The Darkest Room

19

“My daughter called me last night,” said one of the elderly ladies on the sofa next to Tilda.

“Oh yes, what did she say?” asked the other elderly lady.

“She wanted to talk things through.”

“Talk things through?”

“Talk things through, yes,” said the first lady. “Once and for all. She says I’ve never supported her. ‘You only thought about yourself and Daddy,’ she said. ‘All the time. And us kids have always been in second place.’”

“That’s what my son says as well,” said the other lady. “Although with him it’s the exact opposite. He rings before Christmas every year and complains and says that I gave him too much love. I destroyed his childhood, according to him. Don’t you give it another thought, Elsa.”

Tilda stopped eavesdropping and looked at her watch. The weather report should be over by now, and she got up and knocked on Gerlof’s door.

“Come in.”

Gerlof was sitting by the radio when Tilda went in to collect him. He had his coat on, but didn’t seem to want to get up.

“Shall we go?” she said, holding her arm out ready to support him.

“Maybe,” he said. “Where was it we were going?”

“Eel Point,” said Tilda.

“Right… and what exactly is it we’re going to do out there?”

“Well, I suppose we’re going to talk,” said Tilda. “The new owner wants to hear some stories about the place. I said you knew lots of stories.”

“Stories?” Gerlof got up slowly and looked at her. “So now I’m designated as some kind of canny old man, sitting in a rocking chair with twinkling eyes telling tales of ghosts and superstitions?”

“It’ll be fine, Gerlof,” said Tilda. “Just look on yourself as a spiritual mentor. To someone who is grieving.”

“Oh yes? There’s no pleasure in grief, said the old man who sat weeping beside the wrong grave.”

Gerlof set off, leaning on his stick, and added, “We’ll just have to talk some sense into him.”

Tilda took his other arm. “Shall we take the wheelchair?”

“Not today,” said Gerlof. “My legs are working today.”

“Do we need to tell anyone we’re going?”

Gerlof snorted. “It’s nothing to do with them.”

It was Wednesday, the second week in December, and they were on their way out to Eel Point for coffee. Gerlof and the owner of the manor were to meet at last.

“How are things going at work, then?” asked Gerlof as they drove through the center of Marnäs.

“I only have one colleague at the station here in Marnäs,” said Tilda. “And he tends to keep out of the way… he’s usually down in Borgholm.”

“Why?”

Tilda remained silent for a few seconds.

“You tell me… but I happened to bump into Bengt Nyberg from Ölands-Posten yesterday, and he told me that the new police station in Marnäs already has a nickname.”

“Oh?”

“They call it the old women’s station.”

Gerlof shook his head wearily. “That’s what they used to call the train stations on the island that only had female staff in the old days. The male stationmasters didn’t think the women could do the job as well as them.”

“I’m sure they did it better,” said Tilda.

“Well, no one ever complained, as far as I know.”

Tilda drove out of Marnäs and down along the deserted road. The temperature was zero, and the flat coastal landscape seemed to have stiffened into a gray and white winter painting. Gerlof looked out through the windshield.

“It’s so beautiful here by the sea.”

“Yes,” said Tilda. “But you’re biased.”

“I love my island.”

“And you hate the mainland.”

“No, I don’t,” said Gerlof. “I’m not some narrow-minded local patriot… but love always begins at home. Those of us who live on the island have to preserve and defend the dignity of Öland.”

Gerlof’s sullen mood gradually lifted and he became more and more talkative. As they were passing the little churchyard in Rörby, he pointed toward the side of the road.

“Speaking of ghosts and superstitions… would you like to hear a story that my father told every Christmas?”

“Sure,” said Tilda.

“The father of your grandfather and my father was called Carl Davidsson,” Gerlof began. “He worked as a servant over in Rörby when he was a teenager, and he once saw a very strange thing here. His older brother had come to visit

him, and they were out walking here by the church in the twilight hour. It was around New Year, very cold and with plenty of snow. Then they heard a horse-drawn sleigh coming up behind them. His brother glanced over his shoulder, then cried out and grabbed hold of Carl’s arm. He pulled him down off the road and out into the snow. Carl didn’t understand what was going on until he saw the sleigh, which was coming closer along the road.”

“I know this story,” said Tilda. “My father used to tell it.”

But Gerlof carried on, as if he hadn’t heard her:

“It was a load of hay. The smallest load of hay Carl had ever seen, and it was being pulled by four tiny horses. And up in the hay little men were clambering around. They were less than three feet tall.”

