Chapter Nineteen

And afterwards?

What is left?

The last year before Hans Olofson leaves the heavy fir ridges behind, leaves his father Erik Olofson behind in his mute dream of a distant sea that calls inside him. The last year that Janine is alive.

On an early Saturday morning in March 1962, she takes up position on the corner between the hardware shop and the People's Hall. It's the very heart of town, the one corner that no one can avoid. In the early morning she raises a placard above her head. On it is a text in black letters that she wrote the night before.

Something unheard of is about to happen. A rumour is growing and threatening to boil over. There are a few people who dare acknowledge that Janine and her lonely placard express a sensible opinion that has been lacking for too long. But their voices disappear in the icy March wind.

The right-thinking ones mobilise. A person who doesn't even have a nose? Everyone has assumed that she was resting securely in the embrace of Hurrapelle. But now here she stands, the woman who ought to be living unnoticed and hiding her ugly face. Janine knows what thoughts are spreading like wildfire.

And she has also learned something from Hurrapelle's monotonous exhortations. She knows how to resist when the wind changes and entrenched beliefs fumble for a foothold. She is driving a stake into the slumbering anthill on this early morning. People hurry along the streets, coats flapping, and they read what she has written. Then they hurry on to grab their neighbour by the collar and ask what that crazy woman can possibly mean. Is a noseless shrew going to tell us what to think? Who asked her to raise this unseemly barricade?

The old men come staggering out from the beer tavern to witness the spectacle with their own eyes. They don't care about the fate of the world, but nevertheless they become her mute supporters. Their need for revenge is boundless. Whoever drives a stake into the heart of the anthill deserves all the support imaginable. Blinking at the light they stumble out of the pilsner's dark room. With glee they note that nothing looks the same this morning. They understand at once that Janine needs all the support she can get, and one daring fellow staggers across the street and offers her a beer, which she amiably declines.

At that moment Hurrapelle comes skidding to a stop in his new car, alerted by an agitated member of the congregation who woke him with the shrill ring of his telephone. And he does what he can to stop her. He entreats her, entreats as much as he can. But she only shakes her head; she's going to stay there. When he realises that her decision is unshakeable, he goes to his church to take counsel with his God about this difficult matter.

At the police station they are consulting the legal texts. Somewhere there must be a paragraph that permits an intervention. But it can hardly be called 'reckless endangerment', can it? It's not 'incitement to riot' or 'assault with a deadly weapon' either. The policemen sigh over the gaps in the law books, leafing feverishly through the thick text, while Janine stands at her post on the corner.

Suddenly something reminds them of Rudin, who several years before had set fire to himself. That's where the solution lies! Taking into custody a person who is incapable of taking care of herself. Sweaty fingers leaf further, and finally they are ready to intervene.

But when the police officers come marching and the crowd eagerly waits to see what's going to happen, Janine calmly takes down her placard and walks away. The police gape, disconcerted, the crowd of people grumbles, and the old men from the tavern applaud with satisfaction.

When calm has been restored it is possible to argue about what she had written on her shameless placard: 'No to the atom bomb. Only one Earth.' But who wants a bomb on their head? And what did she mean by 'Only one Earth.'? Are there supposed to be more? If the truth is to be preached, people refuse to have it served up by just anyone who claims to have been warned, and least of all by some woman with no nose.

Janine walks with her head held high even though she usually looks down at the ground. She is thinking of standing on her corner again next Saturday, and no one will be able to stop her. Far from the arenas where the world plays out in earnest, she will make her small contribution in accordance with her abilities. She walks across the river bridge, tosses her hair, and hums 'A Night in Tunisia'. Under her feet dance the first ice floes of the spring thaw. She has proven herself in her own eyes and she has dared to act. She has someone who desires her. If everything is transitory after all, at least she has experienced this outpouring of life, when the pain was completely suppressed.

There is a movement in their life, this last year that Hans Olofson lives in the house by the river. Like a slow displacement of the Earth's axis, a movement so slight that it's not noticeable at first. But even to this isolated town in the sticks, a swell comes rolling in to tell them about a world outside which will no longer tolerate being relegated to endless darkness. The perspective has begun to shift, the quaking from distant wars of liberation and uprisings penetrates through the walls of the fir ridges.

