Italian Shoes

by Henning Mankell

‘You’re not bleeding enough.’

  I grabbed hold of the lifebelt and wrenched it from her grasp. Then she started punching me. I eventually managed to wriggle out of her clutches.

  We faced each other, panting.

  ‘Come up to the house. We have to talk.’

  ‘You look awful. I didn’t mean to hit you so hard.’

  I went back to the kitchen, and was shocked when I saw my face covered in blood. I could see that not only my lip but also my right eyebrow had been split open. She knocked me out, I thought. She’d made good use of her boxing skills, even if it was the caravan door that had landed the most telling blow.

  I wiped my face and wrapped some ice cubes in a towel which I pressed on my mouth and eyebrow. It was some time before I heard her footsteps approaching the door.

  ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘I might live. But new rumours will spread around the islands. As if it weren’t enough that my daughter undresses in front of the men who rule the world, she comes back home and behaves like a violent madwoman towards her ageing father. You’re a boxer, you must know what can happen to a face.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘Of course you did. I think what you really wanted to do was to kill me before I could write a will that disinherited you.’

  ‘I got upset.’

  ‘You don’t need to explain. But you’re wrong. All I want to do is to help Agnes and her girls. Neither she nor I can say how long the arrangement will last. That’s all. Nothing else. No promises, no gifts.’

  ‘I thought you were going to abandon me again.’

  ‘I’ve never abandoned you. I abandoned Harriet. I knew nothing about you. If I had done, everything might have been different.’

  I emptied the towel and refilled it with new ice cubes. My eye was by now almost totally closed.

  Things had started to calm down. We sat around the kitchen table. My face hurt. I stretched out my hand and placed it on her arm.

  ‘I’m not going to take anything away from you. This island is yours. If you don’t want her to come here with her girls while they are looking for another home, then of course I shall tell her that it’s not possible.’

  ‘I’m sorry you look like you do. But earlier this evening, that’s what I looked like inside.’

  ‘Let’s go to bed,’ I said. ‘We’ll go to bed, and tomorrow I’ll wake up with a perfect set of bruises.’

  I stood up and went to my room. I heard Louise closing the front door behind her.

  We had been on the edge of a storm. It had passed by very close to us, but hadn’t enveloped us completely.

  Something is happening, I thought, almost cheerfully. Nothing earth-shattering, but still. We’re on our way to something new and unknown.

  The December days were chilly and oppressive. On 12 December I noted down that it snowed for a while in the afternoon – nothing much, and it didn’t last long. The clouds were motionless in the sky.

  My bruised face was painful and took a long time to heal. Jansson’s jaw dropped when I met him on the jetty the morning after the fight. Louise came to say hello. She was smiling. I tried to smile but failed. Jansson couldn’t resist asking what had happened.

  ‘A meteor,’ I said. ‘A falling star.’

  Louise was still smiling. Jansson asked no more questions.

  I wrote to Agnes and invited her to the island to meet my daughter. She replied after a few days and said it was too soon. Nor had she decided whether or not to accept my offer. She knew that she would have to make her mind up before long, but hadn’t done so yet. I could tell that she was still offended, and disappointed. Perhaps I felt relieved that she wasn’t going to come. I was still not convinced that Louise wouldn’t launch another attack on me.

  Every day I walked round the island with the dog. I listened to my heart. I had got into the habit of taking my pulse and my blood pressure once a day. Every other day after resting, every other day without resting. My heart was beating calmly and steadily inside my ribcage. My steadfast companion on my journey through life, to whom I had not devoted many thoughts. I went round and round the island, tried not to lose my footing on the slippery rocks, and occasionally paused to contemplate the horizon. If I had to leave this island, what I would miss most would be the rocks, the cliffs and the horizon. This inland sea, which was slowly turning into a bog, didn’t always produce pleasant smells. It was an unwashed sea that sometimes smelled of a hangover. But the horizon was pure and clean, as were the rocks and the cliffs.