“Goblins,” said Tilda. “Weren’t they?”

“My father never used that word. He just said they were little people dressed in gray clothes and hats. Carl and his brother didn’t dare move, because the men didn’t look friendly. But the load drove past the boys without anything happening, and once it had passed the churchyard the horses turned off the road and disappeared out into the darkness on the alvar.” Gerlof nodded to himself. “My father swore it was a true story.”

“Didn’t your mother see goblins too?”

“Yes indeed, she saw a little gray man run straight out into the water when she was young… but that was in southern Öland.” Gerlof looked at Tilda. “You come from a family that has seen many remarkable things. Perhaps you’ve inherited the ability to see things?”

“I hope not,” said Tilda.

Five minutes later they had almost reached the turning for the manor, but Gerlof still wanted to take a break and stretch his legs. He pointed through the windshield to the grassy landscape on the other side of the stone wall.

“The peat bog has started to freeze. Shall we take a look?”

Tilda pulled up at the side of the road and helped Gerlof

out into the cold wind. A thin layer of shining ice covered the watery patches all over the bog.

“This is one of the few old peat bogs left on the island,” said Gerlof as he looked out over the stone wall. “Most of the others have been drained and have disappeared.”

Tilda followed his gaze and suddenly saw a movement out in the water, a black shiver between two thick tussocks of grass that made the film of ice quiver and crack.

“Are there fish in here?”

“Oh yes,” said Gerlof. “I’m sure there are a few old pike… and the eels make their way here in the spring, when the streams created by the melting ice run down into the Baltic.”

“So you can catch them?”

“You can, but nobody does. When I was little, I was told that the flesh of fish caught in the bog had a musty taste.”

“So where does the name come from, then-Offermossen, ‘the Sacrificial Bog’?”

“Sacrifices from the old days,” said Gerlof. “Archaeologists have found Roman gold and silver here, and the skeletons of hundreds of animals that had been thrown into the water-lots of horses.” He fell silent, then added: “And human bones.”

“Human sacrifices?”

Gerlof nodded. “Slaves, perhaps, or prisoners of war. I suppose some powerful person decided that was all they were good for. As far as I understand it, they were pushed down beneath the water with long poles while they were still alive… then the bodies just lay there until the archaeologists found them.” He gazed out over the water and went on: “Perhaps that’s why the eels still come up here, year after year. They probably remember the taste, I mean they like eating the flesh of-”

“Enough, Gerlof.”

Tilda stepped away from the stone wall and looked at him. He nodded.

“Okay, okay, I’m just rambling. Shall we get going?”

Once they had parked the car, Gerlof made his way slowly across the gravel, leaning on his stick and Tilda’s arm. She let go briefly to knock on the glass pane in the kitchen door.

Joakim Westin opened the door after the second knock.

“Welcome.”

His voice was quiet and he looked even more tired than the last time she’d seen him, Tilda thought. But he shook hands with her, even smiled, and his earlier anger over the mix-up with the names seemed to have disappeared.

“I’m very sorry about your loss,” said Gerlof.

Westin nodded. “Thank you.”

“I’m a widower myself.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t the result of an accident, it was a long illness… my Ellen got diabetes, then heart problems.”

“Recently?”

“No, it was many years ago,” said Gerlof. “But of course it’s still hard sometimes. The memories are still strong.”

Westin looked at Gerlof and nodded silently. “Come in.”

The children were at preschool, and the atmosphere in the bright rooms was silent and solemn. Tilda could see that Westin had worked hard over the past few weeks. Almost the whole of the ground floor had been painted and wallpapered, and it was beginning to look like a real home.

“It almost feels like a journey back in time,” she said as they walked into the big drawing room. “Like walking into a nineteenth-century manor house.”

“Thank you,” said Joakim.

He took it as a compliment, despite the fact that Tilda was mainly envious of the size of the room. She still wouldn’t want to live out here.

“Where did you find all the furniture?” asked Gerlof.

“We searched and searched… both here on the island and in Stockholm,” said Joakim. “Large rooms need large pieces of furniture to occupy the space. We’ve often looked for old pieces that we could renovate.”

“That’s a good approach,” said Gerlof. “These days people rarely set any store by their possessions. They don’t repair things that are broken, they simply throw them away. It’s buying things that’s important, not looking after them.”

