Хеннинг Манкелль - After the Fire

‘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. On 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?

I turned off the lamp and got to my feet. There was a wardrobe on one wall, containing her clothes. I inhaled the smell of her and picked up a pair of high-heeled shoes.

As I stood there with the shoes in my hand I heard a noise behind me. I spun around so fast that I banged my head on the wardrobe door, but there was no one there. It was just my imagination. I put down the shoes exactly as I had found them. I was about to close the door when something right at the back caught my eye. At first I couldn’t make out what it was: possibly a small Swedish flag? However, when I took it out I discovered that it was an embroidered cloth. Above the Swedish flag was the word ‘Schweden’, and below it a black swastika on a red and white background.

I could see that it was old; the white fabric had acquired a yellowish tinge. I put it back in the wardrobe. Next to it, on another hanger, was a black leather bag. I took it out and opened it. It contained a number of Nazi war decorations, including a gold-coloured clasp with an inscription on the back which I interpreted as ‘close combat clasp’. There was also an Iron Cross, although I couldn’t tell which grade, and a knife in a case that had belonged to a member of the Waffen-SS. At the bottom of the bag was a photograph of an unshaven man in a German uniform. He was smoking a cigarette and smiling into the camera. On the back of the photograph was the name Karl Madsen, and in different handwriting someone had added: ‘Eastern Front 1942’.

I put the bag back in the wardrobe and left the room. There still wasn’t a sound from Lisa. It was quarter to three in the morning. I lay down on the sofa without getting undressed and fell asleep. In my dream Louise was walking along a street I didn’t recognise. I didn’t recognise her either; she looked completely different, and yet I still knew it was her. When I tried to call out to her, she turned and smiled. Her mouth was like a black hole; she had no teeth.

When I woke, it was ten past four. The whole situation, the fact that I was in Lisa’s apartment, felt like a dream. I went over to the window and looked down on the open space illuminated by a swinging street lamp. My car was in the shadows.

I went into Lisa’s study again. Once more I opened the wardrobe and took out the embroidered cloth with the Swedish flag and the swastika. Why was it hanging there among her clothes? What did the contents of the black leather bag mean?

I couldn’t find any answers.

I was on my way back to the sofa, but I couldn’t resist listening outside Lisa’s bedroom door again. Everything was still silent. Gently I pushed down the handle and opened the door a fraction. The blind was pulled only halfway down, and the street lamp shone onto the bed where she was lying.

I don’t know how long I stood there in the doorway, gazing at her. In the pale glow she looked like the women I have been with during my life. There weren’t many, apart from Harriet, but they were all lying in that bed looking just like Lisa Modin.