  As I made my daily round of the island in my cut-down wellington boots, it was as if I were carrying my heart in my hand. Even if all my readings were good, I sometimes felt panicky. I’m dying, my heart will stop beating a few seconds from now. It’s all over, death will strike before I’m prepared for it.

  I thought I ought to talk to Louise about my fears. But I said nothing.

  The winter solstice was approaching. One day Louise sat down on a chair in the middle of my kitchen and asked me to hold a mirror. Then she used a pair of kitchen scissors to cut off her long hair, dyed what remained red, and laughed contentedly a couple of hours later when she examined the result. Her face became clearer. It was as if a flower bed had been cleared of weeds.

  The following day it was my turn. I’d tried to resist, but she was adamant. I sat on a kitchen chair and she cut my hair. Her fingers seemed dainty round the unwieldy scissors. She said my hair was beginning to thin out on top, and also suggested that a moustache would suit me.

  ‘I love having you here,’ I said. ‘Somehow or other everything has become clearer. Before, when I looked at my face in a mirror, I was never quite sure what I saw. Now I know that it’s me, and not just any old face that happens to be going past.’

  She didn’t answer. But I could feel a drop on my cheek. She was crying. I started crying too. She continued cutting my hair. We both wept silently, she behind the chair with the scissors, me with a towel round my neck. We never said a word about it afterwards, perhaps because we were embarrassed; or because it wasn’t necessary.

  That is a trait I share with my daughter. We don’t speak unnecessarily. People who live on small islands are seldom loud or loquacious. The horizon is far too big for that.

  One day Louise tied a red silk ribbon round Carra’s neck. Carra didn’t seem to think much of it, but didn’t try to remove it.

  The evening before the winter solstice, I sat up late at the kitchen table and thumbed through my logbook. Then I made a note.

  ‘Calm sea, no wind, minus one degree. Carra is wearing a red ribbon. Louise and I are very close.’

  I thought about Harriet. It was as if she were just behind me, reading what I wrote.

  CHAPTER 4

  LOUISE AND I decided we would celebrate the fact that the days were now going to start getting longer. Louise would do the cooking. In the afternoon I took my medication, then lay down on the kitchen sofa to rest.

  It was half a year since we had all sat round in the brief darkness of the midsummer night. This evening, as we marked the winter solstice, Harriet would not be with us. I missed her in a way I had never done before. Even if she was dead, she seemed closer to me than ever.

  I remained on the sofa for a long time before forcing myself up to have a shave and get changed. I put on a suit I had hardly ever worn. Despite being badly out of practice, I knotted a tie. The face I saw in the mirror terrified me. I had become old. I grimaced and went back down to the kitchen. It was starting to get dark in preparation for what would be the longest night of the year. The thermometer showed minus two. I took a blanket and sat down on the bench under the apple tree. The air was fresh, chilly, unusually salty. In the distance birds were crying, increasingly fewer of them, and less often.

  I must have fallen asleep on the bench. When I woke up it was pitch dark. I was cold. Six o’clock – I had been asleep for nearly two hours. Louise was at the cooker when I came in. She smiled.

  ‘You were sleeping like a
n old lady,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’

  ‘I am an old lady,’ I said. ‘My grandmother used to sit on that bench. She was always freezing cold except when she dreamt of gently soughing birch trees. I think I might be changing into her.’

  It was warm in the kitchen. The hob and the oven were on; the windows had misted over.

  Strange and wondrous perfumes began to fill the kitchen. Louise held out a spoon with a taster from a steaming casserole.

  The taste was somehow reminiscent of old timber warmed by the sun. Sweet but sour, with a touch of bitterness – foreign, enticing.

  ‘I mix different worlds into my stews,’ said Louise. ‘When we eat, we pay visits to people in parts of the world we have never visited. Smells are our oldest memories. The wood that our forefathers made fires with, when they sheltered in caves and painted all those bloodthirsty animals on the walls – it must have smelled just the same as firewood does today. We don’t know what they thought, but we know what their wood smelled like.’