Tilda realized that he enjoyed going around old houses. For Gerlof the pleasure in seeing beautiful, well-made possessions went hand in hand with the knowledge of the hard work that lay behind them. Tilda had seen him sitting and contemplating items he owned-an old seaman’s chest or a collection of linen hand towels-as if he could feel all the memories they brought with them.

“I imagine you get kind of addicted to this?” asked Gerlof.

“Addicted to what?” said Joakim.

“Fixing up houses.”

He was smiling, but Joakim shook his head.

“It’s not an addiction. It’s not as if we want a new kitchen every year, like some families in Stockholm… and this is only the second house we’ve taken on. Before that we only fixed up apartments.”

“So where was the first house?”

“Outside Stockholm, in Bromma. A beautiful detached house that we renovated from top to bottom.”

“And why did you move? What was wrong with the house?”

Joakim avoided meeting Gerlof’s eye. “There was nothing wrong… we really liked the house. But it’s good to move up to something bigger now and again. Financially, above all.”

“Oh?”

“You take out a loan and find a run-down apartment in a good location and start renovating it in the evenings and on the weekends, while living there at the same time. Then you

find the right buyer and sell it for much more than you paid… then you take out a new loan and buy another rundown apartment in an even better location.”

“And you sell that one too?”

Joakim nodded. “Of course it wouldn’t be possible to make money out of property if the demand for places to live wasn’t so high. I mean, everybody wants to live in Stockholm.”

“Not me,” said Gerlof.

“But lots of people do… prices are going up all the time.”

“So both you and your wife were good at fixing places up?” said Tilda.

“We actually met when we both went to an open house at an apartment,” said Joakim with fresh energy in his voice. “An old lady had been living in a big apartment with a whole lot of cats. The location was perfect, but Katrine and I were the only ones who could put up with the stench, and stayed behind. We went for coffee afterward and talked about what could be done with the place…It became our first project together.”

Gerlof turned and looked around the drawing room, his expression grim. “And of course you’re intending to do the same thing with Eel Point,” he said. “Move in, renovate it, sell it.”

Joakim shook his head. “We’d intended to stay here for many years. We wanted to rent out rooms, maybe even open a small restaurant.” He looked out of the window and added, “We didn’t really have a set plan for everything we wanted to do, but we knew we were going to be happy here…”

His energy had disappeared again, Tilda could see. The silence in the white room was oppressive.

After a tour of the house they sat down in the kitchen with a cup of coffee.

“Tilda said you wanted to hear some stories about the manor,” said Gerlof.

“I’d like that,” said Joakim, “if there are any.”

“Oh, there are,” said Gerlof. “But I suppose you mean ghost stories? Is that the kind of thing you’re interested in?”

Joakim hesitated, as if he was afraid someone might be eavesdropping, then said, “I’d just like to know if anyone else has experienced unusual things here,” he said. “I’ve felt… or imagined I’ve felt… the presence of the dead at Eel Point. Both out by the lighthouses and here inside the manor. Others who have been here seem to have had a similar experience.”

Tilda said nothing, but she was thinking of the October evening when she had waited here for Westin. She had been alone here then-but it hadn’t really felt that way.

“Those who have lived here in times gone by are still here,” said Gerlof, his coffee cup in his hand. “Do you think they rest only in graveyards?”

“But that’s where they’re buried,” said Joakim quietly.

“Not always.” Gerlof nodded toward the expanse of plowed fields at the back of the house. “The dead are our neighbors everywhere here on the island, and you just have to get used to it. The whole countryside is full of old graves… tumuli containing chambers from the Stone Age, burial cairns and cists from the Bronze Age, and the burial grounds of the Vikings.”

Gerlof turned to look out toward the sea, where the horizon had disappeared in a damp winter fog.

“And there’s a churchyard out there too,” he said. “The whole of the east coast is a graveyard for hundreds of ships that ran up on the sandbanks and were smashed to pieces, and for all the sailors who drowned. Many of those who went to sea in days gone by couldn’t even swim.”

Joakim nodded and closed his eyes. “I didn’t believe in anything,” he said. “Before we came here I didn’t believe the dead could come back… but now I don’t know what to believe. A number of remarkable things have happened here.”

Silence fell in the kitchen.

“Whatever you might feel of the dead, or whatever you think you might see,” said Gerlof slowly, “it can be dangerous to let them rule our actions.”

