After the Fire

by Henning Mankell

  We ate dinner together, then drank a cup of tea. I don’t like the blend Louise favours. It tastes of unidentifiable herbs, which doesn’t appeal to me at all. But of course I didn’t say anything.

  We were both tired. We reached a tacit decision that I would sleep in the caravan. We played cards until it was late enough to go to bed. Louise lay awake for a long time, but eventually her breathing became deeper and heavier. Then I fell asleep too.

  —

  The following day I rowed across to the skerry to look for my watch. Louise didn’t want to come with me because she wasn’t feeling well.

  Perhaps that was when I really grasped the fact that she was pregnant. Now I got it. My daughter was going to have a child, and I hadn’t a clue who the father was.

  I rowed slowly, trying to picture this unknown man, but there was only a crowd of men milling around, as if the gates had just opened before a football match.

  I spent a long time searching for my watch, but without success. I even pulled out a few tent pegs to see if it might somehow have ended up under the groundsheet, but it was nowhere to be seen. My watch had disappeared, and that was that.

  For two days nothing much happened. The wind rose and fell, at times almost reaching gale force. Louise and I spent most of our time in the caravan. I resumed my habit of taking a dip in the cold water in the mornings. I tried to persuade Louise to come with me, but she refused. When I had finished, she washed herself at the water pump. I could hear her puffing and blowing, cursing the icy water.

  I wondered why we were behaving so oddly: two adults who couldn’t bring themselves to discuss the new generation that was on its way. What was it that made both of us so ill equipped for something that would be a normal conversation for normal people?

  We did, however, talk about the matter of rebuilding the house. As long as the police investigation was ongoing and the prosecutor was considering his options, I wouldn’t receive a payout from the insurance company, but we couldn’t stay in the caravan when the winter came.

  At around lunchtime on the second day I called my insurance company. It took a while to get through to someone who was able to access my details. He introduced himself as Jonas Andersson. I searched my memory, but I had no recollection of ever having met him. He spoke much too quickly and seemed keen to end the conversation as soon as possible. He hadn’t heard about the fire because I hadn’t yet submitted a claim. Nor had he read anything about the suspicion that the fire had been started deliberately. Perhaps I was speaking to a young man who belonged to the generation that had given up reading altogether – not just newspapers, but books as well?

  The brief conversation with Jonas Andersson was an ordeal. I didn’t mention that the police investigation might well result in charges against me. He could find that out for himself. Most importantly, he was able to confirm that my premium had been paid on time.

  My insurance was valid. The company would pay the full amount necessary to rebuild the house, although of course it would never be as solid a piece of workmanship as the house that had been built in the nineteenth century. There would be no oak beams in the walls, nor would the porch boast the same ornate carpentry as my old house.

  I wondered if the insurance also covered charred apple trees, but I didn’t ask. Jonas Andersson probably wasn’t interested in that kind of thing.

  I was sitting in the caravan while I made the call; Louise stood by the door, listening. Andersson’s voice was quite loud, so she probably heard everything he had to say. At the end of the conversation he said that he or someone else would come out to inspect the site of the fire. He used a strange expression: the site of the fire would be visually assessed. This would happen within a few days.

  He didn’t ask where I was living at the moment, nor did he comment on the fact that all my possessions had gone up in flames. I assumed his main responsibility was to ensure that the company didn’t pay out unnecessarily.

  ‘The insurance is valid,’ I said when we had ended the call. ‘Unless of course I’m charged and convicted of arson.’

  ‘What happens then?’

  ‘I’ll end up in prison. And the insurance company won’t pay for a new house.’

  The weather had gradually improved. After the blustery winds came clear skies and unexpected warmth. Once a day I went up the hill to look for the windsurfer, but the sea was empty. No boats, no black sails.

  When the migration of the birds is over, the archipelago is quiet. The sound of the waves and the sighing of the wind, nothing more.

