Blackwater (19 page)

The eel was exhausted, motionless in the too warm water, so it wasn’t difficult transferring it to the rat cage. He lowered it under the water for a moment to revive it, then hauled up the cage and looked carefully at it. Long fins ran along its body, its head narrowing towards the front, its nose flat and glossily black. Its body was one long, powerful muscle. Nothing but willpower. Or instinct. Just a strong embodiment of will. Its belly was white.

If what he had read was true, it could make its way to the sea even from here, wriggling through the dew, climbing along channels. A travelling eel moved as fast as a human being on foot. It always knew what it wanted. Perhaps it didn’t know anything else.

He tied the line firmly to the wire netting and then threw the cage out into deep water. He felt he was tormenting the eel, but he didn’t want to release it. The line ran in the crevices in the rocks up to where he tied it to a pine root.

When he had finished with the eel, he took off his jeans and underpants and started washing them. They were difficult to clean with nothing but soap and water so cold his hands froze. When the clothes seemed more or less rinsed, he hung them in a birch, then lay down on a flat stone to wait for them to dry.

It was too warm for the tiny stinging insects and not even the mosquitoes had really got going. He struck out at a horsefly with a birch switch. The sun was baking on the stone and the breezes wrinkling the water sent a shudder through him, but he soon relaxed as it grew still.

He fell asleep, his cheeks flaring in the heat of the sun as if he had a fever. The soughing from the birches in the breeze penetrated into his torpor. Clouds started trotting across the sky like driver-less horses. He sensed their shadows like shivers, and as they passed by, the light rose and pressed in through his closed eyelids. The smells of the forest came right into his sleep.

He was lying with one knee bent, his dick resting against his thigh when he woke. He thought he had dreamt that something or someone had been standing looking at him. As he let his gaze wander along the shore, he could see nothing but a jumble of green upon green. Finn the green hunter come into his mind, something Grandmother had told him, or he’d read in a magazine. Green in green among green. He felt strangely empty inside, a green jumble of oblivion, and his skin felt licked by eyes.

He got up and scrambled into his wet jeans. He was cold now. He didn’t know where Ylja was or when she was coming to find him. He was hungry again. He had to go back to the grouse shed to lie down and wait until she appeared and gave him the right to exist. This was all bloody stupid shit and he must have been crazy to have left home. Torsten knocking down Vidart behind the enclosure wasn’t the third world war. Letting him down Alda’s old well had been a cruel thing to do, but since he had got himself out on his own, he would have had an advantage if he had stayed.

No, not an advantage. Possibly the right to exist.

What an expression. He had got it on the brain. Before he left, he hauled in the rat cage and looked at the eel. It was a big bastard. With a better knife than his little fish-gutter, he could have cut its head off, gone up to the house and been king for a while. There must be a smokehouse somewhere.

He threw the cage out and carefully hid the line with stones.

There was nothing to do but sleep, sleep away his hunger. Women’s voices penetrated through to him in the cottage, many of them, light voices, occasionally shrill. He could see no one through the window facing the river. Cautiously opening the door a crack, he saw a whole group of women round the green-clad man. As he closed the door again and lay down on the bunk, the voices sounded like the screeching of gulls.

The man was like a fox. A silver fox. Slim, slightly pointed nose, slanting eyes. And his voice could clearly be heard through those of the women. He had a Finnish accent, too, though you weren’t supposed to say that.

Ylja did not appear until long into the evening, but then she had food with her. Smoked reindeer heart, only a little bit carved off it. Wholemeal bread. Salt butter and cold fried salmon trout. Almond-shaped boiled potatoes, still warm. And Finnish Koskenkorva vodka.

It was strange she should drink that, because everything else about her was upper-class. He told her so, though politely, he thought. But she said it suited her best and caused the least hangover. It all sounded like quite a habit. She offered him some and he tried to drink it as if he was used to it too, or anyhow didn’t think all that much of it. Though it was hard to see how much he was given as she poured it straight into his tumbler. He had already had a rather acid Norwegian pilsner, and next time he was thirsty, he went to fetch water from the river.

He ate all the food, which must have been the remains of dinner up at the house. She laughed to see him put away the entire reindeer heart. Then she pulled him down on the mattress.

