A Bridge to the Stars (9 page)

'Tomorrow we'll smear varnish all over her currant
bushes,' says Ture. 'This is just the start.'

Smear varnish over her currant bushes?

That's not something Joel would ever have thought of
doing.

This isn't what his Secret Society was set up to do.

The dog heading for a star no longer seems to be a
part of it.

'I want to look for the dog,' he says. 'I don't want to
smear varnish over any currant bushes.'

'You daren't,' says Ture.

'Of course I dare,' says Joel. 'But I don't want to.'

Then they start quarrelling.

Neither of them says anything, but they quarrel even
so, in their thoughts.

They walk all the way home without saying a word.

They go their different ways when they get to the
courthouse gate.

'See you tomorrow,' says Ture and jumps over the
gate.

Joel doesn't answer, but hands over the paper sack.
Ture has been carrying the spade.

'I have to go home now,' says Joel. 'I can't spend all
tomorrow in bed.'

He has no intention of smearing varnish over any
currant bushes, he intends to look for the dog. But he
doesn't say that.

On the way home he thinks about Ture running away
soon. Then Joel will be alone again with his Secret
Society. At least he won't have to do things he doesn't
want to do any more.

Such as smearing varnish on currant bushes.

It's not that he's a coward, he dares to do it all right.
It's just that he doesn't want to.

When he enters the kitchen he can sense straight away
that Samuel isn't asleep in his bed. He doesn't need to
check if Samuel's clothes and boots are still there. He
knows even so.

He edges open the door to Samuel's room. The bed
is empty. Joel starts crying. He sits on the kitchen
bench with tears running down his cheeks. He sits there
for ages.

Then he takes out the logbook from underneath
Celestine
. He finds a pen and writes on an empty page:
'All the crew have been lost now. The last one to be
swept overboard was Able Seaman Samuel Gustafson.
His son fought to the last to save him, but it was all in
vain.

The only one left on board now is Joel Gustafson.

No other soul, only Joel Gustafson . . . '

When Joel wakes up next morning and goes to the kitchen,
he sees that Samuel has not been at home all night. The
stove is cold and there is no dirty coffee cup in the sink.

He is gripped by fear once again. It's a monster inside
his stomach. An animal with vicious teeth and sharp
claws, a beast eating its fill inside frightened people.

Joel decides to go out, lie down in the forest and die.

Samuel is not going to return.

He has gone away just like his mother did, and left
Joel behind. He didn't even bother to take his son down
to Mrs Westman's and leave him there.

He tries to convince himself that this isn't the case,
and that he's only imagining it, but to believe that he'd
have to ignore the cold stove and the coffee cup that
isn't where it usually is.

He can't do that. There's a limit to how far he can go
to fool himself.

He gets dressed and goes out into the street. It's colder
again and steam comes out of his mouth when he breathes.

He can't go to school. That's out of the question.
Everybody would be able to see by looking at him that
Samuel had abandoned him and moved in with Sara, the
waitress in the local bar. He makes up his mind to go so
far into the forest that he won't be able to find his way
back, and so can't have any second thoughts.

The forest is most extensive to the north, he knows
that. There are also a lot of deep ravines and black tarns
there. Lots of people have lost their way in that part of
the forest and never returned. Now he'll become one of
them. The difference being that he'll get lost on purpose.

He goes up the hill to the railway station, thinking that
this is the last time. He turns round halfway up and
surveys his own footprints. He remembers that his name
is carved into the rock down by the river.

That will still be there when he's gone.

What has happened seems so unfair. How can you
blame yourself when you can't choose your own parents?

And why would Sara want to choose Samuel? Or is it
Samuel who's chosen her?

Perhaps he thinks I've been a bad mum to myself,
Joel muses.

Maybe he thinks I've been just as bad as Jenny.

He stops when he comes to the road leading to Simon
Windstorm's house.

Perhaps he can have a taste of Simon's soup before he
goes to get lost in the forest? If it's true that it will enable
him to see into the future, he'll be able to find out what
happens after he's dead.

He walks through the dense fir trees, follows the lorry
tracks and finds himself in the forecourt. Rusty
machines, dismantled motor cars and power-looms are
lying around everywhere, part-covered in snow.

It's like a cemetery, he thinks. Although the gravestones
are rusty machines and don't have names carved on them.

He looks at the dilapidated house. There is no smoke
coming out of the chimney, not a sound to be heard.

He approaches one of the windows and peers inside.
The Old Bricklayer is sitting at a table, reading a book.
He has a pen in one hand, and occasionally writes something
in the book.

Suddenly, he looks up, straight at Joel, and waves to
him. Joel hears Simon inviting him inside.

