After the Fire

by Henning Mankell

  A little while later I heard the coastguard’s boat start up. I waited until the throb of the engine had died away, then I went outside. I explained to Kolbjörn that I was thinking of moving the caravan to the skerry without a name. Could he help me? I knew he had an old cattle ferry. He would also be able to solve the problem of finding a block and tackle to get it into the right place in the hollow.

  He promised to see what he could do. Sorting out a supply of electricity would be no trouble either.

  He finished work just before dusk fell. A lantern shone outside the boathouse.

  I switched on the lamp he had placed on the small table in the caravan. It would be easier to make decisions now, I thought. The light would help me.

  That evening I ate unmemorable fish soup. I was fast asleep before midnight.

  CHAPTER 5

  The following day I spent a long time searching the boathouse for something to write on. The only thing I could find, in a box of worn-out paintbrushes, was a tattered notebook in which my grandfather had kept a record of the oil changes he had carried out on his car, a PV444 that he owned in the 1950s. The book was stiff with dried oil, but there were several blank pages that would serve my purpose.

  I was about to push away the box of brushes when I discovered another object right at the bottom, under a few sheets of well-used sandpaper. It was a black yo-yo, made of wood and with the string still intact.

  I hadn’t held a yo-yo in my hand for sixty years. Had my grandfather or grandmother secretly performed tricks with it? Or could this be my own childhood toy?

  I went out onto the jetty, slipped the middle finger of my right hand through the loop and tried to make the yo-yo dance. I could just about get it to travel up and down the string once.

  I’m not quite sure what happened next. I felt dizzy and collapsed onto the bench; the dizziness was followed by nausea. There was no pain in my chest or my left arm. I sat completely still, trying to breathe calmly. The yo-yo dangled lifeless from my right hand. Slowly I began to feel better. I tried to think of it as nothing more than a funny turn, but then I realised I was having a panic attack that was spreading through my body. I thought that each breath, each moment would be my last.

  I staggered up to the caravan and lay down on the bed, convinced that I was going to die right there and then. I swallowed two tranquillisers with a mouthful of cold coffee, but the panic continued to grow. I felt as if I had a herd of horses inside my head, bolting in all directions. I slammed my hand against the wall to chase them away, but to no avail.

  By the time the attack had passed and I tried to sit up, the sun was no longer shining in through the skylight. I switched on the transistor radio. After a few minutes a classical music programme was interrupted by the news. It was two o’clock. I had been battling the panic and terror for at least five hours.

  I switched off the radio and went outside. The sun was still strong. I carried on down to the boathouse. The notebook containing my grandfather’s record of his oil changes was lying on the jetty. I picked it up and put it in my pocket.

  Now the attack was over, I thought that perhaps it had been caused by old age. Until now I had believed that the passing years didn’t mean much. I was ageing, but slowly, almost imperceptibly. Growing older was like a mist silently drifting across the sea.

  But perhaps that was no longer the case. Now suddenly I was an old man, afraid of dying. Taking that step across the invisible border was the final element. It was a step I feared much more than I had realised.

  All at once I knew I needed to talk to someone. I don’t know when I last felt that urge. I keyed in Jansson’s number, but as the phone started to ring I cancelled the call. I didn’t want to talk to him; instead I called my daughter, but once again I changed my mind before she could answer.

  I heard the throb of an engine in the distance. After a little while I realised it was the coastguard’s boat, and that the sound was getting closer. I wondered if I had time to cast off and slip away on my boat in order to avoid seeing Alexandersson and whoever he had brought with him, but it was too late.

  Pålsson was at the helm. I had no idea what had become of the blonde girl, Alma Hamrén. However, both Alexandersson and Hämäläinen were on board. We shook hands and went up to the site of the fire.

  ‘Have you got anywhere?’ I asked.

  Alexandersson glanced at Hämäläinen.

  ‘We have no explanation for the fire,’ Hämäläinen said. ‘But we do have a number of clues.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘As I told you last time, the fire seems to have started in several places simultaneously.’

