The Stonecutter

STRÖMSTAD 1923

He made a practised judgement of where the stone would be easiest to cleave and then brought the hammer down on the chisel. Quite rightly, the granite split precisely where he had calculated it would. Experience had taught him well over the years, but natural talent was also a large part of it. You either had it or you didn’t.

Anders Andersson had loved the stone since he had first come to work at the quarry as a small boy, and the stone loved him. But it was a profession that took its toll on a man. The granite dust bothered his lungs more and more with each passing year, and the chips that flew from the stone could ruin a man’s eyesight in a day, or cloud his vision over time. In the cold of winter it was impossible to do a proper job wearing gloves, so his fingers would freeze until they felt like they would fall off. In the summer he would sweat profusely in the broiling heat. And yet there was nothing else he would rather do. Whether he was cutting the four-inch cubic paving stones called ‘two-örings’ used to construct roads, or had the privilege of working on something more advanced, he loved every laborious and painful minute. He knew this was the work he was born to do. His back already ached at the age of twenty-eight, and he coughed interminably at the least dampness, but when he focused all his energy on the task before him, his ailments were forgotten and he would feel only the angular hardness of the stone beneath his fingers.

Granite was the most beautiful stone he knew. He had come to the province of Bohuslän from Blekinge, as so many stonecutters had done over the years. The granite in Blekinge was considerably more difficult to work with than in the regions near the Norwegian border. Consequently the cutters from Blekinge enjoyed great respect thanks to the skill they had acquired by working with less tractable material. Three years he had been here, attracted by the granite right from the start. There was something about the pink colour against the grey, and the ingenuity it took to cleave the stone correctly, that appealed to him. Sometimes he talked to the stone as he worked, cajoling it if it was an unusually difficult piece, or caressing it lovingly if it was easy to work and soft like a woman.

Not that he lacked offers from the genuine article. Like the other unmarried cutters he’d had his amusements when the occasion presented itself, but no woman had attracted him so that his heart leaped in his breast. He’d learned to accept that. He got along fine on his own. He was also well-liked by the other lads in his crew, so he was often invited home for a meal prepared by a woman’s hand. And he had the stone. It was both more beautiful and more faithful than most of the women he had encountered. He and the stone had a good partnership.

‘Hey, Andersson, can you come over here for a moment?’

Anders interrupted his work on the big block and turned round. It was the foreman calling him, and as always he felt a mixture of anticipation and alarm. If the foreman wanted something from you, it was either good news or bad. Either an offer of more work, or notification that you could go home from the quarry with your cap in hand. In fact, Anders believed more in the former alternative. He knew that he was skilled at his profession, and there were probably others who would get the boot before him if the workforce were cut back. On the other hand, logic did not always win out. Politics and power struggles had sent home many a good stonecutter, so nothing was ever guaranteed. His strong involvement in the trade-union movement also made him vulnerable when the boss had to get rid of people. Politically active cutters were not appreciated.

He cast a final glance at the stone block before he went to see the foreman. It was piecework, and every interruption in his work meant lost income. For this particular job he was getting two öre per paving stone, hence the name ‘two-örings’. He would have to work hard to make up for lost time if the foreman was long-winded.

‘Good day, Larsson,’ said Anders, bowing with his cap in hand. The foreman was a stern believer in protocol. Failing to show him the respect he felt he deserved had proven to be reason enough for dismissal.

‘Good day, Andersson,’ muttered the rotund man, tugging on his moustache.

Anders waited tensely for what would come.

‘Well, it’s like this. We’ve got an order for a big memorial stone from France. It’s going to be a statue, so we thought we’d have you cut the stone.’

His heart hammered with joy, but he also felt a stab of fright. It was a great opportunity to be given the responsibility to cut the raw material for a statue. It could pay a great deal more than the usual work, and it was both more fun and more challenging. But at the same time it was an enormous risk. He would be responsible until the statue was shipped off, and if anything went wrong he wouldn’t be paid a single öre for all the work he had done. There was a legend about a cutter who had been given two statues to cut, and just as he was in the final stages of the work he made a wrong cut and ruined them both. It was said that he’d been so despondent that he took his own life, leaving behind a widow and seven children. But those were the conditions. There was nothing he could do about it, and the opportunity was too good to pass up.

Anders spat in his hand and held it out to the foreman, who did the same so that their hands were united in a firm handshake. It was a deal. Anders would be in charge of the work on the memorial stone. It worried him a bit what the others at the quarry would say. There were many men who had considerably more years on the job than he did. Some would undoubtedly complain that the commission should have gone to one of them, especially since unlike him they had families to support. They would have viewed the extra money as a welcome windfall with winter coming on. At the same time they all knew that Anders was the most skilled stonecutter of them all, even as young as he was. That consensus would dampen most of the backbiting. Besides, Anders would choose some of them to work with him, and he had previously shown that he could wisely weigh the pros and cons of who was most skilled and who was in greatest need of extra income.

