The Lost Boy

12

‘Can we go out and search for a while?’ Gunnar had a hard time keeping his voice steady as he stood on the wharf.

Peter looked up from what he was doing and seemed on the verge of saying no. Then he gave in.

‘Okay, we can take a short trip around. But it’s Sunday, and I need to get home soon.’

Gunnar stood in silence, gazing straight ahead, his eyes like two dark holes. With a sigh, Peter went into the wheelhouse to start the engine. He helped Gunnar on board, gave him a life jacket, and with an expert hand steered the boat out of the harbour. After they’d gone some distance, he decreased the speed.

‘Where do you want to start searching? We looked around this area when we were out here before, but we didn’t see anything.’

‘I don’t know.’ Gunnar peered out through the windscreen. He couldn’t just sit at home and wait. He couldn’t bear to see Signe sitting motionless on her chair in the kitchen. She had stopped cooking, baking, and sweeping, stopped doing all the things that made her the person she was. And what about him? Who was he, now that Matte was gone? He had no idea. The only thing he knew for sure was that he needed some sort of goal in a life that had lost all meaning for him.

He had to find the boat. That was something he could do, something that would take him away from home, away from the silence and everything that reminded him of his son, away from the house where Matte had grown up. The footprint in the cement in the driveway, which Gunnar had put in when Matte was five. The toothmark on the chest of drawers in the front hall, which happened when Matte came running too fast, slipped on the rug, and struck his front teeth so hard on the drawer that they left two visible dents in the wood. All those small things that showed that Matte had been there, that Matte had been theirs.

‘Head towards Dannholmen,’ said Gunnar. He really had no idea where to look. There was nothing to indicate that the boat might be found in that direction. But it was as good a place as any to start their search.

‘So how are things at home?’ asked Peter cautiously as he focused his attention on steering. Occasionally he would cast a look around to see if the motorboat might have drifted ashore somewhere.

‘Fine, thanks,’ said Gunnar.

That was a lie, because things weren’t fine at all. But what was he supposed to say? How could he describe the emptiness that filled a home after losing a child? Sometimes he was amazed to find himself still breathing. How could he go on living and breathing when Matte was gone?

‘Fine,’ he repeated.

Peter merely nodded. That’s the way it was. People hadn’t a clue what to say. They said the obligatory phrases, the words that were expected of them in such a situation, and they tried to be sympathetic. At the same time, they thanked their lucky stars that they were not the ones who had suffered such a loss. Grateful that their own children, their loved ones, were alive. That was just the way it was. They were only human.

‘You don’t think it could have come untied, do you?’ Gunnar wasn’t sure whether he was talking to Peter or to himself.

‘I don’t think so. If it had, it would have drifted in among the other boats. No, I think somebody must have taken it. Those old wooden boats have been going up in value, so maybe it was a work-for-hire. If that’s the case, we’re not going to find it out here. They usually take them someplace where they can be pulled out of the water and then carted off on a boat trailer.’

Peter turned right and headed past Småsvinningarna. ‘Let’s go out to Dannholmen. After that, we’ll have to turn around and go back. Otherwise my family will start to worry.’

‘Okay,’ said Gunnar. ‘Could we go out again tomorrow?’

Peter looked at him.

‘Sure. Come by around ten, and we’ll go out looking. But only if there are no emergency call-outs for the Coast Guard.’

‘Good. I’ll be there,’ Gunnar said as he continued to peer at the islands.

Mette had invited them over for dinner, as she often did, pretending that it was her turn, even though Madeleine never reciprocated. Madeleine played along, although she felt a pang of humiliation because she was never able to return the invitation. She dreamed of casually saying to Mette: ‘Would you and your kids like to have dinner with us tonight? It won’t be anything fancy.’ But she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t afford to invite Mette and her three children to dinner. She hardly had enough food for Kevin, Vilda, and herself.

‘Are you sure it’s okay?’ she asked as she sat down at the table in Mette’s bustling kitchen.

‘Of course it is. I have to cook a big dinner for my three little pigs, so three more won’t make any difference.’ Mette tenderly ruffled the hair of her middle son, Thomas.

‘Cut it out, Mamma,’ he said, annoyed, but Madeleine could tell that he liked it.

‘A little wine?’ Without waiting for an answer, Mette poured her a glass from the red wine that came in a box.

She turned around and stirred the pots on the stove. Madeleine sipped her wine.

‘Are you keeping an eye on the kiddies?’ Mette called into the other room. Two voices said ‘yes’ in reply. Her two youngest children, a ten-year-old girl and Thomas, who was thirteen, were watching Kevin and Vilda, who were drawn to them like magnets. Her oldest, a boy of seventeen, was seldom home any more.

‘It’s more likely that my kids are bothering yours,’ said Madeleine, taking another sip of her wine.

‘Not at all. They love them, and you know it.’ Mette wiped her hands on the tea towel, poured herself a glass of wine, and sat down across from Madeleine.

In terms of appearance, two women couldn’t be less alike, thought Madeleine, briefly picturing the pair of them as if she were an impartial observer. She was short and blond, built more like a child than a woman. Mette looked like that famous stone statue depicting a voluptuous female, which Madeleine remembered from her art classes in school. Big and curvaceous, with thick red hair that seemed to have a life of its own. Green eyes that were always sparkling, even though she too had suffered setbacks in her life that ought to have stripped them of their gleam long ago. Mette seemed to have a fondness for choosing weak men who quickly became dependent on her and then mostly sat around, making demands, like baby birds with their mouths open wide. Eventually Mette would have enough, as she’d told Madeleine. But it wouldn’t be long before the next baby bird would move into her bed. That was why the children each had a different father, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that all three of them had inherited Mette’s red hair, it would have been impossible to tell that they were siblings.

‘So how’s it going with you, my dear?’ asked Mette, twirling her glass in her hands.

Madeleine felt herself freeze. Even though Mette had confided everything in her, openly sharing her life and her shortcomings, Madeleine had never dared do the same. She was so accustomed to living in fear, always scared to say too much. For that reason, she kept everybody at arm’s length. Almost everybody.

But at this moment, on a Sunday evening in the kitchen with Mette, as the pots simmered on the stove and the wine warmed her from the inside, she could no longer hold herself back. She started telling her story. When the tears came, Mette moved her chair next to hers and put her arms around Madeleine. And in Mette’s safe embrace, she told her everything. Even about him. Despite having moved to a foreign country, a foreign life, he was still so near.