Echoes From the Dead

14

“That was a story in the twilight hour,” said Astrid quietly.

By the time she’d finished telling the story of Nils Kant, the wine bottle was empty. The glow of the sun had gradually disappeared outside the kitchen window and had become a narrow, dark red line on the horizon.

“So the policeman on the train... he died?” asked Julia.

“The conductor came into the compartment and found him lying there dead,” answered Astrid. “Shot in the chest.”

“Lennart’s father?”

Astrid nodded.

“Lennart must have been eight or nine when it happened, so he probably doesn’t remember much about it,” she said, and added, “But it must have had a terrible effect on him... I know he never wants to talk about how his father died.”

Julia looked down into her wineglass. “I understand why he didn’t want to talk about Nils Kant either,” she said. Thanks to the intoxicating effect of the wine, she was beginning to feel a blossoming sense of closeness to Lennart Henriksson — he had lost a father, she had lost a son.

“No,” said Astrid. “And these rumors about Nils Kant still being alive don’t make it any easier for him.”

Julia looked up at her. “Who’s saying that?” she asked.

“Haven’t you heard people talking about it?”

“No. But I have seen Kant’s grave in Marnäs. There’s a gravestone and the date and...”

“There aren’t many left who remember Nils Kant any longer, but those who do, the older ones... Some of them believe the coffin contained nothing but stones when it came home from overseas,” said Astrid.

“Is that what Gerlof thinks?”

“He’s never said,” replied Astrid. “Not that I’ve heard. Gerlof’s an old sea captain after all, so he’s probably never given much credence to rumors. And that’s all this talk about Nils Kant is... just rumors and gossip. Some people say they’ve seen Nils Kant standing by the side of the road in the autumn fog, watching the cars, with a shaggy beard and gray hair... and others have seen him wandering around out on the alvar, as he did when he was young, or in amongst the crowds in Borgholm in the summer.” Astrid shook her head. “I’ve never seen hide nor hair of Kant. He must be dead.”

She picked up their wineglasses and got up from the table. Julia stayed where she was, wondering whether she and her mother, Ella, would have sat chatting like this in Stenvik, if Ella had still been alive. Probably not; her mother had hardly ever given away what she was thinking.

Then Julia felt something soft and warm against her trouser leg and gasped, but it was only Astrid’s fox terrier Willy, who had padded over to her under the table. She reached down and scratched the coarse hair at the back of his neck, gazing pensively out of the kitchen window at the red afterglow of the sun on the mainland.

“I wish I could stay here,” she said.

Astrid turned from the sink. “You stay right there,” she said. “You don’t need to go, it’s not that late. We can talk some more.”

Julia shook her head. “I mean... I wish I could stay in Stenvik.”

And she did. It might just have been the wine, but at that moment she could feel the memory of all those childhood summers in the village, like the echo of a beautiful melody in her head, an Öland folk song, as if it were here in Stenvik that she really belonged. Despite the pain associated with Jens’s disappearance, despite Ernst’s death.

“Well, can’t you stay here?” said Astrid. “You’re going to Ernst’s funeral up in Marnäs, aren’t you?”

“I need to get the car back to my sister.” It was a very feeble reason; she was the joint owner of the Ford after all, but it was all she could come up with. “I’ll probably go tomorrow evening, or the day after.”

She got up from the table, with a certain amount of difficulty. Her legs were unsteady after the wine.

“Thank you so much for dinner, Astrid,” she said.

“It was a pleasure,” said Astrid, smiling broadly for once. “We must try and meet up again before you go. Or next time you come to Stenvik.”

“We will,” promised Julia. She patted Willy and went out through the kitchen door.

It wasn’t yet night outside, only early evening, and she didn’t need to feel her way home through the pitch darkness.

“Come over to me if you get scared in the dark,” called Astrid behind her. “Just think — there’s only us left in Stenvik now, you and me and John Hagman. There were three hundred people living here at one time. There was a temperance society and a mission house and rows of mills down by the sea. Now there’s only us left.”

Then she closed the kitchen door, before Julia had time to answer.

