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

inherited her house from her parents-in-law, who had both died a couple of years earlier. Johan answered his questions politely, but said no more than was necessary.

When it was time for Simon to think about leaving, Johan suddenly asked, ‘What’s your job?’

Anna-Greta said, ‘Johan…’

‘It’s a natural thing to ask,’ said Simon, ‘if we’re going to be neighbours. I’m a magician.’

Johan looked at him with a sceptical expression. ‘What do you mean, a magician?’

‘People pay to come and watch me do magic tricks.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Really. Well, the tricks aren’t real, it’s just—’

‘I know that. But you’re an illusionist, then?’

Simon smiled. Not many people outside magicians’ circles would use that term. ‘You’re very well informed.’

Johan didn’t answer. Instead he sat there nodding to himself for a couple of seconds, then he burst out, ‘I thought you were just some boring bloke.’

Anna-Greta brought her hand down on the table. ‘Johan! That’s not the way to speak to a guest!’

Simon got to his feet. ‘I am just some boring bloke. As well.’ He held Johan’s gaze for a few seconds, and something happened between them. Simon sensed that he had just made a friend. ‘I’d better be on my way.’

At the beginning of July, Simon hired their usual driver to take him and Marita to Nåten with all their luggage. Marita loved the place, and Simon was able to relax. For five days. Perhaps the abstinence got too much for her, or possibly the isolation, but on the morning of the sixth day Marita declared that she had to go into Stockholm.

‘But we’ve only just got here,’ said Simon. ‘Try to relax a little. Rest.’

‘I have rested. It’s wonderful here, and I’m going crazy. Do you know what I did last night? I sat out in the garden staring up at the sky and prayed to God that a plane might appear, so that at least something was happening. I can’t handle it. I’ll be back tomorrow.’

She didn’t come back the following day, nor the day after that. When she turned up on the third day, she dragged herself up the hill from the steamboat jetty. She had dark circles under her eyes and she immediately fell into bed and went out like a light.

When Simon went through her overnight bag, he didn’t find anyinhalers. He was just about to close the bag and thank providence for that small dispensation when he noticed the lining bulging oddly. He pushed his fingers inside and found a slender case containing a syringe and a small tin of white powder.

It was a glorious summer’s day. There was a stillness everywhere; only the buzzing of the insects created any movement in the air at all. A pair of swans were teaching their young to look for food in the inlet. Simon sat in the lilac arbour beside the path as if he were in a trance, with a tin and a case in his hand. Yes, they fitted into his hand. Two innocent, trivial-looking objects that contained an army of devils. He didn’t know what to do, couldn’t summon up the energy to do anything.

When Anna-Greta walked by, there must have been something in his vacant gaze that made her stop.

‘How are you?’ she asked.

Simon was still sitting there with his hand open and outstretched, as if he had a present he wanted to give her. He had no strength left for lies.

‘My wife is a drug addict,’ he said.

Anna-Greta looked at the objects in his hand. ‘What’s that?’

‘I don’t know. Amphetamine, I think.’

Simon was on the verge of tears, but managed to pull himself together. If Anna-Greta did know anything about amphetamines, it wasn’t appropriate to discuss it with her. Johan would sometimes come over for a chat, and Anna-Greta would hardly want her son to be spending time with drug addicts. Perhaps she might not even want to rent the house to him any longer.

Simon cleared his throat and said, ‘But it’s under control.’

Anna-Greta gazed at him incredulously. ‘But how can it be?’ When Simon didn’t respond, she asked, ‘So what are you going to do with that?’

‘I don’t know. I thought I might…bury it.’

‘Don’t do that. She’ll just force you to tell her where you’ve hiddenit. I’ve seen how alcoholics behave. I don’t think there can be much difference. Throw it in the sea instead.’

Simon looked out towards the jetty, which seemed to be floating on the sparkling water. He didn’t want to besmirch the place where he went down to swim every morning. ‘Here?’ he asked, as if seeking permission.

Anna-Greta also looked at the jetty and seemed to have the same thought. She shook her head.

‘I was just going to go over to Nåten. If you come with me, you can…dump the rubbish on the way.’

Simone walked down to the jetty with her and stood there at something of a loss as she started up the engine with a practised hand, cast off and told him to climb aboard. Once they had set off he stole a glance at her as she sat by the tiller, gazing out to sea with her eyes narrowed against the sunlight.

She was no great beauty, her cheekbones were far too prominent and her eyes a little too deep-set for that. But she was arresting, and Simon caught himself following a chain of thought like the one he had followed when he came to Domarö for the first time.

Five years, ten years, a lifetime. Would I?

Yes.

He had seen enough of ephemeral beauty in the theatrical world to know that Anna-Greta’s looks were the kind that lasted. One of those blessed individuals who actually grow more beautiful with the passing years.

Anna-Greta caught his eye and Simon blushed slightly, pushing the thought away. She had given no indication that she might have the slightest interest in him in that way, not with a gesture or a word. Besides which he was married, for God’s sake. He had absolutely no right to be thinking like this.

Anna-Greta slowed the engine and nodded