Depths. Part 8

The next week he followed his father-in-law through the streets to the mining consultant's home. He had no specific plan, he only wanted to find out what route Tacker took. He remained hidden in the shadows. It was a warm evening, and he waited for four hours until Tacker emerged and went back home accompanied by two other men. One of them stumbled occasionally, they were laughing a lot, kept stopping, then moving on again, all the time engrossed in talk.That night, when his wife had gone to bed, he sat in his study and worked out a plan. On his desk were the hammer and the dark-coloured scarf. He was perfectly calm. It was like preparing for one of his expeditions. He did not notice that on two occasions his wife had appeared in the doorway, looking at him.

CHAPTER 153.

It was a windy evening, with occasional showers.He had put the scarf and the hammer with the sock round its head in his overcoat pockets. When Ludwig Tacker came out of his front door, Tobia.s.son-Svartman hurried to waylay him at a spot where it was especially dark and usually deserted. He hid in the shadows next to a wall. His father-in-law pa.s.sed by so close that he could smell his cigar. The old man's walking stick tip-tapped on the paving stones. Tobia.s.son-Svartman wrapped the scarf round his face and took out the hammer. Seven paces, eight at most and he would have caught up.Tacker spun round and raised his walking stick.'Who are you?' he yelled. 'What do you want?'Tobia.s.son-Svartman was terrified. He was sinking, hitting out was a way of coming back up to the surface. Tacker bellowed and defended himself stoutly, hitting with his walking stick and trying to pull off the scarf round Tobia.s.son-Svartman's face. Tacker was strong. He pulled and tugged and the scarf was half off when the hammer hit him on the nose. There was a crunching sound. Tacker fell heavily. Tobia.s.son-Svartman ran away. He threw the hammer into the water at Nybroviken, having first knotted the scarf tightly round its handle.All the time he was afraid that somebody was going to grab him. But n.o.body came. He was alone with his fear.He stood in Wallingatan for a long time. He had never been so terrified in all his life. Ludwig Tacker had almost exposed him. Everything would have collapsed.In the end he opened the front door and walked up the stairs to his flat. Kristina Tacker was asleep. He listened outside her door.The dead eyes of the china figurines glinted in the light from the street lamps. He sat down in the warm room and hoped that Ludwig Tacker was dead.

CHAPTER 154.

The attack on Ludwig Tacker aroused a lot of attention. There were prominent articles in the newspapers. Everybody agreed that the a.s.sailant must be a madman.But his father-in-law did not die. He had a broken jaw, a badly broken nose and he had bitten deeply into his tongue. The doctors treating him established that he also had concussion.It was evening. Kristina Tacker had been to see her father. Tobia.s.son-Svartman was in his study, reading a meteorological journal, when she came into the room.'I don't want to disturb you,' she said.He put the journal down and pointed to the sofa in front of one of the two high windows. She slumped down.'You're not disturbing me,' he said. 'How could you do that?'I've been thinking about what happened.''We must be grateful that he wasn't more badly injured.'She shook her head. 'What kind of a person would try to kill a man he didn't know?''It's like in a war.''What do you mean?''You don't kill people, you kill enemies. And the enemy is nearly always faceless. This man is conducting a secret war. Everybody is his enemy, n.o.body is his friend.'She asked no more questions but left the room. He picked up a newspaper and read about himself. About the madman they were looking for.I am completely calm, he thought. n.o.body is going to arrest me, n.o.body knows. The man who appeared out of the darkness has vanished. He will never reappear. He will remain a riddle.

CHAPTER 155.

