Fog Island
‘Maybe. I mean, ViaTerra is my family. The only family I have.’
‘But that doesn’t mean everything about it is perfect, does it?’
‘You’re so new, Sofia. You’ll get used to it. The purpose is what matters.’
That same shadow fell across his face again.
‘What are you thinking about?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Come on, out with it. I can tell something’s up.’
He cleared his throat, looking embarrassed.
‘Well, it’s just, you know . . . if you’re a couple, at ViaTerra, the expectation is that you’ll, um, move in together.’
‘Move in together?’
‘I just want to make sure you know the rules before we start anything. It seems like no one explained them to you.’
‘What rules?’
‘You can only have sex if you live together or you’re married.’
‘Who said anything about sex?’
‘Don’t make this even harder for me.’
‘What kind of moron thought up that rule?’
Benjamin laughed.
‘Franz, probably. But don’t you see what it would be like in such a small group, if everyone was sleeping with everyone else all the time?’
She considered it for a moment. This was all so exciting. It was new and unusual and a little titillating, and for some strange reason she liked it.
‘But just because there are rules doesn’t mean you can’t bend them a little sometimes, right?’
He nodded in agreement as if they had just made a pact.
*
It was totally dark when they left the pub. A half-moon shined down on them from the clear sky. They could see their breath, and the chilly air nipped at their cheeks. She flipped up her collar and buried her hands in her jacket pockets. Benjamin put his arm around her shoulders again.
The walk to ViaTerra was long, but it passed quickly. She leaned against him, snuggling into his chest now and then.
Sten was on guard at the gate, and he waved them in distractedly. The wind was still beyond the thick walls.
The windows of the manor house were bright in the darkness. When Sofia looked up, she thought she could see a light on in the attic — then she remembered that the attic was unfit for use. A moment later the light had vanished and she decided she must have been seeing things.
*
They bent the rules just a few weeks later. They never discussed it, but the tension between them had risen until his visits to the library became unbearable.
It was their day off, and he met her by the gate. They didn’t even talk about where to go — their feet just carried them to the cottage and their hands were linked as if frozen by a constant electric current. She moved right up next to him for the last little bit of the journey and noticed that his breathing was already faintly erratic and heavy.
She’d had good and bad sex before, but never forbidden sex, so this was something new. She walked ahead of him into the cottage and right away he grabbed her from behind, lifting her loose hair and kissing her tenderly on the back of the neck. He nibbled at her earlobe and tried to get his hands in under her clothes, but one hand got stuck between the buttons. She pulled him to the kitchen bench and they collapsed onto it, eager but awkward in all their outerwear. They rolled onto the rag rug on the floor. On the way down she accidentally grabbed hold of the lace tablecloth and a candlestick came flying by, narrowly missing Benjamin’s head. They burst into laughter but managed to pull off each other’s clothing: jackets, boots, gloves, pants, and sweaters ended up in one big pile that grew as they gasped and howled in amusement.
This is how it should be the first time, she thought. Wild and joyful. Then she thought about what would happen if someone came into the cottage and discovered them on the floor — but it wouldn’t have mattered, not even if it was Oswald himself. It was like they were a runaway train, and no one could stop them.
Afterwards, as they lay twined together on the rag rug, she decided that forbidden sex blew everything else out of the water.
She rested her head against his shoulder and they lay like that for a long time. Completely devoid of energy, drained.
‘What’s the punishment?’ she asked.
‘The punishment?’
‘Yes, for what we did.’
‘What do you mean, what we did?’
‘Stop messing with me!’
‘Well, it’s pretty bad. I mean, you get shunned from the group. Dismissed. Sent back to the mainland.’
‘No way! Just for having sex without living together?’
‘That’s right. But we don’t have to tell anyone, do we? It’s between us.’
She thought of the library, her dream for the future. How would it feel to tell her family and friends that she couldn’t hack it? That she had been fired?
