The True Deceiver (16 page)

Katri walked on towards the lighthouse point. Halfway out she caught sight of the dog, following her at the edge of the woods, sometimes hidden by the trees. When she reached the lighthouse, he had disappeared. Katri climbed the steps to the locked lighthouse door, the sun straight in her eyes. Right at the shoreline, the ice had broken up. Thin floes rustled and whispered as they bumped against the rocks, piled up and broke apart. The water was very dark.

The attack was silent, but Katri sensed the dog’s ferocity and murderous intent, and she threw herself back against the wall of the lighthouse and flung her arms in front of her face. The dog’s leap was grand, worthy of a large animal that had never used his strength to the uttermost, and for a moment his breath was hot on her throat. His claws scraped against the cement as his heavy body fell backwards. They stood still, looking at each other, and both their eyes were yellow. Finally, the dog laid his ears back and dropped his tail. Then suddenly flung himself around and ran east, away from the village.

* * *

Mats was in the back yard piling wood when Katri came home. Right away he said, “What’s happened.”

“Nothing,”

“Who ripped your coat?”

“The dog. But he missed. Nothing happened.”

Mats walked towards her. “You keep saying ‘Nothing happened.’ What happened with the dog?”

“He ran off.”

“This is bad. Now he’ll probably never come back. He’ll go wild. He won’t survive. And you just keep saying nothing happened.”

“Let it go,” Katri said. “What do you want me to do?”

“Care!” he yelled. “You have to care! He’s your dog. You scare him.”

“Mats, you’re repeating yourself,” Katri said. “You’ve been spending too much time with Anna. Take care, she’s not good for you right at the moment.” And then Katri couldn’t stop herself. She started screaming at her beloved brother. “What is it you’re thinking? What do you think’s going on? Haven’t I tried? I made an
honourable
deal. I’ve tried to give protection, I’ve given security where there was no security, no direction, nothing! I provide safety. What are you thinking? Haven’t you seen the way I walked through the village with that dog, side by side like one superior creature? That dog was as confident and proud as a king! Every one of those mongrels went silent when we walked by. We could count on each other – we never left each other in the lurch, we were one, a unit, and I expected…”

“What did you expect?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe that you’d all believe in me, trust me… When you finish that woodpile, remember to cover it. Use that sheet metal behind the shed.”

In the back hall, Katri rolled up her coat and placed it at the back of the cubby-hole where the Aemelins stored their winter boots.

T
HE NIGHTS HAD ALREADY GROWN BRIGHT
and with every day that passed the nights grew shorter. Katri couldn’t sleep. Finally she hung a blanket over the window, but it didn’t help a bit. She knew the spring night was out there. Sleep and darkness go together. Bright nights are wakeful and uneasy.

Why was Mats so angry with me? Doesn’t he
understand
? He must understand how hard I try, all the time, to put everything I do to a strict test – every act, every word I choose instead of a different word. If you try with all your power to the utmost, shouldn’t it then be your motives that matter most? Shouldn’t they count for more than the final result? If you do everything you can to take responsibility, to offer protection, and you don’t give personal convenience the tiniest leeway..? Dependent people need to be left alone to absolutely rely on and believe in the person who makes decisions for them and teaches them and gives them guidance and security… Everyone ought to understand that… And where is the dog, where’s he run to tonight? He doesn’t believe in anyone any more, so he’s become as dangerous as a wolf. But wolves do better, they run in packs; it’s only solitary animals that get chased away or slain…

Katri went out in the yard. The dog had not been there, his food was untouched. There was a light in the kitchen. Anna threw up the window and called, “Katri? Is that you? Where did you put what was left of the meatballs?”

“At the bottom, on the right. It’s a square plastic container.”

“So you can’t sleep, either,” Anna said.

“No. It takes time to get used to these bright nights.”

“I used to like it,” Anna said. “I used to like a lot of things.” Her voice was cold.

“When you were young.”