The next day they went to visit his father-in-law; he was in bed at home, receiving only a few visitors.He was tempted, just for an instant, to tell Ludwig Tacker who it had been, hidden behind the scarf.'I'm very sorry to hear about what happened,' he said. 'It's the duty of the police to track down the madman. Let us hope they succeed. Thank goodness it didn't end in catastrophe, at least'Ludwig Tacker looked hard at him without saying a word. Then he made a dismissive gesture. He wanted to be left in peace.Tobia.s.son-Svartman sat down on a bench in Humlegrden.It's not me, he told himself. For short periods I am somebody else, perhaps my father, perhaps somebody I could never imagine. I am searching for something, a bottom that does not exist, neither in the sea nor in myself.His thoughts faded away. Children were playing in the park. His head was a complete vacuum. He started to feel extremely weary, it was like a bank of fog creeping up on him.When he woke up it was late afternoon. He went home.In the flat he found the maid waiting for him, red-eyed. Kristina Tacker had been rushed into hospital some hours previously. She had gone into labour, although the baby was not due for a long time yet.The shock, he thought. Her shock and fear are now mine as well. I hoped her father would die. It might end up with me killing my own child instead.

CHAPTER 156.

Kristina Tacker gave birth to a daughter that evening.The doctors were very doubtful if the baby would live. For the next few days Tobia.s.son-Svartman did not leave the flat. He sent the maid back and forth, bringing news from the Serafimer Hospital.The days were sultry. At night, when the maid had fallen asleep in exhaustion, he took to wandering about the flat naked. He frequently sat at his desk to write down his thoughts. But over and over again he discovered that he did not have any thoughts. All around him and inside him was nothing but a vast vacuum.One night when he could not sleep he packed a suitcase. He tried to fold his clothes as if it had been his wife doing the packing for him.The china figurines stood silently on their shelves. He waited.

CHAPTER 157.

On 2 August he received a telephone message from a hospital consultant by the name of Edman.He was asked to attend the hospital as soon as possible. His panic reaction was such that he had stomach pains. He hurried out of the flat doubled up in agony.If the baby had died his wife would be very critical. He had stayed away for too long, had avoided his responsibilities. Or had something happened to her? Had she caught an infection? He had no idea, and sat shivering in the cab.Then it struck him: Ludwig Tacker. Has he realised that I was the one who attacked him? Has he told her?When he arrived at the hospital the first thing he needed to do was to go to the lavatory. Then he knocked on the consultant's door, heard a loud 'Come', and went in. Dr Edman was tall and bald. He invited his visitor to take a seat.'You look very frightened.''Obviously, I was very worried when I was summoned here.''Everybody always fears the worst when they are bidden to come to the hospital. I've tried to drum it into my staff that they should try not to sound so d.a.m.ned dramatic on the telephone. But hospitals are frightening places, whether one likes it or not. However, you have no need to worry. Your daughter will survive. She is strong and has a powerful l.u.s.t for life.'His relief was beyond words. Once he had injured his arm when he fell from a companionway. The pain was intense and he had been given a morphine injection by the ship's doctor. He had never forgotten the feeling of relief when the injection started working. It was the same now, as if somebody had pumped some drug into his veins. His stomach pains ceased, Dr Edman stood before him like a beaming redeemer, dressed in white.'They had better stay in hospital for a while yet,' the doctor said. 'We learn a lot every time we have an opportunity to study a premature baby.'He left Dr Edman's office and walked along the corridor.I do not deserve this, he thought. But my daughter wants to live, she has more of a will to live than I have.He went to look at the little miracle.

CHAPTER 158.

It seemed to him that she looked like a dried mushroom. But she's mine, he thought. She's mine and she's alive.Kristina Tacker had a small private room. She was pale and tired. He sat down on the bed and took her hand.'She's a beautiful baby,' he said. 'I want her to be called Laura.''As we had agreed,' she said with a faint smile.He did not stay for long. Just before he left, he told her that he would have to set out on his mission now. He ought to have left already, but he had asked for a postponement until he could be confident that the baby would survive.'Thank you for staying,' she said.'Everything will be all right,' he said. 'I'll soon be back.'He left the hospital. It was a relief, like sinking into warm water.

CHAPTER 159.

