Sleet: Selected Stories

By the time he makes it back, the quay is crowded with people, but the boat is empty and waiting. Alfhild has already cleaned the dining salon and is emptying dustpans filled with ash and paper into the harbor. As he approaches the gangplank Sune notices something peculiar and disquieting. Paul and the drunken first mate and several others are just standing around on the foredeck, idly waiting for something. And now the door swings open and out steps the small, slender man in the trench coat. He turns and holds the door for Greta, as the large heavy-set man with the cigar clenched between his teeth walks directly behind her with a small, shabby suitcase in his right hand. In single file they walk up the foredeck gangplank and suddenly Greta spots him there. She looks up at him hastily, and later he will think back on that look many times — something impossible to forget.

“Bon soir,” she says and almost drops her handbag. “Bon soir.” And that’s when he notices she is crying.

Then everything breaks up, the whole scene. The waiting car starts up and pulls away, and no one but Sune looks after it for very long. The skipper, who has been pacing impatiently back and forth on the bridge, rings the bell and the upper deck gangplank is rolled away amid a great deal of clatter, the hawsers are loosened from their rings as iron clangs against stone, and the foredeck gangplank is thrown down on deck. The skipper rings the bell a second time and as the engine starts a throbbing beat begins to pulse belowdecks. The bell rings on the engine order telegraph, and a small, eager boy loosens the bow line and throws it aboard. The bow slowly glides out from the quay. Nothing is lit, and everything is blue: the tall trees in front of Berns Hotel, the cars cruising up toward the wicked club The Atlantic, the residences of Strandvägen standing like great Diebold safes. Slowly the boat comes round in the harbor until the bow lines up with the Admiralty Shipyard. Several boats with high shining lights enter the harbor, listing appreciably from all the passengers congregating aport.

As Sune opens the door to the inner middle deck, he steps right into the news report. Paul is standing there in front of the bell with his legs spread wide and the palms of his hands pressed flat against the overhead deck. Surrounding him is a small cluster of crew, including Alfhild, the ship’s engineer, the rummy first mate, one of the old salts, the restaurant manager, the cook, and Barbro.

“According to the police,” he explains, pausing to push his hands still harder against the overhead deck. “They said she’s been spreading it around again. Some poor sons of bitches picked it up from her last time in town. Dumb bastards.”

Barbro looks over the shoulder of the restaurant manager and winks at Paul. It isn’t long before the gathering breaks up and then all head their own separate ways in the large, empty vessel, which still seems to echo from the laughter and voices and footsteps of recent passengers. But Sune goes into the men’s head and carefully locks the door behind him. Locked securely inside, he slides down the small window and looks out. They are just passing a large, white steam cruiser, whose passengers cluster at the railing above in dark bunches, looking down at this boat, probably thinking “Hmm, look at that little rust bucket …” The lights have come on in the old folks home at Danvik and a short brightly lit train is making its way over the London viaduct. But before he is able to take in more of the unswept view, the landscape folds in on itself like a map before his eyes as his skinny body doubles over almost to the point of breaking and he begins to vomit.

The next time he looks out the window, they are passing the mill. He can just glimpse the flashing shapes of seagulls through his tear-blinded eyes as they sketch white lines across the dour facade of the great mill. Further along the shoreline, a lone scow lies at anchor alongside a quay, and paper and garbage swirl up out of the vessel’s belly as a gust of wind suddenly sweeps in. Even further along the shore, a small group of girls in light-colored dresses stand at the water’s edge, pointing to the boats, while a man stands nearby folding up a flag in the twilight. Someone yanks impatiently on the locked door, and as Sune slides the window up again he can hear two voices from the middle deck. The first is Alfhild’s and the other voice is Barbro’s. Then the door to the foredeck slams shut behind Barbro, and she doesn’t come back.

“Just how filthy does the whole thing have to be?” he wonders, and flushes the toilet.

A Game of Pocket Chess