The Journey to the End of the World (Joel Gustafson Stories) (19 page)

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Authors: Henning Mankell

BOOK: The Journey to the End of the World (Joel Gustafson Stories)

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And then there were all the women.

Frans hadn’t exaggerated.

They were sitting on chairs in brightly lit windows, with fixed expressions on their faces. Just like tailors’ dummies.

Joel felt both nervous and sexually excited. He hardly dared look at the women. Most of them were half naked and heavily made up. Some were smoking. Joel paused at a window where lots of other men were already standing, and took a good look. He could hide in the background there.

Then he went to a bar and ordered a whisky. Frans drank whisky. Nothing else. Joel forced it down him.

Samuel would have swallowed it in a single gulp, Joel thought. No doubt Samuel has also been to this very same place.

Who would he have chosen?

Joel decided to drink another whisky. That would have to be enough.

He paid and left. Now he felt bold enough to stand in front of a window all by himself.

But how would he be able to choose?

He wished there had been a girl who looked like Sonja Mattsson. But he couldn’t see one. He moved on. The lit-up windows came to an end. He was just going to retrace his steps when somebody spoke to him from out of the shadows. He couldn’t see who it was at first. Then a woman appeared in front of him. She hadn’t come from one of the brightly lit windows, but Joel had no doubt she was one of the same type. For sale. She spoke English. Said how much it cost, and pointed into the shadows. Joel could just make out the outline of a door.

She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. Like Sonja Mattsson. She had brown hair and wasn’t as heavily made up as the women Joel had seen in the windows.

She took hold of his arm.

Joel thought he ought to make a run for it.

But instead he accompanied her into the shadows.

There was a steep staircase behind the door. She ushered him up it, in front of her.

What the hell am I doing in here? Joel thought.

They came to a room where there was a bed with a red cover. A radio could be heard in a neighbouring room.

She sat down on the bed and stretched out her hand.

He gave her the money she’d asked for.

Then she started to unbutton his trousers.

Then she took off her own green trousers. Joel just had time to see that she was wearing nothing underneath before she pulled him down on top of her on the bed. She hadn’t removed the cover.

He wasn’t at all sure what happened next. He was aroused now. Felt how he penetrated her, and then it was all over almost before it had started.

It all happened so quickly, he was rather confused. She pulled him up off the bed, gave him a tissue to wipe himself with, and urged him to take care when he went down the stairs.

‘Be careful,’ she said. ‘Be careful.’

Then she vanished into the room where the radio was on.

Joel pulled up his trousers and stumbled out onto the staircase.

Once he was out in the street again, he asked himself what had happened. It was nothing like he’d imagined it would be.

Even so, he knew exactly what he was going to write in his logbook.

Amsterdam.

Done it at last.

August 24, 1959. 10.10 p.m.

He went back to the railway station and found the right platform. Shortly before midnight he found himself walking up the gangway again.

Frans was standing by the rail, smoking.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘How did it go?’

‘Good,’ said Joel. ‘Bloody good.’

Then he went to his cabin before Frans had time to ask any more questions. But he could hear Frans chuckling to himself by the ship’s rail.

The days passed. Joel was still waiting for a message: next destination, Liberia. But it was still Narvik and Bristol and Ghent. In the middle of September they also undertook a voyage from Narvik to Luleå. It took fourteen days. Joel began to lose faith. By the end of November he began to wonder if he ought to sign off this ship and try one from another shipping line. One that didn’t only fill its holds with iron ore.

All this time Joel had only received one letter from Samuel. It had arrived at the end of October. Samuel wrote that all was well, but not much more than that. Joel had a suspicion that things weren’t as good as Samuel claimed. How was he managing on his own? Who was cooking for him? Had he remembered to put cold water in the dirty porridge pan?

What worried Joel most of all was if Samuel was drinking heavily. Who was keeping an eye on him when Joel wasn’t around?

Joel had almost made up his mind to sign off. But then came the message he’d been waiting for: the next voyage would be to Liberia. They would be there for Christmas. Joel didn’t hesitate for a moment. This was what he’d been waiting for. Once he’d been to Africa, he would sign off and pay a visit to Samuel.

He wrote to both Samuel and Jenny. She had written him several letters, but she’d never referred to Joel’s request that the photograph of Samuel should go back up on the wall. Or that the man with the close-cropped hair should be taken down.

Joel had never referred to that again. Soon enough he would be able to see with his own eyes what had happened, if anything.

He wrote about the forthcoming voyage.

The journey to Liberia.

The journey to the end of the world.

Joel arrived in Africa the day before Christmas Eve, 1959. The African coast could be seen like an enticing mirage on the port side of the ship. Every morning when Joel woke up, it was warmer than the day before. And the sea changed colour. It became lighter. The blue gradually turned into green. He saw dolphins and flying fish. Every evening he stood at the stern of the ship and looked up at the starry sky.

On December 20 he wrote in his logbook:

I sometimes think about that dog. The one I thought I saw that time. On its way to a star. But I was only a child then. I didn’t know any better. Here everything is just as bright and sparkling as it is at home in mid-winter. December 20. Just south of the Cape Verde Islands. 10.22 p.m.

They stayed in Liberia for four days.

