Echoes From the Dead

Puerto Limón, July 1963

Nils waits anxiously for over an hour in the darkness beneath the palm trees with his back to the beach. The mosquitoes are swarming around him. He waves them away and thinks of Öland, what it was like to wander over the alvar, free and without a care in the world. At the same time he is constantly listening, but nothing is to be heard from the beach down below.

Finally someone approaches in the sand behind him.

“That took a while, but he’s sleeping now,” says Fritiof.

“Good.”

Nils goes back down to the beach with Fritiof. Borrachon the Swede is slumped by the glowing fire like a sack of coal, his head sagging, his hand on the last wine bottle.

“Good, you can get going now,” says Fritiof.

“Me?”

“Yes, you.” Fritiof stares at him. “It’s been hard enough for me keeping this drunken lout awake for the whole journey. You can take over now.”

Nils looks down at Borrachon, but doesn’t move.

“He’s worthless, Nils,” says Fritiof. “He’s valuable only to us.”

Nils still doesn’t move.

“Do you think you’ll go to hell for this?” asks Fritiof.

Nils shakes his head.

“You won’t,” says Fritiof. “You’ll be able to go home.”

“It’s here,” says Nils.

“What is?”

“Hell,” says Nils. “Hell is here.”

“Good.” Fritiof nods. “Then it’s time for you to leave it.”

Nils nods wearily, then he bends down and grabs hold of Borrachon’s arms. The man mumbles in his sleep, but offers no resistance. Nils drags him off through the sand, away from the fire, and down toward the dark sea.

“Look out for sharks,” warns Fritiof behind him.

The water is lukewarm and the waves broad but powerless. Nils backs right out into the Caribbean, dragging Borrachon’s body with him.

Suddenly it moves. Borrachon coughs as the foam swirls over his face, and he begins to struggle. Nils grits his teeth, moves back a couple of yards more until the water is up to his thighs, then pushes Borrachon beneath the surface. He closes his eyes and begins to count: One, two, three...

The man flails wildly with his arms, desperately trying to get his head above water. Nils holds him firmly, thinks of Öland and keeps counting.

... forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty...

It feels as if it takes an hour before the body stops moving in the water. Nils remains where he is, rigid, holding it beneath the surface. All trace of life must be gone, nothing must remain. If he waits long enough, perhaps Borrachon won’t turn up in his dreams, as the district superintendent has done.

“Is it over?” calls Fritiof from the beach.

“Yes.”

“Well done, Nils.” Fritiof wades out into the water, bends down to Borrachon, lifts one arm, and lets it drop. “Well done.”

Nils says nothing. He stays where he is, feeling the pull of the waves, while Fritiof drags the body to the water’s edge, and suddenly he thinks of his little brother, Axel.

It was an accident, Axel, I didn’t mean it... Killing makes those who are already dead come back, stronger than ever.

Fritiof plows back up the beach, wiping his brow with his shirtsleeve. He breathes out.

“Good, that’s done,” he says, turning to Nils. “Okay, now you can tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

Nils walks slowly out of the sea and stands in front of him.

“About the treasure you hid. Where is it, Nils?”

The body of the man from Småland is lying between them on the beach. Nils senses that Fritiof has the upper hand now, but he refuses to give in.

“In that case, what’s your name, Fritiof Andersson? Your real name?”

The man in front of him doesn’t reply.

“If you take me home,” says Nils eventually, “I’ll get you the goods.”

“It’ll take a while,” says Fritiof, waving away a mosquito. “I’ll take care of everything, but it’ll take a while. One step at a time. The body has to be taken to Öland first... it has to be buried and forgotten, as far as possible. Then you can come home. You do understand that?”

Nils nods.

Fritiof pokes the body between them with his shoe.

“We’ll drag it back out again now, just a few yards, cut the face up a bit and anchor it to the bottom... then we’ll let the fish do their job. After that, nobody will be able to tell the difference between you.” He nods toward Borrachon’s little bag by the fire. “Don’t forget to take his passport. You might not get into Mexico otherwise.”

“And afterwards,” says Nils, “you’ll come back here?”

“Yes. You stay in Mexico City, and I’ll come back here in a week or so. I’ll haul the body onto the beach and get rid of any traces, then I’ll drive back down to Limón and start asking people if anyone has seen my Swedish friend Nils. It’s probably best if someone else comes and finds the corpse, but otherwise I’ll have to do it.”

Nils starts to get undressed. “We’ll swap clothes, then.”

Fritiof looks at him. “Anything else?” he says. “Have you forgotten anything?”

Nils pulls off his shirt in the darkness. “Like what?”

Fritiof points silently at Nils’s left hand, at his two bent fingers. Then he bends down and grabs hold of Borrachon’s arm, straightens it out so that the left hand is lying in the sand, and stamps down hard on the ring finger and the middle finger with the heel of his shoe. Harder and harder, until a quiet crack is heard in the darkness.

“There,” says Fritiof, taking a handkerchief out of his pocket and tying the broken fingers to the palm at a crooked angle. “You’ll soon be twins.”

Nils just looks at him. This man, Fritiof, is ahead of him all the time when it comes to planning. How does he intend this to finish?

Nils pushes his unease to one side.

“Take off his trousers,” he says. “I’ll dry them over the fire. Then he can have mine instead, and my wallet.”

All he wants to do now is go home. If he can just get back to Stenvik, all this will have a happy ending.

Then it won’t matter that he’s in hell.