“Not then,” Anna said. “Not so long ago. For that matter, I don’t want anything to eat, and you can bring in the dog dish. He isn’t coming back. He wants to get away from you.” Anna turned off the light in the kitchen. In the parlour, the night brightness was strong in all the windows facing the sea. Behind her, Katri said, “Anna? Wait a moment – don’t go yet. Couldn’t you please tell me what it is that’s happened to you?” When Anna didn’t answer, Katri went on. “Don’t you know what I’m talking about?”

“Oh yes, I know,” Anna replied, and her voice was altered; it was a voice of compassion. “I know what you’re talking about. What’s happened to me is that I can no longer see the ground.” And Anna went into her room and closed the door.

O
NE BEAUTIFUL, QUIET SPRING MORNING
Mats came in and said, “Now you can come and see. We’ve cleaned up the shed and we’re not working today.” He was very happy. On the way down to the harbour, he explained to Katri and Anna that the Liljebergs never showed
half-finished
work; not even the buyer was allowed into the shed until the boat was ready for launching. “Of course, drawings are another matter. They’ll go over them with you as many times as you like, but then you have to let them build it. That’s the difference between the craftsman and the buyer.”

When they entered the boat shed, the Liljeberg brothers, standing by the workbench, greeted them with reserved politeness and left Mats to do the presentation. He was young and eager and had not yet discovered the silence of the proud professional. The floor had been swept, and every tool hung in its rack. The boat stood by itself in the middle of the shed, signed with the pretentious ‘W’ for ‘Wästerby’. Mats’s explanations were rapid and quiet. He went through all the technical features, led Katri and Anna around the boat, drawing their attention to details that had taken much thought and been difficult to achieve. The women said little, listened earnestly, nodded from time to time the way one does for a fine piece of work. Finally Mats stopped talking and they stood quietly by the sternpost.

“Well, well,” said Edvard Liljeberg, walking over to them. “So now you’ve seen all of her and we’re all set. We’ll be launching her soon. Now there’s just one important matter to attend to – namely, the christening. What are you going to call her?”

No one spoke. Finally Anna put her hand on the sternpost and said, “We can call her ‘Katri’. That’s a good name for a boat. And anyway, it is Katri’s gift to Mats.”

“That sounds fine,” Edvard said. “So we can drink a toast to her when the time comes.” His brothers walked over and shook hands, and they began a general
discussion
about where they should put the name, on the stern or the bow or maybe on the side of the cabin, either in brass letters or carved into the wood. Suddenly Anna said, “But where’s Katri?”

“Maybe she left,” said one of the Liljeberg brothers, thinking she might at least have said goodbye. Getting your name on a boat doesn’t happen every day.

Edvard said, “So let’s leave it at that and take the rest of the day off. If everyone’s satisfied, then I’m certainly happy.”

Anna and Mats walked home. The hill up to the house was muddy and full of rivulets.

“Let me hold on to you,” Anna said. “This hill is just as bad every year. Worse.”

“There’s something I don’t understand,” said Mats hesitantly. “That evening we talked about the boat, Miss Aemelin, and you said…”

Anna interrupted. “Yes, yes, I say a lot of things. I was wrong. Your sister’s been saving up for that boat for a very long time, so she could give it to you. And, moreover, I’m not Miss Aemelin, I’m Anna. Now just stop worrying about things. Just figure out how you want the bunks and the engine box and whatever comes after that.”

* * *

Katri saw the boat model as soon as she came into her room. Mats had put it in the window, where it was silhouetted against the sky. Katri closed the door, walked over, and saw that it was an exact copy down to the last detail. Mats must have worked on it for a long time. He had used the same woods. There were bunks, an engine box, a painter, everything. The fittings were brass. The name was engraved on the bow with careful attention to the classic calligraphic conventions. The name was Katri.

* * *

They had come home. Anna went into her room. Mats came up the stairs. Katri heard him coming and
immediately
wanted to go out to him but she was embarrassed and couldn’t move and didn’t know what to say. Just before he closed his door, her hesitation broke and she ran out and took him in her arms, only for an instant, and neither of them spoke. It was the first time Katri had ever dared embrace him.

* * *

Towards afternoon the wind died and it grew very quiet, just occasional dog yelps from the village. And not a sound had come from Anna’s room all day.