That night he wandered around the flat naked.Shortly before dawn he opened the door of the maid's room. She had thrown off the covers and was lying naked in her bed. He stood looking at her for a long time before leaving.When she woke up he was no longer there.

PART IX.

The Imprint of the German Deserter

CHAPTER 160.

He was walking beside the river, a winding path between dry nettles and patches of tall ferns.It was the third day after his flight from Stockholm, Kristina Tacker and the baby. In the market square at Soderkoping he had gone round the fish stalls looking for somebody who would be sailing home through Slatbaken and then turning off in the direction of Finno. A couple of farm labourers from Kattilo were willing to take him with them, and wanted paying in aquavit. They were due to meet at the mouth of the river two days later, by which time the labourers hoped to have sold all the fish they had caught in their spare time to boost their income.There was an opening by the side of the path, a clearing leading down to the brown river. He sat on a large stone and closed his eyes. Although he had been moving slowly without exerting himself, he was breathing heavily, as if he had been running. It was not only when he moved, but also when he was sitting down, or sleeping. He was still running.Even before he went aboard the train that was to take him south he had written a letter to Kristina Tacker. He explained his sudden departure by telling her that the war had entered an unexpected and very worrying phase. As usual, everything was top secret, every letter he wrote to her, especially if it contained the slightest reference to the character of his work, meant that he was exposing himself, his wife and the baby to danger.He sat at a table in the first-cla.s.s dining room at the Central Station. His hand shook as he wrote the name Laura. He lost control of himself and burst into tears. A waitress watched him nervously but said nothing. He pulled himself together and started to invent his new, urgent mission.The war is coming closer to our sh.o.r.es. The people cannot be told anything about it yet, but military men like myself are aware of the situation. The work of securing our borders must be intensified. I shall be on board several different ships. The location will vary, to both the north and the south of the Baltic Sea, or along the Halland and Bohus coast in the west. My letters will not be channelled via the military post office in Malmo. They will be sent from special Swedish Navy bases along the east coast. You must not mention anything I write to anybody. That would put me in danger, there could be repercussions, I could even be dismissed. I shall write again soon.He posted the letter at the railway station, bought a ticket to Norrkoping and left Stockholm. Before Sodertalje the train pa.s.sed through a local forest fire. The smoke was like fog outside the windows.That is what I am looking for, he thought. I can row into the fog, just like when I approached a remote skerry and found Sara Fredrika.He continued as far as Soderkoping and spent the night in the hotel on the bank of the ca.n.a.l. Without understanding why, he checked in under an a.s.sumed name. He called himself Ludwig Tacker, gave no occupational t.i.tle and stipulated Humlegrdsgatan as his home address.It was a sultry night. He lay awake, on top of the covers.n.o.body here knows who I am, he thought. I am safe at present. When my position can be fixed, I have gone astray.As dawn broke, he went for a walk along the ca.n.a.l, strolled up to the top of Ramunderberget, went back to the hotel, had coffee and wrote another letter to his wife. He described himself as exhilarated, happy about the birth of their child, but at the same time very conscious of his duty.It was a short letter. He sealed the envelope and left the hotel.It was a hot day. Only when he came to the path meandering along the river did he feel anything that could remotely be described as cool.

CHAPTER 161.

As he sat on the stone in the clearing, he started thinking. Should he extend his mission and make it longer than he had at first intended? The path next to the river, the warm, damp smell of mud, led his mind to other continents, perhaps Africa, or Asia. A courier could take his letters and post them in Sweden. Kristina Tacker would be worried about distant dangers, diseases, insects and snakes. There again, the distance would make his secret all the bigger, she would never tell anybody, not even her father. Besides, she knew nothing about naval ships. If he told her that there was a ship that could sail at the prodigious speed of eighty knots, she would not question it.Kristina Tacker never questioned secrets.He sat on the stone and played with the thought of expeditions to distant countries.He made a measurement he had never attempted before. How far from the truth could he transport a fantasy before it collapsed in ruins?There was no answer to that, of course. He also imagined transforming his sounding lead into a diving bell and descending into the depths himself. How strong a pressure would he be able to tolerate? Would the sh.e.l.l hold or would it shatter so that he was sent shooting back up to the surface and the real world once more?It was already late afternoon when he left his stone and continued walking towards the mouth of the river. He imagined himself trudging along a path somewhere inside a steaming rainforest in a tropical land without a name.

