Sail of Stone

“I don’t know,” said Winter. And significant in what way, he thought.

“Your father left the industry,” he said.

“But he was ready to retire anyway, as he put it. He was ready to be put in the Maritime Museum.”

“Which section?”

She smiled.

“But he can’t leave the sea entirely,” she said.

“How so?”

“He worries all the time. About those who are out at sea. About Erik and his crew. He listens to all the Danish weather too, and he starts at six in the morning and ends with the last report at quarter to eleven at night. But he never calls out to the boat.”

Winter noticed that she was speaking of her father in the present tense, as though he were sitting next to a radio right now and listening attentively to a monotonous voice repeating numbers, vital numbers.

“Where do they usually fish?” asked Winter.

“Oh, west of Stavanger, maybe, sixty or seventy nautical miles west. They sometimes come near the derricks, which are about fifty nautical miles east of Scotland.”

The Skarven docked at the Donso pier with a soft thud. It would leave again in four minutes.

“Do you worry when Erik is out?” asked Winter.

“Naturally.”

Winter started to walk toward the boat.

“But now I’m worried about Dad,” she said.

“I will do what I can. We will.”

“Something has happened,” she said. “Something dangerous.”

“It would be good if you try to remember everything he said before he left. What he did. Who he talked to. If he wrote anything down and left it. If anyone called. If another letter came. Everything.”

“He prayed to God,” she said, looking at him. “My father always prays to God.” She nodded at the boat. “You should get on now.”

She gave him a quick hug.

She kept standing there as the Skarven rushed across to Styrso Skaret. Winter thought of all the women who had stood there throughout the centuries, looking out over the sea and waiting with anxious hearts. That’s how it was with Johanna now; once again it was so. He remembered that she had talked about it, briefly, when they were young. Her mother’s anxiousness, her own. Her brother’s. Winter looked over toward the Magdalena, which had two spotlights lit above the quarterdeck. He saw figures in oilcloth moving around the deck. He saw a face outside the pilothouse, which was highest up, the highest one in the harbor. He saw that Erik Osvald was watching him. He felt a cold wind and went in from the deck.

A glow came from the sheltered houses in Langedrag. Winter swung off into the familiar Hagen crossing and continued north among even more sheltered houses. He parked in front of one of them. He knew the house, knew it well. He had spent a great deal of his childhood and all of his teenage years here.

His older sister had stayed here, in this house, first with her husband and children and then, since a long, long time ago, alone with her girls, Bim and Kristina.

But Bim and Kristina were big now. Bim didn’t even live at home. Kristina was on her way out. Lotta Winter had watched all of this happen, and she tried to deal with it in a rational way, but it wasn’t something that could be dealt with rationally. You’ll see for yourself, she had said. See what? See how fucking easy it is. The separation? The separation, yes; come back when Elsa says bye-bye. You make it sound so final, Lotta. Well, isn’t it? she had said. You know what I mean, he had said. Yeah, yeah, she had said. Forgive me. But it’s… the quiet. Suddenly it’s so quiet. Quiet.

He rang the doorbell. The ring was the same. The same ring for thirty years. She should change it, change it now. Something new and happy and lively, energetic. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah.

She opened the door after four rings.

“Well, well.”

“I came by,” he said.

“I see that.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me in?”

She backed into the hall.

He hung up his coat. He always hung his things on his hook.

“Well, it’s calm and peaceful and quiet here,” she said.

“That’s nice,” he said.

“Like hell it is,” she said.

“You’ve started to curse more in your old age,” he said.

“Thanks a fucking lot. For that last bit.”

“Why?”

“Why? Why do I have such rough and salty language? I think it’s because of the salty and rough winds from the sea that’s only five minutes from here by Mercedes.”

“They never swear there.”

“Sorry?”

“There are no salty fishermen from the west coast who curse.”

“How do you know?”

He told her.

They were sitting in the living room. The view was the same. He could see the playhouse where he used to hide sometimes.

“Actually, I salt my language because the children can’t hear me anymore,” she said. “It’s my way of going back to the way I was.”

“Mmhmm.”

“What does Angela say about you being gone on a Saturday night?”

He looked at the clock.

“I didn’t mean for it to be so late.”

“So you come here and surprise me in the middle of my loneliness on this Saturday night.” She nodded toward the half-full wineglass that stood on the table. “And catch me in the act of drinking.”

“Please, Lotta.”

“Maybe I’m like Mom? Maybe I have an alcoholic inside? Who’s just been waiting for the right moment.”

“That’s true,” he said.

“You see.”

“Joking aside, Lotta. Maybe you need someone. A new husband.”

“Get remarried? Hahahahahahahahaha.”

“Well…”

“You get married. Do it and then come here and lecture me about it.”

“How much have you actually had to drink?”

“Only four bottles of wine and a barrel of rum.”

“Where’s Kristina?”

“Taken into custody by the authorities.”

“I chose the wrong time for a visit,” he said.

“You picked the wrong time to come.”

Winter placed one leg over the other. He was used to bantering with his sister, but this was a little worse, a little bigger.

“Do you know who that is? Who I was quoting?”

“What?”

“Picked the wrong time-it’s Dylan. It’s what you’re listening to right now. It’s this song, actually. ‘Highlands.’ Can you hear?”

He heard Dylan mumble, “Well my heart’s in the Highlands… blue-bells blazing where the Aberdeen waters