Хеннинг Манкелль - After the Fire

‘Me too,’ she said.

‘Maybe we’re on the same flight?’

‘I’m going by train. Didn’t I tell you? I’m scared of flying. My train leaves at 16.20.’

‘Hamburg, Copenhagen, Stockholm?’

‘That’s right. I came here because I wanted to see you; I don’t know why. I’m not sorry I yelled at you; what happened, happened. But I don’t want my trip to have been completely pointless.’

‘Perhaps we share a feeling of loneliness,’ I said.

‘Sentimentality doesn’t suit you. Our expectations are different. I have none, but that’s not the case with you. Expecting nothing is an expectation in itself.’

‘We could lie down on the bed,’ I suggested. ‘Nothing more.’

She took off her jacket and her shoes. They were red and had higher heels than any of the shoes I had seen her wearing before. I took off my jumper.

Lisa was the second woman with whom I had shared a bed during my stay in Paris. Last night Louise had lain here, her breathing deep and steady. Now I had Lisa Modin by my side.

I thought about the desert and the Bedouin tent and the horse.

It was a moment of great calm, the beginning of freedom. Suddenly the fire and my flight from the blinding light were far, far away.

We didn’t touch each other that night.

We talked for a long time about the city in which we found ourselves.

Lisa started to tell me about herself. The whole of her childhood had been almost unbelievably harmonious. She could remember moments when she had been so bored that she had wondered if life really was an endless, tedious road. She also talked about her fear of flying, which she had never managed to conquer. It had started on a long-haul flight home from Sri Lanka. At some point during the night, as she curled up in her seat on the darkened plane, she had suddenly understood that she was ten kilometres up in the air.

‘I was being carried on the shoulders of emptiness,’ she said. ‘Sooner or later the weight would become too great. I’ve never set foot on a plane since.’

Our nocturnal conversation came and went in waves. She told me she had spoken to the priest on the phone.

‘I asked him about the bear’s tooth that was supposed to have been found on Vrångskär, but he didn’t know what I was talking about. There was no bear’s tooth in his house, in the church or in the parish hall.’

‘That’s what I said,’ I replied. ‘I told you it was just something I’d heard. Even a non-existent bear’s tooth can become a legend.’

We talked about all the poor people we had seen on the streets of Paris.

‘Poverty is getting closer and closer to us,’ she said. ‘No one can escape.’

‘Sometimes I think that the period and the country in which I have lived is a great big, wonderful anomaly,’ I said. ‘I have never been without money, unless I have deliberately made that choice. We know very little about the world our children will inherit.’

‘Perhaps that’s why I’ve never wanted children,’ Lisa said. ‘Because I could never guarantee that they would have a good life.’

‘You can’t think that way. In the biological world children are the sole purpose. Nothing else matters.’

It was after three when we fell asleep. First Lisa. Her breathing was rapid, then slow, rapid again, silent, then it settled into a gentle snore. She slept as if she was awake. Cautiously I rested my head on her shoulder; she didn’t stir.

We woke up at almost the same moment. When I opened my eyes and turned my head, Lisa was lying there looking at me.

‘I just woke up,’ she said.

It was seven o’clock. She sat up.

‘I’m glad you didn’t throw me out yesterday.’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘I shouted at you.’

‘I expect you felt you had good reason.’

She lay back down after gently moving aside my outstretched arm.

‘Thank you for not trying it on,’ she said. ‘You might have thought I came here offering myself on a plate.’

‘Why would I have thought that?’

‘Because it would have been a perfectly natural reaction.’

‘Not for me.’

She leaped out of bed and pulled back the curtain.

‘What is it that makes you different from other men?’ she asked.

‘I am the way I am.’

She looked irritated, and the conversation stalled. I got up and she disappeared into the bathroom. I stood by the window looking down into the courtyard while I waited. She had come to the hotel, and she had stayed the night. That must mean something, even if I still didn’t know what it was.

She emerged from the bathroom with the same energy about her that I recalled from the first time we met. I suggested that we should have breakfast together, but she shook her head with a smile.

‘We could have had dinner on the train if you weren’t flying home,’ she said.

She gently stroked my face before she left the room. For some reason I hoped Rachel wouldn’t see her.

After Lisa’s abrupt departure, I went down to the breakfast room even though I wasn’t hungry. Monsieur Pierre was on reception, gazing at his computer screen.

The breakfast room was very quiet, with just the odd guest concentrating on their boiled eggs and coffee.

When I couldn’t bear to sit there any longer, I went to Monsieur Pierre and asked for my bill. I paid with my card, but I was suddenly worried in case there wasn’t enough money in my account.

There was no reason to be concerned. If I didn’t start spending significantly more money, there would always be enough. In spite of everything I had a good pension from my career as a doctor.

I left a tip of ten euros and asked Monsieur Pierre to pass some of it on to Rachel.

‘She’s an excellent person,’ he said. ‘We’re very glad to have her.’

I headed towards the lift, then turned.

‘Who owns the hotel?’ I asked.

‘Madame Perrain, whose father started the business in 1922. She’s ninety-seven years old, and unfortunately she’s very ill. The last time she came here was twelve years ago.’

I thanked him and got into the lift. When I stepped out on the second floor, my key in my hand, I made a decision without really thinking things over. I would catch the same train as Lisa Modin. I wouldn’t fly. Seat 32B might be occupied, but not by me.

I slept for a few hours more then left the hotel. Even though it was still quite a long time before the train was due to depart, I took a taxi to the Gare du Nord. I was done with the city; I would return only if it was to see Louise and her family. I was ready to leave Paris for good.

The taxi driver had dreadlocks and was playing Bob Marley. I hummed along, and as we were waiting at a red light he turned and smiled. His teeth were white, but sparse on the top row. I thought about my visit to the former jazz club where they now played reggae; I asked him if he knew the place.

‘Of course,’ he replied as the lights changed to green.

I left Paris to the sound of ‘Buffalo Soldier’. I gave the driver a generous tip when he dropped me off at the station. I had arrived here the first time I came to Paris, as a very young man with terrible toothache and hardly any money. Now I was leaving. I had got into a taxi in this spot back then; now I was getting out of one. In spite of the distance between those two journeys, they were somehow linked.

I bought a ticket, assuming that Lisa would be travelling second class. I wandered around the station, trying to remember what it had looked like fifty years ago. I was sure my train had been pulled by a steam engine, and that I had sat in the very last carriage.

I called Jansson. I didn’t tell him I was on my way home. He had nothing new to report about the fire, but everyone on the islands was getting worried; they were afraid a seriously malevolent individual was on the loose.