The Darkest Room

3

Tilda Davidsson was sitting with her bag containing the tape recorder in a corridor at the residential home for the elderly in Marnäs, outside the room of her relative Gerlof Davidsson. She wasn’t alone; on a sofa further down the corridor two small white-haired ladies had sat down, perhaps waiting for afternoon coffee.

The women were talking nonstop, and Tilda found herself listening to their quiet conversation.

It was conducted in a discontented, troubled tone, like a long series of drawn-out sighs.

“They’re always on the move, flying all over the place,” said the woman closest to Tilda. “One trip abroad after another. The further away, the better.”

“You’re absolutely right, they certainly don’t begrudge themselves anything these days,” said the other woman, “indeed they don’t…”

“And the money they spend… when they’re buying

things for themselves,” said the first one. “I rang my youngest daughter last week and she told me she and her husband were buying another new car. ‘But you’ve got a lovely car,’ I said. ‘Yes, but everybody else in our street has changed their car this year,’ she said.”

“That’s all they do, buy, buy, buy, all the time.”

“That’s right. And they don’t keep in touch, either.”

“No they don’t…My son never rings, not even on my birthday. It’s always me who rings him, and then he never has time to chat. He’s always on his way somewhere, or there’s something he wants to watch on TV.”

“And that’s another thing-they’re always buying television sets, and they have to be the size of a house these days…”

“And new refrigerators.”

“And stoves.”

Tilda didn’t get to hear any more, because the door to Gerlof’s room opened.

Gerlof’s long back was slightly bent and his legs were shaking just a little-but he was smiling at Tilda like an old man without a care in the world, and she thought he looked more alert today than when she had seen him the previous winter.

Gerlof, who was born in 1915, had celebrated his eightieth birthday in the summer cottage down in Stenvik. Both his daughters had been there, his eldest daughter, Lena, with her husband and children, and her younger sister, Julia, with her new husband and his three children. That day Gerlof’s rheumatism had meant that he had to sit in the same armchair all afternoon. But now he was standing in the doorway leaning on his stick, wearing a waistcoat and dark gray gabardine trousers.

“Okay, the weather forecast has finished,” he said quietly.

“Great.”

Tilda got up. She had had to wait before going into Gerlof’s room, because he had to listen to the weather forecast.

Tilda didn’t really understand why it was so important-he was hardly likely to be going out in this cold-but presumably keeping an eye on the wind and the weather was a routine left over from his days as captain of a cargo ship on the Baltic.

“Come in, come in.”

He shook hands with her just inside the door-Gerlof wasn’t the kind of person who hugged people. Tilda had never even seen him pat anyone on the shoulder.

His hand was firm as it grasped hers. Gerlof had gone to sea as a teenager, and despite the fact that he had come ashore twenty-five years ago, the calluses were still there from all the ropes he’d hauled, all the boxes of cargo he’d lifted, and the chains that had torn the skin from his fingers.

“So what’s the weather got in store, then?” she asked.

“Don’t ask.” Gerlof sighed and sat down on one of the chairs by his small coffee table, his legs stiff. “The radio station has changed the time when the forecast starts yet again, so I missed the local temperatures. But in Norrland it’s going to get colder, so I should imagine it will down here too.” He cast a suspicious glance at the barometer next to the bookcase, then looked out of the window toward the bare trees, and added, “It’s going to be a hard winter this year, a cold, early winter. You can see that by the way the stars shine so brightly at night, especially the Big Dipper. And by the summer.”

“The summer?”

“A wet summer means a hard winter,” said Gerlof. “Everybody knows that.”

“I didn’t,” said Tilda. “But will it make any difference to us?”

“It certainly will. A long, hard winter influences just about everything. The shipping on the Baltic, for example. The ice delays the ships and the profits fall.”

Tilda moved into the room and was confronted by all the memories of Gerlof’s time at sea. On the walls were

black-and-white pictures of his ships, oiled nameplates, and framed ships’ certificates. There were also small photographs of his late parents and his wife.

Time stood still in here, thought Tilda.

She sat down opposite Gerlof and placed the tape recorder on the table between them. Then she plugged in the flat table microphone.

