After the Fire

by Henning Mankell

  That night I dreamed of caves. I was wandering around in a darkness that became so heavy I could hardly breathe. At that point I woke up. There were mice scampering around on the roof of the caravan. I listened for the wind, but all was calm.

  For a brief moment I thought I might never wake up if I went back to sleep. Death was suddenly very close.

  But I did fall asleep, right in the middle of that thought, surrounded by mice seeking shelter from the cold.

  —

  The following day I called the insurance company. I had expected a long-drawn-out infuriating duel between myself and uncooperative bureaucrats, but once I got through to Jonas Andersson, everything was very straightforward. A little too straightforward, perhaps. Were there invisible pitfalls ahead, to be revealed only gradually? However, I chose to believe what Andersson said. The new house would be built, starting in the spring. If necessary he could send me a list of suitable building firms in the area, recommended by the insurance company.

  After lunch I had just decided to call Kolbjörn when I heard Jansson’s boat approaching. I went down to the jetty to meet him. Sometimes I thought I could tell from the sound of the engine what mood Jansson was in and what he wanted from me. It was all in my mind, of course, but the idea amused me.

  He moored by the jetty but didn’t switch off the engine, which meant he was intending to stay for only a short time. There was therefore no danger that he would ask me to examine him because of some new imaginary ailment.

  He climbed onto the jetty; we shook hands and then he reached inside his thick jacket and handed me a letter.

  ‘You’ve retired,’ I said. ‘You don’t deliver the post any more.’

  ‘Wiman asked me to bring you this.’

  I took the envelope, which wasn’t sealed. It contained old black and white photographs of my grandparents’ house. I merely glanced inside; I didn’t want to reveal the contents to Jansson. However, as I slipped the envelope into my pocket I realised he knew exactly what was in there; he had already opened it, of course. I felt an almost irresistible urge to push him into the cold water. Perhaps he noticed something because he took a step back. I smiled.

  ‘Could you tell your successor that from now on I would like my post delivered again, please?’

  ‘You’ve changed your mind?’

  ‘Yes, just now. Thank you for bringing the photographs.’

  ‘What photographs?’

  I thought I ought to come straight out with it, put into words what everyone in the archipelago knew: that during his long years as a postman Jansson had read final demands, letters of condolence, threatening letters, friendly letters, letters that didn’t say much at all. He had read the lot. And now he stood here pretending he didn’t know what was in the envelope from Wiman.

  ‘I’d like you to leave now,’ I said in a pleasant tone of voice. ‘I have a lot to do today. Can I pay you for the delivery?’

  He shook his head and clambered down into the boat, but remained standing with one hand on the bollard.

  ‘Could it have been Oslovski?’ he asked.

  I didn’t understand the question.

  ‘Who burned down the houses.’

  ‘Why the hell would she have done that?’

  ‘Nobody knew anything about her. She was a foreigner. God knows what a person with one eye is capable of.’

  I was astounded by his grotesque logic. What could the fact that Oslovski had one eye possibly have to do with the arson attacks? I usually let Jansson’s stupid comments go, like water off a duck’s back, but not this time.

  ‘Of all the possible pyromaniacs, Oslovski is the least likely. Besides which she’s dead.’

  Jansson was offended. He let go of the bollard and cast off the mooring rope. For once we didn’t wave to one another as he reversed away from the jetty.

  I went back to the site of the fire. A couple of crows pecking among the sooty ruins rose into the air and flapped away. I would bury Giaconelli’s buckle when the foundations were tidied up, ready for the new house; it would be a token, a memorial to the house that had once stood there – but also a memorial to the man who had been a master shoemaker.

  I happened to be listening to the radio once when a world-famous soprano who had appeared on stage in the biggest theatres all over the world was being interviewed. She was asked what the most important thing was for an opera singer.

  ‘Good shoes,’ she had replied without hesitation.

  I understood what she meant. Good shoes in which to walk, stand and work are every bit as important for a fisherman as for a surgeon.