  ‘There’s always something constant in things that change,’ I said. ‘There’s always an old lady feeling cold on a bench under an apple tree.’

  Louise was humming away as she prepared the meal.

  ‘You travel around the world on your own,’ I said. ‘But up there in the forest you are surrounded by men.’

  ‘There are lots of nice blokes around. But it’s not so easy to find a real man.’

  I was going to continue, but she raised her hand in warning.

  ‘Not now, not later, not any time. If I ever have something to tell you, I’ll do so. Of course there are men in my life. But they are my business, not yours. I don’t think we should share everything. If you dig too deeply into others, you can risk destroying a beautiful friendship.’

  I handed Louise some pot-holders. They had always been in the kitchen – I remembered them being there when I was a child. She took a large pot out of the oven and removed the lid. There was a strong smell of pepper and lemon.

  ‘This should burn your throat. No food is properly cooked if it doesn’t make you sweat when you eat it. Food lacking in secrets fills your belly with disappointment.’

  I watched her stirring the pot and mixing the contents.

  ‘Women stir,’ she said. ‘Men hit and cut and tear and stab. Women stir and stir and stir.’

  I went out for a walk before we started eating. When I got as far as the jetty, I suddenly felt that burning pain in my chest. It hurt so much that I nearly collapsed in a heap.

  I shouted for Louise. When she got to me, I thought I would pass out. She squatted down in front of me.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘My heart. Vascular spasms.’

  ‘Are you going to die?’

  I roared through my pain: ‘No, I’m not going to die. There’s a jar of blue tablets at the side of my bed.’

  She hurried away. When she came back, she gave me a tablet and a glass of water. I held her hand. Then the pain eased. I was soaked in sweat, and shivering.

  ‘Has it gone?’

  ‘Yes, it’s gone. It’s not dangerous, But it’s painful.’

  ‘Perhaps you ought to go to bed.’

  ‘No way.’

  We walked slowly back to the house.

  ‘Fetch a few cushions from the kitchen sofa,’ I said. ‘We can sit out here on the steps for a while.’

  She came back with the cushions. We sat close together, and she laid her head on my shoulder.

  ‘I don’t want you to die. I couldn’t cope with seeing both my parents dying so soon, one after the other.’

  ‘I’m not going to die.’

  ‘Think of Agnes and her girls.’

  ‘I don’t know if that’s going to happen.’

  ‘They’ll come.’

  I squeezed her hand. My heart had calmed down again now. But the pain was lurking in the background. I had received my second warning. I could live for quite a few years yet. But the end would come eventually, even for me.

  Our celebratory dinner came to an early close. We ate, but didn’t stay on at the table. I went up to my room, and took the telephone with me. There was a socket in my bedroom that I never normally used. My grandfather had installed it towards the end of his life when he and Grandma had started to become ill. He wanted to be able to phone somebody if one or other of them became so frail that the stairs down to the ground floor would be too long and too steep. I wondered if I should ring, but couldn’t make up my mind. Eventually, at about one in the morning, I dialled the number – irrespective of the late hour. She answered more or less straight away.

  ‘I apologise for waking you up.’

  ‘You didn’t wake me up.’

  ‘I just want to know if you’ve made up your mind yet.’

  ‘The girls and I have discussed it. They shout no as soon as the word island is mentioned. They can’t imagine living without roads or asphalt or cars. They feel scared.’

  ‘They’ll have to choose between you and asphalt.’

  ‘I think I’m more important.’

  ‘Does that mean you’ll be coming?’

  ‘I’m not going to answer that at this time of night.’

  ‘Can I think what I think I can think?’

  ‘Yes. But we must stop now. It’s late.’

  There was a click and the line went dead. I stretched out on the bed. She hadn’t said as much in so many words, but I was beginning to realise that she would come after all.

  I lay awake for a long time. A year ago I used to lie here and think that nothing more was ever going to happen. Now I had a daughter and angina. Life had taken a new direction.