  ‘And how would you interpret that?’

  ‘It’s too early to say.’

  I didn’t ask any more questions because I knew I wouldn’t get any straight answers. I left them up by the ruins and went back to the caravan. I put the notebook on the table and found a pen. But I didn’t write anything. I had nothing to say. There was a little mirror hanging on the wall, and I could see my unshaven face. I looked like a highwayman. Or perhaps I looked the way an arsonist is supposed to look. I made a note to buy razors and shaving foam. That was the first thing I wrote in my grandfather’s old notebook.

  I lay down on the bed and must have fallen asleep. I was woken by someone knocking on the door; it was Alexandersson.

  ‘Did I wake you?’

  ‘Of course not. Who the hell sleeps in the middle of the afternoon?’

  He shook his head apologetically.

  ‘We’d like to ask you a few questions. Well, not me – Hämäläinen.’

  We went back up to the ruins, where Hämäläinen was waiting. The sun was low in the sky now. The rain I had been expecting had gone away.

  This is when it happens, I thought. This is when they accuse me.

  The yo-yo was in my pocket. I wondered whether to whip it out and try to make it dance while Hämäläinen was asking his questions.

  I left it where it was and looked him in the eye.

  ‘There’s still this feeling that the fire started in several places at the same time.’

  ‘Is it a feeling or a fact?’

  He didn’t answer my question.

  ‘It’s impossible to pick up a specific odour,’ he said instead. ‘But in all four corners of the house there are signs that a highly flammable liquid has been poured out and ignited. It leaves particular marks on burning wood.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’

  ‘Ridiculous or not, it’s something we have to investigate further.’

  ‘What did you want to ask me?’

  ‘Do you have access to petrol or diesel?’

  ‘I have a boat engine that runs on petrol. Apart from the tank on board, I have a can with a reserve supply of twenty litres.’

  ‘Could we go down and take a look at it?’

  ‘The tank on board or the reserve supply?’

  ‘I was thinking of the reserve supply.’

  Alexandersson remained a few steps behind. I unscrewed the cap, and once the petrol fumes had dispersed, it was obvious that the can was empty. ‘I realise you will interpret this as further evidence against me. A reserve is no use unless it’s full.’

  I was so agitated that my voice was hoarse. I could hardly speak.

  ‘We need to carry out a chemical analysis of the remains of the fire,’ Hämäläinen said.

  ‘I didn’t burn down my house!’ I shouted. ‘If that’s what you’re accusing me of, then I suggest you arrest me right now!’

  I held out my hands in a pathetic gesture, inviting him to slap on the handcuffs. Which he didn’t do, of course.

  ‘I’d like you both to go to hell now,’ I said. ‘Carry out your investigation, but let me know when you’re coming so that I can make sure I’m not around.’

  I took out my mobile and read out the number. Alexandersson put it into his own phone. Hämäläinen just stood there staring down at the bare boards of the jetty.

  Silence f
ell, and I could feel my anger turning to despair. The road from failed doctor to suspected arsonist was not long.

  ‘Is there anyone you can think of who might have set fire to your house?’ Hämäläinen suddenly asked.

  ‘Someone who knew I was asleep in there, and was prepared to risk my being burned alive? Or maybe that was the aim – is that what you mean?’

  ‘There can be many reasons for starting a fire.’

  ‘Don’t a lot of arsonists simply enjoy seeing the fire spread, consuming everything in its path?’

  ‘That’s pyromaniacs. Arsonists have a motive, even if it is obscure.’

  ‘I have no enemies out here in the archipelago.’

  ‘What about elsewhere?’

  I thought about it. Harriet had hated me for many years, but she was dead and I didn’t believe in ghosts. I couldn’t come up with anyone else.

  ‘Not that I know of,’ I said. ‘But of course there could be people after me that I’m totally unaware of.’

