Harbour

A better world

The screams, the racket of the gulls had become part of normality by the time Anders set foot on the rocks of Gavasten for the third time in his life. He hardly noticed them, they were merely a carpet of sound, a part of the place, now that he no longer feared them.

He climbed up from a sea covered in ice on to an islet where it was still autumn. Where there was no snow, and where odd bushes still had leaves, and the tufts of grass in the crevices were green.

The place he was heading for was on the eastern side of the island. He had seen it the last time he was here, and it was just visible in the background in the photographs, but he hadn't noticed it until now, hadn't dared to formulate the thought.

Standing on the rocks on the eastern side, he couldn't understand how he had been so blind. Maja had tried to show him with the beads, with the lines in the Bamse comic, and it had been right there in front of him all the time: the flat rocks on the eastern side led steeply down into the sea in a broken step formation.

But it wasn't a step formation. It was a flight of steps.

From where he was standing, the top four steps were clearly visible, disappearing down beneath the ice. He recognised them from the dream-like vision when he had been Maja. They were just about three metres wide, and each step was more than half a metre deep. They were so worn down by the water and wind that you could be forgiven if you didn't see immediately what they were.

But it was a flight of steps. Steps leading downwards. Once upon a time, many hundreds of years ago, they must have been completely underwater, but the land elevation had brought them up into the light. Or perhaps they had been there before the ice pressed down the land. Anders stood with his arms wrapped around him and looked down the steps.

Who goes there?

He had to use his hands to help him clamber down the first step. These steps had not been built for human beings, or even by human beings, in all likelihood. Who could possibly have carried out this work in prehistoric times under water?

He moved down another step. It was perhaps slightly less deep than the first one.

Who?

Someone or something beyond the scope of his imagination. Once upon a time, long long ago, it had used this route to make its way up and down, but then stopped because it had grown too old or too weak. Or too big. Now only the route remained.

Another step. And another.

Anders was standing on the ice at the foot of the visible section of the flight of steps. The sky was teeming with white birds on the edge of his field of vision. He pushed his hand into his trouser pocket and took out the box. Then he sat down on the step above with his feet dangling just above the ice.

He opened the box and tipped Spiritus into his hand, closing his fingers around the insect in a gentle fist. The knowledge of the water flowed through him, and with it came a fresh insight. He opened his hand again, looked at the black insect, now as thick as his middle finger, writhing around on his palm.

You belong here.

The wound in his throat was chafing, and Anders scratched it cautiously as he stared down at the semi- transparent layer of ice. Spiritus was tickling his palm as it sleepily moved around in circles.

This is where you come from.

The insect was a part of what was beneath the ice, at the bottom of the steps. Why else would it have turned up on Domaro, a godforsaken-in the true meaning of the word-a godforsaken island in the southern Roslagen archipelago? Because this was where it came from, of course.

He raised his hand to eye level and studied the black, shining skin, the vestigial segmentation of the body that was like a single small, dark muscle. He breathed on it.

Are you mine?' he whispered, but there was no reply. He kept his mouth close to the insect and breathed warm air over it. Are you mine?'

He allowed a thick blob of saliva to drop, and the insect rolled around, hugging itself like a contented cat in the viscous liquid until its skin shone.

I know nothing.

But still he shuffled off the step so that he was standing on the ice once again. He crouched down and touched it with his fingertips, asked it to melt. A layer of water formed on the surface, and the next moment he sank through ten centimetres and was standing on rock.

The water seeped into his boots, chilling his feet. A semi-circle of open water extended two metres from where he was standing. Through the clear water he was able to glimpse three more steps, disappearing down into the darkness.

The ice was easily a metre thick at the edge, and Anders' chest contracted. The power that must be required to cover an entire sea with such thick ice. He felt as if his chest were being compressed by strong hands, and he could hardly breathe. He looked up at the sky.

The birds were going crazy. It seemed as if every single bird was desperate to occupy the space directly above his head, and it was barely possible to distinguish individual bodies among the flapping, screaming lid of feathers and flesh hovering above him.

He closed his eyes and ran his fingers over the tuft on Bamse's hat, the tuft Maja used to suck on as she lay there listening to her tapes. The deep sea lay beneath his feet, the birds screamed and yelled above his head. He was standing on the brink of something, and as a little man he was incapable of grasping its proportions.

Where's the little man? No sign! Not there! Blood will flow, ho ho ho…

Ronia the Robber's Daughter had been on TV and by mistake Maja had happened to see just as the wicked fairies arrived. She had run sobbing out of the room.

Anders grasped the tuft on Bamse's hat in his left and, closed his right hand around Spiritus and asked the water to part.

There was a swell and a slapping around his feet. The water spurted over the edge of the ice in cascades, cold water spattered his face. A V-shaped wedge formed diagonally below him, as if the water had been sucked down into a hole rather than being forced over the edges. However, the wedge was not deep enough to free the next step.

Part!

The power from Spiritus flowed like a low-voltage current through his body, down into his feet and out into the water, but nothing happened. He tightened his hand around Spiritus as much as he dared. He knew that the power to achieve what he wanted was there. He just couldn't quite manage to pass it on. Expelling a breath he let the prayer go, and the water swirled over his feet once more.

A blob of bird shit plopped on to his head and ran down his forehead. His left arm had been hit too, and a milky white stream of excrement was working its way along his ribbed sleeve. He shook his arm before the shit reached Bamse, wiped his forehead, tipped his head back and yelled, 'So what am I supposed to do? Tell me, instead of shitting on me! Tell me what to do!'

The gulls had no answer for him. They tumbled towards each other in a rustle of feathers, still screaming at the top of their little lungs and dropping strands of slimy waste into the water, on to the ice.

Disgusting. It's disgusting.

Anders looked at Spiritus. The insect resembled a lump of excrement as well.

It should he beautiful. But it's just revolting.

The feeling of physical revulsion sank its claws into him, because he knew what the next step was. What he could do to provide the power source with a better connection, create a stronger contact between himself and… the battery.

It's a battery. I am a machine and it is a battery. Nothing else.

His stomach did not accept this argument and curled up, twisting away as if from a threatening blow as Anders moved his right hand towards his mouth. A wave of resistance rose from his frozen feet and up through his body, aiming to stop him, prevent it from happening, protect itself.