Free A Darker Shade of Sweden by John-Henri Holmberg Page B

he enjoyed himself. The sun just didn’t want to sink beyond the treetops, now that it was finally allowed to show itself. He had drunk a small glass of whiskey while preparing the marinade and the chops, then another small glass while he assembled the grill. Life was wonderful. Look at him: Dressed in only a pair of shorts in the eighty degrees heat of the evening, the wonderful scent of the forest and another wonderful scent from the water and a wonderful scent from the whiskey and soon a wonderful scent from the grill!
    He lit the grill and sipped another small one.
    â€œAre you sure you don’t want one?” he asked and held up his glass. A sun ray hit the liquor and there was a flash of amber. A lovely color.
    â€œNo, the wine is enough for me,” she said, nodding toward the bottle of wine that waited uncorked in the shade beyond the camping table where she was mixing a salad.
    He had wanted to uncork two bottles directly, but she had felt that they could open them one at a time. And they both agreed not to buy box wine since they were on vacation, not even in this out-of-the-way spot. He had always thought that box wine lacked style. And you must always have style, no matter what. People who drank wine from a box might as well use a paper cup to drink it. And eat their food from paper plates with plastic cutlery. And generally go to hell, he thought, smiling, and emptied his glass. The whiskey was great. Everyone could go to hell. This is my vacation and my sun and my lake and my camping ground. At least there’s something good about this fucking country. You can put your tent up wherever you like without some fucking farm yokel shooting your head off.
    Maybe I ought to run up to the road crossing and take down the sign advertising the lake, he thought. This is our place. I do have my box spanner. Suddenly the idea struck him as brilliant, but he also realized that the whiskey was pushing it. Some damned hick might pass by on his hay cart and wonder what he was doing and that would be no good, just lose him a lot of time unnecessarily.
    He held his hand over the grill to feel the heat.
    â€œI’ll put the chops on now,” he said.
    Later on he sat in what might be called darkness during some other season, but not now. The sun was just down, waiting beyond the horizon of firs. The water was still. He could see the outlines on the other side. It was like a jungle, a jungle three hundred feet away.
    Suddenly he saw a light.
    â€œWhat was that?”
    He turned to her, pointing across the water’s surface. She had said that she would go to bed, but she was still sitting there. Typical. Said one thing, did the opposite. He would have loved sitting here alone for one last hour. Enjoying the silence, the peace. Now it seemed as if she was watching him. Yes. Watching him. He had felt that continuously more often lately. As if she studied him.
    But now she was staring across the lake, as if she was doing it just because he did.
    There was the light again, like a flashlight.
    It blinked. One-two-three short blinks.
    â€œThere it is again!”
    â€œWhere,” she said.
    â€œBut don’t you see it?”
    â€œWas there something blinking?”
    â€œYou bet your ass there was!”
    â€œMaybe I saw something,” she said.
    â€œMaybe? It was someone with a flashlight.”
    â€œBut couldn’t it be some reflection?”
    â€œReflection?” he said. “Where would that come from?”
    She shrugged.
    â€œThe sun won’t be up for a couple of hours.” He tried to see something moving within the contours of jungle, but now everything was still. “There was someone over there.”
    â€œMaybe someone out for a walk.”
    â€œMh-m.”
    â€œNo, I’m off to bed now.”
    â€œYou sure aren’t worried,” he said. “Back home you hardly dare sleep with the lights off.”
    â€œIt’s different here,” she