‘This is a lovely house you have here,’ she said. ‘I remember you used to talk about moving out to the country, but I didn’t believe you’d ever do it.’
‘I didn’t believe it either. Not to mention that I’d ever get myself a dog.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘It’s a he. Jussi.’
Their conversation died out. He eyed her without making it obvious. The bright sunshine coming in through the kitchen window emphasised her emaciated features.
‘I never left Riga,’ she said apropos of nothing. ‘I’ve managed to trade up to a better apartment twice, but I could never even think about living out in the country. When I was a child I was sent to live with my grandparents for a few years, in extreme poverty that I always associate with the Latvian countryside. Maybe it’s an image that no longer applies today, but I can’t shake it off.’
‘You were working at the university when we were together. What are you doing now?’
She didn’t respond, but took a sip of tea and then slid her cup to one side.
‘I’m actually a qualified engineer,’ she said. ‘Have you forgotten that? When we met I was translating scientific literature for the technical college. But I don’t do that any more. Not now that I’m ill.’
‘What’s the nature of your illness?’
She answered quietly, as if what she was saying wasn’t all that important.
‘I’m dying. I have cancer. But I don’t want to talk about that right now. Do you mind if I lie down for a while? I’m taking painkillers that are so strong, I find it hard to stay awake.’
She headed for the sofa, but Wallander ushered her into his bedroom. He had changed the sheets only a couple of days ago. He smoothed out the bed before she lay down. Her head almost disappeared into the pillow. She smiled wanly, as if she had recalled something.
‘Haven’t I been in this bed before?’
‘Of course you have. It’s an old bed.’
‘I’ll take a nap. Just an hour. They said at the police station that you were on holiday.’
‘You can sleep here for as long as you like.’
He wasn’t sure if she had heard him, or if she had already fallen asleep. Why has she come here to visit me? he wondered. I can’t cope with any more death and misery, any more wives drinking themselves to death, any more mothers being murdered. He regretted that thought the moment he had it. He sat down very carefully at the end of the bed and looked at her. The memory of their affair returned and upset him so much that he started shaking. I don’t want her to die, he thought. I want her to live. Maybe now she’s prepared to give living with a policeman another go.
Wallander went out and sat on one of the garden chairs. After a while he let Jussi out of his kennel. Baiba’s car was an old Citroen with Latvian plates. He switched on his mobile phone and saw that Linda had called. He called her back, and she sounded pleased when she heard his voice.
‘I just wanted to tell you that Hans has been awarded a bonus. Several hundred thousand kronor. That means we can rebuild the house.’
‘Did he really earn that kind of money?’ Wallander wondered, with a trace of cynicism in his voice.
‘Why shouldn’t he?’
Wallander told her that Baiba had come to visit him. Linda listened to what he said about the woman now lying asleep in his bed.
‘I’ve seen pictures of her,’ said Linda when he’d finished. ‘You’ve spoken about her. But according to Mum she was just a Latvian prostitute.’
Wallander was furious.
‘Your mother can be a terrible person sometimes. Making a claim like that is shameful. In many ways Baiba has all the qualities that Mona lacks. When did she say that?’
‘How do you expect me to remember?’
‘I think I’ll call her and tell her never to be in touch with me again.’
‘What good would that do? She was probably jealous. People say things like that when they’re jealous.’
Reluctantly, Wallander acknowledged that she was right, and calmed down. Then he told her that Baiba was seriously ill.
‘Has she come to say goodbye, then?’ she asked. ‘That sounds sad.’
‘That was my first reaction too. I was surprised and pleased to see her. But it only took a few minutes for me to feel depressed again. I seem to be surrounded by nothing but death and misery nowadays.’
‘You always have been,’ Linda said. ‘That was one of the first things they warned us about at the police academy - the kind of working life that lay ahead. But don’t forget that you have Klara.’
‘That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s the feeling of old age that’s creeping up and sticking its claws into the back of my neck. Wherever I look, my circle of friends is thinning out. When Dad died, I became next in line, if you get my meaning. Klara is at the end of that line, but I’m right at the front.’
‘If Baiba has come to see you, it’s because you mean a lot to her. That’s the only important thing.’
‘Come by,’ said Wallander. ‘I want you to meet the only woman who has really meant anything to me.’
‘Apart from Mona.’
‘That goes without saying.’
Linda thought for a while before speaking.
‘I have a friend visiting at the moment,’ she said. ‘Rakel - do you remember her? She’s a police officer in Malmo. She and Klara get along well.’
‘Aren’t you going to bring Klara with you?’
‘I’ll come on my own, very shortly.’
It was almost three o’clock by the time Linda swung into the drive and had to slam on the brakes in order to avoid running into Baiba’s car. Wallander always thought she drove far too fast, but on the other hand he was relieved whenever she didn’t use her motorcycle. He frequently told her so, but the only response he ever got was a loud snort.
Baiba had woken up and had a sip of water and another cup of tea. She spent a long time in the bathroom. When she came out she seemed to be less tired than before. Without her knowing, Wallander had watched her injecting herself in the thigh. For a brief moment he glimpsed her nakedness and felt despondency welling up inside him at the thought of all that was now over, never to be repeated, never to be experienced again.
