Johan Theorin - The Darkest Room

Carolina doesn’t seem to be listening any longer, she is just panting faintly, but Kerstin goes on anyway:

“I’m going to go across the Atlantic to New York, then travel on from there. She’s even deposited the money for the

ticket in Gothenburg.” She leans closer. “And you can come with me, Carolina. Would you like to do that?”

Carolina does not reply. She is no longer struggling to breathe. The air is simply seeping out of her, barely audible.

In the end she is lying there motionless in the hay, her eyes wide open. Everything is silent in the barn.

“I’ll be back soon,” whispers Kerstin, her voice full of tears.

She pushes the thing lying in the hay into the blanket, then folds it over several times to hide the marks of the blood and the birth fluid. Then she stands up and takes the bundle in her arms.

She goes out into the courtyard, where the wind is still increasing in strength, and battles her way back to the main house, pressed against the stone wall of the barn. She goes straight to her little room, packs her few possessions and Carolina’s, then puts on layer after layer of clothes, ready for the difficult journey that awaits her when the blizzard has abated.

Then Kerstin walks without hesitation to the large drawing room, where oil lamps and the tiled stove spread warmth and light through the winter darkness. Master lighthouse keeper Sven Karlsson is sitting in an armchair by the table in the center of the room, his black uniform straining at the seams over his belly.

As a servant of the crown, Karlsson is one of the privileged members of the parish. He has almost half the rooms in the manor house at his disposal, and has his own pew in the church over in Rörby. Beside him his wife, Anna, is enthroned on a fine chair. A few maids are hovering in the background, waiting for the blizzard to pass, and in a dark corner sits Old Sara, who came from the poorhouse in Rörby after the master lighthouse keeper put in the lowest bid at the auction to establish who would take care of her.

“Where have you been?” says Anna when she sees Kerstin.

Her voice is always loud and sharp, but now it is shriller than usual in order to be heard above the howling wind.

Kerstin curtsies, positions herself in silence in front of the table, and waits until everyone’s eyes are on her. She thinks about her older sister over in America.

Then she places the bundle she has brought with her on the table, right in front of Sven Karlsson.

“Good evening, sir,” says Kerstin loudly, unfolding the blanket. “I have something here… something you appear to have lost.”

Joakim’s third morning in the manor house at Eel Point was the beginning of his last completely happy day for many years-perhaps ever.

Unfortunately, he was too stressed to register how good he felt.

He and Katrine had had a late night. Once the children had gone to sleep, they had walked through the south-facing rooms on the ground floor, pondering how their different personalities could best be brought out in their choice of colors. White would of course be the base color throughout the whole of the ground floor, both on the walls and ceiling, while the wooden details like cornices and doorframes could vary from room to room.

They had gone to bed at half past eleven. The house had been silent then, but a couple of hours later Livia had started calling out again. Katrine had merely sighed and got out of bed without a word.

The whole family got up just after six. The horizon in the east was still pitch black.

The great winter darkness was drawing closer, Joakim realized. Only two months to go until Christmas.

The family gathered at half past six in the kitchen. Joakim wanted to make a quick getaway to Stockholm, and had finished his cup of tea almost before Katrine and the children had sat down. As he placed his cup in the dishwasher, he saw an orange strip of light from the sun, which was still hidden by the sea, and higher up in the sky the V-shaped formation of a flock of birds, bobbing slightly as they flew out over the Baltic.

Geese or cranes? It was still too dark to see them clearly, and he wasn’t very good at identifying birds in flight.

“Can you see those birds out there?” he said over his shoulder. “They’re doing just what we’ve done… moving south.”

Nobody answered. Katrine and Livia were munching their sandwiches; Gabriel was drinking concentrated baby rice out of his bottle.

The two lighthouses down by the water rose up toward the sky like two fairy-tale castles, the south tower regularly flashing its red glow. From the panes of glass at the top of the north tower came a fainter white light that didn’t flash.

This was slightly odd, because the northern lighthouse hadn’t shown a light before. Joakim leaned closer to the window. The white glow might have been a reflection of the sunrise, but it appeared to be coming from inside the tower.

“Are there more birds moving south, Daddy?” said Livia behind him.

“No.”

Joakim stopped looking at the lighthouses. He went back to the breakfast table to clean up.

The migrating birds had a long journey ahead of them, just like Joakim. He would be driving some two hundred and seventy miles today, to pick up the last of their possessions

from the house in Bromma. He would stay the night with his mother, Ingrid, in Jakobsberg, then drive back to Öland the next day.

This was his last trip to the capital, at least for this year.

Gabriel seemed bright and cheerful, but Livia looked as if she was in a bad mood. She had got up with Katrine’s help, but was still sleepy and quiet. She was holding her sandwich in one hand, elbows on the table, staring down into her glass of milk.

“Eat up now, Livia.”

“Mmm.”

She certainly wasn’t a morning person, but when she got to nursery school she usually cheered up. She had changed to an older playgroup the previous week, and seemed happy there.

“So what are you going to do at nursery school today?”

“It’s not a nursery school, Daddy.” She looked up at him with a truculent expression. “Gabriel goes to nursery school. I go to school.”

“Preschool,” said Joakim. “Isn’t that right?”

“School,” said Livia.

“Okay… so what are you going to do today?”

“Don’t know,” said Livia, staring down at the table again.

“Are you going to play with a new friend?”

“Don’t know.”

“Okay, but drink up your milk now. We’re off into Marnäs soon… to school.”

“Mmm.”

By twenty past seven the sun was on its way up over the horizon. Its yellow beams were feeling their way cautiously across the calm sea, without giving any warmth. It would be a sunny but cold day-the thermometer on the wall of the house was showing plus three degrees.

Joakim was out in the courtyard scraping frost from the

windows of the Volvo. Then he opened the back door for the children.

Livia settled herself in her child seat with Foreman in her arms. Joakim fastened Gabriel into the smaller seat beside her. Then he got into the driver’s seat.

“Wasn’t Mom going to wave us off?” he asked.

“She’s gone to the bathroom,” said Livia. “She’s gone to do a big one. She likes to sit there for a while when she does a big one.”

Livia had quickly cheered up after breakfast and become more talkative. Once she got to playgroup, she would have tons of energy.

Joakim leaned back in his seat and looked at Livia’s little red two-wheeler and Gabriel’s three-wheeler, standing out in the courtyard. He noticed the bikes weren’t locked. This wasn’t the big city.

Katrine came out a couple of minutes later, turned off the light in the hallway, and locked the door behind her. She was wearing a bright red winter jacket with a hood and blue sweatpants. In Stockholm she had usually dressed in black, but here on Öland she had begun to go for roomier and slightly more colorful clothes.