Trafika Europe 1 - Northern Idyll

Skogsholmen to see whether he could find something to make the new rib with. Felix nodded. It should really be pine, Lars said, but juniper would do. Felix looked over to the window where snow lay on the bars and asked what the weather was like. Lars said it was good. Felix blinked. Lars went down to the boathouse and rowed off in the old færing. It was still leaking, so he had to take breaks and bale out, but in an inlet he found the cleft in the rock and moored the boat to the bolt Hans had fixed there, climbed the rock armed with an axe and saw and began searching. By then day was breaking. Then it turned dark again as a snow shower passed overhead. It was soundless and heavy. The sea still looked like tar. When it got light again he found an old, crooked juniper tree, used the axe to expose the biggest roots in the frozen slope, cursing as he blunted the blade, chopped the roots off one by one and sawed off the trunk roughly a metre above the roots, it was as thick as an arm, a young man’s arm. He walked back to the boat, baled out and rowed home. As he rounded the island of Moltholmen he saw Barbro waiting. Lars asked what she was doing there. She asked if he had been fishing. He said no and enquired after Felix. He searched until it was light.

‘Very well,’ Barbro said.

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