After the Fire

by Henning Mankell

  I went up to the highest point on the island, from which I could see in all directions. My grandfather built a bench so that he and my grandmother could sit up there on warm summer evenings. I don’t know whether they talked to each other or sat in silence, but once when I was a child, a few years before they died, I picked up my grandfather’s binoculars and trained them on my grandparents. Much to my surprise I discovered that they were holding hands. It was a clear expression of tenderness and gratitude. They had been married for sixty-one years.

  The bench is falling apart. I haven’t looked after it. I have neglected it, like so many other things on the island.

  I stood there staring out across the archipelago. My gaze settled on a little skerry to the east of my island. The skerry belongs to me too, but it doesn’t have a name. It consists of no more than a couple of rocks and a small hollow in which a few trees grow. The hollow is deep enough to be protected from the wind. When I was a child I often built a den there. From the age of ten, when I was a strong swimmer, my grandparents allowed me to sleep over there when the weather was good.

  When I was a teenager I had a tent on the skerry during the summer. Now I was looking at the place with different ideas. A thought had struck me, but I hadn’t quite processed it yet.

  I continued my walk around the island. On the western side I caught a glimpse of two mink disappearing among the rocks. Otherwise everything was quiet. It was as if I was all alone in a deserted world.

  I stopped when I reached the plastic sheet again. Now I realised what I had noticed earlier. Lundin and Alexandersson had been back while I was away, then they had left without any indication as to whether they would return.

  I couldn’t prove it, but I was absolutely certain.

  They suspected me of having started the fire. There was no obvious cause, so they had to investigate the possibility that I was an arsonist.

  I knew I had done nothing, but how would I cope with being suspected of a crime?

  My life had been turned upside down once before, when my career as a doctor came to an end following a botched operation. Had I now been afflicted by another disaster? How much could I bear?

  I went to the boathouse and took down the blood-pressure monitor I use when Jansson turns up with his imaginary pains. I unbuttoned my Chinese-made shirt, rolled up my sleeve and took my blood pressure: 160 over 98. That’s unusually high for me, so I checked the other arm too: 159 over 99. I wasn’t happy with the result, even though I understood that it was probably because my house had burned down. I had had a shock. I had bought the medication at the chemist’s earlier; I didn’t normally take metoprolol, but it would bring down my blood pressure. If necessary I could also take an Oxascand tablet, a tranquilliser I use occasionally.

  I took my pulse: 78. A little high but nothing serious. As I put the monitor back in the boathouse, I heard the sound of an engine in the distance. It was so far off that I couldn’t work out which boat it was, and after a little while it died away.

  I remembered that there was an old wind-up alarm clock in the boathouse. I had no idea whether it still worked; I searched among the tools and took it outside. The spring held when I wound it up, it started ticking and the hands began to move. I set it to the right time and put it down beside me on the bench. Right now that clock, my mobile phone and the Chinese shirts were my most valuable possessions.

  The wind had got up. The weathervane on top of the boathouse was hovering between south and west. I picked up the clock and got to my feet.

  I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to try and get hold of my daughter.

  CHAPTER 4

  Louise is forty years old. As I said, the last time we spoke she was in Amsterdam. I presumed she had friends there but saw no reason to tell me anything about them. Of course she could also have been driven to the Dutch city by one of the political projects to which she devoted her time.

  She doesn’t only write to presidents and dictators. More than once she has caused a scandal by throwing bags of rubbish at reactionary politicians. Sometimes it seems to me that she is an anarchist who has got lost along the way, at other times she appears to be a right-thinking radical woman who resorts to hopeless methods. Whenever I have tried to engage in a political discussion with her, I have always lost. Even if she hasn’t managed to convince me with her arguments, she has crushed me with her constant interruptions.

  I have no idea how she supports herself, but she doesn’t seem to be short of money, and she has a stubborn streak which I envy.

  When Harriet surprised me with the news that I had a daughter, Louise was already an adult. At the time she was living inland in a melancholy area of southern Norrland. It was her mother who took me to see her. Harriet had told me only that we were going to visit someone on the way to the forest pool that was our official destination. It wasn’t until after the door of the caravan opened and I was faced with a complete stranger that I found out she was my daughter. Needless to say it was one of the most overwhelming and important moments of my life. I had a child, a daughter, who was born when she was already over thirty years old.

  She was living in the caravan, which was later transported to the island on an old cattle ferry. She stayed here until Harriet had died and we had burned her body in my old wooden boat, which had been lying there rotting on the shore. Shortly afterwards Louise disappeared. I eventually found out what she had been doing through a picture in the newspaper in which she was shown dancing naked in front of several international politicians whose actions she despised.

  I hardly know her at all, but I wish I did. She has become increasingly fond of this island, and I have promised her that she will of course inherit everything when I am gone. The alternative would be for me to sell my home or to donate it to the local history society, but I don’t need the money, and the society seems to consist mostly of people bickering among themselves about what it should really be doing. I don’t want my grandparents’ house – if it is rebuilt – to be turned into a badly run summer cafe.

