It was like I’d accidentally held a burning candle too close to the curtains, and there was no putting out the fire. Like I’d dropped something and it had shattered, something I wasn’t allowed to touch. I wanted a hand to slap me hard enough and long enough to start up that constant whistling in my ear. Once I’d been punished, it would all be okay again. Done and dusted.
Somewhere outside I could hear the engine of Karl’s cutter starting up. Pressing my ear to the mattress, the drone became clearer, as if someone was scratching at the underside of my bed.
Karl would turn on the big searchlight on top of his cabin and point it at the beach and the rocky inlets. From the water he would scan all the places we had searched, in the hope that we’d missed something. He’d sail further from the beach, past the rocks where it’s too dangerous to swim, and then further out. Perhaps he’d sail right round the island and then go round again, just in case, sailing in ever increasing circles till the waves grew too wild and the sea too big. Then he’d turn the wheel, look at Mum and shake his head.
No, no, no. They would find Dad. He would wave to them. He’d have found my red ball, he’d been able to hang on to it all along. And Dad wouldn’t need any help from anyone. He’d climb aboard all by himself.
4
A mosquito was whining its way into my ear. I woke with a start and crushed it. Turning on the bedside lamp, I saw wings, blood, and legs stuck to my finger.
Light was coming from downstairs, hurried footsteps across the floor, talk from the kitchen. The net around my chest tightened again. I leapt out of bed and ran downstairs.
Mum was standing at the sink with her back to me, the hair on her neck spiky with sweat. She was on the phone. Catching sight of me in the doorway behind her, she jumped but kept on talking.
The coastguard, harbours, ferry companies, the fish-processing plant, she called them all. It was the same conversation every time. Birk Hammermann was missing. At sea. No, further west. West of Tramsund. Early that evening, a few hours ago. Swimming. In which direction? No, no idea. Looked everywhere. No, it’s a small island, no other place he could be. Impossible to get lost, that’s how small it is. Wait? No, why? He must be at sea. The water’s cold. Search now before it’s too late. She spelled his name. ‘B-I-R-K, and Hammermann with two Ns.’ As if that would help them recognize him at sea. Then Mum gave our telephone number and begged them to call the moment there was any news. Without saying goodbye, she’d break the connection and start punching in a new number.
I was still standing by the door. She pressed her bony hands against my cheeks, trying to squeeze an answer from my mouth. ‘Where is Birk? Where is he?’ All I could do was cry.
‘Tell me.’ She forced her fists harder into my face. ‘Stop your blubbering. Tell me where Dad is.’
We went out searching, again and again. Each time I had to point out where we’d been sitting, and exactly where he’d gone into the water. The light from the torch grew dimmer. Mum shouted to Karl out in his boat, but he couldn’t hear her over the din of his engine. He kept on sailing in circles, churning up the water. A gull squawked from time to time. Back in the kitchen, the phone calls began again.
Gradually everything around us began to glow dark blue. Morning came unnoticed.
5
A helicopter flew over. Our whole house rattled. Trees thrashed around, shedding yellow leaves. Plastic garden chairs tumbled and flew into the hedge. The helicopter circled above the island and then swooped low across the waves, whipping up the surface of the water as if to expose what was underneath.
After a while, it flew back in our direction and hung for a short while above the grassy slope behind the house. It tried to land but didn’t seem able to. I could see two men behind the glass. They both raised a hand and flew off toward the horizon.
Later the coastguard called to say they had found nothing, and that the slope on our island was too steep for the helicopter. They needed to know the exact time of the disappearance to locate Dad in the current that had taken him out to sea. Mum looked at me.
‘What time did you last see Dad?’
‘I don’t know,’ I whispered, and began to cry again. ‘It was still light.’
‘Late afternoon, perhaps as late as six,’ she answered.
The coastguard said they would keep a lookout, and that all shipping had been notified.
Mum kept on phoning. Her eyes were red and puffy, as if they’d been stung. She repeated her story. The answer was always the same: ‘We’ll do what we can.’ Then she headed back outside, wearing Dad’s raincoat. I had to wait by the phone. As soon as she was gone, I retreated into the darkness of the cupboard under the stairs. When the telephone shattered the silence, I let it ring till it stopped all by itself.
Even in my hiding place, the pale shape reappeared. I pressed my fingers into my eyes till the pain made me cry out.
6
Karl knocked on the back door. Mum waved at me to open it.
Solemnly he took off his cap and shook my hand. The air around him was thick and tepid, his cheeks were bristly. He glanced around the kitchen and shrugged. ‘Nothing,’ he said, with a shake of his head. ‘Not a trace.’
We all looked in different directions.
‘They sometimes surface after three days or so,’ Karl said.
I saw Dad rising from the deep, the arc of a diver in reverse: world underwater swimming champion Birk Hammermann. We’d all applaud, and Mum would stick her fingers in her mouth and whistle, and I’d give it a go, too. They’d let me keep the fake gold medal, and everything would turn out all right.
‘Yeah,’ he continued. ‘And if they wash up on shore, they’re all swollen up like that dead seal a while back.’
Mum leaned stiffly against the sink. I tried to imagine how long a person could hold their breath.
‘There’s no knowing where, eh. Could be anywhere. Pull of the water. Currents are treacherous, he should’ve …’ He let the rest of his words evaporate. ‘He was… I mean is… a grown man.’
To prove how thoroughly he’d searched, he listed everything his nets had dredged up. ‘Planks, old nets, seaweed. A plastic crate I lost months ago,’ he chuckled. Flies were orbiting the kitchen light, spinning faster and faster, closing in on one another with a high-pitched buzz. There was no counting them.
Heaving a sigh, Karl looked at the pot of soup, still standing on the table since yesterday evening, along with the spoon and the empty bowl. The grey chunks of fish and broken strands of vermicelli had sunk to the bottom and fat glistened on the top. Karl scratched his head, stuck his little finger in his ear, and poked it around. He examined what his nail had scraped out and wiped it off on his trousers. ‘Can’t say I know what to do now,’ he murmured.
Mum had turned to face the window. She wanted Karl to leave, to go on searching, to turn the sea inside out. He didn’t get the message.
‘Nothing else left to do,’ he went on. ‘You saw the helicopter.’
Karl took hold of Dad’s chair, scraped it toward him, and sat down. The wickerwork seat creaked. He lowered his head. The flies had landed and were scuttling across the table. Nothing else in the kitchen moved.
Karl nodded toward the pot of soup. When I didn’t respond, he turned to Mum. His neck was covered in blond hair that disappeared beneath the grubby collar of his shirt. Mum used to cut his hair once in a while. He would sit there, bare-chested, on one of the