Harbor by John Lindqvist (no david read aloud TXT) 📗

some slightly more shady, she bought herself a stock of things that can ease loneliness and dispel melancholy. Sweets, snuff, tobacco, magazines and easily digestible thrillers, along with a range of games and puzzles. She didn’t dare take any alcohol, but she let the soldiers know that if they needed anything along those lines when they were on leave, it could be arranged.

Then she travelled around between the islands on regular days, selling her wares. Business was good. Anna-Greta was not vain, but she was aware of the effect she had on the men. Some of them probably bought from her just so that they could spend a short while in her company, having a bit of a joke and perhaps brushing against her hand by mistake.

She knew that, and to a certain extent she exploited it. But she declined all advances before they had even been formulated properly. She had her man, and his name was Johan. When she was out on her business trips he was with his grandparents, an arrangement that suited them all very well.

During the winter she went back to her knitting, and the following summer she was back out in her boat once again.

Anyway. What about those bottles of schnapps?

That didn’t happen until after the war, and it was connected to Folke. He wouldn’t give up. She sometimes bumped into him on her trips around the islands; he had been promoted to the rank of captain, and she always took the time to chat for a while, but never did anything to raise his hopes.

After the war, Folke left the army and went to work for the customs service. Within a couple of years he was the captain of one of the customs cruisers.

Presumably with the aim of impressing Anna-Greta, he moored the cruiser at her jetty one day and strode up to her house in full uniform: epaulettes, peaked cap, the lot. He asked if she would like to accompany him on a little trip, he had to carry out an official check.

Anna-Greta’s father was visiting on that particular day, and there was an exchange of casual remarks with a caustic undertone between him and Folke. However, by that stage her father had given up his activities, and there was no real antagonism. Her father said he would be happy to look after Johan if Anna-Greta wanted to go out on a pleasure cruise with the enemy.

The cruiser raced out to the three-mile limit. Like most men, Folke was under the mistaken impression that travelling at a high speed can make a woman’s heart melt, and he pushed the cruiser to the limit, standing there on the bridge and pretending to be unmoved. Anna-Greta thought it was quite entertaining to travel so fast, but nothing more.

The cargo boat just outside the limit was boarded with the usualpolite exchanges. Anna-Greta thought it all looked somehow familiar. Everything became clear when the captain appeared. It was the same Russian captain who had sold vodka to her and her father several years earlier. He recognised her, too, but gave nothing away.

Anna-Greta had a little money with her, and when Folke and his men went below to check the interior of the boat, she whispered to the captain, ‘Four cases.’

The captain looked at her with a mixture of terror and delight. ‘But where?’

Anna-Greta pointed. Right at the back of the customs cruiser hung a covered lifeboat. ‘There. Underneath the tarp.’

The captain took the money and gave the order to his crew. Then he went below to make sure Folke and the others stayed there until the goods had been stowed.

They found what they expected to find in the hold, but there wasn’t much they could do about it as the boat was in international waters. They just wanted to check the amounts, and to see if there was any need for special vigilance.

Anna-Greta had never seen the Russian captain smile, but he was certainly smiling as he waved goodbye to Anna-Greta and the customs boat. In fact, he was grinning from ear to ear.

‘He seems like quite a good bloke, in spite of everything,’ said Folke.

‘He does,’ replied Anna-Greta.

When the cruiser hove to at Anna-Greta’s jetty, she asked if she could perhaps invite the crew to her house for coffee and cake just to say thank you for the trip. They accepted with pleasure, and the men trooped up to the Shack.

While they were playing with Johan, Anna-Greta took her father to one side and said there were a couple of things that needed to be collected from the lifeboat. Perhaps he could put them in the boathouse for the time being. Her father’s jaw dropped and a fire ignited in his eyes. He said nothing, he merely nodded and went out.

And then, of course, Anna-Greta was having some problems with the leaky woodshed at the front of the house. As her fatherdisappeared around the corner, she took Folke and the others to the woodshed and listened to their advice on how she could reinforce the construction or how she might go about building a new one.

After ten minutes her father was back, at which point she thanked the men for all their help and invited them to enjoy the promised coffee.

When the cruiser was on its way and their visitors had been properly waved off, her father turned to Anna-Greta as she stood there holding Johan by the hand, and said, ‘This is the best bloody thing ever.’

‘Not one word.’

‘No, no.’

Within a month the whole archipelago knew the story of how Anna-Greta had smuggled schnapps on the customs boat. Her father had probably tried to keep his mouth shut, but it just couldn’t be done; he was far too proud of his daughter and of the great story in which he had played his small part.

Eventually the story must have reached Folke’s ears as well, since he never came to call on Anna-Greta again. She told her father off for blabbing and thus destroying