Sail of Stone

“It is only a plot of land,” he said.

“Yes, Erik,” she said. “You don’t need to be worried about anything more.”

“We do have a nice flat,” he said.

“It’s a nice bay,” she said.

“Yes,” he had answered, “it’s nice, too.”

“It’s wonderful,” she had said.

The police station greeted him with a full embrace. The facade was as welcoming as always. The entryway smelled the same as usual. It doesn’t matter how many times they remodel it, he thought, nodding at the woman at the reception desk, who nodded toward him but also farther, past him. She opened the security window.

“There’s someone waiting for you,” she said with a gesture.

He turned around and saw the woman who was sitting on one of the vinyl sofas. She started to get up. He saw her profile reflected in the glass case where the police command had placed caps and helmets from police forces all over the world. As proof of the global friendship among police. There were also a few batons, as though to hit home the friendship message. He had said those exact words to Ringmar one time as they walked by, when the case was new, and Ringmar had said that he thought the Italian pith helmet was the nicest. It’s from Abyssinia, Winter said, you can bet your life on it. Perfect protection from the sun while they killed all the blacks.

The woman was about his age. She had dark hair but with a light sheen that might have come from the summer sun. She had a broad face and an open gaze, and he had the vague feeling that he’d seen it before, but in another time. She was wearing jeans and some kind of fisherman’s sweater, which looked expensive, and a short jacket. Now he recognized her.

He extended his hand.

“We’ve definitely met before,” he said.

She took his hand. Her hand was dry and warm. She fastened her eyes on his and he remembered that too.

“Johanna Osvald. From Donso.”

“Of course,” he said.

They sat in his room. It still smelled like summer in there, the stuffy kind, dry. He still had last season’s documents on his desk. There was a smell to those documents, too, and it was death.

He hadn’t wanted to touch that damned pile since it happened.

He wanted only to forget, which was impossible. He must learn from his mistakes, his own mistakes, but it was painful, more painful than anything else.

He would ask Mollerstrom to take everything down to the basement.

He looked at the woman. She hadn’t said anything as they walked here, as though she wanted to save it until they were alone.

It must have been twenty years ago.

He knew that he knew nothing about her, nothing more than that she had a birthmark on the left side of her groin. Or the right side. That she bit his lip once. That he had felt the stones drill into his back when she sat on him and moved faster and faster and finally exploded when he exploded, when he threw her off in that glowing instant.

The stones had stuck in his back. She had laughed. They had dived into the sea. He had rowed home to the islet. It was only one summer, not even that. One month. He hadn’t learned much about her, hardly anything. Everything was a mystery that he sometimes thought he had dreamed.

In some way, that’s a summary of youth, he thought. Dreamed mysteries. Now she’s sitting on the chair. I haven’t seen her since that summer. That’s a mystery too. Now she’s saying something.

“Did you remember my name, Erik?”

“Yes. When you said it, I remembered.”

He saw that she intended to say more, but stopped, and started again:

“Do you remember that we talked about my grandfather?”

“Yes…”

It’s true. Now I remember her grandfather. Even his name.

“John,” said Winter. “John Osvald.”

“You remember.”

“It’s not so different from your name.”

She didn’t smile; there was no smile in that face, and he remembered that too, that expression.

“Do you remember that he disappeared during the war?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not just saying that?”

“No. Your grandfather had to take shelter in some harbor in England during the war. I remember you told me that. And that he disappeared at sea later. During a fishing trip from England.”

“Scotland. He was in Scotland. They had to seek shelter in Aberdeen at first.”

“Scotland.”

“My dad wasn’t even a year old when he left,” she said. “The last time. It was in the autumn of 1939.”

Winter didn’t say anything. He remembered that too. The teardrop that suddenly burned on his shoulder. Was that how it was? Yes. He had felt it. She had told him about it then and there were still tears. Perhaps they were her father’s tears most of all. He could understand but he couldn’t really understand, not then. It would be different now, if he had heard it now. He was someone else now.

“My dad’s brother hadn’t been born when they made the final journey. He was born three months later.”

A brother. He couldn’t remember that. They hadn’t spoken about a brother.

“He died of rickets when he was four,” said Johanna. “My little uncle.”

Suddenly she opened the small pack she had carried on her back and took out a letter. She held it up expectantly. A distance. She kept that letter at a distance. Winter had seen it many times. Letters that flew to people, like strange birds, black birds. Letters with messages no one wanted to have. Sometimes the addressees came to him with the message. Who said that he wanted to have them?

“What is it?” he said.

“A letter,” she answered.

“I see that,” he said, and smiled, and maybe she smiled too, or else it was just the light that moved around the room in an unpredictable way. The Indian summer out there was starting to worry about the future.

“A letter arrived,” she said. “From there. This letter.”

“From there? From Scotland?”

She nodded and leaned forward and placed the envelope in front of him on the desk.

“It’s postmarked in Inverness.”

“Mmhmm.”

“There’s no return address on the back.”

“Is it signed?”

“No. Open it and you’ll see.”

“No white powder?” said Winter.

She might have smiled.

“No powder.”

He took the letter out of the envelope. The paper was lined, thin and cheap; it looked as though it had been torn from an ordinary notebook. The words were printed, two lines in English:

THINGS ARE NOT WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE.

JOHN OSVALD IS NOT WHAT HE SEEMS TO BE.

Winter looked at the front of the envelope. A stamp with the British monarch on it. A postmark. An address:

OSVALD FAMILY

GOTHENBURG ARCHIPELAGO