After the Fire

by Henning Mankell

  But of course there was nothing we could do. The whole place was already in flames by the time we arrived. At about five o’clock in the morning the roof began to collapse, the hot tiles shattering as they hit the ground. The windows burst, oxygen poured in and gave new strength to the conflagration. The heat was so intense that everyone had to move back.

  I stood beside Alexandersson, sooty sweat pouring down his face.

  ‘Another one,’ he said. ‘Who’s burning down our property out here on the islands? What have we done to deserve this?’

  ‘Is it the same as my place?’ I asked. ‘A fire that starts everywhere and nowhere?’

  ‘We don’t know yet, but I’m sure the answer is yes. Same method, same lunatic.’

  He shook his head then spat out something black and unpleasant, possibly a plug of snuff, and went back to his pumps and hoses.

  Lisa was sitting on a rusty old kick sled next to a barbecue covered with a torn boat tarpaulin. The glow of the flames lit up her sweaty face. From Paris to a blaze in the middle of the night on one of our islands, I thought. We had almost spent an entire peaceful night together, until Jansson’s phone call shattered the intimacy.

  Where was Jansson? At first I couldn’t see him, then I spotted him lurking in the shadows, where the glow didn’t reach his face. There was something strange about his body language. I moved closer; his eyes were fixed on the house and he still hadn’t noticed me. Now I realised what was odd about his posture. His hands were clasped in front of him, as if he were saying a silent prayer, but was it directed to himself or to some fire god whose name I didn’t know? His body was as rigid as if he were a wooden sculpture or a scarecrow.

  He saw me just as I thought about the scarecrow. He immediately pulled his hands apart, as if I had caught him doing something embarrassing. I knew that embarrassment was the thing Jansson feared most of all; dropping a letter in the sea, letting the wind rip a pension payment slip out of his hand and watching it dance away across the water. Perhaps that was why he rarely sang, because he was afraid that one day a false note would come out of his mouth?

  I went and stood beside him. He stank of sweat and booze, his best party shirt blackened with soot.

  ‘At least no one was at home,’ I said. ‘No one died.’

  ‘It’s still a terrible thing.’

  ‘You mean the fact that it’s another arson attack?’

  Jansson gave a start, as if I had said something unexpected.

  ‘What else would it be?’

  ‘But who the hell is creeping around out here in the early hours of New Year’s Day?’

  We didn’t say any more. I watched the people slowly moving around the fire and wondered if Jansson was thinking the same as me: that it could well be one of them who had started it.

  I glanced at Jansson, but his expression gave nothing away.

  It was seven o’clock by the time Lisa and I left. The house would carry on burning for several hours, but there was nothing anyone could do. Alexandersson had managed to contact the owners, who were staying in a hotel in Marseilles. Before we left he told me that fru Valfridsson had screamed so loudly that he thought his eardrum might burst.

  I knew the lady in question; she was about my age and very thin. She had once come over to my island in a little motorboat to ask if I would look down her throat; she thought she had developed a tumour. I sat her down on the bench outside the boathouse, pushed down her tongue and checked her throat. There was no tumour. When I told her I couldn’t find anything, she burst into tears. I was completely taken aback. With some patients it’s obvious that they are going to have a strong reaction, whether the news is good or bad, but I was unprepared for Hanna Valfridsson’s tears.

  And now she was screaming in despair in a luxury hotel in Marseilles.

  Before I started the engine I had asked Lisa where she wanted to go, and now we were heading for the harbour in the darkness. It occurred to me that I had far too much alcohol in my blood to drive my car, but then again I couldn’t imagine there would be too many police officers hanging around this early on New Year’s Day, hoping to catch someone in the middle of nowhere driving under the influence.

  Oslovski’s house was still locked up and deserted, but I stood for a moment looking at the window to the left of the front door. I wasn’t sure, but I thought the curtain, which was closed, looked slightly different. I couldn’t work out exactly what had attracted my attention; perhaps it was my imagination, or perhaps I was hoping that someone had been inside, that the place hadn’t been abandoned.