Gerlof gave the recording equipment the same look as the barometer. The tape recorder wasn’t very big, but Tilda could see his eyes flicking back and forth between it and her.

“Are we just going to… talk?” he said. “About my brother?”

“Among other things,” said Tilda. “That’s pretty straightforward, isn’t it?”

“But why?”

“Well, to preserve the memories and stories… before they disappear,” said Tilda, and added quickly, “Of course you’re going to be around for years yet, Gerlof, that’s not what I mean. I just want to record them to be on the safe side. My dad didn’t tell me much about Grandfather before he died, you know.”

Gerlof nodded. “We can talk. But when something’s being recorded, you have to be careful what you say.”

“There’s no problem,” said Tilda. “You can always record over a cassette tape.”

Gerlof had agreed to the recording almost without thinking when she had called him in August and said she was moving to Marnäs, but it still seemed to be making him a bit tense.

“Is it on?” he said quietly. “Is the tape running?”

“No, not yet,” said Tilda. “I’ll tell you when.”

She pressed down the Record button, saw that the tape was running, and nodded encouragingly at Gerlof.

“Right… we’ve started.” Tilda straightened up, and it seemed to her that her voice was more tense and formal than usual as she went on: “This is Tilda Davidsson, and I am in

Marnäs with my grandfather Ragnar’s brother Gerlof, to talk about our family… and about my grandfather here in Marnäs.”

Gerlof leaned forward a little stiffly toward the microphone and corrected her in a clear voice: “My brother Ragnar did not live in Marnäs. He lived on the coast outside Rörby, south of Marnäs.”

“Thank you, Gerlof… and what are your memories of Ragnar?”

Gerlof hesitated for a few seconds.

“There are a lot of good memories,” he said eventually. “We grew up together in Stenvik in the twenties, but then of course we chose completely different professions… he bought a little cottage and became a farmer and a fisherman, and I moved down to Borgholm and got married. And bought my first cargo ship.”

“How often did you see each other?”

“Well, whenever I was home from sea, a couple of times a year. Around Christmas and sometime in the summer. Ragnar usually came down to us in town.”

“Were there celebrations then?”

“Yes, especially at Christmas.”

“What was it like?”

“Crowded but good fun. Lots of food. Herring and potatoes and ham and pig’s trotters and dumplings. And of course Ragnar always brought plenty of eel with him, both smoked and pickled, and lots of cod soaked in lye…”

The more Gerlof talked, the more he relaxed. And so did Tilda.

They carried on talking for another half hour or so. But after a long story about a windmill fire in Stenvik, Gerlof raised a hand and waved feebly. Tilda realized he was tired, and quickly switched off the tape recorder.

“Fantastic,” she said. “It’s amazing how much you remember, Gerlof.”

“The old family stories are still in my head, I’ve heard

them so many times. Telling stories like this is good for the memory.” He looked at the tape recorder. “Do you think it got anything?”

“Of course.”

She rewound the tape and pressed Play. Gerlof’s recorded voice was quiet and slightly grumpy and repetitive, but it could be heard clearly.

“Good,” he said. “That’ll be something for those researchers into ordinary people’s lives to listen to.”

“It’s mostly for me,” said Tilda. “I wasn’t even born when Grandfather died, and Dad was no good at telling stories about the family. So I’m curious.”

“That comes with the years, as you acquire more and more of a past to look back on,” said Gerlof. “You start to get interested in where you came from, I’ve noticed that with my daughters too…How old are you now?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“And you’re going to be working here on Öland?”

“I am. I’ve finished all my training.”

“How long for?”

“We’ll see. Until next summer, at any rate.”

“That’s nice. It’s always good when young people come here and find work. And you’re living here in Marnäs?”

“I’ve got a one-bedroom place just by the square. You can see south along the coast…I can almost see Grandfather’s cottage.”

“It’s owned by another family now,” said Gerlof, “but we can go down there and take a look at it. And at my cottage in Stenvik, of course.”

Tilda left the Marnäs home just after half past four, with the tape recorder in her rucksack.