‘Come down to the office tomorrow and we’ll discuss the details,’ said the foreman, twirling his moustache. ‘The architect won’t be coming until sometime towards spring, but we’ve received the plans and can begin the rough cut.’

Anders pulled a face. It would probably take a couple of hours to go over the drawings, and that meant even more time away from the job he was currently working on. He was going to need every öre now, because the terms stated that the work on the memorial stone would be paid for at the end, when everything was completed. That meant that he would have to get used to longer work-days, since he would have to try and make time to cut paving stones on the side. But the involuntary interruption of his work wasn’t the only reason that he was displeased about going down to the office. Somehow that place always made him feel uncomfortable. The people who worked there had such soft white hands, and they moved so gingerly in their elegant office attire, while he felt like a crude oaf. And even though he always did a thorough job of washing up, he couldn’t help the fact that the dirt worked its way into his skin. But what had to be done had to be done. He would have to drag himself down there and look over the drawings; then he could go back to the quarry, where he felt at home.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow then,’ said the foreman, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. ‘At seven. Don’t be late,’ he admonished, and Anders merely nodded. There was no risk of that. He didn’t often get a chance like this.

With a new spring in his step he went back to the stone he was working on. The happiness he was feeling made him cleave the stone like butter. Life was good.

3

She was spinning through space. Free-falling among the planets and other heavenly bodies that spread a soft glow all around as she sped past them. Dream scenes were mixed with small glimpses of reality. In her dreams she saw Sara. She was smiling. Her little baby body had been so perfect. Alabaster white with long, sensitive fingers on the tiny hands. Already in the first minutes of life she had grabbed hold of Charlotte’s index finger and held on as if it were her only anchor in this frightening new world. And maybe it was. For her daughter’s firm grip on her index finger would become an even harder grip around her heart in the days to come. A grip that even then she had known would last a lifetime.

Now she passed the sun on her path across the heavens, and its dazzling light reminded her of the colour of Sara’s hair. Red like fire. Red like the Devil himself, someone had said in jest, and she remembered in her dream that she hadn’t appreciated that joke. There was nothing devilish about the child lying in her arms. Nothing devilish about the red hair that had at first stood straight up like a punk-rocker’s, but with the years had grown long and thick till it tumbled down her shoulders.

But now the nightmare pushed away both the feeling of the child’s fingers round her heart and the sight of the red hair that bounced on Sara’s narrow shoulders when she hopped about, full of life. Instead she saw her hair dark with water, the strands floating round Sara’s head like a misshapen halo. It was waving to and fro, and below she saw long green arms of seaweed reaching out for it. Even the sea had found pleasure in her daughter’s red hair, claiming it for its own. In her nightmare she saw the alabaster white darken to blue and purple, and Sara’s eyes were closed and dead. Ever so slowly the girl began to turn in the water, with her toes pointed to the sky and her hands clasped over her stomach. Then the speed increased, and when she was spinning so fast that a small backwash was formed on the grey water, the green arms withdrew. The girl opened her eyes. They were completely, utterly white.

The shriek that woke her seemed to come from a deep abyss. Not until she felt Niclas’s hands on her shoulders, shaking her hard, did she realize that it was her own voice. For an instant relief washed over her. All that evil had been a dream. Sara was alive and well; it was only a nightmare playing a nasty trick on her. But then she looked into Niclas’s eyes, and what she saw made a new scream build up in her breast. He forestalled this by pulling her close to him, so that the scream metamorphosed into deep sobs. His shirt was wet in front and she tasted the unfamiliar salt of his tears.

‘Sara, Sara,’ she moaned. Even though she was now awake she was still in freefall through space. The only thing holding her back was the pressure of Niclas’s arms round her body.

‘I know, I know.’ He rocked her, his voice thick.

‘Where have you been?’ she sobbed quietly, but he just kept rocking her and stroking her hair with a trembling hand.

‘Shh, I’m here now. Go back to sleep …’

‘I can’t!’

‘Yes you can. Shh …’ And he rocked her rhythmically until the darkness and the dreams again descended upon her.

The news had spread through the police station while they were out. Dead children were a rarity, the victims of the occasional, rare car accident, perhaps. Nothing else could cast such a pall of sadness over the whole building.

Annika gave Patrik a questioning look when he and Martin passed the reception desk, but he didn’t feel like talking to anyone. He just wanted to go to his office and close the door. They ran into Ernst Lundgren in the corridor but he didn’t say anything either, so Patrik quickly slipped into the silence of his little den and Martin did the same. There was nothing in their professional training that prepared any of them for situations like this. Informing someone of a death was one of the most odious tasks of their profession. Informing parents of the death of a child was worse than anything else. It defied all sense and all decency. No one should have to be forced to deliver such news.

