After the Fire

by Henning Mankell

  The day the first snow fell, I went into town to shop for groceries. As usual I parked outside Oslovski’s house; no one knew what was going to happen to the place because there was no will, no family.

  When I had locked the car I suddenly decided to walk up to the garage.

  The door had been forced. Whoever had broken in had done so with such violence that the lock had been ripped out of the wood.

  The DeSoto was gone. Someone must have driven up in a truck or recovery vehicle and towed it away. All the tools were exactly where they should be on the walls; only the car was gone.

  I immediately called the police and reported the break-in. As the situation wasn’t regarded as an emergency, the operator informed me that it would probably be more than two hours before a car was dispatched.

  I gave them my details because I had no intention of waiting around for that long.

  The break-in and the theft had upset me. This was an attack on Oslovski. A dead person is dead, but to steal the car that she had worked on for so many years, determined to restore it to its former glory, that was still an attack.

  I bought long johns, gloves, a woolly hat, a scarf and a thick winter coat. I made sure none of them had been made in China. Oddly enough, the hat was from Indonesia. Afterwards I went to the restaurant in the bowling alley for something to eat. I hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since I got back from Paris; I didn’t miss it at all.

  Before I went back to the harbour, I called in at the small electrical shop. It was owned by Johannes Rudin, a man with a hunchback. He had been there all those years ago when I had visited the shop with my grandfather to buy a new radio. According to Jansson, Johannes had recently turned eighty-five and had no intention of retiring.

  I had decided to get a TV for the caravan. Listening to the old transistor radio wasn’t enough; I wanted something to look at.

  Johannes listened with one hand cupped behind his ear as I explained about my caravan, then he pointed to the smallest flat-screen TV in the shop.

  ‘You’ll need an aerial,’ he said. ‘You can put it up yourself if you’re a bit of a handyman.’

  I paid and carried the TV and aerial to my car. When I had stowed everything away and straightened up, I saw a poster informing me that it was time to book a table at the bowling alley restaurant for Christmas and New Year.

  I decided to organise my own New Year party. In my caravan. I would invite Jansson and Lisa Modin. It would be cramped and hot and sweaty with the three of us, but a New Year celebration in a caravan was something different. About as far from an event in a restaurant as it was possible to get. I would ask Veronika to prepare the food, while I would provide the drinks.

  I drove back to the harbour. My decision was challenging, but I had good reason to say goodbye to a difficult year. At the same time I wanted to celebrate the fact that my daughter and I had deepened our relationship, and that hopefully a child would soon come into the world. Of course Louise, Ahmed and Muhammed would also be welcome if they wanted to make the journey from France to the archipelago. Then the caravan really would be crowded, but we could manage.

  To my surprise, Lisa said yes when I rang and invited her for New Year’s Eve. She said she was looking forward to the party. I asked what she was doing for Christmas, and she told me she was going to Crete. That made me feel jealous, but of course I didn’t say anything.

  Jansson offered to arrange a small fireworks display.

  Veronika came up with some suggestions for a simple menu, and we reached an agreement on the cost and all the practical details.

  Snow fell from time to time, but it soon melted away. Fear still drifted across the islands and their sparse population like a sea fret, but there were no more fires. Jansson kept me informed; the police didn’t seem to have any leads, and it looked as if their investigation had ground to a halt. I kept wondering who had burned down my house and why. Sometimes I thought there was something I had missed, something I ought to have realised, but I didn’t know what it was.

  No one seemed to have any idea what was going to happen to Oslovski’s house, but one day Jansson paid me an unexpected visit. He clambered up onto the jetty and we sat down on the bench. He had brought a magazine about vintage cars containing both articles and small ads. He turned to the advertising section, with pictures and prices.

  He pointed, and I immediately saw what he meant. Oslovski’s car was for sale, and the image had been taken inside her garage. The thieves had photographed the car before they moved it.

  Oslovski’s DeSoto Fireflite, manufactured in 1958.

  I could still remember her telling me that this particular model had had a short production run – only 4,192. One of the most unusual details was that the exhaust pipe actually came through the bumper. The advert stated that the bodywork was a mixture of Wedgwood Blue and Haze Blue. No price was given; there was a phone number for interested parties to call.

  ‘How did you find this?’ I asked. ‘I didn’t know you were into old American cars.’

  ‘My nephew called,’ Jansson said. ‘I’d told him about the break-in and the fact that the car had been stolen. He knows everything about vintage American cars, and he guessed this might be the one. He was right.’

  ‘You’ve got a nephew?’

  Jansson took out his phone and handed it to me instead of replying.

  ‘It’s best if you call. My voice starts trembling if I get nervous.’

  A woman answered.

  ‘It’s about the car,’ I said. ‘The DeSoto. I was wondering how much it was?’

  ‘A hundred and eighty-five thousand.’

  Her voice sounded muffled, as if she were speaking through a handkerchief.

  ‘Can you tell me something about the car? Background, previous owners, that kind of thing?’

  ‘You’ll have to talk to my brother about all that, but he’s not home at the moment.’

  ‘When will he be back?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Can I come and see the car? Where is it?’

