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

she was walking across the water. The little body, the soft skin, the muscles tucked into her warm suit. A patch of red that was moving closer, but which dissolved when he tried to focus his gaze on it.

He whispered, ‘Where are you? Where are you?’

No reply. Just the lapping of the sea against the rocks and the single constantly repeated message from Gåvasten, the message of every lighthouse: Here I am, here I am. Be careful, be careful.

Anders stood by the window staring out into the darkness until the draught through the frame made him shiver, and he went back into the kitchen.

Elin was lying across the table, her head resting on her arms. He shook her shoulder and she looked up in confusion. ‘You’d better go to bed.’ He gestured towards the bedroom. ‘Take the big bed.’

Elin disappeared into the bedroom and Anders stayed at the kitchen table, drank more wine and smoked several cigarettes. He stared at the words scratched into the surface of the table.

Carry me.

Anders nodded drunkenly and clasped his hands as if in prayer, whispering, ‘I will. I will. But where will I find you? Where are you?’

Perhaps half an hour had passed when Elin came out of the bedroom with the quilt wrapped around her. Her fingers scrabbled nervously at the fabric of the cover. Anders closed one eye so that he could see her more clearly. She looked as wretched as it is physically possible to look.

‘Can’t you come to bed as well?’ she asked. ‘I’m so bloody scared.’

Anders went into the bedroom with her and lay down beside her on top of the quilt. One hand came creeping out and found his.

What does it matter? What does it fucking matter?

He took her hand and squeezed it as if to say that everything was OK, that there was nothing to worry about. When he tried to let go, her grip tightened and he didn’t pull away. The beam of the lighthouse at North Point swept through the room, flashing across the wall opposite and making the profile of Elin’s flattened nose stand out. He lay there looking at it, and when the beam had swept past perhaps ten times, he asked again, ‘Why are you doing this? Having all this surgery?’

‘I have to.’

Anders blinked and realised he was feeling sleepy. His thoughts were far from lucid, but the suspicion of a theory came into his head, and he asked, ‘Is it…a punishment?’

Elin was silent for a long time, and he thought she wasn’t going to answer. The lighthouse beam had swept past many times before she finally said, ‘I suppose it is,’ let go of his hand and rolled over on to her side.

Anders lay there thinking about crime and punishment, the balance that is perhaps built into the world and into the souls of men. He didn’t come up with anything, and his reasoning had begun to dissolve into disjointed images when he came to his senses, and heard from Elin’s breathing that she was asleep. He got up, undressed and climbed into Maja’s bed.

Sleep refused to come. He had probably nodded off for a few minutes in the big bed, and now he was wide-awake. He counted the flashes of the lighthouse and had reached two hundred and twenty; he was just considering switching on the bedside light and reading a Bamse comic when he saw Elin getting out of bed.

He thought she was going to the toilet. But there was something wrong with her movements. She walked towards his bed without seeing him. In only her bra and pants her body was shapeless, swollen,and when the light illuminated her face he was suddenly scared, and cowered as if expecting a blow.

The monster is coming for me.

But she passed him, oblivious, and the fear died away. Elin opened the door with the movements of a sleepwalker and went out of the room. Anders hesitated for a few seconds, then got up, pulled on his shirt and followed her.

She went through the kitchen and into the hallway, but instead of turning off towards the toilet, she carried on towards the front door. When she started fiddling with the catch to open the door, he went up to her.

‘Elin, what are you doing?’ he said to her back, without getting any reaction. ‘You can’t go outside like that.’

The lock clicked and she pushed down the handle. He grabbed her shoulder. ‘Where are you going?’ She stiffened in his grip and answered without turning around, ‘Home. I’m going home.’

When the door opened and cold air swept in over his bare feet, he gripped her shoulder more firmly and turned her to face him. ‘You can’t. You have no house to go to.’ He grabbed her other shoulder too and shook her. Her expression was absent.

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

Elin looked vacantly at him. Her lips were moving jerkily, as if she were saying what, what, what, what, without being able to produce any sound. Then she shook her head slowly and repeated, ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

‘No. Come on.’

He drew her back into the hallway, closed and locked the door. She allowed herself to be led back to bed, where she fell asleep immediately. Anders had no key to the bedroom door, so he jammed a chair under the handle and hoped he would hear if she tried to get out again.

What if she does? It’s not my responsibility.

He slid into Maja’s bed again and noticed to his surprise that his body had now decided he could sleep, if he wanted to. He did want to. He closed his eyes and soon slipped down into rest on a gentlysloping plane. His last thought before he fell asleep was: As if I didn’t have enough.

After the fire

Only blackened beams and grey sludge remained after the fire service had done their work. Hundreds of cubic metres of sea water had been pumped over and around the burning house, and despite the fact