  It was seven when I awoke. Louise was already up.

  ‘I need to go to the forest for a while,’ she said. ‘But can I leave you on your own? Can you promise me that you’re not going to die?’

  ‘When will you be back?’ I asked. ‘If you’re not away for too long, I shall keep going.’

  ‘I’ll be back in the spring. But I won’t be up in the forest all that time. I have somewhere else to go to.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I met a man after the police had released me. He wanted to talk about the caves and the mouldy wall paintings. We ended up talking about other things as well.’

  I wanted to ask who he was. But she put her finger to her lips.

  ‘Not now.’

  The following day Jansson came to fetch her.

  ‘I drink a lot of water,’ he shouted as the boat started to reverse away from the jetty. ‘But nevertheless I’m always thirsty.’

  ‘We can talk about that later,’ I shouted back to him.

  I returned to the house and collected my binoculars. I watched them until the boat disappeared in the fog behind Höga Siskäret.

  Now it was only the dog and me. My friend Carra.

  ‘It’s going to be just as quiet here as it always is,’ I said to the dog. ‘For the time being, at least. Then we shall build a new house. And girls will play music far too loudly, they’ll be shouting and swearing and sometimes they will hate this island. But they’re coming here, and we shall have to put up with them, A bunch of wild horses is on its way here.’

  Carra was still wearing the red ribbon. I untied it and let it float away on the wind.

  Late that evening I sat in front of the television with the sound turned down. I listened to my heart.

  I had my logbook in my hand. I noted down that the winter solstice had now passed.

  Then I stood up, put the logbook away and took out a new one.

  The following day I would write something completely different. Perhaps a letter to Harriet, even though it was far too late to send it now.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE SEA IN the archipelago didn’t freeze over that winter.

  Thick ice formed on the mainland, and in sheltered bays and creeks of the islands, but the navigable channels out to the open sea remained open. There was a period of extreme cold and p
ersistent northerly winds at the end of February, but Jansson was never forced to use his hydrocopter and I didn’t need to put my hands over my ears on post days.

  One day, just after the extreme cold had given way to milder weather, something happened that I shall never forget. I had just removed the thin layer of ice over my bathing hole and was having my bath when I noticed the dog lying on the jetty and chewing away at something that looked like the skeleton of a bird. As dogs can wound their throats on bones, I went over to her and removed it. I threw it into the frozen seaweed, and urged the dog to come back to the house with me.

  It was only later, when I had got dressed and warmed up again, that I remembered the bone. I still don’t know what made me do it, but I put my boots on, walked down to the jetty and located it. The piece of bone was certainly not from a bird. I sat down on the jetty and examined it closely. Could it be from a mink, or a hare?

  Then I realised what it was. It couldn’t be anything else. It was a piece of bone from my old cat. I put it on the jetty at my feet, and wondered how the dog had found it. I felt cold and sad inside at the way in which my cat had turned up again in the end.

  I took the dog with me for a walk round the island. There was no sign of any more bones, no tracks. Only that little fragment of bone, as if the cat had sent me a greeting in order to assure me that I no longer needed to wonder or to search. She was dead, and had been dead for a long time.

  I wrote about the bone in my logbook. A mere three words.

  ‘Dog, bone, sorrow.’

  I buried the fragment of bone next to Harriet’s and my old dog’s graves. It was a post day, so I went to the jetty. Jansson came chugging up on time as usual. He hove to by the jetty and announced that he felt very tired and was permanently thirsty. He had started to get cramp in his calves during the night.

  ‘It could be diabetes,’ I told him. ‘The symptoms suggest that possibility. I can’t examine you here, but you ought to go to the health centre.’

  ‘Is it fatal?’ he asked, looking worried.

  ‘Not necessarily. It can be treated.’

  I couldn’t help feeling a little bit pleased that Jansson, who had always been as fit as a fiddle, had now revealed the first crack in his armour, and was in the same boat as the rest of us.