  A few years ago several young women lived here for a period of about six months. They had been evicted from a home for vulnerable girls run by the woman whose arm I had so unfortunately amputated by mistake. She had forgiven me, and I had been so pleased to be able to help the girls when they were homeless. However, they were restless souls, and living on this isolated island soon began to increase their anxiety levels. They left when a place on the mainland became available, and I never saw them again.

  I was glad they weren’t here now that the house had burned down. I shuddered at the thought that one of them could have died in the fire.

  I sat on the bed in the caravan for a long time before I managed to pluck up the courage to call Louise. I hoped she wouldn’t answer, then I could wait until the following day with a clean conscience. She picked up after four rings. Her voice was as clear as if she were standing just outside the caravan.

  As usual I started by asking if I was disturbing her. I wasn’t. Then I asked where she was. In the past we always began a phone call by enquiring how the other person was; now we want to know where they are.

  She didn’t answer, which meant that she had no intention of revealing her whereabouts. I didn’t push it. If I am too inquisitive she often takes her revenge by not responding for several weeks when I call her.

  I told her what had happened.

  ‘The house burned down. Last night.’

  ‘What house?’

  ‘My house. The one you were supposed to inherit.’

  ‘The house has burned down?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh my God!’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘No one knows. The whole place was ablaze when I woke up. I didn’t manage to save anything except myself.’

  ‘Not even your diaries?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  She fell silent, trying to process what I had said.

  ‘Are you hurt?’

&
nbsp; ‘No.’

  ‘But surely there must be an explanation?’

  ‘The police and a fire investigation officer have been here poking around in the ruins. They couldn’t find a cause.’

  ‘Houses don’t just burn down for no reason. Are you sure you’re not hurt?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘What are you going to do now?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Where are you living?’

  ‘In your caravan, for the time being.’

  Another silence. At least her surprise hadn’t turned to anger at me.

  ‘I’m coming home.’

  ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘I know, but I want to see it with my own eyes, see that everything is gone.’

  ‘You can believe what I say.’

  ‘I do.’

  I could tell from her voice that she didn’t want to talk any more. She said she would be in touch very soon, and we ended the call. I lay down and noticed that I was sweating. In spite of everything, right now Louise was the only person I could talk to about what had happened.

  After a while I got up and went outside. I put Jansson’s phone in a small metal box under the bench on the jetty, then I sent him a text to let him know that he could come and pick it up. I also placed a fifty-kronor note in the box to cover the few calls I had made. At the end of my message I said that I would prefer not to have any visitors.

  I sat down on the bench and leaned back against the wall of the boathouse; the red paint was flaking.

  When I woke up it was twilight. I shivered and walked back up to the caravan. All at once I found the gathering darkness frightening. There was no glow from the windows that were no longer there. The light outside the boathouse wasn’t working either. I was surrounded by darkness. I switched on the LPG light inside the caravan and dug out an old paraffin lamp that Harriet had once given to Louise. I opened a tin of soup and heated it up. When it was ready I switched off the LPG light, leaving the softer glow of the paraffin lamp.

  I went to bed early that night. As I lay there I realised how tired I was. I didn’t even have the energy to worry about the following day. It was as if the fire had consumed all my strength, along with my house.

  —

  I woke from a dream about a storm. With the help of the old alarm clock I worked out that I had slept for nine hours. I don’t think I’ve slept for that long since I was a child. As usual I got up immediately. If I stay in bed, anxiety spreads through my body. I put on my raincoat and realised that I had forgotten to buy a towel the previous day. I decided to sacrifice the yellow Chinese shirt. I headed for the boathouse, where at the very end of the jetty there is a ladder leading into the water. I climbed down and floated away on my back.

  It was cold. I guessed that the temperature of the sea was seven or eight degrees. The wind had strengthened during the night, and the weathervane on top of the boathouse was veering between west and south-west. I hadn’t remembered to buy a radio either, I thought as I clambered out of the water. I rubbed my skin dry with the yellow shirt in order to get my circulation going. I avoided looking too closely at myself; as I get older, I find my body increasingly repulsive. This morning I thought I looked more decrepit than ever.

  I hurried back to the caravan and got dressed. After a cup of coffee and a couple of sandwiches, I called Directory Enquiries and eventually managed to get hold of Kolbjörn Eriksson. He is the same age as me, and returned to the archipelago after spending many years as an electrician aboard a cargo ship sailing between Europe and South America. These days he lives in a house he inherited from his uncle, who was a member of one of the better-known seal-hunting families out here on the islands. Kolbjörn repaired my electric cooker a while ago, and he is also the man who renewed all the wiring in the house.

  He answered immediately. When I told him who I was, I thought I heard him let out a groan.

  ‘My house has burned down, but you probably know that already.’

  ‘I was there,’ he replied. ‘I don’t suppose you remember.’

