As promised, JAL posted the sample earlier today: the prologue of
The Writing in the Water.
https://www.johnajvidelindqvist.com/exc ... .php?id=40
I've taken the liberty of translating the text into English below.
The Writing in the Water
Prologue - Midsummer's Eve
The table is set for a party on the pier. Nothing of that which belongs to a Swedish Midsummer is missing. Herring, fresh potatoes and liquor, but also meatballs and ham if the herring should prove too exotic for the foreign guests. A chalk-white tablecloth is laid over the table where the festive porcelain stands display. A couple of Swedish flags on miniature flagpoles standing at the table's ends sway faintly in the breeze from the sea. It's a perfect day.
Hosts for the party are Olof Helander and his wife Gabriella, owners of the island Knektholmen just under a kilometer from Tärnö in the Stockholm archipelago. On the cliff above the pier stands their architect-designed villa – which they themselves call "the cottage" – one hundred and fifty square meters open floor plan with panoramic windows facing the water, paid for by Olof's trade in emission rights and climate compensation.
The guests who sit down at the table with delighted exclamations number four. There is Li Wa-Weng who also does business in the climate industry in his home country of China, as well as his wife Jin. Finally, Cédric Montaigne, a member of the European Parliament responsible for the coordination of climate work between the members of the Union. His wife is named Suzanne.
The host rings the glass and bids his guests welcome in English and also includes a couple phrases in Chinese and French. Before he raises his liquor glass he wants everyone to learn how to say "skål" [cheers] in Swedish, an exercise that is received with laughter and an embarrassed giggle from Jin Wa-Weng while she holds her hand to her mouth.
At the short end of the table, hidden behind a pair of large sunglasses and with her face turned toward the water, the Helander couple's fourteen-year-old daughter Astrid sits and suffers. She hates the event and only Olof's threats of changing the router password has made her relent and "represent the family" as her father put it. She hates the artificially jovial atmosphere, she hates the guests' obligatory questions to her, she almost imploded of revulsion when the half-drunk adults hopped around the homemade maypole so they could learn the typically Swedish dance "Små grodorna" ["The little frogs", a traditional Midsummer song and dance] and she is disgusted by the fact that there is meat on the table.
Before the guests sat down, Astrid took a picture of the meat department and posted it on her Insta with the text "Midsummer is Murder". She has roughly four thousand followers and posts pictures, short videos and texts about veganism and animal rights.
Astrid picks up her phone and notes that it is a quarter past one. She intends to sit here and keep representing for fifteen more minutes at most, no matter what her dad says. She looks up at the bay which is practically completely still and the occasional sailboats that drive about with reefed sails.
"Helan går, sjung hoppfallerallan …" [A drinking song]
Olof has gotten to his feet and Astrid squeezes her eyes shut as if in pain. When her father then proceeds to also teach this typically Swedish song to the guests and they unmelodiously stumble their way through it in their respective accents, Astrid thinks: Ten minutes. No, five. Five more minutes.
To survive even these five minutes, Astrid presses the Facetime icon and calls Algot, a guy in her class who she knows has something of a crush on her. She could use a bit of admiration on a day like this. As she waits for him to answer, Astrid looks up at the glitter of the water shimmering in gold through the sunglasses. She hears the sound of an engine approaching from the distance.
"What are they doing?"
Astrid lowers the phone, where Algot's face is turned to the side as if to better hear what's happening on her end of the call. The adults are still busy with their infantile and, in a negative sense, border-defying interpretation of "Helan går". Astrid shakes her head and raises the phone again.
"You don't want to know."
"Okay. Have you posted anything new?"
"Mm. Just now."
A clattering is heard in the other end as Algot types on his computer and his pimply face lights up with a wide grin. "Midsummer is murder. Nice. Eighty likes already. Here, you'll get one more."
Algot is kind, smart and encouraging and Astrid really wishes she could reciprocate his feelings, but she is far too busy with her own wellbeing and has furthermore begun to suspect that she's asexual. She's never had any feelings whatsoever for anyone, unless you count the time when she was eight and had a crush on Edward in Twilight, and that was mostly because it was expected of her.
She asks what Algot is doing and he says "nothing much" just as an open motorboat slides into the upper part of Astrid's field of vision and approaches the pier. Are they expecting more idiotic guests? The engine switches to reverse gear and then neutral mode and the boat comes to a stop five meters from the pier. Astrid looks up.
But what …?
Two men are sitting in the boat. Both are wearing balaclavas on their heads. Now they crouch down and each pick up a …
"Shit!" Astrid yells and throws herself under the table the moment the men open fire with their automatic weapons. Astrid presses her cheek against the pier's warm wood and hears glass and porcelain shatter above her head, the meaty sound when bullets fired at an improbably high frequency penetrate bodies. Through the pattering of the weapons she hears Algot shout: "What's happening? What's happening?" from the phone.
The darkness under the table is punctured by bullets penetrating the tablecloth at the table's front end and thin rays of sunlight prick Astrid's head before she feels a jolt hit her right hand. The phone shatters and flies over the edge of the pier. A shard scratches Astrid's cheek open and she hears a splash when the phone falls into the water.
I'm going to die, I'm going to die …
The smell of herring broth and liquor penetrates Astrid's nostrils while bodies slide or fall off of chairs around her, without the patter of the weapons ceasing. The white cloth is stained by blood and with the last remnants of rational thinking, Astrid realizes that a bullet can pierce her cranium at any moment. She rolls to the pier's edge along the same route that the phone took and lets herself fall into the water.
She breaks the surface and descends into the cold and darkness. Seaweed sways before her wide-open eyes. Her consciousness turns off and all reasonable thoughts disappear. It's quiet and comfortable down here. She's going to stay here. She wedges her right foot in between two logs in the pier's foundation to prevent herself from rising to the surface.
Still and quiet. Now things are good. A bit too dark, is all. Astrid shakes her head at her own stupidity. She's still wearing her sunglasses, incredibly enough. They haven't even broken. Nice.