Хеннинг Манкелль - After the Fire

Children almost always died in silence.

I don’t often think about my own death, but as I sat there in the car with Louise driving so badly, thoughts of the end came into my head. I used to believe that doctors died a different death from those people we can characterise as patients. A doctor is familiar with all the processes that lead to the heart, the brain and other organs ceasing to function; therefore a doctor ought to be able to prepare himself or herself in a different way from people with a different life and a different profession. Now I realised that was far from the truth. Even though I am a doctor, death is just as mercilessly unwanted, just as difficult to prepare for as it would be for anyone else. I do not know if I will die calmly or desperately resisting. I know absolutely nothing about what is to come.

I looked over at Louise, who still seemed distracted. What was she thinking? Did death even form a part of her view of the world? What had Harriet’s death meant to her? What did the child she was expecting mean to her? And what did the child mean to me?

There was a heavy downpour as we parked behind the bank; people ran to get out of the rain. We stayed in the car and divided up the errands between us. I was surprised when she asked me to do the food shopping; I thought she would want to take care of that herself. However, she said she had other things to do, although she didn’t explain what they were.

We decided to meet for lunch at the restaurant in the bowling alley in an hour, then we sat in silence waiting for the rain to stop. I wondered whether I should drive into town to buy a pair of wellingtons instead of waiting for the new order to arrive at the chandlery. I didn’t reach a decision.

When the rain stopped we went our separate ways. I was heading for the grocery shop when I heard Louise calling to me. She waved, ran back and gave me the car keys.

‘You might be finished before me,’ I said.

‘No, I won’t.’

She turned and hurried away. I wondered why she was in such a rush and what she was going to do. I watched her until she went into the bank.

It took me half an hour to buy the food I thought we would need for the next week. The shop was almost empty. The assistant, who was approximately the same size as fru Nordin, had nodded off at the till. I bought a couple of crossword books, then I put my bags in the car and wondered whether to go to the chemist’s but decided not to bother; I didn’t really need anything at the moment.

It was too early to go to the restaurant, so I walked up to the old railway station, which was no longer in use. The tracks had been ripped up long before I moved to my grandfather’s island. I peered into various shops to see if Louise was in there, but there was no sign of her. The window display had changed in the shoe shop where I had failed to find any wellingtons, and now featured autumn and winter shoes. I tried to peer inside, but without success. When I reached the station I remembered all the times I had arrived here as a child and been met by my grandfather. I always made the trip with a sense of freedom when the school term ended in the spring. A sense of freedom that now, all these years later, seems totally incomprehensible. Are we really the same person, the child I used to be and the adult I am today? The thought of my distant childhood made me desperately sad. I left the station as quickly as I could.

I stopped outside a modest antique shop and contemplated the items crammed in the window. I tried to imagine the people whose former possessions now lay there with price tags like little white tails. Who had owned the fob watch with an inscription on the case? Whose was that elegant cut-throat razor?

For many years my father had a special pen when he worked as a waiter. It was with that pen and only that pen that he took orders on his notepad and wrote out the bills. It had been given to him as an extra tip by an elderly gentleman who frequented the restaurant where my father happened to be working; the gentleman finished his meal that day and stated that he wouldn’t be coming back. He didn’t say why, or where he was going, but a few days later my father read in the newspaper that he had committed suicide. He had shot himself in the head. From then on, my father never used any other pen. When he died I searched for it for a long time, but I never found it. What he did with it remains a mystery.

Another downpour was on the way. I hurried to the restaurant and got through the door just before the rain came down. Louise wasn’t there, but it was still only fifty minutes since we had parted company. It was lunchtime, so many of the tables were occupied; I sat down in a corner to wait for her. When she hadn’t appeared after half an hour, I ordered some food at the counter, paid and began to eat. If she didn’t turn up at the agreed time, that was her problem.

There was still no sign of her when I had finished my meal. I waited a few more minutes, then went and got a cup of coffee. It had stopped raining. I put down the coffee cup on my table and went out into the street. I couldn’t see Louise anywhere.

I began to wonder why she had come running back to give me the car keys. Something wasn’t right. Something was going on, but I couldn’t work out what.

The coffee tasted bitter. I drank half of it, then pushed the cup away. The restaurant was beginning to empty. Over by the counter the girl on the checkout dropped a glass on the floor. A heated exchange broke out between her and a man who I assumed was the owner of the restaurant. I couldn’t say what language they were speaking. The argument stopped as quickly as it had started. Still no sign of Louise. I decided to wait another ten minutes, then she would have to fend for herself. She had a phone, she could call me, but my phone hadn’t rung, and I hadn’t received any text messages.

I tried to tell myself that something had happened. An accident. But I couldn’t summon up any anxiety. She had simply ignored our agreement to have lunch together before we drove back to the harbour.

Eventually I decided I couldn’t wait any longer. The sun was shining when I left the restaurant. Louise wasn’t waiting by the car. I had already got in when I spotted a note tucked underneath one of the windscreen wipers. Had I been given a parking ticket? Angrily I flung open the door and grabbed the note.

It wasn’t a parking ticket. Louise had left me a message. The paper wasn’t wet, so she must have put it there after the rain had stopped — ten, fifteen minutes ago at the most.

The message was very short: Go without me.

I looked around to see if she was anywhere nearby, but there was no sign of her. I drove up and down the street, to no avail.

I drove down to the harbour. The heat of the sun was suddenly very noticeable; it was almost like a summer’s day. I parked and looked around for Oslovski. Everything seemed to be closed up. I went over to the garage; there was no one around, but something gave me pause for thought. Oslovski was always very tidy; each of her tools had its place, either on a shelf or hanging on the wall. Now they were spread all over the dirty concrete floor.

I went back to the house and did something I had never had the courage to do in the past: I knocked on Oslovski’s door. Once, twice, three times. No one came. The curtains were drawn. I put my ear to the door, but I couldn’t hear any movement inside.

I took my bags down to the boat. Margareta Nordin was sitting outside the chandlery soaking up the sun. Somehow this seemed like a betrayal of the grief she should be feeling at the loss of her husband.

‘This heat is a bit strange, isn’t it?’ I said.

‘Everything is strange,’ she replied. ‘I’m sitting here trying to grasp the fact that my husband is dead.’