Юхан Теорин - The Voices Beyond

Eventually, he reached the middle of the nets and tied the little boat to one of the thick poles.

The water out here was as deep and dark as a grave, but there wasn’t a breath of wind.

Jonas settled down in the bottom of the dinghy and watched as the sky above him grew darker and darker. There were gaps in the cloud cover, and small pinpricks of light glimmered through.

They’ll be in the cinema in Kalmar by now, he thought.

While Mats and their cousins were watching the film, all Jonas could do was gaze at the stars above the island. But gradually the all-consuming envy faded away, leaving a kind of peace, a sense of floating weightlessly between sea and sky. There were no insects to disturb him this far out in the Sound, not even the mosquitoes.

He closed his eyes. Everything was dark and quiet.

But a faint sound made him open his eyes and raise his head. A dull throbbing that could be felt through the water as well as heard.

It was the sound of a ship. A big ship that had started up its pounding diesel engines, somewhere in the darkness. The throbbing grew louder, then diminished.

He blinked slowly, feeling drowsy. Had he fallen asleep? Jonas didn’t have a watch, but the sun had gone down and clouds covered the night sky. The stars had vanished.

He looked to the south, but saw nothing. There were no lights approaching.

The island was even darker than the sea. The two spits of land jutting out into the Sound on either side of the bay were pitch black, apart from the odd light in the windows of the summer cottages closest to the shore.

He could hear the faint sound of voices and laughter; it was probably the party up at Villa Kloss. Dad and Aunt Veronica and Uncle Kent and their guests would be sitting on the veranda, eating and drinking.

Jonas considered spending the whole night in the dinghy. Soon the summer night would be completely black, and perhaps then they would all stop drinking and laughing up at Villa Kloss, and when the car from Kalmar came back without him they would wonder where he was. They would be worried. Where’s Jonas? Has anyone seen Jonas? For once, he would be important to them.

He would stay down here and row a bit further — out to the very end of the gill nets, further than he had ever been before.

He rowed with even strokes, and through the thin rubber bottom of the dinghy he could feel the water quickly growing colder. He couldn’t see any rocks now, only blackness. If the boat got a puncture, he wasn’t sure he would be able to swim ashore, even with his lifejacket.

The depth of the water made him feel dizzy.

Finally, he reached the very last pole, tall and slender. He could see that it was held in place by long ropes and chains.

Jonas stopped rowing. The dinghy drifted on and he reached out and grabbed the pole, clinging to the rough wood with both hands. The pole proved that at least there were other people in the world, people who had come out here at the beginning of summer and laid their nets, hoping to catch eels.

He looked over the side but couldn’t make out the nets. Were there eels down there right now, trapped in the darkness? The Kloss family ate smoked eel occasionally, but Jonas didn’t really like the taste. It was too oily.

Suddenly, he heard the throbbing again. Was it a motor boat? It should have had its lights on if it was out at sea at night, but there was no sign of anything.

Silence.

He let go of the wooden pole and drifted away as the current drew the dinghy out into the sound. Bye bye, pole.

He picked up the oars but didn’t start rowing, allowing the boat to drift instead.

Out into the blackness. But only for a little longer. It was OK, because he was wearing his lifejacket, but he would turn back soon. He just wanted to see if he could catch a glimpse of the other vessel.

He peered around. A faint haze had begun to rise from the water, a night mist that made it even more difficult to see.

All at once, Jonas had the feeling that something huge and silent had appeared by the spit of land to the south — a grey shadow on the water, long and slender like a sea monster. A sea serpent, or a giant octopus lurking in the Sound...

Was the shadow moving? He blinked, but it was gone.

He started rowing. He wanted to get home now, but it was so dark and misty that he was no longer sure exactly where he was, or even how far he was from the shore. There was nothing to give him his bearings. Were those dots of light coming from the houses on the coast, or were they faint stars glimmering in the distance?

He stopped rowing and let out a long breath. He listened.

He could hear splashing. Small ripples lapped against the side of the dinghy, but this was louder. It sounded like rushing waves.

Jonas looked up — and suddenly he could see. The full moon emerged through a gap in the clouds, and the Sound was bathed in light. The water around him turned into a glittering expanse of silver.

And, in the middle of it all, he saw something large and black — a ship.

It was gliding straight towards him, at speed. Making no attempt to slow down. In the moonlight, he could just make out a name in white letters on the prow: Elia .

Jonas smelled the diesel and heard the throbbing of the engines.

There was no collision; his dinghy was too small. It was simply sucked towards the bow by the swell and carried along with the ship.

Jonas got on his knees, a cold feeling in his belly; the bow wave was beginning to compress his little boat. It was starting to sink.

He was frightened now, and tried to stand up. His hands fumbled, but he managed to get hold of the end of a rope swinging from side to side. He looked up; it was the end of a nylon rope, dangling from the ship’s gunwale like a liana in the jungle.

He clung on as tightly as he could and pulled himself up out of the dinghy, which suddenly freed itself from the swell and spun around like a yellow lifebuoy. Then it slipped away towards the stern, whirled around several times in the glittering waves and disappeared under water.

Casper’s dinghy. Gone.

Jonas wanted to save it, but if he let go of the rope he would be sucked down beneath the keel. He held on.

But not for much longer.

He gritted his teeth, swung his legs and managed to get his right foot on a rusty little ledge part way up the hull. Using the ledge for support, he hauled himself up towards the black steel rods that made up the gunwale, then clambered up as if they were the wall bars in a school gym.

He couldn’t hear any sound of human activity from the vessel above him. No voices, no footsteps. The engines seemed to have died away, too; there was only the gentle lapping of the waves as the ship drifted on through the night under its own steam.

Jonas gathered his strength, heaved himself over the gunwale and landed on a cold metal deck in his bare feet. He was frozen and shaking, but he was safe.

He breathed out and looked around. Where was he?

On board a large fishing boat, apparently. He couldn’t see any nets, but the stench of fish and diesel filled the air.

He was standing next to a closed hatch with a small white structure on either side — a smaller one in the prow and a larger one towards the stern. There was a faint light in one of the windows of the latter; the rest of the ship was in darkness.

Jonas blinked. Where had it come from? He had seen big ships out in the Sound in the summer, but never this close to the shore.

He stood by the hatch, wondering what to do. Should he head for the prow, or the stern? Or just stand here and let the ship decide?

Slowly, he began to make his way along the edge of the hatch, moving towards the stern. He felt it was better to go towards the light, however faint it might be.