  Right now I longed for the wellington boots I had ordered months ago, which still hadn’t arrived.

  I took out my phone and called the chandlery. Eventually fru Nordin answered; I wondered if I had woken her. Perhaps she had made herself a bed in the storeroom for the time of year when customers were few and the bell over the door rarely pinged? I suspected she was one of those people in the archipelago who went into hibernation when winter began to press down on the earth.

  My wellington boots still hadn’t arrived.

  I sat down at the table in the caravan with Wiman’s photographs spread out in front of me. The oldest was from around 1900. The porch hadn’t yet been built. My grandfather was standing by the front door with my grandmother on a stool next to him. They were still young. My grandfather had a moustache; the bushy beard was still far in the future. On the back of the picture was a note stating that it was probably taken by Robert Sjögren, who travelled around the islands at the turn of the century.

  I went through the pictures one by one. Most were taken from the front; the back of the house didn’t appear anywhere.

  In one of the photographs, dated ‘Summer 1946’ by an unknown hand, the white garden furniture had appeared. The porch had been added over twenty years earlier. My grandparents were sitting on the ribbed wooden chairs with cups of coffee and a plate of biscuits. In the half-shadows, as if he were slightly shy of the unknown photographer, sat a man named on the back as Adolf Sundberg.

  I suddenly remembered him; he came walking towards me as a distant memory, growing clearer as he got closer. Adolf Sundberg lived to the age of a hundred and four. He was born in 1899, and even as a young man he had said that he intended to live during three centuries. Which he did – he passed away in 2003.

  He often visited my grandparents. He was a good raconteur, so I would often hang around as he sat on one of those white chairs drinking coffee.

  He once told a story about his family that my grandparents discussed for ages afterwards. Was it true or not? I can’t have been more than ten years old at the time, but that was when I really understood the huge, almost immeasurable distance between a lie and the truth, between a tall tale and an account of something that had actually happened, something no one need ever doubt.

  Adolf Sundberg had arrived in the archipelago as a stranger. His family originated inland, in the town of Alingsås far away in Västergötland, on the plains stretching down towards the sea. He had served on board two-masted wooden ships carrying cargo around the inner archipelago, but after a quarrel with a captain about a broken compass, he had signed on with Blåsut, which was lying idle in Västervik, before it set sail again, travelling between Gävle and Copenhagen. After a few years he came ashore, married a girl from Kalmar and took over the farm her uncle had owned. That was how Adolf Sundberg from Västergötland came to the islands. At a haymaking party where a great deal of schnapps had been consumed he told the story that was a discussion topic for ever afterwards, when people met and wondered how reliable Adolf Sundberg actually was.

  In Alingsås, he said, his grandparents had owned a pharmacy. One of the most popular products back in the 1840s was leeches. His grandfather had come up with the brilliant idea of breeding leeches in an old fish pond in the municipal park, instead of the ornamental carp that had once occupied the muddy, evil-smelling water. Every time the supply of leeches dropped and the glass j
ars in which they were kept began to look empty, Adolf’s grandmother knew what was coming. There was no point in protesting, even though she found the whole process utterly humiliating. They would set off from home at first light, Grandfather carrying a long pole and Grandmother dressed in a simple shift, which she concealed beneath a capacious coat. She probably put up a bit of a fight when they reached the pond, but to no avail. She stripped naked; her body was fat and shapeless. She waded out into the pond until the water covered her breasts. Grandfather held out the pole so that she would have something to grab; if she fell over she would drown, because she couldn’t swim and Grandfather would never be able to drag her out. Then she stood there as the eager leeches sank their teeth into her ample body. When she had had enough, she made her way back to dry land with the black leeches firmly attached, mainly to her backside. When Grandfather sprinkled salt on them they let go and dropped into the glass jars.