  One evening I came across Louise looking very disheartened. She was sitting on the bench by the boathouse with her head in her hands. I had just come down the hill when I saw her. I watched her for a few moments but didn’t make my presence known. More and more we seemed to spend our time secretly watching one another. We were afraid. My fear stemmed from the fact that I felt as if I knew less and less about my pregnant daughter. And perhaps in me she saw what old age does to a person.

  It was ten o’clock in the morning on the first Tuesday in November when I heard the sound of an engine. The wind was coming from the south and the archipelago was quiet, so I heard the boat from a long way off. It wasn’t Jansson. I didn’t recognise the engine at all. I had never seen the boat that rounded the headland; it was a white plastic vessel with a powerful inboard motor, and it had the unusual name Drabant II. I wondered what kind of an idiot had given the boat a horse’s name.

  For once both Louise and I went down to the jetty to meet our visitor.

  It was a representative from the insurance company, but not Jonas Andersson. The man introduced himself as Torsten Myllgren. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five years old. I had always imagined that assessors would be experienced individuals who had checked out and dealt with many different types of insurance claim. Torsten Myllgren appeared to be an overgrown teenager.

  The person driving the boat was considerably older; with a limp and sweaty handshake. He introduced himself in a high-pitched voice as Hasse, if I heard him correctly. When I asked Louise, it transpired that she wasn’t too sure of his name either.

  We went up to the site of the fire. I was expecting Myllgren to inform me that he knew the police were investigating the possibility of arson, but he said nothing. He was wearing orange overalls, and I was pleased to see sturdy green Swedish wellingtons on his feet. I almost asked him where he had bought them. He was carrying a large notepad, and started jotting things down as soon as we reached the blackened ruins.

  Hasse lit a large cigar, standing in a spot that was sheltered from the wind by the caravan. I wondered if he was employed by the insurance company to ferry their representatives around the archipelago. The cigar smoke drifted up to Louise and me as we watched Myllgren stomping around. From time to time he stopped and took pictures with his phone. He also used a small Dictaphone to make verbal notes.

  ‘What’s he looking for?’ Louise said. ‘I mean, he can’t tell what the house used to be like.’

  ‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.’

  ‘I’m glad I don’t wake up next to a man like that every morning.’

  I was taken aback by her comment, but at the same time I realised she had given me an opportunity to ask the most important question of all.

  ‘Which man do you want to wake up next to?’

  ‘You’ll find out when you meet him.’

  Asking any more questions would be pointless.

  We carried on watching Myllgren.

  ‘What’s he searching for?’ Louise said.

  ‘The truth. If it exists.’

  Louise took my arm. She nodded in the direction of the hill and my grandfather’s bench. We had only just sat down when she started talking.

  ‘You remember I was in Amsterdam when we spoke on the phone a few weeks before the house burned down?’

  ‘Yes, I remember. It sounded as if you were in a cafe.’

  ‘What do you think I was doing in Amsterdam?’<
br />
  ‘I don’t even want to hazard a guess.’

  ‘I’ll tell you. I go there several times a year. As you know, the Rijksmuseum – the national gallery of the Netherlands, where a number of Rembrandt’s paintings are preserved – is there. I never tire of looking at his work. No one could fail to be moved by these masterpieces. If such people do exist, then they must be completely immune to art. However, I wasn’t actually there to see the pictures; I was there to help other people visit the gallery. There is a small group, mostly from Holland but also from other countries, who have set up an agreement with the Rijksmuseum. We collect money, we organise cars and ambulances. Our aim is very simple: we offer terminally ill individuals whose life expectancy is very short and who long to see Rembrandt’s paintings just once more the opportunity to make a final visit. Once every four months the gallery opens just for these people, who arrive on stretchers or in wheelchairs. They are lying down or half-sitting, often in severe pain because they have all temporarily eschewed any form of analgesic in order to have a clear head when they face Rembrandt. Most of them want to see his self-portraits, mainly the ones in which he is an old man. This meeting, face to face, makes the transition between life and death less painful. Perhaps you thought I was in Amsterdam because drugs are regarded differently in Holland, that I went there to smoke weed? That wasn’t the case. Now you know something about me that you didn’t know before.’

