In the Name of Love (2 page)

After the first examination in the helicopter the doctor said that her heartbeat was weak. Dan put his hand to her cheek and said her name. Slowly her arm rose in the air, her hand swung backwards and touched his shoulder, resting there for a moment. It was a graceful movement, almost lazy in its progress, as if she were waking up from a pleasant dream. He felt a rush of joy go through him. She had touched him! She was living, breathing. He lifted her fingers and pressed them to his lips. It was then he noticed how blue they were becoming under the nails. Helplessly, he stroked the hair from her forehead.

At the hospital a nurse stood in the way, telling him he couldn’t come with them, he had to go to the waiting room. He went to the emergency waiting room but then turned back. By the time he found them they had taken off her clothes. They were strapping her to a table. A doctor came over and took him outside again. She told him he had to go and wait in the visitors’ room. He asked her what was happening. She said everything was all right and to go and wait in the room. As she closed the door he saw someone push down and Connie’s body convulse on the table. He was still outside when the doctor came out again and asked him about symptoms. He said there were none. She asked him if his wife had been taking medication of any kind. He said no.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure.’

She told him it was going to take a bit longer and that he wasn’t allowed to stand there in the corridor, so he went back to the waiting room. After a while he went to the corridor again. The door to the room opened before he reached it and the doctor came out. She said she wanted to talk to him, but this time he walked past her as she was saying it and it was knowledge of a kind, like the knowledge that tomorrow’s sun will rise.

During the days after Connie’s death Dan wandered the streets of Stockholm, disoriented and destitute. One afternoon he found himself in front of a door trying to put his key in a lock that refused to accept it. It was the door to their first apartment, the two rooms Connie and her father had been allocated when they came here as refugees after the war.

That evening, in the long-term care department, he told her father as gently as he could that she had died. He bent his head close to catch the words from the parched mouth:
Entonces
…
finalmente terminado
. ‘It’s finally over then.’ Two days later her father too was dead.

At the beginning of the following week the police in Norrtälje gave the go-ahead, her corpse could be taken for burial. They’d get back to him with the report. He drove out to Blidö to talk to the priest.

Initially a little taken aback, the priest said, ‘But you’re not from here, you don’t live on the island?’

Dan said no, he lived in Stockholm. And then he talked. The priest must have been used to it. He folded his hands across his stomach, elbows on the armrests of his chair and listened. Such a patient man. Dan wondered, a little crazily, if he was abusing his trust, if it was somehow his duty to declare that he and his wife didn’t believe in God or heaven or immortal souls. Instead he said that they had hoped one day to sell their flat in town and use the money to buy the rundown old farmhouse they had recently rented on a long-term lease, but they hadn’t been able to because her father was in hospital, on life support since spring, and they were his only visitors now that their son Carlos was in the States so they didn’t want to move yet, not after all the old man and Connie had been through, first the Spanish war and then the other, although he had said they should, they should, since he knew she really loved the island, even its black winters and frozen sea, and it was then, with one of those odd statements that, in being made, are self-fulfilling, like ‘I promise’ or ‘I pledge’ or, perhaps, even ‘I espouse’, that Dan heard himself tell this priest, ‘I intend to live here permanently.’ After that there was a silence. In the end, as far as the cemetery plot was concerned, the church authorities said all right. Under the circumstances, all right.

With Carlos’s agreement Dan sold the apartment in Stockholm, bought the house in Carlos’s name and spent the rest of the money doing the essential repairs. He would support his new life with the same work he had done in the old.

It was December when he moved out to the island. That very first evening huge snowflakes whirled past the windows. In the morning they were gone. When he went to collect the post the lane was dotted with caramel-coloured pools. He heard the ice crunch beneath his boots.
Yrsnö
, someone said on the local radio at lunch. A week later it was
blötsnö
. Then
kramsnö
. Words he’d never heard before, though their meaning was clear.
Whirling snow
.
Wet snow
.
Packed snow
. In Stockholm snow was snow. The scrapers cleared the streets at night.