Joel went ashore whenever he was free. He wandered around in the teeming mass of people, breathed in all the unusual smells, and was fascinated by the beautiful women carrying extremely heavy burdens on their heads. He bought some shells for his little sisters, a colourful loincloth for Jenny and a drum for Samuel. On Christmas Eve he wrote in his logbook:

Liberia.

I know now that I’ve done the right thing. A sailor is what I’m going to be. On my next ship I’ll be a deck hand. One day I might start to study in order to become a bosun. After Christmas, I’ll go home and collect Samuel. He’s forgotten what it was like. I shall remind him. December 24, 1959.

While they were berthed in Liberia, Joel also fell in love.

Every time he went ashore, a young girl came up to him and asked if he needed anybody to wash his clothes. He said no. But she was persistent and came back every day. Her name was Milena. And she was sixteen years old.

They used to speak on the quay. Always the same thing. But Joel thought she reminded him of Sonja Mattsson, despite the fact that she was very black.

The day before New Year’s Eve they weighed anchor and headed north. Milena stood on the quay, waving. Joel had given her some money as he’d realised she was very poor.

Pirinen was standing beside him at the rail, smoking.

‘When will we be coming back here?’ Joel asked.

Pirinen grinned. He’d seen Joel waving, and Milena waving back.

‘Never,’ said Pirinen. ‘Forget her.’

But Joel had no intention of forgetting Milena. And he knew that what Pirinen had said wasn’t true. Pirinen could be annoying at times. But Joel had learnt how to deal with that.

Their next port of call after Liberia was Narvik. Joel had decided to sign off at the end of January. By then he would have saved nearly a thousand kronor. It was time to pay Samuel a visit.

But when they got to Narvik, and the heat of Africa had become a distant memory, he found a letter waiting for him. The telegraphist gave it to Joel just after he’d finished washing up after breakfast. It was from Samuel. Joel recognised the spidery handwriting.

He went to his cabin, lay down on his bed and opened the letter.

It was very short. Not many words. But Joel would never forget them.

Joel,

I hope all is going well for you on the Alta. I hope the trip to Africa was a great experience. I think it would be best if you came home now. You’ll remember that I had stomach pains last summer. They’ve become worse now. It’s not possible to say what will happen. So perhaps it would be best if you came home.

Samuel

Joel felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach.

So Samuel was ill.

He recalled what he’d thought at the hotel, when Samuel came back from the hospital.

Samuel might die.

He started to panic. He would have to go to Samuel straight away. He couldn’t put it off. But he couldn’t just abandon ship and leave his work just like that. There were rules about how much notice you had to give before handing in your discharge book and asking to sign off.

I need to speak to somebody, he thought. Pirinen? He wouldn’t understand. The telegraphist? He wouldn’t be able to do anything.

Joel got up from his bunk. He would speak to the captain. Captain Håkansson.

He was often gruff and angry, but that couldn’t be helped. Joel left his bunk and walked up the stairs to the bridge. If the captain wasn’t ashore, he’d be bound to be in his cabin.

Joel knocked on the door.

‘Come in.’

Joel opened the door. Captain Håkansson was sitting at a desk, writing. He frowned.

‘I’m busy,’ he said.

Joel could feel that he was in danger of bursting into tears.

‘It’s my father,’ he said. ‘He’s very ill.’

Joel held out the letter. Captain Håkansson beckoned to him.

Then he stared hard at Joel, who could feel the tears in his eyes.

‘I don’t want to read a private letter you have received,’ said the captain, ‘but I can see from your face that it’s true.’

‘I have to go home,’ said Joel.

The captain nodded.

‘I’ll fix it,’ he said curtly.

He stood up.

‘I’ll have a word with the chief steward and the telegraphist. Prepare to leave by this evening.’

‘Thank you,’ said Joel.

‘I’ve had good reports about you,’ said the captain. ‘You do your job well. Never any problems.’

He nodded towards the door. The conversation was over.

That same evening Joel boarded the night train to Sweden.

It was late when Joel got off the train that winter evening.

And it was very cold. The thermometer hanging on the station wall showed minus 31 degrees Celsius. Joel pulled his scarf over his mouth and nose. He was the only one to leave the train. The stationmaster waved his flag and withdrew to the warmth of the staff rooms.

Joel was all alone. He had bought a sailor’s kitbag in Narvik. Inside it were his clothes and the presents he’d bought in Liberia.

He set off walking. He took the old road by the river.

He didn’t know how many times he’d walked or cycled along that road. But now it felt like the first time ever.

He was in a hurry. During the long journey from Narvik he had felt his unease growing all the way. He must have read the letter from Samuel at least a hundred times. In order to grasp what it meant. He’d tried to convince himself that Samuel was drunk when he wrote the letter. Drunk and lonely, in a kitchen full of burnt saucepans. Joel had to go home now in order to clean up and wash the dishes.

But Samuel would never write a letter after being out drinking. So Joel tried to convince himself his father was exaggerating. That might be a possibility. Samuel sometimes imagined that he was more ill than he really was.

But deep down, Joel knew. He’d known even in the hotel in Stockholm, the moment Samuel came in through the door.

Samuel was so ill that he might die.

Joel walked as fast as he could. The cold air was scratching at his lungs.

He suddenly stopped in his tracks.

What if Samuel was dead already? Or was in hospital?

He set off again even more quickly. He was on the hill now. He’d soon be able to see the house. See if there was a light on in the kitchen.

The road was deserted. Snow was piled high on both sides.