  This exercise was repeated at regular intervals. After a while everyone in Alingsås knew about the strange pantomime played out early in the mornings during the warmer months. Curious onlookers hid behind bushes and in the undergrowth, gleefully watching as the naked matron ploughed through the water before complaining as the leeches fastened themselves to her flesh.

  This was Adolf Sundberg’s story. Everyone believed it deep down but felt obliged to express their doubts with regard to its veracity. You couldn’t just send a naked old woman into a fish pond, using her body as bait to catch leeches. It wasn’t possible. Admittedly some men mistreated their wives, but this was beyond the bounds of decency.

  I spent a long time gazing at the picture of Adolf Sundberg with his cup of coffee. From far away I heard the voices coming back to me: my grandfather’s slow, almost hesitant way of formulating a sentence, my grandmother, who didn’t say much but spoke with the utmost precision, using beautiful similes taken from a seemingly inexhaustible store. And then Adolf Sundberg, with his domed hat, his bushy beard and his shiny waistcoat; over the years the stains and grease marks had combined to form a patina that was never washed away.

  They would always sit there on those white chairs, even though they were all dead and the chairs had been lost in the devastation of the fire.

  The last black and white photograph had been taken on my grandfather’s seventy-fifth birthday, 19 June 1957. The photographer, Tage Palmblad, had gathered a large group of people around the porch and the garden furniture, with my grandfather right at the front, my grandmother by his side. When I studied the picture more closely I discovered to my surprise that I was there too, squeezed in between two of my grandmother’s cousins, who were considerably more interested in how they appeared than in giving me enough room.

  I was thirteen years old when that picture was taken: my hair bleached chalk-white by the sun, short trousers, a striped top, sandals, skinny body, unsure of myself in front of all those people.

  I thought I would invite everyone I had got to know in the archipelago to a house-warming party when my new home had risen from the ruins. I would sit right at the front, with Louise and her family beside me.

  I called Wiman to thank him for his speedy response to my request.

  ‘There might be more pictures,’ he said. ‘But as I explained, the archive is in a real mess, and I haven’t had time to sort it out yet.’

  ‘These are fine – more than enough for those who are going to build my new house.’

  ‘Did you know that the Österströms’ place on Skarsholmen was built at the same time?’ Wiman said. ‘If I’ve understood correctly, they used the same builder.’

  So whoever I chose could use the Österströms’ house as a detailed model.

  ‘It hadn’t occurred to me, but of course that’s very important because there are no drawings. In the old days the master builders and their clients were their own architects.’

  After the conversation with Wiman I went up to my grandfather’s bench with my binoculars so that I could check on my tent, but there wasn’t a soul in sight.

  Twilight was beginning to fall. I shivered. I had almost reached the caravan when I heard my phone ringing on the table. I stumbled on a root and banged my chin on the edge of the caravan. When I reached up to check the damage, my hand came away covered in blood. I staggered inside and grabbed my phone as it stopped ringing. I wiped my bloody face with a tea towel; I could feel with the tip of my tongue that I had lost a tooth from my lower jaw. I picked up the torch and went back outside to see if I could find it in the grass.

  I couldn’t find the tooth. Had I swallowed it without noticing? I went back inside, put some ice cubes in a plastic bag and held it against my lips. It took a long time for the bleeding to stop. I looked at my mouth in the shaving mirror; the tooth had broken off cleanly, and the root was lost in congealed blood. When I pressed the gum with my finger, I felt a sharp, stabbing pain. I would have to go and see the dentist tomorrow; it was too late now. I could probably find an emergency dentist in town, but I didn’t want to set off at this hour.

  I took some strong painkillers then checked to see who had called. It was Louise. I rang her back, but the number was busy. I tried again; still busy. I lay down on the bed clutching my mobile. The thought of having to spend time going to the dentist annoyed me. Or perhaps I was just tired. Growing older meant losing a little bit of energy every single day. And one day it would be completely gone.

  I dropped off to sleep, only to be woken by Louise on the phone. I didn’t ask how she was, or Agnes, or the family; I simply launched into an account of my bleeding mouth and my broken tooth. However, she interrupted me.