  The conversation foundered. Hämäläinen returned to the site of the fire, while Alexandersson and I remained on the jetty and talked about the autumn weather. If it had been spring, we would have talked about the spring weather. I sometimes wonder how many hours of my life I have spent conversing with various people about the wind and the weather. Hämäläinen came back carrying several plastic bags containing samples of burned material.

  Alexandersson was keen to make a move. Pålsson, who never said a word, started the engine.

  ‘What happened to Alma?’ I asked. ‘Your blonde companion?’

  ‘She’s got flu,’ Alexandersson said. ‘She’ll be back when she’s better.’

  ‘Well, if she needs a doctor you know where I am.’

  I immediately regretted my comment. Alexandersson stared at me in surprise. I could understand why. What use would I be to a young woman suffering from flu?

  I stood on the jetty and raised my hand in farewell. It felt as heavy as a stone. My brief outburst had worn me out.

  I went back to the caravan, lay down on the bed and tried to think. But my head was spinning. That herd of bolting horses was back.

  How long I lay there I don’t know. Eventually I left the caravan with a vague idea of cleaning out the boathouse. Many years ago, when I first moved to the island, I had a good clear-out, but haven’t touched it since. Even if you live as simply as I do, life seems to consist mainly of amassing a huge amount of rubbish that has no importance or value whatsoever.

  There is an inner room in the boathouse where my grandfather kept his nets. It also contains the stool he used to sit on while mending torn nets. Some of them are still on the walls, but they are so fragile that they would fall apart if I so much as touched them. None of them would be any use for fishing. My grandfather made many of his own nets, and they constitute a memory of him that I have no wish to get rid of.

  I began by clearing a shelf behind the old flounder nets. Under a pile of tools I found a little brown book that I’d never noticed before. The room was dark and the light wasn’t working, so I took the book outside and sat down on the bench. To my surprise I saw that it was very old. It had been printed in Stockholm in 1833, and was based on an original text in German. It didn’t say who was responsible for the translation, but the author’s name was D. J. Tscheiner. The Swedish title was Anwisning till Sångfåglars Fångst och Skötsel – A Guide to the Capture and Care of Songbirds. I flicked through the pages, wondering how such a thing had ended up with my grandfather. It was very difficult to read.

  My curiosity was aroused, and I went back inside. After a while I found what I first assumed was part of a discarded eel trap, but then I realised it was the remnants of a plaited birdcage. It was as if I had discovered some totally unknown aspect of my grandparents’ lives. A birdcage and a 181-year-old book?

  I carried on searching until I had gone through the entire room and there was only a box of old glass jars left. I found a mummified mouse in there, but the jars were empty. I sniffed them but couldn’t determine what they might have contained. They weren’t labelled.

  Apart from one – virtually the last one I picked up. I took it outside. It contained something grey, a congealed jelly-like substance. It gave off a faint smell that I thought I recognised, but I couldn’t put a name to it, and it was hard to make out what was written in ink on the white sticky label. After much pondering I decided it said Fågellim – Birdlime. I wasn’t sure whether it was my grandfather’s or grandmother’s handwriting. To be honest, I don’t think I’d ever seen anything they’d actually written.

  Birdlime?

  I tried to put together the old book, the jar and the birdcage to form a whole. The key clue was of course the title of the book: A Guide to the Capture and Care of Songbirds. The remnants of the cage fitted in with this. But the jar and its contents? Had I read the label correctly? Was birdlime something that was used to trap larks and finches?

  I had no recollection of a birdcage in the house when I was a child. Nor could I remember any talk of birds apart from the eider ducks and velvet scoters my grandfather shot when he was out hunting.

  I decided to wait until my daughter arrived before trying to find the answers to my questions. She has a computer that helps her solve most problems that arise.

  Songbirds and birdlime.

  I carried on rummaging around in the boathouse. I found plenty of dead swallows that had got caught up in various discarded tools and been unable to free themselves. The place was like a swallows’ graveyard. Some were adults, others little more than fledglings. They must have barely flown the nest before becoming trapped, never to escape.