It was an important moment for him when Baiba and Linda greeted each other. It seemed to Wallander that he could now see the Baiba he had met so many years ago in Latvia.
Linda embraced her as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and said she was pleased to meet the love of her father’s life at long last. Wallander felt embarrassed but also pleased to see them together. If Mona had been there, despite his current anger with her, and if Linda had been carrying Klara in her arms, the four most important women in his life, in a way the only ones, would have been gathered in his house. A big day, he thought, in the middle of summer, at a time when old age is sneaking up closer and closer.
When Linda heard that Baiba still hadn’t had anything to eat, she sent Wallander into the kitchen to make an omelette and went with Baiba out to the garden. He could hear Baiba laughing through the open window. That made his memories even stronger, and his eyes filled with tears. He worried that he seemed to be growing sentimental - a state he had virtually never experienced before, except when he was drunk.
They ate outside, moving with the shade. Wallander spent most of the time listening as Linda asked questions about Latvia, a country she had never visited. Just for a short time, a family is being resurrected, he thought. It will soon be over. And the question, the most difficult question of all to answer, is what will be left?
Linda stayed for just over an hour before announcing that she needed to go home. She had brought a photo of Klara with her, and she showed it to Baiba.
‘She might grow up to look just like her grandfather,’ Baiba said.
‘God forbid!’ said Wallander.
‘Don’t believe him,’ said Linda. ‘There’s nothing he’d wish for more. I hope to see you again,’ she sa
id as she stood up to go home.
Baiba didn’t reply. They hadn’t talked about death.
Baiba and Wallander remained in the garden and started talking about their lives. Baiba had a lot of questions to ask, and he answered as best he could. Both of them still lived alone. Some ten years earlier Baiba had tried to enter into a relationship with a doctor, but she had given up after six months. She had never had any children. Wallander couldn’t tell if she regretted that or not.
‘Life has been good,’ she said forcefully. ‘When our borders finally opened up, I was able to travel. I lived frugally, wrote several newspaper articles, and I was a consultant for a firm that wanted to establish itself in Latvia. I earned the most money from a Swedish bank that is now the biggest in the country. I went abroad twice a year, and I know so much more about the world we live in than I did when we met. I’ve had a good life. Lonely, but good.’
‘My torture has always been waking up alone,’ said Wallander, then wondered if what he had just said was really true.
Baiba laughed as she replied.
‘I’ve always lived alone, apart from that short time with the doctor. But that doesn’t mean I’ve always woken up alone. You don’t need to be celibate simply because you’re not in a steady relationship.’
Wallander felt pangs of jealousy at the thought of strange men lying by Baiba’s side in her bed. But he didn’t say anything.
Baiba suddenly started talking about her illness. As ever, she was objective.
‘It started with my feeling constantly tired,’ she said. ‘I soon suspected there was something more ominous behind the weariness. At first the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with me. Burnout, old age; nobody had the right answer. I eventually visited a doctor in Bonn that I’d heard about, a man who specialises in cases that other doctors have failed to diagnose. After a few days giving me various tests and taking samples, he was able to tell me that I had a rare cancerous tumour in my liver. I travelled back to Riga with a death sentence stamped invisibly in my passport. I admit that I leaned on all the contacts I had and was operated on remarkably quickly. But it was too late; the cancer had spread. A few weeks ago I was told that I now have metastases in my brain. It’s taken less than a year. I won’t last until Christmas; I’ll die in the autumn. I’m trying to spend the time I have left doing what I want to do more than anything else. There are a few places in the world I want to visit again, a few people I want to see again. You are one of them - perhaps the one I’ve wanted to see most of all.’
Wallander burst into tears, sobbing violently. She took his hand, which made matters even worse. He stood up and walked round to the back of the house. When he had pulled himself together, he returned.
‘I don’t want to bring you sorrow,’ she said. ‘I hope you understand why I was compelled to come here.’
‘I have never forgotten the time we spent together,’ he said. ‘I’ve often wanted to relive it. Now that you’re here, I have to ask you a question. Have you ever had any regrets?’
‘You mean that I said no when you asked me to marry you?’
‘It’s a question I think about all the time.’
‘Never. It was right then, and it must remain right now, after all these years.’
Wallander said nothing. He understood. Why should she have considered marrying a foreign policeman when her husband, also a police officer, had just been murdered? Wallander remembered how he had tried to persuade her. But if the roles had been reversed, how would he have reacted? What would he have chosen to do?
They sat for a long time in silence. In the end Baiba stood up, stroked Wallander’s hair and went back into the house. Since he could see that her pain had started again, he assumed she was giving herself another injection. When she didn’t come back, he went inside to investigate. She had fallen asleep on his bed. She didn’t wake up until late in the afternoon, and once she had overcome her initial confusion about where she was, her first question was if she could stay the night before catching a ferry to Poland the next morning and driving back to Riga.
‘That’s too far for you to drive,’ said Wallander firmly. ‘I’ll go with you, drive you home. Then I can fly back.’
