of that unhappy day made her drag her feet on the short walk home. Usually she tried not to dwell on the past. Even God could not undo what was done. And to some extent Per had only himself to blame. His pride had caused him to fall. It was something she had warned him against ever since she agreed to marry him, but he had refused to listen. And now he and the others lay at the bottom of the sea as prey for the fish, while she and her daughter trudged along as lowly servants, heading for her sister’s home. She would spend the rest of her life knowing that she had sent off her husband with harsh words the last time she saw him. Words that Ebba, and God knew how many others from Fjällbacka, now held against her.
It all began with a cask of salt. Word had come that henceforth all trade with foreign lands must be conducted via Gothenburg, and Bohuslän had been forbidden to carry on trade with Norway or any of the other countries with which they had successfully conducted business in the past. This had further increased the poverty of the region, and a great animosity arose against the powers that had so blithely arrived at this decision. Not everyone abided by the rules, and coastal patrols were kept busy confiscating goods that had not been properly cleared by customs. Elin had many times urged Per to obey the regulations; not doing so would only bring misfortune upon their heads. And Per had nodded, assuring her that he agreed.
So when the customs official Henrik Meyer knocked on the door one afternoon in early September, she was not concerned as she let him enter their home. But one look at Per sitting at the kitchen table made her realize she had made a grave mistake. It took Meyer only a few minutes to find the illegal cask of salt in the back of the tool cupboard. Elin understood at once what this meant, causing her to clench her fists in the pockets of her tunic. She had warned Per so many times not to do anything foolish. Yet he could not resist.
She knew him so well. He had that unabashed look of pride in his eyes that shone through the poverty and lent him a tenacious strength. The mere fact that he had courted her testified to the courage he possessed, which most others certainly lacked. He had not known that her father cared little about her fate. In Per’s eyes, she was the daughter of a wealthy man and should have been beyond his reach. But that same audacity, that same pride and strength, had now brought them to ruin.
When the customs official entered their small home, he announced that in three days he would return to confiscate the boat Per had spent so many years toiling to make his own, even though the fishing was meagre and starvation was a constant threat. The boat was his, yet he had risked everything for the sake of a cask of salt, which he had illegally purchased in Norway.
Elin was furious. Angrier than she had ever been before. She wanted to hit him, scratch out his green eyes and tear out his blond hair. His cursed pride was about to rob them of everything. How would they support themselves now? She always took whatever work she could find, but she was unable to bring in many riksdaler, and it would not be easy for Per to get hired as crew on someone else’s boat now they were forbidden from trading with foreign goods. And the fishing was no longer profitable.
Per had reached out to put his hand on her shoulder, but she had shrugged it off and turned her back to him. Then she had wept bitter tears. From anger and from fear. Outside their small home the wind was blowing harder, and when Per got out of bed at dawn, she sat up and asked where he was going.
‘We are going out in the boat,’ he replied, pulling on his trousers and shirt.
Elin had merely glared at him as Märta slept soundly on the bench in the kitchen.
‘In this weather? Are you out of your mind?’
‘If they are going to take away my boat in three days’ time, we need to do all we can before then,’ he said, putting on his coat.
Elin hurriedly dressed and followed him out of the house. He did not stop long enough to eat anything. He seemed in such a hurry to go out into the stormy weather, it was as if the devil were on his heels.
‘You must not go out today!’ she shouted, trying to be heard over the roar of the wind. As she pursued him down the street, curious neighbours emerged to watch. Ebba of Mörhult’s husband Claes came out too, with an equally furious wife running after him.
‘You will bring death upon yourselves if you go out in this weather!’ screamed Ebba shrilly as she tugged at Claes’s jacket.
He pulled free and snarled at her: ‘We have no choice if you want the children to have food to eat.’
Per nodded to Claes, and the two of them headed for the spot where the boat was moored. Elin watched his broad back retreating, and fear sunk its claws into her so fiercely that she could hardly breathe. At the top of her lungs she yelled:
‘Have it your way then, Per Bryngelsson. Let the sea take you and your cursed boat, because I do not want you any more.’
She noticed Ebba’s frightened expression as she turned away. With her skirts flapping around her legs, Elin rushed back inside. As she threw herself on to the bed to weep, she had no idea how those words would continue to haunt her, even into death.
Jessie turned over in bed. Her mother had left for the film shoot before six a.m., and Jessie was enjoying having the house to herself. She stretched out her arms, then sucked in her stomach. It felt wonderfully smooth. Not at all fat and doughy the way it normally did. It was flat and smooth, like Vendela’s.
But eventually she had to exhale, making her stomach bulge out. She removed her hand in disgust. She hated her stomach. She hated her whole body and everything else in her life. The only thing she didn’t hate was Sam. She could still taste his kiss on her lips.
Jessie sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She could hear the water lapping below the house. She pushed aside the curtains. Brilliant sunshine again. She hoped Sam would want to go out in the boat today too, in spite of the video he’d shown her.
She’d known kids like Nils, Basse and Vendela all her life, at various schools, in different countries in different parts of the world. She knew what they wanted. And what they were capable of doing.
Yet for some reason they didn’t seem interested in doing anything to her.
Jessie had always known the moment when news about her mother began to spread through a new school. First the smiles, the pride at having the daughter of a film star at their school. But that changed as soon as somebody googled her mother’s name and found out who she was: the murderer who became an actress. Then came the stares. And the whispering. She would never be one of the popular girls – because of the way she looked and because of who she was.
Her mother didn’t understand. For her, attention was always a good thing. No matter how bad the situation was for Jessie at school, she had to hang on in there until her mother started making a new film somewhere else.
It was the same for Sam. What had happened to their mothers thirty years ago hovered like a dark cloud over both of them.
Jessie went to the kitchen and opened the fridge. As usual, there was no food, just bottles of champagne. Eating was never a priority for her mother. She was too concerned about keeping her slim figure to take any interest in food. Jessie survived on the generous monthly allowance her mother gave her, spending most of the money on fast food and sweets.
She ran her hand over the bottles,
