Italian Shoes

by Henning Mankell

  I went around dusting in places that I’d already dusted. At noon I put on my jacket and walked down to the jetty to wait. It wasn’t a post day, so Jansson wouldn’t turn up to disturb us. Carra was sitting on the edge of the jetty and seemed to sense that something was in the offing.

  Hans Lundman came into sight in the big coastguard patrol boat. I could hear the powerful engine from a long way away. As the boat glided into the inlet I stood up. It was quite shallow by the jetty, so Hans merely nudged against it with the boat’s bows. Agnes emerged from the wheelhouse with a rucksack slung over her shoulder. Hans was in uniform. He was leaning over the rail.

  ‘Many thanks for your help,’ I said.

  ‘I was passing by anyway. We’re heading for Gotland to look for a sailing boat with nobody on board.’

  We stood and watched the big patrol boat reverse out of the inlet. Agnes’s hair was fluttering in the wind. I had an almost irresistible desire to kiss her.

  ‘It’s beautiful here,’ she said. ‘I’ve tried to imagine your island. I can see now how wrong I was.’

  ‘What did you imagine?’

  ‘Lots of trees. Not just rocks and the open sea.’

  The dog came towards us. Agnes looked at me in surprise.

  ‘I thought you said your dog was dead?’

  ‘I’ve got another one. From a police officer. It’s a long story. The dog’s name is Carra.’

  We walked up towards the house. I wanted to carry her rucksack, but she shook her head. When we entered the kitchen, the first things she saw were Sima’s sword and her suitcase. She sat down on a chair.

  ‘Was it here it happened? I want you to tell me. Right away. Now.’

  I gave her all the details that I would never be able to forget. Her eyes glazed over. I was giving a funeral oration, not a clinical description of a suicide that reached its climax in a hospital bed. When I’d finished she said nothing, just went through the contents of the suitcase.

  ‘Why did she do it?’ I asked. ‘Something must have happened when she came here, surely? I’d never have imagined that she would try to take her own life.’

  ‘Perhaps she found a sense of security here. Something she hadn’t expected.’

  ‘Security? But she took her own life.’

  ‘Maybe her situation was so desperate that she needed to feel secure in order to take the final step and commit suicide? Perhaps she found that feeling of security here in your house? She really did try to kill herself. She didn’t want to live. She didn’t cut herself as a cry for help. She did it because she no longer wanted to hear her own screams echoing inside herself.’

  Agnes wondered if she could stay until the following day. I showed her the bed in the room where the ants lived. She burst out laughing. Of course she could sleep there. I said there would be chicken for dinner. Agnes went to the bathroom. When she reappeared she had changed her clothes and put her hair up.

  She asked me to show her round the island. Carra came with us. I told her about the time when she had come running after the car, and then led us to Sara Larsson’s dead body. Agnes seemed disturbed by my talking. She just wanted to enjoy what she could see. It was a chilly autumn day, the thin covering of heather was crouching down in an attempt to avoid the harsh wind. The sea was blue grey, old seaweed was draped over the rocks, smelling putrid. Occasional birds flew out of rocky crevices as we approached, and soared on the upwinds that always form at the edge of the cliffs. We came to Norrudden where the bare rocks of Sillhällarna can just be seen breaking the surface of the water before the open sea begins. I stood slightly to one side, watching her. She was captivated by the view. She turned to look at me, and then shouted into the wind.

  ‘There’s one thing I shall never forgive you for. I can’t applaud any more. It’s natural to feel jubilation inside and then give expression to it by clapping the palms of your hands together.’

  There was nothing I could say, of course. She knew that. She came up to me and turned her back on the wind.

  ‘I used to do that even when I was a child.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Applaud when I went out into the countryside and saw something beautiful. Why should you clap only when you’re sitting in a concert hall, or listening to somebody talking? Why can’t you stand out here on the cliffs and applaud? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more beautiful than this. I envy you, living out here.’

  ‘I can applaud for you,’ I said.

  She nodded and led me to the highest and outermost rock. She shouted bravo, and I applauded. It was an odd experience.

  We continued our walk and came to the caravan behind the boathouse.

  ‘No car,’ she said. ‘No car, no road, but a caravan. And a pair of beautiful red high-heeled shoes.’

  The door was open. I’d placed a piece of wood there to prevent it from closing. The shoes were standing there, shining. We sat down on the bench out of the wind. I told her about my daughter and Harriet’s death. I avoided mentioning how I had abandoned her. But Agnes wasn’t listening to me, her mind was elsewhere, and I realised that she had come here for a reason. It wasn’t only that she wanted to see my kitchen, and collect the sword and the suitcase.

  ‘It’s cold,’ she said. ‘Perhaps one-armed people feel the cold more than others. Their blood is forced to take alternative routes.’

  We went back to the house and sat down in the kitchen. I lit a candle and placed it on the table. Dusk had already started to fall.

  ‘They’re taking my house away from me,’ she said out of the blue. ‘I’ve been renting it, never been able to afford to buy it. Now the owners are taking it away from me. I can’t continue with my work without a house. Obviously, I could get a job at another institution; but I don’t want to do that.’

