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

something that had been coming for several years, and now it was a fact. It hadn’t really been a banishment as such, it was more that the gang had spat them out. It was a shame, but there was nothing to be done about it.

The day before Anders was due to go back to the city, he went over to Henrik’s cottage anyway. As he approached the door he could hear the music from inside, ‘There Is a Light That Never Goes Out’. He knocked.

The music was turned off and Henrik opened the door. He looked just the same as always, except that he had more pimples than before. Anders could see a pile of chocolate biscuit wrappers on the floor inside. Henrik made no move to let him in.

‘Hi,’ said Anders. ‘I just…I’m going home tomorrow, so I…I just thought I’d say goodbye.’

A bitter smile distorted Henrik’s mouth. When Anders didn’t say or do anything else, the smile disappeared, and for a couple of seconds Henrik’s face was naked.

‘I didn’t do it,’ he said. ‘Just so you know. I didn’t do it. I just… it was nothing. I brushed against her. And she started screaming.’ Henrik fixed his naked gaze on Anders’ eyes. ‘Do you believe me?’

Anders nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Good.’ Henrik’s face closed down again, that smile came back. He said, ‘In the days when you were hopelessly poor, I just liked you more.’

Anders realised this was a quote, but couldn’t place it, so he simply said, ‘Mm.’

‘Bye then,’ said Henrik, and closed the door.

The following summer the gang had begun to break up from the inside. Someone had gone on an InterRail trip, some had got summer jobs. Henrik and Björn could be seen riding around on the moped,and Anders was the only one who acknowledged them with a nod, but they never stopped to talk.

Strange things had begun to happen in the village. Things disappeared and turned up somewhere else. The notice board outside the shop was pulled down, and one morning a summer visitor who was going for a swim made a horrible discovery. From the lower branch of the pine tree next to the changing room a swan was dangling, hanged by the neck with a steel wire.

Another summer visitor who had three rabbits in a large hutch came out one morning and found them all dead. The only living thing inside the hutch was a neighbour’s famously bad-tempered bulldog. There was nothing to indicate that the dog had dug its way in. It had been taken off its leash and placed inside the hutch.

Suspicion soon fell on Henrik and Björn. They rode around the village generally behaving oddly and negatively. Viciously, you could even say. They were taken to task here and there, but simply denied everything. Since nothing could be proved, nothing could be done. But people started to lock up their possessions and their animals.

The winter came, and The Smiths split up. When Anders was out on Domarö in the week between Christmas and New Year, he saw that Henrik and Björn were going around dressed in mourning, but he didn’t meet them or speak to them.

The following summer he and Cecilia went interrailing for a month, and for the rest of the time Anders worked in a supermarket warehouse. During his winter week that year he didn’t see Henrik and Björn. However, he learned via his father that they had made themselves completely impossible. They didn’t talk to anyone and although they had had a few sessions with the youth psychology team, the vandalism and the nasty little events continued, if on a smaller scale.

When Anders rang his father in February, he heard that Henrik and Björn had drowned. They had set off across the ice on the moped and had fallen through. Neither of them had been wearing a lifejacket, and it had probably happened very quickly.

The village could breathe a sigh of relief. The final expulsion of Hubba and Bubba had taken place. Their parents left the island soon after, and disappeared from the general consciousness. It’s always very sad when young people die, but…

It was finally over.

Nobody loves us

If you exist

In the light of the lamp above the kitchen table, it was easier to see what had happened to Elin, what she had done to herself now. The stitches were still there, and parts of her face were swollen with healing scar tissue, but it was still possible to see what the latest operation aimed to achieve.

Two deep grooves lined with livid scars ran from the outer edge of her nostrils down to the corners of her mouth. Beneath her eyes, which were now deep-set, were angry red patches criss-crossed by a number of thin lines that continued out towards her temples. She had had her wrinkles emphasised. The operations she underwent had the opposite aim of normal plastic surgery. She was making herself older, cruder, uglier.

She had declined the offer of coffee, as she had some difficulty using her mouth, and had wine in a tumbler instead. Anders couldn’t find a straw, so he cut off a piece of thin rubber tubing and gave her that. She sucked down half the glass in one go, and Anders looked at her.

Pitiful.

The mention of Henrik and Björn had reminded him even morepowerfully of what Elin had done, who she had been. Now she sat here eighteen years later with trembling hands, her face in bits, sucking wine through a rubber tube.

Perhaps there is a kind of justice in the world, after all.

Since it was difficult to look at her for any length of time, his gaze wandered across the table, and he noticed that the number of beads on the tile had increased considerably. Another patch of white beads had been added, and a good sixth of the surface was now covered in beads.

Elin sucked up the last of the wine with a loud slurping noise. It was impossible to read her emotions from her face.