Sail of Stone

out toward the mouth of the harbor. Eyes of stone, a body of stone; it was a sculpture that summarized part of life near the sea in this part of the world. She had always been there.

“Do you ever think about what that sculpture symbolizes?” she asked Halders, who had also turned around.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he answered.

“What’s obvious?”

“She’s waiting for her husband to come home from the sea. She’s filled with anxiety. Her name is the Seaman’s Wife.” He looked at her. “Every Gothenburger knows that.”

“Including me,” said Aneta.

“The pillar was built in the beginning of the thirties, first the pillar and then the woman,” said Halders. “The interwar period. Thirty-three, I think.”

“The things you know.”

“It interests me.”

“What? The sea?”

“Oh, this city’s history.”

Two tugboats were pulling a container ship farther into the harbor. A ferry passed, on its way to Denmark. She could see passengers duck as they glided under the bridge. There was a pale light over there, above the sea, as though everything was unreliable there, hazardous. She thought she could see the Seaman’s Wife’s gaze against that opening.

“She’s actually looking the wrong way,” said Halders, pointing at the sculpture.

“What do you mean?”

“I know this, but maybe you can see it from here… Well, she’s not looking out at the sea; she’s looking straight here, actually. Toward the northern riverside.” He turned to her and smiled. “She’s looking straight at us.”

“Is there something symbolic about that, do you think?”

“Something that includes Forsblad, you mean? That he lives in this building and the woman over there is leading us here?”

“It’s an interesting theory,” said Aneta.

“The sculptor had trouble finding the sea,” said Halders. “Maybe it was foggy the day the lady arrived.”

Aneta laughed. The Stena Line catamaran passed. She could see passengers on that quarterdeck too. Just like the Seaman’s Wife, they were gazing at the northern shore where she was standing. She had the urge to wave. She had done so when she was a child, she’d done so often. There were more ships in the harbor back then. Sometimes you couldn’t see the other side of the harbor for all the ships.

“She’s really standing there as a memorial,” said Halders, “a monument for all the sailors and fishermen who were lost in the First World War, and all the ships that sank.”

“Then she’s waiting in vain,” said Aneta.

Winter biked home for lunch. Angela had three days off in a row. She was going to hang around town. Elsa was going to hang around with her.

But right now she was home. The fish was simple and good, just olive oil and lemon and a little butter, tarragon, and another fresh herb that he couldn’t identify at first. He could still feel the sweat on his back from his bike ride.

“Who were you trying to beat home?” she asked.

“Myself, as usual,” he said, smiling at Elsa, who was taste-testing the fish with a thoughtful expression.

“Who won?”

“I did.”

“That’s not a bad arrangement, is it.”

“Should we bike down to the lot?” he said. “This weekend?”

“Do you want to, Elsa?” asked Angela. “Bike down to the sea?”

“Yes, yes!”

He helped himself to the mashed potatoes.

“So now it’s settled,” he said. “The deal is in the harbor, to use a Swedish expression.”

“That deserves a bike trip,” said Angela.

Yes, he thought. Everyone here had been waiting for his decision, including himself. But now it was settled. After all, it was only a plot of land.

No. It was a bigger decision than that.

He looked at his family, who looked at him. Fuck, he didn’t want other people to have to wait for him to make up his mind.

For one of his selves to make up its mind.

I’m always sliding a little bit farther away, and I have to get back, work my way back.

I’m trying. The other day I didn’t answer the phone.

It didn’t help.

What am I doing wrong?

It shouldn’t be so hard.

It won’t be so hard. It’s better than ever, right? I’m here more than ever, aren’t I? I’m there but also here, and I’m starting to find a balance. Yes, balance. It’s thanks to her. And her. Both of them.

Does everyone think like I do?

One of them said something.

“Uh…?” said Winter.

“Elsa made dessert,” said Angela.

“Mmmm,” he said.

“It’s chocolate mereeengue puffs,” said Elsa.

“My favorite,” he said.

“Yes!” said Elsa.

“Effective against weight loss,” he said, and looked at Angela.

“Do you ever long for your origins?” he said over espresso.

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know, do you?”

“Longing… what would you call it… I guess I just wonder sometimes what would have happened if I had been there. Stayed there. Been born there.”

“Yes, that’s definitely a point of departure,” he said.

“If I had been born in Leipzig, it would have been a bewildering life, at the very least,” she said. “So much has happened to the people there.”

“It still was a bewildering life for the Hoffman family,” said Winter.

“Not for me, not like that. I was born here.”

“Indirectly bewildering for you.”

“Maybe.”

They heard Elsa in her room. She built something that she then knocked over, built and knocked over, built and knocked over, and yet she had grown up enough to laugh at it. Build and knock over. Well. That wasn’t unusual. Things that were built got knocked down.

“I think I would have become a doctor in Germany, too,” she said.

“Gunther wouldn’t have allowed anything different?”

“He would have. But I would have become one anyway.”

“Why?”

“There are so many people who need help and care.”

“Like who?”

“You, for example.”

“Yes.”