When she had fastened her jacket and set off on the road toward the small center of Marnäs, a young lad drove past her on a pale blue puttering scooter heading in the opposite

direction. She shook her head at him to show what she thought of scooters driving fast, but she didn’t catch his eye. Twenty seconds later he was long gone.

Once upon a time Tilda had thought that fifteen-year-old boys on scooters were the coolest thing in the world. Nowadays they were more like mosquitoes, she thought-small and irritating.

She adjusted her rucksack and carried on toward Marnäs. She was intending to call in at work for a while, even though she didn’t officially start until the following day, and then go back to her little apartment and carry on unpacking. And ring Martin.

The puttering of the scooter behind her hadn’t completely died out, and now it was getting louder again. The young rider had turned around somewhere over by the church and was on his way back into town.

This time he had to pass Tilda on the sidewalk. He slowed down slightly, but revved the engine menacingly and tried to swing past her. She looked him in the eye and positioned herself directly in his way. The scooter stopped.

“What?” yelled the boy over the noise of the engine.

“You’re not allowed to ride a scooter on the sidewalk,” said Tilda just as loudly. “It’s illegal.”

“Yeah, right.” The boy nodded. “But you can drive faster along here.”

“You can also run over someone.”

“Whatever,” said the boy, giving her a bored look. “Are you going to call the cops?”

Tilda shook her head. “No, I’m not, because-”

“There aren’t any cops here anymore.” The boy twisted the accelerator on the handle of the scooter. “They shut the cop shop two years ago. There are no cops anywhere in the north of Öland.”

Tilda was tired of trying to shout over the puttering engine. She leaned quickly forward and pulled the cable out of the ignition. The scooter immediately fell silent.

“There are now,” she said, quietly and calmly. “I’m a cop and I’m here.”

“You?”

“I start today.”

The boy stared at her. Tilda took her wallet out of her jacket pocket, opened it up, and showed him her ID. He looked at it for a long time, then he looked back at her with a respectful expression.

People always looked differently at someone when they knew they were a police officer. When Tilda was in uniform, she even looked at herself differently.

“Name?”

“Stefan.”

“Stefan what?”

“Stefan Ekström.”

Tilda got out her notebook and wrote down his name.

“This is just a warning, but next time it’ll be a fine,” she said. “Your scooter has been modified. Have you bored out the cylinder?”

Stefan nodded.

“Then you’d better get off and walk home with it,” said Tilda. “Then you can sort out the engine so that it’s legal.”

Stefan climbed off.

They walked in silence side by side toward the square in Marnäs.

“Tell your pals the cops are back in Marnäs,” said Tilda. “The next modified scooter I see will be impounded, and there’ll be a fine.”

Stefan nodded again. Now he’d been caught he seemed to regard it as something of a coup.

“You got a gun?” he asked as they arrived in town.

“Yes,” said Tilda. “Under lock and key.”

“What kind?”

“A Sig Sauer.”

“Have you shot anybody with it?”

“No,” said Tilda. “And I’m not intending to use it here.”

“Okay.”

Stefan looked disappointed.

She had agreed with Martin that she would call him around six, before he went home from work. Before that she had time to take a look at her future workplace.

The new police station in Marnäs was on a side street a couple of blocks from the square, the police shield above the door still wrapped in white plastic.

Tilda took the station keys out of her pocket. She had collected them the previous day down at the police station in Borgholm, but when she got to the front door it was already unlocked. She could hear men’s voices inside.

The station consisted of just one room, with no reception area. Tilda vaguely remembered that there used to be a candy store here when she visited Marnäs as a child. The walls were bare, there were no curtains, and no rugs on the wooden floor.

Two burly middle-aged men were standing inside, wearing jackets and outdoor shoes. One of them was in the dark blue police uniform, the other in civilian clothes with a green padded jacket. They fell silent and quickly turned toward Tilda, as if she had interrupted them in the middle of an inappropriate joke.

Tilda had met one of them before, the one in civilian clothes-Inspector Göte Holmblad, who was in charge of the local police. He had short gray hair and a permanent smile playing around the corners of his mouth, and he seemed to recognize her.

