A Necessary Action

by Per Wahlöö

  ‘Your friends have been drowned,’ he said.

  Willi Mohr nodded.

  ‘I don’t understand all that well either,’ said the Finn apologetically, ‘but I think he’s saying that both he and a family called something like Ale …’

  ‘Alemany,’ said the cabo.

  ‘Yes, that’s right, that they’re sorry about the accident, that is.’

  Willi Mohr nodded.

  He was still sitting leaning over the wheel, his straw hat on the back of his head.

  ‘What happened?’ said Willi Mohr.

  The cabo talked for a while, trying to explain something with a great deal of gesturing.

  ‘He says the dinghy—bote is a dinghy, isn’t it?—well, that the dinghy capsized in the storm. Out by some islands somewhere.’

  The cabo saluted and went back to the group by the trawler. The Finn stood there hesitantly.

  ‘What a hellish business,’ he said. ‘Would you like to come back with me for a while? I’ve got some brandy at home. I mean …’

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Willi Mohr.

  He straightened up and jumped down from the truck. Before turning the handle, he said:

  ‘What time did the wind begin to get up yesterday?’

  ‘About six, I think …’

  The camioneta started first turn. Willi Mohr climbed up and pushed the dog away from the pedals. He nodded to the Finn and drove away.

  Dusk fell swiftly and when Willi Mohr arrived at the house in Barrio Son Jofre, it was already dark. He unlocked the door, went in and hunted out the lamp, but when he tried to light it he saw that the paraffin had run out, so he fetched a stub of candle from the kitchen, lit it and slowly walked upstairs, where there was a whole packet of candles. Before he went down again, he raised the bottle with the candle in it and looked round the room. On the chair by the bed lay Dan’s manuscript and a book he had evidently been reading two nights ago. Siglinde’s green dress and a bra were hanging on a nail in the wall, and below them stood a pair of shoes which looked as if she had just stepped out of them. One or two of Willi’s and Dan’s shirts were hanging over a string by one window, shirts she had washed the day before. They ought to be dry by now. A packet of cotton-wool, Siglinde’s blue bathing-costume, Dan’s swimming trunks, a comb and a hairbrush lay on the window-sill.

  Willi Mohr went down again to the ground floor. He lit two candles and put one on the stairs and the other on the floor by the mattress. Then he went out into the kitchen, poured water into the dog bowl and took out the packet of butcher’s offal Siglinde had bought the day before. He chose a few good bits for the dog and patted her absently on the back as she ate. He blew out the candle and put it on the stone bench and then went back into the room.

  He stood quite still and looked round.

  His latest picture was on the floor by the chair where he usually sat and painted, beside it a bottle of turpentine and the jar of brushes. Just inside the door stood the paraffin can Siglinde had put there before she had left.

  The cat came through the hole in the outer door and wove itself round his legs. Then it went out into the dark again.

  Willi Mohr went over to the door and kicked the paraffin can as hard as he could. It flew up the stairs and knocked over the candle, then bounced noisily back down into the room again. He picked up the turpentine bottle and flung it with all his strength against the wall. The bottle broke and pieces of glass flew through the air. He rushed across the room and tore one of his canvases off the wall and with a great effort ripped it in two and crumpled up the pieces. He tripped over the metal can, and lifting it up with both hands, he crashed it time and time again against the stone floor. When it was completely buckled and crushed, he threw it away and went over to the little mirror on the wall by the door. Indistinctly, he made out his own sullen, closed face and his swollen, bloodshot eyes. He raised his hand and smashed the mirror with his fist. The candle on the floor was still burning. He stamped on it and then flung himself down on the mattress.

  Willi Mohr lay on his face in the dark, his chest heaving and great jerks convulsing his body.

  3

  The calamary boat lay drawn up at the far end of the harbour and several people were standing round looking at it. The village blacksmith and one of his apprentices had unscrewed the engine from its bed and were just lifting it on to a hand-cart. Ramon Alemany was squatting on the starboard side and was strengthening the props. He did not notice Willi approaching the boat and did not see him until Willi bent down on the other side, and their eyes met. Ramon turned his eyes away and hammered with renewed energy at a wedge between the props.

  ‘Guten Tag,’ said Willi Mohr, stretching out his hand beneath the keel.