Those first months the answering machine blinked often. Sometimes he deleted the messages without listening to them. He collected the condolence letters in a box. Late each afternoon he went for a long walk. Came home. Cooked. Ate. Did a final check of the translations that would be sent with the postman next morning. Took a sleeping pill. Went to bed.

And so, with time, solitude became a balm for loneliness.

In spring the swans came back. From the little jetty by the post box he watched them land. White on the dark grey sea, white wings spread wide, the slow unison of their beat as they slid down with feet outstretched.

The years went by. 1985. 1986. And then, on New Year’s Day 1987, an old friend, Anders Roos phoned. A few weeks earlier, they had run into each other in a seaside town on the mainland, Norrtälje, where Anders had remarried after his divorce in Stockholm. Now, when they had exchanged New Year’s greetings, Anders told him that a friend’s car had broken down not far from the mainland ferry quay.

‘Her name’s Lena Sundman. She rang me from a house there and I said I’d come and pick her up but Madde’s been delayed, she’s still in town with the car and I have no way of ringing Lena back. Do you think you could drive over? She’s stuck in her car waiting for me.’

New Year’s Day the first ferry was empty. The unloaded deck rattled when the engines started up. Snowflakes swirled past the gunnel. By the time Dan had driven across the neighbouring island, Yxlan, and was getting off the second ferry the snow had thickened so much that it poured into the headlights and came racing up the bonnet to burst against the windscreen.

Leaning forward to see, he thought of how now it could only get darker, as of course it did, particularly when the ferry lights in his rear-view mirror vanished, leaving him alone in the dense black of the afternoon countryside until, finally, he caught sight of a car flashing its warning lamps ahead.

It turned out to be an old Volvo, a model he recognized from the sixties. He pulled over in front of it. Steam was seeping around the edges of the bonnet. A young woman opened the door to lean out and, as he approached, he pulled the parka hood off his head so he wouldn’t scare her. She made a forlorn sight in the dark while the snow silently buried her car. He told her how Anders had telephoned him and, although he knew little about engines of any kind, added, ‘Looks like your cylinder head gasket’s blown.’

The young woman asked him what that meant. He put the hood of his parka back up against the snow and said it meant she’d have to ring for a breakdown truck and have the car towed to a workshop.

‘Can’t you tow me?’

‘Not in this weather. There’s a fairly big petrol station about ten kilometres down the road, just before the ferry. I’ll give you a lift there.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ she said.

By now the snow was sliding off his parka, coating his trousers which were already stiff with the cold. He waited.

‘I suppose I better go with you,’ she said.

She got out of the car and locked the door.

In his car she took off the tam o’shanter she was wearing and shook out her blonde hair as she asked him how he knew Anders Roos. When he told her she said, ‘Yes, of course, you’re the Irishman who lives on Blidö.’

He had the heating on and after a few minutes she opened her overcoat. Beneath it she wore a pirate outfit. The pants were made of some satiny material. The red blouse was sever­al buttons undone at the top. At the bottom it was tied in a knot above her waist, showing a hand’s width of flat stomach. ‘This is nothing,’ she said a little drily. ‘You should see me on Sundays.’ Her accent was marked west-coast. Gothenburg area. A moment later, relenting, she told him she’d stayed over unexpectedly after a New Year’s Eve party last night so had nothing to change into.

‘We’re there,’ he said. ‘Let’s see what they can do.’

The young man on duty at the petrol station said the repair workshop in Furusund would be closed, she’d have to ring the owner at home if she wanted to get hold of them. She rang the owner and said a man had told her the cylinder head gasket was blown. When Dan indicated his uncertainty, lifting his shoulders and shaking his head, she put the phone on the counter between them and said, ‘All right, you tell him,’ loudly enough for the man on the other end to hear. Dan said he didn’t know, he was only guessing, it could be something else. He listened to the man tell her she could have the car collected tomorrow but if it was the cylinder head gasket it’d take two or three days to strip down the engine, reface the cylinder head, put it back. By now she was scowling. She asked him if he could give her a free replacement car while he was doing it. His answer was no. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’s not my decision. Somebody lent me this thing.’ The man, without a hint of rebuke for being disturbed on New Year’s Day, said, ‘Yes, I understand.’

