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

over his bald head, which looked indecently naked without the obligatory cap, and asked, ‘How much do you know?’

A couple of the others looked angrily at Elof, since his question implied an admission that there was something to know. Simon shook his head. ‘Not much. But enough to know there’s something wrong.’

Karl-Erik had pulled himself together and was on his way backto his seat. As he passed Simon he spat, ‘And what exactly are you intending to do about it?’

Simon unzipped his jacket to indicate that he intended to stay. He looked at the group, which was tightly closed around an invisible centre, making no move to invite him into the circle. Anna-Greta wouldn’t look in his direction, which he found hurtful. Despite his bad feeling, he hadn’t wanted to believe it would be like this.

What are they so afraid of?

It couldn’t be anything else. They sat there like some little sect, fearfully protecting their secret and their belief, terrified of any intrusion. What Simon couldn’t understand was that Anna-Greta was part of this. If there was ever a person he had met in his life who didn’t seem to be afraid of anything, it was her. But here she sat now, her eyes darting everywhere, focusing anywhere but on him.

‘I’m not intending to do anything,’ said Simon. ‘What could I do? But I want to know.’ He raised his voice. ‘Holger!’

Holger, who had been deep in thought, jumped and looked up. Simon asked, ‘What really happened to Sigrid?’

Perhaps Holger hadn’t really picked up on any of the previous aggression towards Simon, because he answered sourly, as if Simon already knew, ‘That’s exactly what we’re talking about.’

Simon was about to say something ironic about the fact that he thought they were talking about the mission house, but if he did that they could carry on attacking him and bickering until the cows came home, so instead he folded his arms and simply said, ‘I’m not going anywhere. It’s up to you how you deal with that.’

At last Anna-Greta was looking at him. Her gaze was direct and impossible to interpret. There was no love in it. No loathing or any other emotion either. She was a function looking at another function and trying to assess it. She looked at him for a long time, and Simon looked back. The sea lay between them. In the end she clamped her lips together, nodded briefly and said, ‘Would you be kind enough to go out for a couple of minutes, at least? So that we can come to a decision.’

‘About what?’

‘About you.’

Simon considered the matter and decided this was a reasonable request. With exaggerated care he zipped up his jacket and went out. Just before the door closed he heard Karl-Erik say, ‘Bloody summer visitors, they think…’ then the door closed on the rest of his comment.

Simon walked a few metres away from the mission house and stood there contemplating the autumn. The thicket of dog roses next to the mission house wall was covered in rosehips, red and alive like insects. All the leaves were gradually turning yellow, and the rust-coloured roof tiles shone slightly with dampness. Odd chips of gravel sparkled on the path when a shaft of sunlight penetrated through the foliage.

The loveliest place on earth.

It wasn’t the first time he had thought that. Particularly in the autumn, he had often been brought to a standstill in admiration of the beauty of Domarö. How could this be a depopulated community, why didn’t everyone want to live here?

He walked a little way along the track, drinking in more of the autumn’s miracles: the clear water in the rock pools, the wet tree trunks, the moss saturated with green dampness. The white-painted tower of the alarm bell, stretching up towards the sky. He wasn’t thinking about anything other than what was before his eyes. He knew he could think about something else, about the change that was perhaps about to take place, but he refused. Maybe he was saying a kind of goodbye.

He had been ambling about in this way for perhaps five minutes when the mission house door opened. Anna-Greta came out and waved him over. He couldn’t tell from her face what the decision was, and she turned away before he reached her.

When Simon walked back into the warmth he had no need to ask. An extra chair had been drawn into the circle, between Johan Lundberg and Märta Karlsson, who used to run the shop before herson took over. Simon didn’t know if it was deliberate, but he had been placed opposite Anna-Greta.

He took off his jacket, hung it over the back of the chair and sat down with his elbows resting on his knees. Karl-Erik was two seats away to the left, sitting as if he were holding a barrel of nitro-glycerine on his lap. If he moved or slackened his grip, he would explode.

Anna-Greta looked around the group and licked her lips. She had obviously been nominated as chair. Or perhaps she always had taken that role.

‘First of all,’ she said, ‘I want you to tell us how much you know. And how you know.’

Simon shook his head. ‘So that you can work out what to tell me? No. It seems as if you’ve decided…’ Simon glanced briefly at Karl-Erik. ‘…that I’m allowed to know. So tell me.’

Anna-Greta looked at him in that way again. But there was a difference. It took Simon a moment to work out what it was. Then he realised: she was embarrassed. All this was her fault, because she was the one who was Simon’s partner. He was her responsibility.

Elof Lundberg slapped his hands down on his knees and said, ‘We can’t sit here all day. Tell him. Start with Gåvasten.’

So she did.

Gåvasten

It was a hazardous business, being a fisherman in the olden days, before meteorology. There were no forecasts to consult, nothing to tell you how much of its better nature the sea was planning to show; or whether