Chapter 30

Winter went by so quickly and peacefully that Simon began to think Oswald truly had given up on his deranged hunt for Sofia. The pension had been full of Christmas cheer all December. Lights on the trees and lanterns in the snow. After one cold spell, the snow had fallen so heavily that Simon had to shovel every day.

He didn’t have any visitors from ViaTerra. When Sofia called she was always in a good mood; she said that Oswald must have found someone else to harass, and didn’t even want to talk about it. She went on and on about how much she liked San Francisco until Simon almost wished he were there with her.

It was only when he walked by the manor that he felt that unpleasant sensation in his belly. So he kept a watchful eye on them. He had ignored that feeling once before and would never make the same mistake again.

But in late February, he received an email, the strangest one he’d ever gotten. At first he thought it was spam, it was such gibberish, but the sender’s address caught him off-guard: info@viaterra.se. Simon knew the cult’s ethics unit used this address to respond to email from anxious relatives of disgraced members. Since these members were not allowed to have contact with the outside world, the ethics unit would write that the person in question was in good health but unavailable for the time being. It was a standard measure. But now he had received an email from this account. He wondered if Benny might have sent it, but why on earth would he send a bunch of random letters and numbers?

T15GK150B
T14AWT21O
Don’t respond

It was the ‘don’t respond’ part that Simon was hung up on. Why send an email if you didn’t want a response? If anyone but Benny had sent this is, it meant they had taken a great risk. They must have sneaked into the guards’ booth or the staff office to use the computer there. But why send this nonsense to Simon?

Then he realized that the second letter in each word had been replaced by a number. He took out a notebook and a pen and copied down the message, trying to replace the numbers with their corresponding letters of the alphabet. 15 was O, 14 was N, and so on. But the message was still illegible. Now Simon was sure it was a code, a message for him. He turned the paper upside down, feeling hopeless, and then he saw the word ‘book’ written backwards. All at once, he could read the message.

GOT BOOK
WANT OUT
Don’t respond

He had made contact with Jacob. Simon had almost forgotten he’d sent the book. He had the sudden urge to go straight to the ViaTerra gate and demand that they free Jacob. But he knew it wasn’t that simple. The certainty that Jacob wanted out made Simon’s heart beat faster. He’d suspected that there were others who were sick of being enslaved but didn’t know how to escape. This is it, he thought. I really need to think this through. It’s important not to be too rash.

The next day, after work, he went to the village and bought an invitation card for a baptism, the kind where you fill in the date and write a greeting to the recipient. Back at home he thought for a long time about how to formulate his message. He disguised his handwriting, making it elegant and soft. He put the date for the baptism a week away, at five o’clock in the afternoon. That seemed a little late in the day, but he had no choice. Then he wrote his greeting on the blank, right-hand side of the card.

Hi, Jacob!

Hope you can come to Elin’s baptism.

We’ll gather by the little gate outside the church.

Warm greetings

Cousin Beata

He inspected the card before inserting it into the envelope, almost certain that the guards would allow Jacob to receive it. Not because it was innocent, but because this sort of invitation was upsetting to the recipient. Another family event to decline – it was a reminder that they could no longer see their relatives. And the guards liked messing with the staff. Also, they were too lazy to find out if Jacob really had a cousin named Beata.

The letter felt warm and alive in his hand as he addressed and stamped it. The closest mailbox was a few hundred metres away, and as the letter thumped into it he sent up a silent prayer that everything would be as hectic and chaotic as usual over at the manor. That the guards wouldn’t notice it had been postmarked on the island. And that the letter would slip right past the censors.

That was the start of a week of impatient waiting. What if they didn’t have time to deal with the mail? What would happen if they asked Jacob who Beata was? Maybe the email was a trap – maybe Jacob was working with Benny to figure out whether Simon was a traitor. So much could go wrong. And yet he wouldn’t give up hope.

One week later, he was standing outside the small gate at quarter to five, breathless and tense. At first he thought he would wait outside the gate, but then he realized that it would be stupid to whisper over the wall. His mind was going a mile a minute: He’s not coming, he didn’t get my letter, this is completely nuts, I’m acting like the place is a prison, no, worse, it’s like I’m trying to sneak over the border into North Korea.

He was standing behind his usual oak trunk. The yard was deserted, aside from a duck strutting around on the lawn. The aspens and maples had changed colour and created a red-and-yellow dome over the annexes.

There was a sudden snapping sound from the ground next to him. When he turned, Jacob was standing right there. His eyes were wide, as if he was seeing a ghost.

‘You scared me!’ Simon said, sizing up Jacob. Beyond the fear on his face, he hadn’t changed a bit: his farmer clothes, his tan, and the faint odour of cow manure were all the same.

Simon wanted to hug him, but it seemed premature.

‘How did you get in?’

‘I have a key to the gate.’

‘What the hell? That’s incredible!’

‘Great, isn’t it? You can leave with me if you want to. All you have to do is step out into freedom.’

‘Simon, I can’t believe you’re standing right here. This is crazy.’

‘So are you coming with me?’

‘It’s a little complicated. I spent all night thinking about it. It’s the animals. They’ll neglect them if I leave, and maybe even slaughter them. What do I do?’

Jacob’s voice had risen; Simon put a finger to his lips.

‘What did you think about the card I sent? Was it easy to understand?’

‘At first I thought I had lost my mind. That I had some cousin I didn’t even know about, but then I figured it out. This is just insane, that you’re here. That this gate can be opened.’

‘Do you think there’s anyone else who wants to leave? You can pass through freely, there’s no alarm, it doesn’t leave any sort of trace, and they can hide at my place to start with.’

Simon wondered what the heck he had just said, but it did actually seem like a good idea.

‘I’ll ask around. Can you come back in a few days?’

‘Of course, but you have to keep this quiet. Not a word about me, or the gate. Is Oswald back yet?’

‘He’ll be here in early April. Madde’s been turning the place upside down, polishing everything, even the damn doorknobs. I can hardly find time to feed the animals, and the manure is piling up in the barn – as you may be able to smell.’

Simon didn’t say anything, although the odour wafting off Jacob was overwhelming when he stood so close.

‘Listen, Simon, what’s it like out there? Will I be okay?’

‘Definitely. You could easily get a job on one of the farms. The pension is doing better than ever, and all the meat and eggs and stuff come from here on the island. I’m sure they need workers.’

‘Shit, I want to get out, but what about the animals? The cows are already staring at me with their big, sad eyes. It’s like they know I want to take off.’

‘There’s no rush. Just think about it.’

Suddenly they heard a motorcycle roar to life. ‘I have to go. See you the day after tomorrow. Same time. Leave a note at the gate if you get held up. Use your secret code.’

Jacob grinned, gave a thumbs up, and vanished.

When Simon returned two days later, he was a little late to arrive. Inga Hermansson had come to find Simon out in the field where he was working; she was all keyed up.

‘A member of the jury called. He wondered if you and I would be home this evening. We will be, right?’

‘I just have to run an errand in town, but I’ll be home by dinnertime.’

‘Do you suppose…’ she said.

‘I guess we’ll see.’

When Simon opened the gate to the manor, something seemed off. Everything was quiet and still. Not a single sound was coming from within the walls. He got held up, Simon thought. Something happened. They caught him out. But he opened the gate and slipped in anyway.

There they stood before him, as stiff as statues. Jacob with his mouth agape and Anna with a backpack slung over one shoulder, eyes wide. The beginning of a sound, a cry, came from her mouth when she saw Simon, but Jacob shook his head in warning.

‘I can’t stand it anymore,’ Anna whispered.

Simon could see in her eyes that she truly meant it.