  The sound of a radio blared out from the boat; it was very loud but didn’t seem to disturb Myllgren.

  ‘What kind of music is that?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s called techno,’ Louise said. ‘But that probably doesn’t help you.’

  It was a beautiful autumn day with glorious colours, a clear sky and almost no wind. I thought about what Louise had told me.

  An hour passed, and now Louise had disappeared into the caravan. I paced back and forth by the site of the fire, as if I didn’t want to leave Myllgren alone to do his job. A herring gull with a limp was keeping watch on a rock nearby. I had seen it there before; I had thrown it scraps of food a few times.

  Myllgren closed his notepad, almost as if he were bringing down the clapperboard on a film set to mark the beginning of a new take. He tucked a plug of snuff under his top lip, tugged at his overall, which seemed to be chafing at his crotch, then headed in my direction. He stumbled over one of the foundation stones that was partially buried under the remains of the fire. As he went down I heard a bone in his leg crack. He yelled out in pain and dropped his notepad.

  He lay there like a wounded animal, clutching his left leg. You didn’t have to be a doctor to see that the leg was broken between the ankle and the knee.

  Louise had heard his scream and came running up from the caravan. Hasse, who was sitting in the boat, also realised that something had happened. We gathered around Myllgren, who was struggling to cope. If my house hadn’t burned down I would immediately have given him a pain-killing injection, but as it was I could offer him only tablets. He was very pale, and made me think of a soldier in a trench who has been shot and can feel the life seeping out of him.

  ‘You’ve broken your leg,’ I said. ‘You need to go to hospital.’

  ‘We’ll carry him down to the boat,’ Hasse said, who clearly didn’t grasp the severity of the situation.

  ‘The coastguard will have to come and pick him up,’ I said. ‘If we carry him without a stretcher, we could make things even worse.’

  I asked Louise to fetch a blanket.

  ‘You’ll have to move your boat,’ I said to Hasse. ‘Otherwise the coastguard won’t be able to get in.’

  He opened his mouth to protest, but I raised my hand and pointed to the jetty. He decided to cooperate. I called the coastguard, then crouched down next to Myllgren. He was so young, and I was impressed by his determination not to give in to the agonising pain.

  The coastguards arrived in less than half an hour. They put Myllgren on a stretcher and carried him down to their boat. Alexandersson was in charge; he was an experienced man who had carried many stretchers in his life.

  Hasse had moved his boat, which was drifting just off the jetty. When Myllgren was safely on board, Alexandersson turned to me.

  ‘I was buying paint yesterday,’ he said. ‘Maggan asked about you. She said your boots had arrived. She’s going to run the chandlery now that Nordin is gone – for a while anyway, until his brother takes over.’

  I knew that Nordin’s brother was a plumber. Perhaps he would make a good job of running the shop?

  Alexandersson stepped aboard, and the boat reversed out. Hasse followed in his white Drabant II once the coastguard had rounded the headland.

  ‘My wellington boots have arrived,’ I said to Louise, who was sitting on the bench.

  ‘In that case we can pick them up tomorrow. We need to do some food shopping anyway.’

  I heard Alexandersson turn the engine up to full throttle, the dull roar bouncing off the rocks of the islands and skerries.

  I felt sorry for Myllgren, but at the same time I was glad my wellington boots had arrived.

  CHAPTER 11

  The wellington boots didn’t fit.

  Nordin’s wife Margareta was considerably bigger than I remembered. She must be suffering from some kind of disease. No one can get that fat just through overeating. She could hardly make her way between the shelves and counters in the shop. When I walked in she was contemplating a display of landing nets. The bell above the door pinged; she turned around and knocked over a stand full of thick socks. The thought that I was looking at a large, clumsy animal that had somehow got into a very small shop made me want to laugh, but I managed to maintain my composure.

