Echoes From the Dead

Småland, May 1945

Nils Kant is sitting in a grove of trees on the mainland, looking out across the water to Öland, which is a narrow strip of limestone along the horizon. His expression is full of sorrow, and the sighing of the wind is melancholy in the tops of the pine trees above him. The island on the opposite side of the sound is illuminated by the morning sun; the trees are bright green, the long beaches shimmer like silver.

His island. And Nils will return to it. Not now, but as soon as he can — that’s for certain. He knows he has done things for which no one will forgive him for a very long time, and Öland is dangerous for him right now. And yet none of this is really his fault. Things have simply happened, there was nothing he could do about them.

The fat district superintendent crept up on him on the train and tried to capture him, but Nils was too quick for him.

“ Self-defense,” he whispers toward the island that is his home. “I shot him, but it was self-defense...”

He stops and clears his throat noisily to get rid of the tears.

Twenty hours have passed since Nils jumped off the train out on the alvar. He escaped by making his way quickly south on the island, staying far out on the alvar where he feels at home, avoiding all roads and villages.

A few miles south of Borgholm, where the sound is at its narrowest, he went down to the water through the forest. There he found a half-rotten dried-out tar barrel with the top part cut away, and he placed his few possessions inside it. Nils waited in the forest until darkness fell, then he undressed and pushed the barrel out into the cold water. He wrapped his arms and upper body around it, clinging on tightly, then began to kick his way across the sound, toward the black strip that was the mainland.

It must have taken a couple of hours to get across, but there were no boats in the vicinity when he passed the channel, and nobody appeared to have spotted him. When he finally reached Småland, naked and with frozen legs, he barely had the strength to lift his possessions out of the barrel and crawl in beneath the trees, where he immediately fell into a deep sleep.

Now he’s wide-awake, but it’s still early in the morning. Nils stands up; his legs are still aching after the swim, but it’s time for them to get to work again. He isn’t far from Kalmar, he realizes, and he needs to get away from the town. There are bound to be lots of policemen patrolling the streets.

His clothes are dry and he puts on a shirt, sweater, socks, and boots, and slips his wallet into his pocket. He must definitely hang on to the money his mother gave him; without it he’s lost, and won’t be able to stay in hiding.

He no longer has the Husqvarna shotgun — it’s at the bottom of the sound. When he was about halfway between the island and the mainland, he took it out of the barrel, held it by the sawn-off barrels, and dropped it into the water with a feeble splash. And it was gone.

There were no cartridges left in the gun anyway, but Nils will miss its reassuring weight.

He thinks about his rucksack, shot to pieces, and misses that too. He has to carry everything in the pockets of his trousers now, and in a little bundle made from a handkerchief, so he can’t take much with him.

He starts to walk northward in the morning sun. He knows where he’s heading, but it’s a long way, and it takes most of the day. He keeps to the coast, avoiding all villages. He crosses the roads through the forest as quickly as possible; he feels safe among the trees. Twice he sees deer in the forest, so quiet that they surprise him. He can hear people approaching when they’re several hundred yards away, and can easily avoid them.

Nils knows perfectly well where Ramneby is; he’s been there several times while he was growing up, and his last visit was the previous summer. He doesn’t need to go into the village or around it, because the sawmill his Uncle August owns and runs lies to the south of the community.

He can hear the sound of whining saws from far away as he approaches, and soon he can smell the familiar aroma of newly sawn timber mixing with the seaweed from the waters of the Baltic.

Nils creeps cautiously out of the forest in the shelter of a big barn filled with planks of wood. He’s visited the place a few times, but isn’t sure how to get to the office. And he couldn’t show himself in the open anyway. A few hundred yards to the south of the sawmill is Uncle August’s wooden house, but Nils daren’t go there either. There are children there, chauffeurs, servants — people who might tell the police if they see him. He is forced to wait by the barn, concealed by a dense lilac bush whose heavily scented flowers attract countless insects.

Nils’s watch stopped when he was swimming across the sound, but he’s sure that at least half an hour passes before the first people come into view. Three workers from the mill pass the barn laughing, without even glancing in his direction.

He waits.

A few minutes later another person comes plodding along. It’s a boy, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old, but almost as tall as Nils. He has a thick cap pulled down over his forehead, and his hands are thrust deep into the pockets of his oil-stained trousers.

“Hey!” calls Nils from behind the bush.

He calls out quietly, and the boy doesn’t react. He keeps on walking.

“You! With the cap!”

The boy stops. He looks around suspiciously, and Nils cautiously stands and waves to him. “Over here.”

The boy changes course and takes a few steps toward the bush. He stands there staring at Nils, without saying a word.

“Do you work here at the sawmill?” asks Nils.

The boy nods proudly. “It’s my first summer.”

His voice very nearly cracks, and he speaks with the Småland dialect.

“Good,” says Nils. He is making a real effort to sound calm and friendly. “I need some help. I want you to fetch August Kant. I need to talk to him.”

“The boss?” asks the boy in surprise.

“August Kant, the boss, that’s right,” says Nils. He holds the boy’s gaze and extends his hand to show that he is holding a whole one-krona coin between his fingers. “Tell him Nils is here. Go to the office and tell the boss he has to come.”

The errand boy nods, without any reaction to the name Nils, and quickly grabs the coin. Then he turns away, without any great hurry. He pushes the coin deep into his pocket.

Nils breathes out and settles back down behind the bush. That’s it, everything will be all right now. His uncle will look after him, hide him until everything has calmed down. No doubt he’ll have to stay out of the way here in Småland for the rest of the summer, but he’ll just have to put up with that.

He has to wait again, for far too long. At last he hears steps approaching the barn. Nils raises his head, smiling, and takes a step forward — but it isn’t his Uncle August. It’s just the boy with the cap again.

Nils looks at him. “Wasn’t he in the office... the boss?” he asks.

“Yes.” The boy nods. “But he doesn’t want to come.”

“Doesn’t want to?” says Nils uncomprehendingly.

“I’m to give you this,” says the boy.

He is holding a small white envelope in his hand.

Nils takes it, turns his back on the boy, then opens it.

There is no letter in the envelope, just three bills. Three one-hundred-krona bills, folded up.

Nils closes the envelope and spins around.

“Was that all?” he asks.

The boy nods.

“The boss didn’t say anything... He didn’t send a message?”

The boy shakes his head. “Just the letter.”

Nils lowers his eyes and stares at the bills.

Money, that’s all he got. Money to get away, and it’s a very clear message.

His uncle doesn’t want anything to do with him.

He sighs and looks up again, but the boy is gone. Nils catches a glimpse of him as he disappears around the corner of the barn.

Nils is alone again. He’ll have to manage on his own.

So he has to get away. Where to?

Away from the coast, first and foremost. After that, something will turn up.

Nils looks around. The insects are humming, the scent of lilac fills the air. Everything is green, the dark rich green of summer. To the northeast he can see a little strip of blue water.

He will come back. They might be able to chase him away right now, but he will return. Öland is his island.

Nils looks at the water for one last time, then turns and strides back into the safety of the fir trees in the forest.