Patrik sat down at his desk, rested his head in his hands, and closed his eyes. Soon he opened his eyes again, because all he could see in the dark behind his eyelids was Sara’s bluish, pale skin and the eyes that stared unseeing at the sky. Instead he picked up the picture frame that stood before him and brought the glass as close to his face as possible. The first picture of Maja. Exhausted and bruised, resting in Erica’s arms in the maternity ward. Ugly yet beautiful, in that unique way that only those who have seen their child for the first time can understand. And Erica, worn out and smiling feebly, but with a new sense of resolve and pride over having accomplished something that could only be described as a miracle.

Patrik knew that he was being sentimental and maudlin. But it was only now, this morning, that he had understood the scope of the responsibility that had been placed in his hands with his daughter’s birth. Only now did he realize the extent of both his love and his fear. When he saw the drowned girl lying like a statue on the deck of the boat, for a moment he wished that Maja had never been born. Because how could he live with the risk of losing her?

He carefully put the photograph back on his desk and leaned back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head. It suddenly felt utterly meaningless to continue with the tasks he’d been working on before they got the call from Fjällbacka. Most of all he wanted to drive home, crawl into bed and pull the covers over his head for the rest of the day. A knock on the door interrupted his dismal ruminations. ‘Come in,’ he assented and Annika cautiously pushed open the door.

‘Hi, Patrik, excuse me for disturbing you. But I just wanted to tell you that Forensic Medicine rang and said they’d received the body. We’ll have the autopsy report the day after tomorrow.’

Patrik gave a weary nod. ‘Thanks, Annika.’

She hesitated. ‘Did you know her?’

‘Yes, I’ve met the girl, Sara, and her mother quite a few times lately. Charlotte and Erica have been spending a good deal of time together since Maja was born.’

‘How do you think it happened?’

He sighed and fidgeted absently with the papers before him without looking up. ‘She drowned, as I’m sure you heard. Apparently she went down to the wharf to play, fell in the water, and then couldn’t get out. The water is so cold that she probably got hypothermia very quickly. But driving out to tell Charlotte, that was the most terrible …’ His voice broke and he turned away so that Annika wouldn’t see how the tears threatened to spill out of his eyes.

She tactfully closed the door to his office and left him in peace. She wasn’t going to get much done on a day like this, either.

Erica looked at the clock again. Charlotte should have been here half an hour ago. She carefully shifted Maja, who was snoozing at her breast, and reached for the telephone. It rang many times at Charlotte’s house, but no one answered. How odd. She must have gone out and forgotten that they were supposed to get together that afternoon. Although that really wasn’t like her.

Erica felt that they had become close friends in a very short time. Maybe because they were both in a fragile time of their lives, maybe because they were simply very similar to each other. It was funny, really. She and Charlotte seemed more like sisters than she and Anna ever had. She knew that Charlotte worried about her, and that gave her a secure feeling in the midst of all the chaos. Her whole life Erica had worried about other people, especially Anna. To be viewed for once as the person who was little and scared felt strangely liberating.

At the same time she knew that Charlotte had her own problems. It wasn’t only that she and her family were forced to live at home with her parents, Lilian and Stig. Lilian, especially, didn’t seem easy to live with. But something unsure and tense came over Charlotte’s face each time she talked about her husband Niclas. Erica had only met him briefly on a few occasions, but her spontaneous impression was that there was something unreliable about the man. Or perhaps unreliable was too strong a word. Maybe it was more a feeling that Niclas was one of those people who has good intentions but, in the end, will always allow his own needs and desires to take precedence over everyone else’s. Charlotte had told her a few things that had confirmed this impression, even though she mostly had to read between the lines, since her friend usually spoke of her husband in adoring terms. Charlotte looked up to Niclas and, on several occasions, had said straight out that she couldn’t understand how she had been so lucky. It seemed inconceivable to her that she was married to someone like him.

Erica could see, of course, that from a purely objective point of view he rated higher on the looks scale than Charlotte. Tall, blond and handsome was the ladies’ assessment of the new doctor. And he certainly had an extensive academic background, unlike his wife. But if one looked at their inner qualities, Erica realized that the situation was just the opposite. Niclas ought to be thanking his lucky stars. Charlotte was a loving, wise, gentle human being and as soon as Erica managed to pull herself out of this listless state, she was going to do everything she could to make Charlotte realize her own strong points. Unfortunately, at the moment, Erica had no energy to do more than ponder her friend’s situation.