  Ramon responded hesitantly and weakly to the handshake, his face half-turned away, but he could not hide the long scratch down his left cheek. The edges of the wound were inflamed and red and his whole cheek was discoloured with some kind of greenish-yellow antiseptic.

  Neither of them said anything more and Ramon went on listlessly fiddling about among the props. Suddenly he got up and disappeared from sight.

  Willi Mohr stayed where he was and scanned the planking, which was not noticeably damaged. Then he heaved himself up on to the side and continued the inspection. There was nothing in particular to be seen there either. The inside of the boat seemed exactly as it had been when it had lain by the quay that morning two days before.

  He jumped down and walked slowly away. The people standing about stepped to one side, almost respectfully, and he did not look at them.

  The smithy was the village workshop and lay on the western edge by the road to the town, a large shed of corrugated iron, originally built by the army but now turned over to civilian use.

  The blacksmith was a Catalonian, a large man with reddish hair, strong arms and a bull neck. He had mounted the engine on to a work-bench and was already on his way towards the door to shoe an emaciated donkey waiting outside, its head hanging. On the cart beside the work-bench lay the parts of the engine-cover, which the smith had unscrewed and brought with him.

  Willi Mohr went up and looked at the engine. He had a mechanical mind and had also been able to pick up quite a bit about small boats during his years at Gotenhafen. This engine was a Spanish one, rather old, but not very different from types used in other countries. It was immediately very easy to see why it had ceased to function.

  The fuel pipe had broken off just by the nut, which was deformed and crushed in the thread, and the piston rod was bent and almost broken.

  This was undeniably irreparable damage for anyone at sea with no access to spare parts and proper tools.

  He picked up the parts of the wooden cover and fitted them over the engine. The box was more or less whole and had no noticeable scratches or marks on it. So the lid had not been on when the engine was damaged.

  Willi Mohr pushed out his lower lip a fraction and took the wooden pieces off again. He ran his forefinger lightly over the piston rod and felt that the metal was lumpy and scratched round the break. The fuel pipe was cleanly broken off and the surfaces of the break were fresh.

  He took a spanner from the bench and unscrewed the plugs. There was some oil on them, presumably sufficient to make the spark uneven. He put the plugs back again and straightened his back.

  The smith had finished shoeing the donkey and came back to his bench. He shook his head.

  ‘Terrible,’ he said.

  Willi Mohr nodded.

  ‘Mucha agua,’ said the smith, gesturing towards the engine, ‘muy malo.’

  This was right too. The engine had recently been in contact with water. It seemed almost unnaturally clean. But presumably the man had meant something quite different.

  It doesn’t fit, thought Willi Mohr, as he left the shed. It doesn’t fit at all. The time doesn’t fit either. Nothing fits.

  On his way back to the truck he caught sight of Santiago Alemany and he quickened his steps. But they had seen each other
from a long way away and before they could meet, the Spaniard had turned into an alleyway and disappeared.

  An hour later Willi Mohr was sitting on the steps outside the house in Barrio San Jofre looking in his notebook. At the top of the page he had written:

  17th December, 8.30 p.m. They have been drowned. Found out about it at seven yesterday. Behaved strangely and spoilt a painting and a paraffin can. The time doesn’t fit.

  He unscrewed the cap of his fountain pen and added a few more sentences.

  Should have been back at two o’clock. Wind got up at six. Fuel pipe broken. Engine cover whole. Scratch on Ramon’s face. They seemed frightened.

  He thought for a few minutes and then added three words:

  Perhaps they’re ashamed.

  He stayed there for a while looking down at what he had written, and then he closed the notebook and put it into his hip pocket.

  ‘It still doesn’t fit,’ he said to himself.

  The next day Willi Mohr drove to Santa Margarita and sought out the builder who was the real owner of the camioneta. The man had hired the truck to Dan Pedersen for a lump sum a year ago and evidently had not reckoned on seeing it again. He shook his head doubtfully, but after the customary protests, thrust the money Willi Mohr gave him into his pocket. Then he offered Willi a cognac in the square and laughed and said:

  ‘Y los amigos? Otra vez en Noruega?’

  He apparently thought that Dan and Siglinde had gone home and no one sought to disillusion him.