CHAPTER 162.

The boat was the same type as Sara Fredrika's, but the sail was patched and the farm labourers drunk. They were asleep, tangled together among the empty herring barrels and baskets in the bottom of the boat. It was six o'clock when he woke them up. One of them, the older one called Elis, asked Tobia.s.son-Svartman if he had brought the aquavit with him. He showed them the bottles but said he had no intention of handing them over until they were south of Finntarmen and preferably had reached their destination.And what was the destination? It was the younger man, Gosta, who asked.'It's secret. A military operation,' he replied. 'I am to be dropped on a skerry and I shall be collected from there by a naval vessel.''Which island?' Gosta wondered.'I'll show you when we get close to it.'The men were hung-over and starting to moan, and wanted to wait until the next day before leaving the mouth of the river. But he cajoled them into setting out to sea right now, there was no time to waste. There was a following wind that would take them out of Slatbaken before they lay up for the night. Gosta sat at the tiller and Elis kept an eye on the sail. He cursed every time he tightened the sheet or let it go.Tobia.s.son-Svartman made himself comfortable in the bows. He had his rucksack with the sounding lead between his legs. There was an acrid smell coming from the sea. He recognised it from his time aboard the Blenda. Blenda.They anch.o.r.ed for the night in a creek on the edge of the approach to Slatbaken. He had spent a night with Sara Fredrika on the other side of the narrow channel.He suddenly felt pangs of guilt. It was as if he were no longer being taken south, but was descending the sounding line inside himself. He found it difficult to breathe.It was not until the fire had died out and the farm labourers had fallen asleep that he could feel his panic subsiding.He looked at the sleeping labourers. I envy them, he thought. But between their lives and mine is a distance that can never be bridged.

CHAPTER 163.

They were between Rokholmen and Lilla Getskar when Gosta asked once again where he wanted to be put ash.o.r.e.The wind had freshened during the night and they were making good progress after a night's rest.'Halsskar,' Tobia.s.son-Svartman told him.The man looked at him in astonishment.'That bare bit of rock near the open sea? Near the lighthouses and the seal rocks?''There is a Halsskar south of Vastervik and another way up north off Harnosond. But I'm hardly going to be going all that way.''What the h.e.l.l are you going to do on that G.o.dforsaken b.l.o.o.d.y place? A madwoman lives there. Is that who you're going to see?''I don't know anything about the island being inhabited. I have my orders. That's where I'm going to be collected from.'The fisherman seemed amused.'They say that all the b.l.o.o.d.y Finnish hunters without a licence wandering around the outer archipelago stop off there to get a bit of leg-over on the way out and again on the way back,' Elis said.Tobia.s.son-Svartman was cold as ice. But even if he could have killed them, he wanted to know about the rumours.'You mean there's a trollop living on the skerry? How on earth did she end up there?''Her husband drowned,' said Gosta. 'How else could she make a living? I've seen her. A really filthy little scrubber. You'd have to be as randy as h.e.l.l if you wanted to s.h.a.g that.''Does she have a name?''Sara. Though some people say Fredrika.'The men had nothing to add. The dinghy was making good headway. He was beginning to recognise the islands now, the channels were opening out, the ice that had covered the water was a distant memory.He imagined the farm labourers dead, deep down at the bottom of the sea.Late in the afternoon the sailing dinghy steered into the inlet where Sara Fredrika's boat was moored. He handed over two litre bottles and jumped ash.o.r.e.'If anybody asks, you had no pa.s.sengers with you from Soderkoping,' he said.'Who would ask us?' Gosta said. 'Who cares if a couple of b.l.o.o.d.y farm yokels have anybody in the boat with them?''There's a war on, and what I'm doing is top secret. If you say a single word once you get back on sh.o.r.e you could end up in prison for life.'He watched them go, heading south. They were talking eagerly, but he did not think they would say anything about him. He had frightened them.He looked at the nets, corves, sinkers, all the other equipment. The boat was securely moored, it did not need to be beached when the water level was high. He looked towards the path and all the greenery clinging to the little crevices and along the sides of the rocks.He tried to build a room around himself, but no walls wanted to rise up.