  ‘Who owns the house?’

  ‘Two rich sisters who live in Lausanne. They’ve made a fortune from selling dodgy health products – they’re always being forced to withdraw adverts for them because they contain nothing but worthless powder mixed with various vitamins. But no sooner does that happen than they resurface with the same things in different packs and with a different name. The house belonged to their brother who died with no other heirs apart from his sisters. They’re going to take it away from me because the local residents have complained about my girls. They’ll take the house away, and the girls will be taken away from me as well. We live in a country where people think that anybody who is a bit different from them should be isolated in the depths of the forest or on an island like this one. I needed to get away in order to do some thinking. Perhaps in order to mourn. Perhaps to dream that I had enough money to buy the house. But I haven’t.’

  ‘If I had enough money, I’d buy it for you.’

  ‘I haven’t come here to ask for that.’

  She stood up.

  ‘I’m going out,’ she said. ‘I’ll walk round the island one more time before it gets too dark.’

  ‘Take the dog with you,’ I said. ‘If you shout for her, she’ll follow you. She’s good to be with. She never barks. I’ll make the dinner while you’re out.’

  I stood in the front doorway and watched them walk off over the rocks. Carra sometimes looked round to see if I was calling her back. I started to make dinner while imagining that I had kissed Agnes.

  It occurred to me that I had stopped daydreaming years ago. I’d had just as few daydreams as I’d had erotic experiences.

  Agnes seemed brighter when she came back.

  ‘I have to confess,’ she said before she had even taken off her jacket and sat down, ‘that I couldn’t resist trying on your daughter’s shoes. They fitted me perfectly.’

  ‘I can’t give you them, even if I’d like to.’

  ‘My girls would beat me up if I appeared wearing high-heeled shoes.’

  She curled up on the kitchen sofa and watched me laying the table and serving the meal. I tried talking but she was reluctant to answer. We finished the meal in silence. It was dark o
utside. We had coffee and I started a fire in the old wood-burning stove that I only ever use in the depths of winter. I was a bit affected by the wine we’d drunk with the dinner. Agnes didn’t seem to be a hundred per cent sober either. When I’d filled our coffee cups, she broke her silence. She started talking about her life, and the difficult years.

  ‘I was searching for some kind of consolation,’ she said. ‘I tried drinking, but it only made me sick. So I started smoking dope. That only made me sleepy and ill and increased my angst about what had happened. I tried to find lovers who could handle the fact that I had only one arm, and I took up sport and became quite a good but increasingly less enthusiastic middle-distance runner. I wrote poetry, and sent letters to various newspapers, and I studied the history of amputation. I applied for jobs as a presenter on all the Swedish television channels, and a few foreign ones as well. But nowhere could I find any consolation, the ability to wake up in the morning without thinking about the intolerable tragedy that had taken place. Obviously I tried using an artificial arm, but I could never make it work properly. The only other possibility open to me was to try God. I searched for consolation on bended knee. I read the Bible, I made an effort to acquaint myself with the Koran, I went to Pentecostal camp meetings and even tried a dangerous sect called the Word of Life. I dabbled in various other sects, and considered taking the veil. I went to Spain that autumn and walked the long route to Santiago de Compostela. I followed the route the pilgrims had taken, and placed a heavy stone in my rucksack as one is supposed to do, ready to throw it away once I had found a solution to my problems. I used a chunk of limestone weighing four kilos, carted it with me the whole way and didn’t take it out until I’d reached my destination. All the time I hoped that God would appear to me and speak to me. But He spoke too softly. I never heard His voice. Somebody was always shouting in the background drowning Him out.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Devil. He was yelling at me. I learned that God whispers, but the Devil shouts. There was no place for me in the battle. When I closed the church door behind me, there was nothing else left. But I realised eventually that this emptiness was a sort of consolation in itself. And so I made up my mind to devote myself to those less fortunate than myself. That’s how I came into contact with the girls that nobody else wanted to know about.’

  We drank what was left of the wine and became even more drunk. I found it hard to concentrate on what she was saying because I wanted to take hold of her, make love to her. We became giggly after all the wine, and she told stories of the reactions caused by her stump of an arm.

  ‘I sometimes pretended it had been gobbled by a shark off the Australian coast. At other times it was a lion that bit it off on the Botswana savannah. I was always careful to be convincing and people seemed to believe what I told them. When I was talking to people I didn’t like for one reason or another, I used to go out of my way to describe really nasty, blood-soaked incidents. I might say that somebody had sawn it off with a power saw, or I might have got my arm caught in a machine that sliced it off inch by inch. I once even managed to make a big, strong man faint! The only thing I’ve never claimed is that it ended up with cannibals who cut it up and ate it.’

  We went outside to look at the stars and listen to the sea. I tried to make sure I was so close to her that I kept rubbing up against her. She didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘There’s a kind of music you can never hear,’ she said.

  ‘Silence sings. You can hear it.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean. I’m imagining the existence of music that we can’t hear with our ears. At some point a long way into the future, when our hearing has become more refined and new instruments have been invented, we shall be able to appreciate and play that music.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful thought.’

