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

Lift me inside in your hands

opened gently like eyelids.

MIA AJVIDE—IF A GIRL WANTS TO DISAPPEAR

Another one to the sea

The boat was lying by the jetty and Anders was lying on the deck. With the help of Spiritus, Simon carried on drying his clothes and warming his body. He had asked the water to cast Anders away from itself, but there was no help to be had in getting him ashore.

During the afternoon Simon and Anna-Greta had kept an eye on Anders’ house to see if the light came on, if Anders came home. They had taken a walk around the village to look for him, they had phoned but got no reply. When the evening came they had begun to think he had caught the tender and left Domarö. Hopefully.

But Simon had a bad feeling as he went down to his house to try on his clothes for the following day.

Since Anders came back to the island, Simon had never questioned his readjusted picture of Maja, had never seen any reason to do so. This was Anders’ way of dealing with his grief, and as long as it worked for him he was welcome to carry on living under his illusions, as far as Simon was concerned.

But the situation had changed.

It had changed when Elin Grönwall started burning houses on Kattudden, when Karl-Erik and Lasse Bergwall ran amok with their chainsaws and Sofia Bergwall pushed the other children off the jetty. When the horrible people returned to Domarö.

Simon didn’t know if you could actually call Maja horrible. He too had had his tussles with her, and she was definitely not a ‘good’ child. She was moody, hyperactive and quick to anger. Yes, she laughed if someone fell over and hurt themselves. Yes, she enjoyed crushing butterflies to dust between her hands. But horrible? Simon had also seen a fierce appetite for life and a vivid imagination which, in a best-case scenario, would stand her in good stead in the years to come.

But even so. Even so.

If Anders really was carrying Maja or a part of Maja inside him, it was not a good thing if he regarded himself as being pregnant with an angel. There was no guarantee that Maja wished him well, and he ought to be aware of that.

That was more or less Simon’s reasoning earlier in the day when he had failed to give Anders the assurances about his daughter’s goodness that Anders had sought. In the current situation it was no longer possible to do that.

Anders twitched on the deck and Simon placed his fist on Anders’ forehead, sending another pulse of warmth through his blood. Anders was still clutching the red snowsuit tightly in his left hand, the suit that Simon also recognised.

How can this be?

Simon had been standing in front of the mirror in his bedroom holding items of clothing up in front of him when he heard the cry, ‘Stop, you bastards! Stop!’ He had thrown down the clothes and rushed to the kitchen window.

It wasn’t easy to see in the moonlight, and what he saw down by the jetty flew in the face of reason. However, he recognised an emergency when he saw one and began to hobble as quickly as he could to the outside door, then down to the jetty.

By the time he got in the boat, Anders had stopped far out in the bay.

Spiritus, Spiritus…

Fortunately Simon had had the matchbox in his pocket, and as his fingers closed around it he thought he could see how things stood. Anders also had a Spiritus, but like Simon he hadn’t said anything about it. How else could the strip of ice lying in a black line across the sea be explained?

Simon had pumped petrol into the engine, pulled out the choke and started her up. In his agitated state he had forgotten to push the choke back in when he accelerated, and the engine died. It had taken a while to get it going again, by which time Anders had turned for the shore and started sinking.

When Simon saw the headlight of the moped heading straight for Anders across the water, he had realised that another Spiritus might not be the right explanation. That nothing he knew applied any longer. He had managed to get so far in his thoughts before the mooring ropes were untied and he set off at full speed towards the flock of birds falling from the moon.

Anders coughed a couple of times and opened his eyes. He looked at Simon and nodded slightly. Then he pulled the snowsuit close and clutched it to his chest, saying, ‘They tricked me.’

For a long time he said nothing more. He lay still on the deck, twisting and turning the snowsuit in his hands. Then he hauled himself into a sitting position and leaned his back against the centralseat. He looked down at his body, pulled at his shirt.

‘Why aren’t I…wet?’ He looked at Simon and frowned. ‘How did you get me out of the water?’

Simon scratched his neck and studied the patch on the snowsuit. Bamse had a pile of honey jars. Presumably he was very happy but the moonlight wasn’t bright enough for Simon to see what mood he was in.

Anders turned his head and looked back at the bay, towards the spot where Simon had picked him up. ‘Didn’t it happen? Was it just… didn’t it happen?’

Simon closed his eyes tightly, opened them again, cleared his throat and said, ‘Oh, it happened. And I think…you need to be told. Quite a few things.’

The television was on up at Anna-Greta’s, even though she wasn’t watching. This was an occasional habit, or vice, of hers, so it was against a backdrop of people yelling and shouting at each other that Simon sat Anders down at the kitchen table, wrapped a blanket around him and poured him a glass of brandy.

When Anna-Greta went into the living room to switch off