The Darkest Room (31 page)

Markus came back to the island and wanted to see me, but not at Eel Point. I had to go down to Borgholm to meet him in a café
.

Torun, who could hardly see the difference between light and darkness now, asked me to buy potatoes and some flour. Flour and root vegetables, that was what we lived on
.

It turned out to be a final meeting in a gray town still waiting for winter, despite the fact that it was the beginning of December
.

—
MIRJA RAMBE

WINTER 1962

The thermometer is showing
zero, but there is no snow in Borgholm. I am wearing my old winter coat and feel like the country cousin I am as I walk along the straight streets of the town.

Markus is back on the island to visit his parents in Borgholm, and to see me. He is on leave from the barracks in Eksjö and is wearing his gray soldier’s uniform with stylish creases pressed in his pants.

The café where we have arranged to meet is full of decent, upstanding ladies who study me as I come in from the cold—cafés in small towns in Sweden are not the territory of young people, not yet.

“Hi, Mirja.”

Markus stands up politely as I walk over to the table.

“Hi there,” I reply.

He gives me an awkward little hug and I notice he has started using aftershave.

We haven’t seen each other for several months and the atmosphere is tense at first, but slowly we begin to talk. I haven’t got much to tell him from Eel Point—I mean, nothing
has happened there since he went away. But I ask him about life as a soldier and whether he lives in a tent like the one we built in the loft, and he says he does when he is out on exercises. His company has been in Norrland, he tells me, and it was minus thirty degrees. To keep warm, they had to pack so much snow all over the tent that it looked like an igloo.

Silence falls between us at the table.

“I thought we could carry on until spring,” I say eventually. “If you want. I could move closer to you, to Kalmar or something, then when you come out we could live in the same town …”

These are vague plans, but Markus smiles at me.

“Until the spring,” he says, brushing my cheek with his hand. His smile broadens, and he adds quietly: “Would you like to see my parents’ apartment, Mirja? It’s just around the corner. They’re not home today, but I’ve still got my old room …”

I nod and get up from my chair.

We make love
for the first and last time in the bedroom Markus had when he was a boy. His bed is too small, so we drag the mattress onto the floor and lie there. The apartment is silent around us, but we fill it with the sound of our breathing. At first I am terrified that his parents will come in, but after a while I forget about them.

Markus is eager, yet careful. I think this is the first time for him too, but I dare not ask.

Am I careful enough? Hardly. I have no protection—this was something I could never have imagined would happen. And that’s exactly why it’s so wonderful.

Half an
hour later
we go our separate ways out on the street. It is a short farewell in the bitter wind, with a last clumsy embrace through the layers of clothes.

Markus goes back up to the apartment to pack before he catches the ferry across the sound, and I go off to the bus station to head back northward.

I am alone, but I can still feel his warmth against my body.

I would have liked to catch the train, but the trains have stopped running. All I can do is climb aboard the bus.

The atmosphere is gloomy among the small number of passengers, but it suits me. I feel like a lighthouse keeper on my way to a six-month tour of duty at the end of the world.

It is twilight when I get off to the south of Marnäs, and the wind is bitterly cold. In the grocery store in Rörby I buy food for myself and Torun, then walk home along the coast road.

I can see slate-gray clouds out at sea when I drop down onto the road to Eel Point. Strong winds are on their way to the island, and I quicken my pace. When the blizzard comes, you must be indoors, otherwise things could turn out as they did for Torun on the peat bog. Or even worse.

There are no lights in most of the windows when I reach the house, but in our little room there is a warm yellow glow.

Just as I am about to go in to Torun, I see out of the corner of my eye that something is flashing down by the water.

I turn my head and see that the lighthouses have been switched on before the night comes.

The northern lighthouse is also lit, glowing with a steady white light.

I put the bag of food down on the steps and walk across the courtyard, down toward the shore. The northern lighthouse continues to shine out.

As I stare at the tower something suddenly blows past me on the ground, something pale and rectangular.

Even before I catch up with it and pick it up, I know what it is.

A canvas. One of Torun’s blizzard paintings.

“So you’re back, are you, Mirja?” says a man’s voice. “Where have you been?”

I turn around. It’s Ragnar Davidsson, the eel fisherman,
walking toward me from the house. He is wearing his shiny oilskins, and he is not empty-handed.

In his arms he is carrying a great bundle of Torun’s paintings—fifteen or twenty of them.

I remember what he said about them in the outbuilding:
It’s all just black and gray. Just a lot of dark colors … looks like crap
.

“Ragnar …” I say. “What are you doing? Where are you going with my mother’s pictures?”

He walks past me, without stopping, and replies, “Down to the sea.”