  Then I found my old tent from my childhood, with an equally ancient sleeping bag lying next to it. I took both items out onto the jetty, assuming they were rotten and would have to be thrown away. However, the tent and the sleeping bag were intact and the pegs were still there. I couldn’t resist the temptation of pitching the tent on the grass. The process came back to me straight away. When the tent was up, I was surprised at how small it was.

  I threw the sleeping bag over the washing line to air, then I crawled inside the tent. The pale autumn light produced a greyish-green glow.

  As I sat there on the green groundsheet I experienced a great sense of calm, a feeling that I had distanced myself from the disastrous fire for just a little while. The horses in my head had stopped galloping around. I made up my mind to erect the tent out on the skerry that very afternoon. I needed to get away from the remains of my house and the charred apple tree.

  I set off at about six o’clock. I had tried out the sleeping bag; the musty smell still lingered, but it was usable. I had eaten dinner early, then packed some sandwiches, a flask of coffee and a bottle of water.

  I dragged the boat ashore on the skerry and moored it by the same rock I had favoured when I was a boy. I put up the tent in what had been my usual spot. I spread out the sleeping bag and lay down. The uneven ground beneath me was instantly familiar.

  I got up, gathered twigs and branches in the semi-darkness and piled them up in a crevice in the rock. However, as I knelt there with a box of matches in my hand, I decided not to light my fire. I had had enough of flames. I left the branches where they were and went back to the tent. I hadn’t brought any source of light with me, so I lay on top of the sleeping bag, had a cup of coffee and ate a couple of sandwiches. The wind came and went in sudden gusts. I was filled with a sense of liberation. For the first time since I rushed out of my burning house, I was able to think clearly once more.

  I had made up my mind to move the caravan, but I didn’t want to make a decision about the house until my daughter came home. It was more about her future than mine.

  I thought about Lisa Modin and her impending visit. I pleaded with her in my thoughts. I didn’t hurt her, didn’t cross the line with my hopes of perhaps experiencing love again in my old age.

  These pleasant reveries carried me slowly into the diffuse landscape where re
ality slips into sleep and dreams.

  I woke up shivering. Before I crawled into the sleeping bag I went outside. The sky was full of stars, and there was hardly a breath of wind. There are flight paths directly above this part of the archipelago, but after eleven o’clock at night it’s usually quiet.

  I couldn’t see the moon. There had always been autumn nights, and there would always be autumn nights even when I was no longer around. I was a temporary guest in the darkness, and I would never be anything else.

  I slept badly. If a stray gust of wind shook the tent flap, I was immediately awake. I would lie there for a long time before nodding off, only to be woken again a little while later.

  I thought about Louise, wondered what she was doing. I wondered when she would come home. I thought back to the time when I had been a doctor and to the years after the disaster when I had lost all sense of direction in my life. I passed one crossroads after another.

  It was a night of broken sleep and shattered contemplation. At dawn, when the first ray of light appeared over the sea, I got up and left the tent. I jumped up and down to shake some life into my body, frightening a lone swan on the shore. It flew away on heavy wings. I looked at my watch. Fourteen minutes to seven. It was a cold morning. Far away on the horizon, a cargo ship was ploughing northwards through the waves.

  I left the tent where it was and simply folded up my sleeping bag. I took the flask, the bottle of water and the greaseproof paper my sandwiches had been wrapped in down to the boat. I pushed it off the rock and jumped in.

  The engine didn’t start. That had never happened before. I had no tools with me, nothing I could use to adjust the spark plugs. I doubted that any water had got into the fuel tank.

  I made several more attempts to start the engine, then I flipped it up and took to the oars. I decided to call Jansson. I don’t know anyone who can deal with a recalcitrant engine better than him, apart from the professional mechanics on the mainland, of course. I didn’t like having to contact him, but I couldn’t see any other option. There was no way I could ask him to pick up Lisa Modin, take us out to Vrångskär, then pick us up a few hours later.