‘Exactly. It has nothing to do with anyone else.’
I’m sitting on the cliff and staring into the fog.
It seems strange that the fog lingers even though spring is here. Maybe it’s a sign, calling me to leave.
You can hardly see the water, only hear the waves crashing against the rocks. A few ducks fly down and land on the surface, where they turn into little brown balls of feathers. Too bad I left my rifle at home. I toss a rock at them and they flap their wings and fly off.
The wind is picking up and the fog is scattering farther out at sea; I can see the lighthouse out there, a dot floating in the mist. It’s a peculiar sight. Not beautiful — because beauty is a concept I never make use of, an expression used by the weak to show how sensitive they are.
But it’s calm here by the sea, maybe even peaceful.
I haven’t received a response to my letter, but it doesn’t matter. Now he knows.
Everything is ready. I’ve pawned my mother’s jewellery, things she won’t miss until I’m long gone from the island.
The ticket is safely tucked in my trouser pocket. My backpack is under my bed, the diary and other important documents inside. I think about my exodus. How I will disappear. How it will feel when I come back once it’s all done.
One last night with Lily is all I need now, a ceremony and an acknowledgement.
Then I hear a sound. It floats in from the sea and echoes off the rocks. A dull, monotonous bellow from the old lighthouse.
The foghorn.
My first thought is that it can’t be true. That the message is for someone else, an old person in the village or some suicidal idiot roving through the forest.
Because I know what that howl means.
It’s a warning to someone who’s about to die.
11
A storm followed on the heels of the fog in early November. The weather service had issued a Class 3 warning, so everyone scrambled to prepare the property. They secured anything loose, brought the animals into the barns, piled sandbags where the water might rise, and tested the generator.
Sofia looked online to see what the warning meant. ‘Considerable damage to property, considerable disruption to crucial public services, danger to the public.’ She had never experienced a big storm on an island before. Bosse told her about last fall’s storm, how the water level had risen over a metre, and how no one could go outside — the trees had fallen like bowling pins. They’d been without power for a whole week.
‘They were too busy fixing the electric lines on the mainland, so we had to wait. But now we have our own backup generator,’ he said proudly.
The wind began to whine and howl late in the afternoon. Sofia sat in the library, putting the finishing touches to her list of books. She’d poured her heart and soul into that list. Oswald had said he wanted to see it, but she was well prepared. She knew exactly how many shelves the books would take up, how they should be categorized, and why she had chosen each one.
She also had another, shorter list of books with controversial or erotic contents, which Oswald probably wouldn’t approve of if he’d read them. But he hadn’t read them — she was almost certain of it. She would put the two lists together once she was finished, letting the controversial books mix in with the others. This project had taken up all her attention and she often thought about how good it would look on her CV when she was done.
But now the storm was raging. It was already dark; it was five o’clock and the wind was supposed to peak around midnight. The aspens behind her building bent in the gusts that rattled the windows. The gale had found every crack in the old building, making it raw and cold inside. She turned up the thermostat before she headed over for dinner. As she crossed the yard, the wind tore at her down jacket and she had to stop and catch her balance to keep from being tossed forward. A branch came flying through the air and landed on the ground as a flowerpot rolled across the yard. She hunched over against the whipping wind.
Bosse stood up during dinner to give a speech about the rules for the night. Everyone had to stay indoors and be prepared to lend a hand if anything happened. No going on walks. Sofia snorted. As if someone would get the bright idea to go out in the dark and risk being crushed to death by a falling tree.
By bedtime the gale was even stronger, and it was so dark that nothing could be seen; they could only hear the terrible noise. A few small branches flew by, striking the window. The air was so full of static that it made her skin tingle. She began to feel uneasy. She chatted with Madeleine and Elvira a bit, but everything felt wrong when it was time for lights out.
‘We can’t just lie here in the dark, listening to this miserable weather, can we? Do we really have to pull the blinds? What if something happens?’