CHAPTER 164.

The first thing he saw by the cottage was a cat, staring at him with watchful eyes. He had the impression it was the same cat as he had killed in his fury.He despised the supernatural. Human beings worked constantly to make their G.o.ds unnecessary. He was an individual who made scientific measurements: one day time and perhaps also s.p.a.ce would be measured and controlled by scales of measurements. .h.i.therto unknown. The supernatural was shadows dancing in the remains of a childhood fear of the dark. Normally he could always resist the supernatural. But the cat scared him.It ran away as he approached the window.Sara Fredrika was asleep on the bunk. He contemplated her enormous stomach.She must have heard him, or sensed movement outside the window, turned her head to look, and squealed in delight. He opened the door and took her in his arms. She was warm and sweaty, steam was rising from her body. He immediately abandoned all thought of Kristina Tacker and Laura.Now he was able to build the walls. There was nothing outside Halsskar, nothing that he could no longer control. He held all distances in his hands.'How did you get here?' she asked. 'I didn't hear anything. I didn't sense anything either.''I sailed here with some farmhands from an island further south. From Lofthammar, they said.''Sailing this way? Where from?''Norrkoping.''How did you find them?''In the harbour. They had bought a sailing dinghy, or got it in exchange, I couldn't quite work out what they did. But I was lucky. I'd have had to go to Soderkoping otherwise.'Not even the farm labourers belong to my story, he thought. I'm walking on water, leaving no tracks behind me.'You've got a new cat,' he said.'I got it from Helge. I hadn't asked for a similar one, and Helge said he hadn't seen the one I had before. It's good company. But it misses its mice, there aren't any on this skerry. And it's frightened of the snakes.'They went indoors. Everything was as he remembered it. n.o.body else seemed to have been in the cottage since he left. Nevertheless, he had a strange feeling of uneasiness, a suspicion that, even so, everything had changed since he was last here.It was a while before he saw it.Her eyes had changed. She looked at him in a different way.Something had in fact happened.

CHAPTER 165.

He asked her that evening.A storm had blown in from the west, the thunderclaps were so strong that the cottage walls shook. She had a pain in her back and lay down on the bed.'Nothing has happened,' she said. 'They threw the cat ash.o.r.e from the boat. I've been waiting for you, nothing else.'He listened carefully and could detect a change in her voice. Something had happened, but what? He ought not to ask any more, not just now.During the night he had the feeling that she was keeping her distance. It was barely noticeable, but it was a fact. She was suspicious, maybe unsure. But what could have happened?He was afraid. Somehow she knew now that he was married, that no woman and no daughter had fallen over a cliff.He slid out of bed cautiously, but she woke up.'Where are you going?''I just need to go out for a moment.''My back's hurting.''Go back to sleep. It's only just getting light.''How shall I be able to give birth here?''I'll sail for help when the time comes.'The storm had subsided. The spa.r.s.e gra.s.s was wet, water was running down the rocks. The cat emerged from a crack in the rock underneath the cottage and followed him down to the inlet, where he plucked a little flounder from the corf. He threw it to the cat.Could she have found out something about him despite everything? He tried to go back over all the many things that had happened since they first met, but he could not hit upon anything.It occurred to him that the deserter might have floated up to the surface or been caught in one of her nets. But that could not have been the case. The body could not have reappeared, the sinker was securely fastened. Besides, she did not have any nets that would go as deep as that.He walked round the island with the cat the single member of his retinue. He climbed to the highest point, and was reminded of Lieutenant Jakobsson, peeing over the rail. Distant memories, he thought. Like dreams.He wondered if it would be possible to sink his sounding lead through the darkness that exists below the surface of all dreams.On the far horizon he caught a glimpse of a ship heading north. He did not have his telescope with him and could not make out if it was a warship.The cat suddenly vanished.Still he could not understand what had happened.