Together they sit in Janine's kitchen and learn the names of the new nations. And they notice the movement, the vibration from distant continents where people are rising up. With amazement, and a certain amount of alarm, they see how the world is changing. An old world in dissolution, where rotten floors are collapsing to reveal indescribable misery, injustice, atrocity. Hans begins to understand that the world he soon intends to enter will be a different one to his father's. Everything will have to be discovered anew, the sea charts revised, the changed names replacing the old ones.

He tries to talk with his father about what he's witnessing. Tries to encourage him to whack his axe into a stump and go back to sea. Usually the conversation ends before it has really begun. Erik Olofson is defensive and doesn't want to be reminded. But then something unexpected happens.

'I'm going to Stockholm,' Erik Olofson says as they're eating dinner.

'Why?' Hans asks.

'I have a matter to take care of in the capital.'

'You don't know anybody in Stockholm, do you?'

'I got an answer to my letter.'

'What letter?'

'The letter I wrote.'

'You don't write letters, do you?'

'If you don't believe me, we won't talk about this any more.'

'What letter?'

'From the Vaxholm Company.'

'The Vaxholm Company?'

'Yes. The Vaxholm Company.'

'What's that?

'A shipping company. They handle transport throughout the Stockholm archipelago.'

'What do they want with you?'

'I saw an advert somewhere. They need seamen. I thought it might be something for me. Domestic harbours and coastal traffic in the inland waters.'

'Did you apply for a job?'

'Are you listening to me?'

'So what did they say?'

'They want me to come to Stockholm and present myself.'

'How can they tell by looking at you that you're a good sailor?'

'They can't. But they can ask questions.'

'About what?'

'Why I haven't been to sea in so many years, for instance.'

'What are you going to say?'

'That the children are grown and can take care of themselves.'

'The children?'

'I thought it would sound better if I said I had more than one. Seamen are supposed to have a lot of children, that's always been the case.'

'And what are the names of these children?'

'I'll think of something. I just have to come up with some names. Maybe I can borrow a photo from somebody.'

'So you're going to borrow a picture of someone else's children?'

'What's the difference?'

'It makes a hell of a lot of difference!'

'I probably won't even have to prove they're mine. But I know how ship owners are. It's best to be prepared. There was a ship owner in Göteborg one time who demanded that anyone who wanted to go out on his boats had to be able to walk on his hands. The Seamen's Association protested, of course, but he had it his way.'

'Can you walk on your hands?'

'No.'

'What are you telling me, anyway?'

'That I have an appointment in Stockholm.'

'When are you leaving?'

'I haven't decided yet.'

'What do you mean?'

'Maybe I'll say the hell with it.'

'Of course you have to go! You can't keep wandering around in the woods.'

'I don't wander around in the woods.'

'You know what I mean. When I finish school we'll leave this place.'

'And go where?'

'Maybe we can ship out on the same vessel.'

'On a Vaxholm boat?'

'What the hell do I know? But I want to go further. I'm going out in the world.'

'Then I'll wait till you've finished school.'

'Don't wait! You have to go now.'

'That won't work.'

'Why not?'

'It's already too late.'

'Too late?'

'Time ran out.'

'When?'

'About six months ago.'

'Six months ago?'

'Yes.'

'And you're only telling me now? Why didn't you go?'

'I thought I'd talk to you first.'

'Good Lord ...'

'What is it?'

'We have to get out of here. We can't live here. We have to get out and discover the world again!'

'I'm starting to get too old, I think.'

'You're getting old by stomping around in the woods.'

'I'm not stomping around in the woods! I'm working.'

'I know. But still.'

Maybe there's still time, Hans thinks. Maybe he'll take off again. He carries the sea inside him, I know that now. Hans hurries over to Janine's to tell her. I'll never have to see him crawling around scrubbing the kitchen at night, with water up to his neck.

He stops on the river bridge and looks down in the water where the ice floes rock their way towards the sea. Far off in the distance is the world, the new world that's waiting for the conqueror of the new era. The world which he will discover with Janine.