  It rained all the way back and Willi Mohr was soon soaked. He had paid five times as much as Dan Pedersen had for the old truck, but he had got used to having the camioneta always at hand and did not want to be without it.

  And he was convinced that he would be needing it.

  He used the truck every day during that time. So long as the bars were open, he was to be found in the puerto, and at nights he lay on the mattress in the house in Barrio Son Jofre, his head propped against his hand and the notebook open in front of him. Now and again he wrote something in it. The door was always locked and the paraffin lamp spread its trembling yellow light round the bare room.

  Bit by bit, he drew out small fragments from his memories of the past months and fitted them into his terrible puzzle.

  4

  Early in the morning, one day between Christmas and the New Year, two consular officials from the provincial capital came to deal with Dan’s and Siglinde’s possessions. They brought a civil guard with them from the local guard-post to show them the way, and drove a large jeep with foreign number plates.

  Willi Mohr had just got up and was standing in the kitchen washing himself. He pulled on his faded brown shirt, which had been with him since the days of the Hitler Jugend, and went out to the strangers, who had been discreet enough to stay out on the steps, although the door was open.

  The consular officials shook hands and handed round American cigarettes. Then they went upstairs and Willi Mohr helped them tie up numbered cardboard boxes full of all the loose articles, and put them all into sacks. When they had carried down the sacks and trunks and loaded them into the jeep, the room upstairs was empty except for the bedstead.

  One of the officials looked round downstairs and said: ‘Is there anything left now, or have we got the lot?’

  He spoke excellent German.

  ‘The lamp,’ said Willi Mohr.

  ‘It looks as if it’s needed here more than anywhere else,’ said the man dryly. ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘The dog and the cat.’

  ‘Their relatives in Norway would certainly be overjoyed if we sent the menagerie to them as well. If you don’t want to keep them, we can arrange for them to be shot.’

  ‘I’ll keep them,’ said Willi Mohr.

  The official took out a notebook with black cover, licked his thumb and leafed through it.

  ‘Have you any claims against their estate?’ he said.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Did they owe you any money?’

  Willi Mohr glanced at the wall by the kitchen door, where Siglinde had kept her accounts. Above the long columns of figures and involved divisions she had written in her clear backward-sloping handwriting: We now owe Willi 1,125 marks.

  He shook his head.

  ‘No?’ said the man. ‘Otherwise they seemed to have had debts all over the place. Not exactly an orderly lot.’

  He scribbled something in his notebook.

  ‘These things will be impounded,’ he added, pointing with his pen towards the heap outside the door. ‘Not that they’re worth anything …’

  He put his notebook back into his pocket and held out his hand to say goodbye.

  ‘Is the inquiry still going on?’ said Willi Mohr.

  ‘The inquiry? That was over a long time ago. The case is quite clear, don’t you think?’

  Willi Mohr nodded absently.

  ‘An ordinary accident; nothing much to make a fuss about,’ said the official. ‘But the police down there have made a report. Haven’t you read it?’

  ‘I don’t understand the language very well.’

  ‘We’ve had it done in English too, for simplicity’s sake. I think I’ve a copy out there, if you’d like to borrow it.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The man went out to the jeep and fetched a black document case. He took out two typed sheets of paper clipped together.

  ‘This is the official report,’ he said. ‘You can keep it if you like, as I’ve had several copies made.’

  He shook hands and went out to his colleague, who had just finished loading.

  Then they drove away, and Willi Mohr could hear the sound of their engine for a long while as the jeep laboured up the long, twisting bends.

  When it was quiet again, he put the paper down on the sacking in the corner, where he kept his clothes and rucksack and some other things. Then he went out into the kitchen, took off his shirt and went on with his morning toilet. He washed himself with soft soap and cold water and cleaned his teeth with coarse salt. The largest of the pieces of mirror he had kept and wedged up against a joist in the kitchen wall, and as he shaved, once or twice he met his own indifferent gaze and thought that he looked much as usual.

  Before he left the house, he took out his wallet and counted his money. It would last for at the most four more months and he would have to be very economical.

  Willi Mohr thrust out his lower lip, folded up the typed report and put it in his wallet.

