The Journey to the End of the World (Joel Gustafson Stories) (17 page)

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Authors: Henning Mankell

BOOK: The Journey to the End of the World (Joel Gustafson Stories)
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So it’s true, he thought. Jenny Rydén really is my mum.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, she and Samuel had lived together. And I lay on the kitchen table and had my photograph taken.
‘Who took the picture?’ he asked.
‘Samuel.’
‘But surely he can’t take photos? He’s never even owned a camera.’
‘He borrowed one. I can’t remember who from.’
Joel studied the picture of himself. He was looking straight at the camera, laughing.
Joel didn’t recognise himself.
The picture was from a long time ago, when he still hadn’t started to accumulate any memories.
Joel examined the other photographs. There was something missing. In one place there was a faint mark on the wall, showing that there had been a picture hanging there as well.
Samuel, Joel thought. After he’d shouted and yelled at her in the square, she went home and took down the picture. But Rydén was still there.
‘Now you know,’ she said. ‘That it really is true.’
‘Yes,’ said Joel.
But he didn’t like that mark on the wallpaper. Just because Samuel had boiled over and shouted at her, she didn’t need to take down his picture.
She showed him where he could sleep: in a little room behind the kitchen.
Then they made a tour of the flat. Joel had never seen so many toys as there were in the girls’ room. As soon as he’d entered the flat he’d started to wonder how somebody who worked in an old people’s home could afford to buy such elegant furniture. Perhaps Jenny Rydén was rich? But where had she got her money from? He decided it was probably the man with the close-cropped hair who’d had the money to buy all the furniture and all the toys.
He took an immediate dislike to Rydén. He thought about Samuel, who’d never had any money all his life.
He would tell Jenny to hang up the photograph of Samuel again. Not just now. But before he left them and went to sea.
Instead of mentioning the photograph, he said something that wasn’t true.
‘Samuel sends his greetings. He didn’t mean to hurt you. He sometimes says things he regrets afterwards.’
‘Oh, I know all about that! But it suddenly became too much for me.’
Perhaps it became too much for Samuel as well, Joel thought. After all, more than ten years had passed without him even knowing where you lived.
They’d returned to the living room. The girls were with them all the time, but said nothing. They never took their eyes off Joel.
‘I hope you’re hungry,’ said Jenny. ‘We’ll be eating shortly.’
Joel said he was looking forward to that.
‘There’s one thing I’ve often wondered about,’ she said. ‘Who did the cooking for you and Samuel? I ask because I know Samuel is hopeless when it comes to preparing food. At least, he was in those days.’
‘Oh, it varied,’ said Joel tentatively.
‘Maybe Samuel has a girlfriend?’
‘Occasionally.’
Joel had no desire to go any deeper into that question. Least of all did he want to tell her that he’d been his own mum all those years since she’d left them. And how angry he’d sometimes been at the mother who’d run away.
They had dinner in the kitchen. Joel sat at one short end of the table, opposite Jenny. The two sisters were still shy. Joel tried to think of something to say. But most of the time he was thinking about Samuel, who was by now lying on a bench in a train compartment, resting his head on his suitcase.
He hadn’t packed any food to take with him for the journey.
He’d be hungry all the time until he got home. Even if there was a restaurant car on the train, it was bound to be far too expensive.
Joel had to acknowledge that he had a bad conscience. He shouldn’t have accepted the money. At the very least he ought to have thought of buying something for Samuel to eat on the train.
Jenny had lots of questions to ask. And Joel answered them all. About how things had gone at school. And why he wanted to become a sailor like Samuel. Joel answered very tersely. He felt under pressure. Already he was thinking about finding a job on a ship as soon as possible.
It was beginning to get late.
The girls started getting ready for bed. Joel thought they were making a terrible din in the bathroom. But Jenny didn’t seem to hear anything. Joel sat in the living room while they prepared for the coming night. Then Jenny came to ask him if he would like to accompany her to the girls’ room and say good night.
He didn’t want to; but he did even so.
‘I expect you’re probably tired,’ said Jenny when all was quiet in the sisters’ room.
Joel wasn’t the least bit sleepy, but he wanted to be left in peace. After all those years without a mum, it was a bit much to suddenly find her hanging around all the time.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll go to bed.’
‘When you wake up tomorrow I’ll probably have left already.’
She gave him a front door key.
‘The girls are with a neighbour when I’m at work. So you don’t need to worry about them.’
That was a big relief. The mere thought of having to be with them for a whole day was enough to make him want to run away.
‘What are you going to do tomorrow? Will you be able to find your way round Stockholm?’
‘I have a map. I’ll manage OK.’
He had snuggled down into bed and was just about to switch off the light when she knocked on the door and came in.
‘There’s so much I want to know,’ she said. ‘And no doubt there’s lots you want to know about me. We’ll have to give it time.’
Joel mumbled something inaudible. He wanted her to leave. He couldn’t cope with any more now.
She said good night and left the room.
The whole flat was soon silent.
Joel lay thinking about Samuel.
He missed the snoring that had always come rumbling into his bedroom through the walls.
Joel was on his own now. Although he had Jenny Rydén and two little sisters not far away.