The intoxication which had been so noticeable in Astrid’s kitchen began to subside out in the fresh air — at least Julia thought so. The evening was clear and cold, and faint lights glimmered far away on the mainland, on the other side of the sound. To the north and south along the Öland coast, more lights glowed from houses and lamps too far away to be visible in daylight.

Julia had kept the key to Gerlof’s cottage, and after a few hundred yards she turned inland. She walked along the village road, striding out as best she could; she glanced into Vera Kant’s garden, and wondered briefly if old Vera had managed to see her beloved son Nils before he died, or not.

The garden was silent and full of shadows. Julia kept walking up to the summer cottage, unlocked the outside door, and switched on the light in the hallway.

No shadows here. Jens was in the cottage, but only as a vague memory. Jens was dead.

She used the cottage bathroom to wash, go to the toilet, and brush her teeth.

When she’d finished, she turned off the hall light, but the last thing she did was to pick up the cell phone, which had been charging all day in the cottage. Standing in the hallway in front of the big window, she dialed Gerlof’s number at the residential home. He answered after three rings.

“Davidsson...”

“Hi, it’s me.”

She always had a guilty conscience when she spoke to Gerlof when she wasn’t entirely sober, but there was nothing she could do about that.

“Hello,” said Gerlof. “Where are you?”

“In the cottage. I had dinner at Astrid’s, and now I’m going back to the boathouse and I’m going to bed.”

“Good. So what did you two talk about?”

Julia thought for a moment. “We talked about Stenvik... and about what happened to Nils Kant.”

“Haven’t you read about it yet, in the book I gave you?” asked Gerlof.

“I haven’t finished reading it yet,” replied Julia, then changed the subject. “Shall we go to Borgholm soon?”

“I’ve been thinking it would be a good idea to go on Tuesday,” said Gerlof, “if I can get out of here. I think we’ll soon need written permission from Boel to leave the premises.”

This was typical of Gerlof’s sense of humor.

“If you can get permission,” retorted Julia, “I’ll come and pick you up at half past nine on Tuesday.”

Then her breath caught in her throat and she leaned against the window.

She could see something out there, a pale light...

“Hello?” said Gerlof. “Are you still there?”

“Is anybody living in the house next door?” asked Julia, her eyes fixed on the window.

“What do you mean, next door?”

“In Vera Kant’s house.”

“Nobody’s lived there for over twenty years. Why?”

“I don’t know...”

Now she couldn’t see any lights over there. And yet she was still certain she’d seen a light flicker in one of the rooms on the ground floor.

“So who owns that house?” she asked.

“Er... it must be distant relatives, I suppose,” said Gerlof. “Second cousins of Vera Kant’s, I think. At any rate, nobody’s shown the slightest interest in maintaining it. You’ve seen the state it’s in... and it was already in a mess when Vera died in the seventies.”

Everything was still dark outside the window.

“Okay,” said Gerlof, “see you tomorrow. And then on Tuesday, we’ll go to Borgholm.”

“So are we going to find the man who took Jens away?”

“I never said that,” said Gerlof. “All I promised to do was to show you the person who sent the sandal to me. That’s all.”

“Isn’t that the same person?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Can you explain why?”

“I’ll do that in Borgholm.”

“Okay,” said Julia, who knew he wouldn’t say more, no matter how hard she implored him. “Tomorrow, then.”

She switched off her cell phone.

On the way down the village road, Julia slowed as she walked past Vera Kant’s house this time. It was dark beneath the dense old trees, and she kept staring up at the big, empty windows. They were all dark. The derelict house formed a big, black shadow against the night sky. The only way to find out if anyone was hiding in there was to... go into Vera’s house and have a look for herself.

But it would be insane to do it, Julia knew that. At least to do it all alone. Vera Kant’s was a ghost house nowadays, but...

What if Jens had gone in there on that day? What if he was still in there?

Come inside, Mummy. Come inside, come and get me...

No. She mustn’t think like that.

Julia walked quickly down to the boathouse, opened the door, and went in. She locked the outside door behind her.