station has changed the time when the forecast starts yet again, so I missed the local temperatures. But in Norrland it’s going to get colder, so I should imagine it will down here too.” He cast a suspicious glance at the barometer next to the bookcase, then looked out of the window toward the bare trees, and added, “It’s going to be a hard winter this year, a cold, early winter. You can see that by the way the stars shine so brightly at night, especially the Big Dipper. And by the summer.”
“The summer?”
“A wet summer means a hard winter,” said Gerlof. “Everybody knows that.”
“I didn’t,” said Tilda. “But will it make any difference to us?”
“It certainly will. A long, hard winter influences just about everything. The shipping on the Baltic, for example. The ice delays the ships and the profits fall.”
Tilda moved into the room and was confronted by all the memories of Gerlof’s time at sea. On the walls were
black-and-white pictures of his ships, oiled nameplates, and framed ships’ certificates. There were also small photographs of his late parents and his wife.
Time stood still in here, thought Tilda.
She sat down opposite Gerlof and placed the tape recorder on the table between them. Then she plugged in the flat table microphone.
Gerlof gave the recording equipment the same look as the barometer. The tape recorder wasn’t very big, but Tilda could see his eyes flicking back and forth between it and her.
“Are we just going to… talk?” he said. “About my brother?”
“Among other things,” said Tilda. “That’s pretty straightforward, isn’t it?”
“But
“Well, to preserve the memories and stories… before they disappear,” said Tilda, and added quickly, “Of course you’re going to be around for years yet, Gerlof, that’s not what I mean. I just want to record them to be on the safe side. My dad didn’t tell me much about Grandfather before he died, you know.”
Gerlof nodded. “We can talk. But when something’s being recorded, you have to be careful what you say.”
“There’s no problem,” said Tilda. “You can always record over a cassette tape.”
Gerlof had agreed to the recording almost without thinking when she had called him in August and said she was moving to Marnas, but it still seemed to be making him a bit tense.
“Is it on?” he said quietly. “Is the tape running?”
“No, not yet,” said Tilda. “I’ll tell you when.”
She pressed down the Record button, saw that the tape was running, and nodded encouragingly at Gerlof.
“Right… we’ve started.” Tilda straightened up, and it seemed to her that her voice was more tense and formal than usual as she went on: “This is Tilda Davidsson, and I am in
Marnas with my grandfather Ragnar’s brother Gerlof, to talk about our family… and about my grandfather here in Marnas.”
Gerlof leaned forward a little stiffly toward the microphone and corrected her in a clear voice: “My brother Ragnar did not live in Marnas. He lived on the coast outside Rorby, south of Marnas.”
“Thank you, Gerlof… and what are your memories of Ragnar?”
Gerlof hesitated for a few seconds.
“There are a lot of good memories,” he said eventually. “We grew up together in Stenvik in the twenties, but then of course we chose completely different professions… he bought a little cottage and became a farmer and a fisherman, and I moved down to Borgholm and got married. And bought my first cargo ship.”
“How often did you see each other?”
“Well, whenever I was home from sea, a couple of times a year. Around Christmas and sometime in the summer. Ragnar usually came down to us in town.”
“Were there celebrations then?”
“Yes, especially at Christmas.”
“What was it like?”
“Crowded but good fun. Lots of food. Herring and potatoes and ham and pig’s trotters and dumplings. And of course Ragnar always brought plenty of eel with him, both smoked and pickled, and lots of cod soaked in lye…”
The more Gerlof talked, the more he relaxed. And so did Tilda.
They carried on talking for another half hour or so. But after a long story about a windmill fire in Stenvik, Gerlof raised a hand and waved feebly. Tilda realized he was tired, and quickly switched off the tape recorder.
“Fantastic,” she said. “It’s amazing how much you remember, Gerlof.”
“The old family stories are still in my head, I’ve heard
them so many times. Telling stories like this is good for the memory.” He looked at the tape recorder. “Do you think it got anything?”
“Of course.”
She rewound the tape and pressed Play. Gerlof’s recorded voice was quiet and slightly grumpy and repetitive, but it could be heard clearly.
“Good,” he said. “That’ll be something for those researchers into ordinary people’s lives to listen to.”
“It’s mostly for me,” said Tilda. “I wasn’t even born when Grandfather died, and Dad was no good at telling stories about the family. So I’m curious.”
“That comes with the years, as you acquire more and more of a past to look back on,” said Gerlof. “You start to get interested in where you came from, I’ve noticed that with my daughters too…How old are you now?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“And you’re going to be working here on Oland?”
“I am. I’ve finished all my training.”
“How long for?”
“We’ll see. Until next summer, at any rate.”
“That’s nice. It’s always good when young people come here and find work. And you’re living here in Marnas?”
“I’ve got a one-bedroom place just by the square. You can see south along the coast…I can almost see Grandfather’s cottage.”
“It’s owned by another family now,” said Gerlof, “but we can go down there and take a look at it. And at my cottage in Stenvik, of course.”
Tilda left the Marnas home just after half past four, with the tape recorder in her rucksack.
When she had fastened her jacket and set off on the road toward the small center of Marnas, a young lad drove past her on a pale blue puttering scooter heading in the opposite
direction. She shook her head at him to show what she thought of scooters driving fast, but she didn’t catch his eye. Twenty seconds later he was long gone.
Once upon a time Tilda had thought that fifteen-year-old boys on scooters were the coolest thing in the world. Nowadays they were more like mosquitoes, she thought-small and irritating.
She adjusted her rucksack and carried on toward Marnas. She was intending to call in at work for a while, even though she didn’t officially start until the following day, and then go back to her little apartment and carry on unpacking. And ring Martin.
The puttering of the scooter behind her hadn’t completely died out, and now it was getting louder again. The young rider had turned around somewhere over by the church and was on his way back into town.
This time he had to pass Tilda on the sidewalk. He slowed down slightly, but revved the engine menacingly and tried to swing past her. She looked him in the eye and positioned herself directly in his way. The scooter stopped.
“What?” yelled the boy over the noise of the engine.
“You’re not allowed to ride a scooter on the sidewalk,” said Tilda just as loudly. “It’s illegal.”
“Yeah, right.” The boy nodded. “But you can drive faster along here.”
“You can also run over someone.”
“Whatever,” said the boy, giving her a bored look. “Are you going to call the cops?”
Tilda shook her head. “No, I’m not, because-”