  I had absolutely no recollection of seeing him among those working in vain to extinguish the blaze. How could I not recall his characteristic face, his bald head, his height and his slightly reedy voice?

  ‘I don’t remember anyone who was there,’ I replied. ‘But thank you for trying to help.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘It was definitely nothing to do with the wiring you renewed,’ I reassured him.

  ‘You didn’t leave a candle burning?’

  ‘No. We’ll have to wait and see what conclusion the investigators reach.’

  I almost told him that I was probably suspected of arson, but I managed to stop the words before they flew out of my mouth.

  ‘I need electricity,’ I said. ‘I’m living in the caravan at the moment; I need light and heat.’

  ‘I’ve already thought about that. I can come over today.’

  I was due to pick up Lisa Modin in three hours.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ I said. ‘And could you bring some outside lights and some lamps that I can use inside the caravan, if you have any?’

  Kolbjörn promised he would be there the following day; we agreed on seven thirty. I put the phone in my pocket and went down to my boat, which started first time. I headed for the skerry with no name. I switched off the engine, flipped it up and made my way in using an oar. The bottom of the boat scraped against the rock. There was no need to make it fast because I would be able to see it from wherever I was on the skerry. The wind was a south-westerly, and the waves were lapping against the stern.

  I found a few bones from a herring gull on the rocks. I had been finding such things, including entire skeletons, ever since I was a child. But I didn’t want to think of the skerry as a graveyard. I went down to the hollow between the two rocks; beyond lay the open sea, with the odd reef barely visible on the horizon.

  When I was little I used to think of the reefs as the backs of whales, emerging from the sea.

  I still do.

  I paced out the hollow; the caravan would fit. With ropes and a block and tackle it wouldn’t be impossible to transport it from a ferry to the spot between two dense clumps of alders. I decided to carry out the plan that had come into my mind the previous day. I was sure that my daughter would approve. I was going to relocate the caravan.

  —

  I walked around the skerry. The wind felt fresh out here, with no islands to get in its way.

  I got back in the boat and headed for the harbour. There was still an hour to go before I was due to meet Lisa Modin. I went to see Nordin and asked if he had ordered my wellingtons. He had. He looked almost insulted at the question.

  I also bought a life jacket for Lisa. I have an old one that I never use. After mooring the boat I had taken it out from the little storage area in the stern, and had tried in vain to wipe off the oil and fish scales.

  I was astonished when I paid for Lisa Modin’s life jacket. Nordin agreed that it was expensive, but of course he didn’t set the price.

  Some construction workers were sitting in the cafe drinking coffee. They were in the middle of resurfacing the jetty where the coastguard patrol boats are moored. Apparently one of them had spotted a perch a few days earlier, and there was a loud discussion about whether he might have been mistaken. Everyone knows that perch has practically died out in the archipelago. I haven’t seen any in the water by my boathouse for almost three years. The odd shoal of dace has drifted by, but nothing else.

  I listened distractedly to their conversation. The Baltic Sea was dying. Its decline was insidious. Parts of the seabed invisible to the naked eye were already dead, leaving nothing but a sterile underwater desert. The increasingly intense algae blooms were like an outbreak of psoriasis every summer. The sea was shedding its skin while being suffocated at the same time.

  The construction workers left without reaching any agreement on the existence or otherwise of the perch. I was alone in the ca
fe. Veronika was in the kitchen, listening to the radio. I had noticed that she turned down the volume when I came in.

  Veronika is the granddaughter of one of the last pilots out here. She has a brother who was born with hydrocephalus and lives at home with his parents. Veronika has a small apartment squeezed in between the grocery store and the cafe.

  She is friendly and attentive, but permanently anxious, afraid of doing something wrong or saying something inappropriate. Sometimes I think she will always be here in the cafe, serving customers until old age takes its inevitable toll. I wonder what she really longs for. There must be something.

  I went to the toilet and contemplated my reflection in the mirror. It was what it was. My hair was thinning but neatly combed. My expression was grim. I attempted a smile. I tried to picture Lisa Modin without any clothes on. I immediately felt embarrassed.

  I discovered a mark on the blue Chinese shirt I had put on this morning, a small flaw on the collar. This made me so angry that I was on the point of ripping off the shirt and throwing it in the bin in the toilet, but I managed to calm myself down. If I pulled up my jumper by a few centimetres, the flaw wouldn’t show.

  I still had twenty minutes before Lisa Modin was due to arrive. I went to the grocery shop and bought a brioche loaf. The place was just as empty as the cafe had been. There were hardly any people left on the islands, just as there were hardly any fish left in the sea.

  I went down to the boat and waited. There was a light breeze blowing across the water. A rain front was building over to the east, but it was unlikely to reach us before the evening.

  The construction workers were banging away on the jetty, the smell of asphalt filling the air.

  I looked down into the water. No fish. Not even a little shoal of whitefish.

  Ten o’clock. No sign of a car. Had she decided not to come after all?