The Journey to the End of the World (Joel Gustafson Stories) (21 page)

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Authors: Henning Mankell

BOOK: The Journey to the End of the World (Joel Gustafson Stories)
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‘Where is your liver?’
Lundgren pointed to the side of his stomach.
‘That’s all I wanted to know.’
Joel put his woolly hat back on, and started wrapping his scarf round his face.
‘There’s one thing you ought to be clear about,’ said Lundgren.
Joel looked at him.
‘What’s that?’
‘Oh, nothing. Nothing at all.’
Joel left the slaughterhouse. It was getting light now. The sun was just beginning to rise above the fir-covered hills that surrounded the little town. He wondered what Herbert Lundgren had been going to say. But Samuel will no doubt pull through, he thought. It takes more than this to knock out an old sailor like Samuel Gustafson.
He went to Ehnström’s grocery store and bought a few things. It was Mrs Ehnström who served him.
‘Joel,’ she said. ‘I thought you were at sea?’
‘I’m just visiting. Samuel is ill.’
‘So we heard. Poor man.’
‘He’ll be all right. It’s just something about his liver that’s not as it should be.’
‘No doubt he’s drunk too much over the years. That’s how it goes.’
Joel could feel himself getting angry. Samuel’s drinking habits had nothing to do with Mrs Ehnström.
‘It affects the liver.’
‘Samuel feels better now,’ said Joel angrily. ‘Potatoes, please. And jam.’
His anger lasted all the way home. But when he got as far as the kitchen door, he heard some mysterious noises coming from inside. At first he couldn’t understand what it was.
Then he realised.
Samuel was playing the drum. He was tapping his fingertips on the brown skin.
He’s not going to die, Joel thought. A man who gets out of bed in the middle of winter in order to play an African drum can’t possibly be so ill that he’s going to die.
Joel coughed and stamped his feet to dislodge the snow. The noises from the kitchen ceased abruptly. Joel waited for a few seconds before opening the door.
Samuel was sitting in his usual place at the table.
He’d shaved. And he was smiling.
‘I’m so glad you’ve come home,’ he said. ‘We’ve a lot to talk about. I feel much better already.’
That evening they took out the old sea charts again.
Joel had made the dinner and then done the washing up. Samuel didn’t eat much. But he said he thought the food was very good.
They finished off the meal with a cup of coffee. And Joel talked about his travels. He said nothing about that evening in Amsterdam. But he did tell his dad about the girl who wanted to wash his clothes in Liberia.
At no time during the evening did Samuel ask about Jenny. Nor did Joel mention her. If Samuel didn’t want to know, that was up to him.
It started to get late.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Samuel. ‘I think it’s time now. For me as well.’
Joel couldn’t believe his ears. Had Samuel really made up his mind? Did he really have to be struck down by an incurable illness before realising that it was high time he put away his saws and axes?
‘Are you serious?’
‘I’ve never been more serious in all my life. As soon as I feel a bit better, I’ll sign on again.’
‘Maybe we can both work on the same ship?’
‘Then it won’t be long before we go ashore on Pitcairn Island.’
‘How long will it take? Before you’re better?’
‘Not very long.’
‘A month?’
‘At most.’
‘What about the incurable illness?’
‘It doesn’t show.’
Joel could still scarcely believe that it was true. It was as if he could hear a distant foghorn sounding inside his head. A foghorn warning all ships enveloped by the mist.
That feeling he’d had at the Raven Hotel. And the letter.
Samuel is so ill that he’s going to die.
But Joel banished the thought.
Samuel really did seem to be better now than he’d been the night before.
It was turned midnight when Samuel went to bed. Joel stayed up a bit longer at the kitchen table, poring over the sea charts.
Then he went to bed as well.
The next day he’d start writing to other shipping lines.
A few hours later he was dragged out of his slumbers by an unfamiliar noise. He opened his eyes in the darkness and wondered what it was.
Then he froze stiff.
It was Samuel.
He was sitting in the kitchen, crying.
14
That night Samuel told Joel the full facts.
He would never be able to sign up on a ship again. The illness he was suffering from would never go away. Nor could he count on it getting any better. When Joel appeared in the doorway with his sailor’s kitbag, Samuel had felt that despite everything, things could go back to normal. But when he woke up in the night, he couldn’t indulge in make-believe any longer. He would never sail to Pitcairn Island. The only journey he would make in the rest of his life would be to the hospital.
Joel didn’t feel afraid. He had gone along with Samuel’s dream of everything turning out all right because that was easier than facing the difficult realities. Now he felt relieved. Knowing the facts.
Samuel was going to die. No matter how odd that seemed.
Joel felt helpless. And angry. It was unfair that Samuel had fallen ill. Why couldn’t it have been somebody else instead? Everybody had a liver. Why should it be Samuel’s that had gone wrong?
There was an invisible word that was never mentioned that night. Death. Neither of them wanted to say it. But they both knew what they were talking about even so.
‘I try not to think about it,’ said Samuel. ‘So as not to be frightened. It’s true that I always make a mess of shaving, and I’ve done some silly things in my life. But nobody will be able to say that I’m afraid.’
During the night they also spoke about Jenny.
It happened out of the blue.
‘I don’t regret what I said to her. But there again, I’d like you to know that I can understand her. She was never suited to life up here in the forests. She was never suited to life with me. She thought I was different from the way I am. And the same applied to the person I thought she was. I know I’m not easy to live with. What with all my peculiar habits.’
