Harbor by John Lindqvist (classic novels for teens txt) 📕

They sat in silence. Anders pictured the cat being hurled off the balcony on the first floor. So Cecilia lived in an apartment. He turned so that he could see her out of the corner of his eye. She was sitting cross-legged on the jetty, resting her chin on her hands. He asked, ‘Do you just live with your mum?’

‘Yes. When she’s like that I usually go over to my grandmother’s. She’s great. She lets me sleep over and stuff.’

Anders had seen Cecilia’s mother a couple of times, and she hadn’t been drunk then. But when he thought about it now, she did have that look. Something strained about the face, something wet in the eyes. Maybe she had been drunk, but he hadn’t been able to see it as clearly as in his own father.

They went on talking, and after a while the conversation movedon to other topics. It turned out that Cecilia enjoyed baking as well, and that she read books too, mostly by Maria Gripe. Anders had read only one story by her, but Cecilia told him about some of her other books, and they sounded good.

With hindsight Anders could see that that day had mostly brought good things. It wasn’t until the following summer that he and Cecilia had kissed each other and become a couple up on the big rock.

But it all started on that day.

Homeward bound

The engine started first time and Anders roared away from Gåvasten. The speed made him feel safe, he didn’t think a gull could manage fifteen knots. When he had travelled a few hundred metres he looked back. The gulls had reverted to circling around the lighthouse.

He picked up the plastic bottle and waggled it back and forth in his free hand. The liquid was cloudy, opaque. The same painful clarity of vision that had affected him when he drank the poison had been in his father’s eyes as he looked at Anders and Cecilia that day.

Love one another. Just be careful of the sea.

That was probably the story of Anders’ life since that day, in brief. But why had his father drunk the poison in the first place? After all, it wasn’t the sea that got him in the end.

Or was it?

Anders was twenty-two years old when it happened. By that time his father had taken early retirement, because he had ‘lapses’. He would turn up to work at the shipyard feeling groggy, then he wouldn’t turn up at all for a couple of days, then he’d come back, work normally for a week, then disappear again. It couldn’t go on, and they managed to work out an early-retirement package.

However, he was still well liked, and if they needed an extra pairof hands they would ring him and see how things were. If he felt OK he would go along and pitch in wherever he was needed; he was paid in cash, no questions asked.

Among other things, he made a significant contribution to the building of the new shed for the storage of summer visitors’ boats. When the topping-out party was being planned, he was naturally invited. The building wasn’t completely finished, but the frame and the roof were in place, and it was a long time since they had thrown a party, so a party it was.

They drank and chatted, and it grew late. Towards the small hours Johan said goodnight and staggered down to the harbour to sail his boat home. There was nothing strange about that, everybody knew he could sail to Domarö blindfolded if need be.

So they said Good night and Safe journey and Try not to crash into any elks, and they never saw him again.

Nobody knew exactly what happened, but it was thought that when Johan got down to the harbour in the darkness, he was overcome by tiredness, or decided not to sail home. Instead he dragged a few tarpaulins together and made himself a bed. A few tarpaulins to serve as a mattress, and a few to cover himself up.

He was still lying there at seven o’clock in the morning when a lorry carrying sand backed down into the harbour area. Torbjörn, the driver, had been at the party and it had been a late night. When he saw the pile of old tarpaulins in his rear-view mirror he couldn’t be bothered to get out and shift them, so instead he reversed straight over them.

The back wheel went over something, and he kept on going. The front wheel went over something smaller, and he kept on going. Only when he had gone a couple of metres further did he glance back at the pile of tarpaulins. He could see something trickling out from underneath them. Then he stopped and got out.

Afterwards Torbjörn would curse himself for failing to notice that Johan’s boat was still in the harbour. If he had, he might perhaps havesuspected something, because Johan did have a tendency to fall asleep just about anywhere. But he hadn’t thought about it, and instead he had reversed over him with five tons of sand. What Torbjörn saw when he pulled back the tarpaulins would never leave him.

Something had been mentioned about a bottle of schnapps found beside Johan’s body. Anders knew better now.

That night, faced with the sea, with the depths he must travel across, his father had suddenly been afraid. He had fetched the bottle of wormwood from his boat and tried to give himself courage, tried to protect himself.

Whether it was down to poisoning or a fear that would not pass, he had curled up under the tarpaulins. Like a child.

Like me.

Curled up under the covers, hoping it would go away and leave him alone.

Anders could see it in his mind all too clearly. The sea, the night, the fear. Leaving the lights and the people behind and suddenly being overwhelmed by the fear with which there can be no negotiation and for which there