Sail of Stone

35

Winter called Donsö. Erik Osvald answered. He had come home late at night. The catamaran from Frederikshavn had been delayed considerably by wind and rough seas.

“You feel a little powerless,” said Osvald, and Winter wasn’t sure what he was referring to.

But Osvald had spoken of lack of control, his own control.

He mentioned the latest trip, spontaneously, without Winter having asked. The news from Johanna that had come at an “exciting” time at sea.

He talked and Winter listened. It was like a need Osvald had, in order to channel his sadness.

“In the best case you find a type of fish that there’s no quota for. And preferably one of the biggest fishes. And it seems like we’ve succeeded in doing that now.”

“What is it?” asked Winter.

“Anglers and crawfish,” said Osvald. “We’ve found a hiding spot. We searched and then we found an area where they were moving in the same… well, area; no one has been in that exact spot before because it’s a really rough bottom. And we got an awful lot of anglers.”

“That’s an expensive fish,” said Winter.

“We brought up several million anglers,” said Osvald.

“Good.”

“But we ripped up a lot of trawls. That fish stays pretty stuck to the bottom; it’s really easy to just scrape their backs. But we managed to dig up quite a few.”

“All right.”

“It’s listed as a ‘miscellaneous’ species in Norwegian waters,” Osvald said, and Winter thought he heard a note of wonder in his voice.

“Can I come out there for an hour?” asked Winter.

“Why?”

“There are a few things I’d like to ask you.”

“Can’t you do it over the phone?”

“I’d prefer not to.”

“Uh… when?”

“I can be on Donsö in just over an hour.”

“There’s no boat that goes then, is there?”

“I’ve arranged one,” said Winter.

“Oh, I see. You were sure I’d be here?”

“No,” said Winter. “Have you found the letters?”

When they’d last met, they had decided that Osvald and Johanna would try to find John Osvald’s letters home to his family. If it was possible.

“There are a few,” Osvald said. “They were among Dad’s things.” He paused. “I’ve actually never seen them.” He paused again. “I haven’t read them yet.”

“I’ll be there in an hour,” said Winter.

“So that’s what this is about?” asked Osvald.

Osvald met him on the dock. He was pale. His trawler wasn’t at the quay where it had been before. It was like there was a hole where the boat had been. Winter knew it was on its way back out into the North Sea with the replacement crew on the hunt for anglers, crawfish, cod, haddock. Smoked haddock. No. Danish trawlers, Swedish ones, Scottish ones, on the hunt for whitefish that would be smoked and fried and steamed. The cod fillets would end up on tables in Brussels. Winter thought about what Osvald had said about mad cow disease. It was a complicated world.

Out there they were their own people, a sort of royalty. They were spared the Norwegians, who only had their sights on the Barents Sea. And the Dutch fished only for flatfish; they were no competition.

Winter heaved himself onto the quay from the police boat with Osvald’s help. Some young boys on bikes stared from their group. Osvald made a signal and the group scattered. He smiled. One of the boys bucked his bike like a horse.

“My boy,” said Osvald.

“Will he be a fisherman too?”

“He’ll have the opportunity,” said Osvald. “By the time he’s twenty he’ll have to know what he wants to do.” He took off his cap and scratched his hair, which had started to thin. His forehead was red, chapped by sun and salt and wind. “After that it’s too late.”

“Is it difficult to find a crew?” Winter asked.

“No.”

“Are there many boats from here out at sea?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“There was a generation shift here on Donsö that went wrong.” Osvald had started to walk toward the houses, and Winter followed. “The men were very angry, the ones who were my father’s age, maybe a little older.” Osvald was speaking straight out; he didn’t look at Winter. Screeching gulls circled above them. There was a gull sitting on a section of rock. “They never budged, those men, just kept their crews. And they were really good, but they didn’t let any of the younger ones in.” He looked at Winter. “And then up came the possibility for an uneducated fisherman to be a sailor on the Stena Line, and everyone jumped at the chance.” He gestured with his arm, like a jump from a considerable height. “But of course they couldn’t come back to fishing, not then and not now.”

“Why not?”

