The Journey to the End of the World (Joel Gustafson Stories) (8 page)

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Authors: Henning Mankell

BOOK: The Journey to the End of the World (Joel Gustafson Stories)
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Perhaps the simple fact was that Samuel was nervous. He needed time to steel himself before meeting Jenny again.
But why couldn’t he just explain things as they were? Why did he need to hide behind lots of coffee cups all the time?
Joel felt his trousers. They had started to dry. Then he looked at Samuel. He was asleep. His chest was rising and falling. Fast asleep.
Joel couldn’t stand being cooped up in the hotel room any longer. He put his trousers on. And his shoes, which were wet as well. He borrowed a dry pair of socks from Samuel’s suitcase.
Samuel had a pencil in his jacket pocket. Joel tore off a piece of the margin of the map and wrote a note.
I’ve gone out. Just for a little walk. I’ll find my way back.
He put the note on the table. Then he opened the door quietly and slipped out. When he came to the lobby he found the bald man sitting on his chair, asleep. The street door was open. On the wall next to the desk was a large-scale map of Stockholm. Joel traced the way to Värtahamnen with his finger. It would take ages to walk there. He felt in his trouser pockets. He had nineteen kronor in there. He made up his mind on the spot. While Samuel was asleep, he would make his way to the harbour where the big ships were berthed.
There was a bell on the desk.
I’m staying in this hotel, Joel thought. We’re paying to live here.
He smacked the bell with the palm of his hand – far too hard. It made a very loud clanging noise. The bald man gave a start and dropped his newspaper. He gave Joel a very dirty look.
‘It’s not necessary to break the bell. I’m sitting here after all.’
Joel was a bit afraid and could feel himself blushing. That made him angry.
‘I want to know how to get to Värtahamnen,’ he said. ‘I gave the bell a light tap, but you didn’t wake up.’
The bald man eyed Joel up and down suspiciously.
He doesn’t believe me, Joel thought. He’ll throw us both out of his hotel.
But the man behind the desk seemed to have forgotten about the bell already.
‘You need to take a tram to Ropsten,’ he said. ‘From Stureplan. Go all the way to the terminus.’
The telephone rang. The man answered. Joel went to the map and found Stureplan. It wouldn’t take long to walk there.
It was drizzling when Joel left the hotel. But it had stopped by the time he came to Stureplan. He soon found the tram stop. He didn’t have long to wait. He bought a ticket and found somewhere to sit. He got off when they came to the terminus. He could see that this was the right place. At the end of a long bridge to the left was a large cargo ship, its hatches open. Big mechanical scoops were digging down into the hold and coming up with something belching black dust. Coal, perhaps. Or possibly iron ore? Joel moved closer to it, so that he could read the name of the ship.
MS Karmas.
A gangway led from the ship to the quay. A man was leaning over the rail, smoking. He was wearing a chef’s hat. Joel was unable to venture as far as the quayside because it was fenced off.
But the ship was berthed there even so.
MS Karmas
.
Waiting for Samuel and Joel.
He didn’t know how long he stood there, but in his mind’s eye he could see first Samuel and then himself walking up the gangway.
Then he noticed with a start that somebody was standing beside him. It was an old man with long white hair, smoking a pipe. Joel noticed that the man had an anchor tattooed on his wrist.
‘So we’re standing here and dreaming, are we?’ said the man with a smile.
He had hardly any teeth, but his smile was friendly.
‘I’m just looking,’ said Joel.
‘I think you’re picturing yourself walking up the gangway,’ said the man.
Joel stared at him. How come that this man could read Joel’s thoughts?
‘You can always tell when somebody wants to be a sailor,’ said the man. ‘There’s some kind of magnet that attracts people who long to go to sea. Once upon a time I stood on a quay dreaming, just like you. In my case it was in Norrköping.’
He knocked out his pipe and gave Joel a wink.
‘I’m right, aren’t I?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Joel.’
‘I’m known as Geegee. George Edward Edgar Gerald Everton Edwardsson. But that’s a bit of a mouthful, so people call me Geegee. Sailors and horses are very similar, really. When it comes to the bottom line.’
‘Are you a sailor?’ asked Joel hesitantly.
‘I used to be,’ said Geegee. ‘But I went ashore three years ago. After forty-five years. I thought it would be great back on land, but in fact there’s always something missing. So I come here to look at the ships. You stand here to dream about what’s to come, and I stand here to dream about what used to be. That’s life, I suppose.’
‘My dad’s a sailor,’ said Joel. ‘Although he’s a lumberjack at the moment.’
‘That’s life,’ said Geegee.
‘What do you have to do to become a sailor?’ Joel asked.
‘Your dad ought to be able to tell you all about that,’ said Geegee.
‘But I don’t want to ask him.’
Geegee nodded thoughtfully.
‘That’s life. That’s the way it is with dads. You prefer to ask somebody else. But you have to get yourself a seaman’s discharge book, and in order to get that you have to undergo a medical examination. Once you’ve got the necessary document, you have to go to the Seamen’s Employment Exchange to find out what jobs are going. I take it you’re dreaming about becoming a captain?’
‘I don’t know. I just want to become a sailor.’
A gurgling noise came from Geegee’s pipe.
‘Start from there, then. And see how things go. That’s life. Some young lads want to be in the engine room, others want to be the first mate. And some lads want to be deck hands. And then there are those who can’t wait to get ashore . . .’
Joel thought about what Geegee had told him. Now he didn’t need to ask Samuel.
‘There’s the
MS Karmas
,’ said Geegee. ‘You can see from the flag that she belongs to the Grängesberg Shipping Company.’
‘Where has it come from? And where’s it going to?’
‘Not “it”. A ship’s a “she”.’
‘Where has she come from?’