Disagreement was on the tip of Madeleine’s tongue, but Elvira agreed with Sofia.
‘I don’t want to listen to the wind in the dark either; that’s just terrifying,’ she said.
So for once, they left the blinds up.
She had trouble falling asleep in the roar of the storm. The wind brought objects smashing and crashing into the yard, but at last she slipped into a sleep-like state. She drifted in and out for a long time, until she was suddenly yanked out of her dozing: the whole room lit up for an instant and the flash was followed by a loud rumble of thunder.
She sat up with a start. There was another round of lightning and thunder, but this time it was so loud that she leapt out of bed and ran to the window. Down in the yard she could see a piece of the flagpole, which had broken in half. A couple of figures were fighting the wind on their way to the barns.
What happened next would be imprinted in her mind in slow motion, even though it was all over in a fraction of a second. A bolt of lightning shot down, accompanied by a deafening clap of thunder. The lightning struck a tall pine behind the barn; the tree seemed to split in two as it crashed onto the annexe behind the manor, taking an electrical wire with it. Great flames leapt from the thatched roof.
Madeleine and Elvira had woken up too and were sitting up ramrod straight in their beds.
‘Shit! It’s on fire!’ Sofia shrieked.
Suddenly she remembered the fire drills they’d practised with Bosse late last summer — exercises she’d found annoying at the time. They were supposed to wake everyone up and shout ‘Fire!’ and give the location. She pulled her boots on without socks and swept her down jacket over her nightgown.
‘Didn’t you hear me? A fire!’ she shouted at Madeleine and Elvira, so loudly that they flew out of bed and started looking for their clothes.
She dashed from the room and started knocking on doors in the hallway.
‘Fire in the barn! Fire in the barn!’ she shouted, running from door to door.
Elvira popped up behind her as she headed for the first floor.
‘Make sure everyone wakes up and comes down!’ Sofia shouted.
It was pitch dark in the yard, aside from the flames shooting out of the barn roof. The broken electrical wire must have taken out all the power. But then she heard the generator kick in and the outdoor lights came back on. She could see Bosse and Sten manoeuvring the fire hose toward the barn. The wind had let up a bit, but the thunder was still constant. She saw lightning and heard thunder at the same time, and realized it must be very dangerous to be outside.
Moos, bleats, and hysterical clucking echoed from the barn.
‘I’ll let the animals out!’ she called to Bosse.
‘No, they’ll trample you!’ he shouted back as he aimed the hose at the fire. A cascade of water jetted toward the roof, but the flames only grew higher, up towards the treetops.
The shrieking from the barn was unbearable.
The thought came over her quickly, but her body was even faster. It was like she was a remotely-guided character in a computer game, always acting before her mind caught up. She had already opened the barn doors by the time it occurred to her that she would rather be trampled than let the animals burn alive inside.
It was absolute chaos inside the barn. The fire was crackling in the ceiling of the far corner, where the chickens were caged. It smelled like smoke and burnt wood. The animals sensed the danger instinctively; they were stamping and shrieking, their eyes rolled back in fear.
She opened the gate to the sheep enclosure first, and they immediately ran for the door and pinned her against the wall, but she managed to shoo them out. The cows had begun to throw themselves at the doors of their stalls, wild with fear.
She climbed up on one of the stall walls to leave the aisle free. One by one she let the cows out and they immediately set off down the aisle and vanished through the door.
The fire had burned through the ceiling by now and flames were licking at the chicken coop. Thick smoke began to pour in and fill the aisle. She fought with the coop door, but when it finally opened the hens just flapped around at random, squawking and cackling.
She grabbed a pitchfork from the aisle and started shoving them toward the door.
‘Get out, for god’s sake, fly out!’
At last they caught on and started flapping down the aisle, but a couple of confused hens turned around and went right into the fire, where they flew around like torches, uttering ghastly noises. At the same time, she heard the dreadful creak of a beam falling on the far side of the barn.
