a wordless prayer and tried again. The engine started. Before he grabbed the controls he checked that he still had the snowsuit inside his jacket.
To no purpose.
Slumped on the seat in the prow so that he could barely see over the rail, he left Kattholmen and headed for Domaro. He knew what he must do, but he had to rest first, regain a little of his strength.
He was almost unconscious when he reached his jetty and it wasn't until he was halfway up to the Shack that he caught sight of himself for a brief moment and asked himself a question:
Did you make the boat fast?
He didn't know, he couldn't remember, and he didn't even have the strength to turn around and check. If he hadn't tied the boat up, he wouldn't be able to do anything about it anyway. A while later he was vaguely aware of opening the outside door, closing it behind him, finding a bottle of diluted wine on the bureau and knocking it back. Then he collapsed on the floor and knew no more.
Anders will be the last. Let him sleep and rest. He will need it. Meanwhile, let us listen to the tale of the first one.
It is a kind of fairy tale, and as in all fairy tales, the details have drifted away on the tide of time and we are left behind on the shore with at best part of a keel, a ship's figurehead or a log book damaged by the water.
Something happened. It happened at some point. That is all we need to know. At the time when the inhabitants of Domaro made their living from herring fishing and an unholy alliance with the powers of the deep, the tale may have been better known. Now only fragments remain, and we must let our imagination build the ship.
Because the story is about a ship. Or rather the wreckage of a ship. It might have been a small cog, that is of no importance. The ship had been transporting salt, presumably between Estonia and Sweden, following some route or other.
The crew could have been Swedish or Estonian, but in any case we have only one survivor to take into account. We will assume he is Swedish, and we will call him Magnus.
We find him on the Aland Sea. His ship has drifted off course and has foundered in an unusually thick October fog. Terrified and frozen to the marrow, Magnus has managed to scramble up on to part of the stern, which has broken away. He calls to his shipmates, but there is no reply. The fog lies like a blanket around him, preventing him from even seeing the size of the piece of wreckage that is carrying him.
But he is floating. He has been lucky in the midst of the disaster. The piece of the ship on which he finds himself is shaped in such a way that no part of his body is in the water. He has been lucky. If only he were not so dreadfully cold!
We do not know how long Magnus drifts in this way. It could be days, but it is probably only hours, since the fog does not lift. He is floating through a milk-white world and he cannot hear anything, apart from the sounds he himself makes when he changes position or cries for help out into the emptiness.
The first thing he becomes aware of is not a visual impression or a sound. It is a smell. And the smell alone, the aroma is enough for him to feel that warmth is beginning to seep into his body. It is the smell of animals.
Once before he got lost in the fog at sea. On that occasion they reefed the sails and waited for the mists to disperse. But before that happened they made contact with the land through that smell. Manure, animals' bodies, land! Animals mean people, and rescue. They rowed in the direction of the smell and found their way into the harbour.
Hence the spark of hope in Magnus's terrified guts. He grabs hold of a loose plank of wood and paddles in the direction he thinks the smell is coming from. He must be heading in the right direction, because the smell grows stronger.
He can hear a cow lowing. The fog begins to dissolve into veils and separate sections. The cold diminishes, and the light breeze carrying the smell is warm, a summer breeze, no less.
Presumably Magnus is a believer. Presumably Magnus is praising God as the fog lifts and he can see land at last. But he can hardly believe what his eyes are seeing.
Paradise.
It is the only possible explanation. That he has drifted so far off course that he has ended up in paradise. He has heard that the Garden of Eden could well have been on an island. It seems as if he has found that island.
A few more strokes with his improvised paddle bring him to a beach with fine, pale sand. Where the beach ends, a meadow of lush grass takes over. A number of well-fed cows are grazing there. On a slope he sees sturdily built houses, surrounded by fruit trees in blossom.
And it is warm, pleasantly warm. For a long time Magnus does nothing but sit on his piece of wreckage, staring open-mouthed. He hardly dare step ashore, he is afraid that this paradise will melt away like the fog if he touches it with his feet.
There is a freshness about everything. Everything is sparkling and gleaming as if it were new, created just for him. Yes, that is exactly how it feels. There is a film of moisture over everything and water drips from the leaves of the trees, as if this island has risen from the sea just to meet him.
Tentatively he lowers his foot into the water and discovers that the sandy seabed is firm. He wades ashore, he walks across the beach, up towards the meadow and the houses. He disappears from history, never to be heard of again.
When morning came, Anders no longer had a body. He had a wound. All his limbs were aching after a night on the hard floor, his head hurt, and his throat was pulling and throbbing. His fingers were stiff and his bladder made its presence felt, joining in the chorus of pain.
When he opened his eyes, which had managed to gum themselves shut during the night, he felt the pain deep inside the pupil itself as the daylight stabbed its way in. He lay still, looking over towards the toilet door and trying to find one part of him that wasn't hurting. He flicked his tongue around inside his mouth and discovered that his tongue was uninjured, that neither the inside of his mouth nor his teeth had been damaged over the past few days. It felt sticky in there, and it tasted disgusting. But it didn't hurt.
He rubbed his eyes and bits of dried blood came away, colouring the tips of his fingers pale red. He had lost all feeling in the ear that had been pressed against the rag rug during the hours of the night. He sneezed, and snot mixed with blood shot out of his nose.
Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
He managed to sit up, and grabbed hold of the door handle. Using the handle for support, he got to his feet and staggered to the toilet, where he drank from the tap until he could drink no more. White spots were dancing in front of his eyes, and he had to sit down to pee. He sat there for a long time with his head in his hands.
When the worst of the dizziness had passed, he stood up and pulled out Maja's snowsuit. It was no longer wet, but it was blotchy with patches of dark, dried-in blood. He threw it out on to the hall floor and got undressed.
The Helly Hansen top was stiff, and his jeans and T-shirt were stuck fast to his skin. He pulled them off and felt a searing pain as the cut on his right thigh opened up again and began to bleed. A smell of putrefaction rose from his body, and he didn't dare look at himself in the mirror.
The boiler wasn't much good, and he turned up the heat on the shower to maximum. Then he stood beneath