“Yes,” said Joakim quietly.

“And to try to call them up… or ask questions.”

“Questions?”

“You never know what answers you might get,” said Gerlof.

Joakim looked down into his coffee cup and nodded. “But I have wondered about this story that says they will return here.”

“Who?”

“The dead. When I was having coffee with the neighbors, they told me a story: those who have died here at the manor return home every Christmas. I was just wondering if there were any more tales about that?”

“Oh, that’s an old story,” said Gerlof. “It’s told in many places, not just here at Eel Point. The Christmas vigil of the dead, that’s when those who have passed away during the year return for their own Christmas service. Anyone who disturbed them at that time had to run for their life.”

Joakim nodded. “An encounter with the dead.”

“Exactly. There was a strong belief that people would be able to see the dead again… and not only in church. In their homes too.”

“At home?”

“According to folk beliefs, you should place a candle in the window at Christmas,” said Gerlof, “so that the dead can find their way home.”

Joakim leaned forward. “But was that just those who had passed away in the house,” he said, “or other dead people as well?”

“You mean drowned sailors?” said Gerlof.

“Sailors… or other members of the family who have passed away somewhere else. Did they come back at Christmas as well?”

Gerlof glanced briefly at Tilda, then shook his head. “This is just a story, you know,” he said. “There are many superstitions surrounding Christmas… It was the turning point of the year, after all, when the darkness was at its peak and death was at its closest. Then the days grew longer again, and life returned.”

Joakim didn’t say anything.

“I’m looking forward to that,” he said eventually. “It’s so dark now… I’m looking forward to the turning point.”

A few minutes later they were outside saying goodbye. Joakim held out his hand.

“You have a beautiful home out here,” said Gerlof, shaking it. “But be careful of the blizzard.”

“The blizzard,” said Joakim. “It’s supposed to be a really big snowstorm down here, isn’t it?”

Gerlof nodded. “It doesn’t come every year, but I’m pretty sure it will come this winter. And it comes quickly. You don’t want to be outdoors down here by the sea when that happens. Especially not the children.”

“So how do people on Öland know when something like that is coming?” asked Joakim. “Can you feel it in the air?”

“We look at the thermometer and listen to the weather forecasts,” said Gerlof. “The cold has arrived early this year, and that’s usually a bad sign.”

“Okay,” said Joakim with a smile. “We’ll be careful.”

“You do that.” Gerlof nodded and set off toward the car, supported by Tilda, but he suddenly stopped, let go of her arm, and turned around. “One more thing… what was your wife wearing on the day of her accident?”

Joakim Westin stopped smiling. “I’m sorry?”

“Do you remember what clothes she was wearing that day?”

“Yes… but they were nothing special,” said Joakim. “Boots, jeans, and a winter jacket.”

“Have you still got them?”

Joakim nodded, looking tired and tortured again. “The hospital gave them to me. In a parcel.”

“Could I take a look at them?”

“You mean… you want to borrow them?”

“Borrow them, yes. I won’t damage them in any way, I just want to look at them.”

“Okay… but they’re still all parceled up,” said Joakim. “I’ll go and get them.”

He went back into the house.

“Can you take care of the parcel, Tilda?” said Gerlof, setting off toward the car once more.

When Tilda had started the engine and driven out through the gate, Gerlof leaned back in his seat.

“So, we had our little chat,” he said with a sigh. “I suppose I was a bit of a canny old man after all. It’s difficult to avoid it.”

A brown parcel containing Katrine Westin’s clothes was lying on his knee. Tilda glanced at it.

“What was all that business with the clothes? Why did you want to borrow them?”

Gerlof looked down at his knee. “It was just something that occurred to me when we were standing out there by the bog. About how the sacrifices were carried out there.”

“What do you mean? That Katrine Westin was some kind of sacrifice?”

Gerlof looked out through the windshield, over toward the bog. “I’ll tell you more very soon, when I’ve looked at the clothes.”

Tilda pulled out onto the main road.

“This visit worried me a little,” she said.

“Worried?”

“I’m worried about Joakim Westin, and about his children…

It felt as if you were sitting there in the kitchen talking about folktales, while Westin regarded them as reality.”

“Yes,” said Gerlof, “but I think it was good for him to talk a little. He’s still grieving for his wife, which is not so strange after all.”

“No,” said Tilda. “But I thought he talked about her as if she were still alive… as if he were expecting to see her again.”