  I said hello, offered my condolences and said that I was pleased my wellingtons had arrived. I sat down on a stool while Margareta went to fetch them. I took off the odd wellingtons I had been wearing ever since the fire. She brought the new ones in an open box: green, shiny Tretorn wellington boots with pale yellow ridged soles. As usual I started with the left one. I couldn’t get it on. I tried the right one, but that was no use either. I checked the number stamped on the side; it was the wrong size.

  ‘They’re the wrong size,’ I informed Margareta, who was busy picking up socks. I wondered how she managed to bend down without falling head over heels.

  ‘I don’t know anything about that. It wasn’t me who sent the order.’

  ‘Did only one pair arrive? Didn’t he order more?’

  ‘Only this pair.’

  I put the wellingtons back in the box.

  ‘In that case we need to reorder,’ I said. ‘I’m a size forty-three, not forty-one. My feet aren’t that small.’

  She wrote down the numbers on the back of an envelope lying next to the till.

  ‘Perhaps you could ask them to process the order quickly,’ I said, getting up from the stool. ‘It took an awful long time for this pair to arrive, and they don’t fit me.’

  ‘I don’t know much about all this,’ Margareta complained.

  She seemed to think I was holding her personally responsible for what had happened.

  Through the window I saw Louise arrive on the quayside in my car. Margareta bent over the socks once more, and I found it very difficult to resist the urge to push her over. If I just poked her bottom with one finger, I was sure she would go. I pulled on my mismatched wellingtons and left the shop. I have found it easier to control my wicked impulses as the years have gone by.

  Louise drives erratically and much too fast. Even though I didn’t teach her to drive, she seems to be just as bad a driver as me. It’s not just the speed; we both fail to pay enough attention and get far too close to the middle of the road.

  I suddenly wondered if she actually had a licence. I’d never seen it.

  We travelled through the autumn forest. I asked her to be careful where the trees were at their thickest, because there were a lot of elk moving around. Just a few years ago a wealthy company owner who had a large summer home i
n the archipelago had died in a head-on collision with a bull elk. Louise showed no sign of slowing down or paying more attention; she didn’t even answer me.

  I rarely if ever know what my daughter is really thinking. Her inner world is hidden behind ramparts and barricades, all invisible but still impossible to breach. I am probably equally incomprehensible to her. What do my defences look like? Are they easier to get past?

  On the brow of a hill we met a truck that was far too big and wide for the road. Even though Louise swerved as far over to the verge as possible, we passed each other with just centimetres to spare. She seemed unmoved, while I was stamping hard on the non-existent brake pedal in front of me.

  ‘You drive too fast,’ I said angrily when I had regained my composure.

  ‘The truck was driving too fast.’

  I had expected her to snap at me, but her response was totally indifferent, as if nothing had happened.

  ‘Did you find your watch?’ she suddenly asked.

  I looked down at my left arm, as if my watch might have magically reappeared.

  ‘No. No watch.’

  ‘You must have dropped it when you were rowing.’

  ‘No, I know that for sure.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I just do.’

  ‘You don’t really need a watch. Life can’t be measured anyway.’

  ‘It’s time we measure. Not life.’

  She glanced at me but said nothing.

  As a doctor I had been forced to contemplate the fleeting nature of life every single day. Unlike priests, who droned on about the brevity of life as a reminder of the eternal life awaiting us beyond the here and now, a doctor saw what this brevity really meant. A stream of images always scrolled through my mind when I thought about how death came without warning. Not even seriously ill patients, usually very old, with no way out and where the end could reasonably be expected to come at any moment, were ready to die. They might claim they were ready when speaking to visiting relatives, but it was rarely true. When the relatives had left and the dying patient had cheerfully waved them off, they would be overcome by tears, terror and bottomless despair as soon as the door closed.