When Joel takes hold of the door handle he notices that
it turns the wrong way, the opposite way to all other door
handles he's ever come across. He enters a murky
vestibule smelling of tar. A pile of newspapers reaches up
to the ceiling. There's also a tailor's dummy dressed in an
old fur coat.

The room where The Old Bricklayer is sitting smells
of smoke oozing out of a stove. A few hens are pecking
at the rag carpets.

'I have some soup for you,' says The Old Bricklayer
with a smile. 'I heard you coming.'

'How could you possibly hear me?' asks Joel.

The Old Bricklayer points into a corner of the room.
There's a dog lying there, looking at Joel. A Norwegian
elkhound . . .

But it's not the dog that's heading for a star. It's
similar, but not the same.

'Lukas hears everything,' says The Old Bricklayer.
'Sit down now.' Joel sits down at the table on a peculiar
chair. It's really two chairs but their backs are nailed to
each other.

'What are you reading?' he asks.

'I've no idea what books are called,' says The Old
Bricklayer. 'I read bits here and there and if there's
something I don't like, I change it. This book has an
ending I don't like, so I'm writing a new one as I want
it to be.'

'Are you allowed to do that?' asks Joel.

The Old Bricklayer gives him a long, hard look.

'There are all sorts of things you're not supposed to do,'
he says. 'You're not supposed to wear odd shoes, you're
not supposed to live in an old smithy, you're not supposed
to have hens in the house. No doubt you're not supposed to
make changes in books either. But I do all that even so. I'm
not doing anybody any harm. Besides, I'm mad.'

'Are you?' asks Joel.

'No doubt I was once,' he says. 'All thoughts I had
caused me so much pain. But that's all changed now.
Now I only think thoughts that I like. But I suppose I'm
a little bit mad.'

'You said you were going to serve me your soup,'
says Joel. 'I need to know what's going to happen this
afternoon and this evening.'

The Old Bricklayer gives him another long, hard look.

'You don't look too happy,' he says eventually. 'You
look as if you have a lot of thoughts in your head that
you would prefer not to be there. Is that right?'

Joel nods.

'Yes,' he says. 'I suppose so.'

Joel starts to tell The Old Bricklayer all about it. The
words simply tumble out of his mouth, with no hesitation.
He tells him about his dad, who he now just calls Samuel,
about his mother and
Celestine
, about The Secret Society
and Sara in the bar. He tells him about the stone he threw
through her window, and about the dog that's heading for
a star.

He's sure The Old Bricklayer is listening to what he has
to say. He's not the type who just pretends to be listening.

When Joel finishes speaking it is remarkably quiet in
the room. The only sound is from the hens' beaks
pecking at the floor.

'You and I are going for a ride in my lorry,' says The
Old Bricklayer, getting to his feet. 'There's something I
want to show you.'

Joel clambers into the cab. He's never been in a lorry
before. The Old Bricklayer gets in behind the wheel,
turns a key and pulls a knob. But the engine doesn't start.

'Go and give the bonnet a bash with this,' he says,
handing Joel a hammer.

'Where exactly?' asks Joel.

'Where you see the dents,' says The Old Bricklayer.
'Hit it as hard as you can and don't stop until I tell you to.'

Joel does as he's bidden and the engine springs into
life. Why on earth does it start when he hits the bonnet
with a hammer?

He clambers back into the cab. A hen suddenly
appears from behind the seat and flutters out through the
open door.

'Ah, I wondered where she'd got to,' mutters The Old
Bricklayer. 'In the summer they usually come to lay
eggs behind the seats.'

They drive out to the main road and head north.

If we'd headed south perhaps he'd have taken me to
Motala, thinks Joel. Driven through the forest, night and
day, until we got there.

After a few miles The Old Bricklayer slows down and
turns off onto a forest track. He doesn't tell Joel what he
is going to show him. Joel wishes the journey would
never end. The white forest is like a boundless ocean,
the lorry a frozen ship forcing its way through the white,
icy sea.

A big bird takes off from a fir tree and flies away.
Snow cascades down from the branch it has left.

The Old Bricklayer suddenly brings the lorry to a halt.
When he switches off the engine Joel experiences a
silence he has never come up against before. A thousand
trees watching and listening . . .

The Old Bricklayer gazes thoughtfully through the
windscreen.

'Time for walking now,' he says, hopping down from
the cab.

Joel trudges after him through the deep snow. The firs
are lined up side by side, and Joel wonders where they
are heading for. But he feels secure with The Old
Bricklayer at his side. Everything he's heard about him
before, all the scary rumours, have been banished.

The forest suddenly opens up and a white lake,
covered in ice and snow, is revealed before them. The
firs crowd in on it, restlessly, on all sides. In the middle
of the lake is something jutting up: Joel thinks it's a
rock, but when he ventures out onto the snow-covered
ice he sees that it is in fact a rowing boat, frozen in.