She shook her head and said she wanted to go home on her own, just as she had come. When Wallander tried to insist, she became annoyed and shouted at him. But she stopped immediately and apologised. He sat down on the edge of the bed and took her hand.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said. ‘How long does she have? When is Baiba going to die? If I had the least suspicion that my time was up now I wouldn’t have stayed. I wouldn’t even have come in the first place. When I feel that the end is imminent and unavoidable, I won’t prolong the torture. I have access to both pills and injections. I intend to die with a bottle of champagne by my bed. I’ll drink a toast to the fact that, despite everything, I was able to experience the singular adventure of being born, living and one day disappearing into the darkness once again.’
‘Aren’t you afraid?’
Wallander immediately wished he could bite his tongue. How could he put a question like that to someone who was dying? But she didn’t take offence. He realised with a mixture of despair and embarrassment that she had no doubt long ago grown used to his clumsiness.
‘No,’ said Baiba. ‘I’m not afraid. I have so little time. I can’t waste any of it on thoughts that would only make everything worse.’
She got out of bed and made a tour of the house. She paused at the bookcase, noticing a book on Latvia that she had given him.
‘Have you ever opened it?’ she asked with a smile.
‘Lots of times,’ said Wallander.
It was true.
Afterwards, Wallander would remember the time spent in Loderup with Baiba as a room in which all the clocks seemed to have stopped, all movement ceased. She ate very little, spent most of the time in bed with a blanket over her, occasionally injecting herself, and wanted him to be near her. They lay side by side, talked now and then, were just as often silent when she was too tired to converse or had simply fallen asleep. Wallander also dozed off from time to time but woke up with a start after a few minutes, unused to having somebody so close to him.
She told him about the years that had passed, and the astonishing developments that had taken place in her homeland.
‘We had no idea in the days you and I were together what was going to happen,’ she said. ‘Do you remember the Soviet Black Berets who took potshots all over Riga for no obvious reason? I can admit now that in those days I didn’t believe the Soviet Union would ever loosen its grip on us. I imagined the oppression would only increase. The worst of it was that nobody ever knew who could be trusted. Did your neighbours have anything to gain by you being free, or did that frighten them? Which of them were reporting to the KGB, which was everywhere, like a giant ear that nobody could get away from? Now I know I was wrong, and I’m grateful for that. But at the same time, nobody knows what the future holds for Latvia. Capitalism doesn’t solve the problems of socialism or the planned economy, nor does democracy solve all the economic crises. I think that right now we are living beyond our resources.’
‘Isn’t there talk of Baltic tigers?’ Wallander asked. ‘States that are as successful as countries in Asia?’
She shook her head with a bitter expression on her face.
‘We’re living on borrowed money. Including Swedish money. I don’t claim to be a particularly knowledgeable or perceptive economist, but I’m quite sure that Swedish banks are lending large sums of money in my country with far too little security. And that can only end one way.’
‘Badly?’
‘Very badly. For the Swedish banks too.’
Wallander thought back to the years at the beginning of the 1990s, when they had had their affair. He recalled how scared everybody was. So much had happened in those days that he still didn’t understand. Superficially, a major political development had drastically altered Europe, and hence
the balance of power between the USA and the Soviet Union. Until he travelled to Riga to try to solve the case of the dead men in a rubber dinghy that drifted ashore near Ystad, it had never occurred to him that three of Sweden’s nearest neighbours were occupied by a foreign power. How could it be that so many of his generation, born in the late 1940s, had never truly comprehended that the Cold War actually was a war, with occupied and oppressed nations as a result? During the 1960s it often seemed that distant Vietnam lay closer to the Swedish border than did the Baltic countries.
‘It was difficult to understand for us as well,’ said Baiba in the middle of the night, when the first light of dawn was beginning to change the colour of the sky. ‘Behind every Latvian was a Russian, we used to say. But behind every Russian there was somebody else.’
‘Who?’
‘Even in the Baltic countries, the way the Russians thought was dictated by what the USA was doing.’
‘So behind every Russian was an American, is that right?’
‘You could put it like that. But nobody will really know until Russian historians tell us the full truth of everything that happened in those days.’
Somewhere during this rambling conversation, their unexpected meeting came to an end. Wallander fell asleep. The last time he’d checked his watch it said five o’clock. When he woke up over an hour later, Baiba had left. He ran outside, but her car was no longer there. Under a stone on the garden table was a photograph. The picture had been taken in 1991, in May, at the Freedom Monument in Riga. Wallander remembered the occasion. Somebody who happened to be passing had taken it for them. They were both smiling, huddled up close, Baiba with her head resting on his shoulder. Next to the photograph was a scrap of paper that seemed to have been torn out of a diary. There was nothing written on it, just a drawing of a heart.
Wallander thought he should drive to Ystad right away, to the quay where ferries to Poland came and went. He was already in the car and had started the engine when he realised that this was the last thing she would want him to do. He went back into the house and lay down on the bed, where he could still smell her body.
The Troubled Man (2011) kw-10 Page 30