Хеннинг Манкелль - After the Fire

I didn’t know my daughter well enough to gauge her reaction. Louise might simply shrug her shoulders and never mention the matter again, but she might also fly into a rage, blaming me for failing to prevent the fire. She might decide that I was a pyromaniac, even though there was nothing whatsoever to suggest that I had started the blaze.

I put down the buckle, went back to the caravan and finished off Jansson’s sandwiches, then went down to the boathouse, where I had a small open plastic boat with an outboard engine. It’s eighteen horsepower, and if the weather is good and the sea is calm, I can get up to twelve knots. I started the engine, sat down on a mouldy cushion and reversed out of the boathouse. I rounded the headland and increased my speed.

When I looked back I was horrified. I had always been able to see the roof and the upstairs windows of my house above the trees, but now there was only a gaping hole. I was so shaken by the discovery that I almost ran aground on Kogrundet, which lies just beyond the headland, managing to veer away only at the last minute.

I switched off the engine when I reached open water. The sea was empty, not a sound, no boats, hardly even any birds. A lone sea duck was skimming along just above the surface of the water, heading for the outer skerries.

I shivered. It came from deep inside. The boat drifted with the invisible wind. I lay down and stared up at the sky, where the clouds had begun to gather. There would be rain tonight.

The water lapped gently against the thin plastic skin that formed the outer shell of my boat. I tried to decide what to do.

The mobile Jansson had given me rang; it could only be him.

‘Is there something wrong with your engine?’ he asked.

He can see me, I thought, turning my head. But the sea was still empty. There was no sign of Jansson’s boat.

‘Why would there be something wrong with my engine?’

I shouldn’t have snapped at him; Jansson always means well. I sometimes thought that the enormous amount of mail he had read before delivering it over all those years was a kind of declaration of love to the dwindling population of the islands. I think he felt it was part of his duty as a seafaring postman to read every postcard sent or received by the summer visitors. He had to keep himself informed about what these people who turned up for the summer thought about life and death and the permanent residents of the archipelago.

‘Where are you?’ I said.

‘At home.’

He was lying. If he was at home on Stångskär, there was no way he could see me slowly drifting along. That disappointed me. When I came to live on the island I decided never to let other people’s behaviour get me down. The fact that Jansson wasn’t always completely truthful didn’t usually bother me — but when I had just lost my home in a devastating fire?

I suspected he was perched on a rock somewhere, clutching his binoculars.

I told him I had switched off the engine because I needed to think through my situation, and now I was going to head for the mainland to do my shopping.

‘I’m starting her up now,’ I said. ‘If you listen you’ll hear that she’s running perfectly.’

I ended the call before he could say anything else. The engine started and I sped away, heading for land.

My car is old but reliable. It’s parked down by the harbour on the mainland, outside a house that belongs to a strange woman whose name is Rut Oslovski. No one calls her Rut, as far as I know. Everyone says Oslovski. She allows me to park there, and in return I check her blood pressure from time to time. I keep a stethoscope and a blood-pressure monitor in the glove box. Oslovski’s blood pressure is too high, in spite of the fact that she has been taking metoprolol for the past few years. She’s not even forty, so I think it’s important to keep her blood pressure under control.

Oslovski’s left eye is made of glass. No one seems to know how she lost her eye. No one knows very much about Oslovski, to be honest. According to Jansson, she suddenly turned up here twenty years ago after being granted asylum. At the time her Swedish pronunciation was terrible. She later claimed to have come from Poland and become a Swedish citizen, but Jansson, who can be very suspicious, pointed out that no one had ever seen her passport or any proof that she really was a Swedish citizen.

Unexpectedly, Oslovski turned out to be a skilled mechanic. Nor was she afraid of taking on hard physical work in the late autumn or early spring, repairing jetties when the melting ice had damaged the structure, leaving them crooked and unsafe.

She was strong, broad-shouldered, not beautiful but friendly. She kept herself to herself for the most part.

The handymen in the area kept a close eye on her, but no one could say that she took work away from them by charging too little.

When she first arrived, Oslovski lived in a small cottage in the pine forest, a few kilometres from the sea. After a while she bought the little house down by the harbour, which used to belong to a retired pilot.

Jansson had spoken to his colleague who delivered the post in the harbour area; Oslovski never received any letters, nor did she subscribe to any newspapers or magazines. Did she even have a mailbox out on the street?

Sometimes she disappeared for several months and then one day she would be back. As if nothing had happened. She moved around like a cat in the night.

I moored the boat and went up to my car. There was no sign of Oslovski. The car started right away; I dread the day when it gives up and decides it’s time for the scrapyard.

It usually takes me twenty minutes to drive into town, but on this particular day the trip was much faster. I slowed down only when I realised I was putting myself in danger. I was beginning to suspect that the fire had destroyed something inside me. People can have load-bearing beams that give way too.

I parked on the main street, which is in fact the only street in town. It lies right at the end of an inlet poisoned by heavy metals from the industries that were here in the past. I can still recall the stench of a tannery from my childhood.

The bank is a white building right next to the toxic inlet.

I went up to the counter and explained that I had no bank cards and no ID; everything had been lost in the fire. The clerk recognised me but didn’t seem to be quite sure what to do. A person without any form of ID always constitutes some kind of threat nowadays.

‘I know my account number,’ I said, reeling off the numbers as he entered them into his computer.

‘There should be about a hundred thousand kronor in there,’ I said. ‘Give or take a hundred.’

The clerk peered at the screen, as if he couldn’t believe the information that had appeared.

‘Ninety-nine thousand and nine kronor,’ he said.

‘I need to withdraw ten thousand. As you can see, I’m wearing my pyjama jacket instead of a shirt. I’ve lost everything.’

I deliberately raised my voice when I explained what had happened. The whole place fell silent. Behind the counter there were two women in addition to the clerk who was helping me, and three customers were waiting their turn. Everyone was staring at me. I made a ridiculous bow, as if I were acknowledging silent applause.

The clerk counted out my money, then helped me to order a new card.

I went over to a cafe on the other side of the street. I had picked up a free pen and a couple of withdrawal forms in the bank, and I sat down and made a list of what I needed to buy.

It was a very long list. When I had filled both the slips and my serviette, I gave up.

I wondered how I was going to bear the pain and sorrow. I was too old to start again. The future had nothing to say. I could neither hear nor see any way out.