He was bewildered and dislocated, now and again even momentarily frightened, sometimes totally exhilarated, beyond everything – then there seemed to be nothing else but her soft body and the light coming from the window. Birdsong and murmuring water. The intense, almost unbearable pleasure when she held something under his testicles and made the orgasm continue although it had begun to fade, on and on, to the borders of pain, until in the end he realised it was the vodka bottle. They cooled it in the river every time either of them had to go out to pee.

He didn’t know where he was when he woke, but he was horribly thirsty. She gave him some water and told him he was in the grouse shed at Trollevolden, that his name was Johan Brandberg and he was born on 21 February 1957. So he had told her when he was born? What else had he said?

She gave him a splash of vodka in his glass when he had finished the water. He asked her when she was born, thinking he had a right to know.

‘I’m a Scorpio,’ she replied, and he got no more out of her.

She whimpered slightly when it was good for her. He thought he would do anything to make her whine and whimper like that. She seemed young and sensitive then, and as if clinging to him. His head spun, though perhaps that was the liquor. And exhaustion.

He presumed she was going back up to the house after he had fallen asleep, so thought it best to ask her some questions while he was still able to keep his eyes open. He wanted to know why he wasn’t allowed to be seen, and when would she be coming back? She replied only that he wouldn’t be seeing much of her during the day.

‘We’re going for a long walk.’

‘Where to?’

‘To the Stone God Cave, if you must know.’

‘Who’s going? All those women? And the Silver Fox?’

She laughed at his name for the man in green.

‘The Stone God Cave? Is it a real cave?’

‘It certainly is,’ she said, in some kind of Norwegian.

‘Why can’t I come, too?’

‘It’s complicated,’ she said. ‘Come on, Jukka. Forget the cave. Forget those females.’

But he persisted. He wanted to know who they were. As well as the man in green.

‘Why is he dangerous?’

‘He’s not that dangerous,’ she mumbled sleepily against his throat.

‘You said he was.’

‘Only dangerous to you, little Jukka.’

‘I’m not little.’

‘No, so big, so big,’ she said caressingly, softly taking his dick, and it responded although he didn’t want to at that moment. He was thirsty from the reindeer heart and that helped him maintain his concentration. He lay on top of her and grasped her upper arms, firmly, but not hurting her. To make sure, he asked her.

‘No, you’re not hurting me. You do me good. But hurry and come on in. You’re cold.’

‘Not now.’

He really wanted to know.

‘Are you sure you want to know?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘But once you know, you’ll be caught, little Jukka.’

‘Know what? Who they are, do you mean?’

‘They’re women from the old tribe,’ she mumbled. ‘He’s the Traveller. And you are the new.’

‘New what?’

‘The new Traveller.’

He let her go and she wriggled over towards the bottle and cautiously poured a little into their glasses. When she had drunk hers, she lay on her back with her eyes closed and there was no tension in her body, her fair hair sliding roughly like sand between his fingers. Her lips were pale and she had red blotches on her breasts and throat. Perhaps he had rubbed too hard against her. She was also slightly red round the mouth.

‘The Traveller always comes walking with a living animal. Like you. Then you know it’s him. The animal is his companion. That’s how they recognise him. Or some of them do. The others will soon know.’

‘Who?’

‘The women. Then they take you instead of the old Traveller.’

‘The Silver Fox?’

She laughed, her eyes closed.

‘Yes. He came with a fox. That’s right. You, Johan, you have talents.’

‘What kind of women are they?’

‘They belong to an old tribe.’

‘Like Finnish Sami, or something like that?’

‘No . . . not so northern. They existed in the great forest between the Caucasus and the Atlantic.’

‘There aren’t any tribes like that left.’

‘In a way, no. But all the same. They were matrilinear.’

He tried to find some meaning in the word, but felt stupid. Matrix, he thought, and then linear. But no meaning came of it.

‘They reckon their origins down the female line,’ she said, almost whispering. He didn’t want her to fall asleep now. He wanted to know. He slid into her again and woke her up with small movements. She was almost too moist. They were wet together. He had created much of it.

‘And then there was the secret,’ she said. ‘They protect it.’

‘What?’