“Hi there,” he said. “Welcome to the new district.”

“Thank you.” She shook hands with her boss and turned to the other man, who had thinner black hair, bushy eyebrows, and was in his fifties. “Tilda Davidsson.”

“Hans Majner.” His handshake was firm, dry, and brief. “I guess the two of us will be working together up here.”

He didn’t sound completely convinced that this would work out well, thought Tilda. She opened her mouth to say something in agreement, but Majner carried straight on:

“Of course I won’t be around too much to start with. I’ll look in now and again, but I’ll be working mostly from Borgholm. I’m keeping my desk there.”

He smiled at the local police chief.

“Right,” said Tilda, suddenly realizing that she was going to be more alone as a police officer on northern Öland than she had thought. “Are you working on a particular project?”

“You could say that,” said Majner, looking out of the window at the street, as if he could see something suspicious out there. “Drugs, of course. That kind of crap comes onto the island, just like everywhere else.”

“This is your desk, Tilda,” said Holmblad from over by the window. “We’ll be getting computers installed, of course, fax machines… and a police radio unit over here. For the time being, you’ll just have to manage with the telephone.”

“Okay.”

“In any case, you’re not going to be sitting around in the office much; quite the opposite, in fact,” said Holmblad. “That’s the idea of the local policing reforms: you need to be out there, a visible presence on the streets. The focus is traffic offenses, criminal damage, petty theft, and break-ins. The less complex investigations. And youth crime, of course.”

“Suits me,” said Tilda. “I stopped a modified scooter on the way here.”

“Good, good.” Her boss nodded. “So you’ve shown that there’s a police presence here again. And next week is the official opening ceremony. The press have been invited. Newspapers, local radio… You’ll be available then?”

“Of course.”

“Good, good. And I expect your work here will be… well, I know you’ve just come from Växjö, and here on the island you’re bound to be working more independently. For

better or worse. More freedom to organize your working day as you wish, but also more responsibility… I mean, it takes half an hour to get here from Borgholm, and the station there isn’t manned all the time. So if anything happens, it could take a while before you get any help.”

Tilda nodded. “At the police training academy we often practiced situations where backup was delayed. My tutors were very keen on-”

Majner snorted over by his desk. “The tutors at the training academy haven’t got a clue about the reality of the situation,” he said. “It’s a long time since they were out on the job.”

“They were very competent in Växjö,” said Tilda quickly.

This was like sitting right at the back in the police van as a new recruit-you were expected to keep your mouth shut and let the older ones do the talking. Tilda had hated it.

Holmblad looked at her and said, “All I’m saying is that it’s important for you to bear in mind the long distances here on the island before you go into a problematic situation alone.”

She nodded. “I hope I’ll be able to deal with any problems that arise.”

The police chief opened his mouth again, possibly to continue his lecture-but at that moment the telephone on the wall rang.

“I’ll get that,” he said, striding over to the desk. “It might be from Kalmar.”

He picked up the phone.

“Marnäs police station, Holmblad.”

Then he listened.

“Where?” he said.

He was silent again.

“Right,” he said eventually. “We’d better get out there.”

He put the phone down.

“That was Borgholm. The emergency number has had a call about an accidental death on northern Öland.”

Majner got up from his empty desk. “Local?”

“By the lighthouses off Eel Point,” said Holmblad. “Anyone know where that is?”

“Eel Point is south of here,” said Majner. “Four or five miles, maybe.”

“Okay, we need to take the car,” said the chief of police. “The ambulance is already on its way… evidently it’s an accidental drowning.”

Once the two lighthouses had been built, there was a sense of security around Eel Point, for both ships and people. At least that’s what the men who built them believed, they believed that life on the coast was safe and secure for all time. The women knew this was not always the case.

Death was closer in those days, it came into the houses.

In the hayloft of the old barn there is a woman’s name, hastily carved into the wall: BELOVED CAROLINA 1868. Carolina has been dead for more than a hundred and twenty years, but she has whispered to me through the wall about what could happen at Eel Point-in what is sometimes referred to as the good old days.

– MIRJA RAMBE