‘England perhaps. Or Narvik. As for where she’s going to? Maybe Liberia. Or possibly Belgium.’
Joel knew that Narvik was in Norway. And Belgium was in Europe. But Liberia? Where was that? He wanted to ask, but didn’t want to seem stupid. So he didn’t.
Geegee put his pipe in his pocket, and yawned.
‘I’m getting old and tired,’ he said. ‘That’s life. It’s time I took an afternoon nap.’
He nodded at Joel, and left, his white hair fluttering in the breeze. There was so much more Joel would have liked to ask him about, but still: he now knew the most important thing – what he needed to do in order to become a sailor.
He stayed for a bit longer, watching the mechanical scoops emptying the holds.
Then he took the tram back to the hotel.
When he got to their room he found Samuel sitting on his bed, waiting for him.
‘Where have you been?’ he asked. ‘I was worried.’
‘I left a note,’ said Joel. ‘And now I’m back again.’
Joel didn’t want to tell Samuel what he’d been up to. He wanted it to be a surprise when Samuel discovered that his son knew all about what to do in order to become a sailor.
‘I fell asleep,’ said Samuel. ‘And I had a dream, but I can’t remember what it was about.’
I expect you dreamt about trees, Joel thought. You dreamt about your axes and your saws and all the trees you haven’t felled yet. But I bet you didn’t dream about walking up the gangway of a ship that was about to sail to Liberia.
‘Where’s Liberia?’ Joel asked.
‘Why do you want to know that?’
‘There was a man outside the hotel who said he came from Liberia.’
Samuel looked doubtfully at him.
‘Have you been talking to a black man? Could he speak Swedish?’
As soon as his dad said that, Joel remembered. How could he have forgotten? He’d always been top of the class in geography. How could he have forgotten that Liberia was in Africa?
‘Perhaps it was Lebanon,’ said Joel. ‘Or even Linköping. He was difficult to understand.’
‘What did he want?’
‘He was trying to sell a magazine. A Christmas magazine.’
‘In the middle of summer?’
Joel realised that he’d stumbled into a totally unnecessary maze of lies. He would have to get out of it as quickly as possible.
‘It was from last year. And it was cheap. But I didn’t buy it.’
Samuel shook his head.
‘Let’s go and have dinner,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘And then I thought we could go to the cinema.’
Joel was surprised. That was a first. Samuel had never suggested that they should go to the pictures together. Samuel never went to the pictures anyway.
‘Why?’ asked Joel.
‘I thought it might be fun. Seeing as we’re in Stockholm.’
‘I thought we were here to look for Mummy Jenny. And to look at boats.’
‘I thought that could wait until tomorrow,’ said Samuel. ‘If we happened to bump into Jenny, I don’t think I could cope. Not until tomorrow.’
Joel understood. And he had a bad conscience. Samuel was afraid. He didn’t want to wait because he was lazy, but because he really was scared of meeting Mummy Jenny again.
‘OK, we’ll wait until tomorrow,’ said Joel.
They had dinner at the same place they’d been to earlier in the day. Afterwards they wandered down a wide street where there were lots of cinemas. Joel let Samuel choose.
‘Kirk Douglas is somebody I’ve heard of,’ said Samuel. ‘That film’s bound to be good.’
Joel thought it was bad. Nothing happened. The actors just hung around, talking. He found it hard to concentrate. He kept imagining he could see himself on the screen. Walking up and down a gangway.
‘That was a good film,’ said Samuel as they emerged into the street.
Joel said nothing.
On the way home they paused and bought a hot dog. Joel started to worry about how long Samuel’s money was going to last.
When they got back to the hotel the bald man was no longer there. Instead, a fat woman was sitting behind the desk.
‘Would you like a wake-up call?’ she asked.
‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Samuel. ‘We’ll wake up anyway.’
Samuel fell asleep the moment the light was switched off. But Joel lay awake. Astreetlamp was shining into the room through a gap in the curtains. And it was so noisy. Very different from home, where everything was so quiet. Where the only sound was the creaking from inside the walls.
The beam of light from outside illuminated the
Celestine
.
What’s Mummy Jenny doing just now? Joel asked himself. What’s she thinking about? Not about Samuel, that’s for sure. Nor about me.
She doesn’t know that we are so close by.
Joel pulled the covers up to his chin and tried to sleep. But there was no sleep in him. He tossed and turned. In the end he sat up. There was no point. He got out of bed and looked at Samuel’s watch. A quarter past eleven. As he walked to the window he cast a glance at the picture on the wall. The young man was still playing the violin. And the woman was still sitting under the tree. He opened the curtain slightly. No rain.
Then it dawned on him.
The night was waiting for him. He didn’t know how many times he’d roamed around the streets at night on his bike, but there was nothing to stop him wandering around the streets of Stockholm on foot tonight, looking for Mummy Jenny.
He got dressed as quietly as he could, then wrote another note for Samuel. To make sure it wasn’t overlooked he put it on Samuel’s pillow.
I can’t sleep. I’m going out. Back soon.
That’s all. No times. Samuel wouldn’t be able to work out how long he’d been away.
The corridor was deserted. He closed the door carefully behind him. He didn’t dare to take the lift. There were carpets on the stairs, so his footsteps wouldn’t be heard.
A radio was playing in reception. He paused on the stairs. Perhaps the woman behind the desk wouldn’t allow him to go out? Perhaps the law said you had to be in the hotel after eleven o’clock?
He tried to work out what to do.
But the solution came of its own accord. He could hear somebody snoring. He approached the desk. The snores were louder now. He peeped cautiously over the desk. The woman was asleep on a chair, asleep with her mouth open. He crouched down and hurried to the door. If it squeaked she might wake up. He took hold of the handle and eased the door open. Not a sound.

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