Martina went to use the bathroom that was halfway down the hall and then padded up the narrow spiral staircase to the kitchen and got herself a glass of water. She opened the freezer and took out a few ice cubes, dropping them into her glass with a discreet plop. She opened all the windows and left them ajar, to let in the warm night air. She had a hard time imagining that she was so far north.
In one hand she held the glass of water and in the other a cigarette that she stole from a pack on the kitchen counter. She went outside and sat down on the creaky wooden steps.
The lush, overgrown summer greenery was beautiful in the glow of the night. She had really come to love Gotland.
Martina's mother had left the island at the age of eighteen to work as a nanny for a family in Rotterdam. She had planned to stay in the Netherlands for a year, but then she met Martina's father, who was studying to be an architect. They got married, and it didn't take long before Martina and her brother were born.
The family had come to Gotland every year on vacation. They would stay with Martina's maternal grandparents in Hemse or at a hotel in the city. Her grandparents had passed away long ago, and her mother had died in a car crash when Martina was eighteen, but the rest of the family still came to Gotland every year.
Now she was more in love than she had ever been before. A month ago she didn't even know he existed, but now she felt that he was the very breath of life for her.
A rustling in the grove of trees next to the youth hostel interrupted her thoughts. She lowered the hand holding the cigarette and looked in that direction. Not a sound. Probably a hedgehog. They always came out at night. Then she heard a twig snap. Was someone there? Her eyes swept over the expanse of lawn in front of the house, the tables and benches, the playground, the clothesline with a solitary blue-and-white-striped bath towel hanging from it, and the juniper bushes that stood like lonely soldiers on parade. Suddenly the silence seemed menacing.
She put out her cigarette and remained seated for a moment, listening hard, but once again quiet had settled in. She stood up. Maybe she was imagining things. She wasn't used to these bright, bewitching nights. Wasn't used to being alone. You nitwit, she thought. You're in safe and secure Sweden. There's nothing to be scared of here.
She pressed down on the handle and the heavy door opened with a creak.
More rustling, but she didn't even turn around to see where the sound was coming from.
SATURDAY, JULY 3
Morning light seeped through the thin curtains. It was very quiet. Johan was sitting in an armchair next to the window with his newborn daughter in his arms, a little bundle in the soft cotton blanket that had been wrapped around her. Her face was tiny and flushed; her eyes were closed, her mouth slightly open.
He thought she was breathing very fast-her heart was beating in her breast like a baby bird's. He held her without moving, feeling the warmth and weight of her body. He couldn't get his fill of looking at her.
Johan didn't know how long he'd been sitting in this position, staring at the baby. His legs had fallen asleep long ago. It was incomprehensible that this little person in his arms was his daughter, that she was going to call him Pappa.
Emma lay in bed, sleeping on her side. Her face was smooth and peaceful. She had been through so much pain only a few hours ago. He had tried to help her as best he could. He had never imagined that a birth could be so dramatic. In the middle of everything, as he held Emma's hand and the midwife issued orders and guided her through the delivery, he was suddenly seized with the enormity of the event. Emma was producing life with her body; another human being was going to come out of it and continue the cycle. That was nature's proper order. He had never felt so close to life before-and yet it was actually a fight between life and death.
For several terrifying moments he was afraid that Emma might die. She seemed to lose consciousness, and the midwife's worried expression didn't bode well. The problem was that vaginal swelling had formed an obstruction so that the baby couldn't come out. That was why Emma wasn't supposed to push, even though she was wide open, because then the vagina swelled up even more. It was turning out to be a difficult delivery until Knutas's wife, Lina, showed up and managed to move the obstruction aside.
After that everything went fine, and it was all over in less than a minute. The second the baby started to cry, Emma relaxed. The first thing Johan did was kiss her. At that moment he admired her more than he had ever admired anyone else.
Johan looked down at his daughter again. Her chin quivered, and she spread out the tiny fingers of her hand like a fan, then curled them up again. He already knew that he would love her all his life, no matter what happened.
On Saturday morning, as Knutas took the turnoff to Lickershamn, he heaved a sigh of relief. A weekend at the summer house was just what he needed after spending the whole week sweating in overcrowded Visby.
Their summer place was no more than fifteen miles from the city, yet out there he felt as if his daily life back home were far away. On the way into Lickershamn proper was an area of erosional rock remnants called rauks where he usually stopped. There were a dozen large rauks and a number of smaller ones. Some were eighteen to twenty feet high, and a number were covered with ivy, the official plant of Gotland. An informational sign posted by the county commission explained that these rauks had been formed by the Littorine Sea seven thousand years ago. Knutas was fascinated by the rauks, which looked like some sort of clumsily shaped stone sculptures. The story of their origin was quite interesting, too.
The Gotland bedrock was largely made up of coral reefs that were created in a tropical sea four hundred million years ago. Between the reefs were layers of limestone, and when the ice that covered Gotland during the last ice age retreated ten thousand years ago, uplift began to occur. Where land and sea met, the waves eroded the bedrock. The reefs withstood the wear and tear of the waves better than the various kinds of rock surrounding them, so that was what remained as isolated stone pillars.
The most impressive rauk was called the Virgin, and it towered up from a plateau eighty-five feet above the sea, right next to the inlet forming the harbor. With its height of forty feet, the Virgin was Gotland's tallest rauk, and for that reason it had become the symbol of Lickershamn. It was a peaceful area with a cluster of houses around the little bay and two docks jutting out into the sea where fishing boats and pleasure craft were moored.
The family's summer place, half a mile away, was a two-story house made of gray-plastered limestone with the window frames, doorframes, and other trim painted burgundy. The surrounding landscape was barren, with stunted and windblown pine trees and juniper bushes. The property was enclosed by a stone fence. There were plenty of stones on this side of Gotland. The stretch of land from Lummelunda all the way up to Farosund in the north was called the Stone Coast.
Petra and Nils had reluctantly agreed to come along. Knutas had enticed them by promising they would go out in the boat to fish that evening. Lina got out of the car and let out a delighted shout.
'Oh, how lovely,' she said, taking in a deep breath. 'Feel the air. Look at the sea.'
They all helped to bring in the bags of food. Lina and the children were eager to go down to the beach and swim, but Knutas chose to stay behind and mow the grass, even though the summer had been so dry that it was hardly necessary.
At home in the city, Lina was usually the one who took care of the yard. The difference was that out here in the country he was left in peace. It was calm and quiet, with no neighbors to disturb him. He opened the door to the tool shed, and musty air came billowing out. He dragged out the cumbersome lawn mower and filled it with gasoline. It started up nicely after two tries.
He enjoyed making one lap after another, listening to the clattering of the mower and not thinking about anything in particular. Everyone heard the racket and refrained from bothering him while he was at it. That was why he didn't hurry. He mowed the whole lawn with great care.
The house stood off by itself; there were no neighbors within sight. Outside the fence at the back there was a protected beach cove that was used only by his family, a few neighbors, and occasionally a tourist who had gone astray. The large beach near Lickershamn was far enough away so that they weren't disturbed by any other swimmers, yet it was close enough that the children could walk there on their own if they liked. Knutas thought it was a perfect location.