‘Their secret. Of the Traveller, and that they belonged to the old tribe. The tribe was dispersed, you see. They were abducted. Married off. Had daughters. But they told their daughters the secret. And they never told anyone else – because that was dangerous. Perhaps someone said something once. But that went wrong.’

‘How?’

‘Guess.’

‘But you’re telling me now.’

‘You, yes. You’re the new Traveller. He’s the only one who’s allowed to know. In the past he would kill the old one and replace him.’

‘As what?’

‘Priest. King . . . chieftain. Whatever you like.’

‘You mean a sect? And he’s the leader.’

‘No. He’s just the Traveller. He’s theirs.’

‘So they don’t marry?’

‘Of course they do,’ she said. ‘They marry and have children and become wives and get an education and become professional. They live normal lives.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘Everywhere. They’re all over the place – dispersed, perhaps. But they keep the secret. And occasionally they meet him and have their rituals. He travels around, meets them at one of the sacred places, whichever is nearest to where they live.’

‘So they never meet all at once?’

‘That’s impossible. Some live in Israel. In America. But most of them live in Europe. Whenever they can, they try to go to the place where he is to appear. Like here.’

‘That’s all piffle,’ he said, gripping her upper arms, almost too hard.

‘Of course,’ she said lightly. ‘But watch out for the old Traveller. If he realises you’re going to replace him, he may kill you. Such things have happened. In the old days the old one killed all newcomers who threatened to take his place. Or else he himself was killed. Nowadays the old one just gives way.’

‘What do you mean, gives way?’

‘Goes away. Tries to find a new life. A normal life, or whatever. But that’s not all that easy these days. He has never worked.’

‘What has he lived on, then?’

‘The women. Some of them are wealthy. They donate money. For the other ones’ travels, too.’

‘Are they going to the cave?’

‘Yes.’

‘What are you going to do there?’

‘You won’t be told that until you’ve been initiated. You mustn’t show yourself until this festivity is over. We’ll let the old one know afterwards.’

‘You’re lying,’ he said. ‘You think I’m childish enough to agree to this.’

She laughed. It sounded soft. She had become much softer, much kinder. He was not so afraid of her as he had been at first. But he didn’t like her teasing him.

‘Tell me what you’re going to do tomorrow. Seriously. And who those women are.’

‘We’re going to the Stone God Cave.’

‘I don’t believe it exists.’

‘Oh, yes, it does, up on the high mountain. The path past the ice house. You can look through the gap in the curtains tomorrow morning and you’ll see the whole company crossing the river.’

As she lay on her back with her eyes closed, he could look at her properly. He looked and felt with his tongue. Her skin was so thin at the temples, he could see blue veins through it; those were thin, too. Her breasts flattened as she lay like that, the teaspoonful middle rosy brown like the sweet spoonful of jam on top of a pastry; there were blue veins on her breasts as well. She had been vaccinated on her left arm, but otherwise had no scars. The fair curly hair in her loins was even coarser than elsewhere, tickling his nose and smelling of the sea. She was kind now. Perhaps she wasn’t teasing him, but just amusing herself. Tomorrow she’ll tell me who she is, he thought. Tell me things that are real, about herself. She likes me now.

After she had left him, he couldn’t sleep. He had slept nearly all day. He no longer knew what day it was, Sunday or Monday. The two had merged into each other. He was tired and his eyes were smarting, but he went out into the bright, clear night and its birdsong. That was better than lying on the bunk counting the timbers in the cabin walls.

They were all asleep in there now and he could wander round the house, looking at it. He stared at the rough wooden shingles covering the walls. Silhouettes of dragon heads crowned the ridges, and there was an iron weather vane shaped like a three-tongued flag. The glass in the windows was old and distorting, gleaming reddish in the morning sun, and all the curtains on the upper floor were drawn.

He wondered where the cave was, if it actually existed. She had said it wasn’t far. The path began at the ice house, crossed the river over a footbridge of two logs and went on across a marshland sloping upwards. The path was easy across the marsh between islands of firm ground with birches and one or two small spruces. He took that way and enjoyed moving quickly without having to think. His body warmed and all his anxiety vanished. Hundreds of birds were calling and whistling all round him, thousands, he thought, thousands of birds calling and I just keep on walking.