I know, she’s gone to bed again. She gets under the coverlet and sleeps her time away because she no longer sees the ground, so there’s nothing at all she wants to do. She weighs me down to the earth; she’s there all the time like a weight; she, Anna Aemelin. I remember the dog at home, when I was a girl; the one that killed chickens. They tied a dead hen around his neck and he carried it around with him all day until he just lay there unmoving with his eyes shut in a morass of shame. It was cruel. There’s nothing so hideously easy as giving someone a bad conscience… Will it go on like this? Probably. Does she think she’s the only one who’s tired, hiding there under her coverlet, giving up because the world isn’t the way she imagined it? Is it my fault!? How long does a person have a right to go around with blinders – what does she expect, this Anna Aemelin… what more does she want me to do? If she really were what she pretends to be, everything would have been wrong, everything I did and said and tried to get her to see, it would all have been monstrous. But her innocence left her a very long time ago, and she never noticed. She eats only grass, but she has a meat eater’s heart. And she doesn’t know it, and no one has told her. Maybe they don’t care enough about her to take the chance. What should I do? How many different truths are there, and what justifies them? What a person believes? What a person accomplishes? Self-deception? Is it only the result that counts? I no longer know.

Anna’s cane rapped on the ceiling, several times, angrily. When Katri went down to her, she was sitting in her bed wrapped tightly in her coverlet. “What are you doing up there?” she said. “You’ve been clumping back and forth for hours! I’m trying to sleep.”

“I know,” Katri said. “It’s all you do. You sleep and sleep. Do you think it’s easy for me, knowing you’re sleeping your days away because nothing is exactly the way you’d imagined?”

“What do you mean?” Anna said. “What have you found to preach about now? I never get any peace in this house. Aren’t you happy about his boat?”

“Yes, Anna, I am happy about his boat. It was very noble of you. Or, rather, it was simply fair of you.”

“Whatever you say,” said Anna irritably. “And what’s wrong with my wanting to sleep? Anyway, now you’ve woken me up completely. Sit down and get a grip on yourself. What is the problem?”

“There’s something I need to tell you. It’s important.”

“If it’s United Rubber now, again…” Anna began.

“No. It’s important. Listen to me. Listen carefully. I haven’t been honest with you. You need to know that I’ve lied right from the outset. I’ve told you things that aren’t true about other people. I was wrong, and now I need to tell you. It can’t be helped, but it needs to be said.” Katri spoke very quickly. She stood in the door and looked past Anna at the wall.

“Remarkable,” Anna said. “Really remarkable.” She stood up and smoothed her dress and put the coverlet back in place. “You’re amazing. Sometimes I think you’re the world’s most deadly serious person. Other people talk, you make pronouncements. The only entertaining thing about you is that all of a sudden you say something totally unexpected. Are you being entertaining now?”

“No,” said Katri without a smile.

“Can you repeat all those things you just said?”

“No.”

“You said you’ve been telling me stories.”

“Yes.”

“And what does that mean?”

“It means…” said Katri with difficulty. “t means that those people weren’t cheating you. By ‘those people’, I mean the people you deal with. The people around you, and the people who write to you. They haven’t cheated you. You can trust them again.”

“Take a cigarette and sit down,” Anna said. “Don’t stand there looking like that. There’s the ashtray. Are you speaking now about the storekeeper, for example, and Liljeberg?”

“Yes.”

“Or perhaps our terrible Fru Sundblom?” Anna said, and laughed.

“Anna, this is serious. It’s very important.”

But Anna went on, suddenly in wicked high spirits. “Important? What do you mean by ‘important’? Maybe ‘meaningful?’ Are you talking about the plastics
companies
? You mean they weren’t cheating me after all? They were as nice as my publishers? They were just as innocent as all those depraved children who only wanted to take and take and take..? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“Anna, please.”

“They weren’t cheating me? None of them?”

“None of them.”

“You are a very strange person,” Anna said. “You lay out your calculations and your proofs. You find evil in everyone and get me to believe you. And then you come to me and say, you dare to come to me and say that none of it was true? Why are you doing this?”