Читать книгу Shadows of Sören - Nicola Stöhr - Страница 9

Sören swiftly navigated his Volvo convertible onto the Öland bridge, which was a magnificent masterpiece of technical engineering.

The Ölandsbron was a road bridge connecting the island to Kalmar and the mainland. It was 6,072 metres long, supported on 156 pillars, and had a characteristic hump at its western end – to provide a vertical clearance for shipping. When Sören´s father had been younger and still interested in amusing his youngster, he would accelerate before approaching the hump and the car would go flying over and Sören´s tummy would tumble while the car descended on the other side of the hump.

It was one of the rare fond memories Sören had of his father. The bridge was the longest in Sweden and one of the longest in all Europe. It had been inaugurated in 1972 and its construction took four and a half years. The bridge project had received a lot of support, but there had also been protests. The main objection was that the bridge would threaten the environment, possibly causing a huge influx of tourists to Öland and its valuable nature. This seemed like a joke to Sören today, because Öland was so dependent on the tourist business nowadays, that it would more or less cease to exist without it. He himself couldn´t completely free himself from this dependence.

Usually Sören was annoyed by the Swedish habit of fastidiously sticking to the given speed limit, not one mile over and no mistake. But it was a gloriously sunny day and the bridge offered a really spectacular view of the open sea to the left and right of him. The modest skyline of Kalmar was dimly looming ahead and the sun was leaving sparkles all over the water, while the swans drifted over the sea like silver ballons. On a day like this he didn´t mind at all that he was stuck behind one of those typically pedantic, rule obeying Swedish drivers.

He was moving along at a speed which would usually cause him to fall asleep or have a temper tantrum. While crossing the bridge Sören wondered what it was with Clarice that she constantly caused his mind to wander? He spent quite a big portion of his day thinking about her.

Well, she was enchantingly pretty, that would be one reason. And she was smart and interesting and mysterious and funny. A lot of reasons, then. So what was keeping him from making a move on her?

He knew why. She was pretty and smart and funny, but she was also aloof, non-committal and incredibly secretive about anything personal. As soon as he turned the conversation to a more personal level she either changed the subject or ended the conversation and walked off.

He was afraid that one day she would disappear just as quickly as she had entered his life and he had no interest in speeding up that process by being too intrusive or showing his romantic interest in her which he most definitely had. Only at one time had she given any indication that a tiny part of her brilliant mind was sometimes occupied with him too. On that occasion she had compared him to a fictional character in a popular movie based on the novels of J.R. Tolkien.

Sören had been busy stacking wooden logs into rows by the side of the house. His living room was located at the back of the house and had a pair of French doors which led out onto a wooden deck. Sören liked to place the firewood close to the deck, so he wouldn´t have far to go should he run out of logs for his open fireplace in the winter. Clarice had come from the direction of the forest which bordered on his property. Actually the forest was his property, too. She had obviously just returned from one of her long walks that she liked to take, all alone of course. Sometimes she went down to the beach. The forest seamlessly went over into a beach but the beach was not really attractive for bathing or for taking a sensual stroll in the sand at the water´s edge, because in this little cove the water kept on washing up an abundance of greenly-black algae which of course overlapped in a slimy, oily accumulation at the water´s edge and barred an untroubled, easy entrance into the water and the sandy land area was peppered with little rocks and clumps of reed. There was a little wooden pier which protruded into the algae-free zone oft he water and from which one could hop into the water quickly for a short swim. Clarice visited this beach in every weather, even when it was windy and raining. Sören, like every native who grew up on Öland, wouldn´t even dream of going to the beach in cold or ghastly weather. That was how you recognized a tourist or a newcomer to the island.

When Clarice was within earshot, he had interrupted his work for a moment and said,“Clarice, you do know that there are much nicer and proper beaches in the nearest vicinity, right?”

She had nodded, “Yes of course I know that, but they´re not within close walking distance, are they?”

“Yes, that´s true, but the other beaches are beautiful, with white sand, where one can walk unobstructed and bathe and stretch out in the sand.“

“I don´t want to stretch out in the sand”.

“No? What do you do at the beach then“?

“I smell the salty tang of the algae and the sea and listen to the gentle, rhythmic beating of the waves”.

“Ah. Well that´s nice. No shortage of rotting algae there. I´d say that salty tang is a somewhat euphemistic description for the smell they give off. Sewage plant would be more appropiate”

Clarice had smiled, “Yes, now and again, depending on how the wind blows. But that doesn´t matter. And anyway, I do sometimes visit other beaches“.

„Well, that´s alright then.” Sören had resumed stacking his logs.

She had silently watched him stacking the wood for a while and then thoughtfully remarked, “You know you look a lot like that elf, what´s his name again? Wait a minute, it´ll come to me… Legolas! That´s it. You know, from the Lord of the Rings.”

He had given her a puzzled and somewhat irritated look.

“I look like an elf? Elves are small, invisible people. How can I look like an elf?”

“You do know the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the movies I mean?”

“Yes... no, what is it?”

“Jesus, don´t you take any interest in popular culture at all?”

“Of course I do, certainly I do. I watched a movie in Kalmar only last week.”

“What was it?”

“Edith Piaf.”

She had just stared at him.

“What´s wrong with Edith Piaf?” he had asked slightly peeved.

“Nothing is wrong with her. I own a couple of her recordings myself, she´s amazing, great voice, tragic life and everything, but she hardly classifies as popular culture. She would probably fall into the category of high culture, elitist even in your case.”

Was that an insult? Sören couldn´t say. “I´m not a teenager you know, I´m almost thirty-five years old.”

“So in that case you should have read Tolkien when you were a child.”

“Maybe, but I didn´t”.

“What did you read? Hang on a minute, you can read, right?”

He had ignored that remark. “Like any child growing up in Sweden I read Astrid Lindgren. In fact I think it´s a law in our country. Every child must read Astrid Lindgren and only Astrid Lindgren or you get sent to a child correction centre.”

“Are you kidding me? That boy with the propeller on his back and that little girl with superhuman powers who lives in a house all by herself?”

“Aha, so you read them, too!”, he had said triumphantly, picking up another armful of logs from the wheelbarrow.

“I most certainly did not, but I have watched about a thousand repeats of those ghastly movies they made in the seventies, which they show here almost every Sunday morning. And that little girl in the suspender stockings and that little shirt dress? She´s every pedophiles´s dream.”

After which he had straightened up, towered over her and put on his sternest look. “So you´ve got a bit of a dirty mind, haven´t you little girl? Maybe you need to be spanked?”

She had laughed, given him a toothy grin, showing a row of gleaming white teeth and wandered off. At least he knew how she spent her Sunday mornings. He had consequently hired the first of those movies she mentioned and been relieved to see that the elvian hero in question was indeed quite a handsome fellow and a very brave and capable warrior.

Of course the likeness she had mentioned was of a purely aesthetical nature, but still.

He had hired the other two movies, too and been a little disturbed by the fact that his elvian alias remained almost androginous and unattached right through the movies. No girlfriend, woman or wife in sight. On the plus side no boyfriend either, if you discounted the dwarf. The elf did have a likeness to Sören, except that Sören´s hair was not that long. His hair only came down to his chin. And he would never ever braid his hair, only if someone held a gun to his head. His nose was also thinner and straighter and his eyes not quite so blue. He was sure that guy was wearing contacts. And Sören was much taller than the elf, but that was because he wasn´t an elf, right?