  Lisa asked what I was staring at.

  ‘The curtain,’ I said. ‘But to be honest, I’m not sure. I thought maybe there was someone standing there watching us.’

  ‘The fire was quite enough,’ Lisa replied. ‘No more ghostly goings-on, thank you.’

  We drove into town in silence, through the morning mist that sometimes concealed the forest by the roadside. Lisa switched on the radio to listen to the news.

  There had been riots in the Paris suburbs. A firefighter had been badly injured when he was struck on the head by a rock.

  A major jewel heist had been discovered this morning in Moscow, involving one of the biggest jewellers in Russia.

  Someone had died because of a drug called Spice.

  A snowstorm was slowly moving in from the east, but they weren’t sure how far south the snow would reach.

  Lisa turned off the radio and asked me to stop. I pulled over on a logging track and she got out. When I realised she wasn’t going for a pee, I undid my seatbelt and followed her. There wasn’t a breath of wind. She had walked a few metres and was almost out of sight. A little further and she would disappear completely. That frightened me; I didn’t want her to cease to exist, to vanish without a trace among the tall pine trees.

  ‘It feels as if I’m part of a different story,’ she said.

  She spoke quietly, as if she didn’t want to disturb the silence all around her. As I stood watching her I thought she was like an animal, a deer perhaps, alert to the possibility of attack at any moment.

  ‘Different from what?’ I asked.

  She didn’t turn around.

  ‘The one I’m usually in. Sometimes I detest all those meaningless articles I write for the paper, words that are dead the moment someone reads them. People delouse a newspaper, picking off the words in the same way they pick lice off their bodies.’

  I didn’t really understand what she was saying, but there was no doubt that she meant it.

  ‘I want to write something else,’ she went on. ‘Not books, I’m not good enough for that. I would be consumed with envy whenever I thought about those authors who really know how to choose their words, to create an unforgettable piece of work. Maybe I want to draw maps of places where no one has ever set foot? In the old days they used to let the cows wander free so that they would find the shortest and best route home. Let me go and I will find the forgotten pathways.’

  We stood in silence in the forest for a little while. This was my seventieth New Year’s Day. The thought of how few I had left was a frightening one. I shuddered, and Lisa turned to face me. She was smiling.

  ‘Coffee,’ she said. ‘I’m going to write a detailed account of last night’s fire.’

  Everything was quiet in her apartment block. As if to protest at the unwelcoming silence, she stomped noisily up the concrete stairs. A dog started barking, but stopped when a man yelled at it. I followed one step behind and reached out my hand, but I didn’t touch her.

  She made coffee while I sat on the sofa where I had once tried to sleep.

  We drank our coffee at the kitchen table, ate a couple of sandwiches, didn’t say much.

  ‘I ought to get some sleep,’ she said as she cleared the table. ‘Otherwise I’ll think it was all a dream.’

  ‘I can assure you that house really did burn down.’

  Lisa leaned against the draining board and looked at me.

  ‘What’s going
on out there on your islands? Houses going up in flames in the small hours. I’d never experienced the roar of a fire until last night.’

  ‘It was arson,’ I said. ‘There’s no proof yet, but everyone knows. Someone who helped to put out the fire probably started it.’

  ‘It shouldn’t be impossible to find out who’s responsible,’ she said almost crossly. ‘There aren’t very many of you. There are comparatively few inhabited islands.’

  ‘No one profited from burning down my house. Who has anything to gain from destroying the Valfridssons’ property? Or from seeing the widow Westerfeldt’s pretty home collapse in ruins? It seems like total insanity to me.’

  ‘Could it be revenge?’

  ‘We all have our differences; envy can eat away at someone over the years. But surely no one would go so far as to risk people being burned alive!’

  ‘The desire for revenge can send you crazy.’

  ‘We’re too simple for that kind of thing out here on the islands.’

  ‘You don’t come from the islands.’

  I looked at Lisa in surprise.

