Хеннинг Манкелль - A Treacherous Paradise

In the evening, when she had made all the necessary preparations for the next morning’s breakfast and sent the mess-room boy to bed, she went out on deck. They had now left the archipelago behind them, and were heading southwards. The sun was setting over the forests on the starboard side.

All at once Lundmark appeared by her side again. They stood there together, watching the sun as it slowly vanished.

‘Starboard,’ he said without warning. ‘There’s a reason for everything. It’s an odd word, but it means something even so. Star has nothing to do with stars, it comes from “steer”. In the old days a helmsman would stand with a steering oar in the aft of the ship, and he would have it on his right because then he could use his right arm to move it, and a man’s right arm is usually stronger than his left. So the right-hand side was called “steerboard”, and that gradually changed into “starboard”.’

‘What about “port”?’ she wondered.

Lundmark shook his head.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But I’ll find out.’

It soon became a habit. Every evening Hanna and the third mate would stand there talking to each other. If it was raining or very windy, they would shelter under the projecting roof of her cabin.

But she never had an answer as to why it was called ‘port’.

This is amazing, she thought. Every morning when I wake up my bed has moved on. I’m in a different place from where I was when I went to sleep.

But something else about her was beginning to change as well. She had started looking forward to her meetings with Lundmark. They talked tentatively about who they were, where they had come from, and she didn’t flinch one evening when he suddenly put his arm round her.

They were in the English Channel at the time, edging slowly forward through a bank of fog that loomed up in front of them like a wall. Foghorns were sounding eerily from various directions. They made her think of a flock of animals that had broken up, and was now trying to reassemble. Captain Svartman was always on the bridge whenever they passed through fog, and he had ordered extra lookouts to stand guard. Occasionally black ships with slack sails or ships with smoking funnels would appear out of all the whiteness and glide past, sometimes far too close, making Svartman shake his head in disapproval and give orders to slow down even more. For two days and two nights they were almost motionless. All accessible lamps and lanterns were kept burning on deck, Hanna found it difficult to sleep and frequently left her cabin, but she was always careful not to get in the way.

The next day Captain Svartman asked Hanna to look for the mess-room boy who had disappeared. She found him in the food store, hidden away. He was trembling with fear. She comforted him and took him out on deck, where Svartman pressed a lantern into his hand.

‘Work cures everything,’ he said.

A few days later the fog started to disperse. They increased speed again. Hanna heard talk of something called the Bay of Biscay, through which they would soon be passing.

One evening Lundmark suddenly started talking seriously about himself. He was the only child of a merchant in Timrå who had gone bankrupt and afterwards was scarcely able to keep squalor and famine at bay. His mother was a taciturn woman who could never reconcile herself to the fact that she had only managed to bring one child into the world. She regarded it as both disappointing and shameful.

He had always longed to go to sea. Was always running down to the shore to watch ships coming and going. At the age of thirteen he had signed on as an apprentice on a small cargo boat plying between Sundsvall and Söderhamn. His mother and father had tried to stop him, and even threatened to send the sheriff’s officer after him if he went through with it. But when he persisted they seemed to become resigned to the inevitable, and allowed him to do what he had decided was to be his future.

Before falling asleep that night she thought about what the third mate had told her. He had spoken to her in confidence, something that hitherto only Berta had done.

The next day he continued with his story. But he also began asking her about the life she had led before coming to Forsman’s house and then to the ship she was now sailing on. She didn’t think she had anything much to tell him, but he listened attentively even so and seemed to be genuinely interested.

And so they continued their conversation, every evening if the wind wasn’t too strong or Captain Svartman hadn’t ordered Lundmark to carry out some extra duty or other outside his normal routine.

Hanna realized that her feelings for Lundmark were different from anything she had previously experienced in her life. They couldn’t be compared with those she had shared with Elin and her siblings, nor even the close friendship she had formed with Berta. She spent every moment of the day looking forward to his arrival behind the galley: longing for their meeting.

One evening he presented her with a little wooden sculpture of a mermaid. He had bought it in an Italian port on a previous voyage, and thereafter took it with him on all the ships he signed on to.

‘I can’t possibly accept it,’ she said.

‘I want you to have it,’ he said. ‘I think it looks like you.’

‘What can I give you in return?’ she asked.

‘I have everything I need,’ said Lundmark. ‘That’s the way I feel at the moment.’

They stood there in silence for a while. Hanna wished him goodnight and went to her cabin. Later, when she peered through the door she could see him still standing there by the rail. He was gazing out over the sea as darkness fell. He had his legs apart, and his officer’s cap in his hand.

The following morning she was sitting in the galley, descaling a freshly caught fish which was to be the sailors’ dinner. A shadow fell over her. When she looked up it was Lundmark standing there. He went down on one knee, took her hand which was full of glistening fish scales, and asked her to marry him.

Until that moment they had done nothing but talk to each other; but everybody else on board had regarded them as a pair, she knew that, since none of the other men had approached her at all.

Had she been expecting this to happen? Had she been hoping it would? No doubt she had occasionally had such a thought, the idea that she was sailing together with him, not with a ship laden with timber. Despite the fact that she had only met him when the ship was about to leave Sundsvall.

She said ‘Yes’ without hesitation. She made up her mind in a flash. He kissed her face, then stood up and left to attend the meeting the mates had with the captain every morning.

They stopped in Algiers in order to take on board more coal — Hanna knew by now that this was called ‘bunkering’. The Swedish consul, a Frenchman who had once visited Stockholm in his youth and fallen in love with the city, found an English Methodist minister who was prepared to marry the couple. Captain Svartman produced the necessary documents and was a witness to the marriage together with the consul and his wife, who was so moved by the brief ceremony that she burst into tears. Afterwards the captain took them to a photographer’s and paid for a wedding photograph out of his own pocket.

That same evening she moved into Lundberg’s cabin. The second mate, whose name was Björnsson, moved into the ship’s cramped hospital cabin — Hanna would retain her own cabin, Captain Svartman was reluctant to take it away from her. But if anybody on board fell seriously ill, it would be used to accommodate them.

Captain Svartman was positively inclined towards their marriage. But as they left Algiers that same evening their wedding night was ruined by the fact that the prearranged timetable of duties came into operation, and Lundberg had to take his turn as lookout. There was no question of Captain Svartman giving him the evening off — his benevolence didn’t stretch that far. And it would never have occurred to Lundmark to ask for special treatment.