Joel had made some more coffee. He gave Samuel a refill.
‘But you know all about that, of course,’ said Samuel. ‘That I’m not so easy to live with.’
Joel said nothing. He had nothing to say.
‘I think that you and Jenny can be good friends,’ said Samuel. ‘And nothing makes me more pleased than that.’
Samuel lifted his cup of coffee, but as he did so the pain came back. He grimaced with pain.
‘I think I’d better go and lie down,’ he said. ‘You don’t need to help me. I’ll manage. And you need to get some sleep as well.’
Joel remained in the kitchen. He didn’t even go to sit on the window seat. His head was empty. Various images were hopping around. Totally without context.
After a while he got up and trudged back to bed.
I’ll never be able to sleep again for the rest of my life, he thought.
Then he fell asleep. With the covers over his head.
When he came to look back, Joel would recall Samuel’s last days as the most remarkable he had ever spent with him.
Samuel was cheerful, even exhilarated. He talked about his life in a way he’d never done before.
Joel knew that adults were often odd, but it had never occurred to him that they could also be odd when they were going to die.
Samuel practised playing the drum every day. Morning and evening. And they spent hours poring over sea charts. Samuel told stories about all the ships he’d sailed in. And about all the ports he’d visited.
Joel did the shopping and the cooking. And the cleaning. He went to see Sara at the bar where she worked, and told her that nobody needed to go to help Samuel now that he was at home. She had tears in her eyes, but Joel hurried away before she started crying.
The only person he wanted to speak to was Gertrud.
But he didn’t even go to visit her. It was as if he wanted to be in peace with Samuel.
After a few weeks Samuel became so ill that he had to go into hospital. Neither he nor Joel had expected it to go as quickly as this. Now Samuel was in a room with four beds. His pains came and went like breakers on a beach. They had taken the sea charts with them to the hospital, and continued their make-believe voyages.
They laughed often and a lot, sometimes so loudly that a nurse came to see what was going on.
But sometimes they were serious as well.
‘You can ask Göransson to help you,’ Samuel kept saying. ‘When it comes to sorting out the flat and its contents.’
Göransson worked for the logging company. He was Samuel’s boss. He sometimes came to visit Samuel in hospital. And Sara visited him as well. Even Ehnström came. Ehnström and his wife. But Joel always left the room when they were there. He hadn’t forgotten what she’d said that time in the shop.
It was forbidden to consume strong drink in hospital, but Göransson had brought Samuel a bottle of cognac that he took a sip from now and then. It didn’t worry Joel. He thought he would almost miss never again having to drag Samuel home when he was drunk.
Joel was alone in the house by the river. Every evening he left the hospital once Samuel had fallen asleep. It was still very cold. It sometimes seemed to Joel that the house was like a sailing ship with all its sails in tatters. Now it was going to be chopped up. Nothing would be left of it.
When he wasn’t visiting Samuel, Joel wrote letters to various shipping lines. And all the time he tried to avoid thinking about what was going to happen.
One morning, while he was having breakfast, there was a knock on the door. It was Göransson. Joel offered him coffee. Göransson was a man who didn’t beat about the bush.
‘I’m sure you know your dad’s going downhill. He’s not got much longer to live. You’re a sensible lad, and I’ve no doubt you are aware of the situation.’
Joel nodded. There was nothing he could say.
‘I’ve promised Samuel that I’ll help you. But first I have to know if you want to carry on living in this flat. I’ve spoken to the owner of the house, and you can stay on if you want to. For the same rent.’
Joel didn’t answer.
But he had a question:
‘Was Samuel a good lumberjack?’
Göransson looked at him in surprise.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course he was. One of the very best.’
‘That’s all I wanted to know. And I’m not intending to stay on here.’
‘What have you thought of doing with the furniture?’
‘I don’t want it.’
‘You ought to think about if there’s anything you’d like to keep. Then I’ll help you to sell what’s sellable: we’ll have to throw away the rest.’
Göransson stayed for nearly an hour. Joel didn’t really want to talk about all the things that were going to happen. But at the same time, he was grateful to Göransson for helping him.
When Göransson had left, Joel worked his way through the flat, picking out what he wanted to save.
The sea charts. The photographs of Samuel. And some old letters.
Samuel’s discharge book. And the old alarm clock that had always stood by his bed.
But nothing else.
A few days later a letter arrived.
Joel was informed that he could sign on for a ship called the
Rio de Janeiro
. It was on its way from Argentina and was going to a shipyard in Gothenburg where it would undergo repairs. If Joel was interested, they wanted him to sign on at the beginning of March.
Joel was pleased. But he didn’t know if he’d be able to.
Nevertheless, he wrote a reply. He spelled out the truth. He wanted to, but he didn’t know if he’d be able to.
That same afternoon he told Samuel about the letter.
‘That’s a good shipping line,’ Samuel said. ‘And it sounds like a good boat. Good boats must have a good name.
Rio de Janeiro.
Names don’t come any better than that. When do they want you to sign on?’
Joel tried to avoid answering. But Samuel persisted. He wanted to know.
‘Of course they told you that. You can’t fool me.’
‘The beginning of March,’ Joel mumbled.
Samuel lay for a while without speaking.
‘The beginning of March,’ he said eventually. ‘And it’s the beginning of February already.’

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