  ‘I don’t, but my family does. I also have a profession which the local residents approve of; I’m a doctor, I’m regarded as useful. I have a kind of honorary status as an islander. I probably don’t really “belong” in the archipelago; I don’t have a stamp on my soul. But I’m accepted.’

  We didn’t say any more. I could tell from her expression that she didn’t agree with me, but it wasn’t worth pursuing the matter.

  As if it were the most self-evident thing in the world, we went and lay down on her big bed. I listened to her steady breathing as it grew deeper. At first I saw the flames dancing, then I fell asleep.

  It was ten thirty when I woke up. My head felt heavy, my mouth was dry. I could hear the muted sound of the radio from the kitchen, the clink of coffee cups. I coughed, and a chair scraped. Lisa appeared in the doorway in her dark blue dressing gown with a glass of water in her hand.

  ‘If you feel the way I do you’ll want a glass of water,’ she said.

  I drained the glass as she watched.

  ‘Painkillers?’ I said.

  She came back with the same glass, this time full of a sparkling analgesic solution.

  I drank it down and leaned back against the pillows.

  ‘How’s it going with your article?’ I asked.

  ‘I haven’t started it yet. But soon.’

  ‘Are you going to write about the voluntary firefighter who’s sleeping in your bed?’

  ‘I don’t think anyone would be interested in that.’

  My phone rang; it was Kolbjörn, the electrician. He didn’t ask where I was, he simply wished me a Happy New Year then got to the point. He’s not a man who converses unnecessarily.

  Apparently a small group of those who had helped out last night had come to a decision and were ringing round other residents of the archipelago. Kolbjörn had been asked to contact me.

  I could tell from his gravelly voice that he was hungover. Or perhaps he was still drunk. There were rumours that he was something of a binge drinker, but no actual proof. He had never given the impression that he had been drinking when he worked for me, nor in my grandparents’ day when he was a young electrician serving his apprenticeship with a man called Ruben. That was before he joined the merchant navy.

  ‘We’re going to have a meeting in the local history association centre,’ he explained. ‘We’ve decided to wait until Twelfth Night. Two o’clock in the afternoon. We want as many people as possible to be there; we’re going to talk about these arson attacks and what we can do.’

  ‘To stop them?’

  ‘To catch whoever’s responsible. Then they’ll stop.’

  ‘Any suspects?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ I said. ‘Two o’clock.’

  Lisa had left the bedroom while I was on the phone; the door of her study was ajar.

  She was sitting at her desk, writing. Her dressing gown had ridden up her thighs. I realised that my need for sex was not a spring that had dried up for the rest of my life. That definitely wasn’t true.

  However, I didn’t want her to see me peeping through the door. I moved away, made a noise with my glass and sat down at the table.

  She emerged with the notepad in her hand.

  ‘I’m writing about the fire, but I’m saying that I ended up there because I was at a New Year’s party on one of the islands. I’m not mentioning any names.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you at least mention Jansson’s name? The former postman who was at the party? If nothing else, it would please him greatly if he appeared in the local paper. His first name is Ture.’

  Suddenly I realised she wasn’t listening. She looked anxious, but her voice was firm when she spoke.

  ‘I’m used to being alone. Right now I need to be alone. And I need to write.’

  ‘You won’t even notice I’m here. I’ve perfected the art of being quiet.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean. I need to close everything down around me.’

  I sat down on the chair in the hallway to tie my shoes. Lisa stood in the kitchen doorway, still holding the notepad. When I got up and attempted to give her a hug, she moved away.

  ‘Not now,’ she said. ‘I’m not being unkind, that’s just the way it is.’

  I drove to the harbour. In a field next to the long inlet I saw a skier making his way over the thin covering of snow. A dog was racing along in front of him, as if tracking some unknown quarry.

  I parked the car in its usual place. A biting wind was blowing in off the sea. I couldn’t resist the temptation to go and take a look at Oslovski’s garage, but it was all locked up. Through the dirty window I could see the emptiness left behind after the theft of her DeSoto Fireflite. I had a lump in my throat; I missed the person called Oslovski, the person I had hardly known but who had been close to me. Her glass eye had seen me more clearly than others’ eyes. Perhaps I was actually experiencing grief at her loss?

