Юхан Теорин - The Voices Beyond

Aron has heard of Russia, and he vaguely remembers the word ‘Soviet’ from some lesson at school, but it means nothing to him.

‘But you said...’

‘I said we were going to the new country. That’s where we are now: in the east, where the sun rises. The sun and the wealth that comes with abundance.’

Aron says nothing, but he is thinking about the fact that he had nothing but a piece of black bread for breakfast. One small piece. He looks around the mining town, at the grey huts and the muddy streets.

‘America is not the Promised Land,’ Sven says. ‘It is the kingdom of evil. The poor and the blacks are hunted down like dogs in America. They are captured and hanged from trees so that the rich white folk can use them for target practice, just for fun. Do you really want to go there?’

Aron doesn’t reply.

‘No, you don’t. I can see it in your face. You want to stay here, where everyone works side by side.’

‘I want to go home,’ Aron says eventually. ‘Back to Rödtorp. I wrote and told Mum we were coming home.’

‘She doesn’t know that.’

‘She does.’

‘She knows nothing,’ Sven says, shuffling unsteadily to one side. ‘I never posted the letters.’

Aron can’t believe his ears.

‘In any case, we can’t leave the Soviet Union at the moment,’ Sven says quietly. ‘We can’t afford it. We will leave this country and go home... but not yet.’

Aron has been listening to the same thing for the past three years. The same empty promises. As far as he is concerned, his stepfather, the proud Swedish worker, has begun to shrink.

The Soviet Union? Aron tries to find out more about this country. He has started to understand the language now, the Russian language that he thought was American, and he can hold a conversation of sorts with the workers in the camp.

He is also allowed to go to school for a few hours each day. Aron is studying with a Russian teacher, herr Kopelev. He listens and repeats the words, and learns the language much faster than Sven. He can swear in Russian, and he can reel off such high-flown phrases as ‘Comrades, a groaning table awaits you after the world revolution!’ and ‘Do not allow your possessions to consume you, Comrade — private property is the root of all evil!’

But what everyone talks about is food. Including Aron — he dreams of Swedish food. Plaice, salted and fried. Eel, smoked and oily or boiled and firm. Potatoes, grated potatoes. Pork. Minced salt pork. Grated potatoes and minced pork turned into Öland dumplings, steaming hot.

Everyone talks about food, all the time. Rumours spread in Russian, and one morning down in the ditch he passes them on to Sven.

‘People are starving. Dying on the streets.’

Sven stops digging and looks at him. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘That’s what I’ve heard. There’s no food.’

‘Where? Where are these people starving?’

‘In the south. In Kraine,’ Aron says, wiping his nose with his glove.

‘Ukraine,’ Sven corrects him.

‘That’s it... Ukraine. There are farms there, so that’s where the food ought to be, but there’s none left. The soldiers have taken all the produce.’

‘It’s not soldiers who take the food,’ Sven says, driving his spade into the mud. ‘It’s the wealthy farmers who hide it, then eat at night.’

‘But all the cows are dead,’ Aron insists, ‘so they’ve started slaughtering their children. They’ll eat anything down there.’

‘Don’t listen to that kind of nonsense.’ Sven leans closer. ‘I’ll tell you a story about Stalin.’

‘Who?’

‘The leader. The captain who steers this whole ship, Josef Stalin.’ Sven looks up at the pale sky, then back at Aron. ‘Twenty years ago, he was the one who led the struggle against the old guard, the Tsar and his followers. On one occasion, he was arrested by the Tsar’s police and sentenced to a beating. He was to run the gauntlet between two rows of police officers, standing ready with their barbed whips. Do you know what Stalin did then?’

Aron shakes his head.

‘Before he moved forward to accept his punishment, he picked a blade of grass and placed it between his teeth. Then he began to walk. Stalin didn’t run between the whips — he walked . He took his time, as if he were strolling through a meadow. And when he reached the end, with his back covered in blood, he opened his mouth and showed the last police officer the blade of grass. There wasn’t a tooth-mark on it. So, although Stalin was beaten that day, he still won. Do you understand?’

Aron nods.

‘That’s how strong we have to be if we’re going to get through this,’ Sven says, straightening up for a moment. ‘Start digging.’

Aron makes no move to obey him. ‘I’m not like Stalin.’

Sven looks sharply at his stepson. ‘But you can be.’

The Homecomer was sitting in his car in a deserted lay-by with an open wooden box on the passenger seat. The box could have contained tins or jars, but it was marked with a yellow sticker and the words DANGER — EXPLOSIVES!

Inside, there were twenty sticks of pale-yellow plastic explosive. Side by side. Fast asleep. Encased in protective wrapping. There were also detonators, and the rolls of plastic cable were fuse wire.

All of this belonged to him now. Wall no longer needed anything.

The Homecomer hid the boxes under a blanket, then got out of the car and went over to one of the picnic tables. There was no one around; all the other cars just went whizzing by until, eventually, an old yellow sports car pulled in. He recognized the car, although the driver was different. Rita was sitting behind the wheel, and there was no sign of Pecka.

She got out and slowly came over to join the Homecomer. He raised a hand in greeting, but she just gazed blankly at him. Her eyes were red from crying.

Something was wrong.

‘Where’s Pecka?’

Rita merely shook her head. ‘Gone,’ she said.

‘Gone?’

‘He was hit by a car... on Thursday night.’

The Homecomer stared at her. ‘Where did it happen?’

‘On this road... a bit further north. He only went out to get us a pizza... A couple of smartly dressed guys rang the doorbell while I was waiting for him, but I didn’t answer.’

‘Smartly dressed?’

‘Two men and a boy.’

‘Kloss,’ the Homecomer said. ‘The Kloss brothers. And the boy who saw Pecka on the ship. One of them must be his father.’

Rita looked down, unable to suppress a sob. The Homecomer sighed. ‘Pecka’s uncle is dead, too.’

‘Einar?’

‘That’s right. I found him outside his cottage; he was lying dead in his boat. So Kloss must have been to see him, too.’

Rita sat down. For a moment, the Homecomer felt as if he had his daughter sitting beside him, but he pushed the thought aside.

‘Einar must have heard about Pecka,’ Rita said quietly. ‘He was very fond of Pecka. They were almost like father and son.’

They sat in silence for a little while; the Homecomer was thinking about fathers and sons, about Pecka and Wall and all the others who had died. The world was full of them.

After a while, Rita stood up. ‘We can’t stay here any longer,’ she said. ‘We’ve got to get out.’

‘That’s exactly what the Kloss brothers want,’ the Homecomer said. ‘They think they’ve won.’

Rita glanced over at the road, down towards the coast and the Ölandic Resort; she seemed to be thinking something over.

‘There is something we could do,’ she said after a moment or two. ‘For Einar Wall and Pecka.’

‘Oh?’

‘It’s something he talked about... something he was planning when he got the sack from the Ölandic, before he and Wall decided to go for the ship instead.’