  In the puerto, he left the camioneta on the quay and went from bar to bar until he found Santiago and Ramon. They were sitting in Jacinto’s, playing cards with a couple of fishermen. When Willi Mohr came in, Santiago looked up and nodded to him, but returned at once to the card-game. His brother peered up at him through his fringe of hair but could not manage a greeting. The air in the place was raw and chilly and Jacinto had put a large brazier of glowing coal in the middle of the floor.

  Willi Mohr sat down by the door so that he would be able to see the faces of the Alemany brothers and be sure that they did not leave the bar without having to walk close by him. He ordered café con leche with his breakfast roll, but was in no hurry to eat, simply sitting still with his legs crossed, watching the card-players. On two occasions Santiago raised his head and looked fleetingly across at him, once with a weak, joyless smile. Ramon stared stubbornly down at his cards.

  Willi Mohr ate the roll. Then he pushed away the mug, took the carbon copy of the report out of his wallet and spread it out in front of him on the table. He propped his head in his hand and began to read. As he was not particularly good at English, it took him some time to spell his way through the document.

  Report on accident at sea. At a bathing accident which occurred here on the 15th of this month, two foreign citizens lost their lives, Daniel Olaf Pedersen, born 1925 in Avendal (?) and his wife Birgit Siglinde Wolf (?)—Pedersen, born 1929 in (information not available), both Norwegian citizens of Protestant faith, entered Spain via Irun bo
rder-post on 12th August 1952 with entry visas numbers 63 428 and 63 429, issued by the Spanish Consulate in Paris, France, later extended by General Commissioner for Security, reference numbers 738/52, 739/52, 926/52, 927/52, 181/53, 182/53, 539/53, 540/53, 897/53, 898/53, 1012/53 and 1013/53. Since 4th September this year Dan Olaf Pedersen and Birgit Siglinde Wolf (?)—Pedersen have not been resident in this police district.

  Other circumstances: On 16th December this year at 2.00 p.m. a smaller fishing-boat with four persons on board, which had on the previous day gone out on a fishing trip, was reported missing to the senior officer of this civil guard-post. The previous day the boat had been observed by a patrol between 8.30 a.m. and 9.00 a.m. moving in the general direction of the group of islands Islotes Redondos, for which reason it can be with certainty assumed that it was heading for these aforementioned islands. A motor-barque belonging to the harbour authorities and manned by personnel from the civil guard was sent out to search the area, but was forced to return to harbour on account of very bad weather conditions, where it arrived at 3.00 p.m. At 5 p.m. fishing-boat number 13–1698 La Virgen Dolores was sent out, manned by volunteers and personnel from the civil guard, to Islotes Redondos, where at 6.30 p.m. two survivors were rescued and taken on board, at which it was learnt that Dan Olaf Pedersen and Birgit Siglinde Wolf (?)—Pedersen had lost their lives through an accident some time during the afternoon of the previous day. The deceased’s bodies could not be traced.

  Testimony of Driver Santiago Alemany Ventosa:

  Together with his brother and Daniel Olaf Pedersen and Birgit Siglinde Wolf (?)—Pedersen, he had during the morning gone to Islotes Redondos to fish. When the weather worsened during the day, he had several times suggested that they should return, but for various reasons the return journey was postponed until the afternoon. Both the foreigners insisted that they should bathe off one of the islands, although the witness several times advised them not to. During the bathe Daniel Olaf Pedersen and his wife took the dinghy which was being towed and despite repeated warnings rowed it out of the bay and close to a point which lay open to the sea. There the dinghy was hit by an unusually strong wave and capsized, at which Senor and Senora Pedersen were thrown in the water. Witness, who together with his brother was in the fishing-boat, at once tried to start the engine, but the engine, which had been giving trouble earlier, refused to function, and when they finally reached the place, the two persons had gone under and could not be found. Witness and his brother stayed at the place for more than an hour, during which time the weather worsened even more and then a wave hit the boat and the engine again stopped. Witness presumes that the dinghy was smashed by the waves and sank or drifted out to sea. On the island where witness and his brother took refuge there was good lee and access to water and provisions. During the day they tried to get the engine going, but did not succeed. Witness maintains that the conditions at the place of the accident were so bad that there would have been little possibility of saving the two bathers, even if the engine had functioned normally.