After the Fire

by Henning Mankell

  When we arrived at Tivoli, we had an hour before he was due to meet the maître d’. It was May, warm when the sun was shining, chilly as soon as it went behind a cloud. We drank lemonade and shivered when the sun disappeared. Without any warning, he asked me about that evening when I had been sitting under the table: why had I bitten my mother? His tone was friendly, calm, almost tentative. He didn’t usually sound like that when he asked me questions; he might as well have been wondering what I would like to eat or drink.

  I told him the truth: I had bitten her because I was scared that I was no longer enough for them.

  He never mentioned the incident again. Years later I thought that perhaps he understood my reaction, that he felt the bite was somehow justifiable.

  He didn’t get the job in Copenhagen. A few weeks later he started work at the restaurant in the central station in Stockholm and stayed there for six years, the longest he ever worked in the same place. Occasionally my mother and I would go for a meal when he was on duty. As I watched him hurrying from one table to another, I vowed I would never become a waiter.

  I must have dozed off while I was thinking about my parents; I was woken by the sound of my phone ringing. I sat up in the darkness, alarmed by the noise of the phone inside the caravan.

  It was a man, but I didn’t recognise the voice.

  ‘Fredrik?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Just want to warn you.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘You’re going to be arrested, possibly tomorrow.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘A friend, perhaps. Or just someone who wants to warn you.’

  He ended the call. I replayed the brief exchange in my mind; the voice was completely unfamiliar. I couldn’t decide whether it had been disguised or distorted in some way. Perhaps the man had put a handkerchief or his hand over the phone?

  I was scared. My hands were shaking.

  I didn’t sleep much that night. I was already up by the time dawn broke. I still didn’t know what to make of the phone call. I went out and took a dip in the ice-cold water. By the time I had dried myself and got dressed, I had made a decision. I had no intention of staying on the island, or on the skerry where my tent was. Nor was I planning to run away. I simply wanted to give myself time to understand what was happening around me.

  A grey morning. Slight northerly breeze. Through the binoculars I could see that no one had moored a boat on the skerry. I tucked the money I had left in my jacket pocket and set off without bothering to lock the door of the caravan. The engine started right away. The last of the birds had migrated to warmer climes. I sailed to the harbour and moored at the far end of the inlet, where a half-submerged fishing boat had lain for many years. Fru Nordin had not yet arrived at the chandlery. The bread delivery van was parked outside the grocery shop. The cafe wasn’t open either.

  I picked up my car from Oslovski’s. I could see that the tools were still strewn across the concrete floor but had been used. They were lying in different places, different combinations. Oslovski had been in there, working on her car.

  I didn’t knock on her door, nor did I see any movement behind the closed curtains.

  I drove away. You might say I had a plan, but whether it could be realised was something that no one, least of all me, was able to say with any certainty.

  CHAPTER 12

  The three-storey building was in a residential area on the outskirts of the town. When I was a child there was nothing here but fields and meadows where cows grazed. The apartment blocks had been built in the 1960s, and looked exactly like all the others that had been erected in those days.

  I parked outside the block closest to the edge of the forest. From the top floor I thought it would be possible to see the deep inlet leading out to sea.

  It had been easy to find. I had called Directory Enquiries, and they had given me Lisa Modin’s address.

  I ate in the restaurant at the bowling alley then went for a walk along the track by the inlet. Whenever I met anyone, I looked down at the ground. I had the feeling I might be recognised.

  I didn’t get back to my car until about two o’clock. Someone had stuck a flyer under one of the windscreen wipers, informing me that cloudberries would be on sale in the square between twelve and two the following day. I wondered if there really were cloudberries so late in the year.

  I could see the front door of Lisa’s apartment block. I checked out every window through my binoculars, but the curtains, potted plants and lamps gave me no clue as to which flat was hers.

  I got out of the car and went over to the main door, which wasn’t locked. There was a list of residents’ names on a board to the left of the staircase; the building didn’t have a lift. Someone had scrawled GRINGO on a wall with a red marker pen; someone else had crossed it out and written JUNGLE BUNNY instead.

  Lisa lived on the top floor. There were two apartments: Modin L. and Cieslak W. Should I go up and ring her doorbell now? No, it was too early in the day; I wanted to be sure she was in.

  I sat in the car for almost four hours before Lisa turned up. I had seen children coming home from school, dropping their bicycles carelessly outside the block. A caretaker had oiled the hinges on the outside door. An elderly man with a wheeled walker, moving incredibly slowly as if he thought he might collapse with every new step, had shuffled inside. He had a bag of shopping looped over the handle of his frame; he seemed like a thousand-year-old man who had passed through the ages and had finally reached this grey concrete box with its unbarred windows and tiny built-in balconies with barely enough room for more than two people.