They walk over to it. The Old Bricklayer adjusts the
oars and rowlocks lying in the bottom of the boat. There
are also a couple of collapsible canvas stools of the type
used by men who fish through holes in the ice as spring
approaches.

The Old Bricklayer sets them up on the ice. He sits
on one of them and indicates to Joel that he should do
the same.

'This lake doesn't have a name on the map,' says The
Old Bricklayer. 'But I've given it one. A secret name.
Four Winds Lake. I'll tell you why it's called that . . .

'The first time I ever came here,' says The Old
Bricklayer, 'I was very mixed-up. I'd just come back home
after having lived in a hospital where people whose heads
were full of horrible thoughts were locked up behind doors
and barred windows. I was so pleased to have been
released at last. Nevertheless I was sad because I was all
alone and had spent far too many years hidden away in that
hospital. I came out here into the forest and discovered this
lake. It was in the winter, just like now, and I stood on the
ice, more or less where we are sitting now, and then I
shouted out my name as loud as I possibly could, Simon.
Simon, I shouted. I don't know why I did that. It just
happened. But when I'd finished shouting it seemed that
all four winds came blowing from out of the forest. One
from each point of the compass. One of the winds was cold,
and whispered, "Sorrow, Sorrow" in my ear. Another one
whined and growled, "Fury, Fury" in my ear. The third one
was warm and winged its way gently to my ear and
whispered, "Happiness, Happiness." The fourth wind was
both warm and cold, and at first I couldn't hear what it was
saying, but in the end I realised that it was telling me to
choose which wind I wanted to have blowing at my face. I
turned my back on all the other winds and let Happiness
stroke my cheeks. It felt as if the sorrow I'd been feeling
had just melted away. And when I left, I felt so happy. I
come back here whenever I need to listen to the winds. It's
like a fairy tale, this lake. Perhaps it is a fairy tale. Perhaps
the winds don't really exist. But even if they don't, they
still help. I reckon they might be able to help you in the
same way that they helped me. Now I'm going back to the
lorry, and I'll wait for you there. You have to be on your
own if the winds are going to dare to appear. All you need
to do is to shout your name, then wait.'

The Old Bricklayer stands up and collapses his stool.

'I'll be waiting in the lorry,' he says. 'You'll be able
to find your way back. You can't miss our tracks in
the snow.'

The Old Bricklayer leaves and vanishes into the dark
fir trees. Joel is on his own.

There's no such things as talking winds, he thinks. It's
only in fairy tales that stones can laugh and flowers can
turn into pretty maids all in a row. There are no winds
capable of whispering into his ear.

Still, there's no harm in shouting your name, I
suppose. Even if you don't believe that anything can
possibly come of it. You can shout out your name and
see if there's an echo.

He shouts his name.

It sounds so short, so solitary. Like somebody calling
for a cat or a cow. There's no echo either.

He shouts again, louder this time.

No wind from the forest. Everything is still.

But he imagines the wind inside himself. You can do
that. You can create a wind that doesn't exist if you
really have to.

It's like holding one of Samuel's shells to your ear
and thinking that the rushing sound is a voice.

Abeam of sunlight emerges from the clouds, just over
the tops of the trees. If he turns to face the sun, it feels
quite warm on his face. The idea of lying down in the
snow to die suddenly seems absolutely impossible.

How could he ever have thought of such a thing?

He feels almost embarrassed. It's childish, he thinks.
Going out into the forest to die is childish. You can't get
lost on purpose.

The secret of this lake suddenly dawns on him.

Maybe the four winds don't exist. But the very fact
that they don't exist makes you start thinking differently
from the way you thought before.

Now he wants to get back home, fast. No doubt it will
be easier to talk to Samuel today. He must have grown
tired of Sara in the red hat by now.

He folds up the canvas stool, puts it back into the
rowing boat and retraces his steps. The fir trees come to
greet him, and he leaps into their shadow as if into a
welcoming tunnel.

There's the lorry. The engine is coughing and
wheezing, and he can see The Old Bricklayer sitting
behind the wheel. He opens the door and climbs up into
the passenger seat.

'All OK?' asks The Old Bricklayer.

Joel nods.

'I'd better be getting home now,' he says.

The Old Bricklayer drives him to his front gate.

'You didn't have any soup,' says The Old Bricklayer.

'I'll come some other time,' says Joel.

'Maybe,' says The Old Bricklayer, with a smile. Then
he drives off.

As he bounds up the stairs he wonders if Simon
Windstorm recognised him. Did he realise that Joel was
the boy who'd fallen off his bike that night in the snow?
Maybe it's more interesting not to know, he thinks.