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

The taste was gone now, replaced by the biting sweetness of the wine. Without opening his eyes, Simon asked, ‘Do I belong to Domarö as well now? Am I also…damned?’

‘Presumably. But only you can know that.’

‘How do I know?’

‘You just know.’

Simon nodded slowly and took a sounding in the very depths of himself, let the plumbline sink down through the darkness, the unspoken, the things he knew without being able to put them into words, and found that he reached the bottom sooner than expected. The knowledge was there, but he had not had the tools to find it. He belonged to the sea. He also belonged to the sea. Perhaps he had done so for a long time.

‘Something has happened,’ said Anna-Greta. ‘That’s what we met to talk about today. This business with Sigrid. As far as we know, no one has ever…come back.’

‘But she was dead.’

‘Yes, but even so. It’s never happened before.’

‘So what does it mean?’

Anna-Greta stroked his knee. ‘Well, that’s what we were discussing. When we were interrupted.’

Simon yawned. He tried to put into words one of the many questions writhing around in his head like indolent serpents, but before he managed it Anna-Greta said, ‘There’s something I want to ask you as well.’

‘Oh yes?’

Simon yawned again, he just couldn’t help it. He waved his hand in front of his mouth to indicate that he would have taken away this yawn if he could, but it just wasn’t possible.

Anna-Greta tucked her legs up on the sofa and wrapped her arms around them. Simon sat there blinking, amazed at her suppleness and agility as she built her own little fortress around her like this. It must be fifteen years since he’d been able to do that, if then.

She leaned her chin on her knees and looked intently at him. Then she asked, ‘Will you marry me?’

Despite his best efforts Simon was overcome by yet another enormous yawn which broke his eye contact with Anna-Greta. He held up his hands as if to say No more, no more, and said, ‘That. Is the limit when it comes to what I can cope with during the course of one day. We can talk about that tomorrow.’

What are you looking at?

Anders woke to an unfamiliar aroma, unfamiliar sounds. The aroma was coffee, the sounds were someone moving around in the kitchen, opening drawers and cupboards. He lay in bed for a while and pretended that everything was normal. That the person who had made the coffee and was busy in the kitchen was someone he loved and wanted to be with. That it was another beautiful morning in a good life.

He folded his hands over his stomach and looked out of the window. A cloudy sky with patches of blue, a lovely and probably quite cold day in the middle of October. The smell of coffee was tempting, and he heard the clink of china from the kitchen.

Cecilia is making breakfast. Maja is sitting at the kitchen table, busy with something. I am lying here, ready and rested in…Maja’s bed…

The fantasy was fraying at the edges. The dirt in his body after yet another evening’s drinking and smoking made its presence felt. He looked at his fingers. They were slightly yellow, black beneath the cuticles, and they stank of tobacco. His mouth felt sticky and heleaned over the edge of the bed, found a plastic bottle a third full of diluted wine. He picked it up and drank, hair of the dog.

OK. Back to reality.

The excitement of the previous evening had faded. What Elin had told him about Henrik and Björn’s disappearance had seemed feverishly promising at the time, but in the cold light of morning he could see that this wasn’t necessarily the case. The two events were separate. There wasn’t necessarily any connection, and even if there was, what could he do? Nothing.

He heaved himself out of bed. The floor was cold beneath his bare feet, and he pulled on cold socks and a cold T-shirt. The headache began to pound at his temples. He dragged on his jeans and went into the kitchen.

Elin was just putting bread and cheese on the table. She looked up and said ‘Good morning’. In the bright morning light from the kitchen window she looked fucking awful. He grunted in reply and got a new carton of wine out of the larder, opened it and took a couple of big gulps. Elin was watching him. He didn’t care. The headache was getting worse and he screwed up his eyes, massaged his temples.

‘You’ve got a pretty big problem with alcohol, haven’t you?’ she said simply.

Anders grinned as a quip he’d heard from a stand-up comic shot out of his mouth, ‘I’m a drunk and you’re ugly. I can stop drinking.’

Silence fell, and that was the way Anders wanted it. He poured himself a cup of coffee and looked at the clock. It was after eleven. He had slept longer than usual. Despite Elin’s escape attempt during the night, perhaps her presence had given the room some kind of security that had enabled him to sleep.

He took a couple more swigs of coffee and glanced at her. The headache was easing slightly and his conscience pricked as he saw her sitting there breaking a cheese sandwich into tiny pieces so that she could get it into her mouth. He wanted to say something, but while there are plenty of nasty, smart-arse remarks, the kind that can put something right are harder to come by.

He finished off his coffee and was about to pour her a cup when it occurred to him that she probably wouldn’t be able to drink something that hot. She’d made it for him. He put the cup on the draining board and said, ‘Thanks for the coffee. That was kind of you.’

Elin nodded and took a cautious sip of juice from her glass. The wounds must have healed a little, since she didn’t need to use a straw. What