  During all those hours of waiting I avoided thinking about what the anonymous voice on the telephone had said. Nor did I have the strength to examine my reasons for leaving the island and hoping that Lisa Modin would provide me with a place of refuge for a few days. What I wanted more than anything was not a place to sleep, but someone to talk to about everything that had happened. I didn’t really know her and she didn’t know me, but now that Louise had sneaked out the back way, so to speak, I had no one else to turn to.

  I wanted both clarity and solace, but of course I didn’t know whether Lisa would be able to give me what I needed. She might not even let me in when I rang the bell and she saw who was standing outside her door.

  A woman emerged from the apartment block. She reminded me of Harriet. Harriet as a young woman, when I first met her and we had our brief, chaotic relationship.

  That was forty years ago. I had just qualified as a doctor. We met, as people often do, through friends of friends. I knew right from the start that Harriet wasn’t the great love of my life, but I found her attractive. I soon realised that I meant more to her than she did to me, so I pretended that my love also went much deeper than erotic need. I still feel ashamed that I deceived her, made her think that I shared her feelings. Even when she made her way across the ice using her wheeled walker, suffering from terminal cancer, I still couldn’t tell her how I had felt all those years ago. The last thing I robbed her of was the truth.

  The woman carried on down the hill. I was on the point of giving up, going back to the island and waiting for the police to come for me. It was pointless, this search for a hiding place that didn’t exist.

  I suddenly missed my mother and father, the siblings I had never had, Jansson with his imaginary aches and pains, Harriet, Louise, Oslovski, even Nordin, who had messed up the order for my new wellington boots.

  And I wondered if there was anyone who missed me.

  Lisa Modin came walking up the hill at ten to six with her rucksack over one shoulder, carrying a bag from the shop where I bought my groceries. She was wearing a red beret, and had a scarf wound around her neck. I slid down as far as possible in my seat. She went inside, and a few minutes later a lamp was switched on in the apartment on the top floor closest to the invisible inlet. I caught a glimpse of her as she opened a window.

  I got out of the car and crossed the road. As I reach
ed the door a group of teenage boys came out, talking about a girl called Rosalin; apparently they all wanted to undress her and go to bed with her.

  I climbed the stairs slowly in order to avoid getting out of breath. I could hear accordion music coming through one door and a loud telephone conversation through another. The wheeled walker was on the first-floor landing, so I concluded that this must be where the thousand-year-old man lived. Did he only need the walker when he was outdoors? Or did he have another one, specifically for indoor use?

  I reached the top floor and paused to catch my breath. Although I had taken my time, my pulse rate had still increased. On Lisa Modin’s door there was a picture of a man with a camera in his hand. When I read the caption at the bottom I learned that he was a photographer called Robert Capa, and that the picture had been taken in France at the end of the Second World War. I had never heard of him, but if Lisa had put his picture on her door, then he must be important to her.

  I listened for a moment; I couldn’t hear anything from inside the apartment. I opened the letter box a fraction and listened again. The light was on in the hallway, but I still couldn’t hear a thing.

  I hesitated. How would I explain the fact that I had simply turned up without contacting her first? What was I actually expecting?

  I made several attempts to ring the doorbell, but kept drawing back my hand at the last second. I realised how pointless the whole thing was, and I had lost my nerve. If I drove back to the harbour now, I would have time to row over to the island before it was completely dark.

  I set off down the stairs. After a couple of steps I turned, went back up and immediately rang the bell. I wanted to run away again, but I stayed where I was. Lisa flung the door open, as if she had been disturbed. When she saw me she frowned, but she was smiling at the same time.

  ‘You,’ she said. ‘The man whose house burned down.’

  ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you.’

  She didn’t reply; she just stepped aside and let me in. A big black cat was sitting on a mirrored shelf, contemplating me with displeasure. When I tried to stroke it, it jumped down and ran off.

  Lisa handed me a coat hanger.

  ‘The cat’s name is Sally,’ she said. ‘Even though he’s a tom. He doesn’t like strangers.’

  I hung up my jacket and kicked off my boots.

  ‘I don’t want to disturb you,’ I said again.

  ‘You’ve already said that, but I’m curious – why are you here?’

  ‘I’ve got nowhere else to go.’

  She was wearing a green dressing gown. She tightened the belt around her waist, waiting for me to say something else. I didn’t.

  She showed me into her living room. On the way we passed the half-open door of her bedroom. The duvet was thrown back; presumably she had been lying down when I rang the bell.

  It was indeed possible to see the blue waters of the inlet from the living-room window. Lisa had positioned an armchair and a table with a pile of books on it in the spot which gave her the best view. There wasn’t much furniture, and hardly any pictures. A door led into another bedroom, while the kitchen was an open-plan arrangement.

  She gestured towards the red sofa in front of a glass coffee table; its legs suggested that it might be from an Arab country.

  ‘What can I offer you?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘In that case I’m going to make a pot of tea, then you can have a cup if you change your mind.’

  She went into the kitchen and I looked around the living room. There was nothing to indicate the presence of a man. I couldn’t be sure, but there was no harm in hoping. When she had poured water into the teapot she disappeared into her bedroom and came back fully dressed.

