smashed to pieces.
But beneath the oblong stone sculpture, Ernst Adolfsson lay
outstretched. He was staring up at the sky from the bottom of the quarry, his mouth bleeding and his body shattered.
OLAND, MAY 1945
Big things are going to happen, both
out in the world and in Nils Kant’s life. He can feel it in the wind.
The sun above the alvar is stronger than ever, the Oland winds are fresher, the air clearer, and the flowers are in full bloom. The grass is green, not yet burned by the sun of high summer. Vague, flickering little marks in the sky grow into swallows, swooping down like black arrows over the flat ground for a few moments, then gathering speed as they soar upward again, and suddenly there they are, high in the sky once more.
Spring has come to Oland with a vengeance, and Nils Kant
can sense changes in the air. He is almost twenty years old now, finally grown up and completely free. Life lies ahead of him, and big things are going to happen. He can feel it in the whole of his body.
Nils is getting too old to be wandering around out here in the silence, hunting hares. He has other plans. He’s going to go off out into the world when the war is over, anywhere he wants to.
He would like to take Maja Nyman with him, the girl who lives in a cottage down by the ridge in Stenvik. He remembers what she looks like, and thinks of her quite often. But they have never really spoken, just said hello when they’ve met, if nobody else was with her. If he doesn’t get the opportunity to talk to her properly soon, he’ll travel alone.
On this particular day he is further away from Stenvik than
usual, almost over on the eastern side of the island. Before he crossed the main road he shot two hares; he’s left them under some bushes so that he can pick them up on the way home. |
He’s intending to shoot one or two more before he goes home
to his mother, and perhaps a few swallows on the way back,
just for fun.
The water from the melted snows of winter is still lying in big pools all over the alvar; it’s a bit like walking in a boggy landscape, full of small lakes. The water is drying up quickly in the sun. Nils is wearing big, sturdy boots, and can wade straight through if he wants to. He is completely free and he owns the whole world.
Adolf Hitler tried to own the world. He’s dead now; he shot
himself in Berlin a week or so ago. That was the end for Germany Nobody there had the will or the strength to fight the Russians and ‘. the Americans any longer.
Nils splashes up out of a pool of water and pushes through a clump of juniper bushes. He remembers that he liked Hitler when he was younger; he had great respect for Hitler’s strength of will, at any rate.
He used to listen reverently to fragments of Hitler’s thundering speeches from Germany when his mother had the radio on in the living room, and for several years he waited for the German!
bombers to sweep in across Oland, for the war to come at last, but now Hitler is gone and the might of Germany has been smashed to pieces by the English bombers.
Germany doesn’t seem particularly interesting any longer.,
England, on the other hand, is tempting. And America seems
huge and full of promise, but too many people from Oland have already gone there and never returned; thousands disappeared without a trace in the nineteenth century. Nils wants to travel the world and then return to Stenvik like an emperor.
Nils hears something, a low but solid sound, and he stops.
There is no sign of a hare, and yet Nils feels as if…
He isn’t alone.
Someone is there.
He has heard something in the wind, a brief sound which
is neither birdsong nor the humming of insects nor the neighing of horses. He has been walking around on the alvar for years; he knows when things are as they should be, and when they are not. Right now there’s something that definitely isn’t right. He can feel prickles of unease running down the back of his neck and his
But beneath the oblong stone sculpture, Ernst Adolfsson lay
outstretched. He was staring up at the sky from the bottom of the quarry, his mouth bleeding and his body shattered.
OLAND, MAY 1945
Big things are going to happen, both
out in the world and in Nils Kant’s life. He can feel it in the wind.
The sun above the alvar is stronger than ever, the Oland winds are fresher, the air clearer, and the flowers are in full bloom. The grass is green, not yet burned by the sun of high summer. Vague, flickering little marks in the sky grow into swallows, swooping down like black arrows over the flat ground for a few moments, then gathering speed as they soar upward again, and suddenly there they are, high in the sky once more.
Spring has come to Oland with a vengeance, and Nils Kant
can sense changes in the air. He is almost twenty years old now, finally grown up and completely free. Life lies ahead of him, and big things are going to happen. He can feel it in the whole of his body.
Nils is getting too old to be wandering around out here in the silence, hunting hares. He has other plans. He’s going to go off out into the world when the war is over, anywhere he wants to.
He would like to take Maja Nyman with him, the girl who lives in a cottage down by the ridge in Stenvik. He remembers what she looks like, and thinks of her quite often. But they have never really spoken, just said hello when they’ve met, if nobody else was with her. If he doesn’t get the opportunity to talk to her properly soon, he’ll travel alone.
On this particular day he is further away from Stenvik than
usual, almost over on the eastern side of the island. Before he crossed the main road he shot two hares; he’s left them under some bushes so that he can pick them up on the way home. |
He’s intending to shoot one or two more before he goes home
to his mother, and perhaps a few swallows on the way back,
just for fun.
The water from the melted snows of winter is still lying in big pools all over the alvar; it’s a bit like walking in a boggy landscape, full of small lakes. The water is drying up quickly in the sun. Nils is wearing big, sturdy boots, and can wade straight through if he wants to. He is completely free and he owns the whole world.
Adolf Hitler tried to own the world. He’s dead now; he shot
himself in Berlin a week or so ago. That was the end for Germany Nobody there had the will or the strength to fight the Russians and ‘. the Americans any longer.
Nils splashes up out of a pool of water and pushes through a clump of juniper bushes. He remembers that he liked Hitler when he was younger; he had great respect for Hitler’s strength of will, at any rate.
He used to listen reverently to fragments of Hitler’s thundering speeches from Germany when his mother had the radio on in the living room, and for several years he waited for the German!
bombers to sweep in across Oland, for the war to come at last, but now Hitler is gone and the might of Germany has been smashed to pieces by the English bombers.
Germany doesn’t seem particularly interesting any longer.,
England, on the other hand, is tempting. And America seems
huge and full of promise, but too many people from Oland have already gone there and never returned; thousands disappeared without a trace in the nineteenth century. Nils wants to travel the world and then return to Stenvik like an emperor.
Nils hears something, a low but solid sound, and he stops.
There is no sign of a hare, and yet Nils feels as if…
He isn’t alone.
Someone is there.
He has heard something in the wind, a brief sound which
is neither birdsong nor the humming of insects nor the neighing of horses. He has been walking around on the alvar for years; he knows when things are as they should be, and when they are not. Right now there’s something that definitely isn’t right. He can feel prickles of unease running down the back of his neck and his
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