By now the smoke was thick in the aisle and it hurt to breathe. Then suddenly she couldn’t get any air at all and her eyes were swimming, about to go dark. It was crackling behind her, and the heat of the fire licked at her back, just enough to give her one last shot of adrenaline that sent her out of the barn on staggering legs. Once she was out, she collapsed, lying supine on the ground, and sucked in the cold air. She lay there for a moment, staring up at the clouds moving across the black sky.
‘Sofia, are you okay?’
It was Benjamin. He sank down beside her and grasped her hand so hard it hurt.
‘Breathe, Sofia, breathe!’ he urged her.
‘Thanks for the reminder,’ she said, trying to laugh. All that came out was a rattle deep in her lungs.
‘We have to get to a doctor.’
‘No, I’ll be fine.’
Her voice already felt steadier.
Bosse had arrived with a few other staff members in tow.
‘Jesus, Sofia, you should have listened to me!’
‘But I didn’t, and that’s why most of the animals are still alive,’ she said, sitting up.
The yard was full of people. Staff and guests, all mixed up. Some were fighting the fire; others were herding the animals into an empty barn nearby. They seemed so strangely organized: everyone was in motion; everyone had something to do.
At that moment, the rain came, a heavy downpour that joined the cascades of the fire hoses and put out the fire until all that was left was the smoke and the acrid smell. The back of the barn was destroyed, and thick, grey smoke billowed from its charred skeleton. A few animals were still running around in the yard. It was freezing cold, but it didn’t matter. They kept working.
When they were all done and the fire hoses were rolled up, they just stood there looking at each other in the rain. The relief on their faces was beautiful. It was a sight she thought she’d never forget.
She searched for Oswald but realized he wasn’t there. There were guests in soaked clothing, even some in pyjamas and nightgowns, but no Oswald. She looked up at the manor house and saw a figure standing on the balcony: the silhouette of a man gazing down at them with his arms crossed over his chest. It looked as if he was nodding.
An onlooker on the outside, peering in.
*
She couldn’t stop whining about Oswald to Benjamin in the days after the fire.
‘What the hell was he doing on the balcony?’
‘I don’t know, Sofia. He probably wanted to see how we would manage.’
‘The whole barn was burning down, animals and all.’
‘Quit complaining. Franz likes to keep a little distance.’
‘Even the guests were out there, in their pyjamas.’
‘Listen, if I didn’t know better I’d say you were a little fixated on Franz.’
‘Fixated? Everyone is, around here.’
‘No, not me. He’s really just a regular guy — it’s best to take everything he says with a pinch of salt. Instead of expecting him to be some sort of god.’
They went on like that for a few days until Oswald came to an assembly and rewarded Sofia with a bonus and two days off for her actions during the fire. He said that the county police chief, Wilgot Östling, had been on the island that day and had seen her rescue the animals.
*
She swallowed her annoyance and accepted her time off and bonus, using it to travel home to Lund for a few days to see her parents and spend some time with Wilma.
Her mother was more anxious than ever. It took almost a whole day of repeated assurances that Sofia was happy on the island, and felt just fine, to calm her down. Sofia didn’t mention the fire.
It felt strange to be back home again. She found herself going back and forth between several different moods: at times she felt so melancholy that she wanted to remain in Lund, but other times she felt restless and wanted to get her visit over with so she could go back to the island.
There was something strained about Wilma’s mannerisms, as if she were trying to keep from mentioning something.
‘What’s wrong, Wilma?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Oh for god’s sake, I can tell something’s up.’
‘I don’t want to worry you.’
‘Out with it.’
‘Ellis emailed me. I don’t even know how that creep got my address, I’ve changed it so many times. He asked where you were.’
‘What did you say? You didn’t tell him, did you?’
‘Are you nuts? I told him you got a job in France.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He wrote back: “you’re such a lying bitch”.’