“What did you say?”

“There’s no room for them,” he shouts back. “I’ve taken over the storeroom in the outbuilding. I’ll be keeping the eel nets there.”

I look at him in horror, then at the ghostly white light of the northern lighthouse. Then I turn my back on the sea and the wind and hurry back to the house and Torun.

The wind along the coast
had increased to storm force. The gusts shook the car, and Tilda clutched the wheel tightly.

Blizzard
, she thought.

The falling snow whirled across the road like a black-and-white film, spinning in the beam of the headlights. She slowed right down and leaned closer to the windshield so that she could make out the road ahead.

The snowfall looked more and more like thick white smoke swirling in across the coast. Drifts were beginning to form everywhere that the snow was able to stick, and they quickly turned into banks.

Tilda knew how quickly it could happen. The blizzard transformed the alvar into a white, ice-cold desert and made it impossible to travel by car anywhere on the island. Even the snowmobiles would sink and get stuck in the drifts.

She was on her way north now, with Martin still following
her. He wouldn’t give up—but she had to forget him and concentrate on looking ahead.

Snowdrifts covered the road, and it was difficult for the wheels to grip the surface properly. It felt like driving through cotton wool.

Tilda was looking out for the headlights of approaching cars, but everything was gray beyond the falling snow.

When she was somewhere in the region of the peat bog, the road in front of the car disappeared completely in the driving snow, and she looked in vain for markers showing where the edge of the roadbed was. Either they had already blown away, or nobody had put them out.

She noticed in her rearview mirror that Martin’s car was getting closer—and that was partly what caused her to make a mistake. She looked into the mirror for a second too long, and didn’t notice the bend ahead in the darkness. Not until it was too late.

Tilda turned the wheel as the road curved to the right, but not enough. Suddenly the front wheels sank down into the snow.

The police car stopped with a violent bang. A second later she felt an even bigger bang and heard the sound of breaking glass. The car was pushed forward and stopped, stuck in the ditch by the peat bog.

Martin’s car had driven into hers.

Tilda slowly straightened her back behind the wheel. Her ribs and the back of her neck seemed okay.

She floored the accelerator to try and pull back up onto the road again, but the back wheel spun around in the snow, unable to find a grip.

“Shit.”

Tilda switched off the engine and tried to calm down.

In the rearview mirror she saw Martin open the car door and step out into the snow. The wind made him stagger slightly.

Tilda opened her door as well.

The storm came roaring across the road, and the gray-black landscape made Tilda think of the picture of the blizzard she had seen at Eel Point. When she stepped away from the car, the wind grabbed hold of her and seemed to want to drag her out onto the peat bog, but she fought against it and felt her way along the side of the police car.

The front of the car was pushed right down into the ditch. The car was at such an angle that one of the back wheels, the right-hand one, was actually in the air.

The whirling snow had begun to pile up against the doors and was already covering the tires.

Tilda fought her way back along the side of the car, with her hand on her police cap to keep it in place, and made her way over to Martin.

She had finally decided how she was going to treat him: not like her former tutor at the police academy, not like her former lover, but like an ordinary mortal. A civilian.

“You were too close!” she said through the wind.

“You slammed the brakes on!” he shouted back.

She shook her head. “Nobody asked you to follow me, Martin.”

“Well, you’ve got a radio car,” he said. “Call the breakdown truck.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

She turned her back on him, but knew he was right. She would call—although presumably every breakdown truck would be working flat out tonight.

Martin got back in the Mazda and Tilda struggled back to the warmth and quiet of the police car. Once inside she used the radio to call Borgholm for the second time—and this time a rasping voice actually came back over the loudspeaker.

“Central control?” she said. “1217 here, over.”

“1217, received.”

She recognized the voice. Hans Majner was manning the radio, and he was speaking more quickly than usual.

“What’s the situation?” asked Tilda.

“Chaos … more or less complete chaos,” said Majner. “They’re wondering whether to close the bridge completely.”

“Close it?”

“Overnight, yes.”

In that case the winds over the island had already reached storm force, Tilda realized—it was only in extremely bad weather that the Öland bridge was closed to traffic.

“And where are you, 1217?” asked Majner.

“By Offermossen on the eastern road,” said Tilda. “I’m stuck.”

“Understood, 1217 …Do you need help?” Majner actually sounded as if he cared as he went on: “We’ll send somebody out, but it’s going to take a while. There’s a truck jammed across the road on the hill by the castle ruins, so all our cars are down there right now.”

“And the snowplows?”

“They’re only working on the main roads … the drifts keep on coming back.”

“Understood. It’s the same here.”