“It takes too much money today to get established. You’ve seen my boat. Well, it’s not cheap, three hundred twenty gross tons, thirteen hundred horsepower.” He turned around as though the boat would be there and he could point to it. “If we stopped now we would get a lot of money for it.”

“Would you want to?” asked Winter.

“Stop? Never. The EU wants us to. But I don’t want to.”

Osvald lived in one of the older houses. Both men had to duck as they went in but the ceiling was high inside, an arch of wood above the large room. There was a tall, wide window that let in light and cliffs and sea and horizon. It was a perfect room.

Winter heard a sound from somewhere else in the house, and he turned his head.

“The cat,” said Osvald. “You’re not allergic, are you?”

“I don’t actually know,” said Winter. “I’ve never had a cat.”

“You’ve petted one, right?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I actually never have,” said Winter. It was the first time he’d considered this, and it was really pretty ridiculous. A man over forty who’d never petted a cat in his entire life. He needed a place in the country.

“Now’s your chance,” said Osvald, bending down and grabbing a small, thin, coal-black shorthaired cat under its stomach and holding it out to Winter, who tickled its chin and stroked its head, and that was that. Osvald put the cat down, which took a lithe leap over the doorstep.

“We had that one’s ancestor when, oh, that summer when you and Johanna had a little something going on,” said Osvald.

“I was never here then,” said Winter.

It was true. He could have stood in that room more than twenty years ago and seen the same sea then as he did now, the same angular boulders. This house had been the Osvald siblings’ parents’ home. Erik had taken over, and his father had moved to the annex, and Johanna had her own little house farther up, closer to the school.

“Have you spoken with Johanna?” asked Osvald.

“Yes. Have you?”

“Of course I’ve spoken with her. What do you mean?”

“I mean since you came back. If you’ve heard anything more about the trip home.”

“We chatted this morning,” said Osvald. “The doctor there, the pathologist I guess he’s called, is supposed to analyze something. But I’m sure you know that.”

It depends, thought Winter. I haven’t heard anything today.

“Do you know what it’s about?” Osvald repeated.

“I haven’t heard anything this morning,” said Winter.

“That’s not what I meant.” Osvald looked at him with those pale eyes that reminded him of a blue sky in January, with a faint light around the pupils. They were like everyone’s eyes here. They were exposed to the open light, and no fisherman could wear dark glasses and still retain his honor. Only tourists wore sunglasses on the islands in the southern archipelago. “I mean, the reason he died.”

It was the first time they’d mentioned Axel Osvald.

“I only know what they said before,” said Winter. “That it was a heart attack.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I did then.”

“That’s not what I asked,” said Osvald.

“What’s the alternative?” said Winter.

“That’s a question for you, isn’t it?” said Osvald. “You’re the detective.”

“But if I were to ask you to think about it.”

“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” said Osvald. “I’m not sure that I will get there, either.” He began to walk to the door, stopped. “What is the point of it?”

“I don’t actually know,” said Winter.

“But you don’t seem to have completely accepted that explanation,” said Osvald.

“Did something happen one time when your father traveled to Scotland? When he was looking for clues, or information about what happened to John?”

“He wasn’t looking for clues,” said Osvald.

“No?”

“Not that kind of clues. We had all accepted that Grandpa went down with that ship. With the Marino. He was trying to find information about how it happened. He wasn’t looking for Grandpa, or anything.”

“Did he tell you all of this?”

“Is that so much?”

“Did he tell you what you just said?” Winter asked again.

“More or less,” said Osvald. “That’s what he was thinking, anyway.”

“Then it must have been an enormous shock when that letter came.”

“I don’t know,” said Osvald.

“Weren’t you at home?”

“Yes and no. But I think he, Dad, I think he still believed that nothing new had really happened. That it was more, well, the circumstances.”

“Which are pretty unclear,” said Winter.

“You could say so.”

“How much did he find out about that, then?”

“What people knew in general. The boat goes out and doesn’t come home.”

That was probably the fastest way that the event could be summarized, thought Winter.

“But not all of the old crew was along on that last trip,” said Winter.

“No, which was lucky for them.”

“But why not?”

“There are different explanations depending on who you ask,” said Osvald. “And now there’s no one to ask anymore.” He took another step. “I’ll go get those letters now.”