But somewhere along the way they turn off in different directions. For Hans the change takes the form of a period of waiting for something. His pilgrimage, with or without his father Erik Olofson, will take place in a world that others are putting in order for him.

Janine's thoughts are different. She makes the crucial discovery that incredible poverty is neither a whim of nature nor a law decreed by fate. She sees people who consciously choose a barbaric evil as the tool for their own gain. So they part ways at the centre of the world.

Hans emerges from his period of waiting. Janine discovers that her conscience requires action, more than just the intercessions for sufferers in which she takes part under Hurrapelle's leadership. The question deepens, and never leaves her in her dreams. And she begins to search for a means of expression. A personal crusade, she thinks. A solitary crusade, in order to tell of the world that exists beyond the fir ridges.

Slowly a decision matures, and without saying anything to Hans she decides to take up her post on the street corner. She knows that she must carry out her plan alone. Until she has stood there for the first time she won't share her crusade with anyone.

On that particular Saturday morning in March, Hans spends his time in the forestry officer's garage. Along with one of the officer's sons he has worked in vain to try to revive an old motorcycle. Not until late in the afternoon, when he stops at Pettersson's kiosk, does he hear about what happened. His heart tightens when he hears what Janine has done. He feels that he has been exposed. Surely everyone knows that he sneaks up to her door, even though he tries to avoid being seen when he walks through her gate. He begins at once to hate her, as if her real intention had been to pull him into her own humiliation. He knows that he has to distance himself from her at once, to separate from her.

'No one should care about a woman without a nose,' he says.

They had agreed that he would visit her that evening. But now he spends the evening at the People's Hall instead. He dances with every girl he meets, spitting out the most disparaging remarks about Janine that he can think of when he is crowded and jostled in the men's toilet. When Kringström's band finishes up with 'Twilight Time' he feels that he has presented a sufficient defence. Now nobody will think that he has a secret life with the placardcarrying lunatic. He goes out to the street, wipes the sweat off his brow, and stands in the shadows watching the couples leave. The night is full of shouts and giggles. He rocks back and forth on his feet, dizzy from all the lukewarm aquavit. That damn bitch, he thinks. She would have yelled at me and asked me to help hold her sign if I happened to pass by.

Suddenly he decides to visit her one last time and tell her what he's thinking. So as not to be discovered he sneaks like a criminal across the bridge and waits for a long time outside her gate before he slips into the shadows.

She welcomes him without reproach. He was supposed to come but didn't. No more than that.

'Did you wait for me?' he asks.

'I'm used to waiting,' she replies. 'It doesn't matter.'

He hates her and he desires her. But at the same time he knows that tonight he brings with him the opinion of the town, and he tells her that he will never come back if she stands on the street corner again.

A cold wind blows through her heart. She had thought he would encourage her, agree that what she was doing was right. That's how she had interpreted their conversation about the way the world was cracking under the winds of change. Sorrow sinks like a lead weight on to her head. Now she knows that she will be left alone again. But not yet, because his desire takes over, and once again they are entwined with each other.

Their last time together becomes a long drawn-out agony. Hans returns to the starting point, the chopped-off crow's head that he and Sture put in her letterbox. Now it's her head he's swinging at. He spits and swears at her, breaks arrangements, and paints her black for anyone who will listen.

In the midst of this chaos he passes his secondary school examination. With an intense outburst of concentrated energy he succeeds in getting unexpectedly high marks. Rector Bohlin has seen to it that an application is sent to the college in the county seat. When he puts on the grey graduation cap, he decides to keep studying. Now he doesn't have to wait for his father to fling away the axe of indecision, now he's in charge of his own future. With one single motion he can set himself free.

On the evening after the exam he stands outside Janine's door. She's waiting with flowers for him, but he doesn't want her damned flowers. He's going to leave this place and now he's here for the last time. He hangs his grey cap over the picture of the Virgin Mary sitting in her window. But to the last day, all summer long, he visits her. And yet the secret that will be her last he never will know.

The final break-up, the end, is irresolute and forlorn. One evening in the middle of August he visits her and now it is really for the last time. They meet briefly in her kitchen, with few words, as if it were their first time, when he stood there with his hedge clippers in his hand. He says he'll write, but she tells him it would be better if he didn't. It's best to let everything dissolve, blow away with the wind.