A couple of hours later darkness had fallen, and the storm had reached full force outside her window. Erica saw by the clock that she must have dozed off for an hour or two with Maja, who was using her breast as a dummy. She was just about to reach for the phone to ring Charlotte when she heard the front door open.

‘Hello?’ she called. Patrik wasn’t due home for an hour or two, so perhaps it was Charlotte finally showing up.

‘It’s me.’ Patrik’s voice had an empty sound to it, and Erica was instantly uneasy.

When he entered the living room she was even more concerned. His face was grey, and his eyes had a dead expression that didn’t vanish until he caught sight of Maja, still asleep in Erica’s arms. With two long strides he came over to them, and before Erica could react he had swept up the sleeping baby, pressing her hard to his chest. He didn’t even stop when Maja woke up from the shock of being picked up so abruptly and started shrieking as loud as she could.

‘What are you doing? You’re scaring Maja!’

Erica tried to take the screaming baby from Patrik to calm her down, but he fended off her attempt and just hugged the infant even harder. Maja was now screaming hysterically, and for lack of any better idea Erica slapped him on the arm and said, ‘Stop that! What’s wrong with you? Can’t you see that she’s terrified?’

Then Patrik seemed to snap out of it. He cast a confused look at his daughter, who was bright red in the face from anger and fright.

‘Sorry.’ He handed Maja over to Erica, who did her best to soothe the baby. After a few minutes she succeeded, and Maja’s screams gave way to low sobbing. Erica looked at Patrik, who had sat down on the sofa and was staring out at the storm.

‘What’s happened, Patrik?’ said Erica, now in a kinder tone. She couldn’t prevent a hint of uneasiness from creeping into her voice.

‘We got a report of a drowned child today. From here in Fjällbacka. Martin and I took the call.’ He paused, unable to go on.

‘Oh my God, what happened? Who was it?’

Then her thoughts began whirling until they all fell into place at once, like tiny puzzle pieces.

‘Oh my God,’ she repeated. ‘It’s Sara, isn’t it? Charlotte was supposed to come over for coffee this afternoon, but she never showed up and there was no answer when I rang her at home. That’s it, isn’t it? It was Sara you found, right?’

Patrik could only nod. Erica sank into the easy chair to prevent her legs from buckling under her. Before her she could see Sara jumping on their living room sofa as recently as two days ago. With her long red hair flying about her head and laughter bubbling up inside her like an unstoppable primal force.

‘Oh my God,’ Erica said again, putting her hand to her mouth as she felt her heart sink like a stone to her stomach. Patrik just stared out of the window, and she saw in profile his jaw clenching tight.

‘It was so horrible, Erica. I haven’t seen Sara that many times, but seeing her lying there in that boat, totally lifeless … I kept picturing Maja in my mind. Since then my thoughts have been churning round in my head. I can’t stop imagining if something like that happened to Maja. And then having to tell Charlotte what happened …’

Erica uttered a whimpering, tormented sound. She had no words to describe the depth of the sympathy she felt for Charlotte, and Niclas too. She understood at once Patrik’s reaction, and found herself holding Maja even closer. She was never going to let her go. She would sit here holding her tight, keeping her safe, for ever. But Maja squirmed restlessly, intuiting as most children can that things were not as they should be.

Outside the storm continued to rage. Patrik and Erica just sat there for a long time, watching the wild play of nature. Neither of them could stop thinking about the child who was taken by the sea.

Medical examiner Tord Pedersen began the task with an unusually resolute expression on his face. After many years in his profession he had developed a hardened attitude – either desirable or loathsome, depending on how one wanted to view it – which meant that most of the ghastly things he observed in his work left little trace at the end of the day. But there was something about cutting open a child that conflicted with primal instinct and disrupted all routine, undermining the objective professionalism that his years as a medical examiner had given him. The defencelessness of a child tore down all the defensive walls that his psyche could put up, so his hand shook a bit as he moved it towards the girl’s chest.

When she was brought in he had been told that drowning was the presumed cause of death. Now it was up to him to confirm or reject that hypothesis. But so far there was nothing he could see with the naked eye to contradict it.

The mercilessly bright glare in the post-mortem room emphasized her blue pallor so that it looked like she was freezing. The aluminium table beneath her seemed to reflect the cold, and Pedersen shivered in his green scrubs. She was naked as she lay there, and he felt as though he were violating her as he prized open and cut into the defenceless body. But he forced himself to shake off that feeling. He knew that the task he was performing was important, both for the girl and her parents, even if they didn’t realize it themselves. It was necessary for the grieving process to have a final determination of the cause of death. Even though there didn’t seem to be any ambiguities in this case, the rules were in place for a reason. He knew this on a professional level, but as a human being and father with two boys at home, he sometimes wondered in cases like this how much humanity there was in the work he was doing.