In the end they agreed that she’d leave the key and her particulars at the petrol station and the garage owner would ring her with an estimate tomorrow. She gave him her phone number and a c/o address in Herräng. Herräng was in the opposite direction to the direction the car had been facing in when Dan arrived. The boy behind the counter told her there was no bus to Herräng from here. She asked him what she should do.

‘The cars’ll be coming off the ferry in ten minutes,’ he said, eyeing her bare midriff. ‘What there is of them. Maybe you’ll get one going up towards Östhammar. They could drop you on the way. You’d still have a fair bit to walk though.’

‘Like about ten kilometres,’ she said.

The boy said she could ring for a taxi.

‘How much would that cost?’

‘A taxi to Herräng?’ The question seemed to unsettle him and he decided to dismiss it. ‘No telling.’

The snow had stopped. She looked at her watch and said they were almost on Blidö now which was where she had been going. Just the ferry and crossing Yxlan and the other ferry and they were there. That was, in fact, she said, the whole point of her leaving the motorway, the whole point of her driving down an unploughed road at two o’clock in the afternoon. To get to Blidö on her way home. It seemed a pity to give up now.

‘Do they still have a taxi on Blidö?’

Dan told her yes, two. Both owned by the same family. The petrol station office was overheated. She took off her raincoat and draped it across the counter. The boy looked at the swell of her breasts, the good ten centimetres or so of white stomach showing above her pants.

‘Don’t let it obsess you,’ she told him. ‘It’ll stunt your growth.’

The ferry to Yxlan was almost empty. She asked Dan how long he’d been living on Blidö and who he knew. He said over two years and no one. ‘Oh,’ she said. She was silent. Then she said, ‘An hour and a quarter I sat waiting on that fucking road. Can you imagine? An hour and a quarter.’

He told her he was sorry, that he’d left as soon as Anders rang but the heavy snow made driving difficult. ‘Oh, it’s not your fault,’ she said. She said she could have waited in the house where she went to ring only Anders said he was on his way. Three other cars drove past and didn’t even stop.

‘Christ. What’s gone wrong with this fucking country? People used to be helpful.’

Twenty minutes later, when they’d crossed Yxlan and driven off the Blidö ferry onto the dark deserted road, she asked him where on the island he lived. He said, Fridsdal.

‘That’s west of Bromskär headland, isn’t it?’

‘You know Blidö well.’

‘Used to. Do you think you could drive me past Bromskär? Before I get the taxi?’

It was out of his way by about six kilometres there and six back but of course she knew that. He asked her what part of Bromskär. She said she’d tell him when they got there.

When they reached Bromskär she directed him north along the coast towards the headland. The road here was narrow. To the left, a little into the forest, farmhouse lights shone. She said to stop.

‘Is this what you wanted to see?’

She grunted by way of reply. She was wholly concentrated on the farmhouse now. He waited.

‘They’re in there all right.’

Dan didn’t say anything. He had no idea who ‘they’ were.

‘They’re still there.’

‘Who?’

‘The Selavas. You know them?’

‘No.’

‘Lucky you.’

She didn’t take her eyes from the lit-up windows. He moved in the seat. With the engine off the heat was going. Ahead he could just make out the difference in darkness between the coastline and the sea. She turned towards him and saw that he was staring into nothing.

‘There’s a small island out there,’ she said. She knew his patience was giving way. ‘Svartholm. Do you know it?’

‘No.’

‘Almost totally untouched. And lovely woods. It’s worth a visit. My Uncle Fritjof used to take me with him when he lay the nets. There are a few old fishermen’s huts and he had a key to one of them. We’d put in there with a thermos of coffee for him and a bottle of Pommac for me and cinnamon buns Aunt Solveig’d baked. Those were some of the happiest days of my life.’

He nodded.

The decent thing, certainly, would have been to drive her to Herräng, which was a good hour away. Not including whatever time they’d spend waiting for the ferries. She was look­ing at the farmhouse windows again, as though watching for some sign or someone to become visible against the win­dow lights.