  ‘I think I know what it will sound like. Like human voices when they are at their absolute purest. People who sing with no trace of fear.’

  We went back inside. I was so drunk by now that I couldn’t walk straight. When we were back in the kitchen, I poured out some brandy. Agnes put her hand over her glass and stood up.

  ‘I need to get some sleep,’ she said. ‘It’s been a remarkable evening. I’m not so depressed now as I was when I came.’

  ‘I want you to stay here,’ I said. ‘I want you to sleep with me in my room.’

  I stood up and put my arms round her. She didn’t resist when I drew her close to me. It was only when I tried to kiss her that she started struggling. She told me to stop it, but for me there was no stopping any longer. We stood there in the middle of the floor, pushing and pulling at each other. She yelled at me to let go of her, but I pushed her against the table and we slid down on to the floor. She managed to work her hand free and scratched my face. She kicked me so hard in the stomach that I lost my breath. I couldn’t speak, I searched for a way out that didn’t exist, and she was holding one of my kitchen knives as a weapon.

  I eventually struggled to my feet and sat down on a chair.

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. The loneliness I have to put up with here is driving me mad.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. You may well be lonely, I don’t know anything about that. But that’s not why you attacked me.’

  ‘I hope you can forget it. Please forgive me. I shouldn’t drink alcohol.’

  She put the knife down and stood in front of me. I could see her anger and her disappointment. There was nothing I could say. Suddenly I felt truly ashamed.

  Agnes sat down in the corner of the kitchen sofa. She had turned her face away and was gazing out of the dark window.

  ‘I know it’s unforgivable. I regret what happened, and wish I could undo it.’

  ‘I don’t know what you imagine you were doing. If I could, I’d leave here immediately. But it’s the middle of the night, it’s not possible. I’ll stay here until tomorrow.’

  She stood up and left the kitchen. I heard her jamming the door handle with a chair. I went outside and tried to look in through the window. She had switched the light off. Perhaps she sensed that I was standing outside, trying to see her. The dog appeared out of the darkness. I kicked her away. I couldn’t cope with her just now.

  I lay awake all night. At six o’clock I went down to the kitchen and listened outside her door. I couldn’t make out if she was asleep or awake. At a quarter to seven she opened the door and stepped out into the kitchen, rucksack in hand.

  ‘How do I get away from here?’

  ‘It’s dead calm at the moment. If you wait until it gets light I can take you to the mainland.’

  She started to pull on her boots.

  ‘I want to say something about what happened last night.’

  She raised her hand immediately.

  ‘There’s nothing else to say. You are not the person I thought you were. I want to get away from here as quickly as possible. I’ll wait down by the jetty until it gets light.’

  ‘Can’t you just hear what I have to say at least?’

  She didn’t answer but hung her rucksack over one shoulder, picked up Sima’s suitcase and sword, and vanished into the darkness.

  It would soon be light. I could see that she wouldn’t listen if I went down to the jetty and tried to talk to her. Instead I sat down at the table and wrote her a letter.

  ‘We could move your girls here. Leave the sisters and the village in peace. I have planning permission to build a house on the stone foundation of the old barn. The boathouse has a room attached that can be insulated and furbished. There are empty rooms here in the main house. If I can accommodate one caravan here, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t have another. There’s plenty of room on the island.’

  I walked down to the jetty. She stood up and clambered down into the boat. I handed her the letter without saying anything. She hesitated before accepting it and stuffing it into her rucksack.

  The sea was as smooth as a mirror. The sound of my o
utboard motor ripped open the stillness, scattering a few ducks, which flew out to sea. Agnes sat in the bows with her back towards me.

  I hove to by the lowest part of the quay and switched off the engine.

  ‘A bus goes from here,’ I said. ‘The timetable is over there, on the wall.’

  She climbed up on to the quay without saying a word.

  I returned home and went to sleep. In the afternoon I dug out my old Rembrandt puzzle and tipped the pieces on to the kitchen table. I started from the beginning, knowing I would never finish it.

  A north-easterly gale blew up the day after Agnes had left. I was woken up by a window banging. I got dressed and went to check that the boat was securely moored. It was high tide and waves were breaking over the jetty and slapping against the boathouse wall. I used a spare piece of rope to doubly secure the stern. The wind was howling around the walls. When I was a boy the howling gales used to scare me stiff. Inside the boathouse during a storm the noise is tremendous: like the voices of people screaming and fighting. Nowadays, strong winds make me feel secure. As I stood there I felt beyond the reach of anything and everything.

  The storm continued to rage for two more days. On the second day, Jansson managed to reach the island. For once, he was late. When he finally arrived, he told me his engine had cut out between Röholmen and Höga Skärsnäset.

  ‘I’ve never had any problems before,’ he said. ‘Typical that the engine should conk out in weather like this. I had to throw out a drag anchor, but even so I very nearly ended up on the rocks at Röholmen. If I hadn’t managed to get the engine going again, I’d have been wrecked.’

  I’d never seen him so shaken. For once, I asked him to sit down on the bench while I took his blood pressure. It was a bit on the high side, but nothing like what one might have expected, given what he had been through.