“But you’re okay for a while, 1217?”

Tilda hesitated. She didn’t want to mention the fact that Martin was with her.

“I haven’t got any coffee, but it’ll be fine,” she said. “If it gets colder, I’ll just make my way to the nearest house.”

“Understood, 1217, I’ll make a note of that,” said Majner. “Good luck, Tilda. Over and out.”

Tilda replaced the radio microphone and stayed where she was behind the wheel. She couldn’t decide what to do and looked in the rearview mirror, but a thick blanket of snow had already covered the rear windshield.

In the end she picked up her cell phone and called a number in Marnäs. She got an answer after three rings, but the wind was howling so loudly outside the car that she couldn’t make out the words. She raised her voice.

“Gerlof?”

“Speaking.” His voice sounded quiet and distant.

“It’s Tilda!” she shouted.

There was a scraping noise in her ear. The reception was dire out here, but she heard his question:

“Surely you’re not out driving in the blizzard?”

“Yes, I’m in the car … on the coast road. Near Eel Point.”

Gerlof said something inaudible.

“What?” Tilda yelled into her cell phone.

“I said that’s not so good.”

“No …”

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. I’ve just—”

“But do you really feel fine, Tilda?” Gerlof interrupted her, speaking more loudly. “In your heart and soul, I mean?”

“In what? What did you say?”

“Well, I’m just wondering if you might be unhappy … there was a letter in the bag along with the tape recorder.”

“A letter?”

But suddenly Tilda realized what Gerlof was talking about. She had thought about nothing but work and Henrik Jansson over the past few days, and had completely forgotten her private life. Now it all came back.

“That letter was not addressed to you, Gerlof,” she said.

“No, but …” His voice disappeared in a hiss of static, then came back: “… wasn’t sealed.”

“Right,” she said. “So you read it?”

“I read the first few sentences … and then I read a little bit at the end.”

Tilda closed her eyes. She was too tired and anxious to be angry with Gerlof for rummaging in her bag.

“You can tear it up,” was all she said.

“You want me to destroy it?”

“Yes. Throw it away.”

“Okay, I will,” said Gerlof. “But are you feeling okay?”

“I feel the way I deserve to feel.”

Gerlof said something quietly, but she couldn’t make it out.

Tilda wanted to tell him everything, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t tell him that Martin’s wife had gotten pregnant while he was still seeing Tilda. She had just been happy and contented that Martin was with her—even on the night when Karin’s pains started. At midnight he had gone off to the hospital, full of excuses for missing the birth of his son.

Tilda sighed and said, “I should have stopped it long ago.”

“Yes, yes,” said Gerlof. “But you’ve stopped it now, I presume.”

She looked in the rearview mirror.

“Yes.”

Then she looked out through the windshield. The snow had continued to rise, and she could hardly see out now. The car was turning into a snowdrift.

“I think I’d better get out of here,” she said to Gerlof.

“Can you drive through the snow?”

“No … the car’s stuck.”

“Then you need to get to Eel Point,” said Gerlof. “But be careful of your eyes as you’re walking … the blizzard blows up sand and earth along with the snow.”

“Okay.”

“And never, ever sit down to rest, Tilda, no matter how tired you are.”

“No, of course not. Talk to you soon,” said Tilda, switching off the cell phone.

Then she breathed in the warm air inside the car one last time, opened the door, and stepped out into the snow.

The wind pressed itself against her, screamed in her ears, and pulled and tore at her. She locked the car and started to move along the road, as laboriously as a diver wearing lead boots on the seabed.

Martin wound down the window as she reached his car. He blinked in the wind and raised his voice: “Is someone coming?”

She shook her head and shouted back, “We can’t stay here!”

“What?”

Tilda pointed eastward. “There’s a house down there!”

He nodded and wound up the window. A few seconds later he got out of the car, locked it, and followed Tilda.

She walked through the swirling powdery snow blowing across the blacktop. She continued on down into the ditch and climbed over a stone wall.

Tilda led the way toward Eel Point, with Martin a few steps behind her. Progress was slow. Every time she looked up into the wind, it was like being lashed with ice-cold birch twigs. She had to walk carefully, almost crouching to avoid being pushed over.

Tilda was wearing only a pair of low boots on her feet, but wished she had been wearing skis. Or snowshoes.

Eventually she turned away from the wind and stretched her arms out to the dark figure behind her.

“Come on!” she shouted.

Martin had already begun to shiver and shake in the cold. He was dressed in a thin leather jacket, and had nothing on his head.

The inadequate clothes were his own fault, but she reached out her hand anyway.

He took it without a word. They clung together and carried on toward the house at Eel Point.