He leaves her house. Behind him he hears the notes of 'Some of These Days'.

The next day his father accompanies him to the train station. Hans looks at his father, grey and indecisive.

'I'll come home sometime,' he says. 'And you can always come to visit.'

Erik Olofson nods. He'll certainly come to visit. 'The sea ...' he says and falls silent.

But Hans doesn't hear him. He's waiting patiently for the tram to take him away.

For a long time his father stays at the station, and he tells himself that the sea still does exist, after all. If only he ... Always that 'if only'. Then he goes home to the house by the river, and lets the sea roar out of his radio.

The month of the rowan berries. A Sunday morning in September. A bank of fog lies heavy over the town as it slowly begins to awake. There's a chill in the air and the gravel crunches as a lone man turns off the main road and takes a short cut down the slope to the river. The People's Park on its promontory shines forlornly like a half-razed ruin in the grey morning light. In the horse dealer's pastures the horses are grazing in the fog. Noiselessly they move like ships waiting for the wind.

The man unties a rowboat at the river bank and sits down at the oars. He rows out into the sound between the point of the People's Park and the south bank of the river. There he throws out an anchor that grips the rocks on the river bed. He tosses out a line and waits.

After an hour he decides to try further down towards the point. He lets the anchor drift under the keel of the boat as he rows. But abruptly it catches, and when he finally pulls it loose he sees that an almost rotten piece of cloth has been pierced by his hook. A bit of a woman's blouse, he can see. Pensively he rows back to shore.

The bit of cloth lies on a table at the police station, with Hurrapelle standing looking at it. He nods.

The hastily assembled river-dragging crew doesn't have to search long. On the second pass the two rowboats make through the sound, one of their hooks catches on something at the bottom. From the shore Hurrapelle watches Janine return.

The doctor examines the body one last time before he finishes the autopsy. When he has washed his hands, he stands by the window and looks out over the fir ridges coloured red by the setting sun. He wonders whether he is the only one who knows Janine's secret. Without knowing why, he decides not to include it in the autopsy report. Even though this is not proper procedure, he doesn't think it will change anything. He knows that she drowned. Around her waist there was a thick steel wire and in her clothing were irons and heavy pieces of drainpipe. No crime was committed. So he doesn't need to report that Janine was carrying a child when she died.

In the house by the river Erik Olofson sits poring over a sea chart. He adjusts his glasses and pilots his vessel with his index finger through the Strait of Malacca. He smells the sea, sees the glimmering lanterns from distant vessels on an approaching course. In the background the carrier waves from the shortwave radio hiss through the ether. Maybe it's still possible, he thinks. A little ship that takes goods along the coast? Maybe it's still possible.

And what about Hans? He doesn't remember who told him. But someone heard about it, and Hans learns that Janine is dead. The woman who stood every Saturday with her placard on the corner between the People's Hall and the hardware shop. In the night he leaves the room in his boarding house, which he already detests, and wanders restlessly through the dark town. He tries to convince himself that no one is to blame. Not him, nor anybody else. But still, he knows. Mutshatsha, he thinks. You wanted to go there, Janine, that was your dream. But you never went and now you're dead.

I once lay behind a broken-down kiln in the old brickworks and realised that I was myself and no one else. But since then? Now? He asks himself how he can stand four years in this distant college. Inside him an incessant struggle is going on between belief in the future and resignation. He tries to cheer himself up. Living must be like continually preparing for new expeditions, he thinks. It's either that or I'll become like my father.

All at once he decides. Someday he will go to Mutshatsha. Someday he will make the journey that Janine never made. That thought becomes instantly holy for him. The most fragile of all Goals has revealed itself to him. The dream of another which he is taking over.

Cautiously he tiptoes up the stairs to his room. He recognises the smell of old lady Westlund's flat. Apples, sour drops. On the table the books lie waiting for him. But he is thinking of Janine. Maybe growing up means realising one's loneliness, he thinks. He sits motionless for a long time.

He feels as if he were again sitting on the huge span of the iron bridge. High overhead, the stars.

Below him Janine ...