  She served the tea in white cups, and placed a plate of biscuits on the table.

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘Why have you come here?’

  ‘I don’t know where to start.’

  ‘I usually find the beginning is the easiest place.’

  I already knew I wasn’t going to tell her the truth, but I also knew that for a lie to work, most of what you say must be true. It is only the conclusions that can contain the lie, twisting the story on its own axis. At the same time I thought the truth was impossible to deliver on this occasion, because I didn’t know what it was.

  ‘You know the beginning,’ I said. ‘The accusation that I’m an arsonist. I’m not.’

  ‘So surely it’s important for you to defend yourself? No one is convicted without solid proof of their guilt.’

  ‘I’ve already been convicted. I had a phone call to say I was going to be arrested. I’ve also received several anonymous letters.’

  ‘I thought you said you didn’t want any post delivered to your island?’

  ‘They were lying on the bench by the boathouse. I don’t know how they got there.’

  Lisa looked at me pensively. The tea was very sweet, nothing like the blend Louise had left in the caravan.

  ‘My daughter has gone away,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. She didn’t even tell me she was going.’

  ‘That sounds like very strange behaviour.’

  ‘My daughter is strange. I also think she makes her living as a prostitute.’

  I have no idea where that came from.

  ‘That sounds alarming,’ Lisa said after a brief silence.

  I noticed that she was on her guard now. I realised I might have gone a step too far.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I said. ‘And I’d like you to forget what I just said.’

  ‘You can’t just make yourself forget something, but I’ll try. I still don’t know why you’ve come to see me.’

  ‘I’ve got nowhere to go. No one to talk to.’

  ‘That’s not quite the same thing. You could have phoned me.’

  ‘I’ll leave right away, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘That’s not what I said.’

  ‘I couldn’t stay on the island. I hardly know anyone around here. The only person I could think of was you, but now I realise I shouldn’t have come.’

  Lisa was still looking at me with a certain wariness.

  ‘I hope you won’t write about this,’ I said.

  ‘Why would the local paper be interested in this?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘As you’re here, it’s probably best if you tell me what’s going on. I still don’t understand why you’ve left the island.’

  I realised that my lies had made me unsure of what to say next, but there were moments during that long evening when I almost told her the truth: that I wanted her to take me into her bed. That was all.

  Perhaps she knew what I was thinking? It was very late and we had drunk a bottle of wine when she suggested I should stay over on the sofa.

  ‘But don’t get any ideas,’ she added.

  I felt like saying that it was always worth getting ideas, but at least she was letting me stay.

  She made up a bed on the sofa, cleared away the cups and glasses and gave me a towel.

  ‘I’m tired,’ she said. ‘I need to sleep. First thing in the morning I’m off to visit two elderly siblings who live on a remote farm with no mains water supply and no electricity.’

  I had hoped I would be able to give her a hug at least, but she merely nodded, switched off all the lamps apart from the one next to the sofa and disappeared into the bathroom. I decided not to get undressed until I heard the bedroom door close behind her.

  I sat there in the pale light shining in from the street down below. I had draped the towel over the lampshade.

  Nothing had turned out as I had hoped. The childish disappointment I felt reminded me of my clumsy teenage attempts at dating.

  I walked around the silent apartment. Listened outside Lisa’s room. I had the feeling that she was standing just behind the door and quickly moved away. I opened the door of the other bedroom. There was a bed, but the room was clearly used as a study. O
n a desk by the window stood a computer and an old typewriter. I flicked through a pile of papers which contained barely legible notes and a few incomplete manuscripts. Daily newspapers were stacked up on the floor. I was listening the whole time; I didn’t want to be caught by Lisa if she emerged from her bedroom.

  There were several framed photos on a shelf. I guessed they were from the 1930s or 40s, men and women posing for the photographer with smiling faces. However, there was nothing more modern, no pictures of people who might be Lisa’s parents or other relatives.

  The apartment was strangely empty. It seemed as if her life and mine had some similarities after all.

  I sat down at her desk and carried on looking through her papers. I turned on the lamp and read some letters, holding the paper in one hand while the other hovered over the switch. I didn’t want to be caught snooping. I have often expressed my contempt for those who pry into the lives of others, yet I have that same tendency myself.

  One letter was from a reader complaining about the way Lisa had written about a serious matter involving the mistreatment of animals. A number of cows had been neglected, and had had to be slaughtered. The man who had sent the letter was called Herbert, and he felt he had been insulted and unfairly hung out to dry. At the bottom Lisa had put: No reply. Another letter was so full of hatred that I was astonished. I had received an anonymous phone call, but Lisa got letters. An anonymous man wasn’t attacking her for some article she had published; he was simply telling her how arousing he found the thought of sleeping with her. The fact that he had sadistic fantasies became clear after the first few lines.

  This time Lisa’s note said: Can he be traced?