CHAPTER 166.

The heatwave continued.Sara Fredrika had difficulty in moving, her back ached and she complained that she could not keep cool. He went fishing and did whatever had to be done. When he was busy with the nets, cleaning fish or carrying water he was able to feel totally relaxed, the walls around him were constantly there. Occasionally he would see Kristina Tacker and the newly born baby in his mind's eye. Did she know what he had done, that he had denied her existence to another woman? Yet how could she know?Early one morning in the middle of August when he was on the way to Jungfrugrunden to take up some nets, he stopped rowing. There was no wind, just a gentle swell.He realised that he was near the spot where the two German sailors were lying at the bottom of the sea. He could row there, tie the rope in the stern of the boat round the sinker beside it, throw it and himself overboard, and it would all be over at last.Perhaps that was the only bottomless depth he could hope to find? Sinking towards death, unaware of what happened to him after his lungs had filled with seawater?He took tight hold of the oars and started rowing again.The net he pulled aboard contained a lot of fish. Any thoughts about death vanished immediately.Sara Fredrika came down to the sh.o.r.e to help him gut the catch. She moved with difficulty, and the pain in her back made her pull faces.They did not say much to each other.

CHAPTER 167.

The next day he cleaned his sounding lead and started measuring the depths around Halsskar. He would record the reading in a notebook then lower his lead once again.It was as if he were listening to two voices, a never-ending conversation between sea and land. Every wave or swell brought with it a fragment of a story, every slab of rock made its contribution.He put the sounding lead on the floor of the boat. Before, he had always thought there was a never-ending struggle between the sea and the rocks. Now he realised that was incorrect. It was an embrace that never lost its element of l.u.s.t. A slowly increasing intimacy, he thought. The elevation of the land progresses invisibly, the rocks and the sea rely on each other.He turned his back on Halsskar and gazed out to sea. The horizon was empty. He had the vague impression that there was something missing, something that ought to be there had vanished.

CHAPTER 168.

When he reached home she was sitting outside the cottage, waiting.Her eyes were blazing.He stopped, not wanting to get too close to her.She threw two wooden sticks that dropped at his feet. He did not see what they were at first. Then he saw the dried-out bit of rope fastening the two pins together. His ice prods. The ones he had stuck into the deserter's eyes.He turned icy cold. He was sure he had pushed them inside the dead man's clothes before kicking the sinker into the ice hole and watching the corpse vanish into the depths.He looked at her. Was there anything else? Was this only the beginning?'What's that on them?' she asked.'I don't understand what you mean.''They are yours, aren't they?''Of course they are mine. But they vanished into thin air. I don't know what happened to them.''Pick them up!'He bent down. There was a dark colour dried into the light brown wood. It looked like dark brown rust. Blood, no doubt. The deserter's blood.'I still don't know what you mean.''There's blood on them.''It could be anything. Why should it be blood?''Because I recognise it. My husband once cut himself with a knife. It was a deep wound, I thought it would never stop bleeding. I'll never forget that colour. Dried blood on light-coloured wood. The colour I saw when I thought my husband was going to die.'She almost burst into tears, but managed to control herself.'I found them on the sh.o.r.e. The last time I walked round the skerry before I became so fat that I dared not trust myself on the rocks any more. I shouldn't have risked it that time either.''I must have mislaid them.'She was looking hard at him. He realised that it wasn't in fact the ice prods he could detect in her eyes and her voice, but her fear that he was telling lies, that there was something he had not told her.'I saw that you had them with you every time you went out on to the ice. Then one day, they weren't there any more. And now I've found them soaked in blood.'The lid over the abyss was parchment-thin. He tried to stop moving.'What happened?' she asked. 'That day he died. I've never understood it, never been able to believe that he simply sank down through thin ice and met his death. Neither that, nor that he killed the cat.''Why do you think I would have said something that didn't in fact happen?''I'm saying that I don't know.''Are you suggesting that I killed him? Is that what you mean?'She stood up, with considerable difficulty. 'I'm not saying that you are concealing something or that you're not telling me the truth. All I'm saying is that I found the ice prods and they were bloodstained.''I was trying to spare you from some of the truth. He used the ice prods to kill the cat. I found them on the ice.'Silence.'So you thought I told you something that wasn't true?' he said. 'Do you believe I would ever dare to do such a thing? Don't you understand that I'm scared to death of losing you?'To his surprise he recognised that this was exactly what he was frightened of.She eyed him up and down. Then she decided to believe him.The lid over the abyss had very nearly given way.

