Юхан Теорин - The Voices Beyond

One by one, everyone returned to Villa Kloss. Jonas stood on the decking as the sun went down; he had the feeling that they were all keeping up a pretence in front of him. In spite of the fact that they chatted about the dry weather and the shortage of water and the fact that there would be no more swimming lessons after today, he knew that the adults were thinking about something else entirely.

The sun was cooled by the sea and became a red line on the horizon. Jonas turned around and saw Veronica sitting by the house with a glass of wine.

‘Hi, Jonas,’ she said.

He went over, expecting her to tell him about the body that had been found, but she just ruffled his hair.

‘Tired?’

‘A bit,’ he said.

Veronica took a sip of her wine; she seemed to be thinking something over. After a moment, she asked, ‘Has your father told you about our family, Jonas?’

Jonas shook his head. ‘Not really.’

His aunt leaned back in her chair and gazed out across the coast.

‘It’s a fascinating story,’ she began. ‘It all started with a farmer called Gillis, who acquired a lot of cheap land here on the coast in the nineteenth century. Everyone thought it was worthless, because after all you couldn’t grow crops on the coast... but he just kept on buying more, and held on to it all his life. Then he passed it on to his three sons, Edvard and Gilbert and my grandfather Sigfrid, and after his brothers died, Sigfrid fenced off a large portion of the land and created what became the Ölandic Resort. So we’ve owned that land for generations. The Kloss family has lived here for as long as anyone can remember, I think. People have tried to take it away from us, but they have never succeeded.’

She twirled the wine glass around in her fingers. ‘We should all be proud of our family. That’s what I tell Casper and Urban, and it applies to you, too, Jonas.’

He nodded — but, to him, the family was just a series of names. He had no idea who Gillis and Edvard and Gilbert and Sigfrid were.

He said goodnight to his aunt and went off to his little chalet.

As he lay beneath the cool sheet he could hear a lone bird outside, a subdued song that gradually fell silent in the twilight.

And just before he fell asleep he heard quiet footsteps crossing the decking; it sounded as if Uncle Kent was setting the alarm, or perhaps sneaking off down to the coast road. Jonas closed his eyes and covered his ears with the pillow and the duvet. All he wanted to do was sleep.

Aron knew they were getting closer.

They were bound to have discovered the body by now, if Gerlof Davidsson had believed him, but that meant the police would be concentrating on the Ölandic Resort.

After the telephone conversation with Gerlof, he had waited until the sun went down before leaving Marnäs and driving back to the western side of the island.

He could move around in the darkness now. It was long after midnight, and the dip down below the coast road was full of shadows.

Was anyone there?

Standing at one end, he wasn’t at all sure. He could see the metal door of the bunker fifty metres away, and he listened hard to check if he could hear anything.

Silence.

Slowly and cautiously, he moved along the dip, just as he had for several weeks now.

The padlock was still in place; he took out the key and quietly unlocked the door. It squeaked slightly, but swung open.

He had finished digging the hole beneath the cairn, which was why he was being more careful than before. He no longer came here in daylight; he had become a nocturnal creature.

The moon emerged from a bank of cloud over the Sound, helpfully illuminating the entrance to the bunker as he looked inside. Everything looked fine, just as he had left it, his tools and the boxes in place.

A roll of electric cable lay just inside the entrance, and Aron picked it up and took it outside, closing the bunker door before he started paying out the thin cable behind him, concealing it under pebbles and larger limestone rocks.

Eventually, it was completely hidden. Good, he thought, as he straightened up.

Then he heard the sound of rustling in the darkness.

Someone had entered the dip at the far end and was moving towards him.

Aron wasn’t prepared to take any risks at this stage. He quickly turned around and hurried away.

After ten metres, he was out of the dip and could see the campsite and the jetty. The Sound shimmered before him beneath an almost full moon, but he moved away, into the darkness beyond the shore. Across the coast road, past the festival site and in among the low-growing trees.

Only when he reached the shadows in the forest did he stop and listen. He couldn’t hear any footsteps behind him.

And yet Aron could feel the blood surging through his arms and chest. His heart was pounding, damaged and worn after more than eighty years, but he thought it would go on beating for a little while longer.

He needed his heart to see out this week.

It is late autumn in Moscow, and Aron has just left a deathbed in a bedroom that is cramped and dusty and unbearable. Like many others, he has gone out on to the street this evening, scanning the sky for the Sputnik satellite, which is supposed to be whizzing around up there. A technological triumph. But the sky above him is dark grey.

His former commanding officer Major Karrek looked just as grey when Aron left him. Karrek has been at death’s door for a long time, his body swollen from alcohol abuse, yet at the same time shrivelled like a mummy in his tiny apartment. A young nurse has visited him every day over the past year, but in the evenings Aron is alone with Karrek. No one else comes to see him.

Soldiers die alone.

So much has happened in just a few years. Stalin also died eventually, sick and alone in his bed, because no one dared to disturb him. The new leader is called Nikita Khrushchev and, in common with everyone who had held that position, he carried out a purge when he took over. Lavrenti Beria, Stalin’s spymaster, was quickly condemned and executed and, once he was gone, Comrade Karrek had to leave his post. Karrek had done his duty as the governor of Lubyanka Prison, and no punishment awaited him, just a small state pension and total obscurity.

Karrek was evicted from his office, and he took it very hard. Only three years after Beria’s death, Karrek’s liver collapsed, destroyed by his drinking. The major was already thirsty beforehand, but once the great leader’s protective hands were gone Karrek went into freefall in a sea of vodka, like so many who had worked for the security of their country and dedicated their lives to tracking down the enemies of the people.

Towards the end, there was a look of terror in his eyes. He seemed to be waiting for something.

‘I’ve counted them, all those to whom I administered the ultimate punishment under the law,’ Karrek whispered, staring at Vlad. ‘You probably think that’s impossible, but I had a number inside my head, and I kept a tally of every shot.’

Vlad didn’t want to ask about the number, but Karrek coughed and went on. ‘Twelve thousand, three hundred and five.’ He lifted his right hand, the one that shook most after all the recoils. ‘By this... this hand. How does that sound?’

‘Incomprehensible,’ Vlad said.

Karrek was still staring at him with glassy eyes, but Vlad lowered his gaze and looked at his own right hand. For the first time, Aron thought about what it had done, and how often.

Had the index finger pulled the trigger thousands of times? Definitely.

And how many blows to backs and feet and heads with the dubinka ? The number was incalculable. Most of those who had suffered were men, but there were women, too. Never children, however. There were sadists within the organization who beat children, even killed them — but not Vlad. His limit was the age of fifteen. Or thereabouts.