  I walked down to the harbour, which was deserted on this New Year’s morning. As I set off for home, the black sea seemed to be feeling the cold just as much as I was.

  —

  It snowed during the night of 5 January. When I reached the local history association centre, which was situated in an inlet below the church, I could see footprints leading up from the jetty. I squeezed my boat in between an old wooden craft from Krutholmen and Holmén the pilot’s Pettersson boat from 1942. It looked as if a lot of people had turned up. The tracks in the snow made me think of a flock of crows that had wandered around for a long time before flying away.

  The aroma of coffee and a welcoming fire greeted me as I walked into the spacious room. Kolbjörn Eriksson nodded, then came over and shook hands. His own hand was as big as a bear’s paw.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ he said.

  ‘It’s good to see so many people here.’

  ‘Do you want to say something?’

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘Well, your house was the first to burn down.’

  I shook my head; I had nothing to say. In the coffee queue I exchanged a few words with people I rarely saw. My ability to remember names has declined dramatically over the years; sometimes I think that much-feared gateway is slowly opening for me. One day I will walk through into the land where memory has been swallowed up by forgetfulness.

  I had just got my cup of coffee when Louise called. She knew about the fire, but I hadn’t mentioned the meeting. I quickly explained where I was and promised to call her back later. She said that Agnes would soon be out of her incubator, which made me feel both happy and relieved.

  I had counted fifty-six people when Wiman, a retired priest who lived on Almö, clapped his hands and asked for silence. Personally I had never heard him preach, but many people had told me that he divided his parishioners. For some incomprehensible reason, a number of those living out on the islands were annoyed because he never stressed the
constant presence of hell and the devil during his sermons. Those who lived on the mainland, however, thought he was an excellent priest who never brought up the darkness of evil unnecessarily when he was standing in the pulpit.

  Wiman welcomed everyone, blew his nose, wished us a Happy New Year and blew his nose again. Then he raised his voice with practised ease and bellowed that there must be no more of this insanity, no more setting fire to houses out on the islands. We must all learn to keep a closer eye on our neighbours’ property and take note of any unfamiliar vessels in our waters. We must take responsibility for our brothers and sisters. There was no need for any formal organisation; however, Kolbjörn Eriksson, Ture Jansson and Wiman himself were joining together as a committee. One of them would always be available if anything happened, if anyone had suspicions or was worried.

  He opened the discussion to the floor to be met by silence – no one was used to a priest letting others speak. Again he encouraged everyone to ask questions or to comment. Eventually an old fisherman called Alabaster Wernlund from Torpholmen, one of the smallest fishing communities in the archipelago, got to his feet, making an enormous amount of noise with his chair. Everyone knew that he was hard of hearing, that he had a volatile temper and that he not infrequently called the coastguard when he got it into his head that large-scale smuggling was going on around his island. He might be eccentric, but everyone also knew that he had a sharp mind and couldn’t be bamboozled by fancy talk.

  He was wearing a red woolly hat and the kind of orange hi-vis jacket you usually see on construction workers.

  ‘What are we going to do if it turns out that this pyromaniac is here in this room? Surely that’s just as likely as the idea that he’s coming over from Denmark?’

  Pontus Urmark immediately stood up. He was a skinny carpenter from the far end of the small islands in Kattskärsvarpen. He might have less sense than Wernlund, but he had just as much of a temper.

  ‘Why the hell would an arsonist come from Denmark?’ he said. ‘Haven’t they got their own islands?’

  ‘Belgium, then, if you prefer that!’ Wernlund yelled.

  Wiman tried to intervene, but it was already too late. The two men were standing at opposite ends of the hot room, sweat pouring down their faces like two actors fighting over the right to a riposte on stage. Urmark, whose profile resembled that of Karl XII, had the loudest voice, but Wernlund was a worthy opponent; he knew exactly when to make his poisonous remarks.