  ‘You need to talk to my brother.’

  ‘Surely you can tell me where the car is?’

  She saw through me.

  ‘Try again in a few hours,’ she said dismissively and ended the call.

  Jansson had leaned closer to listen in to the conversation; it felt as if we were an old married couple, sitting there on the bench in winter chill.

  Two swans flew past. We watched them until they were out of sight.

  ‘Bastards,’ Jansson said. ‘Stealing a dead woman’s car.’

  We went up to the caravan for a cup of coffee, then we played cards. Jansson won every game.

  After an hour and a half, by which time we were both tired of playing, I rang the number again. No one answered. In a sudden burst of energy I called the magazine’s advertising desk and informed them that one of the cars on their ‘For Sale’ pages was stolen. The man I spoke to was very concerned and asked me to report it to the police.

  I did as he said. When the officer suggested that I report the matter via the police service website, I flared up, telling him I was sitting in a caravan on a remote island, with no internet access.

  I don’t think he really grasped my situation. He noted down the details with an air of indifference, as if he wanted to let me know from the start that this was going nowhere and that a prosecutor would immediately dismiss the possibility of an investigation.

  Oslovski was like a piece of human flotsam that had drifted onto our shores. Jansson had started a collection for a headstone, but it was difficult to get people to contribute. I think he ended up paying most of the eventual cost himself, but at least I was there when the stone was erected in the churchyard. Oslovski was placed between one of the archipelago’s last pilots, who happened to be a relative of Veronika from the cafe, and a landowner from Röda Furholmen who was notorious for his unpleasant behaviour when he’d been drinking. Occasionally some unknown person would lay flowers on her grave.


  —

  In the middle of December a storm swept in across the archipelago. It came from the Baltic to the south-west, and struck with full force in the middle of the night. The gusts of wind were so strong that the caravan shook. I went out into the sleety darkness with my torch, shoring up my home with tree stumps and plastic barrels filled with water. I had just finished and gone back inside when there was a power cut. I undressed and dried myself with a recently purchased towel made in Cambodia. I still had the LPG stove, and I made some coffee in spite of the fact that it was four o’clock in the morning. I had a candle on the table, its flame flickering in the draught.

  My telephone rang. I immediately assumed it was Jansson, wanting to know if my electricity had gone too, but instead it was a man speaking English with an accent. I couldn’t work out who it was and thought it must be a wrong number. Then I realised it was Ahmed.

  ‘I am at the hospital. Louise is having the baby.’

  The child was coming, much too soon. I could hear the anxiety in Ahmed’s voice, but he told me there was no need to worry. Louise had asked him to call me; he promised to let me know as soon as the child was born.

  I didn’t get any more sleep that night. The child was so premature that it would have to be placed in an incubator. The storm and the hurricane-force gusts outside the caravan felt like an ominous backdrop as I awaited the birth of my first and perhaps only grandchild.

  I thought about Harriet. Once again I pictured her making her way across the ice with her wheeled walker. I found it difficult to remember what she had looked like on that occasion, but in my mind’s eye I could picture her as a young woman, back in the days of our messy relationship. I experienced an intense sense of loss. Or perhaps it was longing. Which isn’t quite the same thing.

  One night she and I and Louise had slept together in the caravan before it was moved to this spot. Now Harriet was gone, and Louise was lying in a hospital bed in Paris, giving birth to her child.

  The candle flickered again, and memories passed through my mind like uneasy shadows. My father was there, my mother, my grandparents – and various women with whom I had had relationships or whom I had never managed to conquer. I was there too, among the shadows. Perhaps I was the one slinking along close to the walls of the caravan, making sure the light never fell on my face?

  At ten to six the phone rang again. It was Ahmed: Louise had had a girl. The baby didn’t weigh much, but everything had gone well. She was in an incubator, as I had expected.

  Ahmed said the baby looked like me.

  That wasn’t true, of course. Newborn babies, especially if they are premature, don’t look like anybody except themselves. They are unfinished sketches that will develop in an unknown direction.

  I went out into the darkness and the wind. Still no power. I used the torch to light my way, dizzy with joy. I hadn’t expected to have such strong feelings. I went into the boathouse, with the wind howling and whistling through the gaps. I sat down on one of my grandfather’s old eel traps, which he had used right up until the last year of his life. By now the net was so fragile with age that it tore if I pushed two fingers into one of the holes and spread them apart.

  I felt a tremendous urge to tell someone what had happened, but who could I call? Jansson or Lisa Modin. Perhaps Veronika or Oslovski? But Oslovski was dead, and I had never had her phone number anyway.

  I tried Lisa, hoping I would wake her. Which I did.

  ‘You,’ she said. ‘At this hour – what time is it?’

  ‘Half past six. I’ve just become a grandfather.’

  ‘Congratulations. Is it a boy or a girl?’

  ‘A girl.’

  ‘Did everything go well?’

  ‘I believe so, but the baby is premature. That always carries risks.’

  ‘Will they put her in an incubator?’

  ‘They already have. I must confess I’m lost for words.’

  ‘And you chose to call me? That’s nice.’

  ‘I don’t have anyone else to call.’

  ‘I’m sure you do.’

