Хеннинг Манкелль - After the Fire

‘Now,’ Jansson said, his voice trembling with excitement and emotion.

The year was over. Jansson launched into ‘Buona Sera’. Lisa clearly recognised the song but was as taken aback as I had been at Harriet’s last midsummer party, when Jansson astounded us all with his powerful voice. He held the torch so that it illuminated his face from below, giving him a ghostly pallor, but neither Lisa nor I were bothered about his appearance. It was his voice that exhorted us to look to the future. And then came ‘Ave Maria’. The cold winter’s night disappeared, and summer bloomed all around us. I could see Harriet sitting there with a glass of white wine in her hand and Jansson standing at the end of the table singing in a way that simply knocked all the air out of our lungs.

Afterwards, when he had fallen silent, I saw that Lisa had tears in her eyes. So did I, and perhaps even Jansson himself. We passed the schnapps around, drinking straight from the bottle as you do when you are with friends. We wished each other a Happy New Year and praised Jansson’s wonderful voice. I asked him to start the firework display; the bangs and the not particularly impressive rockets echoed among the rocks and flared against the night sky, only to disappear in seconds. However, Lisa and I applauded Jansson’s brave attempt to frighten away the evil spirits with fire and smoke.

When it was over we went back to the caravan. Jansson seemed tired and refused another drink.

‘I’m going to head home,’ he said. ‘It’s late for an old postman who isn’t used to performing.’

‘I had no idea you could sing like that,’ Lisa said. ‘A Jussi Björling out here among the rocks and skerries!’

‘I’m happier keeping quiet,’ Jansson said, getting ready to leave. He seemed anxious, restless.

We walked down to the jetty with him. To my surprise he appeared to be stone cold sober as he made his way over the slippery rocks to his boat.

He moved quickly, as if he were suddenly in a hurry. The feeling I had had before, that I didn’t understand him at all, came back to me. However, right now I just wanted to make sure he actually left and didn’t change his mind.

‘You sang beautifully,’ I said.

‘Mozart and Little Gerhard,’ Lisa said. ‘Extraordinary.’

‘Schubert,’ Jansson said. ‘Not Mozart.’

‘Who wrote the Italian song?’

Jansson shook his head. He didn’t know.

‘Off you go,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t matter who wrote “Buona Sera”.’

Jansson fired up the engine while Lisa and I stood shivering on the jetty. He had put on his leather cap, which was looking rather scruffy after all the winters he had worn it while delivering the post.

We could hear the sound of bangs and whooshes in the distance.

‘Vattenholmen,’ Jansson said.

‘What’s the name of the people who live there? Erlandsson?’

‘They own a mail order company selling health products,’ Jansson said. ‘They’ve been reported to the police several times for making false promises, claiming that their creams and herbal preparations can cure everything from eczema to cancer.’

‘That house they built can’t have been cheap.’

‘No, but the smell of scandal lingers around most people who make a ridiculous amount of money.’

With that he bobbed down through the hatch and started the engine with a good spin of the flywheel. He reappeared, waved a hand in farewell and reversed away from the island. We stayed there until the red and green navigation lights had vanished around the headland.

I went into the boathouse and switched off the coloured lanterns, then we went up to the caravan.

‘He sang so beautifully,’ Lisa said.

‘I wanted it to be a surprise,’ I said. ‘He hides his voice as if he were carrying around a huge, possibly dangerous secret.’

‘Why was he in such a hurry to leave?’

We had stopped outside the caravan. I didn’t have an answer; Jansson often resembled an indolent cat, reluctant to stir unnecessarily, but then he would suddenly turn into a completely different feline, moving across the rocks like lightning.

We went inside. Veronika had supplied me with several black bin bags and some paper carriers. I asked Lisa to put the empty bottles in the paper bags, separating plain and coloured glass, while I dumped the remains of the food in a bin bag. I had asked Veronika why she had given me more than one black sack.

‘They come in useful if you want to throw up,’ she said. ‘Saves you doing it just outside the caravan.’

I didn’t think anyone had suffered from the amount we had drunk, although I couldn’t swear to it of course.

I tied up the bag and pushed it under the caravan, then put an untouched crate of beer in front of it.

When I had finished I couldn’t resist glancing in through the window. Lisa was sitting on the bed with an unlit cigarette in one hand. In the other she held the lighter I had given Jansson to start his firework display.

She looked up, straight at the window; I didn’t have time to move away. She called to me to come in, then she reached out and switched off the light.

She had unrolled the mattress on the floor for me, and she got into the bed. I wanted to reach out and touch her, but I didn’t dare. Right now I was grateful that I didn’t have to be alone. I wondered if she felt the same.

She began to talk, perhaps because she had been drinking, perhaps for other reasons. She told me about a man who had once been part of her life, a man she still hadn’t forgotten.

‘It was before I started trying my hand at journalism,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t decide what I wanted to achieve — or if I actually wanted to achieve anything at all. I worked in a paint shop to earn a living; ask me whatever you like about different kinds of paint and brushes, and I’ll have an answer for you. One day a man came in and bought a small tin of blue paint. As soon as I saw him, I knew he was the one I wanted to live with. A few days later he came back and bought another tin. We started chatting; he was doing up an old cupboard. And so we became a couple. He had an incredibly boring job as an office clerk working for the local council, and every time he came home it was as if there was a great darkness surrounding him. He wasn’t much to look at either, but I loved him to distraction. And he loved me. We were together for four years, but one day he got home from work, surrounded by that black cloud, and told me he didn’t want to live with me any more. That was almost fifteen years ago, but to be honest I still haven’t forgotten him.’

She fell silent.

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘So that you’ll know.’

‘I don’t want to know.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Right now I’m just happy that you’re here. Tomorrow I might feel differently.’

We both lay awake, and the conversation edged along. She had cautiously opened one or two of her doors, just a fraction, and allowed me to peep inside.

It was very hot inside the caravan. The heater was on the highest setting, but neither of us could be bothered to get up and turn it off. I started to believe that there was a closeness between us after all, beyond all my expectations.

My phone rang; it was too late for Louise. It must have been at least three o’clock in the morning. I swore and wiped the sweat off my face. Lisa told me to pick up; the caller was probably drunk, so it would be a short conversation.

The person on the other end wasn’t drunk at all. It was Jansson, and he was scared. I could tell that his body was shaking just as much as his voice was trembling.

‘There’s a fire,’ he yelled in my ear. ‘Karl-Evert Valfridsson’s house is in flames! If you go outside you’ll see the glow in the north-west.’