CHAPTER 169.

That evening and for the rest of the night, he was completely calm.Distance had no meaning any more. He had control over himself and Sara Fredrika. The ice prods had been explained away. She was no longer worried.As night approached they talked about the baby, and what would happen afterwards.'When the time comes,' he asked, 'who's going to help you?''There's a midwife on Krkmaro called Wester. She knows I'm pregnant. But you'll have to sail to Krkmaro and fetch her.'What she wanted to talk about most was the future, what would happen after the skerry. She could only a.s.sociate the baby with Halsskar as the place where it was born, the place they left soon afterwards.In his imagination he had worked out a plan for how they would leave for America. He talked about the danger from the naval fleets stalking the European shipping lanes leading to the west. But thanks to the contacts he had they would be able to travel on a Swedish ship along a secret route north of Iceland. Everything was planned. The only thing he could not be sure of was the date for their departure. They would have to wait and be ready to leave at short notice.'You mean we'll have to wait here? Who will come to fetch us?''The same ship that I was on when I came here for the first time.'His reply made her feel secure. I am creating time, he thought. I am increasing the distance to the point when I shall have to make a definite decision.He put his hand on her stomach and felt the baby kicking. It was like cupping his hand over a flounder on the seabed. The baby was wriggling away under the palm of his hand, as if it were trying to escape.Is that how it was with babies as well? That they wanted to escape the inevitable?He cupped his hand. The flounder wriggled away under his palm.

CHAPTER 170.

One night she woke him up.'I can hear somebody screaming,' she said.He listened. There was no wind.'I can't hear anything.'"There's somebody screaming, a person.'He put his trousers on and went out. The ground felt chilly underfoot.Then he heard it, a distant scream. It came from the sea.She had got out of bed with considerable difficulty and was standing in the doorway. Her face was white in the night glow.'Can you hear it?''Yes, I can.'They listened. There it came again. He was still unsure if it was a person or a bird. Birds can also get into difficulties he remembered the gull frozen into the ice last winter. Frozen wings, he thought. We always need to thaw out our wings in order to fly. But in the end that is no longer possible.There was the scream again. He went to the highest point on the skerry and looked south-westwards, where the scream had come from. In the end he was convinced that it was a human scream. He set off for the inlet intending to take the boat out, but it stopped. He waited. The sea was silent.He went back to the cottage. She was cold, pressed up against him, he put his arm round her shoulders. They lay awake as day broke, wondering who or what it had been, a person or a bird.He got up early and scanned the sea with his telescope.There was nothing to be seen. Breakers rolled slowly in towards the islands.He had the feeling that the sea was like an old woman in a rocking chair.

CHAPTER 171.