht moored with a Swedish flag astern and they slipped in behind it and he could see small rose gardens. The houses were yellow and the roses pink and everything else was green apart from the lighthouse, which had been built with grey stone and was not as tall as it seemed from the distance. The large door was open and they could see the spiral staircase inside as they passed, it wound up to the top and disappeared into the darkness.
Gry and Mogens got off first and were talking as they walked up the path between the garden fences while Arvid brought up the rear. One of the houses had a bell on the roof and when he went over to the window and peered in, he saw Jesus on the cross and a ship hanging from the ceiling. In the gloom, with only the light coming from the windows, it looked life-like. The Flying Dutchman could have sailed that ship. He let the others go on ahead of him and tried the door. It was open, there wasn’t even a lock and he went in and stood between the few rows of pews. He looked around and it was quiet and empty and he climbed up on one of the pews. The ship hung at an angle above him and had been beautifully made down to the tiniest detail in the rigging and on the deck, and it swayed in the draught from the open door where the sun shone a few metres in on the floor. Then the sun disappeared and there was someone standing there.
‘I don’t think we’re allowed to come in here, Arvid,’ his father said in a hushed voice and Arvid turned and saw his silhouette, a face without features, framed by the doorway. He got down from the pew, still eyeing the ship, and walked backwards and out, and his father quietly closed the door behind him.
They walked together under the trees and followed the others to a clearing. His father put his arm round Arvid’s shoulders and said: ‘Well, Arvid, tomorrow I’m leaving,’ but Arvid didn’t notice and Arvid didn’t hear, for he was on the ship in a storm round Cape Horn one moonless night, the rain lashing down, everyone running about on the deck amidst torn rigging and careering barrels, the splintered wood of smashed lifeboats flying through the air, the hull groaning and the captain on the bridge yelling. The sails had to be reefed and Arvid climbed up the mainmast like a monkey, and his father removed his arm.
&
nbsp; Grandmother had brought along a blanket and a Thermos flask of coffee and bottles of orangeade from the shop. Arvid had a bottle which he opened with his belt buckle. The orange was warm and fizzed up his nose as he drank. Everyone sat down on the blanket except for Arvid, and Grandmother’s bun bobbed up and down in the sun as she handed out the goodies. He stood for a while listening to Mogens telling jokes. He was good at telling stories and all the jokes were a little close to the bone and even Grandmother chuckled. But Arvid had heard them before, he took his bottle and walked down to the water and sat behind a rock. Jesper had died on the way round this headland.
The wind was blowing enough to fill a sail, he drank the last of the pop, took a slip of paper from his trouser pocket and put it in the bottle. There was nothing written on the paper, but then no one was going to read it anyway, and he threw the bottle into the sea. It moved up and down with the waves until a gust of wind caught it and whirled it round and water got into the neck and the bottle sank. He had forgotten to put on the top.
His grandfather joined him, Arvid could hear him panting and in his mouth he had a fresh cigar. He took a couple of long drags before removing the cigar and blew smoke down his chest, coughed, scratched the back of his neck and said: ‘Well, Arvid. I’ve read the first part of Pelle again three times and I still can’t find it. It’s not there. It simply isn’t.’
That couldn’t be right. He had been so sure. If he closed his eyes he could see the book in front of him and even the place on the page where he thought it was, on the left-hand side, at the bottom. He had been so sure.