Echoes From the Dead

26

It wasn’t the young nurse who opened the heavy door of Martin Malm’s house this time. It was an elderly woman with long gray hair, dressed in a blouse and pale-colored pants. Gerlof recognized her: Martin’s wife, Ann-Britt Malm.

“Good afternoon,” said Gerlof.

The woman was standing stiffly in the doorway. Her pale face remained serious; he could see that she didn’t recognize him.

“Gerlof Davidsson,” he said, moving his cane into his left hand and holding out his right hand. “From Stenvik.”

“Oh yes,” she said. “Gerlof, yes, of course. You were here last week, with a woman.”

“That was my daughter,” said Gerlof.

“I was at the window upstairs when you were leaving, but when I asked Ylva, she couldn’t remember your names,” said Ann-Britt Malm.

“Not to worry,” said Gerlof. “I really wanted a chat with Martin about old times, but he wasn’t too well. Perhaps he’s feeling a bit better today?”

The ice-cold wind from the sound was on his back, and Gerlof was trying not to shiver. But he was desperate to get inside, into the warmth of the house.

“Martin isn’t really much better today,” said Ann-Britt Malm.

Gerlof nodded sympathetically. “But a little bit better, maybe?” he said, feeling like a door-to-door salesman. “I won’t stay long.” He didn’t move from the doorway.

In the end she relented.

“We can see how he’s feeling,” she said. “Come in.”

Gerlof turned before he went in, and looked back toward the street.

John was still sitting in his car. Gerlof nodded to him. “Thirty minutes,” he’d told him. “If they let me in, come back in thirty minutes.”

Now John raised a hand and started the engine. He drove away.

Gerlof walked into the warmth, and his limbs gradually stopped shaking. He put his briefcase down on the stone floor of the large hallway, and took off his coat.

“It’s almost like winter out there today,” he said to Ann-Britt Malm.

She merely nodded, clearly uninterested in small talk.

The door on one side of the room was ajar, and she went over and pushed it open. Gerlof followed her.

It led into a larger room, a drawing room. The air was musty and stuffy, and there was the smell of stale cigarette smoke. Several windows looked out onto the back garden, but the dark curtains were closed. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, swathed in white fabric. There were tiled stoves in two of the room’s corners, and in a third a television was showing cartoons, with the sound turned low.

The Flintstones, Gerlof noticed.

A wheelchair was positioned in front of the television; in it an old man was slumped, a blanket over his knees. His bald head was pitted with dark liver spots, and an old white scar ran across his forehead. His body shook constantly.

This was Martin Malm, the man who had sent Jens’s sandal.

“You’ve got a visitor, Martin,” said Ann-Britt.

The old shipowner jerked his head from the television. His gaze fastened on Gerlof and stayed there.

“Good afternoon, Martin,” said Gerlof. “How are you?”

Malm’s quivering chin dropped an inch or so in a brief nod.

“Are you feeling all right?”

Malm shook his head.

“No? Me neither,” said Gerlof. “We get the health we deserve.”

On the television screen Fred Flintstone jumped into his car and disappeared in a cloud of dust.

“Would you like some coffee, Gerlof?” asked Ann-Britt.

“No, thanks, I’m fine.”

Gerlof sincerely hoped she wasn’t intending to stay in the room.

Evidently she wasn’t. Ann-Britt Malm turned with her hand on the doorknob and looked at Gerlof for one last time, as if they understood one another.

“I’ll be back in a while,” she said.

Then she went out and closed the door.

Everything went very silent in the drawing room.

Gerlof stood still for a few moments, then went over to a chair by the wall. It was several yards away from Martin, but Gerlof knew he hadn’t the strength to drag it over to Martin, so he sat down on it where it was.

“There we are, then,” he said. “We can have a little chat now.”

Malm was still staring at him.

Gerlof noticed that the drawing room was free of maritime reminders, in contrast to the hallway and his own room at the home in Marnäs. There were no pictures of ships here, no framed charts, no old compasses.

“Don’t you miss the sea, Martin?” he asked. “I do. Even on a windy day like this, when you shouldn’t go out. But I’ve still got this...” He held up his briefcase. “I used to have all my papers in here when I was out at sea, and it’s still more or less in one piece. And I wanted to show you something...”

He opened the briefcase and took out the memoir about Malm Freight, then went on:

“You’ll recognize this, I’m sure. I’ve often looked at it and learned a lot about all your ships and your adventures at sea, Martin. But there’s a photograph here which is particularly interesting.”

He opened the book at the page with the photograph from Ramneby.

“This one,” he went on. “It’s from the end of the fifties, isn’t it? Before you bought your first Atlantic ship.”

He looked up at Martin Malm and saw that he had managed to capture the old shipowner’s attention. Malm was staring at the picture, and Gerlof could see his right hand twitching, as if he wanted to raise it and point at the picture.

“Do you recognize yourself?” he asked. “I’m sure you do. And the ship? That’s Amelia, isn’t it? She used to lie beside my Wavebreaker at the quay here in Borgholm.”

Martin Malm was staring at the picture without speaking. He was breathing heavily, as if there weren’t enough air in the room.

“Do you remember where it was taken, this picture? I mostly took engine oil to Oskarshamn when I was sailing around Småland, but this is further south, isn’t it?”

Martin didn’t reply, but he still hadn’t taken his eyes off the old photograph Gerlof was holding up. The row of men on the jetty stared back at him, and Gerlof noticed that Martin’s chin had begun to tremble uncontrollably again.

“It’s Ramneby sawmill, isn’t it? There’s no caption, but Ernst Adolfsson recognized the place. When this picture was taken, it was still possible to make a living sailing just one cargo ship. Just about, anyway...” Gerlof pointed at the picture again. “And this is the owner of the sawmill himself, August Kant. The brother of Vera Kant in Stenvik. You knew August pretty well, didn’t you? You two did quite a bit of business together.”

Martin tried to get out of the wheelchair to move closer to Gerlof. At least that’s how it seemed; his shoulders were twitching and he was panting, his legs tensing against the footplates of the wheelchair. He was still staring at the photograph, and he opened his mouth.

“Frr-shoff,” he said in a thick voice.

“Sorry?” said Gerlof. “What did you say, Martin?”

“Frr-shoff,” said Martin again.

Gerlof looked at him in confusion, and lowered the book with the picture from the sawmill. What had Martin said? Free something, it sounded like.

Or had he perhaps said a name — Fridolf?

Or Fritiof?