  ‘Perhaps we could have a drink, wet the baby’s head?’

  ‘Not at half past six in the morning.’

  ‘At the weekend?’

  ‘Maybe. Ring me in a couple of days.’

  ‘You ring me.’

  She promised to get in touch, and I immediately began to look forward to seeing her again. It was a long time since the trip to Paris.

  I called Jansson.

  ‘I’ve got no power,’ he said. ‘If that’s what you wanted to know.’

  ‘Louise has had her baby. A little girl.’

  There was a pause, then he said, ‘Isn’t that a bit early?’

  ‘Yes, but everything’s fine. I hope.’

  ‘In that case allow me to congratulate you on behalf of the entire archipelago.’

  Sometimes Jansson expresses himself in the most peculiar way. His words can border on pomposity, but right now it felt as if he really meant it: he was representing the collective joy of the islanders. He had made me a part of the ever-dwindling population of the archipelago. I was no longer an outsider.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  Then we talked about the storm. Jansson had contacted the electricity company, and they hoped to have the power back on by nine. Apparently a substation where the cable left the mainland had been damaged. In addition, the wind had brought down a large number of trees.

  When the conversation was over, I went back to the caravan, lay down and waited for the dawn. As the grey light filtered in, I went outside again. Up on the hill, not far from my grandfather’s bench, an oak tree had come down, the roots sticking up like a giant mushroom that had been kicked to pieces. I walked all the way around the island and was able to ascertain that the fallen oak was the only casualty. All the other trees had survived. The topsoil might not be very deep out here, but the trees are tough, clinging on with their claw-like roots.

  I fetched my handsaw and cut a slice from the trunk of the oak. It seemed to take forever; I was dripping with sweat by the time I finished. I went down to the jetty for a dip, then dried myself off in the caravan. I took my magnifying glass to the boathouse, sat down and counted the rings. To my surprise, the tree was older than I could have imagined. After checking again to make sure, I concluded that the first ring dated from 1847. The following year, when the oak was no more than a sapling, the European revolutions took place. I worked my way outwards, as if I were on the edge of eternity. I placed my finger on the line separating 1899 and 1900. A war begins in 1914, another in 1939. I was born in 1944, the year before the war ended. And now the tree had fallen in a December storm, all those years after it began to grow.

  I left the slice of wood in the boathouse, went outside and sat down on the bench, which was sheltered from the wind. The waves were still choppy, and there was the odd squally shower from time to time.

  The power had been restored, just as the company had promised Jansson. All the lights came on at five past nine in the morning, and late in the afternoon I noticed that the wind had started to die down, although far out at sea the waves were pounding the reefs on the surface. Once again I walked around the island.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Louise and my granddaughter. Ahmed rang again in the evening and told me that all was well with Louise and the baby. Of course he didn’t mention what both he and I knew: that there were many hurdles to overcome for a child born so prematurely.

  ‘Have you chosen a name?’ I asked for the want of anything else to say.

  ‘Not yet.’

  I heard him laugh. I still couldn’t understand what Louise saw in him, but his laugh gave me a clue.

  That evening I sat down to plan my New Year’s Eve party. I noted down the food I had discussed with Veronika and made a list of the beer, wine and spirits I would buy. All the time I could picture that tiny baby in her incubator.

  When the storm had passed, I went over to the mainland and
talked through the whole thing with Veronika. She didn’t think I needed to buy crockery; she could lend me whatever was necessary from the cafe. She would also bring chairs because there was only one chair and a stool in the caravan.

  ‘Tablecloths?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  She jotted everything down on the back of a receipt book.

  Then we talked about Oslovski. The story of the stolen car, Jansson and the magazine, and my peculiar conversation with the woman on the phone, whose brother was apparently selling the car, was the talk of the town. Veronika knew all about it.

  ‘They must be local,’ she said. ‘Someone who knew what she had in the garage.’

  ‘Do people suspect anyone in particular?’

  ‘No.’

  I wasn’t sure if I believed her. The answer had come much too quickly. Perhaps she had someone in mind, but I let it drop. I was convinced that the DeSoto would never be recovered.

  We spoke about the precarious financial situation of the cafe, and Veronika confided in me that she had started to think about moving.

  ‘To a different cafe?’

  ‘To a different country. I might open a cafe, I might not.’

  ‘You’d be missed.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not.’

  The bell over the door pinged and a dozen or so people came in.

  ‘The local council,’ Veronika whispered. ‘They’re going out into the archipelago to plan where to put the new toilets. Can you believe it takes that many civil servants to make a decision?’

  Before I picked up the car, I went to the chandlery. Needless to say, my wellingtons hadn’t arrived.

  I drove into town and did my shopping for the party. I loaded the five bags I filled into the car before going to the bank and the pharmacy to stock up on cash and medication. I stopped outside the shoe shop. It was closed, the window empty.

  Every now and again I have a little flutter on the horses. I know nothing about harness racing and I’m too idle to study the form before I place a bet, but on one occasion, twenty years ago, I was almost horrified to find that I had won no less than ninety-six thousand kronor – 96,322 kronor, to be exact. I will never forget that moment.