Harbor John Lindqvist (grave mercy TXT) 📖

of insanity, but found none. He thought she ought to be radiating something other than sorrowful resignation. Some kind of fanaticism, at least.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Neither do I,’ said Elin. ‘But that’s the way it is.’

‘But what…what are you aiming for, so to speak?’

‘I don’t know. I just know I haven’t finished.’

‘But what doctor would agree to…’

Elin interrupted him. ‘If you’ve got money, there’s always someone. And I do have money.’

Anders turned and looked out of the window. The wind was blowing among the few random fir trees still standing upright on Kattholmen. A storm a few years earlier had brought down most of the trees, and the island became one huge game of pick-up sticks,almost impossible to find a way through. The boathouse might have been smashed to pieces. He hoped it had.

‘Are you thinking about the same thing as me?’ asked Elin.

‘Probably.’

‘Everything disappears. In the end.’

‘Yes.’

They avoided the topic and started talking about things that had disappeared, what had become of old friends. Anders told her about Maja, making a huge effort not to fall down the shaft that always opened up beneath him when he relived the story by retelling it. He managed to balance on the brink.

The afternoon had drawn a veil of darker grey across the sea, and the wine cask was all but empty when Anders got to his feet, steadied himself on the table and announced he was going home. ‘I live here now. I think.’

He had to concentrate hard in order to tie his shoelaces in the dark hallway. Elin stood watching him, her head on one side.

‘Why did you come back?’

Anders closed his eyes so that he could manage the laces without being distracted by the way the room was moving. Why had he come back? He tried to find the right words, and eventually said, ‘I wanted to be close to something that has some meaning.’

He hauled himself to his feet with the help of the door handle. The door opened and he almost fell out on to the porch, but straightened up and regained his balance. ‘What about you?’

‘I just wanted to get away. From all the eyes.’

Anders nodded tipsily and for a long time. Completely understandable. All the eyes. Away from all the eyes. He remembered something, something to do with eyes, but he couldn’t quite get hold of it. He waved goodbye and closed the door behind him.

The afternoon was rapidly darkening into evening as Anders made his way towards the forest. The wind was picking up; a few particularly playful gusts made him wobble to one side. He was thinking about Elin.

I haven’t finished yet. I’m going to have more work done.

He laughed. If you looked at it as a project it was odd, but not incomprehensible. You have to have projects, and destroying your own body is just one of many options. He certainly knew that, if nothing else. Throwing away your money by going under the knife and getting uglier every time, that was grandiose in its way, a real cultural commentary.

Or an atonement.

A big paper bag full of food stood outside his door. He sent grateful thanks across the inlet, hauled the bag into the kitchen and put everything away in the fridge and the larder. When he had finished he drank almost a litre of water to dilute his alcohol-laden blood, then he sat down at the kitchen table and started fiddling with the beads. He added a few blue ones at random around the edge of the tile.

The kitchen curtains were billowing out slightly in the draught from the ill-fitting window, and he lit a fire in the kitchen stove to drive out the dampness that had gathered since the morning. Then he went back to the beads.

Ten blue dots around the edge of big white pattern, like a little patch of sky behind a cloud. He added a few more.

Suspicions

They didn’t make love so often these days, but when they did, they did it properly.

That first summer Simon and Anna-Greta hadn’t been able to keep their hands off one another. Out of consideration for Johan it had been mostly the nights that had been at their disposal, but it did happen that lust would suddenly strike them like a boiling shoal of herring in the middle of the day as well. Then they would lock themselves in the boathouse and fall on each other on top of the nets,satisfying their hunger and paying for it with various abrasions.

They didn’t do that any more. Just as well, really.

Weeks could go by before the circumstances were right. Since they didn’t sleep in the same bed or even the same house, lovemaking wasn’t something that just happened, unplanned, as an afterthought before they fell asleep. Nor had they got to the point where they could just come straight out with the question. They never would get there, because they both regarded sexuality as a mystery and a secret—not body parts seeking connection.

And so it was a matter of a web of unspoken questions and answers, small movements sounding out the terrain. A hand on an arm, a glance held for just a fraction too long, a smile hinting at mischief. It could go on for days, until they no longer knew who was asking and who was responding, but the certainty grew between them in silence: it was time.

Then they would go to the bedroom together, to Anna-Greta’s bedroom as she had a bigger bed. They would light a candle and get undressed. Anna-Greta could still manage to get undressed standing up, but Simon had to sit on the edge of the bed to take off his underwear and socks.

It was increasingly rare that things went well from the start. Perhaps as some kind of preparation for death, Simon’s spirit and flesh had begun to take their leave of each other. When Anna-Greta lay down beside him, it didn’t matter how much his will wrapped itself around her beloved body, his lips