Yesterday’s pancakes would be filled with jam and rolled up for the boys. Nora would be happy with sandwiches. She prepared some cucumber slices and carrot sticks, then added a thermos of coffee, a big bottle of soda, and a selection of buns.
She looked at the clock again. Quarter past seven. Still more than two hours to go.
She sighed and started setting the table for breakfast, just to give herself something to do. She wondered if she would be able to disguise her red puffy eyes if she used enough mascara and foundation. Probably not.
It would have to be dark glasses all day. Fortunately the sun was shining, so no one would wonder why.
CHAPTER 65
The boat was full of excited passengers. At least half of them were children, so the decibel level was high. Nora knew virtually everyone on board. Signe and Kajsa were sitting next to Nora’s parents. Eventually the crew cast off, and they set sail for Grönskär.
They moored at Kolbranten just below the lighthouse. The old small-boat harbor on the northern side was shallow these days, but the sturdy concrete quay was easily able to accommodate larger boats.
The sight of Grönskär was striking. The lighthouse was known as the Queen of the Baltic because of its beautiful silhouette. It was owned by the Archipelago Foundation, which was responsible for its upkeep and took excellent care of it. The current lighthouse keeper—or curator, to be more accurate—was really passionate when it came to the lighthouse and its future.
The tower was almost eighty-five feet high; it dominated the little island, which was no more than four hundred yards in length. The lighthouse rose up as a memorial to seafarers’ need for guidance during the hundreds of years when sailing ships sought safety in the sheltered harbor of Sandhamn.
The curator was standing on the quayside, legs apart, ready to welcome the visitors. The guide, a cheerful resident of Sandhamn, held forth enthusiastically about the history of the lighthouse as she led the group to the entrance.
“Grönskär lighthouse was designed by the famous architect Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz in 1770, and it was built of granite and sandstone. The lighthouse is octagonal, and the base is wider than the top. Originally an open coal fire was used, but in 1845 it was replaced by a so-called third-order lens using a colza oil lamp. In 1910 a kerosene lamp was introduced, combined with a shutter system that made it possible to produce different signals for the shipping lanes.” She paused and turned to Simon and Adam. “Just imagine, boys: before they installed an elevator, the poor lighthouse keeper had to carry every single sack of coal up all those steps—now that was hard work!”
Simon gazed openmouthed at the guide. She smiled at him.
“Can you guess how many steps there are?”
Simon thought about it, then held up all his fingers. “More than this?”
“A lot more.”
“Don’t be silly. There must be hundreds,” Adam said to Simon, looking superior. He turned to the guide. “My brother isn’t very good at counting; he hasn’t started school yet.”
She laughed and patted him on the shoulder. “Unfortunately you’re both wrong. There are ninety steps in total, and that’s plenty, I can tell you. Just wait until you’ve climbed them all.”
She carried on with her talk.
“The lighthouse was turned off in 1961, when it was replaced by the caisson lighthouse known as Revengegrundet just off Korsö. It was completely renovated in the 1990s with the help of government funding and now emits a faint green light. So there’s life in the old lady yet.”
She pointed to the steps.
“Feel free to go in, just a few of you at a time. There isn’t a great deal of room. Be careful you don’t trip—the steps are rather uneven.”
Nora gripped Simon’s hand when it was their turn.
In spite of the warm summer’s day it was cold and damp inside the tower. It was divided into four floors, but it was still quite tricky to climb the steps. They were slightly deeper than normal stairs, so Nora and Simon had to lift their legs a little bit higher each time. At one point they almost got lost when they went down a blind passageway that didn’t lead anywhere.
When they had almost reached the top, Nora came to the conclusion that a person would have to be considerably fitter than she was to avoid panting with exertion. All those walks and bike rides over the summer, not to mention the jogging, ought to have produced better results than this!
After the final landing they reached a small room where narrow white-painted wrought-iron steps led up to the lantern room. At the foot of these steps there was a green door leading out onto a small walkway that went all the way around the tower.
“Can I go outside, Mom?” Simon looked at Nora.
“Me, too!” Adam said.
Nora opened the door and looked out. The distance from the ground was dizzying. She turned and spoke to the boys. “You can, but you must promise to be really, really careful. I don’t want to see anybody running around when we’re this high up! Do I make myself clear?”
“Come with me, Adam, and hold my hand. At my age I could do with a young man to help me keep my balance.” Signe, who was standing behind Nora, reached out and firmly gripped Adam by the hand as they went outside.
The view was fantastic. It was a clear day, and the sea lay spread out before them. The hundreds of islands and islets strewn across the water were indescribably beautiful. They could just see Almagrundet lighthouse on the horizon, even though it was many nautical miles away.
Down below were the houses once occupied by the master lighthouse keeper, the lighthouse keeper, the assistant lighthouse keeper, and their families. They had recently been carefully restored.
It must have been a harsh, desolate existence, especially for the women, Nora thought. Every household task had to be carried out with neither electricity nor running water, and the lighthouse had to be manned at all times, even during the dark days of autumn and winter, irrespective of the weather or the keeper’s health.
These days it was almost impossible to imagine what it was like to live under those conditions, year after year. A life where the high point was probably a trip to Sandhamn, which in itself was no more than an isolated outpost.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Signe turned to Nora, sighing with sheer pleasure. “I’ve been coming here ever since I was a little girl, and I never get tired of the view.”
“Absolutely,” Nora said, gazing all around.
Their guide had joined them on the walkway and rested her arms on the railing. “Did you know that the stone for the tower came from the island itself? It was taken straight from the rocks, then built up with crushed brick and Gotland chalk, among other things. That’s why it looks like a beautiful mosaic from a distance. Only the middle section is built of sandstone from Roslagen.”
“Why is there a belt of gray stone right at the top?” Nora asked.
“There are a number of different theories. The most likely is that the final delivery of sandstone failed to arrive, and in the end the builders just couldn’t wait any longer, so they used what they could get ahold of locally—which happened to be more gray stone.”
“It’s incredible to think they could construct such a tall building in the middle of the archipelago without the technology we have today,” Nora said.