But it was Samuel who wasn’t there. That was what really mattered.
When he woke up next morning, the flat was quiet and empty. Outside, it was overcast but not raining. Joel had breakfast and changed into some clean underwear.
Then he went out.
When he came to the Seamen’s Employment Exchange, the waiting room was full of people. All of them were seamen. They included a few boys who couldn’t have been any older than he was himself. That worried him a bit. Perhaps all the boats were fully manned by now? Perhaps there wouldn’t be a job for him?
When it was his turn he went to the desk and asked if his seaman’s discharge book was ready yet.
It was!
It was dark blue. And had his name printed on the front. He felt as if he were already standing on deck. He could feel the floor swaying under his feet. He felt so happy.
He was forced to sit down so as not to lose his balance.
‘Your first time?’ somebody asked.
‘Yes,’ said Joel.
The one who asked had a freckled face and bright ginger hair.
‘They’ll be calling up soon now,’ he said.
Joel didn’t understand what he meant. Who would be calling up? Calling up what? But he didn’t ask.
The explanation came almost immediately.
A hatch in the wall opened. A man with a sweaty face waved a few sheets of paper in the air.
‘Electricians for
Neptun
. A bosun, an engineer. The engineer must be experienced. A steward for
Lindfjord
. And a deck hand. That’s all for today. We’ll be calling up again at ten tomorrow morning.’
Some of those waiting stood up and went to the desk. Others muttered in disgust and headed for the door. Joel understood what happened now. He would be back the next day at ten o’clock.
He could be a deck hand. Or a steward.
His excitement was tangible.
The man with the sweaty face was holding the whole world in his hands.
The waiting room slowly emptied. Joel stayed behind. He leafed through some of the magazines lying on a table. There were adverts for various shipping lines. What a lot of ships! Carrying cargoes of coal and iron ore, bananas and oil.
He was just about to leave when the hatch opened again. The man with the sweaty face stuck his head out and looked round. He was just about to close it again when he caught sight of Joel.
‘What job are you looking for?’ he shouted.
‘I want to be a sailor,’ said Joel.
‘That’s the daftest thing I’ve ever heard. Why else would you be sitting here?’
The man waved a sheet of paper at Joel.
‘There was one more job going,’ he said. ‘The paper had fallen on the floor. The
MS Alta
is looking for a mess steward.’
Joel held his breath. Thoughts were racing through his head. A mess steward only went on deck in order to empty rubbish bins. He served meals in the mess, did the washing up, made beds and cleaned out cabins. Like a chambermaid in a hotel.
‘I assume you’re not interested,’ said the man, and started to close the hatch.
‘I’ll take it,’ Joel shouted.
The next moment he was standing by the hatch and produced his discharge book.
‘She’ll be docking at Värtahamnen tonight. Be there tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. Ask for the chief steward.’
‘Who?’
The man behind the hatch opened Joel’s discharge book and nodded.
‘Your first voyage, I see. Go on board and ask for the chief steward. His name’s Pirinen. He’s a Finn. But he speaks Swedish. Go and see him. If he likes the look of you, you come back here and sign on. Is that clear?’
Joel nodded.
He was handed the sheet of paper, and the hatch closed.
Everything had happened so quickly that he’d hardly been able to keep up.
First he’d been given his seaman’s discharge book. And then he’d got a posting the very first day.
What kind of a ship was it, this
MS Alta
?
Joel hesitated. Then he knocked on the hatch. It opened immediately.
The man was wiping the sweat from his face with a piece of newspaper.
‘Are you still here?’
‘I just wanted to know what kind of a boat it was.’
‘Grängesberg line.’
‘Where’s it sailing to?’
The man behind the hatch sighed deeply.
‘How the hell do I know? But it’s an iron ore freighter. So it’ll be going to a port where it can load up with iron ore. And then it will sail to another one where it can unload.’
Liberia, Joel thought. Africa.
He remembered what Geegee had said.
So it was the same shipping line as the
MS Karmas
.
‘Anything more you want to know? We’re about to close now.’
‘No,’ said Joel. ‘Nothing else.’
The hatch closed once more.
Joel went out into the street.
His first thought was to tell Samuel about it. But that was impossible. He was still on a train somewhere on his way north.
Joel felt extremely excited.
All the ships he’d ever dreamt about had faded away.
Now there was a real one. A ship called the
MS Alta
, at this very moment heading for Stockholm.
Joel set off walking. Slowly at first, then faster and faster.
On the way to Östgötagatan he bought a picture postcard and a stamp. When he came to Jenny’s flat he found a pen and sat down at the kitchen table.
He wrote to Samuel.
I got my seaman’s discharge book today. And I’ve got a job. On a ship called the MS Alta. I’m off to sea now. See you on Pitcairn Island.
Greetings, Joel
He wasn’t sure about the last sentence.
See you on Pitcairn Island.
Maybe Samuel would think he was being provoked? But he left it anyway. They’d talked about that so many times, after all. Sat poring over sea charts and looking for the little dot in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Where Fletcher and his men had gone into hiding after their mutiny against that cruel Captain Bligh.
That’s what he’d written. It could stay as it was.
He ran down the stairs and into the street, and soon found a postbox. He read through what he’d written one more time. Then he popped the card into the box.
Jenny and his little sisters came back together. Joel was lying on his bed in the little room behind the kitchen, and heard their voices. He went to the living room and greeted them. Then he told them what had happened.

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