‘Was that all?’
‘That was all.’
‘What a fucking jerk.’ Tears welled up in Sofia’s eyes, and then came that familiar feeling of discomfort and panic that Ellis always brought on. ‘What am I supposed to do? He’s going to haunt me forever.’
‘Oh, you’ve got guards and a wall and all of that on the island. What can he do? He’ll just keep writing about you online, and he’ll get sick of it eventually, once he doesn’t hear anything back from you.’
*
The same day she returned to the island, the first snow fell. Thick flakes drifted down, forming a speckled curtain of fog in front of the ferry. The pines on the highest point of the island were already white; the harbour looked like it was made of spun cotton.
It felt like she was coming home.
Something goes wrong.
Something totally unexpected, inexplicable, and so goddamn wrong.
But she’s the one who messes up.
The rules of our game are clear and plain. She doesn’t follow them.
So what happens happens.
We have planned the evening down to the tiniest detail.
She lies in the straw, on the cloak. Her hands are up over her head, her hair spread out like burning fire. And the candles are in front of her, their flames flickering.
I stand there looking at her until I’m totally hard, and then I take out the belt.
She’s used to it by now and doesn’t look frightened, which is too bad because I enjoyed that look in her eyes.
There’s a trick, something I’ve learned — thrusting into her as I pull on the belt. It’s best that way. Maximum pleasure.
I am careful to get it right this time. The last time.
I place the belt around her neck and lean over her. I thrust and pull at the same time, and she gasps and whimpers. It feels so good that I almost lose myself for a moment, but then she resists and starts kicking wildly.
She cries out — a shrill, piercing scream that has nothing to do with our game.
Someone might hear her. She has to stop.
I pull a little harder, just to make her be quiet.
Her eyes roll back in their sockets in such an odd way; all I can see are the whites and she goes strangely limp in the straw.
I loosen the belt and try to jostle her back to life. But it’s as if she’s made of jelly, soft and lifeless.
A hellish pain flares up in my foot and when I turn around I realize she must have kicked a candle over, because the straw behind me is on fire and big flames are licking at my feet.
I give a shout, then stand up and grab my trousers.
I toss them over the fire, trying to smother it, but it only gets worse.
My trousers are on fire now and the flames are crackling and spreading through the straw. I realize I’m naked and pull on my briefs, the first thing I find.
My mind is working incredibly fast. I’ve got to fix this. I’ve got to make it out.
I place her hands over her chest and cover her body with the cloak. It’s all I can do.
Got to hurry, the fire’s spreading. It’s at her feet now.
I run out of the barn.
I run like a madman.
12
She felt guilty, and the guilt only got worse the more she worried that they would be discovered. They had grown careless. A quickie in the library bathroom, his hand on her bum in the food line — lust was making them take risks. And now she couldn’t concentrate on anything at all. She felt like the staff were staring at her with suspicion. She couldn’t bring herself to look Oswald in the eye when he came to assembly. At last she found herself wishing Benjamin would go to the mainland for a while, just so she could work in peace.
‘We have to stop.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That we have to stop. I can’t handle it anymore.’
‘Sofia, come on. Let’s just move in together.’
‘Never. Or at least, not right now. I have to finish the library.’
‘But it’s no big deal to live together. And that way we don’t have to sleep in the dorms.’
‘Later, maybe, but for now we need to take a break.’
‘What do you mean, a break?’
‘No more sex until the library is done.’
‘That’s going to be hard.’
‘Then we’ll just have to deal with it.’
She gazed out the window as he reluctantly left the library, in a sour mood. He dragged his feet as he crossed the yard. Pointedly — he knew she could see him. She sighed; she knew it really would be hard.
It was the second Sunday of Advent. It seemed they would have a white Christmas; there were several inches of snow on the ground, which meant an endless amount of shovelling every day. The sky would clear now and then, but clouds would gather again almost right away, ready for the next snowfall.