  ‘Agnes is sick.’

  Her voice was almost breaking. I sat up straight and clamped my jaws together, which was a painful mistake.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘They don’t know.’

  ‘What are her symptoms?’

  ‘She screams all the time. She’s in pain.’

  ‘In her tummy?’

  ‘Her head.’

  ‘Her head?’

  ‘Oh God, I don’t know. No one knows.’

  Her fear became mine. I had no doubt that whatever was wrong, Louise’s reaction was definitely not unwarranted. I racked my brains for an answer. I had never specialised in paediatrics, nor had I been involved in anything other than routine surgical procedures on children. The fact that it was something to do with the head was worrying. A baby’s heart and brain are fragile.

  I tried to calm both Louise and myself. I asked her to tell me what had happened; could she tell me any more about Agnes’s symptoms? What exactly had the doctors said?

  Apparently the whole thing had been very fast. That morning Agnes had suddenly started screaming. Nothing had helped, not even an attempt at breastfeeding. Louise had taken her to the hospital while Ahmed stayed at home with Muhammed. In the children’s emergency unit they had immediately admitted her for observation and tests. Louise was calling from the hospital; I wrote down the name on the back of a packet of crispbread.

  Her explanation didn’t enable me to reach any conclusion about what might be wrong with the child. It was very unusual, but not unknown, for babies to suffer a brain haemorrhage. On the other hand encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain, sometimes affected small children and could be life-threatening. Nor could a tumour be ruled out. The French doctors were trying to establish a definite diagnosis at this very moment.

  I asked if Agnes had a temperature. She didn’t, but the pain in her head was still there. Louise was waiting for her to undergo a brain scan.

  I asked if she wanted me to come. She said no, but I could tell from her voice that she could easily change her mind.

  She didn’t want to stay on the phone because she was waiting for Ahmed to call. She promised to let me know as soon as she had any news.

  ‘If nothing happens, call me anyway,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep the phone with me all the time, and it’s fully charged.’

  Clutching the phone as tightly as i
f it were a rosary, it seemed to me that death was suddenly present in the caravan. I didn’t want him here. I called Lisa. I didn’t ask where she was or if I was disturbing her, I simply told her what had happened.

  ‘That sounds terrible,’ she said. ‘Do you want to come over?’

  ‘No, but thank you for asking.’

  ‘Are you really going to sit there in the caravan all by yourself?’

  I didn’t reply. More than anything I wanted to stagger down to the boat, hope the engine started and head for the mainland.

  ‘Perhaps you could come here?’

  ‘There isn’t room for the two of us and so much worry in your caravan.’

  I asked if I could reach her during the evening, and she said yes.

  ‘What are you doing right now?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m praying that there isn’t anything seriously wrong with your grandchild.’

  ‘That’s what you’re thinking. What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m standing here holding my gloves and a bag of groceries. I’m on my way home.’

  Silence drifted by. A gust of wind shook the caravan.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said and ended the call.

  I went out into the cold air and took a deep breath. It was already dark. I went down to the bench on the jetty. My phone rang again; it was Louise. Agnes was about to undergo an MRI scan; the doctors still hadn’t reached a firm diagnosis, but I could tell from her voice that she was more scared than the first time she called. I don’t think I was able to hide my own panic at the thought of what must not happen.

  It was a brief conversation; Agnes was being taken away on a trolley, and someone told Louise to switch off her phone.

  I shivered and went back to the caravan. Proximity to death turns time into an overstretched elastic band, making us constantly afraid that it will break. The information about Agnes was too vague; I thought I ought to speak to one of her doctors, but my French wasn’t good enough. I knew that fear was drilling deep holes in Louise, and there was nothing I could do to help her.

  I had a sleepless night; Louise called at first light to tell me that Agnes had a mild form of meningitis. She would have to stay in the hospital for a week or so, then hopefully everything would be fine.