Юхан Теорин - The Voices Beyond

‘I just hope they had a better life in the USA,’ Sonja had said. ‘The place they lived in at Rödtorp was just dreadful — little more than a grey shack...’

He thought for a little while, then called Sonja. She answered quickly, but sounded stressed.

‘You obviously haven’t left yet,’ Gerlof said.

‘No, the bus to the airport leaves in a couple of hours.’

He got straight down to business.

‘Sonja, I’ve been thinking about something you said when we came over for coffee... You said the Fredh family lived in a grey shack on the coast, at a place called Rödtorp.’

‘That’s right. Astrid Fredh had been given the tenancy of the croft by the Kloss family. It was deep in the forest, where the Ölandic Resort is now.’ Sonja paused, then added, ‘The Kloss family knocked it down, and I don’t suppose anyone remembers the name these days. All the old names are disappearing, one by one...’

‘You’re right,’ Gerlof agreed. ‘But why was the place called “Rödtorp”, which suggests it was red, if it was actually grey?’

Sonja responded with a dry laugh. ‘It had nothing to do with the colour of the paint. It was the way Sven used to talk when he was working in the mills that led people to come up with that name.’

‘And what did he talk about?’

‘How can I put it...? He was an agitator. He used to go on at length about the blessings of socialism. That was what Sven believed in... He had become a committed socialist during his military service in Kalmar during the First World War. When he came to Öland and became a farmhand and worked in the flour mills, he became even more passionate about his views. Some say he became a communist in the end.’

‘So he talked about politics in the mills and on the farms?’

‘Yes, I think he liked to spell out chapter and verse, so to speak. But there was a lot more politics in the air in the thirties than there is now; there were both communist and Nazi summer rallies here on the island. There was trouble from time to time; they used to tear down each other’s flags. And the Kloss brothers wouldn’t tolerate any political talk. Sven quarrelled with them, too.’

Gerlof remembered — the political disputes had been a good reason to stay at sea, where the talk was of wind and weather and cargo rates.

‘Thanks for your help, Sonja. Enjoy your holiday.’

He hung up and went into the bedroom, where the gravedigger’s postcard album lay on the bookshelf. He sat down and found the black-and-white postcard from Aron Fredh. Read the brief message once more, then gazed at the picture on the front. The white ship, SS Kastelholm , at the quayside in Gothenburg. Sweden’s gateway to America.

His eyesight was better than his hearing, and he took a closer look at the picture. Not so much at the ship, but at the quayside and the surroundings. The background was blurred and unfamiliar; a grey morning mist hovered over the water, and the only other vessel in the harbour was a steamship on its way out to sea, with deciduous trees and stone buildings beyond. No derricks, which was a little strange, since his own recollection of Gothenburg in the thirties was of an entire forest of derricks...

Suddenly, he recognized the port with a strange sense of déjà vu, because all at once what had seemed so unfamiliar was very well-known; he had been there many times.

He picked up the phone again.

‘John, have you finished your evening rounds at the campsite?’

‘Yes. Anders has gone off to do some work on the gig; I thought I might give him a hand.’

‘I’ll come with you if you can pick me up,’ Gerlof said.

‘Of course.’

Gerlof rang off, then made another call. To the National Maritime Museum.

John arrived fifteen minutes later, but Gerlof couldn’t wait; he had something to tell his friend before they set off, and drew him on to the veranda.

‘I’ve found something out, John.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Sven Fredh, Aron’s stepfather, was a communist.’

John blinked, his expression vacant. The word ‘communist’ was no longer so loaded these days.

‘Don’t you understand?’ Gerlof went on. ‘Sven was a revolutionary; he was hardly likely to travel to America. Communists weren’t exactly popular there. Immigrants from Europe weren’t really welcome anyway after the Wall Street Crash, least of all troublemakers and “Bolsheviks”.’

‘No, but he could have kept quiet about his views when they got to immigration control in New York.’

‘They never got to New York,’ Gerlof said. He held out the postcard from Aron. ‘This isn’t Gothenburg docks. That’s Stockholm in the background.’

‘Stockholm?’

Gerlof nodded.

‘It’s not easy to recognize the ship’s surroundings, but this evening I suddenly realized it was Skeppsbron in Stockholm. And what was the destination of ships sailing from Skeppsbron in the thirties? Was it America?’

‘No,’ John said. ‘It was Finland. We used to go there sometimes before the war, and we saw them loading.’

‘Exactly, but there were also ships that went further... SS Kastelholm , for example.’

‘She went to America. It says so on the postcard.’

Gerlof shook his head.

‘The Kastelholm was owned by the Swedish-American Line, but they also had European routes. I rang the Maritime Museum in Stockholm just before you arrived, and one of the curators looked up the Kastelholm on their computer database. She sailed the Baltic in the early thirties... all the way to Leningrad.’

John was listening, but looked puzzled.

‘Aron and Sven didn’t go to America,’ Gerlof continued. ‘They went in the opposite direction, to the country that no longer exists... the Soviet Union.’

John stared at him. He was beginning to understand.

‘So the new country wasn’t in the west... but in the east?’

‘Yes. For some Swedes that was the case... for those who dreamed of the revolution and a classless society.’

‘But what happened to them out there?’

‘I don’t know. Those were troubled times in the Soviet Union, and Stalin became increasingly paranoid, so anything could have happened... What do you think became of Aron?’

John didn’t say anything, so Gerlof went on. ‘He certainly didn’t end up working for Al Capone, at any rate.’

Aron’s boots leak; they are always wet. He is standing in the soft mud outside the row of grey huts that seem to cower beneath the fir trees. He is staring at Sven, who has finally told him the truth.

‘So we’re not in America?’

‘No.’

‘Then where are we?’ asks Aron, afraid of the answer.

‘We’re in a different country,’ Sven explains. ‘The ship brought us across the Baltic, to a city called Leningrad, and we have travelled north from the coast.’

Aron is aware of that; there is no sea here. Only forest. But there is a great deal he doesn’t understand.

‘So Hibinogorsk isn’t in America?’

Sven shakes his head. ‘It’s in northern Russia, by a mountain called Hibina.’

Aron is still staring at him, and Sven goes on. ‘Russia is part of a union, just like America, but this one is known as the Soviet Union.’